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September 22 - The Siege at the Mall in Nairobi, Kenya; A Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria on the Assad Regime; A Catholic Sister Under Fire Redeemed by the New Pope's Words
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We begin with the siege at an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya and speak with Makau Matua, the dean of the Buffalo Law School and a columnist for the Standard on Sunday, one of the two main newspapers in Kenya and East Africa. We discuss the endemic political corruption in Kenya and how much it has hampered efforts to subdue the Somali Al-Shabab terrorists whose murderous rampage in retaliation to 4,000 Kenyan troops in Somalia is meant to drive a wedge between Kenya’s Christian majority and its Muslim minority.
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Then we speak with Ambassador Theodore Kattouf, a former U.S. Ambassador to Syria who knows the ruling Assad family and has met with the Syrian dictator’s reclusive and violence-prone younger brother Maher Assad who heads up the regime’s Praetorian Guard and its murderous militias. We discuss Iran’s behind-the-scenes role in bringing about the Russian/American deal to control and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and the possibility of U.S./ Iranian cooperation in ending Syria’s bloody civil war. |
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Then finally we speak with Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of Network a Catholic social justice network who the previous Pope singled out for criticism for her support of President Obama’s healthcare reform push and her failure to promote church teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. We discuss the new Pope, Francis’s radical reversal de-emphasizing these issues, while calling on the Church to be less judgmental and more pastoral, as well as the fate of the Affordable Care Act after the House’s 42nd vote to kill it in the latest showdown over shutting down the government to defund Obamacare. |
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September 19 - A Possible Thaw in U.S.-Iranian Relations; The Paymasters of the Radicals About to Shutdown the Government; The Pope Offers Hope
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We begin with hopeful signs of a thaw in the intractable relationship between the U.S. and Iran following encouraging words from Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani who said his exchange of letters with President Obama has been “positive and constructive”. Middle East expert Rasool Nafisi joins us to discuss Iran’s behind-the-scene brokering of the Russian/American deal on Syria and to analyze the new tone ahead of Rouhani’s visit to New York next week.
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Then we examine the bankrolling of the radicals in the House of Representatives who have steamrolled their leadership into agreeing to shutdown the government unless Obama’s signature achievement that was voted into law and upheld by the Supreme Court is defunded. Zephyr Teachout, a professor of law at Fordham University and the former National Director of the Sunlight Foundation joins us to discuss the role of the Koch Brothers in turning the Tea Party from a populist movement into a Congressional caucus of strident shills for right-wing plutocrats. |
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Then finally we assess the impact of the Pope’s remarks that the Catholic Church is obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and contraception and should not interfere spiritually in the lives of gays and lesbians. Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of Dignity USA, the leading organization of LGBT Catholics and Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for Choice, join us to discuss how Pope Francis’s words might translate into action. |
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September 18 - Could the Fed's Stimulus to Wall Street be Better Spent on Main Street?; The International Backlash to NSA Spying; A Peace Lobbyist on Ending the War in Syria
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We begin with the Fed’s announcement that it is continuing to pump 85 billion a month into the bond market which prompted share prices to surge on Wall Street. Robert Kuttner, a former chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee who wrote a column for Business Week for 20 years, joins us to discuss whether quantitative easing is a subsidy for Wall Street that could be better invested in Main Street and his article at the Huffington Post “Summers' End”.
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Then we examine the international backlash to the extent of NSA surveillance on foreigners that has caused Brazil’s president to cancel a state visit to Washington and call for the creation of a BRICS Internet that would link Brazil, India, China and South Africa. Gigi Sohn, the co-founder and president of Public Knowledge joins us to discuss the collateral damage to America’s technology companies and our Internet-fueled economy, not to mention the future of freedom of information on the Internet that Russia, China, Sudan and Saudi Arabia want to control and censor. |
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Then finally, Kate Gould, the Legislative Associate for Middle East Policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby that field the largest team of registered peace lobbyists in Washington, joins us to discuss the challenging prospects for peace in Syria and hopeful signs from Iran, particularly their silence on Assad’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians that the Russians are still insisting was a provocation by the rebels. |
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September 17 - The Wrangling Underway at the U.N. Security Council; It's Easy to Get Guns but Not Mental Health Care; Poverty in America and The Republican House
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We begin with an examination of the diplomatic track towards disarming Syria of its chemical weapons underway at the United Nations Security Council. Ambassador Peter Galbraith who was America’s top diplomat at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan who negotiated the end of the war in Croatia and served with the U.N. in East Timor joins us to discuss the wrangling between Russia, who is opposed to Chapter Seven, and most of the permanent five plus the U.N. Secretary General who want to have the stick while offering the carrot.
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Then, following the latest gun massacre that followed a weekend in America in which 57 people were shot, we look into how difficult it is to get mental health care while it is increasingly easy to get guns. Carolyn Reinach Wolf, a partner in a law firm where she is the Director of the firm’s Mental Health Law practice, joins us to discuss the legal issues involved in protecting the rights of the mentally ill and how they can be balanced against the need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, given that the well-armed shooters behind the massacres at the Navy Yard, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Sandy Hook, all had mental health issues. |
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Then finally we examine the latest U.S. Census Bureau report on poverty in America with Stephen Pimpare, the author of “A People’s History of Poverty in America” who is a professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. We discuss how unlike most advanced democracies who are funding programs to end poverty, the United States House of Representatives has cut funds and is planning on cutting more to further impoverish and deny food to the 22% of the nation’s children who go to bed hungry and the 15% of the population who live in poverty. |
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September 16 - How Will Russia Respond to the U.N. Report that Syria Used Sarin?; Holding Syria Accountable for a "Despicable War Crime"; The Second Anniversary of The Occupy Movement
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We begin with an analysis of how the Russians might respond to the U.N. report on the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Damascus that clearly indicates the Assad regime used Sarin gas fired in rockets with Cyrillic markings from regime-held territory. Nina Khruscheva, a professor in the Graduate Program at The New School and a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute joins us to discuss how Putin, who is riding high on the world stage, might dodge this bullet.
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Then we hear from veteran U.N. correspondent Ian Williams about U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon’s condemnation of the use of Sarin against civilians as despicable “war crime” for which “the international community has a responsibility to hold the perpetrators responsible”. We discuss whether holding Syria to account for a chemical weapons attack will get in the way of the Kerry/Lavrov deal and whether the U.S. could make a Chapter Seven case to the General Assembly after an expected Russian veto in the Security Council. |
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Then finally, on the second anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement, we speak with Nathan Schneider, an editor of the news analysis website Waging Nonviolence and the first reporter who covered the planning meetings that led to Occupy Wall Street. We discuss what he sees as the surprising success and the disappointing failure of a movement that, in spite of America’s historical amnesia about its radical past, may emerge anew. |
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