In 2020, the United States marked a grim milestone as it experienced its largest-ever single-year homicide spike on record. As murders continued to climb in 2021, 12 major US cities broke their annual homicide records, with many other urban areas suffering near-record high violence.
Rafael Mangual joined Marc and Dany to discuss the impact and driving factors behind America’s crime wave, the failure of our elected leaders and the criminal justice system to hold criminals accountable, and why the criminal justice reform movement is not only misguided but also dangerous.
Rafael Mangual is a senior fellow and head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He has authored and coauthored a number of reports and op-eds on issues ranging from urban crime and jail violence to broader matters of criminal and civil justice reform. His work has been featured and mentioned in a wide array of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, New York Post, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and City Journal. His first book, “Criminal (In)Justice,” will be available in July 2022.
In what is arguably the most serious crisis in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War, Russia has positioned more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s border and has sparked fears of an invasion. With tensions at a high, the US and its allies have warned the Kremlin that any invasion will be met with “massive consequences” and “severe economic costs.” A new round of talks is set to begin in Paris this week, but Russia and the West have yet to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Chris Miller joined Marc and Dany to discuss the Russian military mobilization at the Ukrainian border, a potential Russian invasion, Putin’s intentions in Ukraine, and how the US and its allies should respond.
Chris Miller is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on Russian foreign policy, politics, and economics; Russia and Ukraine; Russian-European relations; and Eurasia. He also focuses on semiconductors and the geopolitics of technology. Concurrently, Dr. Miller is assistant professor of international history at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and codirector of the school’s Russia and Eurasia Program. He is also the director of the Eurasia Program and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI).
As the Olympics continue in Communist China alongside Beijing’s continued genocide against the Uighurs, all too few have been willing to call out the tyrants and abusers. Democratic freedoms are under assault from Xinjiang to Ankara to Tehran to Moscow. But the powerful have been strangely reticent. Enes Kanter Freedom, a human rights advocate and center for the Boston Celtics, has committed himself to being a voice for freedom and human rights around the world, calling out injustices despite threats against him and his family.
Enes Kanter Freedom joined Marc and Dany to discuss his human rights activism, using his platform to call out injustice, those trying to keep him silent, and why so many people choose their money over their morals.
Enes Kanter Freedom, originally from Turkey, is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics and a human rights advocate. A center, Freedom has played for five NBA teams since entering the league in 2011. In 2021, Freedom officially became a US citizen and legally changed his name to Enes Kanter Freedom at the same time to mark the occasion.
In late January, a group of truckers calling themselves the “Freedom Convoy” traveled to the Canadian capital of Ottawa to protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cross-border vaccine mandates. However, what started as a modest protest has since mushroomed into a broader movement opposed to Trudeau, vaccine mandates, and draconian Covid restrictions. With over $7.8 million in donations from supporters, the “Freedom Convoy” has inspired similar demonstrations not only across Canada—where protesters blockaded North America’s busiest land border crossing for almost a week— but also in New Zealand, France, Netherlands, and most recently, the United States. In an effort to end the ongoing protests, this week, Trudeau invoked the never-used-before Emergencies Act, giving the Canadian government the broad powers and the authority to take steps to “restore order.”
Canadian columnist Anthony Furey joined Marc and Dany to discuss Canada’s trucker protests, Prime Minister Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, Canada’s draconian COVID restrictions, and how the Canadian government is progressively taking away its own citizens freedoms.
Anthony Furey is a national columnist for the Sun newspapers chain in Canada and the host of the Postmedia podcast “Full Comment with Anthony Furey.” He’s also written for TIME, NY Daily News, Literary Review of Canada and other publications. He regularly appears on talk radio and has been featured on BBC, Fox News Channel and other channels. Furey’s new book “Pulse Attack: The Real Story Behind The Secret Weapon That Can Destroy North America,” about electromagnetic pulse warfare, is now out and available.
Is the news out of Ukraine as bad as it sounds? Russia may not be able to hold out as long as Putin believes, but the Ukrainian military desperately requires longer-range missiles to beat back the offensive in Luhansk. Ukraine’s putative allies are failing to “flood the zone,” and do not seem to realize that a frozen conflict is a strategic pause for the Russians, not the end of the game. Domestic politics and news headlines alike reflect a desire to move on, yet Ukraine is at a critical inflection point in Severodonetsk, the last significant Ukrainian prepared defensive position within Luhansk Oblast. How do we ensure that we don’t look back at this moment years from now, only to conclude that delays in aiding Ukraine helped the Russian offensive gain a critical strategic advantage?
These questions and more in today’s conversation with George Barros. Barros is a geospatial analyst on the Russia and Ukraine portfolio at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Check out ISW’s daily interactive map linked on the transcript, which he helps each week to update.
Download the transcript here.
Today’s episode is an exploration of the core question gripping our country in the weeks following the Uvalde shooting: how can we prevent such attacks in the future? A terrible pattern repeats again in the recent Uvalde case: a teenager exhibits disturbing behavior before he commits a gun-related crime. With no criminal record, what should have been “tell-tale” signs the shooter was a danger? Jim Geraghty suggests that tougher background checks are not the answer, or at least not the whole answer. In addition, with straw buyers (think grandmothers) purchasing firearms for their teenage grandsons—not to mention the fact that the Pentagon puts more guns in the hands of young adults than anyone else in this country— raising the age restriction may not cut it. It may not even pass legal muster. The challenge isn’t simple, but there are solutions. Marc and Dany explore creative options that could move us forward, and learn why efforts to ban certain kinds of weapons might not with National Review’s Jim Geraghty.
Jim Geraghty is the Senior Political Correspondent of National Review. He writes their Morning Jolt newsletter, and hosts the Three Martini Lunch podcast.
This is America – how can we have a shortage of baby formula? That’s the question many parents are asking as they face bare Soviet-style store shelves. In a country with ample means, how did America arrive at what is essentially a food shortage? How did three main domestic baby formula companies come to control 98% of their market? Parent or not, this issue has implications for everyone—it is a case study that involves government regulations, supply chain, monopolies under the guise of capitalism, and barriers to free trade. Or, as one of the podcast’s guests notes, “a perfect storm.”
Marc and Dany explore this puzzling situation with guests Annie Gasparro and Jesse Newman, Wall Street Journal reporters covering the scandal. Gasparro is a food reporter with the WSJ Chicago bureau and writes about packaged food companies and consumer tastes. Newman is also a food reporter with the WSJ corporate bureau, covering farmers, ranchers, and food companies.
Do Russians really support Vladimir Putin’s aggression and war crimes in Ukraine? On the weekend of April 1st, Western media shared photos and videos of a brutal massacre in Bucha, Ukraine. The gruesome reports prompted a fresh wave of outrage over Russian war crimes. This week saw the first Ukrainian war crimes trial that ended in confession and conviction for a Russian soldier. But Russians in government and outside continue to insist that the Bucha massacre is “fake,” or “Western agenda-setting.” More troubling still are broad Russian civilian calls to annihilate the “sub-human” Ukrainians.
Marc and Dany explore this disturbing trend with Ian Garner on today’s episode. Garner is a historian and a translator of Russian war propaganda. His first book, Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival, was published in 2022.
More guns, less butter? Today, average Americans are looking at historic levels of inflation, economic contraction, and rising gas prices, soon to merit the term stagflation—and that’s not all. People are leaving their jobs en masse, the average consumer is cutting costs to keep up with personal budget deficits, and meanwhile, the Biden administration has added $1.9 trillion to the $300 billion economic hole. To top it all off, there’s trouble abroad with tightening sanctions on Russia and the persistent trade competition with China. Glenn Hubbard joins Dany and Marc to discuss the state of economic affairs, the role of the Fed, Build Back Better, and more.
Glenn Hubbard is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the former Dean of the Columbia Business School. He is the current Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics there. He is also the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.
Last week we saw the first leak in Supreme Court history – a draft opinion that reversed the landmark Roe v Wade ruling of 1973 and shot the topic of abortion back into the headlines. Former Supreme Court clerk John Yoo joins Dany and Marc again to discuss the legal implications of overturning Roe v Wade, the reasoning behind the leak, and the options before the nation’s voters as they weigh the prospective ruling. Is Roe good law? Does it matter? And do the American people care that issues before the highest court in the land and the nomination of justices have taken on the “character of a political campaign.”
These questions and more on this week’s episode with guest John Yoo. Yoo is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He is currently the Emmanuel Heller professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley school of law. He is a scholar at both the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution.