July 25 – The Battle Ahead to Reverse Economic Inequality; The Close Vote to Stop the NSA Spying on Americans; Is “Too Big to Jail” Over?

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Part 1	Following President Obama’s major address on the economy yesterday, we begin with an analysis of the battle ahead between an aggressive Republican congress determined to push through radical cuts that will not only shred Obama’s programs and priorities, but will gut government itself. Richard Parker, a professor of economics and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government joins us to assess the battle ahead that will either result in a reversal of economic injustice or the complete capture of America by the one percent.
Part 2	Then we look into last night’s very close 217 to 205 vote in the House that killed an amendment to curb the NSA’s authority under section 215 of the Patriot Act to gather metadata on American citizens. Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild and author of “Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance” joins us to discuss the alliance between Tea Party Republicans and progressive Democrats who narrowly lost to a coalition of the NSA, the White House and the Minority and Majority leadership of the House.
Part 3	Then finally we examine the implications of the indictment today of SAC Capital’s Steven Cohen on insider trading and whether prosecuting a hedge fund billionaire represents the end of the “too big to jail” phenomenon that has characterized the lackluster performance of the Justice Department under Lanny Breuer which has not gone after anyone on Wall Street responsible for the 2008 crash. Veteran financial reporter William Cohan, the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World”, joins us to look into the hedge fund business.