KALW News

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday Media Roundtable. This week, we'll continue with our coverage of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the targeting of immigrants involved in oil clean up. We'll also talk about coverage of the Gaza-bound Flotilla and California election results. We'll be joined by investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal in Tel Aviv, Color Line's Brentin Mock, and journalist Joe Mathews.

Original article.

Peter Beinart, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, discusses how the attack on the "Freedom Flotilla" affect Israel's relations with the world on KALW's Your Call

New America's Lisa Margonelli--journalist and author of Oil on the Brain: Adventures from Pump to Pipeline -- joins panelists on KALW's Your Call to country's oil rigs, how they operate, and the long-term human and environmental consequences of oil spills.

Original piece.

Steven Hill is the director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation, and he’s author of “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age.” He found that across most of the continent, European healthcare costs are lower and coverage more comprehensive than in the United States.

Time for a California Constitutional Convention? On the Next Your Call, we'll continue our week-long series on California's economic crisis. What would it take to call a constitutional convention in California, and what could be achieved?

Steven Hill, director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation, is a featured guest. Link to audio

How did California's budget crisis happen? On the next Your Call, we continue our week long series about California's economic crisis by focusing on how we got here in the first place. The State has a 24 billion dollar budget deficit. What caused it? Overspending? The state's tax system? Prop 13? The 2/3 majority requirement?

Guests:
Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association

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Low income families often end up going to check cashing outlets rather than banks. For the last 5 years or so, check cashers and payday loan companies have played the role of villain in news stories. They were the bad guys for charging ridiculously high interest rates and for ripping off the poor. But in a recent story in the New York Times Magazine check cashing tycoon Tom Nix appeared in the role of hero rather than villain.