July 28 - As Netanyahu Makes Obama and Kerry Impotent, He Inflames the Middle East; Taking on Murray Energy, Perhaps the Worst Company in America; As Record Money Pours into this Year's Election, a Profile of the Biggest Spenders, The Koch Brothers

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an overview of the roiling Middle East and examine how Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is not just making President Obama and Secretary Kerry look impotent, he is also inflaming the region and making life difficult for Americans still stuck in the region, in particular in the Green Zone in Baghdad that could soon be overrun by radicals from the so-called Islamic State. Graham Fuller, the former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA joins us to discuss the growing anger and frustration among the young in the region as the killing in Gaza continues in spite of appeals for humanity from the U.N., and the growing territorial gains and swelling ranks of radical movements like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Part 2

Then we speak with Tyson Slocum, the Research Director for Public Citizen’s Energy Program about the campaign Public Citizen has launched against Murray Energy Corporation, a privately owned coal company that is suing the government to stop federal clean air standards and protection for miners, as well as suing the EPA to stop efforts to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants.  We discuss the so-called “war on coal” in important electoral battlegrounds and the power of the coal lobby in fighting environmental rules even as there is a shift underway from coal to natural gas in generating electricity.

Part 3

Then finally, as record amounts of money pour into attack ads early in the mid-term elections, with the Koch brothers-funded Americans For Prosperity taking the lead in the Senate races with $44 million spent so far to make Mitch McConnell the Majority Leader in November, we talk with Daniel Schulman, a senior editor in the Washington bureau of Mother Jones, and a founding member of the magazine’s investigative journalism team. We look into the most powerful players in American politics and discuss Daniel Schulman’s latest book, just out, “Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty”.