November 5 - The Foreign Policy Implications of the Republican Victory; Why Did the Democrats Fail to Tell Their Story?; Did the Robert's Court Engineer the Republican Victory?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the foreign policy implications of a Republican sweep of Congress and speak with Jacob Heilbrunn, a Senior Editor at The National Interest and the author of “They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons”. Following a tweet by Ron Paul in response to Tuesday’s  Republican victories predicting, quote: “more neocon wars in Syria and Iraq, boots on the ground coming soon”, we discuss the likelihood of a more hawkish stance towards Iraq, Syria and Russia, sabotage of the pending deal with Iran, and whether Ron Paul’s son Rand will challenge Hillary Clinton and America’s foreign policy orthodoxy like his father is.

Part 2

Then we speak about the failure of two thirds of the electorate to show up to vote and the uninspired Democratic campaigns with Mike Lux, the co-founder and CEO of Progressive Strategies. We discuss his article at The Huffington Post “Democrats Failed to Tell Their Story” and examine why the Democrats were unable to make a case against the Republicans for shutting down the government, creating gridlock, undermining economic recovery, cutting funds to combat Ebola and not standing up for healthcare reform while Republican governors with presidential ambitions pander to the haters on the far right, by callously denying millions of Americans healthcare at no cost to their states.

Part 3

Then finally, we look into how much Tuesday’s Republican victories are a direct consequence of a strategy by the conservative majority on the Robert’s Supreme Court to allow unlimited and unattributed campaign spending in conjunction with enabling voter suppression. We  speak with Thomas Ferguson, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts and author of “Right Turn: The Decline of Democrats and the Future of American Politics”, and discuss the likelihood that there will be a resumption of the George W. Bush economic policies of deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and the gutting social security to reduce the already shrinking deficit.