Senator Bernie Sanders on Running for President; Is Russia Laying the Groundwork for an Invasion of Eastern Ukraine?; Can Obama Buck the Midterm Election Trend?

Full Program

Part 1

 We begin with the longest serving independent member of Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders, and discuss the all-nighter he and 28 senators are about to engage in all Monday night on the Senate floor ending at 9 AM Tuesday, in an effort to raise awareness and confront the reality of climate change. Senator Sanders is the Chair of the Veteran’s Affairs Committee and was recently interviewed by John Nichols at The Nation in an article “Bernie Sanders: ‘I am Prepared to Run for President of the United States’”.

Part 2

Then with Russian propaganda ramping up to a fever pitch inventing claims that the new Ukrainian government is oppressing Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the East, we will speak with the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, Paul Magocsi, to find out whether Putin is laying the groundwork for an invasion of Eastern Ukraine. The author of “The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism” and the forthcoming “Crimea: And The Crimean Tatars”, Paul Magocsi researches nationalism, in particular among ethnic groups living in border areas, and he will describe the new government in Ukraine that Putin is demonizing.

Part 3

Then finally we  be joined by Princeton historian Julian Zelizer, the author of “Governing America: The Revival of Political History” and discuss his latest article at CNN, “Obama may hate the midterm results”.  We discuss recent polls that indicate that the Republicans are likely to take back the Senate and hold the House in November’s midterm election and what strategies Obama and the Democrats can employ this year to buck the historical trend that had presidents Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan and George W. Bush all suffering reversals in their second terms, hastening their lame duck status.