The Critical Hour

SCOTUS Hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett Began Yesterday

On this edition of The Critical Hour, Co-hosts Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges about SCOTUS nomination Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her hearing, which began yesterday.
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People should want in their law as in their politics two things, honesty, and consistency. The rushing through of this nomination gives us neither. What will happen with the SCOTUS nomination?

There’s a legal war being launched against Trump’s eviction moratorium, aiming to unwind renter protections by landlords and their lobbyists. According to housing advocates, Millions of renters in the US are facing the renewed threat of eviction. Has the government weakened its protections in response to recent lawsuits?

This piece by Professor Cohn gives great insight into the history here which a lot of people may have forgotten or never knew because they’ve been inundated with misinformation or no information. “Assange founded WikiLeaks during the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” which was used as a pretext to start two illegal wars and carry out a widespread program of torture and abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo and the CIA black sites.” Why is he being punished for this?

A Turkish ship set sail on Monday to carry out seismic surveys in the eastern Mediterranean, prompting Greece to issue a furious new demand for European Union sanctions on Ankara in a row over offshore exploration rights.

What’s going on here?

A meeting in Tokyo of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad” — the United States, India, Japan, and Australia — ended without a joint communique or no mention of an earlier proposal by Washington that it might be time to expand their group into a more formal security alliance akin to NATO. This is a blow to the Trump administration, which is looking to shore up its support for what it sees as a growing cold war against China.

While the US spent most of 2020 not making serious inroads on a nuclear deal with Russia, President Trump is now reported to be interested in quickly rattling one off before the November 3 election. Officials believe that once talks begin in earnest they could wrap things up within a week. They are also warning Russia that Trump would add more demands to the deal if it’s not finished by the election. A week? Really?

Azerbaijan and Armenian forces accused each other of launching attacks in and around Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, violations of a short-lived ceasefire that was brokered by Russia and took effect Saturday. What does this mean going forward?

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi took the opportunity in an interview this weekend to publicly dismiss allegations about Iran nearing breakout capability, saying they don’t have enough enriched uranium to even make a single nuclear bomb. Is he accurate?

Guests:

Chris Hedges, Investigative Journalist

Richard Lachmann, Professor at SUNY Albany, Author of First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship:  Elite Politics and the Decline Great Powers 

Steve Poikonen, National Organizer for Action4Assange

Dan Lazare, Investigative Journalist, Author of America's Undeclared War

K. J. Noh, Peace Activist, Writer, Teacher

Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international affairs analyst

Alexander Mercouris, Editor-in-Chief at TheDuran.com & host of "The Duran" on Youtube

Scott Ritter, Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq 

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