Democracy Now! — Thursday, June 30, 2016

Maffei_1_and_2-640x220

The Planet Waves Boutique has plenty of balm for your soul. Come pay us a visit, put your feet up, and enjoy discovering all the wonderful readings we have to offer.

Funerals have begun in Turkey for some of the 42 people killed in a triple suicide bombing Tuesday targeting Turkey’s main airport in Istanbul. The attack also left 239 others injured. Authorities said three attackers arrived at the airport’s international terminal by taxi and blew themselves up after opening fire. The airport is the 11th busiest in the world. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkey’s prime minister said the initial probe pointed to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or Daesh.

A senior Turkish official told the Associated Press the three suicide attackers were nationals of Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Earlier today, Turkish police raided 16 locations in Istanbul and detained 13 people on suspicion of involvement in the attack. Turkey has seen an uptick in bombings since last year, when the United States began using Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base to carry out bombing raids in Syria and Iraq targeting ISIS strongholds.

“It’s not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.” Those were the words of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump during a town hall event last year in New Hampshire. Today’s show looks back at Trump’s rise to power and how he profited from his father’s deep pocketbook and political connections.

Decades before Donald Trump became a household name, his father Fred Trump emerged as one of New York’s most prolific real estate developers, building more than 27,000 homes in Brooklyn and Queens. In 1927, Fred Trump made the news when he was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan riot in Queens.

Amy Goodman spoke to Wayne Barrett, considered the preeminent journalist on Donald Trump. As a reporter at The Village Voice, Barrett began reporting on Donald Trump in the late 1970s. Barrett’s 1991 biography of Trump was just republished as an ebook with the title of “Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention.”

On Wednesday, a dozen protesters with the group Resist the Pipeline were arrested for nonviolently lying down in a trench being dug by Spectra Energy for its pipeline. Several more were arrested for trespassing on private property. The action sought to draw a connection between pipelines like Spectra’s and a mass grave that was dug last month in Pakistan in preparation for a deadly heat wave.

23 people were arrested protesting Spectra Energy’s fracked gas pipeline in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Longtime climate activist Tim DeChristopher was one of about 30 people who ventured onto the Spectra pipeline construction site in an attempt to nonviolently stop work. Local residents and politicians have long opposed the West Roxbury Lateral pipeline, which they say is dangerous for the pipeline to run alongside a quarry where there is frequent blasting.

During the action, DeChristopher and 11 others climbed inside the pipeline trench and refused to budge for almost two hours before being forcibly removed by firefighters. DeChristopher drew a comparison between the trenches of the gas pipeline and the mass graves recently dug in Pakistan in anticipation of a climate-fueled heat wave.

We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Find out where the Democracy Now! crew is visiting next during the show’s 100-city tour, celebrating 20 years on the air.

Leave a Reply