May 19 - The Ghosts of Iraq Haunt Republican Presidential Candidates; How Governor Scott Walker Bought Wisconsin's Supreme Court; "The Misfires in Hersh's Big Bin Laden Story"

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the ghosts of the Iraq war haunting the Republicans in the 2016 presidential race, following Jeb Bush’s stumbles and now the impending entry of Senator Lindsey Graham into the race with his call to send an additional 10,000 American troops into the latest Iraq quagmire. Roger Morris, who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, joins us to provide a perspective on what happened to the monopoly that Republicans had over competence and leadership in foreign policy from Eisenhower through to George Bush senior, compared to the current crop of neophytes and ignoramuses recklessly trying to prove who is the most hawkish.

Part 2

Then we speak with John Nichols, the Nation magazine’s Washington correspondent and associate editor of the Capitol Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. We will look into the man who might end up as the Republican front-runner for president and the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Governor Scott Walker campaign finance case that is now in the hands of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a body that Scott Walker has stacked with conservative judges elected on a torrent of campaign money from similar sources that prompted the original criminal investigation into the Walker campaign’s illegal coordination with the Wisconsin Club for Growth and other big Republican donors.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with independent investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter who specializes in U.S. national security policy. He has an article at Truthout “The Misfire in Hersh’s Big Bin Laden Story” and we discuss what parts of Seymour Hersh’s explosive challenge to the official narrative of the Bin Laden raid stand up, and what aspects of his controversial account of the SEAL’s killing of Bin Laden misfire.