A federal appeals court ruled today that the criminal case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn must be dropped. This is a major victory for Flynn and it points to chaos in the Justice Department. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing this afternoon to discuss alleged political interference in the Trump Justice Department. The star witness is Aaron Zelinski, a senior member of the Mueller team during the Russiagate probe, and a former Obama Justice Department official, who said that he was pressured to cut Roger Stone a break because of his ties to the President.
Confirmed coronavirus across the country are spiking, with troubling surges in at least 26 states. In Florida, the number of cases is doubling every two weeks. In Texas, Gov. Abbott encouraged all residents to remain in their homes. And in Arizona, all intensive care hospital beds are full. But President Trump has ordered that federal testing for the virus be slowed. Despite the fact that White House officials have said that the president was joking, he told campaign supporters in Tulsa last weekend that he had ordered that testing slow. And he confirmed to a CNN reporter yesterday that he was not joking. Dave Lindorff, an investigative reporter, a columnist for CounterPunch, and a contributor to The Nation, Extra! and Salon.com whose writings can be found at ThisCantBeHappening.net, joins the show.
There were a number of surprising political upsets in primary races in Kentucky, North Carolina, and New York yesterday. In Kentucky, the race between establishment Democrat Amy McGrath and progressive state legislator Charles Booker to take on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is too close to call. But in New York, Jamaal Bowman, a progressive middle school principal appears to have defeated Congressman Eliot Engel. Engel has been a member of the House since 1988 and is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And in North Carolina, a 24-year-old real estate investor, Madison Cawthorn, defeated a Trump-endorsed candidate to win the nomination to succeed Rep. Mark Meadows, who is now White House Chief of Staff. He’ll face Guantanamo whistleblower Col. Morris Davis in the general election. Brian and John speak with Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net.
The Biden and Trump campaigns apparently have agreed to three presidential debates in the weeks before the November election. But in a case of role reversal, it is the Trump campaign that is demanding even more, not fewer, debates. President Trump has said that Biden is sequestered in a bunker and does not want to debate him. He has commented on what he called Biden’s poor mental condition and said that it’s “very sad” that Biden’s handlers won’t let him out in public. But what is the truth here? Why is Biden so consistently out of the public eye? Is that his campaign strategy? Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist whose work at www.rall.com, joins the show.
We continue with our segment In the News, where we discuss the most important political, economic, and social issues of the day. Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek, Sputnik News analysts and the producers of this show, join Brian and John.
We continue our regular segment, Beyond Nuclear, where we look at 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.
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