Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
December 3 - A Fourth Netanyahu Government in Israel; How Falling Oil Prices are Impacting Russia and Putin's Rule; Yet Another Failure to Indict a White Police Officer in the Killing of a Black Man
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the collapse of the ruling coalition in Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call for a new election and speak with Lisa Goldman, the Director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Foundation who is a co-founder and contributing editor to 972mag.com, a progressive digital magazine based in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. We discuss the likely makeup of a fourth Netanyahu government that is likely to be more right wing than the current one given the firing of the centrist Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and the Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday night that signaled the end of Netanyahu’s third governing coalition. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine how much the drop in oil prices is impacting Russia and President Putin’s rule as the ruble drops precipitously and Russian government officials revise their GDP forecast downward for 2015 from a growth of 1.2% to a recession of 0.8%. Paul Sullivan, a Professor of Economics at the National Defense University and a Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown and Senior Fellow in Future Global Resource Threats at the Federation of American Scientists, joins us to discus how much Western sanctions play into Putin’s narrative that the West is out to destroy Russia and serve to distract the Russian people from the wholesale theft of the country by Putin and his cronies. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we look into yet another failure to indict a white police officer in the killing of a black man and speak with Brian Levin, a former NYPD police officer who is now a criminologist, civil rights attorney and professor of justice and Director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernadino. We discuss the anger and dismay that many feel because no charges were brought against the police officer in spite of the use of a choke hold banned by the NYPD since 1985 and the ruling by the medical examiner that the victim's death was a homicide. |
 |
mp3audio:
Tags:
December 2 - A New Secretary of Defense; North Korea's Cyber-Attack on Sony Pictures; The Execution of a Mentally Ill Man In Texas
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the pending announcement of Ashton Carter as the new Secretary of Defense to replace Chuck Hagel and speak with Pierre Sprey a veteran hi-tech defense weapons and system designer who was the primary designer of two key Air Force warplanes, the F-16 and the A-10. We will discuss the background of Ashton Carter as a champion of nuclear weapons and the latest efforts by the Air Force to kill the A-10 over the objections of the Congress who are responding to pressure from the troops whose lives have been saved by this long-serving airplane the Military Industrial Complex wants to kill. |
 |
|
|
Then we look into the bizarre cyber-attacks on Sony Pictures by the North Koreans because of a forthcoming movie “The Interview” Sony is set to release that makes fun of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un who apparently is not amused.Sue Mi Terry, the former deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council and the Director of Japan, Korea and Oceanic Affairs at the National Security Council joins us to discuss the reasons behind North Korea’s fury at a movie starring Seth Rogen and James Franco that has been banned in South Korea in deference to the North’s sensitivity over the film. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with Mike Farrell, a political and social activist who starred in the TV series MASH and “Providence”. He is the President of Death Penalty Focus, and joins us to discuss the execution of a mentally ill man in Texas scheduled for 6 PM local time on Wednesday that so far Governor Rick Perry has refused to stay in spite of the urging from a group of prominent conservatives who have implored the governor that “it would be immoral for the government to take this man’s life”. |
 |
mp3audio:
December 1 - Republican Deficit Hawks Push a $400 Billion Tax Cut for Big Corporations; Outliers at the U.N. Climate Conference in Lima, Peru; The Supreme Court Considers Limits on Free Speech on the Internet; Finally a Coal Baron Faces Justice
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the $400 billion in permanent tax cuts for big corporations making its way through the lame duck Congress and speak with Jared Bernstein, a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the former Chief Economist and Economic Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. He joins to discuss his article at The Washington Post “A Lame Duck Turkey: The Tax Extender Package Working its Way Through Congress Should be Stopped” and the hypocrisy of Republican deficit hawks who are happy to add $400 billion to the deficit as a gift to their corporate backers while discontinuing two temporary tax provisions that help low income working families and children. |
 |
|
|
Then we assess the chances of meaningful action on global warming at the U.N. Climate Change Conference at which 190 nations are gathered in Lima, Peru to work on drafts for a global climate deal to be adopted next year in Paris. Jeffrey Bury, a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies the political economy of climate change and glacier recession in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru, joins us to discuss resistance to new targets to cut emissions from India, Russia, Japan and Australia, which incidentally just endured the hottest year on record. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine today’s arguments in the Supreme Court to limit freedom of speech on the Internet and in social media as a result of threats posted on Facebook against an FBI agent which were made by a man whose wife left him, taking their two children. Garrett Epps, a Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, joins us to discuss his article in The Atlantic “When Does the First Amendment Protect Threats?” and whether a standard can be reached to measure the intention of the person issuing the threat or whether the standard should be how much the recipient of the threat feels threatened. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with Russell Mokhiber, the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter who is currently working with the West Virginia local activist group Morgan County USA.org. We discuss the indictment of the coal baron Donald Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, who is being charged with disregarding health and safety laws and conspiring to hide violations at the Upper Big Branch mine where 29 miners were killed by an explosion of methane in 2010. |
 |
mp3audio:
Tags:
November 30 - What is Behind the Plunge in Oil Prices; Turkey's Powerful Leader and its Foreign Policy at Odds with the U.S.; Venezuela's Shaky Economy Takes a Hit as Oil Prices Fall
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the plunge in oil prices following the recent OPEC meeting at which Russia, Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela were unable to get the Saudis and the Gulf States to agree on a cut in production to raise the price of oil. A leading expert and analyst on energy issues, Fadel Gheit, Senior Vice President for Oil and Gas Research with Oppenheimer and Company joins us to discuss the role of shale oil from “fracking” in creating the current glut of oil on the market and the coincidence that the governments the U.S. has problems with in, Russia, Iran and Venezuela, are all oil-dependent economies whose budgets are severely impacted by falling oil prices. |
 |
|
|
Then we look into the Pope’s recent visit to Turkey as the first foreign head of state to visit the grandiose billion-dollar 1,000 room White Palace build by Turkey’s president, some suggest, to house Erdogan’s giant ego.Graham Fuller, the former Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA and the author of “Turkey and the Arab Spring: Leadership in the Middle East”, joins us to discuss Erdogan’s polarizing and authoritarian leadership of the “New Turkey”, an increasingly Islamist and nationalistic state which has refused to allow the U.S. access to a key airbase, calling into question Turkey’s membership of NATO, and is increasingly at odds with the U.S. over its strategy in Syria. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we hear from Antonio Gonzales, the President of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, the largest and oldest non-partisan Latino voter participation organization with more than 14 million registrants in 2012. The president of the William C. Valasquez Institute, a leading thinktank that studies U.S.-Latin American Relations, he has just returned from Cuba and Venezuela and we let an update on the increasing factionalism within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela as the government struggles to deal with rising crime and inflation and a shortage of foreign exchange due to falling oil prices which have dropped from $99 to $69 a barrel since June and are the source of 96% of Venezuela’s foreign exchange. |
 |
mp3audio:
November 27 - A Pesticide-Free Thanksgiving Meal at Monsanto's HQ; The Religious Underpinnings of Thanksgiving; Challenges Facing A Divided America
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with a different kind of Thanksgiving celebration taking place at the headquarters of the agribusiness giant Monsanto and speak with the Reverend Billy, an anti-corporatist activist, who in the role of a revivalist minister, leads the Church of Stop Shopping. He joins us to discuss the pesticide-free organic meal he and his choir are participating in and the challenges the environment faces from the production of corporate food that is killing off bee colonies necessary for the production of natural food, and what this veteran activist, who has been jailed more than 50 times defending neighborhood economies and freedom of expression in public places, is thankful for on Thanksgiving.
|
 |
|
|
Then we hear from best-selling author Frank Schaeffer, whose parents were world-famous evangelicals and who eventually experienced a crisis of faith that led to his departure from the evangelical movement. We will discuss his latest book “Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God” and the religious underpinnings of Thanksgiving as well as the uncomfortable historical truths associated with this hallowed American tradition of feasting with family and friends. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we examine some of the meta-trends facing the country as a divided America celebrates Thanksgiving.Stephan Schwartz, the editor of the daily web publication Schwartzreport.net, where he identifies and analyses trends that are affecting the future, joins us to discuss the divisions on display in Ferguson, Missouri and the wider Red State-Blue State divide in America, as well as the challenges facing the nation from rising inequality, the hollowing out of the middle class and the denial of climate change, the catastrophic impacts of which will leave an America with little for which to be thanksful. |
 |
mp3audio:
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App