December 15 - The Trump-Cruz Slugfest; The Closure of LA's Schools Based on Threats Others See as a Hoax; The Taxpayer's $20 Billion Gift to Amazon

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the expectation that the Republican presidential debate about to take place at mega-donor Sheldon Adelson’s Venetian Casino in Las Vegas will be a slugfest between the frontrunner Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who is rising to second place in the polls. A long-time observer of Texas politics Matt Angle, who directs the Lone Star Project, a Political Action Committee that aims to be an aggressive “fact-checker” on the Republican Party at both the state and national level, joins us to discuss what Texas Senator Ted Cruz is all about, and that is simply put, Ted Cruz.

Part 2

Then following the closure of schools in Los Angeles in response to an email threat similar to one that the New York authorities dismissed, we examine whether the L.A. Unified School District Superintendent over-reacted to a threat that was deemed a hoax by the House Intelligence Committee. Roxane Silver, a Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, Irvine joins us to discuss the excuse offered that the decision to close L.A. schools was influenced by the recent shootings in San Bernardino and whether hysteria is playing into the hands of the Islamic State who may have been given a bonus today.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Dean Baker the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research about his article in The Huffington Post, “Holiday Season Giving to Jeff Bezos” and discuss how Amazon has had what amounts to a $20 billion taxpayer subsidy with Jeff Bezos pocketing $4 billion of that, because the increasingly popular retailer does not have to pay state sales tax, giving it a roughly 8% pricing advantage over its brick and mortar competitors.