Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the predictable announcement from the FBI Director James Comey that there was nothing to implicate Hillary Clinton in the emails under investigation between her close aide and Huma Abedin’s estranged and disgraced husband Anthony Weiner. Kurt Eichenwald, a senior writer at Newsweek where he has an op-ed “FBI Director James Comey is Unfit For Public Service”, joins us to discuss the extraordinary arrogance of a public servant who thinks his reputation is more important than his duty. We  look into the blithe disregard Comey appears to have for the consequences of his need to protect his reputation of integrity and his image of one who rises above politics to the point where he would tip the scales in a close election in the home stretch, then, at the last minute say there was no there there after reviving the endlessly overblown Hillary Clinton email pseudo scandal.

Part 2

Then we assess how much the press enabled the political impact of the Comey letter by falling for Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s framing of the letter as a re-opening of the Clinton email investigation that in just a few days reversed Clinton’s momentum toward the presidency cutting her probability of victory from 85% to 65%. Eric Boehlert, a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America joins us to discuss the ultimate absurdity of so-called “balance” in the mainstream media that has devoted four times as much airtime to covering Hillary Clinton’s emails as they have spent covering all campaign policy initiatives from all candidates for the entire year.  

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Arthur Lupia Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and author of “Uninformed: Why People Seem to Know So Little about Politics and What We Can Do About It”. He joins us to discuss what steps can be taken to address the deep-rooted problem of an uninformed electorate and to educate low-information voters who, while well-meaning and even passionate about their beliefs, know very little about politics and government. 

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Donald Trump’s incitement against the press that is a feature of his rallies but intensified on Wednesday in Florida with Trump singling out Katy Tur of NBC News who the entire crowd turned on. Trump has previously singled her out as “little Katy, a third-rate journalist” riling up the crowd to the extent that the Secret Service had to escort the reporter to her car. Trevor Timm, the Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation who is a U.S. columnist for the U.K. Guardian, joins us to discuss Trump’s cynical and dangerous tactic of riling up his crowds who already hate the press while falsely accusing the press of not showing the size of the crowds which they do and Trump knows it. We will also speculate on what sort of relationship a President Donald Trump will have with the press who he often threatens to sue and whose physical welfare he is now endangering. 

Part 2

Then we speak with a citizen activist, social entrepreneur and leading millennial voice on sustainability and social impact who yesterday was shot a pointblank range with a rubber bullet by militarized police live on camera while interviewing peaceful protesters at Standing Rock in North Dakota. Erin Schrode, who just ran for the U.S. Congress in California’s 2^nd District, joins us to discuss the escalation of police tactics against the largely Native American protestors with about 300 police officers deployed along with 100 National Guardsmen, and the double standard where the heavily-armed right wing Bundy brothers are treated with kid gloves and get charges dropped but peaceful indigenous people are attacked with dogs and charged with trespassing on their own ancestral lands.

Part 3

Then we look into the sudden turn of events in the U.K. where the High Court ruled that the parliament will have to vote on whether or not Britain should go ahead and implement the “Brexit” vote which narrowly passed in a recent referendum. Harold Clarke, a Professor in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Studies at the University of Texas who is the co-investigator of the British Election Study at the University of Manchester where he is also a visiting professor, joins us to discuss how this ruling is likely to split the Conservative Party that is holding on to a slim majority in parliament and, assuming the parliament votes to undo the “Brexit” vote, the gulf between the parliament and the people will widen even further.