November 10 - The Inside Job That Brought Down the Russian Airliner Over the Sinai; The 270 "Fight for 15" Rallies Nationwide; The Almost Nuclear War in 1983

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the key suspect who planted the bomb that brought down the Russian airliner over the Sinai, the Islamic State affiliate Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, and speak with Mokhtar Awad, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress who was an intern with the Office of Egypt and Levant Affairs at the U.S. State Department. He joins us to discuss the intelligence behind the growing belief that the Islamic State was behind the bombing and the extent to which the chronically bureaucratic Egyptian government is in denial about the inside job that likely took place at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport in the Sinai.

Part 2

Then we examine the nationwide “Fight for 15” movement that is staging demonstrations involving thousands of fast-food workers demanding a $15 an hour wage. Arun Gupta, an investigative journalist currently in Seattle reporting on the role of the Service Employees International Union’s fast-food organizing campaign, joins us to discuss the 270 rallies across the nation today that are intended to influence the 2016 elections.

Part 3

Then finally, with the recent declassification of a presidential analysis of a 1983 NATO exercise Able Archer that put the Soviets on a nuclear hair trigger and almost resulted in a nuclear war, we speak with Nate Jones, the person responsible for prying the heavily redacted report loose from the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and making it public. He is the Director of the Freedom of Information Act Project at the National Security Archive and we discuss the report on the 1983 nuclear war scare that Ronald Reagan found was “really scary” and Nate Jones’ article at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists “Countdown to Declassification”.