Month: June 2019

Hong Kong’s Largest Demonstration Against China’s Extradition Law

We begin with the massive demonstrations that took place on Sunday in Hong Kong against a law the Chinese government is pressuring the increasingly compliant Hong Kong government to enact which would result in Hong Kong citizens protected by the “one country, two systems” arrangement made when the British left the colony in 1997, being extradited to China to face harsh punishment, particularly if they are political activists. Michael Davis, a long-time professor of law at the University of Hong Kong who is now a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center joins us to discuss what appears to be the largest of many demonstrations against China’s moves against Hong Kong’s democracy and its rule of law with a million people taking to the streets. But in spite of the protests, Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam, has said she will not scrap the law allowing extradition to the mainland while China’s state-controlled press is pushing the line that “foreign forces” are behind the protests. We will assess whether this will mean open season on Hong Kong’s activists who will be subject to arbitrary detention, unfair trial and torture under China’s judicial system along with foreigners living in Hong Kong or just passing through who would also be subject to the new law.

Could Latino Americans Vote to Overwhelm Trump’s Angry White Voters?

Then Michelle García, a journalist, essayist and former columnist for the Texas Observer joins us to examine Trump furious efforts today on CNBC to try to refute Sunday’s New York Times story that Trump’s tariff threats against Mexico were yet another Reality TV stunt in which Trump creates a drama and solves a crisis of his own making so that he looks like the hero. We will discuss Trump’s latest lies meant to overcome earlier lies and whether there will be a backlash from America’s 60 million citizens of Latino decent who could vote in such a number to overwhelm the angry white voters who are being manipulated by Trump’s racist border policies.

Further Exposés of Transportation Secretary Chao

Then finally we speak with Lizzie Price, the Acting Director of the government watchdog group Restore Public Trust about the recent New York Times exposé and a more recent expose in Politico of Elaine Chao using her office as Transportation Secretary to enrich her family’s business and finance her husband Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s political career since McConnell’s net worth has risen from $2,962,015 in 2005 to $26,927,535 in 2015, all that on a government salary of $193,000 a year.