December 14 - Yes Russia Hacked the Election, But What Was Putin's Intent?; Trump's Cabinet is the Koch Brothers' Dream Come True; Could Today's Raising of the Fed Interest Rate Lead to More

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the intensifying argument over the Russian hacking of our recent election following a lengthy investigation by The New York Times and speak with an expert on cyber espionage and cyber warfare, Peter Singer, a strategist and Senior Fellow at The New America Foundation and author of “Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know”. He joins us to discuss the question of intent on the part of Putin, since there is no doubt that Russia hacked the election, but there are different conclusions coming from the CIA, who believe that Putin’s intent was to help Trump and hurt Clinton, while the FBI is less certain about that but are certain that Russia did the hacking. We assess the political spin with the Republicans in denial and Trump claiming the CIA has been politicized, while Democrats can certainly argue the FBI has become politicized since the FBI’s director James Comey, clearly swung the election in Trump’s favor.

Part 2

Then we speak with Lisa Graves, the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy and the publisher of ALECexposed.org and PR Watch. She joins us to discuss the extent to which Donald Trump’s cabinet is the Koch Brothers’ dream come true since it is stacked with global warming deniers who represent the coal, oil and gas extractive interests. And since David Koch celebrated Donald Trump’s victory of election night in Trump Tower with him, perhaps the alleged distance between them and their agendas was a piece of theater aimed at making working class voters think that Trump cared about them and not his fellow plutocrat.

Part 3

Then finally with today’s raising of interest rates by the Fed, we speak with economist Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington D.C. and the author of “Rigged: How Globalism and the Rules of the Modern Economy are Structured to Make the Rich Richer”. He joins us to discuss whether this is the beginning of a trend that could lead to a recession and whether at today’s meeting with the Silicon Valley titans, Trump promised a sweetheart deal to repatriate capital stashed abroad in exchange for a one-time favorably low tax rate.