July 16 - The President Visits Prisoners; The One Year Anniversary of the Downing of a Malaysian Airliner by a Russian Missile; Is Another War in Gaza and Lebanon Inevitable

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Obama’s visit to the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, the first president to spent time behind bars with prisoners, leading Obama to say after his tour of the prison, “There but for the grace of God…and that is something we all have to think about”. A retired judge and the founder and Executive Director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, Donna Hamm, joins us to discuss Obama’s recent call for an overhaul of America’s criminal justice system which has led to the international disgrace that the U.S., with less than 5% of world’s population, has more than 20% of the world’s prison population.

Part 2

Then, on the one-year anniversary of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 by a Russian missile over disputed Ukrainian territory that killed all 298 aboard the civilian airliner, we speak with Floyd Wisner, the Principal of Wisner Law Firm. He specializes in Aviation Law and is representing relatives of at least 17 victims of the atrocity which is being investigated by the Dutch Safety Board, as well as by a second criminal inquiry and last week Russia opposed a U.N. resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter to establish an international tribunal to investigate the shoot down.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with award-winning investigative journalist Max Blumenthal, about his new book “The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza” and his latest article at Tomdispatch and The Huffington Post “The Fire Next Time”. We discuss whether as Israel’s Former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has declared, “A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable”.