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February 19 - Trump's Presidential Rating on President's Day?; Florida Exposes Trump's Priorities and Human Failings; Trump Distracts Us From the Enactment of the Koch Brothers' Agenda
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We begin on this President’s Day with the latest survey conducted by 170 members of the American Political Science Association’s President’s and Executive Politics section on presidential legacies and the rankings and ratings of our presidents over the nation’s history. The co-author of the report Justin Vaughn, a Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Center for Idaho History and Politics at Boise State University, joins us to discuss his article at The New York Times “How Does Trump Stack up Against the Best – and Worst – Presidents?” We assess the recent presidential legacies that have soared like President Obama’s going up from 18th place in 2014 to eighth place today, and those that have declined like President Clinton and Andrew Jackson whose embrace by Donald Trump, along with changing attitudes over Jackson’s treatment of Native Americans, might have added to his demise, particularly since our current president has replaced James Buchanan as the worst president in America’s history with Donald Trump after just one year in office, placed at the bottom. |
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Then as Trump tweets out a storm of petulant self-obsession instead of acting presidential as the comforter in chief for the grieving families in Florida, we find our president on President’s Day blaming the FBI’s failure to flag the school shooter on the bureau spending too much time investigating him in the Russia probe. An expert on presidential rhetoric, Jennifer Mercieca, a professor in the Department of Communications at Texas A&M University, joins us to discuss Trump’s human failure and rhetorical priorities, as if the pain the parents as going through is an afterthought compared to Trump’s preoccupation with himself and the legal jeopardy he might be in. |
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Then finally we speak with Nancy Maclean, a Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University and the award-winning author of “Democracy in chains, the deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America”. She joins us to discuss how much the press and public are distracted by Trump’s daily headline-grabbing antics while behind the scenes the Republicans are making every bit of the Koch Brothers’ agenda the law of the land as America more and more drifts away from democracy towards plutocracy. |
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February 18 - Is Donald Trump a Traitor?; Could the Young Student in Florida Revive Gun Control?; How Growing Inequality Threatens the US Constitution
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We begin with the latest indictment in the Mueller investigation announced on Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein which accuses 13 Russians and 3 Russian entities of intervening in the 2016 election to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. James Risen, the Pulitzer Prize-winner former investigative reporter with The New York Times who is now the Senior National Security Correspondent at The Intercept where he has an article “Is Donald Trump a Traitor?”, joins us. We discuss what could be the most consequential covert operation since Germany put Lenin on a train to Petrograd in 1917 and how much Russia’s new Czar, the former KGB Colonel Vladimir Putin, has created a state run by a consortium of spies, gangsters and oligarchs in which Putin regulates the oligarchs, handing out state assets and government contracts in exchange for political favors and off-the-books covert operations and influence campaigns which are augmented by legions of trolls and self-financed Internet criminals. |
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Then we look into the possibility that something might actually be done in response to the latest mass shooting beyond the usual sop of “thoughts and prayers”, this time led by the young survivors at the Florida High School who held an impassioned rally over the weekend calling out President Trump and lawmakers on the NRA payroll with chants of “shame on you” and “vote them out”. An expert on the 2nd Amendment, Saul Cornell, the Chair of History at Fordham University whose latest book is “The Second Amendment Goes to Court”, joins us to discuss the planned march by the students on Washington on March 24 and how the 2nd Amendment has been misinterpreted to give unlimited rights to a small minority of gun fanatics at the expense of the rights of Americans to have, as the founder fathers intended , “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state”. |
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Then finally, we speak with Ganesh Sitaraman, a Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School and a longtime advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren who is the author of a new book just out, “The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic”. We discuss how the United States was uniquely set up as an egalitarian democracy in opposition to the feudal rule of the British aristocracy and that if rising income inequality is not addressed, it will destroy the American Constitution. |
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February 15 - Politicians Offering Prayers Instead of Solutions; How Society Failed the Victims and the Shooter; The Culture of Violence in America's Disposable Society
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We begin with the mass shooting which took place yesterday at a high school in Florida which has left 17 dead and 14 injured with 5 in critical condition. Doug Phillips, the assistant city editor at the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale who is a few miles away from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, joins us to discuss what his reporters in the field are finding out today about the 19 year old shooter Nicholas Cruz and the victims and their families. We discuss the reactions from Florida’s Governor who allowed the possibility of looking into the connection between mental illness and access to assault rifles, and the different responses from Florida Senator Marco Rubio who has an A+ approval rating from the NRA as opposed to Florida’s Democratic Senator Ben Nelson who is not afraid to ask the obvious question as to how this troubled young man who telegraphed his violent intentions on social media was not flagged by the FBI but was able to buy a military-style assault rifle. |
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Then we speak with Kenneth Nunn, a Professor of Law at the University of Florida and the Associate Director of the Center on Children and Families. He joins us to discuss how society clearly failed the 17 innocents who were killed at what should be a safe place of learning and also how society failed the troubled 19 year old shooter who had lost both parents and was displaying violent and threatening anti-social behavior on social media. Why he was never given help, counselling or treatment yet was able to purchase an assault rifle, remains an open question? |
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Then finally we examine our culture of violence and America’s disposable society where not just the homeless population of disposable people is growing, but an all-but homeless 19 year old had become so alienated from his more affluent peers and seduced by violent white supremacist fantasies that he sought vindication and notoriety by slaughtering his classmates. Henry Giroux, who holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest and is the author of “The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism” and “America at War with Itself”, joins us. |
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February 14 - Israeli Police Recommend a Criminal Indictment of Prime Minister Netanyahu; South Africa's Corrupt President Steps Down; The Wall Street Takeover of the White House
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We begin with the corruption scandal in Israel that has ensnared Prime Minister Netanyahu who Israeli police say there is enough evidence against in two corruption cases to recommend his indictment. Robert Malley, the President and CEO of the International Crisis Group who was the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa in the Obama Administration joins us to discuss whether Netanyahu will weather the storm of scandal and end up being Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister. We will also look into the possibility of an uprising in Gaza as Israel turns the screws punishing its beleaguered inhabitants who are the victims of an intra-Palestinian power struggle, caught between the fanaticism of Hamas and the corruption of Fatah. And we’ll explore the suggestion by Secretary of State Tillerson that the Trump Administration has a plan in the works that won’t be so lopsided as their lavishly pro-Israel stance so far would suggest, and that the U.S. might demand some concessions from Israel in a deal with the Palestinians in exchange for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
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Then we examine the resignation of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma who stepped down today after eight years in power, the last years of which found him mired in a series of corruption scandals that finally cost him the support of his ruling African National Congress party. Katherine Newman, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Massachusetts System and the author of “After Freedom: the Rise of the Post-Apartheid Generation in Democratic South Africa” joins us to assess what might follow Zuma’s spectacular fall from grace. |
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Then finally, with Donald Trump reversing his populist election campaign message of draining the Wall Street swamp and making hedge fund billionaires pay the same tax rate as their secretaries do, we speak with Sheelah Kolhatkar, the author of “Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street”. Now that Trump is surrounded by former Goldman Sachs executives and is giving away the store to Wall Street, we follow the tale of insider trading and the downfall of a disgraced hedge fund titan who is now back in business.
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February 13 - Intelligence Chiefs Warn That Russia Will Meddle in the 2018 Elections; The Broken Security Clearance System; Pakistan's Secret Unit That Thwarted the US at Every Turn in Afghanistan
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We begin with today’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee from America’s top intelligence officials who sounded the alarm on Russian interference in this year’s election following Russia’s successful manipulation of our 2016 election, and speak with Justin Levitt, a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School and a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. An expert on election law and voting systems, he joins us to discuss whether there is the political will to follow up on the dire warnings from intelligence chiefs, particularly in the White House where President Trump continues to deny Russian meddling in our politics which continues to this day. We also assess whether the threat to our democracy and the 2018 elections could be seen as an opportunity to fix our broken election systems since the Department of Homeland Security has found that the Russians probed the election systems of 21 states in 2016 and could easily go much further to manipulate results or sow confusion in 2018.
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Then we examine another aspect of testimony today from the intelligence chiefs with the Director of National Intelligence describing a broken system for issuing security clearances that has a current government-wide backlog of 700,000 applications. There is also a clear double-standard in which White House officials and relatives of Donald Trump are quickly given clearances for access to the nation’s most secret information, even if the FBI has concerns that arise in background checks. Josh Gerstein, a senior White House reporter for POLITICO specializing in national security joins us to discuss his article at Politico “FBI director puts responsibility for Porter on White House” and how a top White House aide like Rob Porter who is accused of being a wife-beater, could be vulnerable to blackmail. |
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Then finally Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll joins us in the studio. He is the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and a staff writer for The New Yorker and his latest book, just out is “Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan”. We discuss how this secret unit within the ISI, Pakistan’s Military Intelligence, Directorate S, has been thwarting the U.S. at every turn in its 17 year-long slow motion military and political disaster in Afghanistan. |
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