January 29 - The Real Story Behind the Keystone XL Pipeline; A Former Chair of the FEC on Big Money in Politics; Reviving Civics in America's Classrooms

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the Senate vote of 62 to 35 to proceed with the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, bypassing the State Department review process and overriding executive authority. Tyson Slocum, the Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program joins us to discuss the expected presidential veto and the total misrepresentation of the pipeline as a jobs project that makes us energy independence and lowers gas prices when the real purpose is to reward big oil so that dirty Canadian tar sands oil can be processed in the Texas Gulf refineries then shipped to the world market as refined products, which a 2013 study shows will make gas at the pump more, not less expensive for Americans.

Part 2

Then we speak with the former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Trevor Potter, a founding President and General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center who has represented Stephen Colbert in his efforts to expose the folly of post Citizens United campaign finance laws. We discuss the almost billion dollar war chest the Koch Brothers have raised to buy the 2016 elections, and what can be done to get money out of politics and bring voters back into the Democratic process so corrupted by money that fewer and fewer Americans are voting as more and more money pours into elections.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the move by Arizona to bring citizenship exams to the classroom with a state law requiring high school students to pass a citizenship exam that immigrants have to take in order to become American citizens. Diana Hess, a professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of “The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education”, joins us to discuss the need for civics to be taught and understood in American classrooms and the best ways to engage students in appreciating their democratic rights and exercising their responsibilities as citizens.