The Critical Hour

New Social Security Rules Put Some People at Risk, Trump Admin Wants More Proof of Disabilities

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Margaret Flowers, co-editor of Popular Resistance.
Sputnik

"The Social Security Administration is out to 'enhance program integrity' and 'maintain appropriate stewardship' by increasing the frequency of 'continuing disability reviews,' known as CDRs, to which disabled people who receive Social Security payments are subjected. This is an ominous development indeed," Common Dreams reported Thursday. We touched upon this last week in a slightly broader context. How big of an issue is this, and will the changes actually cut fraud, waste and abuse?

The fourth quarter fundraising numbers are in for presidential campaigns. US President Donald Trump's reelection campaign announced Thursday that in the midst of House Democrats' impeachment efforts, it pulled down $46 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) campaign said Thursday that it raised more than $34.5 million in that time frame, while entrepreneur Andrew Yang's campaign raised $16.5 million, greatly surpassing its third quarter total of about $10 million. Do these numbers signal problems for the Democratic establishment, as they are now in the stretch run for 2020?

"Will Brexit bring the troubles back to Northern Ireland? As the United Kingdom confronts the prospect of dissolution, old factions are bracing for the possibility of new violence," reads the heading of a Monday piece in the New York Times Magazine. "The 1998 peace deal, known as the Good Friday Agreement, subdued the violence in Northern Ireland, but it did not resolve the underlying sectarian conflict that propelled it. Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom. 'Unionists' or 'loyalists' — who tend to identify as Protestant and as British — want it to remain that way. 'Nationalists' or 'republicans' — who tend to identify as Catholic and Irish — want a united Ireland."

GUESTS:

Margaret Flowers — Co-editor of Popular Resistance.    

Dr. Lenneal Henderson — Eminent scholar and dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Virginia State University.

Jim Kavanagh — political analyst and commentator and editor of The Polemicist.  

Dave Lindorff — Investigative reporter and founder of the news collective This Can't Be Happening! 

We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com

 

Discuss