FEATURING KANI XULAM – Republicans have unquestioningly supported President Donald Trump over two years of madness. But this week, in a rare show of defiance several top leaders have openly defied their leader. The issue at hand is Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria and leave US-backed Kurdish forces to fend for themselves against an imminent Turkish invasion. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement on Monday saying, “A precipitous withdrawal of US forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime.” His colleague Lindsey Graham went further saying, the, “impulsive decision by the president has undone all the gains we’ve made, thrown the region into further chaos.”

Trump defended his decision on Twitter in a bizarre series of posts including one in which he boasted of his, “great and unmatched wisdom.”

Kani Xulam, Director of the American Kurdish Information Network.

FEATURING KATIE O’CONNOR – Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the US Supreme Court in Washington DC on Sunday to mark one year since the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The activists with groups like Demand Justice and Women’s March, want the House to investigate Kavanaugh and impeach him from the court. In addition to credible accusations against Kavanaugh of sexual assault by multiple women during his high school and college years, women’s rights activists worry that Kavanaugh will help to overturn the critically important Roe Vs. Wade decision. Given multiple abortion-related cases coming before the court very soon, the fear of losing reproductive rights is very real. 

Katie O’Connor, Senior Counsel at Demand Justice.

A federal judge on Monday ordered President Donald Trump to hand over 8 years of personal and corporate tax returns to the office of the Manhattan District Attorney, but just hours later Trump’s lawyers won an appeal to temporarily block the order. The initial ruling would have required Trump’s former accounting firm Mazars USA to turn over the materials by 1 pm Eastern on Monday. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is investigating whether Trump broke campaign finance laws in paying hush money to the actress named Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The federal judge who ordered the release of the returns struck down the argument that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, writing in his ruling that the idea was, “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” Trump’s lawyers have said that releasing the President’s returns would cause him “irreparable harm.”

In news related to the on-going impeachment inquiry against Trump, House committees issued subpoenas for documents from the Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget in order to examine the Trump Administration’s conduct on Ukraine. They gave the two agencies a deadline of October 15th. Committees also wrote to Vice President Mike Pence on Friday requesting documents related to the Ukraine scandal. Meanwhile a State Department official named George Kent, who was required to testify to House committees on Monday failed to show up. Also expected to testify behind closed doors on Tuesday is the US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, and, on Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, former US Ambassador to Ukraine. And news broke over the weekend that lawyers representing the whistleblower on who complained about Trump’s conduct on Ukraine are now representing a second whistleblower on the same issue. This second whistleblower apparently has first-hand knowledge of the matter. One of the lawyers on the legal team, Andrew Bakaj, said on Twitter that “I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General. No further comment at this time.” Trump has now attempted to drag Energy Secretary Rick Perry into his mess, reportedly saying in a conference call with House members over the weekend that he did not want to make the call to Ukraine’s President but that he did so at Perry’s behest over a Liquified Natural Gas plant development. 

Political mudslinging is in full force since the weekend between the President’s supporters and critics. Trump himself late on Sunday accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Twitter of being part of some farfetched conspiracy that Trump says Representative Adam Schiff has perpetrated and then decided to accuse Pelo...

FEATURING AMIT NARANG – At least 17 people have died from a mysterious lung illness related to e-cigarettes, or “vaping.” Government officials are now investigating the flavors that e-cigarette manufacturers have heavily marketed to teenagers as a possible source of the disease. A new study by the Mayo Clinic, examining the lung tissue of patients impacted say that there are chemical burns akin to exposure to chemical weapons or an industrial accident. 

But one critical part of this story is why our regulatory system allowed the widespread manufacture, sales, and marketing of devices and products that were not adequately tested? 

Amit Narang, Regulatory Policy Advocate, Public Citizen.

FEATURING STEPHANIE JIMENEZ – Given that our show is focused on hard news and politics, we rarely interview fiction authors. But today we turn to a writer whose debut novel has earned such high acclaim for addressing issues of race, class, and gender that we felt compelled to bring on Stephanie Jimenez, author of “They Could Have Named Her Anything.” 

Cosmopolitan Magazine says, “Penned by a Latinx author, this arrestingly titled debut is told from the perspective of two girls and their fathers…Racism, class, betrayal, family, and friendship are all dissected by this fresh new voice.” 

For more information about Stephanie’s book tour at https://www.stephaniejimenezwriter.com.

Stephanie Jimenez is based in Queens, New York. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the Guardian, O! the Oprah Magazine, Joyland Magazine, The New York Times, and more. She is a former Fulbright recipient and a graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, California. Her highly acclaimed debut novel is called “They Could Have Named Her Anything.”

President Donald Trump has doubled down on his practice of enlisting the help of foreign governments in the American political system, this time calling out for China to help him. In response to a reporter’s question about what exactly he wanted Ukraine to do about former Vice President Joe Biden, this is what Trump said on Thursday morning. A day earlier, one of Trump’s most loyal allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, decided to embark down a similar path, writing a letter to the heads of state of Australia, Italy and Britain, asking for their, “continued cooperation with Attorney General Barr as the Department of Justice continues to investigate the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 election.” Whether Trump and Graham’s tactic is to normalize the solicitation of foreign help to undermine Trump’s impeachment process is not yet clear. 

Meanwhile the Democrat-led House is speeding forward with its impeachment inquiry, carrying out a closed-door hearing with the recently resigned US Special Envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker. Volker had been mentioned by name in the whistleblower’s complaint that helped to trigger the official impeachment inquiry. News emerged on Wednesday that House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff knew about the whistleblower’s concerns days before the unnamed CIA officer filed his complaint over Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s President. The New York Times explained that, “The early account by the future whistle-blower shows how determined he was to make known his allegations that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine’s government to interfere on his behalf in the 2020 election. It also explains how Mr. Schiff knew to press for the complaint when the Trump administration initially blocked lawmakers from seeing it.” While neither Schiff nor the whistleblower broke any rules in being in contact before the complaint, the news gave the President reason to continue targeting Schiff. Trump said to a reporter, “I think it is a scandal…I’d go a step further, I think he probably helped write it. That’s what the word is.”

Meanwhile government officials, in anonymous statements to the press have claimed that Trump had repeatedly tried to rope Vice President Mike Pence into his project of eliciting dirt on Biden. Although there is still no clear evidence that Pence knew about the whistleblower’s complaint. And, Trump has also fueled suspicions about the rough transcript of the Ukraine call that he had ordered to be released last week. He said on Wednesday, “This is an exact word-for-word transcript of the conversation, taken by very talented stenographers,” even though the document released made it clear that there were some redactions.

Republican allies of Trump are worried that the President does not have a clear strateg...

FEATURING KATHARINE TRENDACOSTA – An Appeals court has upheld parts of the controversial decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to overturn Obama-era “net neutrality” rules. But, in its ruling the court also said that the FCC cannot impose limits on states to maintain their own net neutrality rules. 

Still FCC Chair Ajit Pai, who has singularly pushed to overturn net neutrality, cast the decision as a major victory. He wrote on Twitter that the ruling was, “a big victory for consumers,” and that “The court affirmed the FCC’s decision to repeal 1930s utility-style regulation of the Internet.” 

But what did the 200-page court decision actually say and is it really a victory for Mr. Pai?

Take action by visiting www.act.eff.org.

Katharine Trendacosta, Manager of Policy and Activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff gave a press briefing on Wednesday morning addressing the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Pelosi explained her reluctance to go down this path while Schiff warned that the White House’s foot-dragging would amount to “obstruction of justice.” President Trump live-tweeted the press conference railing angrily and resorting to name calling, profanity, and lies. He called Schiff a “low-life,” and claimed that he “got overwhelmingly elected in 2016,” even though he lost the popular vote by 3 million. On Tuesday Trump went as far as claiming he was facing a “coup,” writing on Twitter (here and here), “what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the…People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!”

State Secretary Mike Pompeo has confirmed that he was listening on the July telephone conversation between Trump and Ukraine’s President that is at the heart of the whistleblower complaint against Trump. His confirmation came a day after reports emerged in the news. At his press conference on Wednesday morning Congressman Adam Schiff singled out Pompeo’s refusal to allow State Department staffers to testify in front of Congress and accused him of interference. Meanwhile the State Department Inspector General Steve Linick has requested an urgent meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday afternoon. According to CNN Linick is expected to, “provide staff with copies of documents related to the State Department and Ukraine.” CNN also reported that, “One congressional aide described the State inspector general’s request as “highly unusual and cryptically worded.” And, on Thursday, Kurt Volker, the US’s Envoy to Ukraine who resigned last week after the whistleblower complaint came to light, will testify to Congress. Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine who Trump disparaged in his July phone call and who was fired in May, will be testifying next week. Meanwhile House Oversight and Reform Committee chair Elijah Cummings has warned the White House that it will issue a subpoena for documents related to the Ukraine scandal if staffers did not turn them over to Congress. 

Politico reported that the House Oversight Committee is also looking into a separate allegation over, “whether groups tried to curry favor with Trump by booking rooms at his hotels but never using them.” The line of investigation is apparently part of the impeachment inquiry that had not yet been reported. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democratic members of the committee said, “Now we’re looking at near raw bribery… That was the risk from Day One: foreign governments and others trying to seek favor because we know Trump ...

FEATURING MEDEA BENJAMIN – It has been a year since dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, and never emerged again alive. It became subsequently known that Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered inside the embassy by operatives linked to the highest levels of the Saudi royal family and especially Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. 

President Donald Trump has essentially dismissed the murder and all but expressed the greater importance of selling US weapons to Saudi Arabia, many of which are being used to fight a war in Yemen. It has now come to light that Trump’s calls to the crown prince were among those being kept secret at the White House.  

Medea Benjamin, Co-founder of human rights group Global Exchange and the peace organization CODEPINK. She is a long-time political activist who has also written a number of books including ‘Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of the Unjust, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control and more.’

FEATURING COREY BRETTSCHNEIDER – The political firestorm that has been unleashed in Washington DC over the past week is the most serious since Donald Trump took office. What is so remarkable about the impeachment inquiry that Trump faces is how little he understands of the US Constitution and the limits of Presidential power. Trump himself revealed the incriminating transcript that set of the impeachment inquiry, believing erroneously that it would absolve him. And he is now railing against the unnamed whistleblower at the heart of the scandal, threatening him, accusing him of being a spy and demanding to meet his “accuser,” showing little understanding of whistleblower protections. Meanwhile his own personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani remains a political liability. Will Trump ultimately be his own undoing?

Read Corey Brettschneider’s Opinion piece on The Guardian called ‘Does Trump need to break the law to be impeached? The answer is no,’ HERE.

Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science at Brown University. He is the author of When the State Speaks, What Should It Say: How Democracies Can Protect Expression and Promote Equality and Trump vs. The Constitution. His newest book is called ‘The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents.’