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. Journalists are fearful, more cautious — and more determined to keep on doing their work, the professor says.Leslie-Jean Thornton began in journalism, of a sort, when she was seven and handwriting the High Point News – on lined paper, distributed in violation of federal law in neighbors’ mailboxes. She was shut down after the first edition, accused of embarrassing her mother and embroidering the truth by reporting a flirtatious exchange between mom and the milkman. She’s been intrigued by truth, the perceptions of truth, and the communication of information ever since. She holds degrees in journalism and mass communication from Mercy College, New York University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned her doctorate. She had most recently worked at the Virginian-Pilot as the copy desk chief, and before that in editorial capacities in Connecticut and New York, including as executive editor of the Scarsdale Inquirer and The Enterprise, both in Westchester County. She was on faculty at SUNY New Paltz for three years before moving to Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. There she was foundational in the school’s revisioned masters’ and inaugural doctoral programs. She  teaches about social media, free expression. She is particularly interested in journalism practice during times of great change and stress, and communication through visual means such as social media memes and political cartoon

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 an Investment banker and capital markets specialist with 20-plus years advising executives and boards on global financing, capital structure, and M&A. His career spans Lehman Brothers, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and SunTrust. Coverage focused on consumer products companies. He holds an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and an undergraduate degree from Trinity University.

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? Greg Hamilton is a retried teacher, coach, and principal who grew up on marshy Webb Island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore. He graduated from what was then Elon College near Burlington, NC, and holds a masters degree is school administration and supervision from Liberty University in Lynchburg Va. He served as an NCAA referee, whom players addressed as “coach” , in soccer and lacrosse. He lives now in Roxboro NC with his wife Patty plus an assortment of pets, visited frequently by grandchildren who know all his stories.

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  America: a. technology, b. US power surpassing England, c. king-like power of President, d. warrior culture of professional military?

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 disapprove of is: A. Voting B. marching and demonstrating peacefully C. Civil disobedience and strong push-back D. patience and prayer Have you seen an anti-Trump, pro-Democracy message while traveling under local bridges and overpasses in the past year?Christine Primomo of Coeymans is a self-described feminist, activist, environmentalist and grandmother. She started out as a human resources and management analyst, then in mid-life became a registered nurse. She retired from that profession a decade ago and is now active in a variety of civic organizations in addition to the Albany Visibility Brigade which she co-founded, including the League of Women Voters, Capital Women, and the Clean Air Coalition of Greater Ravena and Coeymans.  Darlene Stott is a co-founder of the Albany Visibility Brigade and a member of numerous other activist groups: We Get Out the Resistance, Bethlehem Indivisible, The League of Women Voters, the Clean Air Coalition, and NY 20/21 Leaders.  She is a retired English teacher and administrator who spent 30 years in the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk School District. 

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 well soon become the first step to embargo new centers for a pause of a year, but Burhans and others say they will not just sit around and see what happens.Do you think Gov. Hochul should sign bills that would pause construction of data centers for a year and also monitor and closely regulate them?Which of these is your view of AI, the main reason data centers that house and cool multiple servers are needed? A. AI is the way of the future and it’s foolish to fight it. B. AI will be the end of mankind like in the Terminator movies C. AI like all new technology represents great opportunities and dangers both and should be regulated strictly by government officials.After 10 years working in museum fundraising and administration, Ellie Burhans now works in course design. She has published poems, presented her research about women’s military uniforms at SUNY Albany and Temple University, and writes about the intersection of current politics and American history. She lives in Slingerlands, and volunteers as an election worker.

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 is to blame for the latest global health crisis.  Did  layoffs  at USAID and the CDC and a pull-out from the World Health Organization contribute to the disease getting out of control? Are Americans better protected from disease when the country has turned global cooperation on health matters into purely transactional bilateral agreements. You give us your minerals and gems; we'll give you medicine.Should the US rejoin the World Health Organization?US public health policy under Trump/Kennedy has A. put people including Americans at greater risk for infectious diseases B. put some sense into public health planning overly dependent on big Pharma C. sensibly put focus on public health of U.S. citizens D. upended a system of global cooperation on public health matters that worked.Michelle Dworkin was until 2025 a career foreign service officer with the US Agency for International Development. Over, some 23 years, she worked in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Washington, DC. She possesses In-depth knowledge of government processes, congressional affairs, and project development.  She lives now near Albany again with her parents and daughter. 

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 friends. B. A deal with the IRS that keeps the agency from auditing Trump, his company and his family C. Insider stock trading by high-level officials.Mary Anne Sharkey has been an Ohio-based newspaper reporter and editor all her adult life, serving in a series of leading roles at the Cleveland Plain Dealer especially. The first woman elected president of the Ohio Legislative Correspondent Association, she is an expert on Ohio politics and government. She also has been a strong proponent of women journalists as a board member of the International Women’s Media Foundation.