Veteran counter-terrorism consultant
Veteran counter-terrorism consultant to various US intelligence agencies; former master instructor in the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Program; author of Terrorists of Iraq: Inside the Strategy and Tactics of the Iraq Insurgency
The Next Attorney General and Waterboarding Michael Mukasey is now considered certain to be confirmed as the next Attorney General of the United States after today's vote by the Judiciary Committee to send his name to the full Senate. The former judge has refused to say whether he thinks waterboarding is torture, but told New York Senator Chuck Schumer he would enforce a law against waterboarding if Congress passed one. That was good enough for Diane Feinstein of California, who joined fellow Democrat Schumer in providing the two deciding votes. Eight other Democrats voted no, insisting that waterboarding is torture and that Mukasey should declare it already illegal. Should a Medieval practice be classified as torture? Would that incriminate US officials all the way up to the White House? We talk to a Navy veteran who's been through it and taught it. Does it provide reliable information that could save innocent lives?
Trump's new look at civil rights and global warming President Trump is reportedly ready to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. We look at the possible consequences. On the second half of the program, we hear about cuts in Obama-Era civil rights programs called for by the Trump Administration's first budget plan.
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.