7/18/20 Gareth Porter on the Prospects of War with Iran

Scott talks to Gareth Porter about the idea of a war with Iran. Certain hawkish figures in the U.S. government have been slowly and steadily pushing for such a war for a long time, and have gained even more prominence during the Trump presidency, as he has shown unprecedented support for the Israeli government. Israel's prominence in the Middle East, says Porter, is of course what the tensions with Iran have always been about; Iran is in no way a threat to the actual interests and safety of Americans—but it is a threat to America and Israel's aspirations of dominating the Middle East....

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7/17/20 Greg Shupak on the Media’s Syrian Sanctions Malfeasance

Greg Shupak discusses America's horrible "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign against Syria, and the media's total willingness to cheer it along. Shupak reminds us that despite what policymakers claim, sanctions really only hurt the regular citizens of a country, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, while leaving the wealthy and powerful more or less untouched. In theory, say the Madeleine Albright types, if the U.S. and its international allies can exert enough pressure on a country's populace—meaning making life miserable enough for them—they will rise up and depose their...

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7/17/20 Giorgio Cafiero on Yemen’s Unprecedented COVID-19 Calamity

Scott talks to Giorgio Cafiero about the devastating catastrophe facing the people of Yemen in the form of the coronavirus pandemic. Cafiero describes the way that a virus—or indeed any natural disaster—has the potential to decimate a country like Yemen, where it's hard to count on the distribution of even basic necessities like food, water and medicine. To make matters worse, the divided powers in Yemen seem unwilling to temporarily put aside their differences in the name of fighting the pandemic. Scott reminds us that the U.S. has just as much responsibility for this war as Saudi Arabia...

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Mary Ellen Brennan: The Most Disgusting Person in America

A horrible black people-hating racist, Mary Ellen Brennan, is a felon, guilty of kidnapping a 15-year-old girl and holding her against her will -- until September, for allegedly not doing her government school homework. Of course, the "law" says that Mary Ellen Brennan can do whatever she wants. She's a judge. How is anything less than a riot appropriate in this case?

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7/17/20 Phil Weiss on the Death of the Two-State Solution

Phil Weiss joins the show to discuss what he views as the internal collapse of Zionism, especially in America. It is starting to become obvious to everyone, as signaled by a recent Peter Beinart piece, that the idea of a two-state solution has pretty much been an empty promise all along, used to placate Palestinians and to win the support of liberal Jews in America. Despite the growing clarity into what the Israeli government is really doing, Trump continues to be one of the most permissive presidents in history when it comes to allowing Israel to do whatever it wants to the Palestinians....

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7/17/20 Wayne McElrath on the Dangerous Militarization of the Police

Scott interviews Wayne McElrath about the proliferation of military equipment in America's police forces, and its harmful effect on police practices. McElrath describes the process by which local police departments are given "outdated" equipment from the military, like body armor, automatic weapons and armored vehicles. To prove how alarmingly easy it is to get hold of this equipment, McElrath and his team created a fake police department and submitted deliberately vague and spurious requests to the Pentagon, which were approved. McElrath contends that this militarization has a powerful...

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7/17/20 Ted Carpenter on the Bogus Russian Bounties Story

Ted Carpenter talks about the Russian bounties story, including all the ways it has been misreported by the media. Carpenter reminds us that the original intelligence that was leaked to the press was based on very flimsy anonymous sources, and may have been obtained via torture. Almost as soon as the CIA introduced the narrative, the NSA came out to publicly assert their skepticism about the credibility of the intelligence. And the Department of Defense, which thoroughly investigates every American death in Afghanistan, hasn't found any evidence of these supposed bounties. But the fact that...

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