US President Barack Obama and Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney debate on October 16, 2012 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Undecided voters asked questions during a town hall format. Credit: STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

The final presidential debate in the knockdown, drag out fight that is Campaign 2012 is tonight in Boca Raton, Florida. Round three will be a foreign policy discussion hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Mitt Romney won the first debate, but President Obama came back strong in the rematch. That makes tonight’s showdown a tie breaker of sorts.

Foreign policy isn’t generally considered Romney’s strong suit, so a victory tonight could be just the boost he needs to finally turn those very close poll numbers decisively his way. The Commander-in-chief might be more in his element, but given the complexity of foreign policy issues, the temptation to get professorial and long-winded will be great, which could cost Obama some much needed traction.

Will the candidates get specific about their foreign policy prescriptions? Who will take charge of the Libya issue in this debate? What questions should Schieffer ask Obama and Romney?

Guest:

Ron Elving, Senior Washington Editor for NPR; also writes the "Watching Washington" column for NPR.org

Tim Mak, Defense Reporter for POLITICO

A damaged building shown following the 2009 earthquake in the village of Onna. Credit: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

Scientists in Italy have been convicted of multiple manslaughter after a 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila killed 309 people. The six Italian scientists and one former government official were accused of providing falsely reassuring statements after initial tremors hit the area. Should scientists and government officials be held accountable for natural disasters? Are they responsible for providing correct information in unpredictable situations? In the event of a major earthquake here in Southern California, would you hold local officials responsible for damage and casualties?

Guest:

Tom Jordan, professor of Earth Sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC)

DELRAY BEACH, FL - OCTOBER 23: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally at the Delray Beach Tennis Center on October 23, 2012 in Delray Beach, Florida. Obama continues to campaign across the U.S. in the run-up to the November 6, presidential election. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

President Obama is a big advocate of change, and his shot at reshaping the country is only the latest effort in modern liberalism’s long-running attempt to reinvent America by changing citizens’ relationship to their government.

Like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, he is leading a fourth wave of liberalism, one that has expanded the reach and cost of government. Now, as voters gear up for November 6th, the fortunes of President Obama and the democrats are intertwined and uncertain.

Will his gamble on healthcare pay off? Is liberalism on its last legs, or about to be reborn? Has either party really figured out who Barack Obama really is?

Guest:

Charles R. Kesler, author of “I Am Change: Barack Obama and the crisis of liberalism;” is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, and the editor of the Claremont Review of Books. He is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy

Bottles of energy drink, Monster, lie on display at a market March 6, 2006 in Des Plaines, Illinois. A new study reportedly links sugary sodas and drinks to the obesity epidemic. Credit: Tim Boyle/Getty Images

Federal health officials are investigating reports of energy drink-related medical problems. Since 2009, five deaths and one heart attack have been linked to consumption of Monster energy drinks.

The federal investigation follows the most recent fatality: a Maryland family is suing the company for negligence and the wrongful death of their 14-year-old daughter, who went into cardiac arrest after consuming two cans of the energy drink. The coroner’s report showed that her minor, underlying heart condition was aggravated by caffeine, and that she died of caffeine toxicity.

Monster’s labeling warns of high caffeine content, and as of next December will include warnings about dangers to children, pregnant women, and people with caffeine sensitivity. How extensive should labeling on highly caffeinated beverages be? How can children’s consumption of potentially dangerous drinks be monitored or prevented?

Guests:

David Stewart, professor of marketing at Loyola Marymount University

Katherine Mangu-Ward, managing editor for Reason Magazine

President Barack Obama debates with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Oct. 22, 2012 at the start of the third presidential debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney face off in another feisty debate last night at Lynn University in Boca Raton. Romney and Obama debated foreign policy, with a heavy focus on relations in the Middle East.

The candidates went in swinging, with Obama more aggressive than in the previous two debates, but they tended to agree on many foreign policy issues. Some post-debate analysis and a remark from Obama during the debate drew attention to Romney’s apparent “endorsement” of the President’s foreign policy. Although moderator Bob Schieffer tried to steer the conversation towards issues abroad, both candidates drew discussion back to domestic concerns and the economy, where their differences are more pronounced.

How will the foreign policy debate shape the election? Do Obama’s and Romney’s plans for foreign policy differ significantly enough to matter to voters? Which issues will resonate most now that the three debates are over?

Guest

Eugene Kiely, deputy director, FactCheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center

Mike Shuster, diplomatic correspondent and roving foreign correspondent, NPR News

Elizabeth Saunders, Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars & Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University

KPCC is broadcasting live from the Serving Spoon in Inglewood. Come tell us what issues matter to you this election season. Credit: Eric Zassenhaus/KPCC

As part of KPCC’s continuing online project That’s My Issue, KPCC Reporter Frank Stoltze drops into Inglewood’s Serving Spoon restaurant. In between bites of rich soul food, he’ll ask Citizen Joe and Jane to dish on politics. With polling day coming soon, what’s your issue?

Guest:

Frank Stoltze, KPCC Reporter

A voter places her ballot into a ballot box after voting for the midterm elections at Los Angeles County Lifeguard headquarters on November 2, 2010 in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

California voters may feel besieged by the host of campaign wars being waged over next month’s state ballot measures, but the battle over Proposition 40 stopped before it ever started. The measure is a referendum asking voters whether or not they want to keep newly drawn state Senate districts established by an independent remapping commission, which also happens to put Republicans at risk of losing seats.

After spending $2 million to get the proposition on the ballot in the hopes of eliminating the new districts, Republican lawmakers and activists dropped their campaign supporting the referendum following a January state Supreme Court ruling that validated the redrawn districts.

In the official 2012 state ballot pamphlet, Julie Vandermost, chairwoman of Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR), which had called for the referendum, wrote “Due to the State Supreme Court's ruling … we have suspended our campaign and no longer seek a NO vote.”

The California Republican Party, which helped pay to put the measure on the ballot, is also telling voters to disregard the organization's original campaign and vote to keep the new maps.

Bob Stern, the former President of the Center for Governmental Studies, a group based in LA, tells us that even though the Republicans originally wanted to reject the redistricting plan, since they have withdrawn their support, “everybody is saying vote yes. There is nobody against this proposition.”

So why did the Republicans withdraw their support? Stern says that since the Supreme Court ruled that the new district lines would be kept anyway, the Republicans “wanted to spend their money on other things.”

Guest:

Bob Stern, the former President of the Center for Governmental Studies, a group based in LA, that studied redistricting among other governmental process issues

Students perform dance routines to the song 'Macarena' on the dancefloor at St James' Park on July 1, 2011 in Newcastle, United Kingdom. Credit: Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images

Move over Breakfast Club kids, the “in crowd” still rules the world. This, according to new research that finds that popular high school students earn more than their freaks and geeks counterparts decades after graduation. Researchers crunched data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a survey of over 10,000 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high school in 1957.

Back in 1957, the students were asked to list three people they considered to be their best friends. Those students, whose names were written down the most, were deemed the most popular. Decades later, the researchers have followed up with them to see what they could learn about the impact of popularity then and now. Turns out, those popular kids were more likely to have come from “warm family environments,” to have been smarter than their peers and to have been somewhat more affluent.

Today, those same people are earning two percent more than their peers. Does this mean that our dearly-held Revenge of the Nerds fantasies are just that – fantasies? Is there anything the rest of us can do to buck this trend?

Guests:

Sarah Kliff, reporter, Washington Post

Inmates at Chino State Prison walk the hallway on December 10, 2010 in Chino, California. Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

California prison officials are trying a new tack to stop cell phone use by inmates. They are trying to block cell phone signals, but the technology has failed when used in other states. Every year, thousands of cell phones are confiscated in California prisons.

Inmates use them for various and nefarious reasons - ordering hits and managing gang activity from the inside out. How the phones get in is just as varied and shadowy. Evidence and testimony from officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) show that staff members smuggle in phones for a lucrative profit.

Yet, corrections officers are not searched when they show up for work. Some reports say it would violate their contract, others say the state doesn't want to pay for the shift time resulting from searches. What is the best way to stop cell phones in prisons? Why aren't corrections officers searched?

Guests:

Rina Palta, KPCC reporter

Ryan Sherman, spokesperson for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA)

Musician Donald Fagen of The Dukes of September Rhythm Revue performs at the Gibson Amphitheatre on June 28, 2012 in Universal City, California. Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The band Steely Dan made a name for itself by creating a highbrow brand of slick, funky rock music that was heavily influenced by jazz. The core of the band has always been a duo comprised of singer and pianist Donald Fagen and guitarist Walter Becker, but the hallmark of their records is a seldom matched level of perfectionism in the recording studio - a characteristic which sometimes meant that any given song would feature performances by dozens of musicians.

After Steely Dan’s popularity peaked in the late 1970s, Becker and Fagen would step away from the band and return to it multiple times for tours and the occasional album, but they were anything but prolific. The band’s 2000 album “Two Against Nature” won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. Steely Dan followed it up with “Everything Must Go” three years later but the band hasn’t released anything since 2003. But Steely Dan fans can rejoice.

Last week, Fagen released “Sunken Condos,” his fourth solo album since 1982 and first since 2006. The album is replete with Fagen’s unique brand of wry lyrics, as well the kind of dry and meticulous production and complex chord structures that fans of his music will find familiar. What makes Donald Fagen and Steely Dan albums so instantly recognizable?

Guest:

Donald Fagen, musician, songwriter and co-founder of the Grammy Award-winning act, Steely Dan; his fourth album, Sunken Condos, was released on October 16th, 2012

Credit: Michael Blann/Getty Images

The gender gap isn’t closed when it comes to equal pay: a new study of recent graduates shows a demonstrable difference in wages between women and men who are just entering the workforce. The study by the American Association of University Women meant to capture men and women at their most equivalent stages in life, and showed that young college-educated women earn only 82% of what their male peers are making.

The results of the study are indicative of a larger trend in pay disparity: in every state, women, college educated or not, make only about 55- to 80-percent as much money as men, despite attending and graduating college in higher numbers and earning better grades. As election day approaches, President Obama and Mitt Romney are both vying for the women’s vote.

The first bill that President Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act, and the President has been consistently in the lead with female voters. In the second debate, he cited the rising number of female breadwinners and argued that pay equality is an economic issue and a family issue, not just a women’s issue.

Although Romney has made efforts and strides towards catching up, touting his hiring processes as Governor of Massachusetts, he still trails in polls of female voters. How can America close the wage gap? Will this issue play an important role in the election? How might truly equal pay change the nation?

Guest:

Lisa M. Maatz,director of public policy and government relations, American Association of University Women

Andrew Biggs, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

A view of the California State Prison at San Quentin May 15, 2009. San Quentin houses California's male death row. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Proposition 34, a measure on the November 6th ballot, would replace California’s death penalty with life without parole. Proponents of the bill say that the switch would save the state tens of millions of dollars every year, and potentially correct unjust racial imbalances in sentencing.

The choice may seem obvious for voters who oppose the death penalty, but some opponents of Prop. 34 say that the funding cuts proposed in the bill eliminate many of the options that death row inmates currently have, including access to a lawyer to help prove their innocence. Inmates would have to file their own claims, rely on volunteers, or petition a judge to order the state to pay for legal costs.

They may not be able to vote, but some of California’s 725 death row inmates also oppose the bill – many said they would rather protect the death penalty and the funding that grants them legal aid than spend life in prison. Donations have rolled in consistently from supporters of Prop. 34, but a recent poll says that only 42% of voters favor the measure.

Prop Breakdown
Official Title — End the Death Penalty Initiative

Repeal the death penalty as maximum punishment for persons found guilty of murder and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Apply retroactively to persons already sentenced to death.
Require persons found guilty of murder to work while in prison, with their wages to be applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them.
Create a $100 million fund to be distributed to law enforcement agencies to help solve more homicide and rape cases.

Should California overturn the death penalty? How would the financial details of the proposition affect inmates and citizens? With hundreds of convictions being overturned by groups like the Innocence Project, is it ethical to restrict access to lawyers for prisoners with lifelong sentences?

Guest:

Gil Garcetti, Yes on 34 campaign; former District Attorney of Los Angeles

Steve Cooley, No on 34 campaign; current District Attorney of Los Angeles County

Credit: Linda Braucht/Getty Images/SuperStock RM

With the 2010 Citizens United decision, the United States Supreme Court radically changed campaign finance by removing restrictions on political expenditures by corporations and labor unions. The decision also saw the rise of the super PAC - a kind of high powered political action committee that could spend with impunity so long as it didn’t coordinate with actual political campaigns.

Initially, many Republicans were in support of the new paradigm due to their traditionally larger number of wealthy backers, but Democrats quickly learned to turn their disadvantage into an edge by focusing their spending on a smaller number of vulnerable Republican candidates. The result has been an unprecedented torrent of negative ads from both parties - more than any year to date, according to firms like Kantar Media that track political advertising.

With two more weeks until voters head the polls the onslaught of negative ads is bound to get worse. Now that Republican candidates have experienced what unfettered and uncoordinated campaign spending looks like, several lawmakers are working on proposals to try and put the campaign spending genie a little bit back in the bottle, or at least impose some restrictions designed to provide oversight.

California Rep. Dan Lungren has been one such Republican who has been in the crosshairs of his unrestricted opponents’ spending, and he has penned legislation designed to make campaign messages more the purview of the campaigns themselves. But how will new laws be able to change the post-Citizens United reality? What, exactly, will campaign finance reform look like after November 6th?

Guest:

David Keating, President of the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonprofit that advocates for unlimited spending on political campaigns

A pharmacist pours Truvada pills back into the bottle at Jack's Pharmacy on November 23, 2010 in San Anselmo, California. A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine showed that men who took the daily antiretroviral pill Truvada significantly reduced their risk of contracting HIV. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

If you happen to come across medical study results that claim a treatment has a “very large effect,” those results are likely either exaggerated or flat out wrong, according to researchers at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.

A statistical analysis of nearly 230,000 trials led by Dr. John Ioannidis, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 90 percent of studies showing "very large effects” in initial reports on medical treatments are less effective or nonexistent when additional trials are conducted. Dr. Ioannidis attributes this misleading trend to a variety of causes including the fact that many studies’ sample sizes are too small and that the results are often based on intermediate effects only.

How surprising is it that the allegedly dramatic effects achieved by many medical treatments are exaggerated or false? What can medical professionals do differently to avoid making false claims about treatments?

Guest:

Dr. John Ioannidis, MD, Professor of Medicine and Health Research & Policy, Stanford University's School of Medicine; Co-author, "Empirical Evaluation of Very Large Treatment Effects of Medical Interventions," published in The Journal of the American Medical Association this week

Dr. Ivan Oransky, MD, Executive Editor, Reuters Health; teaches medical journalism at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program; co-creator of the blog Retraction Watch focused on retractions of studies in science journals

Echo Park residents held a community meeting about a recent stabbing police are investigating as a hate crime. Credit: Erika Aguilar/KPCC

County officials are releasing a report today that shows a 15% jump in hate crimes in 2011. The spike follows three straight years of decline in hate crimes in Los Angeles. Even so, the 489 incidents last year was the second-lowest number in 20 years.

The commission that issued the report found that 49% of the hate crimes were motivated by race. Among them, a significant majority of the attacks on African-Americans were committed by Latino suspects (65%). Sexual orientation accounted for 25% of crimes, and religion 24%.

This doesn’t just mean violent crime: in California, hate speech is considered a crime when there’s a specific threat of violence against a person or group of people based on their race, sexual orientation or gender, among other protected classes; graffiti targeted towards those classes is also considered a crime. But are these valid measures?

Has the designation of “hate crime” become overused? Is it right to punish two crimes with equal effects differently on the basis of the perpetrator’s “intent?” Should some of these acts, however offensive, be punished as typical crimes? What accounts for the rise in numbers? Are there specific groups or people targeted in L.A. County?

Guests:

Robin S. Toma, executive director, Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission

James. B. Jacobs, professor of criminal law, New York University School of Law

UC Berkeley campus Credit: Getty Images

College is where you go to expand your mind, right? At least, that’s what the free speech revolution of the sixties taught us. But in the years since those heady days of sit-ins, protests and flag-burnings, barriers to that basic right have been creeping up at campuses all over the country.

Indeed, a series of isolated incidents, taken as a whole, might point to an all-out assault on the principal of free speech: a theater professor disciplined for posting a TV show poster on his door. Students at Yale banned from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on a T-shirt. “Free speech zones” enforced on campuses. Even at the bastion of the free speech movement, the University of California at Berkeley, officials have recommended a “no hate speech” policy that some say borders on censorship.

Should institutions of higher learning be policing extreme religious views, hate speech and unpopular politics? Are we sending students the wrong message about speaking their minds? Could a culture of censorship in America’s colleges and universities bleed into rest of society? How do you respond to views you disagree with?

Guests:
Greg Lukianoff, author of “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” (Perseus Books); attorney and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

US Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney holds a campaign rally at Reno Event Center in Reno, Nevada, October 24, 2012. Credit: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Nevada’s population has tripled since 1980 and over two-thirds of the state’s current 2.7 million residents live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. This is good news for Democrats, who have been registering nearly twice as many voters than Republicans on a monthly basis since January, and although Las Vegas isn’t the capital, Sin City is safely Democrat territory.

In 2008, Barack Obama won handily Nevada’s then-five electoral votes by a margin of over 120,000 votes. Fast forward to 2012 and the incumbent Democrat president is leading by a slimmer margin for Nevada’s six electoral votes – currently averaging a roughly three and a half point lead. But Republican challenger Mitt Romney has been making important inroads in the Silver State, hinging on Nevada’s staunchly conservative rural areas – and a lot of Nevada is very sparsely populated – as well as the state’s small but vocal Mormon population.

Romney’s message of fiscal responsibility resonates in Nevada, one of the states hardest hit by the Great Recession. With less than two weeks until Election Day, Nevada’s housing market is still struggling and unemployment is still the highest in the nation at 11.8 percent. Will Democrats be able to hold onto their shrinking lead in Nevada? How will Nevada voters cast their votes in 2012 and beyond?

Guest:

Steve Sebelius, political columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and blogger at slashpolitics.com

Reed Moran smells a variety of marijuana shown to him by President and CEO Sam Humeid (L) of the Perennial Holistic Wellness Center medical marijuana dispensary, which opened in 2006, on July 25, 2012 in Los Angeles, California Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

The California Fourth District Court overturned their 2010 conviction of San Diego medical marijuana provider Jovan Jackson, recognizing the right of nonprofit dispensaries to provide medical cannabis to those with prescriptions.

The decision coincides with the repeal of a ban on Los Angeles dispensaries, which began in July. Medical marijuana advocates acted quickly to collect enough signatures to put a repeal referendum on the March 2013 ballot, but L.A. Council members decided to repeal the bill themselves in a more recent vote.

The California Supreme Court may take up a medical marijuana case next year, but until then, medical cannabis will be available at California dispensaries. Should medical marijuana be legal? What kind of regulations should control California dispensaries?

Guest:

Frank Stoltze, KPCC reporter

A voter walks from the polling place inside Fire Station 38 in Pasadena, California. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

Can’t wait until election day to find out how people feel about California Propositions and ballot initiatives? No problem. There are two new surveys out today from USC and the Public Policy Institute of California. The latest polling on California’s ballot measures indicates withering support for Propositions 31, 32, and 38 and an increasingly level split on Governor Jerry Brown’s educational funding measure, Proposition 30. Prop 31, a two year budget program, has been consistently unpopular. Support for Prop. 32, which would prohibit unions, corporations, and government contractors from using payroll deductions for political purposes, has dropped off since September. Molly Munger’s tax measure to fund education, Prop. 38, has also lost ground, despite a funding push.

What do changes in poll results indicate? Do surveys and polls affect your decisions about how to vote? Which propositions on the November 6 ballot are most important to you?

Guests:

Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of Public Policy Institute of California

Dave Kanevsky, Research Director with the Republican polling firm American Viewpoint, which conducts the USC/LA Times Poll with Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner

Demonstrators protest against military intervention in Syria outside President Barack Obama’s national campaign headquarters on June 26, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois. The protest, organized by a coalition of anti-war groups, was held today to coincide with an emergency meeting NATO was holding to consider military action in Syria. Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney rattled sabers over foreign policy last week on the assumption that it’s a big issue for voters. But is it?

A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center shows that, despite differing diplomacy styles, the two candidates are evenly matched in voters’ opinions on who would do the better job overseas.

But the poll also found that Americans are far less interested in the doings of other countries than in what goes on within their own borders. As in the periods following World War I, Vietnam and the Cold War, long-ranging conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken their toll, and foreign policy fatigue has set in.

Nearly 60 percent of Americans don’t feel that the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have led to lasting improvement for those living in the Middle East, and roughly the same percentage feel a growing disillusionment with our own nation-building efforts in that region.

Similarly, many Americans feel we should be less involved in the ongoing struggle between the Israelis and Palestinians and the violence in Syria. In fact, two-thirds of Americans say that a stable government of any kind in those regions is more important than establishing democracy — a long-standing goal of each administration.

These numbers belie our supposed faith in our role as a world leader and a spreader of democracy. So while Obama and Romney spar over whether it’s better to catch flies with honey or vinegar, and how many ships, submarines or bayonets we should be funding, voters, it would seem, could not care less.

How important to you is U.S. involvement in foreign policy?

Do the candidates’ differing approaches matter? Is foreign policy really a deal-breaker in this election? Should the U.S. continue to press its agenda in the Middle East and other parts of the world, or should we become a more isolationist nation?

Guests:

Robert C. O’Brien, Senior advisor to Mitt Romney on foreign affairs and national security; Former U.S. representative to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration; Attorney & Partner, Arent Fox international law firm

Nina Hachigian, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank; former senior political scientist, RAND; Staffer, White House National Security Council, 1998-1999

Christopher A. Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author of three books including The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous and Less Free (Cornell University Press, 2009)