Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an assessment of last night’s second presidential debate and speak with Norman Ornstein, a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a columnist for National Journal as well as an election eve analyst for BBC News. The author of “It’s Even Worse Than it Was”, he joins us to discuss how much our political discourse has been lowered by Donald Trump whose rancorous rhetoric is egged on by his hate-filled handlers, David Bossie, Stephen Bannon and Roger Ailes, and the moral crisis Trump’s candidacy is creating for the Republican Party, in particular the GOP’s evangelical wing that professes to stand for “family values” which Trump’s lewd statements make a mockery of in the recently-released video from “Access Hollywood”. We also look into efforts the get the reality TV mogul Mark Burnett, an evangelical and alleged Trump supporter, to release out-takes from “The Apprentice” that are said to be even more incriminating than Trump’s sexual boasts to the “Access Hollywood” host.

Part 2

Then we examine the role of the corporate media in the behind-the-scenes activities that went on before the incriminating “Access Hollywood” tape was released to the public by David Farenthold of The Washington Post” even though the parent corporation of NBC News, Comcast, owned it and had it in their vault. Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, joins us to discuss the role of corporate lawyers and executives in stifling the news and blowing a scoop as well as the behavior of the Alpha male Donald Trump on stage last night with his chorus of Bill Clinton accusers in the front row who claim to be victims of a sexual predator while supporting a sexual predator.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the extent to which the GOP is relying on Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange to elect their candidate Donald Trump president, and Trump’s obvious reluctance to criticize Putin who is accused of war crimes for bombing civilians in Syria which Trump defended. Steven Pifer, the Director of the Brookings Institution’s Arms Control Initiative and a former special assistant to the president and senior director of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council, joins us to discuss the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s warning that the U.S. and Russia have brought the world to a “dangerous point” and that “I do want to say that this needs to stop. We need to renew dialogue. Stopping it was a big mistake”.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the letter today from 30 GOP lawmakers who served in Congress saying they would not vote for Donald Trump in the general election stating “every day brings a fresh revelation that highlights the unacceptable danger of electing Trump to lead our nation”.  One of the signatories, former Republican Congressman Tom Campbell, joins us to discuss why he signed the letter and how he was motivated to do so by Trump’s remark that implied an invitation to violence against Hillary Clinton by so-called second amendment people.  With both moderate and conservative Republican lawmakers having signed the letter, we look into a likely post-mortem conducted by the GOP if there is to be a Trump defeat, to determine the future direction of the Republican Party that could see a return to a more moderate path or a deal between traditional conservatives and the Tea Party wing to pursue less radical and more conservative policies.

Part 2

Then we get an analysis of the unusually sharp rebuke issuedWednesday by the White House and the State Department over Israel’s plans to build brand new settlements on the West Bank with White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggesting the Netanyahu government broke its word, “We did receive public assurances from the Israeli government that contradict this announcement, I guess when we’re taking about how good friends treat one another, that’s a source of serious concern”.  The former spokesman for the late Shimon Peres, Gideon Levy, now a journalist and columnist with Ha’aretz, joins us to discuss how the U.S. does not use its leverage over Israel which would have happened before the generous arms deal Obama just gave the Israelis, not after, when Netanyahu can thumb his nose in Obama’s face.

Part 3 

Then finally we speak with Brendan O’Boyle, an editor of Americas Quarterly where he has an article “Did an Anti-LGBT Panic Help Defeat Colombia’s Peace Deal?” He joins us to discuss how the recent firing of Colombia’s openly gay Minister of Education who had become a lightning rod for the conservative opposition, only to have President Santos appoint her as a coordinator for the “Yes” campaign for the peace deal with the Farc, helped tip the scales in the “No” campaign’s direction in Sunday’s referendum that had an historically low turnout.