Preserving the Grand Canyon and Its Watershed: a Textbook Example of the Continuing Struggle Between Public and Private Interests Over the Future of Federally Protected Lands. Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Program Director of the Grand Canyon Trust, joins Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster, and Steve Williamson, for a discussion of the environmental consequences of a recent decision by U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell to deny a request by the Havasupai Tribe and a coalition of conservation groups to halt new mining by Energy Fuels, Inc. at the Canyon uranium mine.

COP21 in Paris: 196 National Governments Finally Agree On a Global Plan To Reduce Carbon Emissions. Now What? Democratic Perspective looks at the significance of the agreement in Paris by 196 national governments on a coordinated international plan to address climate change and global warming. The agreement itself is unprecedented, but in the final analysis, the plan that results from it can only be as effective as its implementation. Whether we like it or not, it may be years before we’ll be able to judge the full significance of the COP21 agreement. In the meantime, we need to keep a cautious eye on the implementation process, even as we work with everyone else in the world toward a successful outcome.

The Threat of Anthropogenic Climate Change: Awareness Raising in Local Communities. Democratic Perspective welcomes three activists from Inspiration of Sedona for a discussion of actions which can bring the serious threat of fossil fuel-driven climate change to the attention of local communities. Marty Landau, Bob McCormick, and Pash Galbevy are from diverse backgrounds, but all three are committed to a single goal: to leave a planet to our posterity in as good a shape as it came to us from our ancestors.

The Arizona Advocacy Network: Protecting the Voting Rights of Arizona’s Citizens. Democratic Perspective’s co-hosts Mike Cosentino and Steve Williamson talk to Sam Wercinski, Executive Director of the Arizona Advocacy Network, about the protection and extension of citizen voting rights in Arizona.

It’s a sad fact that these days there are a number of very powerful anti-democratic forces at work in Arizona, and elsewhere in the U.S., which aim at curtailing effective citizen participation in our electoral processes. Sam Wercinski lays out what the non-partisan Arizona Advocacy Network is doing to counter what dark money, cynical voter identification laws, questionable  ballot certification processes, and top-two primary schemes are doing to limit our constitutional right to  fair and impartial elections.

The Arizona Democratic Party: the Battle for the Nation’s Future. Democratic Perspective interviews Sheila Healy, new Executive Director of the Arizona Democratic Party, about the party organization in Arizona, the crucial issues facing the state and the nation, and the upcoming 2016 elections.

What Comes After Paris: Do The Most Recent Attacks Change Anything Significant, or Were They Simply One More Atrocity in What Will Prove To Be a Very Long Conflict? Mike Cosentino and Steve Williamson discuss the recent terrorist assaults in Paris, and their likely consequences. Was ISIS really behind them? Where did the attackers come from, and who recruited them? Who is supplying them with arms? Are the Saudis implicated? What does France do in response? Is its entire Muslim population now considered a threat to public order? Should the U.S. re-evaluate its foreign policy initiatives, or plan new military strikes in the Middle East in concert with its allies in Europe? The questions are simple enough. Unfortunately, providing meaningful answers to them is far from simple.

Unfinished Business: The Second Amendment, the NRA, the Arms Industry, and 30,000+ Shooting Deaths per Year in the U.S.: Is Anyone EVER Going to Connect These Dots?  Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster, and Steve Williamson try to make some sense of the controversy over gun ownership in the U.S. How much worse does the current outbreak of mass shootings have to get before we deal seriously with the gun fetishism of the political right?

Conservation vs. Development: Follow the Money. Democratic Perspective welcomes Sandy Bahr, Director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter back the program for a discussion of the threat posed by an alliance of mining interests, anti-government oligarchs, and tea-party libertarianism to natural resource and wilderness conservation in Arizona.

Eight Investigations, Fifty-Plus Meetings, and More Than Fourteen Million Dollars Later, What Do We Know? Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster, and Steve Williamson report on the outcome of the Benghazi frenzy in Congress. Was there ever any point to it other than to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign? Apparently not….

Rage, Ignorance, and Obstructionism in the House of Representatives: If Hating the Government Is the Only Qualification a Politician Needs to Get Elected to Congress, Maybe We’re in More Trouble Than We Thought. Paul Schwartz, publisher and democratic activist, pulls up a microphone and joins Democratic Perspective’s regular crew, Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster, and Steve Williamson, for a free-wheeling analysis of our dysfunctional House of Representatives. Manufactured debt-ceiling and Planned Parenthood controversies, government shutdown threats, and the seemingly interminable search for acceptably loony candidates for Speaker of the House, starring Paul Ryan and his godawful now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t fan dance. Why can’t these people just do their jobs already?