Hassan El-Tayyab discusses the state of the war in Yemen. The Biden administration famously announced in February that it would be ending support for Saudi "offensive operations" in Yemen, including targeting assistance and maintenance on their military equipment. In the last few days, however, the U.S. military has clarified the position: it will, in fact, still be supporting the Saudi air force in its bombing operations, seemingly the most important part of Biden's supposed decision to stop...

Mike Swanson gives his take on what's in store for the U.S. economy as the covid restrictions begin to lift. Although the early economic recovery isn't looking as rosy as some predicted, many businesses do seem to be getting back to normal as the pandemic subsides. What's much more worrisome, says Swanson, is the sheer amount of money that the government has created over the last year. With trillions of new dollars injected into the economy, it's impossible that we won't see some kind of...

Scott talks to Max Blumenthal about the true state of affairs between Israel and Palestine, which you won't hear about in most mainstream media sources. Although the situation is often depicted as two neighboring states engaged in a religious conflict, the truth is that the Palestinians are second-class citizens in what has become a de facto single apartheid state. The widely-publicized rocket attacks are the actions of an oppressed minority fighting back in the only way they can. Any violence...

Scott interviews Ben Freeman about his research into the Saudi lobby's activity in American politics. Freeman explains that while it's illegal for foreign governments to donate directly to politicians in this country, it's easy to get around these restrictions by hiring firms in the U.S. to make contributions and to lobby on behalf of governments like Saudi Arabia. Freeman has found hundreds of such filings per year, totaling tens of millions of dollars in contributions. He reminds us that all...

Jim Bovard discusses the way the American surveillance state has slowly dismantled the fourth amendment, especially thanks to the FISA courts and the way they've enabled legal loopholes for spying on nearly any American citizen. Bovard cites interventions by the NSA and FBI as major factors in Trump's failure to win re-election in November, and says similar activity has most likely compromised dozens of high-profile politicians in the past. All Americans should be able to agree that the...

Scott interviews Alan Macleod about all the ways the mainstream media distorts the Israel-Palestine narrative to make it seem like both sides share some of the blame for an unfortunate situation that isn't really anyone's fault. What's never explained is the fact that the supposed Palestinian territories are at this point little more than heavily-occupied refugee camps, and that attacks from the Palestinians are the predictable result of decades of Israeli aggression. Still, Scott and Macleod...

Ramzy Baroud discusses the deliberately misleading way that stories about Israel-Palestine are presented in western media. The story, he says, almost always begins with the fact that Palestinians have launched rockets at Israeli forces, or at least presents the conflict as an even fight between two neighbors, in which Israel, of course, has the right to defend its own borders. What's never explained is the fact that the supposed Palestinian territories are at this point little more than...

Scott talks to Phil Weiss about Israel-Palestine in light of the violence of the last few days. Weiss begins by pointing out that Human Rights Watch has finally declared Israel to be a single apartheid state. In other words, the two-state solution is dead, and the supposed Palestinian territories are really just occupied Israeli lands. Other human rights groups have echoed this same sentiment. The growing acknowledgement of this fact has helped to fuel recent tensions and violence, says Weiss,...

Scott talks to Dave Smith about the upcoming Pennsylvania Libertarian Party convention and the special Mises Caucus event happening in Pittsburgh the same weekend. Both Smith and Scott will be speaking this Friday, May 14th, and there will be a host of other guest appearances on Saturday. The event will be hosted at the Double Tree, Pittsburgh—don't miss out! Discussed on the show: "Take Human Action Bash" (Eventbrite) Dave Smith is the host of the podcast Part of the Problem and a member of...

Scott talks to Dan Cohen about unrest in Jerusalem, where Israeli soldiers stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque, and in Colombia, where protestors have been clashing with government forces, resulting in at least 39 civilian deaths so far. Both of these stories are perverted by most mainstream media sources in order to obscure the real story. In Israel, in this and all similar cases, the headlines invariably focus on the fact that Palestinians have attacked Israeli forces, without ever providing the...

Kevin Gosztola discusses the alarming new developments in the case of Daniel Hale, a whistleblower who helped expose the U.S. military's secret drone assassination program during the Obama administration. Because it's so easy to obtain convictions of whistleblowers, Hale recently pled guilty to one of the charges against him, hoping to receive a deal from the court. But now he's being held, mostly in solitary confinement, in the Alexandria Detention Center, the same facility where Chelsea...

Scott interviews Professor Alfred McCoy about the history of the drug trade during America's decades-long involvement in Afghanistan. Before the 1980s, McCoy explains, drugs were not a significant part of the Afghan economy—but that all changed when President Bush's CIA began arming a resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. These Mujahideen fighters turned to opium for their funding, quickly growing Afghanistan's opium trade to thousands of tons a year, and accounting for 70%...

Doug Bandow discusses the creation of the Vandenberg Coalition, the latest in a long string of neocon think tanks that do little more than promote American interventionism halfway across the world. Bandow reminds us of two strong motivating factors behind this strain of foreign policy: On one hand, there really are a lot of true believers in the American empire—people who think that the U.S. military is a force for good in the world that spreads democracy and maintains relative peace through...