The funeral of former president George H. W. Bush was held this morning at Washington's National Cathedral with three former presidents and three former first ladies in attendance. Brian and John have looked at the legacy of George H. W. Bush every day this week and focus today on the Gulf War, the war on drugs, and mass incarceration.
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.
Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan were wiped out of their states' top offices in last month's election. But both legislatures called lame duck sessions to strip incoming Democratic governors of much of their power. The bills also would reduce the time for early voting and throw poor people off of Medicaid. Brian and John speak with Matt Brusky, the deputy director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is asking a federal judge to sentence former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to probation — not jail time — for lying to the FBI, citing Flynn's exceptional assistance in the Russia collusion investigation. Later this week, former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort will be back in court, where Mueller will have to identify what Manafort has done to break his plea deal. And meanwhile, new information has emerged that Manafort met with Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno in 2017 about a complex deal that would involve Julian Assange's expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net, joins the show.
CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed a bipartisan group of senators on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi yesterday. Many came out of the briefing offering angry accounts of the information Haspel conveyed and said there was no doubt in their minds that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman ordered the assassination. Ali al-Ahmed, the director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, joins Brian and John.
A Houthi delegation and the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, arrived in Stockholm last night in advance of peace talks with the Yemeni government. A Saudi delegation is expected to arrive today. Mediators from Kuwait, which hosted the last direct talks in 2016, are also in Sweden for the meetings, which should begin today. Mohammad Marandi, an expert on American studies and postcolonial literature who teaches at the University of Tehran, joins the show.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro left for Moscow this morning, where he'll meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin. No specific reason for the meeting was announced, but Putin said that he is acutely aware of the economic crisis in Venezuela and the media are speculating that oil and gas will be on the agenda. Brian and John speak with Paul Dobson, a writer for VenezuelaAnalysis.com.
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