Six Democrats will be on stage in Iowa tonight in the final debate before the Iowa caucuses. The latest poll shows Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in first place, followed by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Vice President Joe Biden. The race appears to have turned nasty in recent days as Sanders and Warren have clashed and as Biden tries to reclaim a share of the lead that could take him into New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The Trump Administration’s narrative that General Qasem Soleimani was involved in planning for imminent attacks against US embassies and that this was the reason for his murder is beginning to unravel. President Trump said that attacks were imminent against four US embassies abroad. But Defense Secretary Esper said that was not true, and even Secretary of State Pompeo said that his department had not received word of any imminent attacks. So why did Donald Trump kill Soleimani? Meanwhile, European powers have triggered a clause of the Iran nuclear deal that could lead to the agreement’s final demise. Ben Norton, a journalist with the Grayzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast, joins the show.
President Trump is preparing to divert another $7.2 billion in Pentagon funds to border wall construction. That’s five times what Congress authorized him to spend in the 2020 budget. This is the second consecutive year that the Administration has taken money away from military construction and counternarcotics and spent it on border wall construction. Brian and John speak with Juan José Gutiérrez, the executive director of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition.
Talks between the rival governments of Libya - the Government of National Accord in the west and forces aligned with General Khalifa Haftar in the East - ended without a formal agreement for a ceasefire. But the Russian government, which was brokering the peace talks, is expressing optimism that such a deal could be finalized in the near future. Dr. Gönül Tol, the founding director of The Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies, and a former professor who has taught courses on Islamist movements in Western Europe, Turkey, world politics, and the Middle East, joins the show.
Haitian President Jovenel Moise began his first day of one-man rule yesterday upon the end of the country’s bicameral legislature. Haiti failed to hold legislative and local elections in October, so the lower chamber was disbanded. And two thirds of the upper chamber also left office. President Moise said that he would take the money that would have been spent on legislative salaries and spend it instead on education, but protesters accuse his administration of extreme corruption. Kim Ives, an editor of the newspaper Haiti Liberte, joins Brian and John.
Today is Loud & Clear’s weekly series about the biggest economic news of the week with a special new guest - Prof. Richard Wolff. Professor Wolff, a professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and founder of the organization Democracy at Work whose latest book is “Understanding Socialism,” joins the show.
Tuesday’s regular segment is called Women & Society with Dr. Hannah Dickinson. This weekly segment is about the major issues, challenges, and struggles facing women in all aspects of society. Hannah Dickinson, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an organizer with the Geneva Women’s Assembly; Nathalie Hrizi, an educator, a political activist, and the editor of Breaking the Chains, a women’s magazine, which you can find at patreon.com/BreakChainsMag; and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell join the show.
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