Month: March 2023

A Majority of Americans Want Their Kids to Come Home From School Alive So It is Time For Them to Stand Up and Be Counted

We begin with the 13th school shooting this year, this time in Nashville, Tennessee in which 3 nine year-olds and 3 adults at a private Christian school were killed by a military-style assault rifle, replicas of which Republican congressmen wear on their lapels. We look into whether the majority of Americans who send their kids to school and wonder whether it might be the last time they see them alive, will form a majority and act with the same energy the NRA does to enforce a tyranny of the minority in making sure there are virtually no restrictions on who can have an unlimited supply of guns in America where there are more guns than people. Joining us from Nashville is Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and director of its Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. He is the author of several books and a prominent expert on gun violence and mental illness, and his latest book is Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland. We assess whether a lying, gun-obsessed Republican congressman who represents Nashville and is now offering his thoughts and prayers, could be held to account for not protecting the most innocent lives in his community in a state where the Governor has just banned drag shows as a threat to children while making sure there are no bans on military assault weapons.

Is Trump About to Start a Civil War or Fade Away as His Act Gets Stale?

Then we examine the extent the Saudi Crown Prince MBS is playing China off against America as he tries to extract a security and nuclear power deal from Biden after having made a diplomatic deal with China. Joining us is Jon Hoffman, the Research Director at DAWN, Democracy for the Arab World Now, and a Ph.D. candidate at George Mason University specializing in Middle East geopolitics and political Islam. He was recently awarded the “40 under 40” award from the Middle East Policy Council for his work on U.S. foreign policy in the region, and his work has been featured in Middle East Policy, Open Democracy, The Cipher Brief and Foreign Policy Magazine. We discuss his article at The American Prospect co-authored with Sarah Leah Whitson, “Breaking Away From Secret Concessions in the Middle East.”

As MBS Plays America Off Against China, the Abraham Accords Are Stalled With Turmoil in Israel

Then finally, as Trump issues threats against prosecutors and warns of death and destruction while calling on his armed followers to protest if he is indicted, we get an assessment of whether we are on the brink of civil war or are hearing the desperate cries of a diminishing demagogue whose act is getting stale as the spotlight dims on a winner who is becoming a whiner. Joining us is Barbara Walter, a professor of political science and Rohr Chair in Pacific International Relations at the University of California San Diego where her current research focuses on the behavior of rebel groups in civil wars, including inter-rebel group fighting, alliances and the strategic use of propaganda and extremism. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she serves on the CIA advisory panel Political Instability Task Force and helps run the award-winning blog Political Violence at a Glance and is the author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them.