First, are Google and Facebook increasing income inequality, harming the arts and damaging democracy? Our guests says yes. [ dur: 44 mins. ]

• Jonathan Taplin was the founding director of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab and an Oscar nominated filmmaker, a music manager and author. He is the author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.

Then, how one university professor is teaching children about community, civics, empathy and giving. [ dur: 14 mins. ]

• Ann Crigler is Professor of Political Science at USC. She is the co-author of Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning and Crosstalk: Citizens, Candidates and the Media in a Presidential Campaign, and the co-editor of Rethinking the Vote: The Politics and Prospects of American Election Reform and The Affect Effect: Dynamics of Emotion in Political Thinking and Behavior

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, why do people remain in refugee camps for decades? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

• Elizabeth Cullen Dunn is Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs at Indiana University–Bloomington. She is also the author of No Path Home and Privatizing Poland.

Then, our guests have studied the food system and what it means to have an equitable and sustainable system. What are the problems in the system and what are the solutions? [dur: 30 mins. ]

• Saru Jayaraman is Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley . She is the co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) which has more than 18,000 worker members, 200 employer partners, and several thousand consumer members in a dozen states nationwide. She is the author of Behind the Kitchen Door and her latest Forked: A New Standard for American Dining.
• Raj Patel is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, The Value of Nothing – a New York Times and international best-seller – and his latest, co-written with Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. He co-hosts the fortnightly food politics podcast The Secret Ingredient .

Raj Patel and Saru Jayaraman are contributors to The Nation magazine’s special issue, “The Future of Food: Setting the table for the next generation“.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, the birth of what we know as big science. The big money supported, cross institution collaborations that have supported both medicine and weaponry. How did science and government get so entrenched with industry, and one another? And what have been the results? We discuss with Michael Hiltzik his latest book Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military Industrial Complex. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

• Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author. He has been writing for the Los Angeles Times for three decades and is currently the Times’ Business Columnist. He is the author of many books including, The New Deal: A Modern History; The Plot Against Social Security, and his latest Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military Industrial Complex.

Then, greenwashing culture. How journalism, the entertainment industry and museums impact our environment. We discuss with Toby Miller his latest book Greenwashing Culture. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

• Toby Miller is the Professor and Director of the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London. He is author and editor of over 40 books. His numerous publications include, Greenwashing Culture, Greenwashing Sports, The Routledge Companion to Global Cultural Policy (co-editor), and The Sage Companion to Television Studies (co-editor).

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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We discuss the many faces to money laundering, the cost to society and potential remedies. Why is it so hard to track and prosecute money laundering? How does it finance terrorism? [ dur: 58 mins. ]

• Moyara Ruehsen is Associate Professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California. She is the Director of Financial Crime Management Specialization. Her expertise is in financial regulatory compliance and investigations, and public policies related to illicit markets as well as macro-economy. She is the author of Follow the Proliferation Money and Terrorism Financing Methods: An Overview.
• Richard Gordon is Professor of Law at Case Western University. He is also Director of the Financial Integrity Institute; Associate Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center. He is the author of A Model Regulation on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and Laundering the Proceeds of Public Sector Corruption.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Can international finance systems be harnessed to protect human rights? While historically financiers have funded some of the worse of human rights abuses, finances also enabled great human leaps. Our guest argues that it is time to alter the financial system for the good of humanity. [ dur: 29 mins. ]

• David Kinley is Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Sydney Law School. He is the author of Necessary Evil: How to Fix Finance by Saving Human Rights, and Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy. He is also the co-editor of Human Rights: Old Problems, New Possibilities.

Then, our guest studies factors that shape our lives and ways of being in life, like ideas and events. What does it really mean to be responsible? It might depend on where you live. [ dur: 29 mins. ]

• Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Auckland. She is the co-editor of Competing Responsibilities: The Politics and Social Ethics of Responsibility in Contemporary Life and State of Suffering: Political Violence and Community Survival in Fiji.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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What can we make of the latest revelations from inside the Trump administration? We spend the hour with three top scholars of the U.S. presidency. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

• George C. Edwards III is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Jordan Chair in Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University. His books include Predicting the Presidency, The Strategic President, Governing by Campaigning and On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit.
• Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. His books include, The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, and Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama.
• David Stebenne is Professor of History and Law at The Ohio State University. He is the author of Arthur J. Goldberg: New Deal Liberal and Modern Republican: Arthur Larson and the Eisenhower Years.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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In this hour, what types of criminal proceedings are possible for a US president? What types of secrets can they keep? Who can they fire and who can they pardon? We spend the hour with two constitutional law professors who untangle these and other legal issues. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

• Heidi Kitrosser is Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She is the author of the book, Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive Power, and the U.S. Constitution, and the articles, The Shadow of Executive Privilege, and Accountability in the Deep State.
• Eric M. Freedman is a Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Rights at Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. He is the author of Making Habeas Work: A Legal History and the article, On Protecting Accountability

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, how emigration could lead to greater democratization in the world. [ dur: 12 mins. ]

• Margaret Peters is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. She is the author of Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization, and the co-author of the research paper Restraining the Huddled Masses: Migration Policy and Autocratic Survival.

Then, climate change is here. How does climate change affect conception? [ dur: 15 mins. ]

• Alan Barreca is Associate Professor at the Institute of the Environment & Sustainability at UCLA. He is the author of the research papers Does hot weather affect human fertility? He is the co-author of Maybe Next Month? Temperature Shocks, Climate Change, and Dynamic Adjustments in Birth Rates , and Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the U.S. Temperature-Mortality Relationship over the 20th Century

Finally, one Stanford University scientist maps out the way to slow down climate change and even reverse some of the damage. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

• Marc Jacobson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. He’s also the Co-Founder of The Solutions Project, 100.org, and the 100% Clean, Renewable Energy Movement. He is the author of A path to sustainable energy by 2030 (Scientific American, 2009); 100% clean and renewable wind, water, sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States (Energy & Environmental Sciences, 2015; 100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for 139 countries of the world (Joule, 2017); and 100% clean, and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for 53 towns and cities in North America (Sustainable Cities and Society, 2018)

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, tons of discarded plastic are choking off the ocean, killing wildlife, and building islands of garbage. How bad has it become and what can be done about it? [ dur: 19 mins. ]

• Captain Charles Moore is founder of the ALGALITA Marine Research & Education Institute.

Then, how is the anti-government movement a type of constitutional coup? How does civil service provide a check on presidential power? [ dur: 39 mins. ]

• Jon Michaels is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. He is the author of Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, the makings of a scandal. Why are some perceived as big scandals, while a rash of other wrongs are ignored? [ dur: 21 mins. ]

• Robert Entman is a Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of, Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct, Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy, and ,The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America.

Then, while many argue that we are in a post-truth era, some scholars argue that deception has always been ubiquitous. In this hour, we get some truth about lying. [ dur: 37 mins. ]

• Timothy R. Levine is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the editor of Encyclopedia of Deception, Vol. 1 & 2 and many scholarly articles on deception.
• David Livingstone-Smith is Professor of Philosophy in the University of New England. He is the author of Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War.
• Briony Swire-Thompson is a Ph. D. student in the School of Psychological Science at the University of Western Australia. She is a co-author of the studies Processing Political Misinformation: Comprehending the Trump Phenomena, and Correcting false information in memory: Manipulating the strength of misinformation encoding and its retraction.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download