The Heat is On–In the White House

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With Congress going on break, the White House is going into campaign mode to sell healthcare reform, under a new name: Health Insurance Reform. In the background are falling approval ratings for the President, continuing job losses and the politically explosive issue of Wall Street Bonuses.  We speak with Rick Klein, senior political reporter for ABC News and author of the ABC Blog, The Note.

Planning the Withdrawal from Iraq

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A U.S. soldier carries a fan as U.S. troops prepare to leave their military base in Qurna, north of Basra, Iraq. (AP)

Violence is down in Iraq but still persistent, and ethnic tensions continue to simmer.  Meanwhile, the United States is looking ahead, planning for a scheduled withdrawal of combat troops from the country in two years. We speak with Major General Kenneth Dowd.

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Night Owl Classes

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This fall, Bunker Hill Community College will offer two classes between 11:45 pm and 2:30 am. That’s 2:30 in the morning! The college’s president, Mary Fifield, says the school is bursting at the seams with students partly because of the down economy.  She says these night owl classes will provide an opportunity for people who work and can’t go to school during normal hours.

It’s The Wilderness, Stupid

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First introduced in 1991, The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act is up before Congress again. The legislation would designate as “wilderness” more than 20 million acres of land in the mountain west. It has 90 co-sponsors in Congress, but is unlikely to ever come up for a vote. Joining us to explain why is Bill Schneider, outdoor editor at the online magazine NewWest.net.

German World War II Resistance

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The Red Orchestra was the name given by the Gestapo to a group of German intellectuals, artists and upper level bureaucrats who worked against Hitler during World War II. The Red Orchestra helped Jewish friends escape, circulated pamphlets against Hitler, and provided intelligence to the Soviet Union. However, post World War II, their work was both misrepresented and then largely forgotten.  We speak to Anne Nelson who writes about the group in the new book “Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends who resisted Hitler.”

Music from the show

• Air, “Mike Mills”
• Ahmad Jamal, “Patterns”
• The Wee Trio, “About a Girl”
• Steely Dan, “My Old School”
• Peter Dixon, “Nagog Woods”
• Herbie Hancock, “Watermelon Man”