March 18 - Did Putin Authorize the Use of a WMD on a NATO Country?; Trump's Frantic Moves to Silence a Porn Star; Will People Power Overcome Money Power in November?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the reelection of Vladimir Putin for a fourth 6 year term which, while it is a foregone conclusion that he will be the winner of another rigged election, the Kremlin has gone to great lengths pressuring government employees and offering incentives to voters so that there is enough of a turnout to make the exercise appear legitimate. Defense analyst, columnist and journalist, Dr. Pavel Felgenhauer joins us from Moscow to discuss fallout from the use of a Soviet nerve agent Novichok against an exiled Russian spy and his daughter in the U.K. which has led to an expulsion of diplomats on both sides, with the U.K. accusing Russia of stockpiling chemical weapons in violation of the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons treaty. We look into the possibility that either Putin has lost control of his security services, or that he authorized the use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction on a NATO country just ahead of today’s election in which Putin presented himself to the Russian people as a strong leader who stands up to the West.

Part 2

Then we examine the frantic legal moves underway on the part of President Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen to silence a porn star whose interview with 60 Minutes is scheduled to air next Sunday. RonNell Andersen Jones, a Professor of Law at the University of Utah, a former newspaper reporter and editor who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s continuing efforts to silence Stormy Daniels and whether he will move against CBS, and Trump’s war against the media which he calls “the enemy of the people” that she analyzes in her study “Enemy Construction and the Press”.

Part 3

Then finally, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, joins us in the studio to discuss his new book “The Common Good”. We assess strategies to reverse the drift underway in this country toward plutocratic rule to restore our democracy which faces a crucial test in the November elections in terms of whether the so-called resistance mobilizes enough people-power to overcome the money power of plutocrats like the Koch brothers.