"The number of reported coronavirus cases in the United States topped 5 million on Sunday, double the number since the end of June," the Washington Post reported Monday. "The 5 million mark comes just 17 days after the US total exceeded 4 million ... The United States leads the world with a quarter of global infections." The Post also reported, "More than 97,000 US children tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July ... according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association." How big of a problem is this for the US going forward?
"Negotiations broke down this week between the White House and top Democrats in Congress over how best to help Americans cope with the heavy human and economic toll of the [COVID-19] crisis," Reuters reported over the weekend. With so much suffering in the US, why can’t the two sides find a solution?
We continue to hear vague warnings about various forms of foreign interference in the upcoming US elections in November. China, Iran and, of course, Russia are all allegedly scheming to interfere in the contest. The fact that the Supreme Court allowed a poll tax to be imposed upon released felons in Florida or that 6.7 million legal voters have been removed from the voting rolls are not the focus of media attention. Is this coincidental?
Is the US launching an offensive against Chinese technology companies? Could this be the beginning of the end of the world wide web?
"Three Republican senators have ordered Murkan Port on the island of Rugen to stop assisting Russian vessels constructing the final sections of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline," Deutsche Welle reported on August 7. "Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Ron Johnson accuse port operator Faehrhafen Sassnitz of 'knowingly providing significant goods, services, and support' for the project. ... In December 2019, Washington passed the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act, targeting companies working on Nord Stream 2." When did this become illegal?
A paper released by The Quincy Institute entitled "A New US Paradigm for the Middle East" calls for a "definitive end to the disastrous policy the United States has pursued in the region for nearly two decades," Gareth Porter wrote on August 7 in Responsible Statecraft. He believes that it "offers the first coherent analysis of what is wrong with that policy and the first conceptual framework for a fundamentally different approach." Is it feasible?
According to Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone, "A prominent Hong Kong pundit and anti-China activist named Kong Tsung-gan has become a go-to source for Western media. An investigation by The Grayzone confirms Kong as a fake identity employed by an American teacher who’s a ubiquitous figure at local protests." What are we to make of this?
"How the US Failed at Its Foreign Policy Toward Venezuela" is a great article in CounterPunch by Vijay Prishad and Érika Ortega Sanoja. It opens with a recounting of an August 4 hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at which US State Department Special Representative Elliott Abrams was lambasted for his failures in Venezuela. "The senators, almost without exception, suggested that Abrams had been — since 2019 — responsible for a failed U.S. attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro," the article said. "From Republican Senator Mitt Romney to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, Abrams received a severe tongue-lashing. There was no disagreement in the committee about the goals of U.S. policy, namely to overthrow — with force if necessary — the government of President Maduro." What does this tell us going forward?
Guests:
Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick - US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-trained medical epidemiologist and board-certified infectious diseases physician with both domestic and global experience in public health
Dr. Jack Rasmus - Economist, author of "The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Trump" and professor in the Economics and Politics Departments at St. Mary’s College of California
Mark Sleboda - Moscow-based international relations and security analyst
Alexander Mercouris - Editor-in-chief of The Duran
Scott Ritter - Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq
Gareth Porter - Investigative Journalist
Danny Haiphong - Author and Contributor to the Black Agenda Report
Teri Mattson - Writer at Code Pink
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