July 6 - The Devastating UK Report on the Iraq War; Russia's Role in Hurting Hillary and Helping Trump; The Koch Brothers Liken Themselves to Civil Rights Workers in the 1950's

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the release of the much awaited and anticipated Chilcot Report whose Iraq Inquiry investigated the U.K. decision to join the Bush Administration’s determination to go to war in Iraq, an intervention that the report states went “badly wrong” leading to the Iraqi people suffering greatly with consequences still being felt to this day. Juan Cole, a professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan, joins us to discuss the glaring fact that no such inquiry has been conducted in the U.S. and while the former U.K. Prime Minister is blasted for overstating the threat from Saddam Hussein, sending ill-prepared troops into battle with “wholly inadequate” plans for the aftermath, Tony Blair did not go to jail as a war criminal which under the U.N. charter is the fate that he, Bush and Cheney should have faced.    

Part 2

Then, following the FBI’s rebuke of Hillary Clinton we examine the role of Russian Intelligence and its propaganda arm, the English language TV network “Russia Today” as the source of much of what has come to light from digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton by hacking her emails and into the Clinton Foundation’s servers as well as the DNC’s server. Franklin Foer, a New America Fellow and a contributing editor at Slate Magazine joins us to discuss how and why Putin is supporting Donald Trump and his latest article at Slate, “Putin’s Puppet: If the Russian president could design a candidate to undermine American interests – and advance his own – he’d look a lot like Donald Trump”.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with John Dunbar, the Deputy Executive Editor at the Center for Public Integrity and creator of Consider the Source, the Center’s ongoing investigation into the impact of money on state and federal politics. He joins us to discuss his latest article “Koch brothers’ plight is likened to that of civil rights worker in the 1950’s” which reveals how America’s billionaire plutocrats have got a Federal Judge to rule that their rights to spend unlimited amounts of “dark money” to shape elections is comparable to the rights of the NAACP to keep its membership lists secret from the KKK who were out to kill civil right workers in the 1950’s.