Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of what Republican presidential candidates are calling “Obama’s war on religion” and what a growing number of women in America are calling the Republican war on women. Stephanie Sequino, a professor of Economics at the University of Vermont, who has done research on the role of religiosity in resisting and retarding gender equality, joins us.

Part 2

Then we speak with Saul Alinsky’s protégé Nicholas Von Hoffman about his mentor who he worked along side of for a decade as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago. Since Newt Gingrich continually calls Obama “a Saul Alinsky radical”, we discuss Nicholas Von Hoffman’s new book “Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinsky” to determine what it is about this mother of all community organizers that has Cesar Chavez, Dick Armey, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Tea Party studying his tactics and strategies.

Part 3

Then finally, following a recent visit to Israel by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, we speak with author and Middle East expert Juan Cole about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insulting remarks leaked to the Israeli press where Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak accused an American war hero and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dempsey as “serving Iranian interests”.

Full Program
 

Part 1
 

We begin with the Greek economic crisis and speak with Richard Parker, an economic advisor to the last Greek government of Papandreou and the current Greek government of Papademos. We discuss the second E.U. Greek rescue package that is close to agreement and whether or not it will prevent further instability in the Eurozone where austerity measures have slowed growth.

Part 2
 

Then we get an analysis of why the Syrian capitol Damascus has so far escaped the Syrian civil war that has raged in the countryside, with other cities such as Homs facing destruction. Bilal Saab, a Visiting Fellow in Non-proliferation Studies at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies joins. He has an article at CNN, “Why Damascus Remains Eerily Calm”.

Part 3
 

Then finally we examine the latest outrage in Mexico’s war against drug cartels that has so-far killed over 47,500 Mexicans. The author of “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency” Ioan Grillo, joins us. He is a correspondent for Reuters who is covering the drug war in Mexico and we discuss the prison riot in which 44 members of the Gulf cartel were bludgeoned and stabbed to death in a massacre that was a cover for a breakout escape of 30 prisoners from the ultra-violent Zetas drug gang.