March 12 - "The Magnificent Seven" Who Did Not Sign the Republican Senator's letter; The Shooting of Two Police Officers in Ferguson, Missouri; The Democratic Awakening Underway in Ferguson

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the battle between diplomacy and war with president Obama and seven Republican senators who support diplomacy on one side, and 47 Republican senators on the other side who offer no alternative but war with Iran. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell joins us to discuss his article at The Huffington Post “The Magnificent Seven”, and why he still belongs to the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, even though the Tea Partier Tom Cotton appears to be the tail that is wagging the dog that is the new Republican majority in the Senate, which appear to be a captive of bitter vitriol and racist bile.

Part 2

Then we go to Ferguson, Missouri to speak with Doug Moore, a diversity reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, about the shooting of two police officers during last night’s protest in front of the troubled Ferguson police station, which began shortly after Ferguson’s police chief resigned after being singled out in a scathing Justice Department report alleging racial bias in his police department and in the local court. We will discuss the angry response from Attorney General Holder who described the shooter as “a damn punk…trying to sow discord in an area that was trying to get its act together, trying to bring together a community that had been fractured for too long”.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the urban, racial and demographic trends behind the patchwork of small municipalities around St. Louis, Missouri where local governments rely on traffic tickets for revenues and where courts have a revolving door of judges and prosecutors and local governments in majority minority communities are often dominated by whites. Todd Swanstrom, a professor in Community Collaboration and Public Policy at the University of Missouri joins us to discuss the democratic awakening underway in Ferguson.