5/11/20 Patrick Cockburn on the Real Crisis Facing Iraq

Patrick Cockburn discusses Iraq’s increasingly desperate economic outlook as oil prices remain at historic lows. Iraq’s economy, like many of those in the Middle East, is hugely reliant on oil, with millions directly on a government payroll that depends almost entirely on the oil market in order to remain solvent. Worsening conditions could endanger an already fraught political environment in a country that continues to battle the remnants of an ISIS insurgency in the western part of the country. Discussed on the show: “Iraq will be hit harder by the oil price drop than by...

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Cops Kill Lady

Well see, the "criminal interdiction squad" was breaking into a woman named Breonna Taylor's house in the middle of the night to serve a search warrant -- looking for drugs -- that was connected to an arrest warrant for a man who had already been arrested 10 miles away. And they didn't announce themselves, just kicked in the door. So when the man of the house fired in defense of himself and his woman, they killed her. (There were no drugs.) (They fired at least 20 shots, some of which "entered" multiple adjacent apartments.) Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove are guilty of...

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5/8/20 Aaron Mehta on the Unresolved Problems with the F-35

Aaron Mehta talks about all the issues with the F-35 fighter jet, a plane that has been in development for 20 years and still can’t do many of the things it was designed for. Mehta describes his long investigation into the F-35 project, which upon initial release had 13 “category 1” deficiencies, which are problems that could result in the death of the pilot or loss of the airplane. Some of these deficiencies have been fixed or “downgraded,” but serious questions remain about the F-35’s safety for its intended uses. Mehta also explains the ways the project...

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5/8/20 Jeff Deist on America’s Bubble Economy

Scott talks to Jeff Deist about the economic ramifications of the coronavirus, including both the virus itself and the government’s fiscal and monetary response. Deist certainly expects that we could be in for a severe recession, but is mainly of the view that this recession was coming soon anyway. It just took the right event to pop the bubble. Much of the ground that the country appeared to make up since the last crash, he says, has really been a reinflation by the Federal Reserve of the same old asset bubbles—and some new ones. The American economy has been overly financialized for...

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5/8/20 Daniel McAdams on the Latest Failed Venezuelan Coup

Daniel McAdams discusses the latest incident in the strange story of the U.S.-backed coup attempts in Venezuela, which seek to replace President Maduro with someone more friendly to “American interests,” like Juan Guaidó. Most recently, a small operation by a few American special forces troops was thwarted almost as soon as it began, leaving Guaidó and his followers looking even more impotent, and ironically boosting Maduro’s popularity. McAdams stresses the need for the United States to mind its own business, leading by example rather than trying to meddle in the affairs...

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5/8/20 Bas Spliet on Yemen’s Ongoing Humanitarian Disaster

Scott interviews journalist Bas Spliet about the ongoing war in Yemen. Spliet reminds us that even though the Houthis are still referred to in most of the Western media as “rebels,” they have actually been ruling 80% of the country since 2014, and it’s really Saudi Arabia’s puppet ruler Mansour Hadi who is on the outside looking in. The people of Yemen continue to suffer terribly thanks to America’s support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE as they conduct a war of deliberate starvation and genocide there. President Trump could end this suffering with a single phone...

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