An Armao On The Brink

Wall Street economist Mark Wittman and host Rosemary Armao debate what Dems will and should be doing after a monumental win in this month's elections. The two agree that voters were motivated to vote blue by economic grievances toward Donald Trump and not new-found love for Democrats. What do you want Dems now in control of Congress to make their first priority: A. Restoring health care cuts B...

Long-time Ohio politics observer Mary Anne Sharkey weighs the candidates, issues, and threats likely to shape this week’s midterm election results.

Three of the women acting in an upcoming production of Emily Feldman's play 'The Best We Could' describe how art is imitating life on questions of sexual offenses and male dominance.

Political strategist Corinne Carey of Troy, NY, led legislative efforts to pass New York's medical aid in dying law at the same time she faced the illness and death of her own mother. She and podcast host Rosemary Armao,  who lost her mother a year ago, talk about public and private grief and becoming orphans.

In this episode, we sit with Joe Donahue to discuss the challenges of interviewing and how to navigate connection to people in today's world.

Communications expert John Oliver has made himself an expert on George Washington. He says the current  president could not be more different from the first in terms of character and style the two men share similarities such as great personal wealth, thin skin about criticism, and populist appeal.  Would Donald Trump be jealous of Washington's unanimous vote by the Electoral College? John Oliv...

Trump may be getting all the headlines, but opinion journalists Rosemary Armao and Jay Jochnowitz manage to find more looming disasters we should be worried about including fascism returning to Germany and planetary meltdown. Also, the new look of world maps.  Are you less worried about global warming than scientists say we should be because you believe world leaders will get it together in time t...

Opinion journalists Rosemary Armao and Jay Jochnowitz talk with a live audience about how much Trump would have to pay them for their vote and other insidious ways aside from bribery the 2026 midterms might be undermined.  What is your plan for Election Day this November? a. Not voting! b. Voting in person on Election Day c. Absentee and mail voting d. Voting early to ensure my vote counts

The discussion got heated when opinion journalists Rosemary Armao and Jay Jochnowitz starting talking about the E. Jean Carroll Case and wound up debating whether women bear any responsibility for preventing rape and if No really always means No. .. Do you think the Epstein survivors are remiss is not simply naming names themselves instead of demanding the release of more files, legal liability be...

Opinion journalists Rosemary Armao and Jay Jochnowitz talk with a salon audience about the value of trying to talk with friends and relatives with different political ideas even when it's maddening and everyone knows there's no real chance of anyone changing their minds. Have you lost any friends because they don't think the same way about the Trump administration as you do?

Food historian and costume designer Professor Brittney Belz of Union College talks with host Rosemary Armao about the travails of 18th Century housewives who had no appliances, no refrigeration, no supermarkets, no expectation of help from the men, not even measuring cups, timers or whisks, and we think we have it rough today. Are you seeing food prices continuing to rise at your supermarket?  Spe...

Dead or alive: Lindsey Graham? Mitch McConnell Hope for fair and free midterms? In a wide-ranging salon discussion with a lively audience journalists Rosemary Armao and Jay Jochnowitz talk about a variety of troubling news items and age restrictions on Politicians.

Dead or alive: Brave journalists? Hope for fair and free midterms? Odysseus? In a wide-ranging salon discussion with a lively audience journalists Rosemary Armao and Jay Jochnowitz talk about a variety of troubling news items  -- plus a controversial movie.

When journalist/professors Leslie-Jean Thornton submitted an academic paper about the effect of Trump administration attacks on the media on journalists and broadcasters, it was rejected. “Just a flash in the pan,” the scholarly reviewer told her. Well, they published that paper belatedly this year, and Thornton has plenty of material for an updated paper on increasing and more serious attacks. Jo...

Is the government really wrong to go after reporters who revealed weaknesses in the defensive mechanisms on the new Air Force One? Host Rosemary Armao and guest Mark Wittman disagree about the Trump administration's latest attacks on news-gathering by the New York Times.  Do you think the independent press in the US has too many privileges even considering the First Amendment? Mark Wittman is...

Native Greg Hamilton remembers growing up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, long an isolated fishing and farming region on the edge of Virginia but now a focal point of racial inequality, environmental deterioration, and economic decline. Is the future hopeless for coastal areas like the Eastern Shore faced with dwindling  fishing stock, rising ocean waters, and an aging, declining population?  Gr...

Revolutionary War re-enactor Carle Kopecky says 18th century soldiers were fighting for the same thing today’s protestors are: no kings lording it over them. Americans are noticeably less excited by the country’s 250th birthday than they were during the Bicentennial 60 years ago. Is this because we are less patriotic? What do you think would most surprise a  soldier from 1776 looking at modern  Am...

New York Capital District activists Christine Primomo and Darlene Stott talk about the logistical, artistic and political challenges of fighting MAGA with messages plastered on bridges and overpasses. The Visibility Brigade organizers say non-violent protest works and combat the right-wing talking point that only old white women are out in the streets. The best way to combat an administration you...

Historian and feminist Ellie Burhans of Albany has recently taken on a new role demonstrating against and decrying energy and water hogging data centers. One has been proposed for an old convent property in Albany and it is one of nearly 30 such centers proposed in the state of New York despite growing concern over how much resources go into centers to support AI and crypto mining. New York may we...

Journalist Rosemary Armao  checked back in with Albany native and long-time foreign service officer Michelle Dworkin about that rare Ebola  virus rolling through central Africa. Dworkin lost her job with the US Agency for International Development  last year when the Trump administration shut it down. Armao in her  Beyond the Brink podcast this week explores just how much  the Trump administration...

Veteran Ohio political writer Mary Anne Sharkey discusses the massive graft and abuse we are witnessing in the second Trump term and ponders why it seems so hard to stop it. Is making a president’s every action in office unpunishable as the Supreme Court has done a good idea? What do you see as the worst public corruption scandal in the news lately? A. A DOJ slush fund for the president to pay off...

Wall Street banker and public affairs commentator Mark Wittman explains for podcast host Rosemary Armao in layman’s terms how rising prices, disputed interest rates, the price of gold and the strength of the dollar are being affected by war, politics and Donald Trump’s bullying.  Are you limiting how much driving you are doing because of rising gas prices? The most potentially damaging economic pr...

Writer Phyllis Jordan  who grew up in Virginia and long reported on southern politics  considers the implications and consequences of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in a Louisiana case that essentially guts the Voting Rights Act. Do you agree with the Supreme Court majority that racism and discrimination in voting is no longer a problem that requires federal oversight?  What do you foresee the...

Veteran investigative reporter Jim Odato knows the history, controversies and problems of New York's Adirondacks region better than almost anyone, and he talks with podcast host Rosemary Armao about preserving the wild North Country while also building world-class Olympic sports facilities and redeveloping closed prisons in the vast and remote area. James M. Odato is a correspondent and former edi...

Podcast host Rosemary Armao and opinion writer Jay Jaynowitz talk about the sex scandals, misbehaving cabinet members, feuding over who's holier the Pope or the President, and the dark side of the Moon, all of which goes to show how weird and chaotic our world has become.