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February 9 - A National Broadcast of Ian Masters’ Coverage of the New Hampshire Primary Results on the Pacifica Radio Network
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Today we are covering the New Hampshire primaries as the results come in live on the Pacifica Radio network. Most of the polls closed an hour ago but many in the big urban areas of New Hampshire just now closed at 8 PM eastern so we will be examining the results and assessing their implication for the crowded field of Republican candidates that is expected to be winnowed a little after tonight as well how the two Democratic candidates were judged by the voters of New Hampshire in this first in the nation 2016 primary. Joining us tonight to offer a critical overview of the place where these candidates hope to end up in living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January of 2017, that broken, polarized and gridlocked capitol otherwise known as Nigeria on the Potomac, is a 28 year veteran senior Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, the author of “The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted”. He will guide us through the Republican trumpeting and trampling of elephants to find out which clowns have been dropped from the caravan as the circus leaves town on its way to Nevada and South Carolina. Then also on the panel we have Adele Stan, a columnist for The American Prospect who will handicap Hillary as this second of largely white states votes ahead of the next two where minority voters will have their say. Also on tonight’s panel, is Jacob Heilbrunn, a Senior Editor at The National Interest and author of “They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons”. And while this a local election for us, for the rest of the world it is a global election and Jacob will assess the foreign policy implications in terms of who is leading on both sides and in particular the fortunes of Marco Rubio, who if elected, will revive the neocon’s disastrous foreign policy and likely lead us into as many wars as the neocons and Sheldon Adelson can find. And last but not least we have Jedediah Purdy, a Professor of Law at Duke University whose most recent book in “A Tolerable Anarchy”. He is a supporter of Bernie Sanders and we will look ahead to whether this insurgent socialist candidate is on his way to the White House or on his way to building a national movement, or both. |
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February 8 - A Young Millennial Feminist Supporter of Bernie Sanders; What Can Hillary do to Win Over Younger Female Voters?; "How the White House is Handing Victory to Bashar Al-Assad, Russia and Iran"
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We will begin with the backlash to efforts by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem to urge women and young women in particular to vote for Hillary Clinton. We look into the apparent split between younger and older feminists following the votes in the Iowa caucus when younger women aged 18 to 29 voted for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 6 to 1. Joining us first is Amanita Funaro, a student in New York City and a first time voter in the 2016 presidential race who is a passionate supporter for Bernie Sanders. We will discuss why young millennial women prefer the 74 year old Senator from Vermont to the former Secretary of State and First Lady who if elected, would be the first female president of the United States. |
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Then we will get another opinion on which of the two Democratic presidential candidates is winning the feminist vote and speak with Gloria Feldt, the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead and author of “No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power”. The former president of Planned Parenthood, she joins us to discuss why younger voters find Bernie Sanders more authentic than Hillary Clinton and what Clinton can do to keep millennials in the tent and motivated to vote in the event Bernie loses the nomination to her. |
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Then finally we speak with Emile Hokayem, a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who has an article at Foreign Policy, “Obama’s Disastrous Betrayal of the Syrian Rebels: How the White House is handing victory to Bashar al-Assad, Russia and Iran." We discuss the gains Russia and Iran are making on the ground in Syria and whether Saudi Arabia and Turkey will try to counter Putin without the backing of the U.S. |
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February 7 - A Robotic Rubio Has a Rough Debate; North Korea's Tyranny of the Weak; Russia Creates Facts on Ground in Syria
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We begin with the final Republican debate before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and speak with David Graham, a staff writer for The Atlantic where he has an article “A Rough Night for the Frontrunners”. We discuss the robotic response that Marco Rubio had to sharp criticism from Governors Bush and Christie that appear likely to slow Rubio’s rise in the polls as the seemingly over-caffeinated candidate kept resorting to his canned attack lines that suggest President Obama is some sort of Manchurian candidate who is serving alien interests and using his presidency to destroy the United States from within. |
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Then we examine the fallout from the North Korean launch of a long range missile that has the U.N. Security Council convening an emergency meeting to decide on a response. Charles Armstrong, a professor of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University and author of “Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World 1950 – 1990” joins us to discuss the latest attention-grabbing act by North Korea’s boy emperor who has all of the Republican presidential candidates calling for more sanctions and increased pressure on China to lean on its erratic neighbor. |
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Then finally we assess the possibility of a Saudi and Turkish military intervention in Syria with Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah forces rapidly changing the military situation on the ground as their offensive to cut off and encircle Aleppo gains ground forcing more and more refugees to flood into Turkey. Henri Barkey, who served on the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, joins us to discuss his article at Foreign Policy “Erdogan’s Foreign Policy is in Ruins” and the extent that Russia is creating facts on the ground while the U.S. complains indignantly from the sidelines. |
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February 4 - Islamic Scholars Confront Violence in the Muslim World; A Flurry of Lawsuits Over the Continuing Methane Leak; The Rise of Rubio
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We begin with President Obama’s visit to a mosque yesterday and speak with Azizah al-Hibri, Professor Emerita of Law and Founder of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights at the University of Richmond School of Law. She shared the stage with President George W. Bush when he visited a mosque shortly after 9/11 and we discuss Marco Rubio’s peculiar criticism of Obama’s visit to the mosque as well as looking into the recent conference in Morocco held by Muslim clerics and scholars to confront violence in the Muslim world which Azizah al-Hibri addressed. |
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Then we speak with Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog and author of “The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws and Get The Change You Voted For – A Direct Democracy Toolkit”. He joins us to discuss the flurry of lawsuits against the Southern California Gas Company over what is becoming the country’s worst environmental disaster since the BP blowout in the Gulf as an old oil well stuffed full of natural gas continues to spew out methane emissions which so far are the equivalent of burning more than 862 million gallons of gasoline. |
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Then finally we look into the rise of Marco Rubio since his third place showing in the Iowa caucus and speak with Dr. Susan McManus, the Distinguished University Professor of Political Science at the University of South Florida. She has followed the career of Marco Rubio for a number of years and we will assess his chances of taking the lead from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz while Rubio’s former mentor Jeb Bush is spending a lot of his considerable campaign war chest on attacking his former protege. |
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February 3 - A Member of the Syrian Opposition on the Collapse of Peace Talks; The Last Gasp of America's Plutocrats; Jordan Has Reached a "Boiling Point"
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We begin with the collapse of the U.N. brokered Syrian peace talks in Geneva that just began and are now supposed to be resumed on February the 25th. Dr. Max Sawaf, a member of the Syrian National Council and a member of the opposition delegation that met recently in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to select the HNC, the High Negotiating Committee for the U.N. peace talks, joins us. With France accusing the Syrian government and Russia of “torpedoing” the talks by unleashing a massive Russian bombing campaign in conjunction with Hezbollah, Iranian and Syrian government forces cutting a key supply route to the rebel-held city of Aleppo, we discuss the role of the U.S. in these talks that many in the region feel is disingenuous as the U.S. still insists that Assad has to go while appearing to give Russia a free hand to bomb the opposition. |
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Then we speak with Jonathan Taplin, the Director of the Innovation Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California who has an article at The Huffington Post, “Iowa Caucus Deals Death Blow to the Establishment”. We discuss how we are trapped between a dying establishment and a new order that is not quite formed and while change is coming, it has to survive the last gasp of America’s plutocrats who are invested in either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio lowering their taxes, stopping efforts to address global warming and throwing more money at the Pentagon. |
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Then finally we examine the critical situation in the key Middle East country of Jordan following King Abdullah’s warning that his country has reached a “boiling point” from hosting a million refugees from Syria that have strained public services and infrastructure costing 25% of the state’s budget. Jillian Schwedler, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council joins us to discuss when Jordan will reach the breaking point. |
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