Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
2013 Program Archive
June 25 - Today's Radical Ruling Gutting the Voting Rights Act; The Implications for Voting Rights; Ruth Bader Ginsberg's Dissent
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with today’s ruling by the Supreme Court to strike down the key provision in the Voting Rights Act that protected young, elderly and minority voters in 15 states from an array of new and improved Jim Crow laws and voting suppression devices that make it harder for those likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center, joins us to discuss this radical ruling. She frequently participates in Supreme Court litigation and has argued several important cases in the federal courts of appeals. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine the implications of this ruling on voting rights and election protection with Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School where she founded and directs the center’s Voting Rights and Election Project. We discuss what remedies are likely to come from a gridlocked and dysfunctional Congress and whether it will be open season from now on in those states with a recent history of trying to enact voter suppression laws that were stopped by the Voting Rights Act, given that they are now free to enact a whole range of voting restrictions claiming to prevent the negligible if not non-existent problem of voter fraud. |
 |
|
|
Finally we speak with Aziz Huq, who was a clerk at the Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who issued a strong and almost indignant dissent which she read aloud, pointing out the lack of logic and legal underpinning of the conservative majority’s opinion that praised the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act before gutting the very mechanism that makes it work, while declaring it unconstitutional without bothering to cite what part of the constitution it violated. |
 |
Tags:
June 24 - Damage Control at the NSA; Where is Edward Snowden?; Freedom of the Press in Ecuador
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with an assessment of what the secrets might be that were cherry-picked from the NSA’s computers by Edward Snowden before he took then abroad on his computers and on his thumb drives and whether the Chinese and the Russians have already downloaded them. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who specializes in national security issues and wrote two books about the NSA, “The Puzzle Palace” and “The Shadow Factory: Inside the Ultra-Secret NSA, from 9/11 to Spying on America,” joins us to discuss the damage control now going on at the NSA. |
 |
|
|
Then, with the American fugitive Edward Snowden apparently delayed in Moscow on his way to Cuba then on to Ecuador where he has asked for political asylum, we look into the possibility that Snowden is being debriefed by the SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence successor to the KGB. A veteran reporter on intelligence Richard Sale joins us to discuss what might be going on in Moscow as the U.S. government warns Russian leaders not to jeopardize relations between the two countries by aiding and abetting a fugitive. |
 |
|
|
Then, finally with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy and with representatives of Wikileaks escorting Edward Snowden on his way to asylum in Ecuador, we examine the state of press freedom in Ecuador and how that gels with the mission of Wikileaks, a group that champions freedom of the press and open access to government secrets. Carlos Lauria, the Senior Americas Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, who monitors press freedoms in the Americas, joins us. |
 |
Tags:
June 23 - Russia's Role in Snowden's Escape From Extradition to the U.S.; Hong Kong's and Possibly China's Role in Snowden's Exit; Will Unhappy Netroots Nation Activists Support Democrats in the End?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin and go to Moscow where the fugitive from the NSA Edward Snowden is, apparently in transit on his way to Cuba, then on to Ecuador. Moscow-based defense analyst, columnist and journalist Dr. Pavel Felegenhauer joins us to discuss Russia’s role in helping Edward Snowden escape extradition to the U.S. and how this might effect the already frosty relations between Moscow and Washington. |
 |
|
|
Then we go to Hong Kong to speak with Patrick Poon who is the Executive Secretary of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, of which Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was previously president. We discuss China’s possible role in leaning on the Hong Kong authorities to let Snowden go, a charge made by Senator Feinstein, and how much the Chinese government benefited from the leaks coming from Snowden that they have uses to portray a regime that not only spies on its citizens, but brutally represses them, as a victim of cyber attacks, as opposed to a perpetrator of them as the U.S. charges. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we look into the toll that the public outrage over the revelations of the NSA spying on Americans has taken on President Obama’s poll numbers. Simon Rosenberg, the President and Founder of the New Democratic Network, joins us to discuss the extent of irritation at the president expressed by liberal activists at the Netroots Nation gathering underway and how that might affect Democratic turnout in the 2014 elections. |
 |
Tags:
June 20 - Karzai's Latest Meltdown; Obesity is Now a Disease; Punishing 50 Million Americans Who Get a Dollar Fifty per Meal on Food Stamps
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with an analysis of what is behind the latest outburst of indignation from Hamid Karzai who is upset with the U.S. over the Taliban opening an office in Doha, Qatar.Thomas Barfield, the President of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies and author of “Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History” joins us to discuss the behind-the-scenes wrangling ahead of possible peace talks on Afghanistan’s future.
|
 |
|
|
Then we examine the implications of a move by the American Medical Association to declare obesity a disease. Dr Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist and a leading expert on childhood obesity and author of “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease”, joins us to discuss what this means for future medical treatment of a disease that afflicts one third of America’s adults, that’s 78 million people, and 17% or 12 million of America’s children, driving up medical costs by more than $150 billion a year. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we assess the defeat of the $950 billion farm bill today in the House that was voted down 234 to 195 largely because of the punitive cuts in food stamps that 50 million Americans depend on. Jim Weill, the President of the Food Research and Action Center joins us to discuss the stigmatizing of needy Americans getting a dollar fifty cents per meal by Tea Party Republicans demanding that recipients of food stamps get jobs or have the federal money turned over to state governors to spend at their discretion. |
 |
Tags:
June 19 - Obama's Call to Cut Cold War Nukes; What is Behind the Protest Across Brazil? Drones Over America
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with President Obama today at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin where both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan made historic speeches, calling for Russia and the U.S. to reduce their nuclear arsenals by one third. Joseph Cirincione, the President of the Ploughshares Fund and author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons”, joins us to discuss the need for the U.S. to get rid of thousands of these Cold War relics whether or not the Russians reciprocate. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with Paulo Sotero, the Director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center and the former Washington correspondent for Estado de Sao Paulo, a leading Brazilian daily newspaper. We discuss the nationwide protests in Brazil that began over police brutality in response to public protests over a rise in bus fares, and have since spread to protests at soccer stadiums being built for next years World Cup where minority voices are making themselves heard about the need for investments in health, education and social services. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we examine the issue of the domestic use of drones that came up in a Senate hearing today where the outgoing head of the FBI said that drones have been used in America against Americans in “a very minimal way” with a very small footprint. Ryan Calo, a Professor of Law at the University of Washington who was the former research director at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University joins us to discuss today’s hearing and his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the domestic use of drones. |
 |
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App