Political Misfits

Roger Stone and Jan 6 Riots; Iran Elections; Big Tech Complicit in Child Labor

Ebrahim Raisi wins presidential election in Iran. Will new leadership bring about a change in relations with the US?
Sputnik

John Kiriakou, co-host of The Backstory on Radio Sputnik, talks to us about the news that Roger Stone is reportedly under federal investigation on his role in planning the January 6 insurrection, how investigators are looking into what role Stone may have played in radicalizing Trump supporters who joined the assault on the US Capitol, and whether the video evidence presented thus far in the media is sufficient to mount a case against him.  

Mohammad Marandi, Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, tells us about the results of the elections in Iran where Ebrahim Raisi emerged victorious over the weekend, how the media is reporting about a hardliner victory and whether this analysis is accurate, how the low voter turnout may have affected the results, the president’s priorities for the country, the reaction by neighboring countries, and whether there will be any change in the relationship between Iran, Israel and the U.S. under Raisi’s presidency. 

Terrence Collingsworth, executive director of International Rights Advocates and labor & human rights attorney specializing in trade and international labor rights issues, talks to us about a case against Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, and Dell that argues that the tech giants knowingly profit from the use of child labor in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where children have been maimed and even killed extracting the minerals in mines owned multinationals, whether the Alien Tort Statute will be used, as in the Nestlé/Cargill case, to try to connect abuses along the supply chain to top decision-makers, and the role local and Western governments could play in exerting oversight of the way resource extraction is conducted.

Tina-Desiree Berg, host of the podcast District 34 and reporter for Status Coup, joins us in a conversation about news reports coming out of Chicago about a rising crime wave in the city, and how this reporting is reproducing the “super predator” narrative and ignoring the structural components of violence and precarity. We also talk about the anti-homeless efforts by local governments around the country and how these have become even more militarized. 

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