May 21 - The 400 Billion Russia-China Gas Deal; The Real Libyan Scandal; Democrats Join in the Republican Theatre of the Absurd

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the $400 billion 30 year gas deal Russia and China signed at an Asian Security summit in Shanghai where China’s leader called for a new regional alliance involving China, Russia and Iran that excludes the United States. One of the most quoted analysts on energy issues, Fadel Gheit, Senior Vice President for Oil and Gas Research with Oppenheimer & Company, joins us to discuss Putin’s move to diversify Russia’s oil and gas markets as a hedge against possibly ramped up sanctions from the E.U. and U.S. in response to a further Russian encroachment on Ukrainian territory following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Part 2

Then we look into the real scandal in Libya, not the absurd Republican sideshow over Benghazi, but the current chaos that is a result of the U.S. and NATO removing the Qaddafi regime via a bombing campaign then walking away from the rubble declaring victory as Islamist militias moved in to fill the void in a broken country without an army or a police force. Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, the chair of the Political Science Department at the University of New England and author of “The Libya We Do Not Know” joins us to discuss the role of General Khalifa Haftar and his self-declared Libyan National Army that is taking on the Islamist militias backed by U.S. allies Turkey and Qatar.

Part 3

Then finally we assess the wisdom of the House Democrat’s decision to join in the political theater of what will be the eighth investigation into the Benghazi incident, this time by a House Select Committee headed by Congressman Trey Gowdy who has already indicated he is out to prosecute the Obama Administration rather than shed new light on the tragic deaths of a U.S. Ambassador and three others. Paul Waldman, a contributing editor for the American Prospect joins us to discuss the choice of the five Democrats who will be up against seven Republicans likely to be grandstanding in an election year unless they actually come up with something that resembles evidence of White House or State Department misdeeds.