AirTalk brings you partisan analysis of what to expect from Attorney General Jeff Sessions' testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee before the open hearing today. We also debate the controversial Cadiz water project, which would pump water from the Mojave Desert for Southern California; discuss the reason ER visits in California increased under Obamacare; and more.
Looking ahead to Sessions open hearing on Russia, obstruction of justice
Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in an open hearing to answer questions about potential Trump campaign collusion with Russia, as well as whether Trump obstructed justice.
In March, the Washington Post reported that Sessions met with Russian envoys in 2016 and did not disclose this during his confirmation, after which Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. The Committee likely want to know more about those meetings, to assess whether they’re suspicious or within the realm of typical campaign procedure.
The Committee will also question him about the moment when Trump asked Sessions to leave the Oval Office so he could, according to Comey’s testimony, let go of the Flynn investigation.
We bring you up to speed and take you to conservative and liberal analysis of what to expect in the Committee hearing later today.
Guests:
Phil Ewing, national security editor for NPR; he tweets
Mike Fuchs, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; He served as deputy national security director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign
John Malcolm, vice president for the Institute for Constitutional Government at the Heritage Foundation; he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime, domestic security along with other areas
Checking in on the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial as jury enters second day of deliberations
Jurors in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial entered their second day of deliberations today.
The group reviewed more than a dozen passages from a deposition Cosby gave more than a decade ago. They heard excerpts covering a wide range of topics, from Cosby's first meeting with Andrea Constand to the night in 2004 she says he drugged and violated her.
Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting Constand, 44. His lawyer has said they were lovers sharing a consensual sexual encounter.
Cosby testified under oath more than a decade ago as part of Constand's civil suit against him. The 79-year-old entertainer did not take the stand at his trial, but prosecutors used his deposition testimony as evidence.
Constand testified for more than seven hours last week. If convicted, Cosby could spend the rest of his life in prison.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guest:
Bobby Allyn, reporter for NPR member station WHYY in Philadelphia who has been following the trial; he is outside of the courthouse in Norristown, PA; he tweets
Updating the current status of the Cadiz water project
The Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project has been in the works for decades, and was recently revitalized after the Trump administration rescinded a policy memorandum that prevented Cadiz, Inc, the company overseeing the project, from building a pipeline along a federal railroad right-of-way.
Cadiz, Inc.wants to pump groundwater from an aquifer in the Mojave Desert and sell it to water suppliers in Southern California using the Colorado River Aqueduct. The company and supporters of the project, which include a number of lawmakers and business/labor organizations, say the project will not only bring water to 400,000 people in Southern California, but also provide jobs and an economic stimulus with no impact to the environment.
But opponents, which include a number of environmental advocacy groups as well as California Senator Dianne Feinstein, have concerns about whether there really will be no impact to the desert environment, as Cadiz claims, and also worry the aquifer wouldn’t refill as quickly as the water was pumped out.
Guests:
Scott Slater, CEO and president of Cadiz, Inc.; he is also a partner at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Frazier Haney, conservation director with the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a non-profit organization that advocates for protecting the Mojave Desert ecosystem
Why are ER visit rates up in California, despite Obamacare?
Medi-Cal patients are swamping California emergency rooms in greater numbers than they did before the Affordable Care Act took effect, despite predictions that the health law would ease the burden on ERs.
Emergency room visits by people on Medi-Cal rose 75 percent over five years, from 800,000 in the first quarter of 2012 to 1.4 million in the last quarter of 2016, according to data recently released by the state’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. The most dramatic increase began roughly around the time the Affordable Care Act expanded health care benefits in January 2014.
More than five million Californians have gained coverage under Obamacare, either through the expansion of Medi-Cal, California’s version of the Medicaid program for low-income people, or by purchasing health plans from Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange.
Read the full story here.
Guests:
Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign; he tweets
Renee Hsia, professor of emergency medicine and health policy at UCSF; director of the policy lab for acute care & emergencies at UCSF; she’s an emergency physician who works at the San Francisco general hospital