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Part One:
We speak with Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect, about the possibility that Americans will finally hold Pres. Trump accountable for his hateful fear-mongering and for the violence that continues to flow from it. We wonder whether the back-to-back mass murders in El Paso and Dayton will be the turning point, during which people say “Enough is enough.” Some portion of Trump’s base will never relinquish their support for Trump, of course. But a fair portion may have voted for him but are now appalled at his overt racism, his inhumane policies, his self-centered and reckless policies toward the rest of the world.
We also talk about the political ramifications of Congress’s initiating an impeachiment investigation. It is true that there is virtually no chance that the Republican-controlled Senate will convict the president in an impeachment trial, and that Trump and other Republican candidates will trash the House for “diverting” attention away from “important issues” for “political purposes.”
Nevertheless, the public may not be persuaded by the Republican talking points. Indeed, a majority of the public may well think that it is, indeed, important to recognize — and to reject — Trump’s spewing hate; demeaning women and people of color; and enabling white supremacists to advance their bigotry through violence. An impeachment inquiry which points out the true facts — including a sitting president’s lying, corruption, and lawlessness — could help public perceptions evolve in a way that is detrimental to Trump’s reelection prospects.
Part Two:
We speak with Bob Hennelly, who has written for the Village Voice, Pacifica and MoneyWatch and who now writes about NYC public employees & unions for the Chief-Leader. We discuss the US defense budget from an unusual point of view. The military is the biggest contributor to global warming and yet we say we “need” a strong military in order to defend our supplies of fossil fuels (which will contribute all the more to climate change).
We also connect the dots as we explore the root causes of the flood of people fleeing Central America to seek refuge in the US. A lot of the dislocation is caused by climate change in Central American countries. Some of it, too, results from past US military actions to defend corporate investments in the natural resources of those countries. Our migrant “crisis” is largely the result of problems that those countries did not cause.
