Category: Briefings

$12.32 Billion Will Be Spent on This Election, Most of Which Goes to the Big Media Companies

We begin with record campaign spending that candidates raise in this election with $10 billion spent so far topping out at an estimated $12.32 billion, most of which goes to the big media companies in the form of TV ads blanketing the airwaves. We discuss the $315 million being spent on 650,000 registered voters in Montana where the fate of who controls the senate will likely be decided. Joining us is Alexander Sammon, a politics writer at Slate who has previously written for Mother Jones, The New Republic and the American Prospect. We discuss his latest article at Slate, “Ad Man: You might think you are immune to political advertising. In Montana, I learned the hard way. None of us are.”

Hundreds Died in Spain in What Was Not Just a Natural Disaster

Then we go to Spain where hundreds have died from recent flooding and speak with Eoghan Gilmartin, a Madrid-based freelance journalist specializing in Spanish and Irish politics, immigration, the Western Sahara and energy. The co-host of The Sobremesa Podcast about modern day Spanish society, politics and history, his work has appeared in Jacobin Magazine, The Guardian, Tribune and Open Democracy. We discuss his article at Jacobin, “The Mass Deaths in Spain Aren’t Just a Natural Disaster.”

The Issue Not Discussed in This Election, Nuclear Disarmament

Then finally, with anti-nuclear activists demonstrating today at the Vandenberg Space Force Base where a test launch of the new $315 billion Sentinel ICBM already 81% over budget is taking place, we examine an issue not discussed in this election, nuclear disarmament. Joining us is Andrew Davis, the acclaimed director of numerous films including Under Siege, A Perfect Murder, The Guardian, Holes and The Fugitive which was nominated for seven Academy Awards. And Jeff Biggers, a journalist and American Book Award-winning author of many works of investigative journalism, history and theater including, Reckoning at Eagle Creek, winner of the Delta prize for Literature and the Brower Award for Environmental reporting. Together they are the co-authors of a novel, a political thriller just out, Disturbing the Bones and they have an article at Common Dreams which we discuss, “This Election Is Not Fiction: Our Nuclear Arms Race Demands We ‘Speak Now Against the Day.’