Background Briefing: December 15, 2020

On By gram

 

Barr’s Firing Means Trump’s Toady Rosen Will Booby Trap DOJ to Harass Biden

We begin with the firing of the Attorney General William Barr dressed up as a resignation complete with a fawning letter of praise for Trump which was likely dictated by the “Dear Leader” himself. Joining us is Bill Yeomans, a Professor of Law at Columbia University and a Senior Fellow at the Alliance For Justice who served 26 years in the Department of Justice including as acting Assistant Attorney General. We discuss how, as bad as Barr was in not acting as America’s lawyer but as being Trump’s Roy Cohn, his replacement of Jeffrey Rosen as acting AG is even more damaging. In the remaining weeks this unqualified Trump loyalist will rubber stamp a flurry of pardons and burrow into the DOJ Special Counsels to do Trump’s dirty work of investigating Hunter Biden along with settling other grudges and witch hunts which will drag on through Biden’s presidency. 

 

Trump’s Assembly Line of Death in His Lame Duck Killing Spree

Then we speak with Austin Sarat, associate dean of the faculty and Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College and author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty about his article at The Guardian “Trump is spending the last days of his presidency on a literal killing spree.” We discuss the assembly line of death our vigilante president has lined up in his lame duck killing spree at a time when capital punishment in the U.S. is receding with 22 people executed in 2019 compared to the late 1990s when almost 100 people were put to death annually. 

 

How the Green New Deal Will Revive the Economy and Save the Planet

Then finally we speak with Robert Hockett, one of the key architects of the Green New Deal about his article at Forbes “Building Back Better With or Without a Senate Majority.” The author of the new book, just out, Financing the Green New Deal: A Plan of Action and Renewal, he joins us to discuss how we can tackle climate change and inequality at the same time since a massive infusion will be required to revive the economy because of the pandemic, the much-needed economic stimulus to save our economy should also be directed at saving the planet too.