Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday strongly defended the Trump Administration's policy on Russia and North Korea in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In response to tough questioning from both Democrats and Republicans, Pompeo said that the US "does not and never will recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea." Pompeo also said that North Korea would begin repatriating the remains of US soldiers tomorrow. Meanwhile, House Republicans are beginning the process of impeaching Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
On the regular Thursday series "Criminal Injustice," the hosts discuss the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Today they talk about the illnesses that prisoners get from poor environmental conditions in and around jails and prisons, similarly to other marginalized communities, and they address a fight club in a Colorado facility where guards get points and the winner gets a party for the most frequent violence toward prisoners. Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, Alex Friedmann, the Associate Director of the Human Rights Defense Center and managing editor of Prison Legal News, and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell, join the show.
The European Union and United States have pulled back from the brink of an intensified trade war, with President Trump and EU Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker coming to an accord yesterday. Brian and John speak with Richard Wolff, a professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and founder of the organization Democracy at Work. Prof. Wolff's latest book is "Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown."
It appears unlikely that the federal government will meet its court mandated order to reunite migrant families who were separated at the border under the Trump Administration's Zero Tolerance policy. Of the 2,551 children separated from their parents, only 1,187 have been returned to their families. Isabel Garcia, co-founder of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, joins the show.
Imran Kahn and his PTI party appear to have won the Pakistani election, promising an end to corruption, foreign dependency, and joblessness. What does his election mean for the country and the region? Taimur Rahman, general secretary of the Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party or the Workers Farmers Party, and Medea Benjamin, an anti-war and anti-torture activist who is the co-founder of Code Pink, join Brian and John.
A flotilla of boats carrying peace activists protesting Israel's occupation and bombing of Gaza has left Palermo, it's final stop in Europe, to begin the voyage to Gaza. Ann Wright, a retired United States Army colonel and former U.S. State Department official in Afghanistan, who resigned in protest of the invasion of Iraq and became an anti-war activist, and also is one of the participants of the flotilla, joins the show.
Mainstream capitalist economic theory has increasingly been called into question since the global economic crisis of 2008 exposed the gaping holes in neoliberal orthodoxy. One new school of thought that's emerged in recent years is modern monetary theory. The hosts talk with experts on the theory. This is part two of two interviews. Brian and John speak with Stephanie Kelton, a prominent economist who advised Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign, professor of public policy and economics at Stony Brook University, and former chief economist on the US Senate Budget Committee, and Jim Kavanagh, editor of thepolemicist.net.
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