Summary: How far can a President go to defend the nation? This program examines the unprecedented presidential power that some say has been amassed by the Bush administration-and wielded, often secretly, in the name of national security. Bill Moyers gets perspective from two experts on the limits and abuses of federal power: Charles Fried, who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard Law School and served...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: During the 1980s, a new civil rights movement got underway-for people with disabilities. In this program, Larry Paradis, executive director of Disability Rights Advocates, speaks with NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels about the importance of litigation in pressuring companies and communities to comply with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But are such legal actions actually...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why have America's health care costs skyrocketed? In this NBC News program, Tom Brokaw follows several cases at Staten Island University Hospital as he explores reasons behind financial turmoil in the U.S. health-care system. Among the patients: a 24-year-old man with no insurance who lost both legs in the Staten Island Ferry accident of October 2003. Another victim: a 62-year-old woman with a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Each year, more than one million people try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, contending with dangerous forces that prey on their hopes and exploit their gullibility. This program exposes the most painful, disturbing, and hidden dimension of illegal immigration: the growing black market trade in human beings. Shedding light on the poverty that causes so many to risk everything by leaving their...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Pro-life advocates have waged a successful campaign to reduce abortions throughout the country, using state laws to regulate and limit the procedure and creating clinics offering alternatives. This Frontline documentary investigates the steady decline in the number of physicians and facilities carrying out abortions and focuses on local political battles in the states-particularly Mississippi,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: One government service after another has been turned over to private business for a profit. In this program, Bill Moyers Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports examine a whistleblower's tale of military housing contracts gone awry as Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Eric Nalder reveals what happens when one private contractor drops the ball. In addition, Bill Moyers talks with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: How much do American and Canadian citizens really understand about the personal, social, and economic struggles of undocumented workers? This program deepens that understanding, providing an intimate look inside the lives of two non-status migrant laborers. Geraldo, a Costa Rican construction worker, and Angela, a Caribbean domestic employee, describe their experiences with labor exploitation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When it comes to situations involving life and death, the United States is strongly polarized. Liberals commonly support the legality of abortion as a private matter of personal choice but condemn the death penalty as inhumane, while conservatives often support execution as a form of justice but denounce abortion as legalized murder. How did these points of view become a part of the ideologies...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: One of the most dreaded weapons in the terrorist's arsenal can be delivered in a paper envelope. Vividly exploring situations that public officials, health care workers, and law enforcement personnel would have to confront in the event of a biological attack, a panel of experts wrestles with questions that have gone largely unanswered in the public record: Who among America's leadership is in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Critics of affirmative action say that it pits Americans against each other and elevates the importance of race, gender, and ethnicity at the expense of hard work and merit. Supporters claim that discrimination remains pervasive in the U.S. and that the government must continue to play a role in aiding minorities and women. This program explores the historical roots of affirmative action and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: To many, worrying about constitutional rights seemed like an archaic luxury while Ground Zero was still smoking. The need for tighter homeland security made civil liberties take a back seat to urgent measures such as the USA PATRIOT Act designed to defend America from terrorists. But two years later, that piece of legislation came under fire from both the left and the right. In this ABC News...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The path Steven Rockefeller has taken on his intellectual and spiritual journey would very likely surprise his great-grandfather, the tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Sr. A convert to Buddhism, Steven Rockefeller has been teaching Religion at Middlebury College in Vermont for almost 20 years. Centering on what he calls "the democratic reconstruction of religion," Rockefeller has steeped himself in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: As the controversy over intelligent design and science education heats up, open-minded discussion about the issue can be in short supply. This ABC News program sorts through arguments on both sides, examines the debate in the context of America's larger political climate, and explores its fundamental questions: Are evolution and I.D. incompatible? Is exposure to both ideas harmful or beneficial...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Do American schools adequately prepare students to take part in society? Can a complacent, ill-informed public trace its problems back to the nation's classrooms? This program examines the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on the ability of public education to involve students in civic and governmental processes. Filmed in economically and culturally diverse schools, the program includes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Year by year the tourist trade has dwindled in fictional Pingwah Falls, leaving the town practically bankrupt. When a plan was unveiled for a modern resort, everyone's hopes rose.until they learned the land is home to a threatened species of bird. In this Fred Friendly Seminar moderated by Harvard Law School's Arthur Miller, panelists including former county supervisor Tom Mullen; Christopher...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey is making his case for a refocused mission in Iraq. The 9/11 Commission member and Vietnam war veteran tells Bill Moyers why having U.S. military forces in Iraq is necessary in fighting terrorism, but calls for a bipartisan plan to end U.S. policing and occupation in the war-torn nation. Also on the program: Joan Claybrook, one of Washington's most...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Amidst historic economic failures, this edition of the Journal takes an in-depth look at what led to the financial meltdown, what it means for American families, and how it may affect voters in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Bill Moyers speaks with prescient political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, author of Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: As headlines trumpet cases of children becoming “lost”—and in some cases, dying—while in the care of the state or when the state does not act promptly to take custody, child welfare policies have come under intense questioning. But the answers are not simple. This award-winning Fred Friendly Seminar is presented in collaboration with the Institute for Child and Family Policy at Columbia...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: By 2015, homelessness may be a thing of the past in Portland, Oregon. Taking a "housing first" stance, Portland has reversed the cause-and-effect approach to urban renewal by first securing homes for its homeless residents and then helping them solve the problems that made them homeless to begin with. In this program, Victoria, British Columbia, applies Portland's public policy to its own...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Jackson, Mississippi-a city only grazed by Hurricane Katrina-thousands of African-Americans face conditions familiar to the people of New Orleans. This NBC News documentary looks at problems that persist in Jackson and other American cities, despite progress, decades after the civil rights movement. Following several students at an inner city Jackson high school over the course of an...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are advocates of the intelligent design theory really creationists in disguise? To what extent has the I.D. argument widened America's cultural divide? And if a clear winner emerges, who loses? This program thoroughly examines those questions, describing the theory's quasi-scientific origins and documenting the Pennsylvania court battle over teaching I.D. in biology classes. A historical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: America's healthcare system frequently leaves patients feeling shortchanged, while physicians are forced to overdose on paperwork and managed care companies are helpless to cap their soaring costs. What is the future of this system, as the tidal wave of Baby Boomers surges toward retirement? This program analyzes the symptoms of America's healthcare ills and suggests a prescription for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1991, Rick Walker was wrongly convicted of murder and spent the next 12 years in prison. This program tells the story of his exoneration and the political struggle to secure financial compensation for him from the state of California. In addition to an interview with Walker himself, the film presents detailed conversations with key players in his case and the partisan budget battle over...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Do Americans still hold certain truths to be self-evident? Do all human beings possess inalienable rights endowed by their creator? Are all lives of equal value? And if so, how do those core beliefs translate into public policy on issues such as healthcare, poverty, abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia? This program explores what the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin called a "consistent...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006