Month: October 2022

In an About Face the House Progressive Caucus Withdraws a Letter Urging Biden to Negotiate With Putin Over Ukraine

We begin with a letter from the House Progressive Caucus to President Biden urging him to negotiate a settlement with Putin to end the Ukraine war that was withdrawn the next day seemingly due to a fear that the signatories could appear to be on the same page as the pro-Trump Putin-worshippers like Tucker Carlson who are against providing support for the Ukrainian military. Joining us to discuss this unnecessary misfire by the Progressive Caucus, which has consistently voted in favor of military aid to the Ukrainians but now could be seen as faltering, is Harold Meyerson, one of the nation’s best-known progressive columnists and editor-at-large of The American Prospect. He also writes regularly about California politics for the Los Angeles Times and other national publications, and we discuss his latest article at the American Prospect, “The Ukraine Conundrum: Democrats ask “what’s the endgame” then withdraw the question (which nonetheless persists).”

Last Night’s Debate For the Critical US Senate Seat in Pennsylvania

Then we get an assessment of last night’s one and only debate in Pennsylvania for the key open US Senate seat between the Democrat Lt. Governor John Fetterman and the Republican chosen by Donald Trump, the TV Dr. Mehmet Oz. Joining us is Dr. Terry Madonna, senior fellow for political affairs at Millersville University.  He has written extensively about voters and voting behavior and founded the Keystone Poll in 1992, the oldest survey produced exclusively in Pennsylvania which was renamed the Franklin and Marshall College Poll.  He was previously the pollster for the Philadelphia Daily News and many other newspapers and Television stations in Pennsylvania and we discuss how much Fetterman’s impairment as a result of a stroke hurt him compared to Oz’s remark that “I want women, doctors and local political leaders” involved in a woman’s decision to have an abortion.

MBS Strung Biden Along Promising to Lower the Price of Oil Only to Stiff Him After the Fist-Bump

Then finally we look into the extent that MBS strung Biden along promising to reduce the price of oil, only to stiff him after his infamous fist-bump which is revealed in an article at The New York Times “U.S. Officials Had a Secret Oil Deal With the Saudis. Or So They Thought.” Joining us is Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has served as Advisor to the US Mission to the UN and served on the Iraq Study Group and as a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of The Stakes: America in the Middle East and The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East. He had an article at the Brookings Institution back in July, “It’s risky for Biden to go to the Middle East.”