Loud & Clear

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker is joined by KJ Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice.China two weeks ago announced that it had a Covid-19 hotspot in an outdoor market in Beijing. The government quarantined the area and snuffed out the virus. South Korea dealt with the coronavirus as soon as it hit and was able to control infections. Australia barely had any coronavirus infections after it went into lockdown. And Greece had a lower Covid-19 infection rate than any other country in the European Union. Why are other countries so good at addressing this pandemic and the US is so bad? President Trump’s much-touted kickoff campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday ended up having not the hundreds of thousands of people the campaign expected, but a grand total of 6,611. It turned out that the campaign was trolled by children and teenagers, who reserved nearly a million tickets and then didn’t show up. The President is reportedly furious. He blamed “radical leftists,” demonstrators, and the “fake media” for the debacle. But on a serious note, this colossal failure has to call into question the current state of the campaign, just four-and-a-half months before the election. Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, whose work is at www.rall.com, joins the show with John Kiriakou. For generations African-Americans have been told they have what is now said to be more than one trillion dollars of "buying power." But a new book argues that commentators have misused this claim largely to blame Black communities for their own poverty based on squandered economic opportunity. “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power” exposes the claim as both a marketing strategy and myth, while also showing how that myth functions simultaneously as a case study for propaganda and commercial media coverage of economics. Brian speaks with Dr. Jared Ball, a professor of communication studies at Morgan State University, the editor of “A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X” and the new book “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power,” and his writings are at www.IMixWhatILike.org. 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 . 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 with John.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Eugene Puryear, an author, activist and host of the new program BreakThrough News; and Estevan Hernandez, an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition who has been in the streets helping to organize recent protests.Today marks the commemoration of Juneteenth. This is a major holiday for the African American community, and it is celebrated as a state holiday in 47 of the 50 states. President Trump, who apparently had never heard of Juneteenth until just a few days ago, tweeted, “I did something good. I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.” Meanwhile, President Trump’s first post-Covid-19 campaign rally is scheduled to take place in Tulsa, Oklahoma tomorrow. The mayor of Tulsa already has declared a state of emergency and instituted a curfew for today and tomorrow, saying that “stragglers would be arrested.” This was after reports that protesters also would descend on the city. Meanwhile, the White House said that it has no concerns that the 20,000 people expected to pack into the rally venue might be at increased risk of contracting the coronavirus. California utility PG&E, which stands for Pacific Gas & Electric, has agreed to plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of unlawfully starting a fire. You heard that right. The utilities giant has admitted in court that its faulty and outdated equipment was the cause of a horrific 2018 blaze that destroyed the town of Paradise, California and much of the surrounding area. Besides the dead, 19,000 buildings burned to the ground. The utility will pay a $3.5 million fine, the maximum allowed by law, and a $28.5 billion settlement to the victims, their families, and Butte County, California. Brian and John speak with Nathalie Hrizi, an educator, a political activist, and the editor of Breaking the Chains, a women’s magazine, at www.patreon.com/BreakChainsMag.Brian 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.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 commemoration of and meaning of Juneteenth, what Juneteenth means for the ongoing protest movement today, the tens of millions who have become suddenly unemployed in the last few months, the labor strikes going on today, and more. Brian and John speak with Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Juan José Gutiérrez, the executive director of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition.The Supreme Court today, in a landmark 5-4 decision, ruled that the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the DACA program, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children, was unconstitutional. This is a major defeat for the White House, and it protects some 650,000 young people known as “Dreamers.” In the final decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee to the court, joined the court’s four more progressive justices. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s memoir is supposed to come out on Tuesday. The White House is asking a federal court for an injunction against the book, but excerpts are already being widely reported in the media. Is arch-neocon John Bolton now about to be embraced by the centrist establishment that once despised him? And how shocking really is the information being reported as “bombshells” in the media? Ben Norton, a journalist with the Grayzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast, 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, and with Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, who is at www.rall.com.Coronavirus cases are surging in parts of the country with Florida, Texas, and Arizona yesterday setting new records for the number of confirmed new cases. Indeed, hospital beds in Arizona, Alabama, Texas, and elsewhere are filling quickly. But Vice President Pence, in a call with governors, suggested that governors should stop testing their citizens, which would cause the number of “confirmed” cases to decline. And he told those governors to tell their constituents that the Administration has the pandemic under control. President Trump yesterday signed an executive order on policing reforms calling for additional police training and a new database to track police misconduct. Progressive groups immediately dismissed it as not worth the paper it is written on. Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing their own reform bill but it appears to be stalled in the Senate, where Republicans are suggesting reform measures won’t be voted on until after Congress gets back from its July 4th vacation. Daryle Lamont Jenkins, executive director of the organization One People’s Project, joins the show. An internal CIA report prepared by then-director Mike Pompeo and his deputy, Gina Haspel, that was obtained by the Washington Post, concludes that the 2016 theft of top secret computer hacking tools known as Vault 7 was the result of a culture in which the Agency’s elite hackers “prioritized building cyber weapons at the expense of securing their own weapons. The CIA did not even know that the information had been stolen until it appeared on the Wikileaks website in 2017. Officials call it the biggest unauthorized disclosure of classified information in the CIA’s history. Brian and John speak with 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." The Trump Administration yesterday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block next week’s expected publication of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s memoir. Bolton has been working for months with the NSC’s publications review board to ensure that the book does not contain classified information. But once he got the book cleared, someone at the White House, presumably the President, put the final clearance on hold. Bolton then said that, clearance or not, he was publishing the book. It’s supposed to come out on June 23. Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labor lawyer who is 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,” 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. The webinar for comments on the proposed radioactive waste dump affecting Native and Latino communities in New Mexico is on Tuesday at 5pm EDT, with information posted at beyondnuclear.org.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by 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.Today is Loud & Clear’s weekly series about the biggest economic news of the week with special guest -- Prof. Richard Wolff. Two weeks have now passed since the infamous attack on anti-racism protesters in front of the White House to clear the way for Donald Trump to have a photo-op at a nearby church, and more information continues to come out about how the crackdown was executed and which officials were involved in the fateful decision. Will those who carried out this wanton violation of civil liberties be held to account? Mara Verheyden Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, joins the show. A coalition of progressive organizations have nominated the Cuba-based organization called the International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics for the Nobel Peace Prize for their humanitarian work around the world during the Covid-19 outbreak. The group, which is better known as the Cuban Medical Brigade Henry Reeve, is working against Covid-19 for free in 26 countries. Brian and John speak with Medea Benjamin, a legendary peace activist and the co-founder of the peace group Code Pink. 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. Special guest Juliana Moraes, Executive Director of the Washington Brazil Office, a project of the US Network for Democracy in Brazil; 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. You can read more about the Brazilian favelas that Juliana talks about from Rio On Watch, UNEAfro, and MTST.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by community organizer Monica Johnson who attended the protests over the weekend and Sputnik news analyst Nicole Roussell.Peaceful protests continued across America over the weekend, with large marches in Washington, Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, and abroad. In Atlanta, the police chief resigned after an officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, who was shot twice in the back and killed by police in a Wendy’s parking lot. The cops were fired and an investigation was initiated. Meanwhile, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva is meeting today to discuss systemic racism, police brutality, and violence against peaceful demonstrators in the United States. Coronavirus cases are spiking in 20 states, mostly in the Deep South and the Midwest, with Florida seeing 2,000 confirmed new cases every day for the past three days. Critics are blaming governors and state leaderships for reopening too quickly. And they say that many residents are no longer practicing social distancing and are not wearing masks. So far, nearly 115,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 in the past three-and-a-half months. Dr. Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor of viral pathogenesis at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in molecular pathogenesis of emerging and reemerging viruses, joins the show. A former Marine by the name of Paul Whelan was convicted of espionage in Russia and sentenced to 16 years at hard labor today. Whelan maintained that he was framed, and his Russian attorney said that, while at a wedding in 2018, a friend handed him a flash drive that contained state secrets. Whelan told his attorney that he expects to be exchanged for a Russian pilot in a US prison on a cocaine conspiracy charge and, perhaps for arms dealer Victor Bout. Brian and John speak with Bryan Macdonald, a journalist who specializes in Eastern Europe and Russia. 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 . 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 the ongoing protest movement sweeping the country, the victories against racist monuments and memorials, divisions between the White House and the military, and more. Confirmed cases of Covid-19 are skyrocketing in a dozen states, mostly in the Deep South and the Midwest as governors insist that their states reopen. In those 12 states, confirmed cases are up more than 50 percent over what they were two weeks ago. Only Utah’s governor announced that the state would delay its reopening to deal with the new cases. Four of those states--North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada--are now seeing a record number of new coronavirus cases. Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician and vice chair of the Infectious Disease Society of America’s Global Health Committee, joins the show with John. Large-scale peaceful protests continued across the country this week, and there are plans for more over the weekend. Protesters in Seattle took control of a local police precinct and began handing out free food and water. And statues commemorating confederate leaders continue to be toppled. Meanwhile, President Trump announced yesterday that the Republican National Convention would be moved to Jacksonville after the governor of North Carolina would not allow delegates to attend without wearing masks. Even more controversially, the White House announced that the President’s first post-Covid-19 campaign rally would be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of the worst anti-black massacre in the country’s history. And that rally will be held on June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, the day on which the entrance of Union troops into the last bastion of slavery is commemorated. Brian speaks with Estevan Hernandez, an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition who has been in the streets helping to organize recent protests. Eleanor Goldfield has just completed a long-form documentary that is unlike anything that’s been done on the issue of fracking and the environment in West Virginia. Hard Road of Hope introduces you to the people of West Virginia and shows you the toll that more than a century of coal mining and fracking has taken on the land and the people of that beautiful state. The film was just selected by the Rome Independent Prisma Awards. Creative activist and journalist Eleanor Goldfield, host of the podcast Act Out!, which airs on Free Speech TV, whose work is at ArtKillingApathy.com, and who is the writer, director, and producer of Hard Road of Hope, joins the show with Brian. It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. John speaks 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 Rebecca Keel, Virginia organizer with Southerners on New Ground.Anti-racism and anti-police protests are surging across the country with protesters demanding action to address the problems more quickly than elected officials seem willing or able to do. Marchers in Richmond, Virginia tore down a statue of Jefferson Davis last night, a statue of Christopher Columbus on Tuesday night, and another Confederate general on Saturday. Other Columbus statues in Houston, St. Paul, and Miami were defaced or torn down. Marchers in Seattle took control of a police precinct and declared it an “autonomous zone.” NASCAR announced that he would ban all Confederate flags from its races. And on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she would seek the removal of all Confederate statues from the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. The top commander of the US armed forces, General Mark Milley, struggled to explain the role of the military as demands for a crackdown grew from the White House. The Pentagon and the National Guard are currently engaged in something called a “hot wash.” That’s an after-action investigation of their conduct during the protests in Washington a week and a half ago. The early indications, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post, are that the Pentagon leadership and the National Guard acted improperly in confronting peaceful demonstrations. Jeremy Kuzmarov, a professor of American history whose latest book is “The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce,” 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, and with Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Daryle Lamont Jenkins, executive director of the organization One People’s Project.Democrats in the House of Representatives on Monday introduced broad police reform legislation aimed at boosting law enforcement accountability, changing police practices, and curbing racial profiling. However, Democratic officials sought to distance themselves from progressive activists seeking to defund police departments. John Gleeson, a former judge leading a review of the Department of Justice’s handling of the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, released a brief today expressing strong disapproval of the Department of Justice’s effort to drop the prosecution of Michael Flynn after he already pled guilty. Also, Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified last week before a Senate Committee on the origins of the Russia investigation. What he had to say was devastating for those pushing the narrative that there was collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Rosenstein told the committee that the FBI never had any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but that he had asked Robert Mueller to lead an investigation because he had already determined that the FBI had lied to him. Rosenstein’s testimony contained a half-dozen bombshells that turn the entire Russiagate affair on its ear. Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net, joins the show. A top Harvard chemistry professor was indicted yesterday by a grand jury on felony charges of lying to federal investigators about his ties to a Chinese-run academic program. Dr. Charles Lieber maintains his innocence, and civil liberties advocates have warned that his case represents a sign that any academic or professional collaboration is being criminalized by federal authorities. Brian and John speak with KJ Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice. Pro-Israel lobby groups are struggling to appear supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement. But privately, they are warning that Black Lives Matter is a threat to the status quo that is Israel’s racist system. Some of those lobbyists are not so subtle. Morton Klein, head of the Zionist Organization of America, went so far as to ask the Southern Poverty Law Center to designate Black Lives Matter as a hate group. He said, “Black Lives Matter is a Jew-hating, White-hating, Israel-hating, conservative Black-hating, violence-promoting, dangerous Soros-funded extremist group of haters.” Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of the book The Battle for Justice in Palestine, 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 Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books--“The Frozen Republic,” “The Velvet Coup,” and “America's Undeclared War.”In the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, many communities are now calling for the defunding of their police departments. The Minneapolis City Council last week took a veto-proof vote to do just that. And in the past 15 years, the communities of Trenton, NJ and Compton in Los Angeles, CA also have done away with their local police departments and instead joined reformed county departments. But Joe Biden is sticking to his guns. He says that he does not--and will not--support the defunding of police departments. Anywhere. The New York Times is embroiled in controversy as its opinion page editor resigned for publishing a piece by Senator Tom Cotton advocating the use of violence against protestors. But is this just hollow lip service to progressive ideas? Media critics have long pointed to the Times’ role pushing war and militarism, and just two days ago an article appeared titled, “Is This the Trump Tipping Point” in which columnist Jennifer Senior criticizes Trump for being “partial to Slavs”. How is the corporate media faring in a time of mass uprising? Ben Norton, a journalist with the Grayzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast, 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 producers Walter and Nicole, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality Michelle Gross, Bronx Liberation Center organizer Dari Rodriguez, Philadelphia MC for Saturday Mecca Bullock, ANSWER LA organizer Kameron Hurt, and journalist Neil Clark.Peaceful demonstrations against police violence and racism continue to spread around the country and the world. Altogether several million were estimated to be in the streets with protests held in more than 100 cities and towns around America. The Minneapolis City Council, by a veto-proof margin, voted to disband the police force there and restructure it. Similar demonstrations took place around the world, all in solidarity with anti-racism and anti police violence protesters here. Tens of thousands of people joined demonstrations across the UK yesterday, marching against racism and police violence. In Bristol, marchers pulled down the bronze statue of a 17th century slave trader and threw it in the harbor. 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 . Sputnik News analysts and producers of this show Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.Today’s “Education for Liberation” is education for liberation at a time of mass uprising. Our guest has been fighting for economic, racial, and social justice in the streets for decades. Brian and John speak with Bill Ayers, an activist, educator and the author or co-author of many books, including “About Becoming A Teacher” and “You Can’t Fire the Bad Ones: And 18 Other Myths About Teachers, Teachers Unions, and Public Education,” and a 1960s central national leader of Students for a Democratic Society, who’s at www.BillAyers.org.Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state--where this week they focus on the technologies and surveillance tactics that the government has already been using at all levels to suppress the protests for Justice for George Floyd, manipulate the narrative, and criminalize dissent. This is your guide to what’s going on behind the scenes of the nationwide protests demanding justice for George Floyd and the countless people killed by police. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology and security analyst Patricia Gorky join the show with John.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Nino Brown, an activist with the Boston Teachers Union, Terra Oliveira, a Philadelphia-based writer, the founder and editor of Recenter Press, and an organizer with the Philadelphia Liberation Center, and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell, join the show.Major demonstrations are expected this weekend in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC, and elsewhere as the protest movement against police in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder expands. Tens of thousands--and perhaps hundreds of thousands--of people will march in New York and Philadelphia, while Washington’s chief of police said yesterday that the city expects one of the largest demonstrations in its history on Saturday. Before Trump’s public announcement that he would be sending U.S. military into U.S. states, he had a private conference call with the country’s governors. Trump showed his true colors there, as did Attorney General Barr, Secretary of Defense Esper, and several Democratic political leaders. And as a result, the burgeoning movement for racial justice and against racist and brutal policing has only grown. Mara Verheyden Hilliard joins the show, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. 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. 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 historic mass protest movement sweeping the country and the world against racist police violence. Donald Trump and Democratic Party city officials alike are cracking down on the movement, but the protests continue to gain huge momentum. Brian and John speak with Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker is joined by Kameron Hurt, an organizer with ANSWER Coalition LA, Dari Rodriguez, an organizer with the Justice Center and a speaker & organizer at last night’s protests in the Bronx, Jodi Dean, a professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges whose latest book is called “Comrade,” and producer Walter Smolarek. 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, and with Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek.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, including the massive protests continuing all across the country, the police brutality that shocked the nation on Monday night at the white house for a photo opp, what’s different about these protests compared with the large-scale protests of years past, and more. Protests against police violence continued across the country last night, but were largely more peaceful than the night before. In New York, police arrested a handful of demonstrators who they say violated the city’s 8:00 pm curfew. And police stopped a large crowd from crossing the Manhattan bridge after a lengthy standoff. But earlier in the day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointedly and publicly criticized Mayor DeBlasio’s handling of the demonstrations. Police were very aggressive against peaceful demonstrators, attacked members of the media, and used the technique of “kettling” against marchers. The New York Times reports that there was little overall violence because it was the marchers discouraging it, not police. Sasha Murphy, a long-time activist against police brutality and an organizer with the Justice Center, joins the show. Huge crowds of thousands of people marched through Denver yesterday in solidarity with George Floyd, who was murdered by a policeman in Minneapolis nine days ago. For the most part, police kept their distance, and there were no reported incidents. This was in contrast to the marches in Denver over the weekend, where Denver Police used riot gear and SWAT units to corral marchers in what became a night of repeated clashes. Brian and John speak with Lilian House, an organizer with the Denver Liberation Center, and by Bruno, an activist against police brutality, who have both been deeply engaged in the protests in the city. Protests are nothing new in American society. And protests for racial justice are certainly nothing new. But has America not learned any lessons from the civil rights movement? Have we learned nothing from decades of the police clashing with peaceful marchers? Why is this still happening in America in the year 2020? Why are our police departments militarized and so willing to use violence against citizens? Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of history at the University of Houston and the author of many books, including “Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow,” joins 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 Sputnik journalists Nicole Roussell and Sean Blackmon, Philadelphia Liberation Center organizer Erik Vargas, Mara Verheyden Hilliard, executive director of Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, and Ben Norton, a journalist with The Grayzone and Moderate Rebels podcast.The first full hour of the show is dedicated to the protests that continued across America yesterday in the wake of last week’s police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The governors of 26 states and the District of Columbia have deployed the National Guard, which has been quick to use force against unarmed protestors. And there have been sympathetic demonstrations in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and elsewhere. President Trump yesterday threatened to invoke the Insurrections Act to deploy active duty troops to cities across America. And Congress has been largely silent, except for Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton’s statement urging the president to use lethal force. 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. 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.