U.S. General Confined Amid Complex Gitmo Terror Trial

Coming up on today’s show:

• President Trump’s pick to head the Department of Agriculture, Sam Clovis, withdrew his nomination on Wednesday, after being linked to Robert Mueller’s ongoing Russia investigation. Rebecca Ballhaus, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the White House and money in politics, discusses Clovis’s past, and his connection to the ongoing Russia investigation. 

• On Thursday, local news outlets DNAInfo, Gothamist, and their sister sites in Los Angeles, Chicago, and D.C. abruptly shuttered. The company’s CEO, Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, said in a statement that the news sites were not profitable. The closure of these media organizations comes after employees voted to unionize last week.Katie Honan, a former reporter for DNAinfo, weighs in.

• With the GOP’s new tax reform plan out, K street lobbyists are mobilizing. What is it like to be a lobbyist in D.C. right now? For answers, we turn to Bob Schneider, whospent two decades as a lobbyist in Washington. He’s currently a writer at Chicago Now.

• Every Friday, Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday and The Takeaway, drops by to review the new releases hitting the box office. This week, Rafer reviews “Thor: Ragnarok,” which is Marvel’s latest action film starring Chris Hemsworth and Cate Blanchett. He also examines a biopic that stars Woody Harrelson as President Lyndon Johnson in “LBJ,” and the star-studded sequel to the raunchy comedy “Bad Moms,” called “A Bad Moms Christmas.” 

• What will the world look like in 50 years? You can ask economists or computer engineers to make predictions, but we wanted to have a little more fun. In a special series from The Takeaway, science fiction writers imagine what the world will look like in the year 2067. Today we hear from Alaya Dawn Johnson, a speculative fiction author based in Mexico City. Her novels include “Love Is the Drug” and “The Summer Prince.”

• On Wednesday, Marine Brigadier General John Baker was found to be in contempt of court and sentenced to 21 days in confinement. Baker is connected to the U.S.S. Cole case, and had ordered the release of three civilian defense attorneys in the terror trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. Carol Rosenberg,a reporter from the Miami Herald, is the only journalist at Guantanamo Bay covering this story. She brings us the details. 

• On November 5th, the organization Pathway to Paris is holding a concert at Carnegie Hall to launch the start of the 1,000 Cities initiative, which is focused on getting cities around the world to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of legendary musician and activist Patti Smith, who is performing at the concert this weekend, join us for a discussion on art, activism, and climate change. 

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.