Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the ceasefire that went into effect today in Syria that was brokered by the U.S. and Russia and assess the chances of it lasting for the week as planned, given the patchwork of over one thousand militias on both sides of a civil war that has killed about a half a million Syrians, destroyed much of the country and displaced over a third of the population. David Lesch, the Distinguished Professor of Middle East History at Trinity University and author of “The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Assad and Modern Syria”, joins us to discuss why the Obama Administration reluctantly decided to join the Russian initiative and whether giving up the demand that the Assads leave power is any great loss since power on the Syrian government side has devolved to various warlords and factions that are unlikely to want a return of the status quo ante, even if that were possible.

Part 2

Then, with Hillary Clinton recovering from walking pneumonia and a very bad weekend, we look into the role of the press which is more focused on nit-picking and reexamining the appearance of scandal associated with Clinton’s emails than holding Trump to account for his daily gaffes, lies, displays of frightening ignorance and outbursts of hatred, demagoguery and racism. Thomas Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University whose column on demographic and strategic trends in American politics appears every Wednesday in The New York Times, joins us to discuss how, with Trump even with Clinton in some polls, if the reality TV star ends up becoming the next president of the United States, it will be in large part because the press gave him a free ride. First as Trump came to prominence with free media, then as the Republican presidential nominee where he was afforded a false equivalence as an equal on the world stage with his opponent, all the while failing to check him or challenge him as they instead piled on constant criticism of Hillary Clinton.

Part 3

Then finally Gloria Steinem joins us in studio to discuss the presidential race, the sexist assaults on Hillary Clinton from the likes of Rudy Giuliani peddling conspiracy theories that question her stamina and fitness for the presidency, as well as talking about Gloria Steinem’s life on the road, the political battles she has engaged in over the decades and the deep influence that Native American culture and political life has had on her. Which, with the current on-going confrontation in North Dakota between the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes and a Wall Street-backed oil pipeline, has particular resonance as old wounds are opened and an American president for a change, does the right thing. All this, along with insights from Gloria Steinem’s latest book just out in paperback, “My Life on the Road."

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the return of Congress after a seven week vacation bringing with them a return of gridlock with the Republican Senate playing politics by reviving the same rejected Zika funding bill with poison pill provisions to de-fund Planned Parenthood that is dead on arrival. Janet Reitman, an investigative journalist and contributing editor to Rolling Stone joins us to discuss her latest article at Rolling Stone “Zika: The Epidemic at America’s Door”. She discuss her reporting from Puerto Rico where already 80,000 Americans are infected with public health estimates that up to 875,000 of the island’s 3.5 million people will be infected by the end of the year. We assess whether the Republican Congress will be held accountable for allowing the epidemic to spread, particularly in the solidly Republican states whose representatives claim to care deeply about the lives of the unborn who, if infected with Zika, will enter the world deformed by Microcephaly, assuming the disease is allowed to spread because lawmakers in the southern states would rather protect the Confederate flag than the pregnant women in America.

Part 2

Then we follow up on earlier speculation that Vladimir Putin was planning a new war with Ukraine and speak with Michael Kofman, a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute who has an article at Foreign Policy, “Putin’s Military Is Playing the Long Game in Ukraine. We discuss the likelihood that the troop buildup and military manoeuvers the Russians are engaged in in Crimea and the Donbass are exercises meant to increase psychological and political pressure on Ukraine as opposed to the Russian war games being a springboard for a real attack.  

Part 3

Then finally we examine Donald Trump’s immigration proposals delivered with strident nativism and racially-charged venom recently in Arizona in front of a raucous, cheering crowd who sounded like a lynch mob. The former Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Bill Clinton, Doris Meissner, who is now a Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, joins us to discuss the radical break that Trump’s “extreme vetting” would be from America’s traditions as a nation of immigrants with what amounts to loyalty oaths and xenophobic litmus tests replacing the welcome to the “tired and poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free” inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.