March 04, 2012

Broadcast Date: 
Mar 4 2012

In the wake of the Arab Spring and, most immediately, the violence in Syria, we're beginning to see a number of significant realignments.  Phyllis Bennis of The Institute for Policy Studies talks us through them.

The two sides of Rick Santorum: cultural warrior and Washington insider and professional pol.  We talk with Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News.

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes continues to resist efforts to unmask child sexual abusers in Orthodox Jewish communities. Hella Winston of The Jewish Week and writer and attorney Michael Lesher bring us up-to-date.

Episode segments
  • Realignments in the wake of the Arab Spring
    International Politics, Middle East
    Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC where she is the Director of their New Internationalism project.  Her best-selling book, Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer is now available in an updated 5th edition from Interlink Books.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Beginning with Hamas's recent break with the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria, Phyllis Bennis talks us through the realignments emerging in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring and what they portend for the U.S.'s role in the region.

  • The Two Sides of Rick Santorum
    National Politics, Electoral
    Will Bunch is a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, where he is the author of its popular blog, Attytood.  He is the author of The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. Will has followed the career of Rick Santorum for years.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Rick Santorum, man of faith and cultural warrior, is the Republlican primary candidate covered by the press.  (See, for example, this story from the March 4th, New York Times.)  But there's another Rick Santorum, a Washington insider indebted to some of the U.S.'s largest corporations and a history of dubious ethics. Will Bunch has been following Santorum for years and he talks with us about both sides of the candidate.

     

  • Why Won't Brooklyn DA Hynes Release the Names of Child Sexual Abusers He Says He Has Arrested?
    New York Politics, Jewish Communities, Police/Criminal Justice, Jewish

    Hella Winston has been reporting for several years, primarily in The Jewish Week, about the failure of the Brooklyn DA's office to aggressively pursue and identify child sexual abusers within Orthodox Jewish communities. She is currently a senior fellow at The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.

    Michael Lesher is a writer and an attorney who represents victims of child sexual abuse.  He is a contributer to Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities & Child Sex Scandels.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    For years child advocates in New York State have been pressing the legislature to pass laws that would make it easier for law enforcement authorities to pursue chlild sexual abusers.  To that end they've sought to extend the statute of limitations and to provide a temporary window within which past cases can also be pursued.  Time after time proposed bills have failed in the face of heavy lobbying by Catholic and Jewish religious authorities.  A new effort is afoot this spring, endorsed by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

    But Albany isn't the only obstacle to unmasking and bringing child sexual abusers to justice.  We talk with Hella Winston and Michael Lesher about how a combination of cultural taboos and a District Attorney's reluctance to buck an important voting block has resulted in a shadow justice system that abets the covering up of child sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish communities.