May 27 - Europe Lurches to the Right; Ignoring Growing Risks at U.S. Nuclear Power Plants; Again, the Intersection of Mental Health and Easy Access to Automatic Firearms

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the landslide presidential election of the billionaire Chocolate King Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine and the European Parliament elections that produced an alarming influx of far-right representatives from 28 European countries, in particular Britain, Denmark, France and Greece.  Charles Kupchan, who was Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council and is now a professor of International Affairs in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, joins us to assess Poroshenko’s military offensive against armed secessionists in Eastern Ukraine and the new crop of xenophobes and racists, with a sprinkling of neo-Nazis, who were just elected across Europe.

Part 2

Then we look into Tuesday’s four to one vote by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to kill further study of moving dangerously radioactive spent fuel from cooling pools at nuclear power plants to safer dry casks. An internationally recognized expert on nuclear terrorism and proliferation and power plant safety and security, Edwin Lyman, joins us. He is a Senior Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and we discuss the dangerous density of spent fuel at overcrowded cooling pools in the U.S. that pose a safety risk that would dwarf the economic and social disruption caused by the Fukushima meltdowns.

Part 3

Then finally, once again we visit the deadly intersection of mental health and easy access to automatic firearms following the latest gun massacre in Santa Barbara, and speak with Carolyn Reinach Wolf who is the director of the country’s only Mental Health Law practice dealing with families with members who are potential risks to society and themselves. And also joining us to discuss the culpability of the NRA and the entertainment business in arming and influencing the shooter, is John Donohue, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the author of “Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Myth”.