Your Call

On this edition of Your Call's Media Roundtable, we have a conversation with FRONTLINE correspondent Ramita Navai about her new documentary Afghanistan Undercover, which exposed the Taliban’s crackdown on women in Afghanistan.

On this edition of Your Call, we'll have a conversation about corporate monopolies in light of Amazon's $4 billion bid to buy telehealth and primary care service OneMedical.

Corporate concentration has reached its highest level, four big banks control more than 41 percent of the assets of the entire U.S. banking system. Four giant meatpacking corporations control 85 percent of beef processing, and two telecom corporations dominate Internet access.

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll have a conversation with professor Steven Thrasher about his new book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality And Disease Collide.

Thasher explores the unequal effects of viral pandemics and the ways in which capitalist power structures exploit and create a viral underclass. He tells the stories of human beings whose lives and bodies are subject to a manufactured vulnerability sustained by racism and stigma.

On the next Your Call, we will discuss the recent monkeypox outbreak. Earlier this month, the Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency. The virus has infected more than 10,000 people.

The US has reported the most infections of any country in the world since late July, according to CDC data. The outbreak is primarily impacting the gay and bisexual community, who make up 98% of infections.

On this edition of Your Call, we will discuss the Coronavirus pandemic. Last week, the CDC relaxed its COVID-19 guideline for social distancing and quarantining.

The US is recording more than 100,000 cases and nearly 500 deaths a day on average, according to The New York Times. According to CDC data, only around 67% of the entire US population is fully vaccinated at this point.

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we have a conversation about the viability of carbon capture technology in combating climate change.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes a change in tax credit for the carbon capture industry—increasing the government subsidy for capturing CO2 from polluting sources from $50 to $85 per metric ton.

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we discuss the Socio-environmental impacts of lithium mineral extraction for electric vehicles.

On this week's Media Roundtable, we discuss Ukraine: Life Under Russia’s Attack, a new Frontline documentary that takes us inside Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine. We meet displaced families, first responders risking their lives, and civilians caught in the middle of the war.

Before the invasion, 1.5 million lived in Kharkiv. Three months later, half of the population fled and those who stayed made underground shelters their temporary home.

More than 10,000 people have been killed since the start of Russia's war, and millions have been internally displaced or have fled to other parts of Europe, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a US-based nonprofit that records political violence.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the tax provisions in the Democrats' reconciliation bill, which passed the Senate on Sunday without one Republican vote.

The bill would raise more than $700 billion over a decade by closing corporate tax loopholes, empowering the IRS to enforce tax laws, taxing stock buybacks, and extending a limitation on deductions for business losses.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema removed the tax provisions for wealthy investors and hedge fund managers. Over the past few weeks, private equity lobbyists were in constant touch with her office, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Guests:

David Cay Johnston, editor and co-founder of DCReport.org, visiting lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law, and author of several books, including Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)

Joe Hughes, federal policy analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

On this edition of Your Call, we continue our series on the Democrats' scaled down climate, health, and tax bill, which passed the Senate on Sunday with no Republican support. We'll discuss the drug price and healthcare provisions of the bill.

For the first time ever, Medicare will finally be able to negotiate drug prices, but the the lower prices won't go into effect until 2026. Pharmaceutical companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting this change for decades. Also for the first time, annual out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs will be capped at $2,000 for those on Medicare.

Guests:

Wendell Potter, president of the Center for Health and Democracy, former vice president of corporate communications for Cigna, and author of Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans

Tricia Neuman, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, executive director of the Program on Medicare Policy, and senior advisor to the President