There is no crisis for Social Security funding, in spite of what we hear from politicians and news media.  Nancy Altman of  Social Security Works explains why we keep hearing about this phony crisis in this conversation with the Old Mole's Bill Resnick.  Altman has been studying Social Security for thirty years and is the author of The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble.   

(The graph shows that by 2023, the Social Security surplus is estimated to grow to $4.3 trillion.)

Both the attack on the flotilla and the siege of Gaza are illegal, argues George Bisharat in this succinct article from Counterpunch, read here by Old Mole Tom Becker.   

 In this conversation from their series The Left and the Law, attorney Mike Snedeker and psychologist Jan  Haaken explore the enormous economic and human costs of the prison system and some of the reasons why we continue to bear those costs.  Mike and Jan earlier discussed Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  To hear that discussion, click here.   

 Investigative film maker Joe Berlinger talks with the Old Mole's Wendy Webb about his new film Crude. The film details the Amazon oil disaster that is the subject of the largest environmental law suit in history.  Berlinger has made many award-winning documentary films.  

This edition of the Mole is hosted by Tom Becker, and its topics include the future of Social Security, Israel's  impunity from the law, problems of the prison system and what can be done about them, and the havoc wreaked upon the forests and the people by Texaco-Chevron in the Ecuadorian Amazon.  

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