Kelley B. Vlahos joins Scott to discuss her latest article on the failures of the nuclear weapons industry for the American Conservative Magazine, “Dr. Strangelove and the Los Alamos Nuclear Fiasco“. Vlahos details how the government has corporatized nuclear labs with near disastrous effects. Crony capitalism has diminished competition as contracts are handed back and forth, which gives companies no incentive to improve their services or cut their costs. Workers are often subjected to poor...

John Feffer, of Foreign Policy in Focus, joins Scott to discuss whether the escalating war of words (and missile tests) between North Korea and the United States is just bluster or something more sinister. Feffer explains how China and Russia help mitigate conflict, why the U.S. would be heavily incentivized to use conventional weaponry if war were to break out, and in what circumstances the United States might use nuclear weapons in North Korea. According to Feffer the U.S. has three...

Nasser Arrabyee returns to the show to share his reporting on the war in Yemen. The war dates back to March 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its U.S.-led coalition began raining death on Yemen in an attempt to reinstall the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who Hillary Clinton empowered in 2012. Arrabyee discusses his experience the outbreak of cholera, how Southern Yemen has fallen into state of lawlessness as ISIS and al-Qaeda’s power has continued to grow, and how Saudi Arabia fights alongside...

James Carden joins the show to talk about his latest article, “A Fateful Encounter: On Today’s Meeting Between Presidents Trump and Putin,” on Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit. Carden also discusses how Liberal Twitter is off its hinge, how the U.S. is the worst of all foreign election meddlers, why tensions with Iran make it impossible for a lasting agreement between Russia and the United States, why no one understands what’s happening in the Ukraine and the United...

Joe Lauria returns to the show to discuss the battle for Mosul, and the degree to which the Iraqi army has defeated the Islamic State. Lauria details the awful destruction of the war: thousands of civilians have been killed, and at least 850,000 people have fled since the fighting started last October, though the origins of the conflict trace back to George W. Bush’s decision to invade in 2003 and the role of the U.S. in aiding ISIS’s rise. Lauria then discusses what’s next: a referendum in...

Mark Perry returns to the show to discuss his latest article in the American Conservative, detailing how Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has the president’s ear in the Middle East and how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have been attempting to clean up Kushner’s mess in the Gulf States. Perry also discusses why war with Iran has some supporters in the White House, but many in the Pentagon and military have grown wary of constant intervention in...

Doug Bandow returns to the show to discuss his latest article for the National Interest, “I was in Pyongyang When Otto Warmbier Was Released.” Bandow discusses how Pyongyang has changed since he was last there 25 years ago, why North Korea won’t give up their nuclear weapons, and why military engagement would have massive implications for Seoul, which is located just 30 miles from the DMZ. Bandow suggests that the solution is Trump stepping outside the box and reasserting his unconventional...

Bob Logan joins the show to discuss his article for Antiwar.com: “Understanding ISIS in the Philippines.” Logan explains the recent uptick in violence in the Philippines and how it’s connected to the history of oppression of Muslims in the Philippines both by colonialist powers and also by the Filipino state. The government has not lived up to its peace agreement with moderate separatists—predicated largely on who controls local natural resources—which has inspired a more radical, violent...

Robert Murphy returns to the show to discuss how the new GOP healthcare bill compares to Obamacare, why pre-2007 healthcare was far from a free market, and how the Democrats are misleading people when they claim repealing Obamacare will literally kill people. Murphy also explains why he expects the next financial crisis to happen in Europe, how the Fed is raising rates in an unusual way, and why price stability may be an indicator of a bubble. And, of course, how the Fed helps finance...

Gareth Porter returns to discuss his important new article, “How the US Armed Terrorists in Syria,” the evidence, former-CIA Director Petraeus pushed the scheme to arm rebels in Syria, leading to the rise of Islamic State and the current war there.

Ray McGovern, former chief of the CIA’s Soviet analysts division, explains why he is far from impressed by CIA/Washington Post‘s latest claims about the Trump-Russia election interference/collusion story.

Adam Johnson from FAIR discusses his recent articles about biased media coverage of the anniversary of the 1967 war and its aftermath for the Palestinians, as well as feigned media amnesia of previous intervention every time the U.S. attacks national or allied forces in Syria.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, the new Managing Editor of The American Conservative magazine, discusses her great new job and the terrible ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Historian and journalist Gareth Porter, author of Manufactured Crisis, discusses Trump, Mattis and McMaster’s coming escalation of the Afghan war and why it cannot be won.

Judging by the stance of the leadership of the Democratic Party and much of the media, Hillary Clinton’s devastating loss in the presidential election of November 2016 was all the fault of pernicious Russian leaks, unwarranted FBI investigations and a skewed electoral college. Rarely blamed was the party’s decision to run a deeply unpopular candidate on an uninspiring platform. At a time of widespread dissatisfaction with business-as-usual politics, the Democrats chose to field a...