Aaron Mehta talks about all the issues with the F-35 fighter jet, a plane that has been in development for 20 years and still can’t do many of the things it was designed for. Mehta describes his long investigation into the F-35 project, which upon initial release had 13 “category 1” deficiencies, which are problems that could result in the death of the pilot or loss of the airplane. Some of these deficiencies have been fixed or “downgraded,” but serious questions remain about the F-35’s safety...

Scott talks to Jeff Deist about the economic ramifications of the coronavirus, including both the virus itself and the government’s fiscal and monetary response. Deist certainly expects that we could be in for a severe recession, but is mainly of the view that this recession was coming soon anyway. It just took the right event to pop the bubble. Much of the ground that the country appeared to make up since the last crash, he says, has really been a reinflation by the Federal Reserve of the...

Daniel McAdams discusses the latest incident in the strange story of the U.S.-backed coup attempts in Venezuela, which seek to replace President Maduro with someone more friendly to “American interests,” like Juan Guaidó. Most recently, a small operation by a few American special forces troops was thwarted almost as soon as it began, leaving Guaidó and his followers looking even more impotent, and ironically boosting Maduro’s popularity. McAdams stresses the need for the United States to mind...

Scott interviews journalist Bas Spliet about the ongoing war in Yemen. Spliet reminds us that even though the Houthis are still referred to in most of the Western media as “rebels,” they have actually been ruling 80% of the country since 2014, and it’s really Saudi Arabia’s puppet ruler Mansour Hadi who is on the outside looking in. The people of Yemen continue to suffer terribly thanks to America’s support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE as they conduct a war of deliberate starvation and...

Scott interviews reporter Arielle Zionts about her recent story about a pregnant South Dakota woman who died of COVID-19 in federal prison. Andrea Circle Bear, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was charged under an obscure law in connection with a drug sale in which she herself was likely not a primary participant. She was sentenced to two years in a federal prison hundreds of miles from her home. She later contracted COVID-19, and died in April, though not before delivering her baby...

Gareth Porter discusses an investigation by The Grayzone into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation of documents purporting to prove to the Trump government that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. The new investigation, however, suggests that this was nothing more than an attempt to trigger U.S. military conflict with Iran using documents that had been entirely fabricated, rather than obtained by Mossad, as claimed. As usual, it is only months or years later that...

Scott interviews Aaron Maté on a new report by a group of OPCW whistleblowers alleging more misconduct from the organization. Just like in the famous case at Douma, where scant findings were used to justify retributive action against the Assad government while exculpatory evidence was deliberately excluded, these employees say that a similarly misleading incident took place in the case of an alleged attack in the Syrian town of Ltamenah in 2017. In fact they claim that an entire special team,...

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis joins the show to talk about Trump’s apparent interest in getting U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Trump has signaled that the coronavirus crisis might be an excuse to get out—after all if America is having trouble taking care of things at home, why should it wastefully expend resources abroad? For this fairly logical position, the media is doing everything it can to portray Trump as deranged and reckless. Davis and Scott support leaving Afghanistan by...

Mike Swanson discusses all the money the U.S. government has pumped into the economy in order to combat the economic effects of the coronavirus, and what effects these stimulus measures are likely to have. Even though an huge increase in the money supply would normally lead to price inflation, Swanson says that the simultaneous deflationary pressures from all the shutdown of the economy could offset any inflation, at least until things reopen and we’re on our way out of the recession. This...

Scott talks to William Van Wagenen about his recent Libertarian Institute article exploring the extremist roots of Syria’s civil war. Contrary to the popular narrative, according to which peaceful, secular, democratic protestors were met with violence by the Syrian government, Van Wagenen explains that Muslim Brotherhood activists were really inciting the protests and attacking Syrian security forces from the very beginning. Though the government has undoubtedly killed its own citizens, this...

Mitchell Plitnick talks to Scott about the dizzying state of the Israeli elections. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally formed a government after three rounds of elections that looked to be tilting toward his main rival, Benny Gantz. Plitnick theorizes that Gantz simply is not as savvy a career politician as Netanyahu is, and in part he just got tired of the endless fight. He may even have used the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to call off his campaign. Now his coalition has...

Scott talks to Grant Smith about his organization’s Freedom of Information lawsuit against the IRS, an attempt to get the agency to reveal its policies on tax-exempt organizations overseas. Of particular interest is the shocking fact that billions of dollars of tax-deductible money has been donated by American taxpayers in recent years to fund organizations that build settlements on Palestinian land. This makes no sense, says Smith, since the point of such tax policies is to offset “public...

Jim Bovard is back with an update in the Duncan Lemp case. Lemp was killed in a pre-dawn no-knock SWAT raid on his home last month, during which police allegedly fired directly into his bedroom window, where he slept beside his pregnant girlfriend. The police have changed their official story three times already, apparently trying to cover up what is almost certainly a wrongful killing. They claim that they received an anonymous tip regarding firearms offenses, which in their eyes evidently...

William Arkin comes back on the show to discuss continuity planning in the U.S. government. He notes that the measures being taken in Washington D.C. to ensure the integrity of a constitutional government during an emergency are somewhat at odds with the steps that the highest ranking politicians are themselves taking. For example, even as helicopter teams stand at the ready to evacuate the chain of command at a moment’s notice, President Trump and Vice President Pence have not separated...

Scott talks to Richard Booth about his investigative journalism into the real story behind the Oklahoma City bombing and its subsequent investigation. Booth goes over some of the main holes in the official narrative, which was largely constructed in order depict Timothy McVeigh as a lone actor because his likely co-conspirators—members of a well-known neo-Nazi group—are suspected to have had ties as government informants. This is at best embarrassing, and at worst criminal. All of Booth’s...