Background Briefing: January 11, 2023
Out With the Old and in With the New in the California Race to Replace Senator Feinstein
looking into the new generation of politicians challenging the old in the form
We begin with the new generation of politicians challenging the old in the form of a rush to run against Senator Diane Feinstein by Congresswoman Katie Porter and with Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and others likely to line up as well. Joining us to look into this rush to line up to challenge Feinstein which includes Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and others 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, “The California Feeding Frenzy for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate Seat Just Started Off With a Bang.”
The New House and the GOP Tradition of Decrying Deficits While Running up the Debt
Then we assess the brazen hypocrisy of the new House Republicans who decry deficits but whose first act is to add $100 billion to the deficit in what has become a GOP tradition from Reagan to Bush Senior to Bush junior and Trump all of whom ran up the deficit and the debt. Joining us is Thomas Kahn, who worked in Congress for 33 years where he served as staff director and chief counsel of the House Budget Committee and played a critical role on a number of budget negotiations including Simpson/Bowles, the Biden talks, the Super Committee, the successful Balanced Budget agreement of 1997 and the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. He is a fellow at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency at American University and a partner at the Cormac Group, and we will discuss his article at the Los Angeles Times, “House Republicans’ first order of business: Balloon the $31-trillion national debt.”
A Six Year Old in Virginia Shot His Teacher In What is Sadly Not Unusual in America
Then finally, with a six year old boy in custody in Virginia for shooting his school teacher, we look into many other examples of young children getting hold of guns and shooting classmates and others and speak with Joshua Horwitz, the Dana Feidler professor of the practice and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. He has spent more than three decades working on gun violence prevention issues and is the author of Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea.