Full Program

Part 1

We begin with sanctions imposed today by the U.S. government against Russia for the use of a nerve agent in an assassination attempt against a Russian exile in the U.K. which led to the death of a British citizen Dawn Sturgess. David Kotz, a professor of economics at the University of Amherst, Massachusetts and the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics who is the co-author of “Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin: The Demise of the Soviet System and the New Russia”, joins us. We discuss how additional sanctions are not likely to influence Putin’s behavior no more than the sanction already in effect have, and that the recent history of the use of sanctions as a tool of foreign policy indicate they a largely a palliative to make the domestic audience feel like something is being done as a punishment even though the evidence indicates they do not hurt bad actors. In fact they often lead to the further enrichment of dictators as was the case with Saddam Hussein and in the case of Fidel Castro, they served as an excuse for shortages and deprivations which were and are being blamed on Yankee imperialism, not Communist Party central planning.

Part 2

Then, with the Manafort trial underway revealing exorbitant corruption and Trump’s former campaign manager’s shadowy ties to kleptocrats and oligarchs, we will speak with Diana Pilipenko, the associate director for anti-corruption and illicit finance at the Center for American Progress who previously managed corporate investigations and analysis at the Big Four accounting firm of Deloitte. She joins us to discuss the growing similarity between the kleptocracy Putin oversees in Russia and our current government as we learn today that the first congressman to support Trump was charged with insider trading and from Forbes magazine that Trump’s Secretary of Commerce stole $230 million from a business partner and quietly settled the matter before joining the Trump Administration.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with an expert on Turkey, Max Hoffman, Associate Director for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress who joins us to discuss the collision course that has U.S. – Turkey relations heading for a showdown with two autocratic leaders Trump and Erdogan butting heads and unlikely to back down. We examine why there has been little effort by the Trump Administration to free three Turkish nationals who worked for the State Department but because of Vice President Pence’s ties to the evangelical community, the release of an imprisoned American fundamentalist pastor has become at top priority.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions against Iran beginning on Tuesday which the Trump administration argues unconvincingly is not about regime chance, but aimed at modifying the Iranian regime’s behavior. Nader Hashemi, the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver joins us to discuss growing unrest in Iran over increasing economic hardship expected to worsen with the new sanctions. But if there is to be widespread protests as there was in 2009 with the Green Movement, Trump, Bolton and Pompeo’s real intention to have regime change is likely to backfire. Because the Iranian people who most want to get rid of the mullah’s will be arrested or killed by the people with the guns, the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards, who are the least effected by the sanctions. They will take over the country and impose an even harder line regime than the one now that has at least the fig leaf of democracy. So Trump might succeed in bringing about regime change by destroying Iran’s economy but what emerges will be so much worse than the regime we have now, particularly for the Iranian people. Meanwhile China will buy more Iranian oil and India, Iran’s biggest customer, will continue to do so too.

Part 2

Then we examine the possible legal consequences of Trump’s impulsive tweets in response to a Washington Post article which suggested the president was worried about the legal jeopardy his son Donald Jr. faces from the meeting in Trump Tower with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. Paul S. Ryan, the Vice President of Policy and Litigation at Common Cause who recently authored Common Cause’s complaint on the Trump Tower meeting to the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice, joins us to discuss the ignorance Trump and his lawyers have displayed in claiming it is totally legal to get opposition research from a hostile foreign power.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Peter Dreier, Distinguished Professor of Politics and Chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. He joins us to discuss his article at Dissent Magazine, “The Right-Wing Firestorm That Rages On” about how Republican activists targeted the nation’s most successful minority voter registration organization ACORN and put it out of business in 2010. Had ACORN still been around in 2016 there is no way Trump would have won in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and if ACORN were around today, the Democratic Blue Wave in November would be big enough to overcome the Republican campaign of suppressing the votes of minorities.