Month: January 2019

An Acting AG with Neither the Legal, Ethical, Moral or Judicial Qualifications

We close out our series of programs looking back on 2018 an interview with Harry Litman from November. With Trump’s new Attorney General now in charge of the Mueller investigation who appears to have neither the legal, ethical, moral or judicial qualifications to be the nation’s top lawman. Furthermore his appointment itself according to a former solicitor general and George Conway, the husband of White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway, is a betrayal of “the entire structure of our charter document” meaning “Constitutionally, Matthew Whitaker is a nobody”. Harry Litman, a former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, joins us to discuss his articles at the Washington Post “The Mueller probe could be in mortal danger” as well as an article at The New York Times “Congress Can Issue Subpoenas. Will They Matter” and whether at best Whitaker will tell Trump what Mueller has on him, or at worst shut down the investigation and bury the report. We will examine how Whitaker essentially auditioned for the job as a Trump loyalist by going on CNN to attack the Mueller probe, then the White House engineered his appointment as Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff so that Whitaker could be the White House’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department. And now this unqualified ideologue with bizarre and reactionary views on the law itself, is the acting Attorney General of the United States.

Beto’s Small Donations is Way Forward for Democrats to Run Against Corruption

Then we revisit a recent interview with Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School and founder of EqualCitizensUS, a non-profit dedicated to reforms that will achieve citizen equality. He joins us to discuss his article at The Guardian “Beto O’Rourke’s biggest blind spot cost him Texas. Democrats take note”, and how the strongest message Democrats could run on is anti-corruption with Beto’s successful example of record fundraising from small donations being the way forward to sever the corrupt ties of big money in our politics.

Matt Taibbi on His New Book “Hate Inc.”

Then finally we speak with Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone and the author of a number of bestsellers including “Insane Clown President” and his latest book just out, “Hate Inc.: How, and why, the press makes us hate one another: Your Campaign 2020 Guide to Media Deception”. We will explore the country’s deepening polarization in part driven by the press and the difficulty of covering the manipulator-in-chief who skillfully distracts the press and the American people with daily stunts and manufactured reality TV drama.