May 10 – Same-Sex and The Swing States; Venezuela A Tinderbox?; Sacrificing Pilots For Profits

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of the political wins and loses for the President following his decision yesterday to support same-sex marriage. Steven Clemons, the Washington Editor-At-Large for The Atlantic and Editor-in-Chief of Atlantic Live joins us to discuss how this will effect Obama’s changes in the swing states, seven out of nine of which have banned same-sex marriage.

Part 2

Then we go to Caracas, Venezuela and speak with Virginia Lopez who covers Latin America and Venezuela for the UK’s Guardian and Sky TV. We discuss the long absence of President Hugo Chavez who is undergoing a third round of cancer treatment in Cuba, and the growing instability in a country beset by prison riots and one of the worst crime rates in the world, which may soon have leadership vacuum without a stable succession that could result in a social explosion.

Part 3

Then finally we speak about the Air Force’s disgraceful handling of the F-22 scandal, with the designer of two of the U.S.’s most successful warplanes the F-16 and the A-10. Pierre Sprey joins us to analyze what is wrong with the half a billion dollar airplane that pilots refuse to fly because of problems with the oxygen supply and toxic poisoning that is debilitating them as well as the F-22’s ground crew.

Music: Of Montreal – Enemy Gene; Venezuelan National Anthem; Grateful Dead – Matilda; Modest Mouse – Sh*t Luck