June 12 - The Congressman for Orlando on the Worst Mass Shooting in US History; Saudi Wahhabism Strikes Again in Orlando; Will Trump Have an Edward R. Murrow Moment?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that just took place at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida which has left 50 dead and 53 wounded. Congressman Alan Grayson, who represents Florida’s 8^th congressional district which includes Orlando, joins us. We discuss what has been termed an act of domestic terrorism and look into the long night of terror in the popular gay bar and dance club, the Pulse, after the first round of gunfire at 2 AM then the shooter took hostages for 3 hours before a police SWAT team stormed the nightclub and killed Omar Saddiqui Mateen, a 29 year old American of Afghan decent who local law enforcement officials are saying had “declared his allegiance to ISIS”.  

Part 2

Then we discuss further the foreign connections and influences on the shooter from the ISIS and in particular Wahhabi Islam, an extreme religious ideology that embraces takfir, a religious exemption and exhortation to kill in the name of Islam that the Saudi government has proliferated around the world fueled by endless petrodollars which has spawned the Taliban, Al Qaeda, al Shabbab, Boko Haram and the self-declared Islamic State. Michael Lind, the co-founder of the New America Foundation joins us to discuss the peculiar priorities of the U.S. government in insisting countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are allies when terrorist incident after terrorist incident reveals the clear connections to these states and the fingerprints of Wahhabism as the inspiration and motivations for these acts of terror.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Edward Schumacher Matos, the Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He joins us to discuss whether and when there will be an Edward R. Murrow moment for Donald Trump in this presidential campaign as there was when a right wing populist Republican Senator Joe McCarthy was finally called out by Murrow after he had run roughshod over democratic values, the rule of law, civility and decency, all in the name of cleansing America and purging it of un-American activities.