The Critical Hour

Trump, Biden Going Head-to-Head in Cleveland: Will Debate Be Substantive, Impactful?

On this edition of The Critical Hour, co-hosts Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon talk to Gary Flowers about US President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden going head-to-head on Tuesday evening in Cleveland, Ohio, at the first presidential debate.
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Tuesday night will see the first of three debates between Trump and Biden. How much of this event will be substantive and impactful vs. fodder for the media and the talking heads?

"Washington has made preparations to withdraw diplomats from Iraq after warning Baghdad it could shut its embassy, two Iraqi officials and two Western diplomats said, a step Iraqis fear could turn their country into a battle zone," Reuters reported Monday. How concerned should we be that the US is heading towards war, again? 

"The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic eclipsed 1 million on Monday night - a figure that carries an incalculable human cost and is almost certainly an undercount," the Washington Post reported Tuesday. On the domestic front, a Monday headline in The Hill read: "More than 20 states report coronavirus spikes as experts warn of fall, winter surge." What are we to make of this, and is it an indicator that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train?

"Amid a pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 209,000 Americans and caused widespread economic dislocation, tens of millions have been forced to rely on food banks to survive," MintPress News reported Monday. "A new report from the Pew Research Center found that 17 percent of the 13,200 people they surveyed said they had received food from a food bank or similar organization during the pandemic. Nationwide, that figure would amount to 56 million Americans." What can we expect moving forward?

"Fighting that erupted on Sunday between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians in the contested mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh continued throughout Monday," Antiwar.com reported Monday. Could this problem grow and spread?

Senior Afghan peace official Abdullah Abdullah has traveled to Pakistan. The "Taliban and regional peace are likely to be on the agenda as the senior Afghan leader will hold meetings with Pakistani PM and foreign minister," Al Jazeera reported Monday.

This question comes up here often: Is the US pulling back from Iraq about to start another big conflict?

"There’s a general consensus in Washington that Beijing is the number one threat to US global hegemony," Antiwar.com reported Monday. "This has led some administration officials to consider forming a NATO type alliance in Asia to counter a rising China."

Guests:

Gary Flowers - Former executive director of the Old Dominion Bar Association and former special assistant to Virginia Gov. Lawrence Douglas Wilder
Dr. Gerald Horne - Professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian and researcher

Dr. Yolandra Hancock - Physician 

Dr. Dania Francis - Professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston

Alexander Mercouris - Editor-in-chief of The Duran

Daniel Lazare - Investigative journalist and author of "The Velvet Coup"

Scott Ritter - Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq 

KJ Noh - Peace activist, writer and teacher

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