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June 30 - A Showdown on the Streets of Egypt; Gouging Students in a Meritocracy; The Punitive and Pork-laden Immigration Bill
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We begin with the showdown on the streets of Egypt between the Islamist supporters of President Morsi and opposition protesters, many of whom fought to topple the military dictator two years ago, only to be shut out of the revolution they brought about. Sheila Carapico, who was recently a visiting professor in political science at American University in Cairo joins us to discuss Egypt’s polarization and paralysis that might lead to the military stepping back into power. |
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Then we examine the reasons behind the doubling of interest rates from 3.4 to 6.8% on federal student loans set to go into effect on Monday, following the failure of the Congress to agree. House Republicans insist on tying the rates to U.S. Treasuries with a cap of 8.5%, while Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to set rates at 0.75%, which is what big banks pay for money from the Federal Reserve, didn’t even make it to the Senate floor. David Halperin, a senior fellow at Republic Report and the founding director of Campus Progress joins us to discuss a dysfunctional government making money off the backs of indentured students. |
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Then finally we get an analysis of the much-heralded Senate Immigration bill passed Thursday with congratulations heaped on the so-called “Gang of 8” whose exercise in bi-partisanship drove an 8 billion dollar bill up to 40 billion for additional border security that one of the bill’s sponsor’s Senator Corker called “overkill”. Antonio Gonzalez, President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project joins us to examine a punitive and pork-laden bill House Republicans deem dead on arrival. |
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June 27 - The Subtext to Obama's African Trip; A Critique of Obama's Recent Speech on Global Warming; Is Edward Snowden a Whistleblower?
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We begin with the president's trip to Africa where, before heading to Tanzania and on to South Africa on Friday, today in Senegal he visited the departure point for thousands of slaves who were taken to the new world. Deborah Brautigam, the author of The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, joins us to discuss the subtext of Obama's trip in terms of U.S. and Chinese competition on the continent for influence and resources. |
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Then, we speak with David Freeman, an energy insider who is a leading authority on the production, management and delivery of energy to large populations. We discuss President Obama's recent speech on addressing the challenge of climate change where Obama said America would take the lead and redouble its efforts to assault global warming by phasing out coal plants and swtiching to natural gas, which our guest considers is going from bad to bad. |
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Finally, with the president saying that there would be "no wheeling and dealing" to try to extradite Edward Snowden from Russia, we examine the extent to which the former employee with a contractor for the National Security Agency who is on the run fits the definition of a whistleblower. Kathleen McClellan, the National Security and Human Rights Counsel at the Government Accountability Project where she supports national security and intelligence community whistleblowers, joins us to discuss the fugitive American's limited options. |
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June 26 - The Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA and Prop 8; More Analysis on Today's Supreme Court Rulings; The Renewed Republican War on Women's Reproductive Rights
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We begin with the Supreme Court’s rulings today striking down a key section of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, that will now allow gay married couples to receive federal benefits, and a ruling denying proponents of California’s Prop 8 an appeal, clearing the way for gay marriage in the Golden State. Jane Schacter, a Professor of Law at Stanford University and an expert on sexual orientation law, joins us to discuss today’s rulings. |
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Then we continue the discussion on today's Supreme Court rulings on DOMA and Prop 8 with Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School. |
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Then finally, with the recent passage of a bill in the House restricting abortions and last night’s filibuster in the Texas State House to block the implementation of a bill that would have effectively shut down all abortion clinics in Texas, feminist activist Frances Kissling joins us. She writes a weekly column at Salon.com and blogs at religiondispatches.org and we discuss the renewed war on women’s reproductive rights that Republicans are waging at both the state and federal levels and Texas Senator Wendy Davis’s successful eleven hour stand in pink running shoes, against one of the toughest anti-abortion efforts in the country. |
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June 25 - Today's Radical Ruling Gutting the Voting Rights Act; The Implications for Voting Rights; Ruth Bader Ginsberg's Dissent
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We begin with today’s ruling by the Supreme Court to strike down the key provision in the Voting Rights Act that protected young, elderly and minority voters in 15 states from an array of new and improved Jim Crow laws and voting suppression devices that make it harder for those likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center, joins us to discuss this radical ruling. She frequently participates in Supreme Court litigation and has argued several important cases in the federal courts of appeals. |
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Then we examine the implications of this ruling on voting rights and election protection with Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School where she founded and directs the center’s Voting Rights and Election Project. We discuss what remedies are likely to come from a gridlocked and dysfunctional Congress and whether it will be open season from now on in those states with a recent history of trying to enact voter suppression laws that were stopped by the Voting Rights Act, given that they are now free to enact a whole range of voting restrictions claiming to prevent the negligible if not non-existent problem of voter fraud. |
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Finally we speak with Aziz Huq, who was a clerk at the Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who issued a strong and almost indignant dissent which she read aloud, pointing out the lack of logic and legal underpinning of the conservative majority’s opinion that praised the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act before gutting the very mechanism that makes it work, while declaring it unconstitutional without bothering to cite what part of the constitution it violated. |
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June 24 - Damage Control at the NSA; Where is Edward Snowden?; Freedom of the Press in Ecuador
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We begin with an assessment of what the secrets might be that were cherry-picked from the NSA’s computers by Edward Snowden before he took then abroad on his computers and on his thumb drives and whether the Chinese and the Russians have already downloaded them. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who specializes in national security issues and wrote two books about the NSA, “The Puzzle Palace” and “The Shadow Factory: Inside the Ultra-Secret NSA, from 9/11 to Spying on America,” joins us to discuss the damage control now going on at the NSA. |
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Then, with the American fugitive Edward Snowden apparently delayed in Moscow on his way to Cuba then on to Ecuador where he has asked for political asylum, we look into the possibility that Snowden is being debriefed by the SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence successor to the KGB. A veteran reporter on intelligence Richard Sale joins us to discuss what might be going on in Moscow as the U.S. government warns Russian leaders not to jeopardize relations between the two countries by aiding and abetting a fugitive. |
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Then, finally with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy and with representatives of Wikileaks escorting Edward Snowden on his way to asylum in Ecuador, we examine the state of press freedom in Ecuador and how that gels with the mission of Wikileaks, a group that champions freedom of the press and open access to government secrets. Carlos Lauria, the Senior Americas Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, who monitors press freedoms in the Americas, joins us. |
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