Month: September 2024

Another Assassination Attempt on Trump by Another Assassin Whose Politics Are All Also Over the Map With Both Having Easy Access to Military-Style Assault Rifles

We begin with a second assassination attempt on former president Trump, this time when he was playing golf in Florida, and examine the madness in America fed by the explosive cocktail of guns, political ignorance and social media disinformation. We will discuss how the recent assassin who shot Trump was all over the place politically and so is the latest would-be shooter, but they had no problem getting military-style weapons. Joining us is Thomas Zeitzoff, a professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. His research focuses on political violence, social media, and political psychology, and his work has appeared in Science Advances, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, Political Psychology, among other journals. He is the author of Nasty Politics: The Logic of Insults, Threats, and Incitement.

Americans Who Want to Help Ukraine Defend Against Russia: Good and Bad

Then, since the latest would-be presidential assassin had a wild plan to send Afghans stuck in Iran to fight in Ukraine, we will speak with a Marine veteran familiar with the foreign fighters on the battlefield in Ukraine who supplies humanitarian and medical aid to soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine. Joining us is William McNulty, who has led teams that built seven international disaster response charities with headquarters in six countries. He is currently the Head of Mission for White Stork, an evacuation and critical aid supply operation founded in Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion. Previously, he co founded Team Rubicon and then founded Team Rubicon Global, the internationally acclaimed veteran-led disaster response organization. William is a U.S. Marine who served in both the infantry and intelligence in Iraq and worked in support of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council’s Iraq Threat Finance Cell.

The Growing Phenomenon of “Caudillismo” in Latin America

Then finally we look into the growing phenomenon of “caudillismo” in Latin America with dictators on the right and left dominating Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador and wannabe dictators in Argentina and Peru and speak with Jo-Marie Burt, the past President of the Latin American Studies Association. A senior fellow at the Washington Office for Latin America and a professor of political science and Latin American Studies at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, she has published widely on political violence, state-society relations, human rights and transitional justice in Latin America. She writes about war crimes prosecutions in Guatemala and is the author of Silencing Civil Society: Political Violence and the Authoritarian State in Peru.