The presidents of Russia, Iran, and Turkey met in Tehran today to discuss next steps in the Syrian province of Idlib, the Syrian rebels' last stronghold and home to thousands of terrorists. Russia and Iran have provided vital support to the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, but Turkey is fearful that a major assault on Idlib will result in a refugee crisis on its southern border.
Friday is Loud & Clear's regular segment on the midterms, taking a look at political races around the country in the runup to midterm elections in November. Jacqueline and Abdus Luqman, the co-editors-in-chief of Luqman Nation, which hosts a live stream every Thursday night at 9:00 p.m. on Facebook, join the show.
This afternoon at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, President Obama delivered a speech that he called the "State of our Democracy." It was a clear beginning to his campaigning for Democrats during the midterms, and it focused on voter turnout. He also pushed back hard against President Trump, calling him a symptom or the country's problems, not the disease. If Trump as president is a symptom, does Obama include himself as a part the disease? Brian and John speak with Daniel Lazare, a journalist, and author of three books — "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup," and "America's Undeclared War."
Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right frontrunner in Brazil's presidential election, was stabbed in the stomach and seriously injured last night during a campaign rally. His assailant was caught. Bolsonaro has courted controversy by equating homosexuality with pedophilia and by saying that a congresswoman with whom he had a conflict was "too ugly to be raped." Pepe Escobar, a writer, and political analyst joins the show.
Senator Bernie Sanders announced a new bill yesterday called the Stop BEZOS Act, which would require companies to pay for any vital social programs that that their employees use because they're paid so little. This is after Amazon became the world's second company to be valued at over $1 trillion this week despite paying its workers little and eliminating as many jobs as possible. While Amazon and Jeff Bezos earn more and more, they actually eliminate peoples' jobs and basic incomes. Dr. Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California, author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression," and at jackrasmus.com, joins the show.
Apple plans to create an online tool for police to formally request data about its users and to assemble a team to train police about what data can and cannot be obtained from the company. We'll look at what this means for privacy. Professor Bryan Ford, who leads the Decentralized/Distributed Systems lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), joins the show.
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 blog Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog.
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