October 10 – Comparing Nixon’s Madman Strategy to Trump’s Mad Threats; Trump’s EPA Kills Obama’s Clean Power Plan; The Withdrawal of Kenya’s Opposition Leader From the Rerun of the Overturned August Election

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Part 1

We begin with a president who instead of governing is lashing out at an ESPN sportscaster, challenging his Secretary of State to an IQ test and tweeting out a new round of insults against the Republican Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referring to him as “Liddle” Bob Corker in a snide reference to Corker’s height.  Tim Naftali, a clinical professor of history and public policy at New York University, who was the first director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, joins us to discuss his article at The Atlantic, “The Problem with Trump’s Madman Theory” and Corker’s rejection of the notion that there is some kind of madman strategy akin to Nixon’s behind Trump’s belligerent threats against North Korea. We will also examine the historical record of the waning days of the Nixon administration regarding an impaired Nixon’s access to the nuclear button, compared to the concerns raised by Senator Corker that “Trump may be setting us on a path to World War III”.

 

 Timothy Naftali

Part 2

Then we assess the impact of the repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan by the head of the EPA who declared that the phony war on coal is over. David Freeman, who helped bring about the EPA, headed the TVA, New York Power and the LA DWP, and is the author of “All Electric America: A Climate Solution and the Hopeful Future” and a new autobiography “The Green Cowboy”, joins us. We will discuss the commonly- held delusion that switching from coal to natural gas is a move in the right direction and the need to immediately outlaw fossil fuels as poisons to the planet while rapidly converting to available clean solar and wind alternatives.

 Image result for David Freeman friends of the earth

Part 3
 
Then finally we examine the withdrawal of Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga from the rerun of the disputed August election overturned by Kenya’s Supreme Court and scheduled for October the 26th. Kefa Otiso, A Professor of Geography and Director of the Global Village at Bowling Green State University and the founding president of the US-based Kenya Scholars and Studies Association joins us to discuss the standoff between Odinga’s followers who want election reforms instituted before a new election and the Kenyetta government who are treating Odinga’s withdrawal as a concession instead of the protest that it is.
 
 Image result for Kefa Otiso,