March 1 - “Russia’s Army of Avengers”; Was Boris Nemtsov's Assassination a Kremlin Hit?; The Real Reasons Behind the Rise in Gas Prices

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the murder of the prominent Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, close by the Kremlin in a brazen act of intimidation on the eve of an opposition rally that Nemtsov had called for where he planned to denounce Russia’s war on Ukraine and expose the role of Russian forces in the war. Russian journalist and author Masha Gessen, the author of “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, joins us to discuss her article at The New York Times “Russia’s Army of Avengers” and the demonstrations in Russia mourning the death of Nemtsov and the intimidation of the few political opponents left in Putin’s Russia.

Part 2

Then we speak with Mark Ames, the founding editor of the satirical Moscow bi-weekly “The eXile” who is now a senior editor of PandoDaily. He was kicked out of Putin’s Russia but remains in contact with the country now under the tightening grip of a criminal regime with a history of killing off critics of the Kremlin, often in flagrant way meant to intimidate. We try to assess the Kremlin’s involvement in this assassination and the lawless and ultra-nationalist forces unleashed by the regime’s propaganda machine and the war in Ukraine Putin is pursuing.

Part 3

Then finally we get an analysis of why gas prices are going up and the failure of the mainstream press to look into the real culprit which are the big Wall Street banks speculating on oil futures, which the Congress recently allowed them to do, overturning a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that kept them out of speculating at the expense of the American consumer. Tyson Slocum, the Director of the Energy Program at Public Citizen joins us explain how the big banks bought the politicians who rewarded Wall Street, enabling them to make money for nothing as they gouge us at the pump while hurting the economy.