Full Program

Part 1

Part 2

Then we look into Donald Trump’s persistent claims that the election will be rigged against him repudiating his own Vice President who promised to accept the results, while calling GOP leaders “so naïve”.  An award-winning investigative journalist, political columnist and foreign correspondent with The Guardian, The Independent, The Nation and The Atlantic, Andrew Gumbel, the author of “Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America” joins us to discuss Trump’s exhortation to his followers to act as vigilantes and go to polling places in certain neighborhoods to prevent a “stolen” election and whether there will be violence and intimidation across America on November 8^th.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the unusual succession underway in Thailand following the recent death of the King who ruled for 70 years, with Gerald Fry, distinguished professor of international and intercultural studies at the University of Minnesota and author of “The Thais: The Bamboo and the Lotus” and “A Historical Dictionary of Thailand”. He joins us to discuss why the anointed successor, the crown prince, will wait a year before taking the throne and whether the reservations expressed by the late king’s most trusted adviser that the playboy crown prince who lives in Germany does not have the capabilities for the job, are a factor. 

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the award announced today by the Swedish Academy of the Nobel Prize in Literature that went to Bob Dylan, the 75 year old singer/songwriter who joins a pantheon of literary giants like T.S. Eliot, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Doris Lessing, Gunter Grass and Samuel Beckett. Sean Wilentz, a Professor of History at Princeton University and author of “Bob Dylan in America” joins us to discuss this unusual award that has caught the literary world by surprise as well as the growing evidence of complicity between the Russian government and Wikileaks whose latest dump of emails hacked from the private account of John Podesta, the head of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, are being seized on by Donald Trump whose flailing campaign is relying more and more on Russian hacks and Julian Assange’s leaks in their attempt to demonize Hillary Clinton by exposing the private conversations of her inner circle that so far reveal in-fighting amongst her staff that don’t amount to much.

Part 2

Then we are joined in the studio by Steve Skrovan, a board member of Public Citizen and the host of “Stand Up For Main Street”, a Political Comedy Benefit for Public Citizen.  He wrote for the TV shows “Seinfeld, “Til Death” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” and along with Ray Romano, Will Durst will also perform at the benefit with Al Madrigal, Jodi Miller and others.  And since Will Durst has been described by The New York Times as “possibly the best political comic in the country”, we discuss this year’s amazing race for the presidency with Will Durst and try to find the humor in what both sides in this race see as, it’s either our candidate or the apocalypse.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Kevin Hewison, Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal of Contemporary Asia” and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He joins us to discuss the death at the age of 88 of the King of Thailand who was the world’s longest-reigning monarch with 70 years as head of state. We discuss the reverence for the royal family and laws that forbid anyone insulting them, as well as the populist political movement that won elections in a landslide which the Thai military, the conservative establishment and the monarchy have suppressed following the military’s latest coup in 2014.