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The Critical Hour
The mainstream news outlets play it safe by parroting the perspectives of their corporate benefactors. The Critical Hour uses clear, cutting edge insight and analysis to examine national and international issues impacting the global village in which we live.

Midwestern US Sees COVID-19 Cases Surge as Trump Administration Pushes Schools to Open

Midwestern US Sees COVID-19 Cases Surge as Trump Administration Pushes Schools to Open
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On this episode of The Critical Hour, co-hosts Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon talk to Dr. Margaret Flowers about the White House encouraging kids to return to school while COVID-19 cases are surging in the Midwest.

Midwestern states such as "Missouri, Montana and Oklahoma are among those witnessing the largest percentage surge of infections over the past week, while, adjusted for population, the number of new cases in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama still outpaced all other states," the Washington Post reported Monday. How do we interpret this data, as we are now in August, and we were told early in the process that cases would drop in the summer like the flu?

It’s starting already. A Tuesday headline from the Washington Post read: "Michigan ballots tangled in mail delays in advance of Tuesday primary." The article noted, "Mail problems marred the delivery of absentee ballots in Michigan in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary in the state, testing election administrators and ramping up fears of political pressure on the US Postal Service just three months before November 3. Across the state, where polls opened Tuesday at 7 a.m., some voters reported not receiving their absentee ballots." What are we to make of this?

"Demonstrators who gathered again Sunday outside the home of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called on the city to cancel rents for people finding it hard to make ends meet as the coronavirus pandemic ravages California's economy," the Associated Press reported Sunday. Meanwhile, a July 30 headline at NOLA.com read: "Under 'evictions = death' sign, protesters block entrances to New Orleans courthouse." What's next?

"Tens of thousands of supporters of President Alexander Lukashenko's top election rival on Thursday rallied in the Belarusian capital Minsk despite an increasing crackdown on the opposition," AFP reported last week. What signal does this send in the region?

"The United States continues to grapple with the reckoning spurred by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, as Congress investigates how the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] tracked journalists and protesters amid unrest in Portland, Oregon," the Washington Post reported Tuesday. Last week we discussed the Post's report that DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) had compiled and distributed “intelligence reports” on journalists and protesters in Portland. Now the House Intelligence Committee is opening an investigation and demanding answers from DHS. What are we to make of this?

"The Census Bureau announced late Monday that door-knocking and other field activities for the 2020 Census will cease a month earlier than planned," the Washington Post reported Monday. "The agency had given indications last week that field activities would cease September 30 instead of October 31, to submit the population count to the president by December 31." The census is a process mandated in the Constitution. How concerned should we be about this issue?

On Tuesday, retired US Army Major Danny Sjursen, author of "Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War," published an op-ed at AntiWar.com entitled “I Was Wrong: Congress Isn’t Cowardly; It’s Evil!" The subheading read: "Blocking withdrawal from a hopeless Afghan War opposed even by its veterans, counts as criminally heinous – and par for the congressional course."

Our next guest will discuss neo-Nazis in Ukraine, their history and their political influence. "Nationalism has always been a feature across Europe's political spectrum but there has been a recent boom in voter support for right-wing and populist parties," the BBC reported in November 2019. Jareth Copus, author of "Ukraine: Forever a Pawn," joins the show to discuss this phenomenon.

GUESTS

Margaret Flowers - Pediatrician and health reform activist, co-director at Popular Resistance

Dr. Clarence Lusane - Author, professor and activist

Talib Karim - Former aide to members of Congress and CEO of Abe Legal, a platform for helping families and businesses survive the pandemic

Alexander Mercouris - Editor-in-chief of The Duran 

Rob Kall - Publisher of OpEdNews.com and author of "Bottom-Up Revolution: Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity"

Carlos Castaneda - Immigration lawyer

Danny Sjursen - Retired US Army major and author of "Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War"

Jareth Copus - Author of "Ukraine: Forever a Pawn"

We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com

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