Full Program
 

Part 1

We begin with the Sochi Winter Olympics underway and examine international political support for Putin on display with most Western leaders not in attendance except for Holland and Italy.Nina Khrushcheva, a Professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at The New School joins us to provide an analysis of how Russia’s big showcase event is playing at home and abroad, with national pride on display while international censure continues, inflamed by the lighting of the Olympic torch by a racist member of Russia’s parliament who tweeted a doctored picture of President Obama likening him to a monkey being offered a banana.

Part 2

Then we examine further the international politics at play in and around Russia’s Winter Olympics, as Asian leaders of China and Japan hope their visits bolster relations with Moscow and may help resolve the long-standing territorial dispute Japan has with Russia over some islands that have prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty officially ending World War 11. Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a leading specialist on the politics and economics of post-Communist Russia, joins us to discuss Russia’s move towards the East as its relations with the West sour.

Part 3

Then finally we look into “The End of Snow”, the title of an article in Sunday’s New York Times and speak with Elizabeth Burakowski, a post-doctoral researcher with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado and co-author of a report commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States.” We discuss how climate change has impacted 10 of the last 19 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics, previous venues that are now running out of snow and by mid-century will not be cold enough to host the winter games again.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the latest brazen barrage of lies about the Affordable Care Act leveled by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor whose false claims about a CBO report confirming Republican assertions that Obamacare will cost millions of Americans their jobs have been thoroughly debunked by FactCheck.org. Elise Gould, the director of health policy research at the Economic Policy Institute joins us to discus her article “No, the CBO Did Not Find That the ACA Kills Jobs” and whether the relentless misinformation about the Affordable Care Act will eventually be trumped by facts on the ground.

Part 2

Then we get an analysis of what is wrong with the trillion dollar Farm Bill the president is about to sign as a shining example of bi-partisan cooperation. Craig Cox, the Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources at the Environmental Working Group joins us to examine what he calls a bait and switch in removing one boondoggle and replacing it with another that is even more likely to explode the budget savings which are half of what the president asked for and come at the expense almost a million poor families who will get their food stamps cut while agribusiness will be able to write their own ticket on how much subsidies they get.

Part 3

Then finally, we look into the unprecedented rebuke to the Catholic Church from the United Nations whose Committee on the Rights of the Child have called upon the Vatican to “immediately remove” child abusers. The former religion editor at The New York Times, Kenneth Briggs, who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, joins us to discuss the UN Committee’s call for the popular new Pope Francis to open up the Vatican’s files on members of the clergy who had “concealed their crimes” so that the abusers could be held accountable by the authorities.