Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the White House meeting today between Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama that was the first since the signing of the Iran nuclear deal that Netanyahu aggressively opposed which Obama considers one his greatest diplomatic achievements. Kate Gould, the Legislative Representative for Middle East Policy for the Friends Committee on National legislation, a Quaker lobby in the public interest fielding the largest team of registered peace lobbyists in Washington D.C., joins us to discuss the increase from $3.1 billion a year in U.S. military aid to $5 billion that Israel is asking for and efforts to repair the strained relations between the two leaders.

Part 2

Then we examine the killing of two American police trainers and the wounding of two others today in Jordan at the King Abdullah Special Operations Training Center which came on the 10^th anniversary of terrorist bombings at three Jordanian hotels which left 60 people dead. The author of “Inter-Arab Alliances: Regime Security and Jordanian Foreign Policy”, Curt Ryan, a Professor of Political Science at Appalachian State University who is also a Fulbright Scholar to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, joins us to discuss the enormous strains on this fragile state coping with floods of refugees and wars on its borders.

Part 3

Then finally we analyze whether the press scrutiny of Dr. Ben Carson’s many claims that are not meeting the fact-checking test will lead to more focus on issues and policies the Republican candidates are espousing or whether blaming the press will lead to less probing questions being asked of those seeking the presidency. Matthew Sutton, the Distinguished Professor of History at Washington State University and author of “American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism” joins us to discuss the religious underpinning of Ben Carson’s magical thinking. 

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the new biography of President George H.W. Bush in which George W. Bush’s father made clear he felt his son was badly served by Dick Cheney who he said had “built his own empire” within W’s White House and Donald Rumsfeld who the elder Bush said was an “arrogant fellow”. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served in the highest level of the Bush White House as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, joins us to discuss how Cheney essentially stole W’s presidency out from under him, something that Bush’s father likely always knew but is only now acknowledging, far too late to stop the many of his son’s calamitous mistakes like the invasion of Iraq.

Part 2

Then we examine the contents of the Highway Bill, Paul Ryan’s first achievement as Speaker that gives a gift slipped into the bill of $17 billion in government payments to banks, while chronically underfunding investment in aging and dangerous infrastructure at a time when the cost of borrowing is at an all-time low. Ted Miller, a Safety Economist who is a Senior Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute joins us to discuss the human cost of neglecting infrastructure investment as old bridges, dams and roads go on unrepaired contributing to 14,000 highway deaths a year with $11.4 billion in medical costs.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the sweeping investigation into Exxon Mobil by New York’s Attorney General to determine if the oil giant lied to the public and its investors about the dangers of climate change caused by global warming that consumption of its product contributes to. Jonathan Cannon, a Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Virginia School of Law joins us to discuss how the precedent of tobacco companies lying to the public about the danger their products pose to human health, could be applied to oil companies.