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October 7 - Dark Money Flows as Capitalism Versus Democracy; A Campaign Finance Reformer Fights Back
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With the midterm election less than a month away, we begin with the record influx of dark money into the upcoming elections and speak with the author of an important new book “Capitalism Versus Democracy: Money in Politics and the Free Market Constitution”. Timothy Kuhner, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law joins us to explore why the conservative majority on the Supreme Court have so radically empowered billionaires and oligarchs to buy unlimited political influence without any disclosure of who they are and what their political agenda is. We examine what can be done by citizens to overturn the Citizens United decision that has turned our politicians into telemarketers who raise money from anonymous wealthy donors only to have most of it turned over to media oligarchs to buy TV air time to malign and misrepresent opponents while distorting issues and depressing voter turnout. |
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Then we speak with someone who is actually doing something about our money-driven and corrupt political campaign system, Lawrence Lessig the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and the co-founder of Mayday.us a new well-funded organization who have formed the Mayday PAC to support candidates who pledge to support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and to work to get money out of politics. I spoke with him back on July the 29th of this year to learn about his efforts and the candidates who have signed on to his PAC and the pledge they have taken to clean up our politics. |
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October 6 - Jessica Levinson sits in for Ian Masters
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with Jessica Levinson |
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We begin with Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor and legal corresponent at Slate, to get an analysis of the Supreme Courts decisions today, or decisions not to make decisions, rather, in the cases over gay marraige. |  |
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Then we are joined by LA Times reporter Jean Merl to discuss a number of political issues facing California. |  |
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Finally, we get an overview of the the juvenile justice system from Jojo Lui, co-director of Loyola Marymount University's Juvenile Justice Clinic. |  |
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October 5 - Spencer Downing Sits in for Ian Masters
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With Sunday's elections, Brazil is poised to perhaps see a change in leadership. As we talk to Mark Weisbrot, we find out why that change might not be as great as some imagine. |  |
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Then we speak with Dahlia Lithwick to get her analysis of the upcoming Supreme Court term. | |
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Finally, we spend some time with Mollie Lowery, who has been working for over 3 decades to end homelessness in Los Angeles and has some thoughts on homelessness nationwide. |  |
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October 2 - 440,400 Americans Die Every Year From Bad Hospital Care; Turkey's Parliament Approves Military Action in Iraq and Syria; A New Californian Gun Safety Law Spread Nationwide
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We begin with the widening potential of more people being exposed to Ebola as the authorities have announced that up to 100 people may have come in contact with the Liberian patient in isolation at a Dallas hospital, considerably more than the 18 family members and ambulance personnel screened so far. Joining us is James Marone, a Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Brown University, the Editor of “Health Care Policy in the USA and Germany”, “The Politics of Health Care Reform” and his latest book, “The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office”. We discuss how information and co-ordination of care often slips through the cracks in the American hospital system that is the most expensive in the world, but with one of the highest mortality rates from improper, bungled or negligent health care.
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Then we assess the likely outcome from the overwhelming vote in the Turkish parliament authorizing the Turkish military to enter Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State, and speak with Paul Sullivan who is a Professor of Economics at the National Defense University, a Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow on Future Global Resource Threats at the Federation of American Scientists, as well as a columnist for Turkiye Gazetesi. We discuss whether Turkey will commit boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria and whether they will invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty which would allow the U.S. to use NATO bases in Turkey. |
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Then finally we look into the significance of a measure signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown that makes California the first state in the country to allow private citizens to ask a court to seize guns from family members who might be a danger to themselves and the community. Joshua Horwitz, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and author of “Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea”, joins us to discuss this important gun safety measure in a state that often leads the nation in tackling important issues that the rest of the country eventually deal with. |
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October 1 - America's First Ebola Patient Provokes Hysteria; A Regional Shift Could Make a Dirty Deal with Assad Possible; Playing Catch-Up with Republicans on Dark Money Makes Hypocrites of Democrats
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We begin with the first diagnosis of Ebola in the U.S. befalling a patient who was recently in Liberia and was sent home by a Dallas hospital only to return by ambulance two days later. Kevin Outterson, the co-director of the Health Law Program at Boston University and a founding member of the C.D.C’s working group on antimicrobial resistance, joins us to discuss how this case will be contained even if the panic about Ebola in the U.S. might not, particularly with politicians like Texas Governor Perry grandstanding about threats to schoolchildren. We also discuss how Republican budget austerity has impacted the N.I.H. and C.D.C. with budgets today for these medical first responders much lower than they were in 2010 |
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Then we examine the prospects for a deal to work with the detestable Assad regime to eliminate the even worse Islamic State, who just beheaded a number of Syrian and Kurdish prisoners, including some women fighting with the Kurdish pershmerga. An expert on Syria and the region, Asher Kaufmann, a professor of History and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, joins us to discuss whether Turkey and Jordan could be brought on board assuming the U.S. is open to such a deal, and what Israel’s attitude might be since they seem to have had a stable Modus Vivendi with the Assad regime prior to the civil war. |
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Then finally we speak with Thomas Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University who has an op-ed at The New York Times, “Are Liberals Funding Hypocrites?” We discuss his contention that by joining in the chase for dark money from anonymous billionaires to play catch-up to the Republicans, the Democrats are losing the moral high ground in getting money out of politics and, in effect are getting their money from the same people as the Republicans, which only serves to perpetuate the oligarchic control of our politics. |
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