October 8 – Bernie Sanders on the Supreme Court’s Politicians for Sale Case; The 14th Amendment Called a Default “A National Crime”; Catholic Bishops Collude with Tea Party Reactionaries

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with arguments before the Supreme Court in McCutcheon versus the FEC that could strike down any remaining limits on spending on candidates and parties. Senator Bernie Sanders, who was in the Supreme Court and later spoke on the steps afterwards, joins us to discuss whether the Court will further empower a few billionaires like those behind the Tea Party shutdown, who are radically altering the American political landscape, moving the country further and further to the right.

Part 2

Then we speak with Princeton historian Sean Wilentz who has an article in Monday’s New York Times ”Obama and the Debt” which points out that the 14^th Amendment was intended to prevent precisely the abuses that the current House Republicans blithely condone. We discuss how the Republican Party made paying our debts part of their 1868 platform declaring that “national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad”, pronouncing any repudiation of the debt “a national crime”.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the role of the U.S. Catholic bishops in encouraging the Republican House to take the current hostage-taking course while at the same time expressing their concern for the record rates of one in five children in poverty as well as the 49 million Americans who are food insecure. Adele Stan, who specializes in covering the intersection of religion and politics as RH Reality Check’s Senior Washington Correspondent, joins us to discuss her latest article “At Any Cost: How Catholic Bishops Pushed for a Shutdown – and Even a Default – Over Birth Control”.