January 16 - The Latest TPP Leaks on Selling Out the Environment; An Analysis of the Academy Award Nominations; Iran's Hawks in Alliance with Pro-War U.S. Senators

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the latest leaks from inside the secret Transpacific Partnership trade deal negotiations in Utah last November that were provided by Wikileaks. Ilana Solomon, the Director of the Responsible Trade Program at the Sierra Club joins us to discuss the leaked TPP draft treaty chapter on the environment that indicates a weakening of environmental protections in exchange for increased trade among the parties in the negotiations; the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei. The rising Asian/Pacific power, China, the world’s fastest growing and second most powerful economy, is excluded from the deal.

Part 2

Then, from this company town, we assess this year’s just announced Academy Awards nominations. One of the world’s leading analysts of popular culture, media, and their connections to everyday life, Toby Miller, joins us to discuss this year’s nominees in terms of their political content and how much they capture the current political zeitgeist. The most obvious, at the top of the list with 10 nominations is “American Hustle”, which is based on the FBI’s “Abscam” sting that bagged a bunch of crooked politicians, and with 6 nominations, “Nebraska”, a searing look at the fading and forlorn American Dream in rural “Red State” America.

Part 3

Then finally, we examine the paradox of the Iranian hardliners and hawks in a symbiotic alliance with the pro-war Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill trying to scuttle the diplomatic opening with the just-concluded nuclear deal between the  P5+1 and Iran.Trita Parsi, the co-founder and president of the National Iranian American Council and author of “A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy With Iran” joins us to discuss his article at Roll Call “Khamenei’s Little Helpers in the Senate” and the president’s impassioned plea to Democratic Senators Wednesday evening in the White House not to sabotage his deal with Iran.