Keystone Pipeline: Zakaria v. Sierra Club
In the latest episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS, Fareed debates the virtue of the Keystone pipeline project with the executive director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune. Zakaria opens the show with “Fareed’s Take,” where he argues in favor of the pipeline (3:54). He then brings in the representative of the Sierra Club for the counterargument (1:18).
The Ivory Tower Half Hour: Sequestration and Hugo Chavez’s Death
Hosted by Barbara Fought, Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, this powerhouse panel of Tim Byrnes (Colgate University), Bob Greene (Cazenovia College), Bob Spitzer (SUNY Cortland), and Tara Ross (Onondaga County Community College), and discuss the fall out of the Sequester and the death of Hugo Chavez.
This video runs approximately 27 minutes.
This episode of This American Life discusses how one Oklahoma legislator used political chicanery to pass expanded access to preschool. (21 minutes)
David Strauss: “Campaign Finance First Principles”
University of Chicago Law Professor David Strauss discusses how an ideal democracy would regulate its elections. Strauss argues that the problem with American campaign finance laws stems from a fundamental distinction that the Supreme Court made in Buckley v. Valeo– between equality and corruption. Buckley held that the only legitimate end of campaign finance reforms laws was to prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption. However, equalizing candidates ability to be influential is not a legitimate interest of campaign finance reform. The Court held that “the concept that government may restrict the speech of some [in] order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.”
Strauss says that this was the original sin of the Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence. “Equalization” is precisely what campaign finance reform law should do.
It is a law lecture that is 57:55 min.
Yesterday, Syracuse Truce had another call-in notification with Syracuse Gang members. The media was permitted to record part of the notification. Dolce Collette Lloyd, the president of Mothers Against Gun Violence, discusses the lingering pain of her son’s murder. It is gut-wrenching and tragic, but worth hearing (1:51).