Loud & Clear

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by John Ross, Senior Fellow at Chongyang Institute, Renmin University of China, and an award-winning resident columnist with several Chinese media organizations.Microsoft CEO spoke with President Trump recently about its desire to purchase TikTok. Trump last week said that he would seek to ban TikTok, one of the most popular apps in the world, saying that it secretly collected data and sent it to China. Is the Microsoft CEO in favor of political gangsterism over the infamous free market that corporations usually espouse? Congress and the Trump Administration are so far apart on another Covid relief bill that there is no chance of an agreement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that she and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have not agreed on any major points that would be in a bill. They are farthest apart on direct aid to the unemployed, with Mnuchin saying that he would not support any bill that pays people to stay home doing nothing. Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to spread quickly around the country with nearly 155,000 Americans dead and tens of millions remain unemployed. Lee Camp, a writer, comedian, activist, journalist, and host of the television show “Redacted Tonight,” on RT America, and his latest book is called “Bullet Points & Punch Lines,” available at leecamp.com, joins the show. The Russian government announced over the weekend that it would begin a coronavirus vaccination program in October, the first country to do so. But rather than optimism or support, the media is fearmongering about the vaccine, equating speed with haphazard safety protocols. Indeed, some outlets are comparing the Russian vaccine to Sputnik, the first man-made satellite in space. And the media are doing the same thing with news of an upcoming Chinese vaccine. Brian and John speak with Ben Norton, a journalist with the Grayzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast. Monday’s segment “Education for Liberation with Bill Ayers” is where Bill helps us look at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Chicago Teachers Union member and activist Nick Stender joins Brian and John. In this segment, The Week Ahead, the hosts take a look at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world. Sputnik News analyst and producer of this show Nicole Roussell joins the show.Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology joins the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by John Ross, Senior Fellow at Chongyang Institute, Renmin University of China, and an award-winning resident columnist with several Chinese media organizations.Microsoft CEO spoke with President Trump recently about its desire to purchase TikTok. Trump last week said that he would seek to ban TikTok, one of the most popular apps in the world, saying that it secretly collected data and sent it to China. Is the Microsoft CEO in favor of political gangsterism over the infamous free market that corporations usually espouse? Congress and the Trump Administration are so far apart on another Covid relief bill that there is no chance of an agreement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that she and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have not agreed on any major points that would be in a bill. They are farthest apart on direct aid to the unemployed, with Mnuchin saying that he would not support any bill that pays people to stay home doing nothing. Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to spread quickly around the country with nearly 155,000 Americans dead and tens of millions remain unemployed. Lee Camp, a writer, comedian, activist, journalist, and host of the television show “Redacted Tonight,” on RT America, and his latest book is called “Bullet Points & Punch Lines,” available at leecamp.com, joins the show. The Russian government announced over the weekend that it would begin a coronavirus vaccination program in October, the first country to do so. But rather than optimism or support, the media is fearmongering about the vaccine, equating speed with haphazard safety protocols. Indeed, some outlets are comparing the Russian vaccine to Sputnik, the first man-made satellite in space. And the media are doing the same thing with news of an upcoming Chinese vaccine. Brian and John speak with Ben Norton, a journalist with the Grayzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast. Monday’s segment “Education for Liberation with Bill Ayers” is where Bill helps us look at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Chicago Teachers Union member and activist Nick Stender joins Brian and John. In this segment, The Week Ahead, the hosts take a look at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world. Sputnik News analyst and producer of this show Nicole Roussell joins the show.Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology joins the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labor lawyer, the author of the book “The Plot to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World,” and Sputnik News analyst and producer Nicole Roussell.Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on the government’s coronavirus response; the Vietnamese government’s coronavirus response; the waning access to healthcare as millions lose their jobs; labor unions’ effects on healthcare access; the federal, state, and local police agreement in Portland; the renewed attempts to crush and privatize the post office, and more. The withdrawal of federal agents from frontline policing of demonstrations in downtown Portland significantly reduced tensions in the city overnight. Protesters in support of Black Lives Matter rallied near the federal courthouse that became a flashpoint with federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Bureau of Prisons. But in the absence of those federal agents, the night passed peacefully. President Trump says the federal agents will be redeployed to Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee. Eugene Puryear, an author, activist and host of the new program BreakThrough News, joins the show. The 16th century was an era when the roots of slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism became inextricably tangled into a complex history involving war and revolts in Europe and the conquest of the Americas by European settler colonialism. Colonial powers fought each to dominate the land, labor and resources for what was later dubbed the New World. They also invoked god and religion giving these initial conflicts a strong element of religious war. Brian and John speak with Dr. Gerald Horne, the author of a new book, his latest book titled: “The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism and Capitalism in the Long 16th Century.” It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek.Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective, including President Trump's idea to delay elections and what it might portend, the state of unemployment this week, the testimony of the tech monopolies CEO’s yesterday, and more.A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space, today focusing on the multiple missions to Mars launched in the last week, including the US launch today. Brian and John speak with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues.President Trump wrote a provocative tweet this morning, wondering aloud if the November presidential election should be postponed “until people can properly, securely, and safely vote.” Without any evidence whatsoever, the president said the November election will be “the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA.” The Commerce Department today reported that Gross Domestic Product shrank by 9.5 percent in the second quarter of the year, and at an annualized rate of 32.9 percent, easily a record in the history of the country. Although most economists say the second quarter numbers are a disaster, they are unlikely to be this bad in the third of fourth quarters, even if the nascent recovery has been thrown into jeopardy. Meanwhile, 1.4 million people filed for unemployment last week, the second week in a row with more than a million applications. Dr. Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of “The Scourge of Neo-Liberalism: US Policy from Reagan to Trump,” whose work is at www.jackrasmus.com, joins the show. Thursday’s weekly series “Criminal Injustice” is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books--“The Frozen Republic,” “The Velvet Coup,” and “America's Undeclared War.”The spread of Covid-19 is worse in the United States than it is in any other country in the world. And the US has more deaths than any other country. Why is this the case? Is it because we have no national policy on masks? Or because governors reopened their states too early? No. It’s because of the Russians. The Associated Press reported today that Russian intelligence services are using three English-language websites to spread disinformation about Covid. The US Intelligence Community has just declassified the information so that we can talk about it in advance of the US presidential election.The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are testifying before a House antitrust subcommittee today about whether their companies have too much power. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in his first-ever Congressional testimony, began the hearing saying that he was raised by a single mother and adoptive father and that he created Amazon 26 years ago from nothing. He and the others argued that they are not monopolies and are the only companies large enough to hold off Chinese ventures. Ted Rall, an award-winning columnist and political cartoonist, whose work is at www.rall.com, joins the show. An unmarked Kia van drove up to a crowd of protestors yesterday in New York City, at least five men jumped out, they grabbed a protestor, threw them in the van, and drove off. The men, it turns out, were New York police officers. But it appears they’ve learned these new tactics, which is little more than kidnapping, from the federal agents sent to Portland and elsewhere. And the protestor, we now know, was facing five misdemeanor counts of damaging a police camera. Meanwhile, the F.B.I.’s No. 2, declared the demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd “a national crisis,” and wrote that in addition to investigating what he called “violent protesters, instigators” and “inciters,” bureau leaders should collect information with “robust social media exploitation teams” and examine what appeared to be “highly organized behavior.” He also suggested that the bureau make use of the Hobbs Act, put into place in the 1940s to punish racketeering in labor groups, to charge the protesters. Brian and John speak with Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the A. J. Muste Memorial Institute and the former Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. The Trump Administration announced yesterday that it would continue to reject all new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, and it would shorten renewals for the more than 600,000 immigrants already enrolled in the program while the government conducts a review. The move comes after the Supreme Court earlier this summer blocked the Trump Administration’s attempts to end the program, which shields young immigrants brought to this country without documentation from deportation. Juan Carlos Ruiz, cofounder of the New Sanctuary Movement, joins the show. Wednesday’s weekly series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Wednesday’s regular segment, Beyond Nuclear, is about nuclear issues, including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, and Sputnik news analyst and producer Nicole Roussell, join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Ajamu Baraka, the National Organizer, Black Alliance for Peace and a longtime human rights activist, organizer, and political activist, and the 2016 Green Party nominee for Vice President of the United States.Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is going to make his vice presidential pick soon, maybe as early as this coming weekend. But all of them are pro-war candidates, many with ties to the racist policing that millions are protesting.Attorney General William Barr testified before the House Judiciary Committee this morning, his first such testimony since being named Attorney General. Testimony focused on the federal crackdown on protests, and the aftermath of the Russiagate campaign. Julie Hurwitz, a civil rights attorney and partner at the law firm Goodman, Hurwitz and James, and Vice President of the Michigan chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, joins the show.Today is Loud & Clear’s weekly series about the biggest economic news of the week with special guest -- Prof. Richard Wolff. Professor Wolff, a professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and founder of the organization Democracy at Work whose latest book is “Understanding Socialism,” joins the show. Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Tuesday’s regular segment is called Women & Society with Dr. Hannah Dickinson. This weekly segment is about the major issues, challenges, and struggles facing women in all aspects of society. Hannah Dickinson, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an organizer with the Geneva Women’s Assembly; Nathalie Hrizi, an educator, a political activist, and the editor of Breaking the Chains, a women’s magazine, which you can find at patreon.com/BreakChainsMag; and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Lillian House, an organizer with the Denver Liberation Center and has been deeply involved in protests across Colorado.In Denver, Colorado, this weekend, two white men drove a Jeep at top speed, possibly as high as 80 miles an hour, into a crowd of people protesting racist police violence, severely injuring several people. The police found the culprits who attempted to murder and maim these protesters, but reportedly let them go. In a similar racist attack, the driver who drove his car into an anti-racism protest in Austin, Texas, shot and killed an activist who tried to stop the car. Senate Republicans have finalized their version of a new stimulus bill to address the fallout from the Coronavirus pandemic. Under the plan, the enhancement to unemployment benefits would be slashed, and a major push is underway to shield corporations from legal consequences if their employees get sick. The bill also includes another round of one-time checks equivalent to those disbursed under the CARES Act. Steve Keen, the author of “Debunking Economics” and the world’s first crowdfunded economist, whose work is at patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen, joins the show. Tesla owner Elon Musk caused outrage over the weekend by apparently admitting that his company’s demand for lithium played a role in the coup against democratically-elected Bolivian president Evo Morales. Musk tweeted, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” This comes as the de-facto government of Jeanine Añez postpones the election once again as the candidate of Morales’ party leads in the polls.Brian and John speak with Patricio Zamorano, an academic and international analyst and Co-Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, COHA, Ollie Vargas, a Bolivian journalist and writer who has contributed to teleSUR, Morning Star, and other media outlets. Monday’s segment “Education for Liberation” is about at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Rick Ayers, a professor of education at the University of San Francisco and author, joins Brian and John. In this segment, The Week Ahead, the hosts take a look at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world, including the expiring coronavirus unemployment insurance, the bipartisan military spending bill larger than the next 8 countries’ military budgets combined, Julian Assange in court today, and more. Sputnik News analysts and producers of this show Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology and security analyst Patricia Gorky join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on Trump’s reversal in his approach to the pandemic, the latest US moves and escalation of rhetoric against China, the federal police crackdown on anti-racism protesters, the 2020 presidential election, and more. Today, China ordered the closure of the US consulate in Chengdu, in response to the Trump Administration’s closure of China’s consulate in Houston, Texas, for which they cited alleged Chinese theft of US intellectual property. The move was a serious escalation in the tit-for-tat between the US and China. KJ Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice, joins the show. President Trump said yesterday that he would send federal agents into Chicago, Albuquerque, and Kansas City as part of what he’s calling “Operation Legend.” In Portland, these agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Bureau of Prisons, have harassed peaceful protestors, they’ve snatched demonstrators off the streets into unmarked rental cars, and they’ve detained protestors without charge. Mayors and governors are up in arms, and they’ve filed multiple lawsuits against the administration. But the president is undaunted. Brian and John speak with Wyatt Reed, the producer of By Any Means Necessary, which is on Radio Sputnik every weekday from 2pm to 4pm. It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell. The corporate media make a lot of the work being done internationally by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We routinely see news reports about the Foundation’s involvement in the development of a vaccine for Covid-19, for example. But the Gates Foundation is leading the charge in privatizing global public health policy. Michele Greenstein, a journalist and the author of “Why the Bill Gates Global Health Empire Promises More Empire and Less Public Health,” at The Grayzone, and the producer of a series on the technology war between the U.S. and China and a documentary from the field on 2019’s anti-government movement in Hong Kong.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Dr. Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of “The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US policy from Reagan to Trump,” at www.jackrasmus.com.1.4 million Americans filed new unemployment claims last week, the first increase in months, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to weigh on the labor market. Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate came closer to a unified position on a new stimulus package. They scrapped the president’s demand for a payroll tax cut, but they also proposed dramatically lower benefits for the unemployed. President Trump yesterday threatened to send federal agents to cities all around America, ostensibly to protect federal buildings. We know from what we’ve seen in Portland, Oregon, though, that these agents are perpetrating violence on peaceful and unarmed protestors. The agents appear to be from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Bureau of Prisons. They are dressed in military fatigues and they don’t wear nameplates or insignia. And they’ve been snatching people off the streets, throwing them into unmarked vehicles, and detaining them without charge. Dari Rodriguez, an organizer with the Bronx Justice Center, joins the show. Thursday’s weekly series “Criminal Injustice” is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show. Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space. As the US continues to withdraw from international arms treaties, will the weaponization and militarization of space bring the world closer to catastrophe? Brian and John speak with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by John Ross, Senior Fellow at Chongyang Institute, Renmin University of China, and an award-winning resident columnist with several Chinese media organizations.The Trump Administration today ordered China to close its consulate in Houston amid deteriorating relations between the two countries. China denounced the move as “an unprecedented escalation.” The State Department said the closure is punishment for the Chinese theft of American intellectual property. President Trump yesterday reinstated Covid-19 medical briefings from the White House press room. But instead of Drs. Fauci or Birx leading the event, the president appeared by himself. Trump had a moment of clarity when he said that Covid-19 infections would get worse before they get better, and indeed, more than 1,000 people died yesterday for the first time in 50 days. And Trump has begun wearing a mask after saying that they were unpatriotic. Ted Rall, an award-winning columnist and political cartoonist and you can check out his work at www.rall.com, joins the show. Federal agents wearing military fatigues but no name tags or identifying insignia have been snatching protestors off the streets of Portland in rented black vans, and they are now reported to be in Chicago. President Trump said that he will send these agents, who are apparently from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Bureau of Prisons, to any city in America where protestors are damaging statues or property. But civil libertarians are crying foul and say that there are serious constitutional violations being committed. Brian and John speak with Medea Benjamin, a legendary peace activist and the co-founder of the peace group Code Pink. The White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill are in disarray over a Covid-19 spending plan just as benefits from the last bill are set to expire. The Washington Post reports that the White House and Congressional Republicans can’t even agree on policy goals, spending parameters, or even deadlines. And there’s not yet even talk about reconciling whatever the Republican bill will look like before it’s reconciled with the Democrats’ bill. Pete Dolack, an activist and writer with Trade Justice New York Metro, who focuses on human rights, social justice, and environmental and trade issues and the author of “It’s Not Over, Learning from the Socialist Experiment,” joins the show. Wednesday’s weekly series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Wednesday’s regular segment, Beyond Nuclear, is about nuclear issues, including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, and Sputnik news analyst and producer Nicole Roussell, join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Lee Camp, a writer, comedian, activist, journalist, and host of the television show “Redacted Tonight,” on RT America, and his latest book is called “Bullet Points & Punch Lines,” which you can find at leecamp.com.An annual Washington ritual has begun again. That’s debate and passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. But this year it’s more ominous. While much of the defense-related press focuses on money for troops in Germany or additional destroyers in Spain, the measure also authorizes and funds military action against American citizens in American cities. We’ve seen it in Portland. Chicago is next. And this isn’t just an invention of Donald Trump. It began during the Obama Administration. In the meantime, how many masks, gowns, and gloves could be purchased for frontline medical personnel with the money used to put down peaceful demonstrators? A long-awaited report from the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee accuses Russia to meddle in the UK’s internal affairs and to influence the Brexit referendum. Russian authorities have strongly disputed these allegations, calling them “groundless” and impossible to substantiate. Neil Clark, a journalist and broadcaster whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Week, and Morning Star, joins the show. Today is Loud & Clear’s weekly series about the biggest economic news of the week with special guest -- Prof. Richard Wolff. Professor Wolff, a professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and founder of the organization Democracy at Work whose latest book is “Understanding Socialism,” joins the show.Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Tuesday’s regular segment is called Women & Society with Dr. Hannah Dickinson. This weekly segment is about the major issues, challenges, and struggles facing women in all aspects of society. Hannah Dickinson, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an organizer with the Geneva Women’s Assembly; Nathalie Hrizi, an educator, a political activist, and the editor of Breaking the Chains, a women’s magazine, which you can find at patreon.com/BreakChainsMag; and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Mara Verheyden Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.A viral video is making the rounds on social media and in the mainstream news that shows a Navy veteran and graduate of the US Naval Academy being brutalized by a federal officer in Portland, Oregon. The man is standing peacefully, when he is attacked by a federal officer in fatigues, who strikes him with a club multiple times, breaking his hand, while another officer sprays him in the face with pepper spray. That’s the situation in Portland, where these federal officers--with no name tags and no identifying features--have taken to the streets. They are even kidnapping protestors and taking them away in unmarked vans. The 2020 presidential campaign seems to get crazier and crazier. President Donald Trump gave an interview over the weekend to Fox News’s Chris Wallace that became combative and called into question whether Trump can maintain his base as we get closer to the election. Meanwhile the latest national polls show Joe Biden leading Trump by 15 percentage points. Joe Lauria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News, founded by the late Robert Parry, and the author of the book "How I Lost, By Hillary Clinton," joins the show. The coronavirus continues to spread at an increasingly rapid rate, especially across the southern United States. Nationally, Covid-19 is infecting 20 people per 100,000 residents. But the infection rate is far higher in many states, with Florida at 55 people per 100,000 residents, Arizona at 44, Louisiana at 41, and Nevada at 39. And deaths stand at nearly 141,000. Meanwhile, the European Union announced that it would not allow Americans to travel there at least until July 31. Brian and John speak with Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician and vice chair of the Infectious Disease Society of America’s Global Health Committee. Monday’s segment “Education for Liberation with Bill Ayers” is where Bill helps us look at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Bill Ayers, an activist, educator and the author of the book “Demand the Impossible: A Radical Manifesto,” joins Brian and John. In this segment, The Week Ahead, the hosts take a look at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world, including Trump’s efforts to minimize his administration’s mishandling of the Coronavirus crisis, the state of the 2020 presidential election, the kidnapping of protesters by unidentified federal agents in Portland, and more. Sputnik News analysts and producers of this show Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology and security analyst Patricia Gorky join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Jim Kavanagh,veditor of thepolemicist.net, and Walter Smolarek, Sputnik News analysts and producer.In The Week in Review, we take a look at the biggest stories of the week, including the latest controversies over the response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the shakeup in the Trump campaign, the latest U.S. threats against China, recent developments in the economic crisis gripping the country, and moreThe number of Covid-19 infections broke another record yesterday, its ninth in 11 days, with 77,255 new cases reported. Another 943 Americans died yesterday. Medical professionals in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona, and southern California warn that Intensive Care Units are full or almost full, and there are no signs that the spread of the disease is slowing. Meanwhile, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp lifted an Atlanta rule that residents must wear masks. Kemp said, disingenuously, that while he wants people to wear masks, he doesn’t want to mandate it. Dave Lindorff, an investigative reporter whose writings can be found at ThisCantBeHappening.net., joins the show. The Supreme Court yesterday refused to consider an Appeals Court decision to uphold the disenfranchisement of as many as one million ex-felons in the state of Florida. Florida voters had passed a referendum allowing ex-felons who had completed probation and parole to register to vote, except if they had been convicted of murder or sex crimes. But the state’s governor sued, and the state legislature passed a law saying that ex-felons also had to have paid all fines, fees, and restitution before registering. Brian and John speak with Ruth Beltran, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Tampa, and Kofi Ademola, an activist and organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement.The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, the country’s official equality watchdog, finds itself in the center of a controversy over its impartiality. That controversy began when two pro-Israel lobbying groups in the UK asked for an investigation into alleged anti-semitism in the British Labour Party. But the Equality and Human Rights Commission never revealed that it had named one of the pro-Israel lobbying groups to its legal advisory board. And it also hadn’t revealed that one of its senior members had donated thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party and had hosted a fundraiser for the party. Asa Winstanley, an investigative journalist and an associate editor of the Electronic Intifada, joins Brian and John.Again this week we’ll look at the worst, most misleading, funniest, and just plain wrong headlines of the past week. Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News, at lefti.blogspot.com, joins the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective, including new studies showing that coronavirus antibodies may only exist temporarily, the European Court of Justice’s ruling on US violations of data privacy, the hack yesterday into famous Twitter accounts, the new footage of George Floyd’s death and what the cops said as they killed him, and more. Until recently, the Japanese island of Okinawa, which is home to several different US military bases, had no Covid-19 cases at all. But in the past two weeks, nearly 100 servicemen have been infected and all US facilities on the island have gone into lockdown to try to prevent the disease from spreading to the population. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo escalated tensions with China this week. KJ Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice, joins the show. Thursday’s weekly series “Criminal Injustice” is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show.A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space. As the US continues to withdraw from international arms treaties, will the weaponization and militarization of space bring the world closer to catastrophe? Brian and John speak with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues, and Sputnik news analyst Nicole Roussell.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Ted Rall, an award-winning columnist and political cartoonist whose work is at www.rall.com.2020 is taking some odd political turns. Last night in the Alabama primary, former senator and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions lost his comeback attempt handily--61 to 39--to former football coach Tommy Tuberville. President Trump complained in a Rose Garden press conference that Joe Biden’s environmental plan to reduce greenhouse gasses would mean that new houses would be built without windows. The UK has banned Chinese telecom giant Huawei from its 5G network, reversing a January decision that would have allowed the tech company to have a role in building the country’s super-fast wireless infrastructure. President Trump is claiming that it was he who convinced the British government to take the decision. Meanwhile, Apple won a major EU court victory yesterday when a 2016 decision to force Apple to pay $16 billion in taxes was overturned. Neil Clark, a journalist and broadcaster whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Week, and Morning Star, joins the show. President Trump today unilaterally weakened one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting public review of federal infrastructure projects to speed up the permitting of freeways, power plants, and pipelines. Gutting the 50-year-old law is one of the most significant measures the administration has taken. And to date, Trump has either weakened, suspended, or canceled more than 100 environmental protection laws and regulations. Brian and John speak with Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net. Armenian and Azerbaijani troops clashed along their border this week, killing an Azeri general and at least 10 other people. Both sides accuse each other of shelling civilians. The fighting is a result of a long-time dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is claimed by both sides. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, negotiated a fragile ceasefire in 1994, but Azeri President Aliyev called any further diplomacy “pointless.” Mark Sleboda, a foreign affairs and security analyst, joins the show. Wednesday’s weekly series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Wednesday’s regular segment, Beyond Nuclear, is about nuclear issues, including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, and Sputnik news analyst and producer Nicole Roussell, join the show.