Full Program

Part 1

We begin with a call today by a group of U.S. Senators for the Congress and the White House to act to stop Wall Street speculator from driving up the price of gas. Senator Bernie Sanders fills us in on what he and his colleagues are calling for while the rest of the Congress, the White House and the Press remain silent on this issue while blaming everything else but Wall Street for the pain at the pump.

Part 2

Then we speak with Alec MacGillis, who is the New Republic’s chief correspondent for the 2012 campaign. He wrote the cover story in the New Republic’s April issue “The Big Split: Why the hedge fund world loved Obama in 2008 – and viscerally despises him today.”  We discuss why Wall Street is funding Obama’s opposition and the extent to which they are manipulating the economy to hurt his reelection chances.

Part 3

Then we go to Paris and speak with Francois D’Alancon, the foreign correspondent with the French daily newspaper “La Croix”. He is the paper’s former foreign news editor and has covered the Middle East extensively. We look into the police standoff in Toulouse, France where Mohamed Merah, wanted for the murder of three French paratroopers, a Rabbi and three Jewish children is holed up under siege. We examine what is known about this suspected assassin and how much his claim to be with Al Qaeda is credible.

Part 4

Then finally we are joined by the head of the Association of Prosecuting Attorney’s David LaBahn, to find out more about Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and similar laws that 32 other states have adopted. We look into how it is shielding the killer of a 17 year boy who has not been prosecuted for what is becoming increasingly apparent, was a cold-blooded murder fueled by racism and the delusions of a wanna-be cop.

We begin with the JOBS bill that the Senate will vote on tomorrow and examine this much hailed bi-partisan legislation that our guest Simon Johnson considers a colossal mistake of historic proportions. The former Chief Economist at the IMF, Simon Johnson is the co-author of a new book “White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You.”

Then we assess whether Jeffrey Sachs, who has nominated himself to become the next president of the World Bank, has a chance of getting the job. The Director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Deborah James, joins us to discuss this unusual candidate who is openly campaigning for a job that usually has been filled by political appointees or bankers, not development experts.

Then finally we are joined by Justin Elliot, a reporter for ProPublica where he just wrote the article “Could Corporations Take Tax Breaks on Political 'Dark Money?' " With superPACs already dominating our elections, more and more billionaire backers of candidates are pouring their money into non-profit 501C-4’s where they don’t have to disclose who they are. And thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, these 501c-4’s like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS can then pass the money on to superPACS like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads.