July 23 - The NSA Strikes Back; Scapegoating Public Employees in Detroit's Bankruptcy; Investigating the Big Banks for Gaming Commodities

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an emergency private briefing of members of the House of Representatives called for by the head of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander, aimed at stopping an amendment authored by Republican Justin Amash and Democrat John Conyers that would curb the NSA’s authority to collect communications data on millions of Americans. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who has written a number of best-sellers about the NSA joins us to discuss the preliminary damage control at the NSA that indicates Edward Snowden did not access the agency’s “crown jewels”.

Part 2

Then we talk about the bankruptcy of Detroit where a very small part of the problem, the pensions of public employees, is being exaggerated by the governor of Michigan Rick Snyder who is scapegoating public employees and their unions in line with the ideological game plan of other right wing Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ellen Schultz, the author of “Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers”, joins us to discuss how the pension benefits protected by state law ended up on the table in Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Part 3

Then finally we examine how the largest banks are profiting from manipulating the price of commodities which was the subject of a hearing today before a U.S. Senate Banking Sub-committee. Saule Omarova, a Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina who specializes in regulation of financial institutions, banking law, international finance and corporate finance, joins us to discuss her testimony and the need for the public to gain awareness of how much the price of food, gas and electricity is being driven up by the big Wall Street banks who profit at the expense of ordinary consumers.