The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour – 01.18.17

David Mielke teaches psychology and sociology in a California high school, where he educates young men and women in the truth about psychiatry. Many of these high school students are taking psychiatric medication, many are diagnosed with ADHD, and some have been told they are too disabled to do routine projects like taking notes from a board. He gives vivid examples of the disabling effects of the diagnoses and how they push young people toward learned helplessness and self-doubt. He describes how the principles of good teaching run smack into the bad teachings of modern psychology and psychiatry. He explains how teachers can empower students to learn and to have more confidence in themselves. This was a very interesting hour for me and should be so for everyone interested in our nation’s youth and in education.

Alex Kotch – Inside Charles Koch’s Plot to Hijack Universities Across America and Spread His Radical ‘Free-Market’ Propaganda

The public is starting to catch up with the reality that Charles Koch is not only a major spender on building his own ideological institutions. Over the past decade, Koch has funded colleges and universities to bend them in his direction, often funding “free-market” academic centers. Mostly through his personal foundation, Koch gave $108 million [3] to 366 colleges and universities from 2005 …

This Can’t Be Happening – 11.04.15

Host Dave Lindorff and guest Linn Washington, a Philly-based investigative reporter and colleague of Dave’s on the news site thiscantbehapppening.net, discuss Tuesday’s election results in Pennsylvania and recent comments by Supreme Court Justices Breyer and Scalia, all suggesting that a historic moment has arrived in which the US death penalty obsession may finally be ended. Lindorff notes that in Pennsylvania voters elected three new state supreme court judges, all liberal Democrats who owe their win in considerable part to black and other minority voters in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other urban areas of the state. Washington, who has written extensively about the state’s racist death penalty system, withthe fourth-largest death row in the nation, and says that with Democrats now in a 5-2 majority on the formerly Republican high court, and with the new Democratic governor already having imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, it could be that the death penalty could be ruled unconstitutional under the state’s constitution. Meanwhile Justice Breyer has virtually called for a test case to be brought to the Supreme Court this year, and Justice Scalia, a staunch backer of execution, has stated publicly that he thinks the votes are there now to declare the death penalty in the US unconstitutional.

Project Censored – 09.15.15

9/11 and the Rise of Neoconservative Foreign Policy. For this 14th anniversary 9/11 special program, co-hosts Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips speak with Media Roots journalist and filmmaker Robbie Martin about his new film “A Very Heavy Agenda.” The film looks in depth at the Kagan family and the rise of neoconservative foreign policy prior to and since the events of 9/11. Tune in for a detailed discussion about the development of the US policy driving American Empire.

Jamie Raskin – A Supreme Threat to US Democracy

Here’s a little quiz you won’t find on the LSATs: Which Supreme Court justice called a recent ruling by the court a “threat to American democracy”? And what decision was it? A. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote it of the Citizens United decision, which armed corporations with the political free speech rights of human beings. B. Justice Sonia Sotomayor included …

SCOTUS Rules Against Limiting Mercury Pollution from Power Plants – Robert Harrington

The Supreme Court has issued yet another ruling that has many people up in arms. Environmental activists and health advocates alike are especially unhappy with their most recent decision concerning power plant emissions. Permitting mercury and other highly toxic air pollutants emitted from plants to remain insufficiently regulated will ultimately translate to higher healthcare costs around the country. The degree of …

The Fight Over Obamacare Was a Giant Political Charade By Sonali Kolhatkar

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 25 that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) subsidies for health insurance for the poor were indeed constitutional, liberals cheered. The last-ditch attempt by the right to gut President Obama’s signature act failed. In his weekly address, Obama triumphantly announced that “after more than fifty votes in Congress to repeal or weaken this law; …