Month: July 2024

Venezuela’s Maduro Defies Most of the World Claiming Victory When the Vote Was as Much as 70 to 30% Against Him

We begin with the election results in Venezuela and the victory claimed by Maduro that are widely seen as fraudulent with Chile’s leftist president saying “Maduro’s regime must understand that the results are hard to believe. The international community and, above all, the Venezuelan people – including millions in exile – demand total transparency.” With the real result reported to be as high as 70 to 30% against Maduro, we discuss the likelihood that Maduro won’t listen to anyone except the Cuban leader and Putin. Joining us is Alejandro Velasco, Associate Dean and Professor at New York University. A historian of modern Latin America focusing on social movements, urban culture and democratization, he is the author of Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela.

On the Brink of Another War as the US and Israel Reject Hezbollah’s Claim a Missile That Killed 12 Was Not Theirs

Then following a missile strike that killed 12 playing soccer in a Druze village on the Golan Heights, we will look into the potential for an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon as denials from Hezbollah that it was not their missile are rejected by the US and Israel. Joining us is Habib Battah, a Beirut-based investigative journalist, filmmaker and founder of beirutreport.com. A contributor to The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera, Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper, and others, he has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 20 years and he formerly taught journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut and now teaches at St. Lawrence University in New York.

With the GOP Now Seen as a Cult, Why Are Americans Susceptible to Cults?

Then finally, with one of our two major parties captured by Donald Trump and widely referred to as a cult, we explore America’s susceptibility to cults and speak with Jesselyn Cook, an award-winning investigative reporter and journalism lecturer who has written extensively about online conspiracy theories and their offline harms. Prior to covering the tech beat at NBC News, she was a senior reporter on HuffPost’s national enterprise desk. A 2025 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, she is the author of the new book, just out, The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family.