"Trump on Monday reiterated the false claim that children are essentially immune to the virus, and that schools should reopen for in-person instruction in the fall," the Washington Post reported Monday. Meanwhile, "Russia has become the first country to grant regulatory approval to a vaccine against COVID-19, with mass production and immunization of key workers to begin in the next few weeks," the Irish Times reported Tuesday. What are we to make of this?
"Congressional talks over another coronavirus relief package have failed, with no immediate prospects for a restart," the Associated Press reported Monday. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy put it very clearly, saying: “States are going broke, and millions of Americans are unemployed, yet the solution called for states to create a new program we cannot afford and don’t know how to administer because of this uncertainty." How can that work?
The subheading of Alan MacLeod's Monday piece in MintPress News about the US military in Africa notes: "The US has roughly 6,000 military personnel scattered throughout the continent with military attachés outnumbering diplomats in many embassies across Africa." Is this détente or diplomacy at the barrel of a gun?
Our next guest, Chris Hedges, discusses his Monday article in Common Dreams, in which he wrote, “The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress." How so?
"The president wants employers to stop collecting the 6.2% levy that is the employee share of Social Security taxes for many workers, starting September 1 and going through the end of the year," the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. "But his move, announced in a memo Saturday, doesn’t change how much tax employees and employers actually owe. Only Congress can do that." Is this just more hocus-pocus, sleight-of-hand, voodoo economics from the White House?
An interesting article ran Monday in the American Conservative, entitled "Neoconservative Wolves Dressed In Never-Trumper Clothing." It begins, “Never-Trumper Republicans have been worming their way into the Biden campaign, offering to flesh out his 'coalition' ahead of the election and pushing their way into the foreign policy discussions, particularly on China. Given their shared history with the liberal interventionists already in the campaign, don’t for a second think that there aren’t hungry neoconservatives among them trying to get a seat at the table.” How concerned should people be?
The subheading of an August 7 piece in MintPress News read: "Israel is hoping to capitalize on internal tensions in Yemen, throwing its support behind a UAE-backed militant group with eyes on secession and control of the coveted Bab al-Mandab Strait." The article says, "As the war in Yemen nears its sixth year, the situation in the war-torn nation is escalating as Israel enters the fray, throwing its support behind the Emirati-backed separatist militant group, the Southern Transitional Council." What does this mean going forward?
"Lebanon’s leaders shifted their focus Tuesday to forming a new government, a day after the country’s cabinet resigned amid ongoing protests demanding political change in the aftermath of last week’s deadly explosion in Beirut," the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. What are we to make of this?
Guests:
Dr. Yolandra Hancock - Board-certified pediatrician and obesity medicine specialist
Dr. Emmit Riley - Political scientist and assistant professor of Africana studies at DePauw University
Dr. Linwood Tauheed - Associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
Netfa Freeman - Host of Voices With Vision on WPFW 89.3 FM, Pan-Africanist and internationalist organizer
Chris Hedges - Investigative journalist
Margaret Kimberley - Editor and senior columnist at the Black Agenda Report and author of "Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents"
Elisabeth Myers - Lawyer, adviser and educator
Laith Marouf - Broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon
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