Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks on Syria that “there is no military solution, there is only a political solution” and that we have to negotiate with Assad in the end, a statement that the State Department quickly denied marked a shift in U.S. policy, stressing that Washington was not open to direct talks with Assad. The founder and Director of FREE-Syria Foundation Rafif Jouejati, the English-language spokesperson for the non-violent umbrella group of the Syrian opposition, the Syrian Local Coordination Committees, joins us to assess Assad’s response to Kerry that he would welcome any “sincere” change in attitude within the international community that would be positive. We also discuss whether or not the U.S. is planning to sell out the Syrian opposition.

Part 2

Then with crude oil dropping to $42 a barrel on Monday and heading towards a low of $30 a barrel, we try to reconcile why the growing glut of oil on the international market is not translating into low gas prices at the pump at home. Tom Kloza, the Global Head of Energy Analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, joins us to discuss this disconnect and how falling crude oil prices will impact the shale oil boom and Canadian tar sands production.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the dire warning about the California drought from a NASA water scientist who points out that the state “has no contingency plan for a persistent drought” and that “California has about one year of water left”. The Executive Director of Water in the West, Leon Szeptycki , a professor at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, joins us to discuss how agriculture consumes 80% of the state’s water, with 20% going to urban use, 70% of which is consumed for landscape watering.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the battle between diplomacy and war with president Obama and seven Republican senators who support diplomacy on one side, and 47 Republican senators on the other side who offer no alternative but war with Iran. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell joins us to discuss his article at The Huffington Post “The Magnificent Seven”, and why he still belongs to the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, even though the Tea Partier Tom Cotton appears to be the tail that is wagging the dog that is the new Republican majority in the Senate, which appear to be a captive of bitter vitriol and racist bile.

Part 2

Then we go to Ferguson, Missouri to speak with Doug Moore, a diversity reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, about the shooting of two police officers during last night’s protest in front of the troubled Ferguson police station, which began shortly after Ferguson’s police chief resigned after being singled out in a scathing Justice Department report alleging racial bias in his police department and in the local court. We will discuss the angry response from Attorney General Holder who described the shooter as “a damn punk…trying to sow discord in an area that was trying to get its act together, trying to bring together a community that had been fractured for too long”.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the urban, racial and demographic trends behind the patchwork of small municipalities around St. Louis, Missouri where local governments rely on traffic tickets for revenues and where courts have a revolving door of judges and prosecutors and local governments in majority minority communities are often dominated by whites. Todd Swanstrom, a professor in Community Collaboration and Public Policy at the University of Missouri joins us to discuss the democratic awakening underway in Ferguson.