Ryan Crocker: Drones “can’t substitute for an entire nuanced counter-terrorist strategy.”

President Obama just gave a major speech on U.S. foreign policy, including the use of drone strikes. His comments echoed those of former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has served in Iraq, Pakistan, and most recently Afghanistan. Crocker appeared on Where We Live earlier this month  before an event with the World Affairs Council of Connecticut.

You can listen to Ambassador Crocker discuss the use of drones in the clip below. He talks about coordinating strikes with the Pakistani government and the use of drones in an overall counter-terrorism effort.

 

 

“Can we really blame (teenagers) for not being concerned with politics?”

Today’s show asked a question that has entered many minds over the years: What’s government good for? That feeling is understandable, especially this week (the IRS scandal, the Justice Department secretly collecting phone records from AP reporters, and the Robert Braddock Jr. trial happening here in Connecticut).

Our in-studio audience are students in the Introduction to American Politics class at Bulkeley High School in Hartford, CT.

Kyle Phillip is a senior from Bulkeley High School. He raised the question of political apathy among his classmates. But he demonstrated that he’s not apathetic himself.

Listen to the full show with Christine Stuart from CT News Junkie and Urania Petit, the Working Families Registrar of Voters in Hartford.

Murphy Camp Learns From McMahon: Media Doesn’t Matter

by JD -

Chris Murphy is in a tie with Linda McMahon, and trailing her in “favorability” rating. Now his campaign staff has backed out of a promise to come on Where We Live.

I expected McMahon to dodge our request for an hour-long call-in show - she’s been disciplined about avoiding the press and given her continued success in the polls, she has no reason to change course now.

Murphy’s another matter. He doesn’t have the funds to buy media attention whenever he wants, and he’s very good at “free” appearances on shows like Where We Live. In fact, along with fellow Congressman Joe Courtney, Murphy has appeared on our show more than just about anyone.  When he’s on the show, Murphy is happy to answer tough questions and talk about policy, politics, whatever. He is, by all accounts, a fan of public broadcasting.  And in this week of Big Bird bashing, we need all the help we can get. 

But trying to schedule a sit-down with him for our “Where We Vote” series has been a nightmare. It finally ended last night when the campaign’s communications director Ben Marter flatly broke a promise to have his candidate appear for an hour on Monday October 8.

Marter gave me a “guarantee” that Murphy would appear for an hour on Monday October 8th after backing out of two previous dates that they had chosen.  Yesterday morning in an email, Marter changed the terms, telling us that Murphy would be leaving at 9:30 AM. I asked Marter why, and he later told me “It was a scheduling issue.” I told him that’s not how it works.

But long before that, the writing was on the wall. In correspondence with producer Tucker Ives, Marter openly worried about planted phone calls from McMahon staff.  I explained to him on two occasions that our policy is to screen all incoming calls, and to present a program that’s fair to both the candidate and listeners. Murphy himself knows this – it’s why he loves coming on Where We Live as a sitting congressman (more often than not, his appearances coincide with unsolicited requests from his office to come on the air).  Despite their candidate’s demonstrated ability to handle himself on live radio, it now seems clear that Murphy’s staff:

1. Has no interest in their candidate engaging in an open, long-form conversation with public radio listeners at this point in the campaign.
2. Has no interest in honoring commitments made by top campaign officials.
3. Is unnecessarily frightened by the specter of tough questioning from unfriendly callers.

Given that the campaign has so far allowed McMahon to paint him as a mortgage deadbeat, and serial skipper of committee meetings, you’d think that they’d make every effort to honor agreements and show up when scheduled.

And it’s not just Where We Live. As the Connecticut Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas tells us, he’s increasingly had to shout questions at Murphy from afar, and that the candidate now meets with the media only in “carefully chosen settings.” Reporters tell me that he’s still more accessible than McMahon, but not by much.

In this campaign cycle, journalists have increasingly become seen as a nuisance in a race to win at all costs, while informing the public as little as possible. But in this case, Murphy’s communications team denies his candidate a chance to describe McMahon’s own problems with her finances, and to paint a sharp contrast between her press inaccessibility and his openness. As one veteran political analyst told me: In a race this tight, if you’ve got some high ground, protect it.

Kudos to Elizabeth Esty and Andrew Roraback, who are running in an equally bruising race for congress for both having the guts and character to answer questions from their constituents on Where We Live. And, I’m looking forward to upcoming conversations with 4th district candidates Jim Himes and Steve Obsitnik on the show.

Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure that if a hypothetical President Mitt Romney decides to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS, public broadcasting will have the support of Senator Chris Murphy. But if that pledge comes from Murphy’s campaign staffers, I’m not gonna take their word for it.

Linda McMahon Says No to “Where We Vote”

by JD -

Well, we tried. Throughout this entire campaign season, dogged producer Tucker Ives has been trying to schedule Republican senate candidate Linda McMahon for our series on Where We Live called “Where We Vote.” We ask for one hour of the candidate’s time, in our studio, to answer questions from me and our listeners. We’d wanted to have her on during the primary against Chris Shays. Shays came on the show, she didn’t.

For weeks since then, we’ve tried again and again, and had our phone calls unreturned, and requests for dates unanswered. It’s a bit ironic, given the press release I got on September 19 with the heading “Will Murphy continue to stonewall and duck media questions for another 48 days?” 

McMahon’s rival, Democrat Chris Murphy, will join us on October 3 (originally scheduled for tomorrow), and has also already been on the program once before, during the primary season. He’ll answer some tough questions that have been dogging his campaign, but also get to talk about policy issues and give voters a reason to elect him in November.

McMahon has appeared once before on “Where We Vote” - back in March of 2010 when she was running against Rob Simmons in another senate race. During that interview, McMahon suggested that I was asking too many questions about her company WWE. Obviously, questions about WWE were on the table again this campaign year, given the wrestling empire’s ongoing effort to scrub the internet of distasteful video “highlights” of past episodes of their “scripted entertainment.”  And, for months, I’ve been wanting to ask her about the lack of access to her campaign by the press, and the feud that developed with newspaper editors over their characterization of WWE’s product.

And of course, we’d be talking about what has become the highlight issue in this campaign for Senate.  No, not jobs or the economy, but as Colin McEnroe puts it, the burning question of “who’s the bigger deadbeat?” We’d ask questions about the creditors McMahon is only now paying back from her bankruptcy in the 1970s.

We’ve said it before: If you have the money to pay for your message, I suppose you can afford to avoid interviews on “free” media like “Where We Vote.”

If Linda McMahon still wants to join us, and there’s someone from the campaign reading this, we’ve got some open dates. Get in touch with Tucker. You know where to reach him.

Primary Day Polls Not Hopping

As expected, polling places across Connecticut are not handing out many stickers today.

Photo by Catie Talarski.

On this morning’s Where We Live, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said this Primary Day turnout will be similar to previous years. “Sad to say, I’d be happy with 30%,” said Merrill.

All day long, we’ll be talking to those who are showing up to the polls. The Colin McEnroe Show is talking with “Citizen Reporters” about what they are (or aren’t) seeing. WNPR reporter Diane Orson talked with voters in North Haven and Bridgeport this morning. Frank Giordano cast his vote for Linda McMahon in North Haven. He said Chris Shays isn’t the change that he’s looking for in Washington. “He was there for too long. And a lot of these politicians have been there for too long,” said Giordano. “It’s time for a change.”

Linda McMahon is expected to win tonight but Chris Shays and his supporters haven’t given up yet. Pat Redding is one of those supporters who acknowledges the uphill climb the former Congressman faces but is holding out hope. “It’s hard to compete against that when you can’t get your name out, when there’s an oversaturation of negative ads, pro-ads for Linda McMahon..that’s stuff you can’t beat,” said Redding. “But I’m hoping for the best. I’m hoping for a solid turnout for him.”

Diane Orson caught up with a supporter of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Susan Bysiewicz, who is also facing a tough battle in her campaign against Rep. Chris Murphy. But Bysiewicz got the support of Rita Wozniak who likes her for representing the ordinary citizen. “She understands some of our problems and I love her attitude. She’s determined to do something to help,” said Wozniak.

At the end of this morning’s Where We Live, Colin McEnroe called in to share what he’s seen around West Hartford. He didn’t see much and called the turnout “shockingly low.” There were also very few people standing outside the polling places with signs in support of candidates. That’s coming from someone who has been through every primary since Lancelot Phelps first held the 5th District seat in 1835.

We’ve heard from people on Twitter about voter turnout too.

• @RosieDeRobertis: Husband & I were the only ones there. Realized 3/4′s of the political TV ads I’d seen are not for our district.
• @saultert: Hardly anyone there. A coworker just told me they don’t vote because they don’t think primaries count. Sad.
• @danielschwartz: Yes, I voted. And there wasn’t another person who was voting at the same time around 7:15 in Avon. Very quiet.
• @jancdavis: as an independent I would vote if we had open primaries in CT

This low turnout wasn’t unexpected. When Ned Lamont beat Sen. Joe Lieberman in the 2006 primary for the Democratic nomination, 43% of Democrats showed up. The big issue during that election was the Iraq War. There isn’t an issue like it this time around. Lamont joined us on the show this morning and said that this crop of candidates are very similar on the issues. “They have to make up differences,” said Lamont. “There’s nothing of substance that really gets people to drive to that polling booth and cast their vote.”

Remember to follow WNPR’s Primary Day coverage with the CT Mirror, culminating tonight with a live broadcast from the Red Rock Tavern in Hartford. The Mirror also has a great page dedicated to Primary Day news today.

As always, let us know what you’re seeing as you vote today. Are you in the 5th District where voter turnout is expected to be slightly higher? Or are you in Hartford voting by yourself?

Returning Vets Project Comes to Where We Live, CCSU

WNPR’s Coming Home Project: Live at CCSU

Wednesday, March 14, 7pm, Torp Theater, Davidson Hall, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain

Central Connecticut State University and WNPR present a comprehensive panel discussion with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars about their service and the difficult transition home.

With the Iraq War ended and withdrawal from Afghanistan imminent, the United States is seeing a flood of veterans coming home from war. Many are returning with physical, mental and emotional wounds that take time to heal and are little understood by the civilian population. And these vets are coming home to a nation still in economic trouble, where jobs are tough to come by. As part of a yearlong reporting project, WNPR is talking to Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans about their stories of deployment, conflict, return and re-integration.

In collaboration with Central Connecticut State University, this forum will bring together veterans from across the state to talk about their experiences, what is being done to help veterans in the state, and what more still needs to be done. This program will be recorded for broadcast on WNPR’s Where We Live.

John Dankosky is Robert C. Vance Endowed Chair in Journalism and Mass Communication, News Director of WNPR and host of Where We Live. He is the lead organizer for this event, along with Lucy Nalpathanchil – Correspondent and Host at WNPR and lead reporter on the Coming Home Project and Michael Zacchea, a 2nd lieutenant in the Marine Corps who served in Iraq.  Zacchea has received numerous military awards including the Bronze Star Medal for Valor (with gold star in lieu of 2nd award), and a Purple Heart. He now works at The University of Connecticut as part of their Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities.  The program will include two panel discussions with groups of accomplished returning veterans who advocate for other military personnel.

Directions to CCSU

Facebook Page for Event – please sign up

 

Murphy Sees “Disconnect” Between Military, Public on Afghanistan

Chris Murphy - Photo by Chion Wolf, WNPR

by John Dankosky - 

Congressman Chris Murphy was in Afghanistan in the days before the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.  In fact, he said he felt a bit “sheepish” about the special ops briefing he got – given what he later found out was on the unit’s plate.

After the trip, Murphy says it’s time to start “drawing down our presence in that country.”

Murphy’s a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and it was his third trip to Afghanistan.   He told WNPR’s Where We Live that one big change since his first trip in 2007 has been public perception among Afghans.   He said four years ago,  the U.S. was seen as a “force for good.”   Now, that support has eroded – and in some parts of the country, he says our presence hasn’t helped at all.

“We are sometimes bringing the fight to towns. Just as we did in Iraq, where we essentially drew Al Qaeda to that country. As we have an extended presence in Afghanistan, there are are some places – like the Korengal Valley – where places were safe before we got there,” he told me.

He likens the perception problem to how the US is seen in neighboring Pakistan, where drone strikes into mountain villages have killed civilians.  He says that practice has “cratered” our standing in Pakistan.

Murphy says he learned on his visit that there is what he called a “fundamental disconnect…between what the American public thinks is the timetable and what the military thinks is the timetable” for troops to leave Afghanistan.

“Most of my constituents think that there is something important happening this year. There wasn’t a single military or civilian leader that I met with in Afghanistan that talked about a 2011 timetable. They were talking about 2014. And though I’m sure there is going to be some modicum of troop withdrawals to comport with the President’s timetable, there seems to be an assumption amongst our military leaders there that they have about 300,000 troops to work with for the next three years, and I don’t think that’s something that the American people will support.”

Murphy says the U.S. still has a role to play in training the Afghan police and army, but wants to start bringing back some of the front-line troops.

Himes: Ryan Budget Plan Puts Spotlight on Democrats

Jim Himes dreams of better days...

by John Dankosky – A midnight deadline is approaching for Congress to reach a budget agreement or face a government shutdown.   Democrats and Republicans are locked in a short-term political battle over the scope of government cuts, but congressman Jim Himes says its a long-term conversation that needs to happen.

Himes said that Republican congressman Paul Ryan is proposing a “glidepath” for the federal government to reduce its deficit over the next ten years, similar to the “Simpson-Bowles” recommendations that came out of President Obama’s deficit commission.

Speaking on WNPR’s Where We Live, Himes says he doesn’t like a much about Ryan’s plan – a plan that he says would shift healthcare costs and cut deeply into transportation funding.

“But look, it’s an opening statement for a negotiation that we need to have.  I’ve been on record for a couple of months saying that I support the Simpson-Bowles proposal.  I’m not happy about much that’s in there – but we do need to have that broad-based conversation.  And frankly, Ryan’s proposal, though problematic in a lot of ways, has now shifted the spotlight to the Democrats for them to sort of say, ‘Here’s our version of the next ten years, and what government should be doing.’”

The Simpson-Bowles plan proposes some caps on spending that are similar to Ryan’s plan, but also proposes cuts to defense spending, something the Republican plan does not.

Himes says he hopes that now that Ryan’s plan is out, that President Obama will get behind Simpson-Bowles and push it through the Senate.

Home Sales, Federal Help Program Hit Bottom Together

Wallace Farmer of Baltimore recently moved out of his row house after giving up on the government's loan modification program. (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica)

by John Dankosky – On a day when we got news that existing home sales fell 27% from June – the worst performance in more than a decade – we heard from homeowners about their infuriating efforts to get help from the federal HAMP program, meant to stave off foreclosures.  A smattering of the responses gives the flavor:

I think that the loan modification program is a farce, I think that it was just implented so that the government can say “look we are helping the American people”, when in all reality the program is stacked against struggling Americans. – Jess

Across 2 years of mailing documents back and forth to banks (lost, misplaced, or no one to contact) the only thing I have found that the banks are acceptable to is a short-sale of properties to new buyers. The advice to “keep working with your lender” is a total lie. I have called to banks on a weekly basis, emailed contact persons, and attended to classes and foreclosure seminars (which was the only way that I could actually find out who to contact within the banks) and still been left with zero return calls or response beyond the standard threatening responses that banks send that you will lose your home if no payment is made. – Clif

Those comments were echoed by dozens who called, including many we didn’t have time for on the show, and hundreds more who fueled ProPublica’s remarkable reporting on this story.  Later in the day, I talked with a Realtor in a suburban town, who confirmed that she’s hearing stories like this just about every day.

Now it’s not surprising that the goals of the original HAMP program, not just its implementation, would be criticized by conservative outlets like The National Review.  But liberal bloggers have been flabbergasted by the government’s own description of the program as a “success,” because as Brent Hunsberger wrote for The Oregonian, they say “it kept banks afloat and profitable, even if it put struggling homeowners through the ringer.”  Duncan Black writes: “Conning homeowners by announcing a government program designed to help them when in fact it was designed to help the banksters is, in my world, ‘cruel.”

For those looking for help, The Connecticut Fair Housing Center is offering classes, but attorney Jeff Gentes suggested that even with assistance – there’s no guarantees that you’ll be able to get your mortgage adjusted.  The process is too complicated, and seemingly stacked against homeowners.

Politicians Pedaling “Very Softly” Around Mosque Issue

Peter Gottschalk Photo:Chion Wolf

by Josie Holtzman and John Dankosky – The national debate over a proposed mosque and community center near the site of the 9/11 attack in New York has become an issue in the race for Senate. Republican candidate Linda McMahon told the Greenwich Time that the project “rubs salt in the wound of the 9/11 tragedy,” and that “from a sensitivity standpoint, I think we’d be better served to have it built somewhere else.”

Democrat Richard Blumenthal’s campaign released a statement saying “Dick knows this issue is highly personal and sensitive for many people here in Connecticut and around the country. He believes that this issue should be decided at the local level — and discussed with compassion and reason.”

Speaking on Where We Live today, Peter Gottschalk, author of “Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy,” said that Democrats are handling the controversy with great care:

So I think that it’s not surprising that some Democrats are peddling very very softly on this issue because they know what kind of label Islam lover or Muslim lover how negative that label would be. Islamophobia is not an issue around just conservative voters there are plenty of liberal voters who are deeply influenced by Islamophobic sentiment.

The controversy surfaced in Connecticut, when a Christian group from Texas protested at a Mosque in Bridgeport two weeks ago. Members of the Connecticut Muslim community staged an interfaith counter-rally at the state capitol. At that event, speakers said that they felt local politicians had been too quiet on the issue.

Some suggested listening: Our earlier program on a conference in Hartford aimed at de-radicalization of Islam, and Colin McEnroe’s exploration of our “post 9/11 neurosis” with Dr. Ingrid Mattson.