September 25 – Iran’s Leader Upsets Hardliners at Home; Finally the SEC’s Pay Ratio Disclosure Rules are Discussed; Cruz Uses the U.S. Senate as a Fund-Raising Platform

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Iran’s new leader’s condemnation of the holocaust as a crime in an answer to a question from Christiane Amanpour which the official Iranian Fars News Agency later accused CNN of fabricating.  Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University who has an article at The New Republic “More Reasons For Optimism About Iran’s New President” joins us to discuss the delicate balancing act Rouhani has in reaching out to the West while dealing with hardliners at home.

Part 2

Then we speak with Sam Pizzigati, a veteran labor journalist who has an article at inequality.org “Federal Regulators Finally ‘Mind the Gap’” which reveals the debate inside the Security and Exchange Commission over skyrocketing pay for America’s CEO’s in contrast to ordinary workers. After delaying debate on the pay ratio disclosure rule under the Dodd-Frank Act for 37 months, it has finally come up for discussion at the SEC and we look into the efforts of Wall Street-friendly commissioners who tried to defend the indefensible.

Part 3

Then finally we go to the Lone Star State for an analysis of how far Senator Ted Cruz and his backers are prepared to take the country to the right from Robert Jensen, a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas. With the Tea Party candidate using the media to grandstand and makes headlines to please his backers, the Koch Brothers and the Club For Growth, we examine the extraordinary spectacle of an ambitious politician using the United States Senate as a fund-raising platform for his planned run for the presidency in 2016.