FROM IAN MASTER'S BACKGROUND BRIEFING

August 11 - Is Iraq Unravelling? Is the Natural Gas Boom Contributing to Global Warming; The Mediocre Mind Behind Tea Party Philosophy

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Part 1	We begin with the rising death toll in what appears to be a resumption of the Sunni/Shia civil war in Iraq that General Petraeus’s much-praised “surge” was supposed to have ended. Iraq expert Juan Cole joins us to discuss the impact that the Syrian civil war is having on the restive Sunni Anbar province on the Syrian border that has become a haven for jihadists of the so-called Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Part 2	Then we assess the extent to which the much-touted shift to cheap and abundant natural gas as a less-polluting source of energy that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming is a lie. Deborah Goldberg, the Managing Attorney at Earthjustice joins us to discuss how the benefits of the natural gas boom that has the U.S. surpassing Russia as the world’s biggest producer, are offset by the leakage of methane from “fracking” which causes seepage of methane, a far more damaging greenhouse gas thirty times worse than CO2.
Part 3	Then finally, with the leadership of the Republican House unable to calm their own caucus threatening to shut down the government again, we look into the philosophical underpinning of the Tea Party radicals bent on sabotaging the government no matter what the consequences are for the nation. Michael Lind, the co-founder of the New America Foundation and author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States” joins us to discuss his latest article at Salon, “How Did Ayn Rand Become a Hero of Right-Wing Nerds Everywhere?”