August 21 - A Former Police Chief on the Behavior of the Ferguson Police; The Record $16.65 Billion Settlement Between the DOJ and BofA; The Failed U.S.-Special Forces Rescue Attempt of James Foley

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the former Chief of Police of Seattle for an analysis of both the behavior of the police in Ferguson, Missouri and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police who just released cell-phone videos confiscated from bystanders of the fatal shooting of a mentally disturbed young African-American man who taunted the police to shoot him. Norm Stamper, who is an advisory board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and author of “Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing” join us to discuss the criminalization of the mentally ill in America as well as the criminalization of drug abusers, neither of whom Chief Stamper feels should be in jail, but instead should be dealt with by medical professionals, not law enforcement officers.

Part 2

Then we look into the record settlement of $16.65 billion between the Justice Department and Bank of America with Bartlett Naylor, the financial policy advocate for Public Citizen who formerly served as chief of investigations for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee where he led probes of the savings and loan crisis, corporate takeovers, and insider trading. We discuss how much money BofA paid out compared to how much they made off selling toxic mortgages, and the likely fate of Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Savings who at one time was responsible for about one third of the liars loans that ruined the lives of millions of aspiring homeowners, most of whom, unlike Wall Street bankers, have not been made whole.

Part 3

Then finally, we speak with Elias Groll, an assistant editor at Foreign Policy where he just wrote the article “U.S. Special Forces Tried and Failed to Rescue James Foley”. We examine what is known about the rescue attempt which was apparently based on human intelligence and what is known about the London-accented British member of ISIS who issued a statement before executing James Foley and is believed to one of three British members of ISIS nicknamed “John, Paul and Ringo” who are believed to be the jailors of Foley and other journalists held hostage.