November 13 - Are the Conservatives on the Supreme Court Politicians in Robes?; The $4.25 Billion Settlement By 5 of the Biggest Banks for Rigging the Currency Markets; An American Who Fought With the Rebel Army in Libya

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of whether the five conservatives on the Supreme Court are politicians in robes, which is the concern expressed by the normally moderate long-time Supreme Court watcher Linda Greenhouse in an op-ed in the New York Times, “Law in the Raw”, that has caused shockwaves in the legal community. Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Project who frequently participates in Supreme Court litigation, joins us to discuss this second chance the conservatives on the Supreme Court have given themselves to kill Obamacare by taking up a case already thrown out by lower courts that Linda Greenhouse describes as a politically manufactured argument over how to interpret several sections of the Affordable Care Act.

Part 2

Then we examine the $4.25 billion settlement by five of the world’s biggest banks UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland for conspiring to manipulate the foreign currency markets.  James Henry, an economist, lawyer and investigative journalist and author of “Capital Flight: Corruption, Money Laundering, Tax Evasion, Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, Terror Banking, and the Continuing Global Development Crisis”, joins us to discuss yet another settlement where fines are paid but nobody goes to jail and the system that allowed traders to manipulate the fixed rate across the world’s largest currencies.

Part 3

Then finally two-time Academy Award nominated documentary director Marshall Curry joins us in studio with the subject of his new film “Point and Shoot”, Matt VanDyke, a cinematographer who spent years in North Africa and the Middle East. He joined the rebel army in the Libyan revolution and was captured then spent five and a half months in Qaddafi’s notorious prisons, later to be freed to return to combat where he used both a camera and a gun. We explore the lines between journalism and active involvement in a revolution and talk about Matt’s more recent work in Syria.