Gareth Porter explains the overblown claims of Iran’s threat to the United States, which are constantly being used as a pretext for war by American and Israeli neocons. Discussed on the show: “John Bolton’s Nefarious Plot for War With Iran” (Truthdig) “Did Iran Kill 600 Americans in Iraq War II?” (The Libertarian Institute) Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state, and author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare....

Andrew Cockburn comes back on the show to discuss his recent piece, “The Military-Industrial Virus.” Cockburn describes how the war planners, and even many of the officers, don’t care all that much about the men they’re sending off to fight and die in America’s wars. Mostly they’re waiting to cash in on comfortable pensions or work on the civilian side at a firm like Raytheon or Boeing. Cockburn laments how President Trump ran against the wars and the military-industrial complex, but hasn’t...

Ray McGovern and Bill Binney, both of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for sanity, discuss their findings on the supposed Russian hack of the DNC email server. They explain their detailed testing of the claim that the emails were hacked and transferred over the internet, in which they conclude that it wouldn’t have been possible to do it this way, and it must have been done physically and in person. Most analysts are more concerned with making the facts fit the narrative they are already...

Scott talks to Steven Woskow about recent anti-BDS legislation at both the state and federal level. The issue has been going back and forth in the courts because on the one hand, a boycott is just an expression of personal first amendment freedoms, but on the other, it could be argued that it constitutes discrimination against a religious group. Scott and Woskow, however, agree that the religious discrimination argument is totally illegitimate because this is a political and human rights...

Scott talks to Daniel Lazare about the ongoing fiasco of the Mueller report, this time digging deeper into Mueller’s past as FBI director. Lazare says even though the report is now out, the fun is just beginning. Discussed on the show: “Top Ten Questions About the Mueller Report” (Consortiumnews) “4/26/19 Daniel Lazare on Julian Assange and Guccifer 2.0” (The Libertarian Institute) Operation Mockingbird Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the constitution is Paralyzing...

Scott talks to Ken Silverstein about what’s really going on in Venezuela. The mainstream media will tell you that the country is starving and in chaos, but Silverstein has been there himself and says that most people actually have food and support Maduro more than the opposition. The negative coverage, says Silverstein, is an attempt to build support for a U.S.-backed coup, which he thinks is unlikely to actually ever succeed. Discussed on the show: “Why a Coup Is Unlikely in Venezuela” (The...

Airwars’ Chris Woods joins the show to discuss the recent findings that coalition airstrikes recently killed over a thousand civilians in Raqqa. The UN also estimates that although most residents were able to escape the city, 70% lost all their property in the bombings. The casualty numbers are 10 times higher than what U.S. officials have admitted. Discussed on the show: “Syria: Unprecedented investigation reveals US-led Coalition killed more than 1,600 civilians in Raqqa ‘death trap’”...

Scott talks to Congressman Ro Khanna about the bipartisan efforts in congress to end the war in Yemen. Despite a lack of popular awareness of this issue, explains Khanna, the humanitarian disaster in Yemen is horrific, and the U.S. should end its support for the Saudis immediately. He says that President Trump’s good instincts on getting out of pointless wars have not carried through into sound policy, probably because the cabinet and the national security state actually control his foreign...

Robert Gaines, an Afghan war combat veteran and co-author with Scott of a few recent articles for Breitbart.com and The National Interest, discusses America's continuing war in Afghanistan and the possible reasons for hope, as peace talks there are advancing further than they ever have. Scott and Gaines agree that it would probably make the most sense not to try to have a single state at all. If the various tribes and ethnic groups were allowed to govern their own areas, instead of a central...

Scott talks to Greg Palast about Venezuela, Deepwater Horizon, and the importance of whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning. Palast explains that most Venezuelans still basically support President Maduro, and that the prospect of Guaidó—a wealthy white guy—ruling reminds them of the apartheid of their past. He also laments that prominent journalists at the New York Times and elsewhere, who have won awards thanks to Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, happily go along with their arrests as though...

Scott talks to Kevin Zeese, who is still occupying the Venezuelan embassy in Washington D.C. as part of a group protesting the Trump administration’s attempt to oust President Maduro, of which the first step is to hand embassies over to supporters of Juan Guiadó. Zeese reminds us that Maduro’s election was verified free and fair by more than 150 election observers, and that even if it weren’t, it’s not the place of the united states to decide who should rightfully rule which foreign countries....

David Swanson joins the show to talk about the decline in military recruitment, which the secretary of the navy recently tried to explain away by falsely claiming that thousands of high schools have started denying access to recruiters, something they are legally barred from doing. Swanson points out, however, that the real reason for low recruitment is that the American people are getting fed up with the endless wars. The young people coming of age today were born during the wars we’re still...

Daniel Lazare discusses the hacking of the DNC email server, which is in the news yet again because of the recent indictment against Julian Assange. Lazare points out why many of the allegations against Assange don’t make any sense, among which is the claim that he worked with supposed Russian agent Guccifer 2.0 to obtain and leak the stolen emails—but this claim is supported by an announcement from Wikileaks that happened before the alleged contact with Guccifer. The full report is full of...

Grant Smith comes back on the show to explain the polling around American support for Palestine. Last month Gallup quietly revealed that support for Palestine among Americans is now higher than support for Israel. In the past these polls, which always claimed Americans favored Israel, have been used to justify Israel’s privileged status in American foreign policy—so it’s no wonder powerful forces want to keep results like this quiet. Discussed on the show: “Gallup Quietly Admits ‘Israeli vs....

Kevin Zeese joins the show from the Venezuelan embassy in Washington D.C., where he and other activists are trying to ensure that the Trump administration doesn’t turn the embassy over to their puppet government. Since the actual coup attempt in Venezuela failed due to military loyalty to Maduro, explains Zeese, the U.S. has been trying to replace a network of embassies with the people they want in power. Zeese says that much of what we hear about Venenzeula in the mainstream media is false;...