Progressive Commentary Hour

Progressive Commentary Hour - 07/07/14

Special program on US’s involvement in the recent crises and changes in the Middle East – The Iraq Debacle and the new Islamic Caliphate

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award winning author, scholar, and geopolitical analyst, specializing on the Middle East and Central Asia. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, a contributor at the Strategic Cultural Foundation in Moscow and Voltaire Net, and is a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica in Italy. During the Arab Spring, Mah-dee reported from North Africa -- particularly in Libya during the NATO bombing -- providing dispatches to Global Research and Pacifica’s program Flashpoint. More recently his focus has been on the upheavals in Syria and Iraq and the role of the US in the Middle East’s instability

He is the author of “The Globalization of NATO” which has been hailed by multilateral leaders and foreign government ministers as a tout de force on the expansion of NATO and its threat to peace and global security.

Progressive Commentary Hour - 06/30/14

Special on US Failed Healthcare System  

Elizabeth Rosenthal, M.D. is a dermatologist and an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. She is an executive board member of the N.Y. Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. A very experienced advocate for single payer, upon her retirement after 40 years in private practice, Dr. Rosenthal has focused her energies on the state of U.S. health care and argued for the rationale of a single payer system. She has appeared on radio and television and she helped lead a fact-finding delegation to Canada to compare the Canadian system with the US.  Dr. Rosenthal received in medical degree from New York University’s School of Medicine.  

Dr. Michael Huntington is a retired oncologist and the former Medical Director of the Radiation Oncology Department at Good Samaritan Hospital in Corvallis Oregon where he currently resides. He is a founder of the Oregon Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program  -- that now has over 18,000 member physicians who favor single payer universal health coverage. IN 2009 Dr. Huntington helped create the Mad as Hell Doctors, who toured the US speaking in favor of single payer healthcare  reform before the passing of Obama’s plan. He is currently the president of the Health Care for All Oregon Education Fund. 

The Website for Physicians for a National Health Program is www.PNHP.org

Dr. Julian Whitaker is one of the nation’s most prominent and respected alternative medical practitioners and a specialist in orthomolecular medicine, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and anti-aging.  He has degrees from Dartmouth, Emory University School of Medicine and completed his orthomolecular surgical studies at the University of California at San Francisco. He is the founder of the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, California, which has served over 40,000 patients with comprehensive protocols involving diet, nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes.  Back in the 1970s, Dr. Whitaker co-founded the California Orthomolecular Medical Society along with Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling.

Dr. Whitaker is the author many books including “Mini Fast Diet”,  “Reversing Heart Disease” and   “Reversing Diabetes”   His websites are DrWhitaker.com  and WhitakerWellness.com

Progressive Commentary Hour - Big Energy’s Economic Threat to the Environment and American Society - 06/23/14

Richard Heinberg is widely regarded as one of the world’s experts in peak oil, its repercussions on the world economy, food and transportation, and the need to transition away from fossil fuels and create a more sustainable future. He is currently the Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. He was featured in Leonardo DiCaprio’s film “The Eleventh Hour” and frequently appears on major media networks to address our fossil fuel based culture and the future of climate change.   

Richard is the author of over ten books on oil depletion, energy economics, climate change and ecological issues, including “The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality.” His most recent publication is “Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future. His websites are RichardHeingberg.com AND   PostCarbon.org.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist who speaks and writes frequently on peak oil, energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to The Christian Science Monitor and has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen.  

Kurt’s writings have been featured on Resilience, The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Investing.com, Peak Oil Review, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, and many other sites. He is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas—USA, and has served on the board of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions.  

Kurt is a graduate of Stanford University and his novel “Prelude: A Novel About Secrets, Treachery and the Arrival of Peak Oil” is a startling reinterpretation of contemporary events and a window onto our energy future. His website is ResourceInsights.blogspot.com.

Kevin Kamps the specialist in Radioactive Waste Storage and nuclear facility operations for Beyond Nuclear, a non profit organization opposing nuclear power and weapons and advocating for safeguarding our future. For years he was a leader opposing the nuclear industry’s efforts to dump radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain Nevada and to challenge federal subsidies for new reactors and nuclear waste projects. He has traveled to Chernobyl which resulted in his founding a chapter of the International Chernobyl Children’s Project and continues to network with anti-nuclear groups across the nation protesting the relicensing of old decaying reactors and efforts to shut existing ones down. His website is www.BeyondNuclear.org.

Dr. Zane Selvans is a planetary geophysicist turned energy and climate policy wonk. He is currently the Director of Research and Policy at Clean Energy Action, a nonprofit based in Boulder Colorado where he focuses on coal supply issues, carbon and risk pricing, and renewable energy alternatives. He is has especially active in decarbonizing the city of Boulder’s electricity supply.   

Zane has a doctorate in geophysics from the University of Colorado and has worked at the university’s Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics and NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory and has done research on the climate of Mars and the techonics of Jupiter’s moon Europa. His organization’s website is CleanEnergyAction.org and his twitter is @ZaneSelvans

Progressive Commentary Hour - Peter Koenig - 06/16/14

Peter Koenig is a former economist and water resource specialist for the World, where he was employed for three decades. A native of Switzerland, Peter has traveled extensively throughout the world, especially thru South America, working on numerous World Bank development and environmental projects.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Voice of Russia, and is the author of a fictionalized novel based upon his work and observations with the World Bank -- “Implosion: An Economic Thriller About War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed.” 

Progressive Commentary Hour - 06/09/14

Dr. Andrew Wakefield (Andy) is an gastroenterologist and academician specializing in inflammatory bowel disease and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or MMR. He is a former Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and has published over 130 original scientific papers and book chapters. In 1998, he and his colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital in London reported a novel inflammatory bowel disease in children with developmental disorders such as autism.  Dr. Wakefield resisted pressure to stop his investigations into a possible link between vaccinations, intestinal inflammation and autism. In 2001 he was awarded the fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists and he has been a board member of the American charity Medical Interventions for Autism.   Dr. Wakefield is the co-founder and director of the Autism Media Channel which has been airing on different television stations – www.AutismMediaChannel.com. His book “Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines, The Truth Behind the Tragedy” published by Skyhorse Press recounts his research into autism, the MMR vaccine and GI illnesses and his legal struggles by government and medical health authorities to discredit him and his work.

Dr. David Lewis is a former senior research microbiologist with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Research and Development department and the only EPA scientist to be a lead author on research published in Nature, the Lancet and Nature Medicine. He was responsible for discovering that HIV could be transmitted through certain dental equipment, which led to the standardization of heat-sterilization in dentistry. His research also forced the EPA to abandon the policy of promoting sewage sludge on farms, which subsequently forced him to lose his job when he turned his attention to studying illnesses and deaths associated with this practice – including biosolids link to autism.  Dr. Lewis has received many awards and is currently the Senior Science Advisor to the national Whistleblowers Center. He has also reviewed the research of Dr. Wakefield, which was provided to him personally by Andy, and has his own case going with Brian Deer.  He is the author of a recently published book:  “Science for Sale” which details how the US government uses powerful corporations and leading universities to support policies, silence top scientists, jeopardize public health and protect corporate profits.  

Dawn Loughborough is the President of the D.A.I.R. Foundation, a non profit organization dedicated to defending the interests of physicians and scientific researchers working in the best interest of public and environmental health, and whose research has been suppressed.  DAIR has been supporting and generating funds for Dr. Wakefield’s legal case. She is also the Principal of the Enterprise Solutions Group, a consulting firm providing IT solutions to the healthcare industry.  Dawn has three children, two who were injured following vaccination.  She has a Masters degree in Law Education from the University of Baltimore and a degree in journalism from Indian University.  Her website is DairFoundation.org.

Progressive Commentary Hour - 06/02/14

Dr. Mark Weisbrot is the co-director, with Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington DC, specializing in domestic and international economic policy and US economic relations with Latin America. He writes weekly column for the Guardian Unlimited in the UK and is a frequently contributor on economic policy issues for McClatchy news services and Brazil’s largest newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. Mark is also the President of Just Foreign Policy, an independent non profit organization dedicated to reforming US foreign policy based upon diplomacy, cooperation and international law. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan and co-wrote the screenplay with Tariq Ali (Tar-eek Al-ee) for Oliver Stone’s film “South of the Border” – about leftist governments in Latin America. His organization’s website where you can find his writings is CEPR.org.

Progressive Commentary Hour - 05/26/14

Peter Dale Scott is a former professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley (where he was also the co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program), a recognized poet, and a former Canadian diplomat and a scholar and author on the domestic and international political issues including taxation, war and conflict, the drug trade, the politics of oil and the assassination of JFK. His theory of “deep politics”, a term Peter coined, was descriptive as a more realistic way of objectively looking at evidence that would otherwise be characterized as “conspiratorial” in the main stream media. He is the author of “The Road to 911”, published in 2007, and more recently has published two volumes in a new series: “The War Conspiracy: JK, 911 and The Deep Politics of War” AND America War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan” Peter was also one of the witnesses to appear at the International Hearings on 911 in Toronto. His website is PeterDaleScott.net.   

Prof. James Tracy is an associate professor in the Department of Communications at Florida Atlantic University where he specializes in media history and analysis, the politics of communications, and the sociology behind commercial and alternative news media in communicating current events. He received significant notoriety for his criticism of the news coverage of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. He holds a doctorate in Mass Communications from the University of Iowa and is closely affiliated with Project Censored and is a regular contributor to GlobalResearch as well as other alternative news outlets, academic journals and book chapters. James’ writings and articles can be found on his blog MemoryHoleBlog.com. 

Kris Millegan is a publisher, writer and musician. He is the founder and chief editor of TrineDay Books, a publishing house founded to serve as a vehicle to get suppressed publications and controversial authors to the market and reach a wider audience. Trineday publishes well-researched and insightful investigations and analyses on alternative interpretations to historical events that might otherwise being called conspiracy theories. Many of Trineday’s authors have appeared on this program over the years. In the past Kris collaborated with investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker on his book Barry and Boys: The CIA, the Mob and Amerca’s Secret History. He is also the author of “Fleshing Out Skull and Bones: Investigations into America’s Most Powerful Secret Society.” Kris’ father was employed in secret operations with the OSS in the Pacific, primarily in the Philippines, and later served as the Branch Chief Head of the CIA’s East Asia Office before leaving the agency in 1959. It was through Kris’ association with his father that an interest in covert operations sparked him him early and lead to the creation of TrineDay. The website is TrineDay.net

Progressive Commentary Hour - US Intrusion in Ukraine - 05/12/14

A special discussion on the US intrusion in Ukraine with guests Ray McGovern, Coleen Rowley, Peter van Buren, and Dr. Michael MacMichael.

Progressive Commentary Hour - 05/05/14

An in-depth investigative report on psychiatric drugs. 

Progressive Commentary Hour - Dr. Bart Billings & Vera Sharav - 04/28/14

Dr. Bart Billings is a retired Army Colonel, a former military psychologist and founder and director of both the military-wide Human Assistance Rapid Response Team Program to deal with combat stress and the International Military and Civilian Combat Stress Conference, which has been in existence for 21 years. He initiated the Congressional Hearing in February 2010 to tackle the growing relationship between psychiatric medication and the rise in military suicides. In 2014, Dr. Billings was awarded the Human Rights Award from the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights for his diligent efforts to bring greater public attention and awareness of the failures of modern drug-based psychiatry. Dr Billings has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including ABC’s Night Line and US News and World Report. He is currently completing a book on health and nutrition, The Psychology of Eating, and continues his advocacy for an integrative, wellness approach to combat stress and mental disorders to replace the current military psychiatric paradigm.

Vera Sharav is the Founder and President of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a national human rights and public interest information organization that exposes unethical research practices biomedical field, which undermine the dignity and rights and safety of people. Vera is particularly expert in the hidden dangers of psychotropic drugs and corporate and federal malfeasance in downplaying and/or ignoring their hazards. Her efforts in the past have resulted in the suspension of the EPA's pesticide experiments on children, exposing experimental AIDS drugs and vaccines in foster homes and standing up against Eli Lilly in federal court over the association of Zyprexa and diabetes. Her advocacy has been featured in the Boston Globe and has resulted in the cessation of 29 clinical trials at the NIH. Her articles and investigations can be found on the Alliance's website at AHRP.org.