Month: August 2020

Briefings

Background Briefing: August 18, 2020

On By gram

 

An Assessment of the First Night of the Democrat’s Virtual Convention

We begin with an assessment of last night’s first of the four nights of the virtual Democratic National Convention with the theme of “We the People” kicking it off culminating with the keynote address by former first lady Michelle Obama.  John Nichols, joins us from Wisconsin where the actual event was to take place before it became impossible to gather crowds indoors and he is the The Nation Magazine’s Washington correspondent and author of the new book The Fight For the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace’s Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Politics. We discuss his latest article at The Nation “Whatever This Is It’s Not the Future of the Democratic Party: Democrats err by amplifying Kasich’s claptrap over AOC’s progressive vision” and the powerful keynote address by Michelle Obama that made it clear Trump is not up for the job she saw her husband do for 8 years as well as the devastating exposure of Trump’s lethal incompetence coming from the daughter of a man in Arizona who voted for Trump then followed his advice of not protecting himself from the Covid virus only to end up dying alone regretting his vote.

 

The 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

Then on this 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote, we are joined by Moira Donegan, a columnist at The Guardian where her latest article is “The 19th amendment is a reminder that the right to vote is unfinished business”.  We discuss Trump’s pardon of Susan B. Anthony today at a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment at which Trump trashed the most popular woman in America, Michelle Obama.

 

How Do the Lebanese People Break Free From the Sectarian Warlords?

Then finally we examine the political anger and frustration in Lebanon at the entrenched and corrupt grip on power by the sectarian warlords whose callous indifference was exposed following the devastating explosion in Beirut. We speak with Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor at New York University and a former Middle East Bureau Chief for Newsday who joins us to discuss his article at Foreign Affairs, “The Corrupt Political Class That Broke Lebanon“.