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Scott interviews Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz about various developments in the Middle East. They discuss recent escalations on the Israel-Lebanon border, the power breakdown in Syria, the latest concern over the Iranian nuclear program and more. 

Discussed on the show:

• “As Israel Talks Lebanon War, Officials Evacuate a Border Town” (Antiwar.com)
• “Israeli Drone Strike Slays Military Officer in South Syria” (Antiwar.com)
• “US Threatens to ‘Increase Pressure’ on Iran Over Nuclear Program” (Antiwar.com)

Jason Ditz is senior editor of Antiwar.com. Read all of his work at news.antiwar.com and follow him on Twitter @jasonditz.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott.

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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.

Kevin Zeese is a lawyer, activist, and journalist who has written for independent media outlets such as Truthout, AlterNet, Truthdig and Counterpunch, as well as the The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He is the host of Clearing the Fog and the author of multiple books on drug policy. Find him on Twitter @KBZeese.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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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 fighting, so they grew up with a sense of their futility and an understanding that they might never end.

Discussed on the show:

• “The Secretary of the Navy Lied to Congress – Let’s Try Democracy” (davidswanson.org)
• “Do US High Schools Bar Military Recruiters? Activists Try to Call Pentagon’s Bluff” (Military.com)
• “Former Director of Selective Service Says It’s Time To End Draft Registration” (Antiwar.com)
• National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy
• Downing Street memo

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, radio host, and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. He is the author of War is a Lie and When the World Outlawed War. Find him on Twitter @davidcnswanson.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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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 many other similar contradictions.

Discussed on the show:

• “The ‘Guccifer 2.0’ Gaps in Mueller’s Full Report” (Consortium News)

Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the constitution is Paralyzing Democracy and a regular contributor at Consortium News. Find all of his work at his website and follow him on Twitter @dhlazare.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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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. Palestinian’ Sympathy Polls Are Misleading” (Antiwar.com)
• “TRANSCEND MEDIA SERVICE » Global Language Dictionary – The Israel Project 2009” (transcend.org)
• “Lock and Load” (Brookings)

Grant F. Smith is the author of a number of books including Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America and Divert!. He is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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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; they are still fairly prosperous, Maduro won in a fair election and still enjoys popular support, and the country attracts many more immigrants than it has emigrants. American special interests, he says, are just using the political unrest there as an excuse to try to get their hands on the country’s immense natural resource wealth.

Discussed on the show:

• “Ukraine: Why “OU” Lost By A Landslide” (PopularResistance.Org)
• “Fallacies And Inaccuracies About Venezuelan Migration” (PopularResistance.Org)
• “Cable: 06KIEV1706_a” (Wikileaks)
• “Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived” (TheHill)
• “Nuland-Pyatt leaked phone conversation” (YouTube)

Kevin Zeese is a lawyer, activist, and journalist who has written for independent media outlets such as Truthout, AlterNet, Truthdig and Counterpunch, as well as the The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He is the host of Clearing the Fog and the author of multiple books on drug policy. Find him on Twitter @KBZeese.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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Phil Giraldi makes the case that the Russiagate investigation was not simply a good faith effort to ensure then-candidate Trump was not an agent of the Russian government, but a legitimate plot to ruin his chances at the presidency by insiders connected to the Clinton campaign who hoped to benefit from her victory. The hatred of Trump is so strong that many democrats still believe him to be guilty despite the Mueller report’s conclusion to the contrary, not to mention policies from Trump that have actually been very anti-Russian.

Discussed on the show:

• “The Conspiracy Against Trump” (The Unz Review)
• “2/22/19 Chas W. Freeman on the Threat of Nuclear War with China” (The Libertarian Institute)

Phil Giraldi is a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and the Middle East working terrorism cases. He is the executive director for the Council for the National Interest and writes regularly for Unz.com.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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Frida Berrigan was five years old at the time of the Three Mile Island disaster, which marks her first memory of a life centered around anti-nuclear activism, as both of her parents, renowned Catholic nuclear activists Liz McAllister and Phil Berrigan, spent most of her childhood in and out of prison for their acts of civil disobedience. Berrigan joins the show to share her story.

Discussed on the show:

• “Nuclear weapons ruined my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way” (Waging Nonviolence)
• Plowshares movement
• The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
• The Nuns, The Priests, and The Bombs
• “The Day After” (IMDb)
• Religious Freedom Restoration Act
• Kings Bay Plowshares

Frida Berrigan is a columnist for Waging Nonviolence and the author of It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood. Find her work at Waging Nonviolence.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

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Conn Hallinan joins the show to explain the political situation in Turkey, where President Recep Erdogan has been consolidating power away from the parliament and into a strong executive. The problem, explains Hallinan, is that a groundswell of Kurdish voters has wrested local control from Erdogan in lots of municipal elections, and after having campaigned partially on an anti-Kurdish nationalist platform, Erdogan might now have to make nice with them in order to get anything done.

Discussed on the show:

• ““Revenge of the Kurds”: Erdogan’s Missteps Are Piling Up” (FPIF)

Conn Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus. Hallinan is a recipient of a Project Censored “Real News Award” and formerly headed the University of Santa Cruz’s journalism program.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs, by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download