March 31 - Vulnerable US Nuclear Bombs in Belgium; The Risks and Rewards of Sanctions; "Women Are Already Punished For Trying to End Their Pregnancies

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with what is not being discussed at the Nuclear Security Summit underway in Washington and that is the vulnerability of American nuclear weapons in Europe, with 20 or so B61 nuclear bombs about 60 miles from Brussels sitting in bunkers at a base that already a Tunisian-born terrorist tried to blow in 2003. William Arkin, the author of “Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare”, who is a national security consultant to the NBC News Investigative Unit and Vice News where he has an article “America’s Nuclear Weapons in Europe Are the Nuclear Elephant in the Room”, joins us.

Part 2

Then with the warning by the Secretary of Treasury that, while sanctions over the past decade have become the “Smart Power” of U.S. foreign policy because they are cheaper and more effective in compelling America’s adversaries than military power, there is a “risk of overuse”. James Henry, a lawyer and investigative journalist and the former chief economist at McKinsey and Company, who is the lead researcher for the Tax Justice Network, joins us to discuss the tools that the U.S. treasury has in going after the hidden wealth and offshore funds of dictators, kleptocrats and rogue states to alter their behavior short of going the war that usually results in the victims of tyranny being punished while the despots are often rewarded and their power consolidated.

Part 3

Then finally we follow up on Donald Trump’s remarks on punishing women who have abortions and the backlash from the pro-life community whose outrage appears highly hypocritical since, if abortion were to be outlawed, as most Republicans fervently wish, then surely both doctors and patients will be criminalized. Zoe Carpenter, The Nation magazine’s Associate Washington Editor joins us to discuss her article at The Nation “Women Are Already Punished for Trying to End Their Pregnancies” and the extent to which anti-choice groups have pushed women into a legal gray zone where fetal homicide laws are used to punish women for abortions and even miscarriages.