October 17 - Who Cut the Cable on Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange?; Trump Invites Vigilantes to Prevent a "Stolen" Election; Thailand's Mysterious Royal Succession

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Part 1	We begin with a claim by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who is holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, that his access to the Internet has been “intentionally severed by a state party”. We examine whether in fact that state party is Assange’s host President Correa of Ecuador, who is reported to have warned Assange not to dump John Podesta’s hacked emails and is furious that Assange defied him. Carlos Lauria, the Senior America’s Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, joins us to discuss the flood of conspiracy theories about Assange’s predicament, many of which blame Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as the case of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman who was facing charges which were just dropped for practicing journalism at a Native American-led protest in North Dakota against an oil pipeline.
Part 2	Then we look into Donald Trump’s persistent claims that the election will be rigged against him repudiating his own Vice President who promised to accept the results, while calling GOP leaders “so naïve”. An award-winning investigative journalist, political columnist and foreign correspondent with The Guardian, The Independent, The Nation and The Atlantic, Andrew Gumbel, the author of “Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America” joins us to discuss Trump’s exhortation to his followers to act as vigilantes and go to polling places in certain neighborhoods to prevent a “stolen” election and whether there will be violence and intimidation across America on November 8^th.
Part 3	Then finally we discuss the unusual succession underway in Thailand following the recent death of the King who ruled for 70 years, with Gerald Fry, distinguished professor of international and intercultural studies at the University of Minnesota and author of “The Thais: The Bamboo and the Lotus” and “A Historical Dictionary of Thailand”. He joins us to discuss why the anointed successor, the crown prince, will wait a year before taking the throne and whether the reservations expressed by the late king’s most trusted adviser that the playboy crown prince who lives in Germany does not have the capabilities for the job, are a factor.