December 28 2008

Broadcast Date: 
Dec 28 2008

What can we expect from Rahm Emanuel, Obama's pick for White House chief of staff; the budget crisis in Albany; and Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

 

Episode segments
  • Rahm Emanuel: Formidable Fund Raiser. Formidable Enforcer.
    Foreign Policy, National Politics, Domestic Policy
    Chris Hayes is the Washington D.C. editor of The Nation.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Rahm Emanuel is widely regarded as a tough minded tactician with a "take no prisoners" style.  On domestic policy, his record (as White House policy director in the Clinton administration and since 2003 in the House of Representatives) is somewhat right of center.  He also has strong ties to Israel.  But while he has generally voted in favor of most bills supported by AIPAC, he's on occasion voted against them (sometimes on the same issue).  We ask Chis Hayes to read the tea leaves and tell us what Emanuel's appointment as Chief of Staff portends for the direction of an Obama administration.

     

  • Avoiding the Obvious: Governor Patterson's Reluctance to Tax the Rich
    New York Politics
    Frank Mauro is the Executive Director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, an independent research organization that focuses on tax, budget and economic public policy issues affecting the residents of New York State.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Despite having a Democratic majority in the New York State Legislature, Democratic Governor David Patterson's proposed executive budget places the burden for cutting a looming $13b plus budget deficit on everybody but the richest New Yorkers.  We talk with FPI's Frank Mauro about why Patterson's plan is not only unfair, but contrary to sound economic policy.

  • Israel Strikes Gaza: Hundreds Killed and Injured
    Israel/Palestine, Occupation

    Michel Warshawski is a founder of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem and the author of:

    • Toward an Open Tomb: The Crisis of Israeli Society (New York, 2004) 
    • On the Border (London, 2005)
    • The 33 Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (with Gilbert Achcar) (London, 2007) 
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    On Saturday, December 27th, Israeli warplanes launched a massive assault on Gaza--its largest offensive there since 1967-- killing and wounding hundreds of Palestinians, many of them civilians.  The Israel Defense Forces have announced plans to call 6,500 reservists to duty and have not ruled out a possible ground invasion. 

    We read excerpts from freelance journalist Ewa Jasiewicz's posting directly from Gaza and talk, by cell phone, with Michel Warshawski about Israel's long term planning for, and the motivations behind, this wildly disproportionate response to the end of the ceasefire with Hamas and the escalating rocket and morter fire from Gaza.