James speaks with Jeremiah Goulka, a DC-based journalist who penned an essay this week WHY I LEFT THE GOP for TomDispatch that was picked up by Salon, Mother Jones, The Nation & others.

Formerly an analyst at the RAND Corporation, a recovery worker in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Goulka was raised in Chicago in the Rockefeller Republican tradition with dreams of becoming involved in Republican politics.

He talks about his personal transformation stirred by a visit to Iraq and a stark confrontation with poverty in Hurricane Katrina-stricken New Orleans. [Click on pic for a full bio.]