October 26 - The FBI Director Attributes Rising Crime to the "Ferguson Effect"; The Lack of a Serious Debate on the US Economy; Electing a Comedian President of Guatemala is No Joke

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the FBI Director’s remarks before the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago where James Comey said “far more people are being killed in America’s cities this year than in many years”, attributing the surge of violence in part to the idea that police are being restrained by the so-called “Ferguson effect”. A former police officer Philip Stinson, a Professor in the Criminal Justice Program at Bowling Green State University who researches police crime and police integrity, joins us to discuss the small rise in the number of police officers charged in fatal shootings compared to the up to 1,000 Americans, who will be killed by U.S. police this year.

Part 2

Then we examine the lack of a serious debate about America’s economy as income inequality rises and populist anger on the right and the left emerges in this elections season. The author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States”, Michael Lind, the co-founder of the New America Foundation and Policy Director of New America’s Economic Growth Program joins us.  As Wall Street thrives and Main Street languishes, we will discuss the Republican obsession with tax cuts for the rich and how the Democrats are blinded by the orthodoxy of balanced budgets while globally there is an overabundance of capital looking for somewhere to invest as consumers run out of purchasing power because jobs pay less and wages have not risen since the 1970’s.

Part 3

Then finally we try to make sense of the elections in Guatemala where a comedian with ties to the country’s murderous Army that is tied to the drug trade and accused of genocide against the Guatemalan people was just elected. Victoria Sanford, a cultural anthropologist who has spent years uncovering evidence of genocide in Guatemala, joins us to discuss why the unqualified Jimmy Morales is no joke, despite the fact that here in the U.S. unqualified outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson are leading the Republican polls.