December 14 - Why the Democrats Caved and How the Republicans Got Away with Killing Financial Reform; "How the U.S. Created the Islamic State"; "Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?"

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the $1.1 trillion government funding bill which the president is expected to sign that passed the Senate Saturday night laden with Christmas presents for Wall Street in a blatant quid pro quo that will allow Wall Street to gamble on derivatives with the taxpayer left holding the bag, which is exactly what brought about the 2008 crash, while Wall Street is now able to send checks of $324,000 to political parties instead of the maximum of $32,400 previously allowed.  Bartlett Naylor, the financial policy advocate for Public Citizen who previously served as chief of investigations for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee joins us to discuss why the Democrats caved and how Republicans got away with weakening the Dodd-Frank banking reforms passed in the wake of the financial crash, and how they will continue to weaken it further by attaching riders to future critical spending bills.  

Part 2

Then we speak with writer, journalist and professor, Mark Danner, about his new film at VICE News in collaboration with the New York Review of Books, “How the U.S. Created the Islamic State”.  We look into the role of the prison system set up by the U.S. following the invasion and occupation of Iraq that detained 24,000 men in 24 camps, including the top commanders of what was to become the senior leadership of the Islamic State who were able to organized the terror group at Camp Bucca right under the noses of their American jailers.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the criminal state that Russia has become under the leadership of Vladimir Putin and his handful of cronies who control 35% of the country’s wealth that they have stolen while merging with the global criminal underworld in a black economy that accounts for up to 50% of the world’s wealth, undermining the global financial system while ironically depending on it for stability. Karen Dawisha, the Director of Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University in Ohio joins us to discuss her new book, just out, “Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?”