April 14 – A Compromise Between the White House and the Senate on the Iran Deal?; Blackwater Mercenaries Sentenced as Iraqi Leader Arrives; The Republican Gift to the Uber-Rich and Their Heirs

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s unanimous vote on the compromise between the White House and the so-called Corker Bill that could determine the fate of the deal that President Obama and the P5+1 just made with Iran that is expected to be finalized by the end of June. Joining us is Dr. Paul Pillar, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University who was the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia at the CIA. We discuss his latest article in The National Interest, “America’s Not-So-Ultimate Weapon: Economic Warfare” and whether those who want to give the Iran deal a chance can overcome the determination of those who want to kill the deal before it is made.

Part 2

Then we examine the life sentence for one Blackwater military contractor and 30-year sentences for three others charged with murdering 14 Iraqis in 2007. Author, filmmaker, journalist and explorer Robert Young Pelton, the author of “Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror”, joins us to discuss the sentences that were handed down as Iraq’s Prime Minister Abadi arrived in Washington for meetings with President Obama.

Part 3

Then finally on the eve of tax day, we speak with Chuck Marr, the Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities about efforts by House Republicans this week to eliminate what limited taxes on family capital the richest one percent of the one percent pay, thus creating a permanent class of Americans who never have to work or pay taxes and moving America closer to becoming an aristocracy of inherited wealth rather than the meritocracy the founding fathers intended.