KPFA - Democracy Now!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill as his company’s actions face escalating criticism. The focus of today’s House Financial Services Committee hearing is on Facebook’s plan to launch a cryptocurrency called Libra that would reshape the world’s financial system. Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday that her probe of Facebook for violating antitrust regulations is now backed by attorneys general from 47 states and territories. Facebook is also facing criticism from several Democratic presidential candidates for refusing to ban political ads from candidates containing false information. We speak with Roger McNamee, a former mentor to Mark Zuckerberg and early investor in Facebook, who has since become one of the company’s most vocal critics. His recent book is titled “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.”

The post Big Tech Platforms Have Had a “Profound Negative Effect on Democracy.” Is It Time to Break Them Up? appeared first on KPFA.

Mass protests in Lebanon have entered their sixth day as hundreds of thousands around the country are taking to the streets to demonstrate against dire economic conditions, austerity and corruption, demanding the country’s leaders step down. The protests were sparked last week when the government announced a tax on WhatsApp calls, but the massive demonstrations have since grown into a call for revolution. More than a million demonstrators flooded the streets of Beirut, Tripoli and other cities over the weekend. Prime Minister Saad Hariri revoked the WhatsApp tax on Monday and announced a package of economic reforms, but protesters are continuing to call for his ouster. For more, we speak with independent Lebanese journalist Kareem Chehayeb, whose recent piece for The Washington Post is headlined “Lebanon’s protests and wildfires tell the same grim story.”

The post “Unprecedented” Protests Rage Across Lebanon as People Demand PM’s Resignation and End to Austerity appeared first on KPFA.

Seven Catholic peace activists are going on trial in Georgia today for breaking into the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base on April 4, 2018. The activists, who are known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. The activists entered the base armed with just hammers, crime scene tape, baby bottles containing their own blood and an indictment charging the U.S. government with crimes against peace. Over the past four decades activists in the Plowshares movement have taken part in about 100 similar actions at nuclear arms facilities, beginning in 1980 at the General Electric nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. We recently spoke to Catholic nun Liz McAlister, who goes on trial today with her co-defendants Father Stephen Kelly, Mark Colville, Patrick O’Neill, Carmen Trotta, Clare Grady and Martha Hennessy, who is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. They all have been charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor.

The post Kings Bay Plowshares 7: Trial Begins for Liz McAlister & Others for Breaking Into Nuke Sub Base appeared first on KPFA.

At the age of 16, she was arrested for killing a man who had picked her up for sex, after she had been forced into sexual slavery as a child. She was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for shooting the man who bought her for sex when she feared for her life. Today Cyntoia Brown-Long joins us to share her experience, what has happened in the 15 years she was incarcerated, and how she won her release. In an incredible development, after a years-long campaign to win her freedom, Cyntoia was granted clemency in January after former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam commuted her sentence. She was released from prison in August. We spend the hour discussing her experience as she recounts in her memoir, published this week, “Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System.”

The post Sentenced to Life in Prison as a Teen, How Cyntoia Brown Survived Sex Trafficking & Won Her Freedom appeared first on KPFA.

As hundreds of thousands of civilians face displacement and violence amid Turkey’s assault on Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria, the House of Representatives voted to condemn Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. support for the Kurds on Wednesday. The measure passed 354 to 60. We speak with Representative Ro Khanna, who says, “We can’t just get involved in a place and then walk away and not have some moral responsibility. We have a moral responsibility not just to the Kurds who fought with us against ISIS. We have a moral responsibility to accept Syrian refugees. We have a moral responsibility to help rebuild a society that was ravaged by civil war, where we were involved.” We also speak with Ozlem Goner, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at the City University of New York. She is a member of the Emergency Committee of Rojava.

The post “Meltdown”: Trump Defends Syria Withdrawal as House Votes 354 to 60 to Condemn His Actions appeared first on KPFA.

Twelve candidates took to the stage for the fourth round of the Democratic presidential debate in Westerville, Ohio, Tuesday to spar over healthcare, foreign policy, impeachment, gun violence, economic inequality and more. Senator Elizabeth Warren — who is now leading some national polls — repeatedly came under attack from her rivals. In the first debate since Senator Bernie Sanders suffered a heart attack two weeks ago, the Vermont senator advocated for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All and a wealth tax. Former Vice President Joe Biden attacked the proposals of both Sanders and Warren and faced scrutiny for his son Hunter’s dealings in Ukraine. We host a roundtable with Intercept senior contributor Mehdi Hasan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston and journalist Kate Aronoff.

The post Mehdi Hasan: “There Should Only Be Two Front-Runners Right Now: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren” appeared first on KPFA.

We speak with investigative reporter Aaron Glantz about his new book “Homewreckers,” which looks at the devastating legacy of the foreclosure crisis and how much of the so-called recovery is a result of large private equity firms buying up hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes. “Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream” reveals how the 2008 housing crash decimated millions of Americans’ family wealth but enriched President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including Trump Cabinet members Steven Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, Trump’s longtime friend and confidant Tom Barrack, and billionaire Republican donor Stephen Schwarzman. Glantz writes, “Now, ensconced in power following Trump’s election, these capitalists are creating new financial products that threaten to make the wealth transfers of the [housing] bust permanent.” Aaron Glantzis a senior reporter at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize this year for his reporting on modern-day redlining.

The post Homewreckers: How Wall Street, Banks & Trump’s Inner Circle Used the 2008 Housing Crash to Get Rich appeared first on KPFA.

Christopher Columbus arrived in the Bahamas 527 years ago this week, unleashing a brutal genocide that killed tens of millions of Native people across the hemisphere. Cities and states across the country are acknowledging this devastating history by rejecting the federal holiday of Columbus Day and celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead to honor centuries of indigenous resistance. Alaska, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin have all officially recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day. So have more than 130 cities and counties, from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas to smaller places like Livingston, Kentucky, and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Last week, Washington, D.C., became one of the latest to recognize the holiday. Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia, takes its name from Columbus. We speak with Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes of the Snipe Clan. She is a Mohawk of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. She is the executive director of the American Indian Community House in New York.

 

GUESTS

Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes

Snipe Clan, Mohawk of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, executive director of the American Indian Community House in New York.

Plus:

Kurds Turn to Bashar al-Assad for Protection as U.S. Abandons Former Allies to Turkish Assault

Watch

Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed, Awarded Nobel Prize, Celebrated for “Remarkable Change” in Horn of Africa

The post “We’re Still Here”: Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration Reflects Ongoing Resistance to Colonization appeared first on KPFA.

We spend the hour with author Chanel Miller speaking about her recently published remarkable memoir, “Know My Name.” The book chronicles how Miller reclaimed her name, her story and her life after being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a member of the Stanford University swim team, in 2015. At the time, she was known as “Emily Doe.” The case gained national prominence when a California judge sentence Turner to just six months in a county jail after he was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault. He ended up spending only three months locked up. The sentencing sparked outrage. Voters in California later recalled the judge in the case. During the trial, Miller read a victim impact statement addressed to her assailant. The text of the letter later went viral, being read by millions around the world.

The post The Stanford Sexual Assault Case Made Her “Emily Doe.” In New Memoir, Chanel Miller Tells Her Story appeared first on KPFA.

Turkey has launched an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas. The offensive began Wednesday, just days after President Trump ordered U.S. troops to fall back from their positions on the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least 16 Kurds have been killed so far. Turkey is claiming the death toll is far higher. The Trump administration has faced widespread criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for abandoning the stateless Kurds who had helped the U.S. fight ISIS. Turkey is claiming the assault is needed to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria where Turkey could relocate Syrian refugees who fled over the past eight years of fighting, but the Kurds see the offensive as part of a decades-long attack by Turkey to crush their attempts at greater autonomy. The Kurds have been responsible for holding over 10,000 ISIS fighters and their families in detention. While Trump has claimed Turkey will take control of the makeshift jails, there is growing concern many former ISIS fighters will be able to escape during the Turkish assault. At least one Kurdish prison has already been shelled. To discuss the implications of Turkey’s assault, we speak with Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women’s Movement activist and anthropologist at the London School of Economics. We also speak with Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party in Turkey, known as the HDP. He is a former member of Parliament in Turkey.

The post After Trump Abandoned Kurds, Turkish Invasion Raises Fear of Kurdish Genocide & ISIS Resurgence appeared first on KPFA.