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July 27 - Egypt's Street Battles For Democracy; The Gulf Between the Public and the Political Establishment on the NSA; 4 out of 5 U.S. Adults in Poverty
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We begin and go to Cairo, Egypt for an update on the violent clashes between the angry supporters of ousted President Morsi and the military that toppled him. A political activist engaged in the first and now the second revolution underway, Sherief Gaber, a member of the Mosireen Independent Media Collective, joins us to explain the battles in the streets and the prospects for a restoration of Egyptian democracy with all side participating. |  |
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Then we speak with Steve Clemons, the Washington Editor-at-Large for The Atlantic and editor-in-chief of Atlantic LIVE. We discuss the recent close vote on stopping the NSA from spying on Americans and the apparent gulf between the public and the political establishment on the government’s intrusion on our civil liberties. We also discuss the fate of Edward Snowden and whether the White House is using the cancellation of Obama’s September visit to Russia as leverage in getting Putin to hand over Snowden. |
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Then finally we speak with Tom Hirschl, a Professor of Sociology at Cornell University and Director of the Population and Development Program. We discuss the new report that he worked on for the Associated Press that finds 4 out of 5 U.S. adults struggling with joblessness and near poverty in an economy in which President Obama says the income gap is fraying America’s social fabric. |
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July 25 - The Battle Ahead to Reverse Economic Inequality; The Close Vote to Stop the NSA Spying on Americans; Is "Too Big to Jail" Over?
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Following President Obama’s major address on the economy yesterday, we begin with an analysis of the battle ahead between an aggressive Republican congress determined to push through radical cuts that will not only shred Obama’s programs and priorities, but will gut government itself. Richard Parker, a professor of economics and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government joins us to assess the battle ahead that will either result in a reversal of economic injustice or the complete capture of America by the one percent. |  |
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Then we look into last night’s very close 217 to 205 vote in the House that killed an amendment to curb the NSA’s authority under section 215 of the Patriot Act to gather metadata on American citizens. Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild and author of “Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance” joins us to discuss the alliance between Tea Party Republicans and progressive Democrats who narrowly lost to a coalition of the NSA, the White House and the Minority and Majority leadership of the House. |
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Then finally we examine the implications of the indictment today of SAC Capital’s Steven Cohen on insider trading and whether prosecuting a hedge fund billionaire represents the end of the “too big to jail” phenomenon that has characterized the lackluster performance of the Justice Department under Lanny Breuer which has not gone after anyone on Wall Street responsible for the 2008 crash. Veteran financial reporter William Cohan, the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World”, joins us to look into the hedge fund business. |
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July 24 - Can Obama Make the Country Work for Working Americans Again?; The Pain and Gain in Detroit; Why Politicians Expose Themselves to Risky Behavior
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We begin with the president’s speech today at Knox College, the site of the Lincoln-Douglas debate, where Obama declared that “the one thing I care about is how to use every minute of the remaining 1,276 days of my term to make this country work for working Americans again”. We discuss the president’s speech with economist and political scientist Thomas Ferguson and also examine the House GOP’s budget plans to gut the IRS, SEC, EPA, the NEA and NEH, the CPB and the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as their threat to use the upcoming debt ceiling increase to force these cuts and defund Obamacare. |  |
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Then, with the courthouse door closing today on lawsuits to protect the pensions of Detroit’s municipal workers, we speak with the veteran business reporter with the Detroit Free Press John Gallagher about the pain and the gain in the city’s bankruptcy. He is the author of “Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City” and we also assess the future of a city that has lost over half of its population in the last six decades. |
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The finally, we examine the psychological underpinning of politicians whose risky behavior exposes them to scandal and their wives to humiliation. Dr. Jon Krosnick, the Director of Stanford University’s Political Psychology program joins us along with Pepper Schwartz, a Professor of Sociology and Sexology at the University of Washington. We discuss the latest scandals surrounding Anthony Weiner and Bob Filner. |
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July 23 - The NSA Strikes Back; Scapegoating Public Employees in Detroit's Bankruptcy; Investigating the Big Banks for Gaming Commodities
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We begin with an emergency private briefing of members of the House of Representatives called for by the head of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander, aimed at stopping an amendment authored by Republican Justin Amash and Democrat John Conyers that would curb the NSA’s authority to collect communications data on millions of Americans. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who has written a number of best-sellers about the NSA joins us to discuss the preliminary damage control at the NSA that indicates Edward Snowden did not access the agency’s “crown jewels”.
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Then we talk about the bankruptcy of Detroit where a very small part of the problem, the pensions of public employees, is being exaggerated by the governor of Michigan Rick Snyder who is scapegoating public employees and their unions in line with the ideological game plan of other right wing Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ellen Schultz, the author of “Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers”, joins us to discuss how the pension benefits protected by state law ended up on the table in Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings. |
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Then finally we examine how the largest banks are profiting from manipulating the price of commodities which was the subject of a hearing today before a U.S. Senate Banking Sub-committee. Saule Omarova, a Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina who specializes in regulation of financial institutions, banking law, international finance and corporate finance, joins us to discuss her testimony and the need for the public to gain awareness of how much the price of food, gas and electricity is being driven up by the big Wall Street banks who profit at the expense of ordinary consumers. |
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July 22 - Will Larry Summers be the Next Chairman of the Fed? The Former Commander of Abu Ghraib on the Massive Prison Break; A Wry Look at the Royal Birth
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We begin with the possibility that President Obama might nominate Larry Summers to succeed Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. William Greider, the national affairs correspondent for The Nation and author of “Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country” joins us to discuss what is an alarming prospect for many progressives who see Larry Summers, the architect of the repeal of the Glass/Steagall Act, as a champion of Wall Street and a menace to Main Street. |  |
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Then we speak with the former commander of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, about the brazen jailbreak in which 500 prisoners, including senior Al Qaeda leaders, escaped from the notorious prison during a special communal Ramadan feast under a hail of mortar fire and car bomb explosions. We will discuss how little progress has been made in Iraq since it was “liberated” by George W. Bush, as the sectarian divide becomes more intense under Al Maliki’s Shia-led government who are filling the jails with Sunni prisoners. |
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Then finally, we go to England to celebrate the royal birth of an 8 pound six ounce boy, with Francis Wheen, the deputy editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye. We discuss the royal baby fever that has gripped both the U.K. and the United States, where the press is brimming with breathless sycophantic gushing at the arrival of the third in line to the British throne, in spite of the fact that the United States of America was foundered and forged by a revolution against that same throne and royal family. |
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