November 2 - Why the American Left is Handing Tuesday's Election to the Republicans; Smugness and Satisfaction Among Leaders of the U.S. Intelligence Community; Why We Pay More for Less for Access to the Internet

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the economy and the end of the Fed’s quantitative easing program which curiously has been anti-climactic and has not precipitated an exodus from the record high stock market. We get a macro economic analysis from Harvard economist Richard Parker, the former managing editor of Ramparts, a co-founder of Mother Jones and a member of the editorial board of The Nation, we also discuss the reasons why the American Left are likely not to show up at the polls on Tuesday, thus allowing the Republicans to take over the U.S. Senate and increase their control of the House by electing many Tea Party candidates who will move the country further to the Right.

Part 2

Then we hear from Michael Brenner, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who attended the recent gathering of the U.S. Intelligence Community in Austin, Texas where the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper appeared smug and triumphant that the U.S. spy agencies have dodged the bullets of Edward Snowden’s revelations and have successfully held up the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture while failing to notice the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, thus blinding the Commander-in-Chief President Obama who has been excoriated in the press and by the Republicans for not standing up to terrorists.

Part 3

Then finally, we speak with Sarah Morris, a senior policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation. She is the co-author of their new report “The Cost of Connectivity” and we discuss why, in the country that invented the Internet, is costs more to get access to the Internet as the cable and telecomm monopolies who control the pipe into the home increasingly charge more for less, and while the rest of the advanced world continues to outstrip us is access to high-speed broadband at much lower costs.