President Trump has conceded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) "could very well" have known about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. But he's still not going to punish Saudi Arabia's government for it.
The CIA has "high confidence" in its findings that MBS directed Khashoggi's murder, and Trump was expected to receive a full CIA briefing today. Still, the president signaled in a statement earlier today that no matter what the CIA tells him, he still won't take retaliatory action against the Saudi government. What does this indicate?
Trump said Saudi Arabia is a "great ally," is "leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism" and has deep economic ties to the US. Giving up those ties would "be a wonderful gift" to Russia and China, Trump said, adding that it would fail Trump's "America first" mission. Trump then cast doubts on what the CIA may have learned about Khashoggi's death, saying, "We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder."
A new study says traffic stops aren't effective at reducing crime in Nashville, Tennessee. The findings of the Policing Project, a national organization dedicated to strengthening the relationships between police and the communities they serve, were presented to the Metro Council Monday. The organization found the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department made more traffic stops than any other city it studied, and black drivers were stopped more often than white drivers, particularly for non-moving violations. This sounds fairly consistent with policing around the country and a direct cause of why the practice is not effective. The mayor's office asked the Policing Project to "advise in the development of strategies to address disparities and improve community-police relations in the city."
Many progressive Democrats that won their midterm election bids, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York to Minnesota's Ilhan Omar, campaigned on radically changing US immigration policy. One of their slogans was to abolish the principal immigration law enforcement agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). To turn that campaign slogan into reality means defunding ICE, which Democrats can do, if they choose, now that they have a majority in the House of Representatives.
President Trump continues to promote the US economy as evidence of the success of his administration. A new class of capitalism has been created, and as a result, the once-powerful proletariat has been weakened by deindustrialization, offshoring and a perfect storm of neoliberal policies. A new class, the "precariat," defined by unstable labor arrangements, lack of identity and an erosion of rights, has been created. What are we to make of this, and what does it really mean? Guy Standing writes, "[H]istorically, every progressive surge has been propelled by the demands of the emerging mass class. Today's progressive transformation must, therefore, be oriented to the precariat, driven by a strategy that appeals to enough of all its factions to garner adequate strength." What is the precariat, and second, how does it differ from the classes that have come before it?
GUESTS:
Ray McGovern — Former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Peace.
John Burris — Lead attorney and founder of the Law Office of John L. Burris. He is primarily known for his work in the area of civil rights, with an emphasis on police misconduct and excessive force cases.
Anthony Robert Pahnke — Professor of international relations at San Francisco State University. His research covers development policy and social movements in Latin America.
Guy Standing — Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and a founding member and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a non-governmental organization that promotes a basic income for all.
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