Background Briefing (5am)

Background Briefing (5am) – June 7, 2024

The 80th Anniversary of D-Day and Today’s Struggle Against Tyranny

We begin with the remembrance today in Normandy, France on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, with a diminished number of veterans 100 years and older attending along with world leaders, including President Biden, who spoke of sacrifice in the name of freedom and democracy, as Ukraine defends itself against Putin’s aggression in the same struggle against tyranny the allies engaged in against Hitler. Joining us is Michel Paradis, a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and a leading human rights lawyer and national security law scholar. He has won high-profile cases around the globe, including some of the landmark cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Military Commission Defense Organization. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Last Mission to Tokyo, about war crimes trials in the Pacific after World War II. We discuss his latest book, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower, and his article at The Atlantic “On D-Day the U.S. conquered the British Empire.”

How Corporate Power and Technology Have Combined to Gouge Consumers

Then we speak with Lindsay Owens, the Executive Director of the Groundwork Collaborative. She regularly advises the White House and previously served as a senior economic policy adviser to Senator Elizabeth Warren and deputy chief of staff and legislative director to Representatives Keith Ellison and Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal. She is the author of the forthcoming book Gouged: The End of a Fair Price. We discuss her article at The American Prospect with David Dayen, “The Age of Recoupment: How power, technology, and opportunity have come together to gouge consumers.”

As Billionaires and Corporations Back Trump to Continue Tax Cuts For the Rich, Biden Needs to Make it Clear We Have a Revenue Not a Spending Problem and Make Them Pay

Then finally we speak with Jacob Hacker, a Professor of Political Science at Yale University and an expert on the politics of U.S. health and social policy. He is the co-author of a number of books with Paul Pierson, including the New York Times bestseller Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, as well as American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper. Their latest book is Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality. We discuss his article at The New York Times, “What Kind of Country Do You Want? Start With Taxes.”