Truth, Politics and Power

Gun Rights And Gun Control by TRUTH, POLITICS AND POWER

As President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un exchange insults and threats, host Neal Conan put the nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang into historical and intellectual context in a Brinksmanship Edition of Truth Politics and Power. Conversations about strategist Thomas Schelling and the risks of gaming nuclear conflict; Josef Stalin, Harry Truman and the lessons of the first crisis of the Cold War; and how hyperbolic rhetoric and apocalyptic threats affect the calculus of deterrence.

Host Neal Conan with conversations about how federal policy contributes to catastrophe, how an enormous flood in 1927 changed the way Americans think about the size and role of government , and the secret history of FEMA, the agency created to manage the ultimate disaster…nuclear apocalypse.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled across the border of Myanmar…they say the military is mounting a campaign of murder, rape and arson that a senior UN official calls a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. On the next Truth Politics and Power, Host Neal Conan explores how and why nations unleash mass violence on minorities, what’s happening in the fledgling democracy of Myanmar, and, after Rwanda and Kosovo and too many others, what we’ve learned about how to answer the atrocities of ethnic cleansing.

The United States and Iran confront each other in Yemen and the Gulf, while the longtime enemies act as uncomfortable allies against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, President Trump faces a crucial decision on the nuclear agreement he’s long vowed to tear up. In the next Truth Politics and Power, host Neal Conan explores the consequences of that decision, and delves into two crucial periods in the troubled history between the US and the Islamic Republic..…The Iran-Iraq War, when the US sided with Iran’s bitterest enemy…and the Invasion of Iraq, which left Iran as the principal beneficiary.

Legions of lobbyists and lawyers obscured the facts on tobacco and cancer for decades…even when tobacco companies knew their products caused cancer. In the”Politics of Denial” Edition of Truth Politics and Power, Host Neal Conan talks with writer Alan Schwarz, who found that the football industry followed the same pattern in response to discoveries about the long term effects of concussion, and with Science Historian Naomi Oreskes, who argues that the chorus of climate deniers also follows tobacco’s lead, and that the result, will be global calamity.

States' Rights by TRUTH, POLITICS AND POWER

While every country puts the best possible face on events, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has devised a post modern propaganda designed to undermine truth itself. In the next “Truth Politics and Power” host Neal Conan discusses the Russian state’s wide scale use of blackmail known as “kompromat,” managed democracy and non-linear warfare. Plus a conversation on information agencies operated by the US in both world wars and the cold war.

After the recent exchange of threats between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, host Neal Conan updates earlier edition of Truth Politics and Power on the crisis in North East Asia. Fresh interviews with Ambassador Chris Hill, a former North Korea negotiator, and Michele Flournoy, a senior official in the Pentagon during the Obama Administration on how the diplomatic snd military situations has changed after north Korea’s tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the unanimous approval of new sanctions by the United Nations. We also hear historian Sheila Miyoshi Jager on the 70 yea struggle between the two Koreas and how the US found itself in a nuclear standoff with an impoverished cold war relic.

Candidate Donald Trump described his big, beautiful wall along the Mexican frontier in existential terms; If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country. Host Neal Conan explores how secure borders became part of the definition of a state, how well walls worked through history and talks with Peter Robinson, the speechwriter who came up withPresident Ronald Reagan’s famous line in Berlin: “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

As congress and a special counsel investigate allegations of Russian meddling and collusion by the Trump campaign, a presidential commission looks into charges, that millions voted illegally last November. In a “Voter Fraud” edition of Truth Politics and Power, Host Neal Conan learns that non citizens were allowed to vote in 40 states- conversations on why, how that changed, and what happens if we find proof that the 2016 election was a fraud: do we get a do-over?

Impeachment by TRUTH, POLITICS AND POWER

James Comey says that President Trump asked for a loyalty pledge…and his unwillingness to agree was the beginning of the end of his job as Director of the FBI. In the next Truth, Politics and Power, Host Neal Conan talks about the loyalty past presidents have asked of their political appointees.

The dangers of Mission Creep and the ever expanding role of the US military overseas as the Defense Department’s mission grows to cover tasks previously handled by diplomats and other civilians.

The battle over health care encapsulates a philosophical chasm. Democrats want to expand coverage, even at the price of raising taxes. Republicans want to reduce the size and power of the government, even if that costs millions coverage. The evolution of the battle over big government, from the New Deal to Tump care.