Trump Watch

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Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect analyzes Trump’s tumultuous post-Putin week, perhaps a turning point for Republicans–at least some Republicans.
Also: Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the Law School at UC Berkeley, talks about the worst things about Brett Kavanaugh, and about his greatest vulnerabilities in the upcoming confirmation hearings for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
Plus: Does your job make a meaningful contribution to society? David Graeber posted that question on the internet – a million people clicked on it, and many posted answers. Now his book about those answers is out – it’s called ‘B.S. Jobs,’ and it casts dramatic light on our economy and politics.  7/19/18

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Amy Wilentz, Guest Host:
Laurent Dubois, author of “The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer,” and Alan Minsky, KPFK Program Director, and founding member of the People’s Game Football Collective, explore the world of the World Cup.
Plus: Jeff Wasserstrom, American historian of modern China and Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, talks about Xi Jinping, Trump and China today.
Last,  James North, author of “Freedom Rising,” a first-hand look at apartheid South Africa, talks about the trouble in Haiti–not random violence, but focused on elite targets. 7/13/18

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The Supreme Court gave the green light to anti-abortion ‘pregnancy crisis centers’ in California, and the campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade is under way — we talk with Katha Pollitt about the future of abortion rights with Trump’s Supreme Court.
Next up, David Cole, Legal Director of the ACLU, and legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, talks about voting rights and the ACLU in the age of Trump–and says “vote like your rights depended on it.”
Finally: Trump in June: the bad, the ugly, and the merely inexplicable — Amy Wilentz comments on politics in a really bad month.  7/6/18

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It’s been a really bad week at the Supreme Court Unions: for unions, for stopping gerrymandering, and for replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy: Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect reports on what we should do now.
Also: The only Republican in the House from LA County, Steve Knight, is facing a strong challenge from first-time Democrat Katie Hill. He’s against Obamacare; she’s for Medicare for All — and her chances look good. Dana Goodyear of the New Yorker reports.
Plus: Despite Trump’s reversal on family separation at the border, the crisis continues. Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of “Enrique’s Journey,” a book that detailed experiences of Latin American children immigrating to the US, joins us today to talk about Trump’s fake news, the experiences of migrants, and how we might improve family detention while people are waiting for their asylum hearings.

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Over 11,000 immigrant children are being held in detention centers across the US: Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect comments on the political disaster for Trump–and the Republicans–of his family separation policy.
Plus Zoe Carpenter of The Nation reports on the inside of a Border Patrol children’s detention center in Texas–and the uncertainties those children now face.
And Ahilan Arulanatham, Legal Director of the ACLU of Southern California, has the latest on family detention litigation–and what people can do to help.

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Seymour Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his expose of the My Lai massacre—he was a 33-year-old freelancer at the time. Since then, he’s won pretty much every other journalism award. He’s worked as a staff writer for The New York Times and The New Yorker. He’s also written a dozen books, most recently Reporter: A Memoir.
Plus: Since Trump took office, the Democrats have flipped 44 state legislative seats. What will it take to repeat that to win control of the House and the Senate?  John Nichols explains.  6/14/18

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Trump asked for, and got, a ten percent increase in defense spending this year – even though the American military is the most massive, the most technologically advanced, and the best-funded fighting force in the world. But in the last fifteen years of constant war it has won nothing. Tom Engelhardt comments; he’s the legendary editor who created and runs the TomDispatch website, and his new book is “A Nation Unmade by War.”
Plus: Trump and Syrian refugees: During Obama’s last year, about 10,000 were admitted to the US; so far this year, the number is eleven. Wendy Pearlman explains – she interviewed hundreds of Syrian refugees across the Middle East and Europe. Her new book is “We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria.”   6/8/18

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After reviewing Trump’s growing confrontation with Europe, Yanis Varouvakis concludes that ‘Trump Isn’t Stupid.’ Yanis is a former finance minister of Greece who took office in 2015.  He became a European-wide celebrity when he resisted the demands of Europe’s bankers for austerity as Greece held out for restructuring its debt, –But then the government submitted and Yanis left office.  Now he has co-founded an international grassroots movement that is campaign for the revival of democracy in Europe. He’s written many books, most recently “Adults in the Room” and “Talking to my Daughter About the Economy—or, How Capitalism works—and how it fails.”
Also: there are 219,000 women in prison in the United States — Rachel Kushner’s new novel, “The Mars Room,” is a story about of one of them. She’ll be in-studio to talk about it.  5/31/18

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Is Trump crazy? Amy Wilentz talks about The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a book edited by Bandy X. Lee, in which 27 psychiatrists and mental-health experts give their assessments of the president. The book was number four on the New York Times bestseller list.
Also: Trump and the NRA: at the beginning of the 2016 campaign, Trump’s status as a gun person was uncertain — but he succeed in tranfsorming himself during the campaign. The Nation’s George Zornick reports (recorded after the Las Vegas shootings).  5/24/2018

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Trump’s plan on pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal is to pressure Iran to restart negotiations on terms more favorable to the US—but that’s never going to happen, says Michael Klare. And Trump has no Plan B – except for war—which could quickly involve Israel fighting in Lebanon against Iran’s ally Hezbollah, which has thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli cities.
Also: the coming showdown in Texas between populist Democrats and establishment Democrats: D. D. Guttenplan has returned from the Lone Star State with a report on the political transformation underway there.
5/17/18