May 12 - Dealing With a Regime that Merges Organized Crime and National Security, The Mafia and Nuclear Weapons; The FCC's New Rules on Net Neutrality; Demonstrations Against Google's Membership of ALEC

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the call by the Kremlin to respect the will of the people in a secessionist referendum in Eastern Ukraine that Russian President Putin claimed to oppose. Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center joins us to discuss how much Putin is in control of events in Ukraine or is winging it, and the extent to which the U.S. is continually playing catch-up with a regime in Russia that is a unique geopolitical hybrid of organized crime and national security; the Mafia and nuclear weapons.  

Part 2

Then we examine the latest leaks about what the Federal Communications Commission might be proposing in terms of the future of net neutrality ahead of Thursday’s vote on allowing public comment on new rules by the FCC.Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation joins us to discuss the new rules circulated today that will open up FCC plans for the future of the Internet to public comment, and the extent to which the FCC chairman, who has already received a blizzard of outrage over plans to allow “fast lanes” for content companies willing to spend payola to have internet service providers fast-track their content, will bend to the public’s will over the lobbying power of the cable and telecom oligopolies.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Brant Olson, the campaign director at Forecast the Facts, a grassroots community organization which, along with other public interest groups, is joining in demonstrations today at Google’s annual shareholders meeting. We discuss concerns that the company that avows the motto “don’t be evil” is not providing transparency about its lobbying efforts and its membership of the Chamber of Commerce and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council that is actively engaged in trying to kill solar power which Google is underwriting.