Background Briefing: October 14, 2018

On By gram

 

Will the Saudi Crown Prince’s Reign Be Over Before It Begins?

We begin with the increasing isolation of Saudi Arabia as more and more evidence points to the Saudi Crown Prince MBS as the person responsible for ordering the assassination and gruesome murder and dismemberment of a Saudi journalist in Turkey. David Hearst, the Editor of The Middle East Eye, joins us from London to discuss his latest article “Trump and the boy king: Mohammed bin Salman’s reign is over before it even began”. Although MBS has moved ruthlessly to control Saudi Arabia’s three militaries and intelligence services and is conducting a reign of terror against his fellow princes, we assess the likelihood that international pressure on the Saudi royal family will eventually mean that MBS will not become their next king. As David Hearst points out in his article “If Khashoggi’s death was an act of insanity, a total madman must have ordered it”, not to mention that it was an act of barbarity you would expect from ISIS. We also look into the similarities between the two pampered, arrogant and incompetent princes MBS and Jared Kushner and MBS who claims he has Trump’s son-in-law in his pocket, and the likelihood that Kushner gave MBS a classified list of the Crown Prince’s critics who were later arrested, tortured and had their fortunes confiscated.

 

The GOP’s Brazen Voter Suppression

Then we speak with the policy director of the non-partisan National Election Defense CoalitionSusan Greenhalgh about the brazen voter suppression going on in Georgia where the Republican Secretary of State running for governor is rigging the election in his favor. We will also address concerns about Russian interference in the November election and the puzzling inaction by Republicans and the Trump Administration to ensure our vulnerable election systems are protected. Particularly since there is evidence the Russian’s likely hacked the vote in North Carolina’s Durham County in 2016 and got away with it because of a lack of interest on the part of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to look into it.

 

Should the Democrats Take the Gloves Off to Confront Republican Ruthlessness

Then finally we speak with Greg Sargent, who writes the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post about his new book, just out, “An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics”. He joins us to discuss the dilemma facing the Democrats, many of who are seething at the ruthless GOP tactics used to get Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, as they face a choice whether to follow Michelle Obama’s advice that “when they go low, we go high”, or takes the gloves off and stop bringing a butter knife to a knife fight.