EP 763 Israel and Hamas: How is the Conflict Trending?

EP 763 Israel and Hamas: How is the Conflict Trending?

Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute(fpri.org), shares his insights with us on the Israel-Hamas conflict.  With as many critical issues affected by it, first and foremost the lives of the hostages and citizens on both Israel and Gaza, we wanted to find an expert to help us to better understand these turbulent …

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EP 762 Is Today’s U.S. Senate Up to the Task the Framers Intended?

EP 762 Is Today’s U.S. Senate Up to the Task the Framers Intended?

The U.S. Senate has particular Constitutional responsibilities and political duties.  As the deliberative body it is meant to check the impulses of a more rambunctious House of Representatives, confirm judicial appointments, ratify treaties and, when necessary, act as the jury in the event of the impeachment of the President or Cabinet officials.  Ira Shapiro, Senate …

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EP 761 Murder Case Decades Back Reminds Us How People ‘Othered’ Can Be Wrongfully Accused

EP 761 Murder Case Decades Back Reminds Us How People ‘Othered’ Can Be Wrongfully Accused

When Alvin Ridley’s wife was discovered dead in their home, residents of the small town of Ringgold, Georgia assumed the recluse, hoarder, and odd fellow naturally murdered her.  His difficulty in communicating what took place added to the conclusion many had drawn about his guilt.  As it turns out, they were proven wrong in a …

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EP 760 America’s Two Major Parties: Hollowed Out and Underperforming

EP 760 America’s Two Major Parties: Hollowed Out and Underperforming

While our parties may only from time to time have lived up to the mission of truly organizing our political discourse and developing serious nuts and bolts efforts toward major transformations that benefit our society. Yet when they have, the impact had been remarkable. So says today’s guest Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, political scientists …

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EP 759 Warning: The Media You Consume May Be Hazardous to Your Understanding of What’s Really Going On

EP 759 Warning: The Media You Consume May Be Hazardous to Your Understanding of What’s Really Going On

The Rascals had a song out years back called ‘How Can I Be Sure’?  And while those lyrics pertained to love, the same question could, and should, be posed today about the media content you are devouring from a range of sources–legitimate and sketchy.  The ability to discern which is which gets harder by the …

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EP 758 America’s Banking System More Fragile Than We Know

EP 758 America’s Banking System More Fragile Than We Know

To those of us who stopped thinking about the inherent risks in our banking system after the meltdown of 2007-2009, exemplified by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and assumed that Dodd-Frank legislation had corrected all of our problems, it might be time to think again.  Except for extraordinary government interventions over a weekend in 2023, …

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EP 757 A Leader in the Feminist Movement Assesses Its Progress and Challenges in 2024

EP 757 A Leader in the Feminist Movement Assesses Its Progress and Challenges in 2024

Our guest is a feminist trailblazer who had an inside look at the feminist movement as it progressed from the 1960’s on. Her insights and odes to those who made it possible for women to have virtual integration into all aspects of commerce, the arts and even sports, as we’ve seen, is a far cry …

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EP 756 Remarkable Women Finally Getting Their Due Recognition

EP 756 Remarkable Women Finally Getting Their Due Recognition

Each of us honors remarkable women in our own way.  Often it’s when we think about what our mothers contributed to our growth and development.  In other cases, it’s a teacher or a caregiver.  Well the emphatic sex has for generations contributed both to the nurturing part of society’s needs as well as the political …

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EP 754 Is MAGA Really About America First?

EP 754 Is MAGA Really About America First?

  Viktor Orban?  Vladimir Putin? Turkey’s strongman Erdogan?  Is that the traditional leader America wants to hold up as an exemplar for a nation built on universal principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all?  Maybe we’ve never achieved those lofty aspirations, but we never said let’s take our form of government–a …

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