January 4 – The Man Caught in the Middle: NYPD Chief William Bratton; The Republican Ruse Disguise the Impact of Tax Cuts; Nigeria’s Inability to Deal with Boko Haram

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the latest display of disrespect towards the mayor of New York from members the NYPD at the funeral of a police officer killed in the line of duty. Joe Domanick, an award-winning investigative journalist, author and Associate Director of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at the John Jay College of Criminal Law joins us to discuss the man caught in the middle between an embattled mayor and angry rank and file, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, who is profiled in Joe Domanick’s new book “Blue: The Ruin and Redemption of the LAPD” and who had asked his officers to show respect for Mayor de Blasio at Sunday’s funeral of the fallen Officer Wenjian Liu.

Part 2

Then we look into the top priority of the new Republican Congress which is to change the way how the government measures the impacts of tax cuts on federal revenues, thus allowing Republican lawmakers to reward their wealthy backers with tax cuts whose real impact on the federal deficit will be shielded. The author of “We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money”, Edward Kleinbard, a Professor of Law at the University of Southern California and a former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, joins us to discuss the hypocrisy of the deficit hawks and their apparent intention to bankrupt the government in order to destroy social programs, as well as his article in The New York Times "A Republican Ruse to Make Tax Cuts Look Good”.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the reasons behind the rout of a multinational force which fled from a Nigerian army base on the border with Chad and abandoned the civilian residents of the town of Baga in the face of an attack from Boko Harum. Aniedi Okure, the Executive Director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network joins us to discuss the inability of the government of Goodluck Jonathan to address the growing threat from Boko Harum and the Nigerian military’s apparent lack of morale and motivation.