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July 13 - Hezbollah and the Lebanese Tinderbox; AIPAC and a War with Iran; Government's Revolving Door
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We go to Cairo, Egypt to speak with Thanassis Cambanis, the author of A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel. With a tense situation in Lebanon following the U.N. indictments of four members of Hizbollah accused of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, we will talk about the wider regional implications of this explosive situation that is akin to the “guns of August” tinderbox that preceded World War 1. |
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We examine further the scenario, based on warnings from senior Israeli Intelligence Officials that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu will launch a war against Iran as early as September. M J Rosenberg joins us. He is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters focusing on Foreign Policy and Middle East affairs. We discuss the domestic political implication on the forthcoming elections should such a scenario unfold. |
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We speak with David Levinthal, the editor of a new report by the non-partisan Center For Responsive Politics - “From Hired Guns to Hired Hands.” We will discuss the apparent lack of shame is Washington, DC where it is becoming more and more “business as usual” to trade public service for private gain, as the revolving door between lobbyists and Congressional staffers spins faster and faster. |
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July 12 - Robert Baer: War with Iran?; Afghanistan After the Assassination of Walid Karzai; A New Plantation Economy?
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Robert Baer, a veteran CIA operations officer who served in the Middle East, analyzes the hopeful changes underway as the Arab Spring has the Assad regime in Syria teetering and the Revolutionary Guards regime in Iran alarmed by events in Syria and increasingly paranoid about their own restive population. However, all hope for change could be dashed if, as senior Israeli Intelligence officials warn, the Netanyahu Government will likely attack Iran, leaving the compliant and supine superpower, the United States on the wrong side of history. |
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Roger Morris continues the conversation about hopeful change amid the death rattle of empire. He served on the Senior Staff of the National Security Council and has just completed a history of U.S./ Afghan relations and covert activity in South Asia, Between The Graves. He will also discuss the assassination of Karzai’s brother Walid, the governor of Kandahar, who was monumentally corrupt and widely despised, may he rest in peace. |
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We examine the real state of the American economy overshadowed by political gamesmanship between one party that apparently will be rewarded for wrecking the economy, and the other that will be punished at the polls for the resulting wreckage. David Ruccio, professor of Economics at Notre Dame University, will sort through this train wreck and assess how fast the United States is becoming a plantation economy. |
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July 11 - James Galbraith: No Debt Crisis!; Murdoch's Empire; The Man Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel
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Economist James K. Galbraith joins us to assess what the president has already put on the table in terms of cutting programs considered Democratic “sacred cows” and what compromise he is likely to get in return from the apparently uncompromising Congressional Republicans. |
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We go to London to speak with veteran Fleet Street reporter Phillip Knightley about the burgeoning scandal that is being called Rupert Murdoch’s “Watergate.” Following the latest revelation by the BBC that Murdoch’s minions were digging up dirt on former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, presumably to threaten or blackmail him, we will look into divisions within the Murdoch media empire and how much public outrage might embolden politicians to lose their fear of the political kingmaker who can either make or break their careers. |
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Veteran Los Angeles Times investigative reporter William C Rempel joins us in the studio to talk about his new book, At The Devil’s Table: The Untold Story of the Insider who Brought Down the Cali Cartel. With Guatemala already a narco-state and Mexico fighting a war against narco-terrorists, we discuss the extraordinary financial and political power drug cartels wield and how their malignant grip on a country was broken by one man. |
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July 10 - Arguing Over The Debt Ceiling; The Birth and Future of South Sudan; Will the Tea Party Win Another Congressional Seat?
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Richard Parker, an economist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, joins us to discuss the debt ceiling. |
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We talk with Susan Purdin, the Country Director for South Sudan for the International Rescue Committee, updates us from Juba on the current and future health of the new country. |
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Former two-term mayor of Manhattan Beach, California, Mitch Ward, joins us to talk about the congressional race for an open seat in the nearby 36th district that Jane Harman recently vacated and may be taken by the Tea Party favorite. |
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July 7 - Toby Miller sits in for Ian Masters: Folding of News of the World; Mexico City; Representation of African Americans in Media
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Listen to Full Program with Guest Host Toby Miller |
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Toby Miller talks to attorney Bill Grantham about the shutdown of Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World. |
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Toby Miller interviews McClatchy news' Bureau Chief Tim Johnson on Mexico City. |
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Toby Miller speaks with professor Herman S. Gray on African American Culture Represented in the media. |
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