Podcasts about maryland republican party

Hour 1 - Diamond K talks Where things stand with U.S. and Colombia, Trump is expected to sign a flurry of new military focused executive orders, Air Force restores use of Tuskegee Airmen training videos as Hegseth starts his first day, JD Vance is making his first trip as vice president, Vaccine bills stack up in statehouses across the US, All Senate Democrats but Fetterman condemn Jan. 6 pardons in resolution, Incarcerated transgender woman challenges Trump's order on gender Hour 2 Trump's Agenda and the Black Community with Special guest: Maryland Republican Party member Christopher Anderson, Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl set after more heartbreak for Bills; Commanders have brutal day and Should women run a major haircut past her man before she does it?

Torrey previews the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.  We discuss what to expect and how the candidates can push people to their side.  We also react to a report from Maryland ICE officials announcing enforcement efforts in the state.  The future of the Maryland Republican Party is up in the air, and we discuss what it will take to get the party back on track.

Torrey reacts to the ruling from the Supreme Court affirming Presidential immunity in official duties.  We examine the Democrat reaction to the ruling.  We also discuss a statement from the Maryland Republican Party, criticizing Wes Moore for his focus on national issues. MDGOP National Committeewoman, Nicolee Ambrose, joins the program to discuss.  Today was the first day for increased vehicle registration fees, and we discuss if lawmakers will continue to raise fees. We also have a brief discussion on wage transparency.

Former Maryland Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, announced that he would be entering the race to be Maryland's next US Senator. Torrey discusses the headwinds with a tense relationship with the Maryland Republican Party, and the opportunities to build a new base.  Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce, shoves and screams at Chiefs head coach, Andy Reid. We examine the implications of this move, while considering whether or not there should be a more public response. Jerry Rogers joins the show to discuss how he would handle the situation as a football coach.

David Bossie, MD National Committeeman for the Maryland Republican Party and President of Citizens United, joined WMAL's "O'Connor and Company" radio program on Tuesday about how some new polling shows MD-6 and MD-2 polling neck and neck. Tweet: https://twitter.com/maggienyt/status/1583839500111052800?s=46&t=2HjLERJODt_HnyupzRilyQ For more coverage on the issues that matter to you, visit www.WMAL.com, download the WMAL app or tune in live on WMAL-FM 105.9 FM from 5-9 AM ET. To join the conversation, check us out on Twitter: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor,  @Jgunlock,  @patricepinkfile and @heatherhunterdc.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gary Collins joins Kim in studio to discuss Maryland's 2nd Congressional District Representative Dutch Ruppersberger's political stance, the Maryland gubernatorial race, MONSE and more.

Michelle opens with the Supreme Court yesterday blocked the Biden administration's vaccine or testing mandate for large employers. Michelle mentions an NPR's interview with a business owner who was relieved that the mandate was struck down, not because he didn't believe in vaccines, but because so many businesses are still in chaos over all the other pandemic fallout. John shares with listeners an article from Yahoo News about the CIA training Ukrainian paramilitary. Then, Aaron Good, political scientist and host of the American Exception podcast on Patreon. His doctoral dissertation is going to published by Skyhorse in April under the title 'American Exception: Empire and the Deep State' joins the Misfits. Aaron explains Newsom's decision not to release Sirhan Sirhan, alleged assassin of Robert Kennedy Jr. Good points out that the autopsy, witness accounts and a second shooter clears Sirhan yet Establishment Democrats have long been opposed to Sirhan's release. Next, John and Michelle are joined by Eugene Craig, Republican strategist and former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party they delve into likely contenders for the 2022 midterms and 2024 run for president. No Trump 2.0 in 2024 Trump would prefer a role such as, Speaker of the House instead. No long campaign because you do not need to be a member of congress to be Speaker. Not likely because some Republicans will be opposed and certainly all Democrats.Mitch McConnell remains important to Republicans as an effective leader while Kevin McCarthy is a shell of leadership abilities. Former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican, not likely to run for president. Hogan does not want to risk a loosing campaign running for POTUS yet he's likely to run for Senate. Steve Grumbine, Founder and CEO of the nonprofits Real Progressives and Real Progress in Action. He's host of the podcast Macro n Cheese. He's also a leading activist and evangelist for Modern Monetary Theory. Talks with the Misfits about what's behind the story of spiking inflection. The severity of the surge will wane once supply chains catch up. Opportunistic monopolies are exploiting the pandemic and raising prices. Last, the misfits look ahead to all that Prince Andrew, formally known as the Duke of York, has to look forward to.

Nick Mottern, reporter, researcher, writer, political organizer, and coordinator of the websites Bankillerdrones.org and KnowDrones.com, joins Misfit hosts Bob Schlehuber and Michelle Witte to talk about what maintaining “over the horizon” capabilities of reaching Afghanistan will mean with regard to our wider foreign policy, and what the conflict in Afghanistan meant and means for the evolution of drone warfare. Ra Shad Frazier Gaines, founder of the Black Caucus of the Young Democrats of America and founder of Black Progressives, and Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, discuss the way US political parties are aligning themselves on and using the Afghanistan withdrawal for their own ends. They get into some of President Joe Biden's new domestic programs, and talk about how violence abroad gets attention that violence at home rarely merits. The Misfits also talk about President Joe Biden's offensive speech on Monday, the coming covid booster program, the future of Chris and Andrew Cuomo and CNN, and the several ways our mainstream entertainment, at least, has been bringing us genuine joy and enlightenment lately.

Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo, professor of public health at College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, talks to us about updates in vaccination efforts and in the fight against COVID-19, how inequities remain in vaccination rates between communities, regions, and nations, how the mutations undergone by the virus may render current vaccines not as effective, how countries could deal this, and what lessons should be learned from the pandemic as the U.S. slowly reopens in order to deal with a crisis of this magnitude in the future.Nick Mottern, reporter, researcher, writer, political organizer, and coordinator of KnowDrones.com and Bankillerdrones.org, a website devoted to education and organizing to stop drone warfare and surveillance, talks to us about reports that the Pentagon has been conducting tests that would allow AI to make critical decisions in drone operations including using deadly force, the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of the opposition to this, and how this could lead to countries with those capabilities conducting more violent actions since there will be no humans involved on one side of the equation. Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, and Teresa Lundy, communications strategist and principal at TML Communications, join us in a conversation about whether or not Democrats and Republicans are growing their bases in the off-year election, whether or not we can take race out of our political discussions, with both parties trying to appeal to more white voters and others who believe that we live in a post-racial society, and how this flies in the face of reality. We also talk about the prospect of criminal justice reform in a period of rising violence in the country, and whether the question of policing will divide black communities and progressives.In our Politics of Art segment, hosts Michelle Witte and Bob Schlehuber talk about Van Morrison’s new album and its peculiar lyrics, the controversy over allegations of corruption and lack of representation in the Golden Globes committee, and Donald Glover and Billie Crystal joining the “cancel culture” crowd.

Episode #31: Dirk Haire, Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party

Sputnik News Analyst Wyatt Reed, joins us from Ecuador ahead of Sunday’s Presidential and National Assembly to discuss what’s going on and which candidate the people really want.Award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall, joins us to discuss Joe Biden’s foreign policy comments yesterday at the State Department and what it means for those of us living inside the empire. Fred Rabner, Pittsburgh-based civil rights and trial attorney and Alex S. Vitale, Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, join us to to bring attention to Columbus, Ohio where an Ohio grand jury on Wednesday indicted a former Columbus police officer in the fatal shooting of a Black man who was at the garage of a home where he was a guest.Eugene Puryear, host at Breakthrough News and author of "Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America, joins us to discuss the latest job numbers, Democrats seeming desire for a workers revolt in the country. Eljayem, Jr. Partner at Newton Media and founder of Speakezie Go Hard and Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist and former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party, joins us to discuss who needs to take several seats for the weekend, from entertainers to politicians.

Jim Kavanagh, writer at The Polemicist and CounterPunch and author of the article, "The American Farce Unravels: Shreds of January 6th," joins us to discuss the Trump impeachment trial. The Trump legal team is in disarray as a number of attorneys have resigned. Reports suggest the president wanted the team to focus on his allegations of massive voter fraud, whereas legal experts argued for a strategy founded on the assertion that Congress can not institute impeachment procedures against a president who no longer holds office. Alexander Mercouris, editor-in-chief at TheDuran.com and host of "The Duran" on YouTube, returns to The Critical Hour to discuss the Barr Durham investigation and apparent cover-up. In yet another sign that the Biden administration will be whitewashing the investigation into the origins of Russiagate, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to deliberately misleading the FISA court and received a sentence far below the standard for such a crime. Clinesmith was given a year's probation and allowed to walk free despite ample evidence that he was part of an organized effort to intentionally mislead the court and subvert justice.Dr. Linwood Tauheed, associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Eugene Craig, Republican strategist and former vice chair of the Maryland Republican Party, join us to discuss the COVID-19 relief package and political instability in the United States. The GOP has countered the Biden team's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill with a skinny bill that totals only $600 billion. Will US President Joe Biden accept it or go with Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) recommendation of using budget reconciliation to bypass Republican opposition? The Republican party struggles to maintain its political footing post Donald Trump as Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) has founded a political action committee to push against the party's embrace of the former president. Niko House, a political activist, independent journalist and podcaster, joins us to discuss the government's crackdown on domestic speech and dissent. A number of mainstream journalists are coming together to support a government crackdown on the media. Alleged lefty Anand Giridharadas posed an extremely dangerous question as he recently argued “it's time for this question to be front and center: Should Fox News be allowed to exist?” Also, Bill Adair, founder of "Politifact," called for “a bipartisan commission to investigate the problem of misinformation and make recommendations about how to address it,” perhaps through “regulations and new laws.” Meanwhile, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is warning against the danger of new domestic terrorism laws. Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of Shadowproof.com, joins us to discuss his latest article about Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Gosztola writes that Biden's notorious warhawk pushes the Pax Americana paradigm for order, and that he "thinks if the United States does not impose its will and shape the world, then there will be no law and order." He goes on to discuss Blinken's alarming statements and policy positions on Ukraine, Libya, and Venezuela among other nations that the US has destabilized. Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court and the Decline of American Democracy," joins us to discuss the coup in Myanmar. The Myanmar military has overthrown the government and imposed a one-year emergency rule until new elections can be held. They are expected to soon reveal their handpicked government ministers which are expected to be both former and current military personnel. The move came after the military's lopsided loss in recent elections in which they argued widespread fraud. Many are anticipating a harsh repression of dissent as extensive dissatisfaction of the coup manifests itself on social media. Miko Peled, an author and activist, joins us to talk about Israel. In Miko's latest Mintpress news article, he argues the Biden administration's early indicators are that they will bend the knee to the Benjamin Netanyahu wing of the Israeli government. Peled discusses a recent panel of young people that he hosted. He says that the Democratic party would do well to listen to the younger generation as they push for an Israeli peace settlement that respects the concerns of the Palestinians. Nicholas Ayala, editor at the Anticonquista Media Collective, joins us to discuss the unity of Latin American nations against the declining US empire. He also explains how the current anti-war positions in the United States leave little room for the anti-imperialist argument pushed by the victims of US imperial hegemonic oppression. Ayala explains how the political chaos and instability in the US has created new alliances in the two ruling parties, and that "each alliance represents a different section of bourgeois interests in the capitalist-imperialist empire."

Mark Sleboda, international relations and security analyst, joins us to discuss Syria and how the war there has seemingly been forgotten. While Syria was grabbing headlines for years, it seems like some people want to stuff it down the memory hole with Libya, and we don’t want to let that happen.Teresa Lundy, communications strategist and principle at TML Communications; and Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, join us to discuss the nomination of Pete Buttigieg for secretary of transportation under the Biden administration.Jon Jeter, former Washington Post bureau chief and two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, joins us to discuss hunger in the US as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, how banks get away with preying on the poor and what’s been traded away and left out of the new pandemic relief package being negotiated in Congress.

This week we talk with Julian Boykin about the future of the Maryland Republican Party and the GOP's Minority outreach. The show is also available on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Radio Public, Breaker, and wherever else you get your podcasts. About the Episode: In this episode we discuss; Thoughts on the results of the Maryland Republican Party officer elections; The work of the Maryland Black Republican Council and their efforts to reach out to minority communities; Kim Klacik's Congressional campaign, and how her candidacy could grow the appeal of Republican candidates; Opportunities for Republicans to cultivate minority outreach; Julian's interviews with candidates for office across Maryland and across the country. About the Guest: Julian Boykin is a political activist living in Waldorf, MD. A native of Mississippi, he is Chairman of the Southern Maryland Young Republicans, Treasurer for the Maryland Black Republican Caucus, and Secretary for the Charles County Republican Central Committee. You can reach Julian by email.

Carlos Castaneda, an attorney who specializes in immigration law, joins us to take a look at how the parents of hundreds of kids who were separated from them at the US' southern border still can’t be found. Some of these children whose parents can’t be located were separated from them in 2017! They’ve been living with relatives and sponsor families in the US all that time. Last month, lawyers said they hadn't yet found the parents of 545 children, but NBC reported this week, citing an email from one of those attorneys to the Justice Department, that the number was actually 666 children. And it gets worse: the pilot program that predated the zero-tolerance family separation program that began in 2018 didn’t even have any plan to reunite kids with their parents. According to a Justice Department memo from 2018 that NBC says it viewed, the pilot program authors decided they shouldn’t separate kids younger than 12 from their parents because the kids couldn’t find their way back to their parents alone. Is there anything else we should know about this terrible program?Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog with Beyond Nuclear, joins us to discuss peace activists who received 14-month prison sentences for a protest at a US Navy submarine base. Seven Catholic peace activists snuck into the Kings Bay Naval Base in Georgia in 2018 and committed some symbolic vandalism. They splashed blood around, hammered at what’s been described as a monument to nuclear war and spray-painted some peace slogans on the ground. Their acts weren't horrible, and yet we’re seeing these activists, who seem to be almost all older people, being sentenced to more than a year in prison.Joia Jefferson Nuri, communication specialist for In The Public Eye Communications; and Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, join us to discuss a potential Trump run in 2024, as well as whether he could be planning a coup or if we're headed to a civil war. They also discuss the upcoming "Million MAGA March" and what US President-elect Joe Biden's plan is for Black America.Ralph Cooper III, journalist, political satirist and founder of District Comedy in Washington, DC, joins us to take a look at how Trump's reign has affected comedy.

Washington County, Maryland Republican Party, Jerry DeWolf See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Web developer and Chris Garaffa joined Misfit hosts Bob Schlehuber and Michelle Witte to talk about the tepid defense tech CEOs gave of section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, why that imperfect law remains so important, and why the National Security Agency shouldn’t be trusted to set up and monitor its own oversight when it comes to creating backdoors into what should be secure information. Tiana Caldwell, Board President of KC Tenants, and Will Merrifield, a tenant lawyer formerly with the DC Clinic for the Homeless and a candidate for DC Council At-Large, discuss militant action to prevent evictions during this pandemic; the crime of evicting families without notice, based on nothing but a Zoom hearing, in the midst of a health and economic crisis; the roots of our urban housing crises; and the humanitarian disaster the nation faces as a result of rising homelessness. Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, joined Ra Shad Frazier Gaines, founder of Black Progressives, to help the Misfits break down some of the marquee Senate races that will also be decided on November 3, including showdowns in Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. They also discuss the role of money in these record-breakingly expensive races. Dr. Yolandra Hancock, board-certified pediatrician and obesity medicine specialist, explained the impact covid 19 is already having on heart disease and cancer outcomes and predicted how we’ll see that impact reverberate through our public health and insurance systems. She also laid out the priorities authorities should have for handling what seems like an inevitable surge in chronic disease resulting from this pandemic.

As the Assange trial ends its first week, what has led to past delays?Neil Clark, journalist, broadcaster and director of Public Ownership Joined us to discuss the latest in the Julien assigned extradition trials. Why have there been so many delays; new evidence in the case; and why justice may not be served.Alexander Mercouris, editor-in-Chief of The Duran, joins us to discuss Brexit negotiations which seem to say the least are not going well. From the NYTimes Britain and the European Union were on a collision course Thursday, after Brussels demanded the speedy withdrawal of proposed Brexit legislation that the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has admitted would breach international law.Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, joins us to discuss race relations in America; NFL booing; controversy surrounding the movie Mulan; Microsoft Russian hacking and the Department of Education targeting internal book clubs.

Workers speak out to condemn the handling of proposed cuts to the US Postal Service (USPS), while the Trump administration paints a different picture.Stephanie Myles, a former USPS employee and co-founder of The Palm Collective; and Chris Smalls, an Amazon worker who was fired after organizing a walkout of his Staten Island, New York, warehouse and who has become a voice for labor, discuss worker strikes, worker mobilization and protests striking back against corporate bosses.Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist; and Teresa Lundy, communications strategist and principle at TML Communications discuss, QAnon and the Trump administration's response; what to expect during the Republican National Convention; US President Donald Trump's sliding poll numbers; and the the controversy over mail-in voting and the USPS.

Today’s guest Mr. Brandon Cooper (no relation that I know of), the 1st Vice Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, the youngest in state party history. Mr. Cooper has worked as staff for the Republican National Committee, two US Senate Campaigns in Maryland and Kentucky, and numerous local campaigns across the state. Mr. Cooper has repeatedly been recognized for his contributions to the Party, including being the recipient of the Maryland Republican Party's 2017 Man of the Year Award and the 2013 Young Republican of the Year Award. Outside of politics, Brandon is active in his community and is a co-founder for a Maryland  Chapter of 100 Black Men of America, Inc.Producer and Host: Bridgette CooperAssociate Producer: Cindy LinCooper and Company is a  subsidiary of 728 Productions™

Randi Nord, founder of Geopolitics Alert, discusses the explosion that rocked Beirut, in which 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse became a ticking time bomb. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab has vowed to punish those responsible for the negligence. This couldn't have come at a worse time, as protesters are hitting the streets in Lebanon over elections, and the country's failing economy is now even more crippled. Carlos Casteneda, attorney with the Law Offices of Thomas Esparza Jr., discusses the Supreme Court ruling barring the Trump administration from ending DACA. However, the administration is still not accepting new applications for the program. Also, a Netflix docuseries designed to shed light on US Immigation and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and possibly explain their work ends up exposing the ugly horrors and discord within the agency. Should it be dismantled? Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist, discusses whether or not the US government will restart its $600 weekly payouts to those who are unemployed after the program lapsed last week. What is the winning path for Trump in the election at this point? Without direct cash payments to the people, the economy is going to be hurting come November 3. The COVID-19 crisis in the US will not change, and kids will get sick at school. Also, he talks about gun sales being up in the African-American community and why being a Black Republican matters.

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Dr. Margaret Flowers, physician and co-editor of Popular Resistance. Back on April 23, US Vice President Mike Pence told us, “If you look at the trends today, I think by Memorial Day Weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us.” Well Mr. VP, I'm not too sure about that. "As the number of new coronavirus cases continues to increase worldwide, and more than a dozen states and Puerto Rico are recording their highest averages of new cases since the pandemic began, hospitalizations in at least nine states have been on the rise since Memorial Day," the Washington Post reported Tuesday. What does this tell us about where we are in terms of reopening, and where are we headed?It's happening again, right before our eyes. "Photos of would-be Georgia voters standing — and, in some cases, sitting — in long lines after 11 p.m. to cast their ballots in the state's primary on Tuesday encapsulated what rights groups and lawmakers decried as a disastrous day for democracy and an entirely predictable result of years of deliberate voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers and the US Supreme Court," Common Dreams reported Wednesday. Here we go again. What are we to make of this?According to a Tuesday piece in The Grayzone by Ajit Singh, "A leading Hong Kong 'pro-democracy' figure, Jimmy Lai, has denounced nationwide protests in the United States against police brutality and systemic racism, which were sparked by the police killing of African-American man, George Floyd. Lai's views reflect a significant segment of the city's protest movement, who affirm the exceptionalist myth of the US as a beacon of 'freedom and democracy.' Hong Kong's 'pro-democracy' activists have gone so far as to derail the efforts of an African-American woman who attempted to organize a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the city, accusing her of being an agent of the police and Communist Party of China." This is interesting to me, because on one hand we've seen tremendous international support for Floyd and the BLM movement, but there's always another side. What's going on here?In a recent MintPress News piece, Alan MacLeod opens with a story about an attack at a protest, writing: “A man in a black sedan car barrels towards a large Seattle demonstration protesting the killing of George Floyd. After he stops, he gets out and shoots a protestor at point blank range. The crowd scatters in terror. The man, still brandishing his weapon, casually walks through the mayhem towards the line of police, and is apprehended without incident. The police surround him, facing the crowd, shielding him from a non-existent threat, apparently totally unconcerned at turning their backs on an armed terrorist who just shot someone. Police did not take the hero who might have saved lives by accosting him to hospital: that was left to the fire department. After the incident, the police began shooting at the crowd who had just survived the terror attack.” These types of scenes are happening all over the country, and US media is not covering them to the degree that it should. So, Hillary Clinton has gone from talking about "superpredators" to supporting Black Lives Matter. How does that happen?GUESTS:Dr. Margaret Flowers - Physician and co-editor of Popular Resistance.Eugene Craig III - Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Netfa Freeman - Organizer in Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and on the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. He is also co-host/producer of the WPFW radio show and podcast Voices With Vision.Dr. Alan MacLeod - Staff Writer for MintPress News and author of two books: "Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting" and "Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent."

Are Republicans using the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis to achieve bank deregulation, raising the potential for bank failures? The Intercept reported Friday that "experts are warning that the deregulatory blitz, sold as a fix to stimulate business by encouraging more lending, raises the potential for a flood of small bank failures, potentially lengthening economic woes and risking the need for future bank bailouts." "International diplomats were stunned and frustrated Friday night after the US again blocked a United Nations resolution to call for a global ceasefire during the coronavirus pandemic," Common Dreams reported Saturday. The insanity continues, and wait until you hear why the US is blocking this. "For six weeks the US delegation to the UN Security Council has objected to references to the WHO [World Health Organization] within the resolution, forcing French officials to lead an effort to reach a compromise," Common Dreams continued. "President Donald Trump has claimed that the WHO withheld information from world governments about the coronavirus, and that the global health agency was privy to information about the virus originating in a lab in China. The president has offered no evidence of the claims," the outlet noted."South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is threatening to take two Native American tribes to federal court if they do not comply with her order to remove coronavirus checkpoints they set up on state highways that pass through their reservations," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday. "Noem, a Republican, wrote to several leaders of the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes last Friday, calling the checkpoints illegal and giving them 48 hours to be dismantled." Are these Sioux tribes standing on solid legal ground?"GOP senators worry Trump, COVID-19 could cost them their majority," reads a Monday headline in The Hill. The article says, "Senate Republicans looking at polls showing GOP incumbents losing ground are concerned that the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic has put their majority in danger." What are we to make of all of this?GUESTS:Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression." Dr. Ajamu Baraka — Journalist, American political activist and former Green Party nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election. Jonathan Nez — Navajo Nation president.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activists.

Last week, US President Donald Trump signed into law a multi-trillion-dollar emergency aid package allegedly aimed at helping Americans impacted by the coronavirus. Well, now the fight begins over implementation. "Trump and Democratic leaders are already jockeying over the management of the massive direct lending and credit facility program that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will run with the Federal Reserve. It will have more than $4 trillion at its disposal," The Hill reported Tuesay. How concerned should Americans be that their hard-earned tax dollars will once again go to bail out Wall Street and never trickle down to Main Street, let alone their streets?"President Donald Trump on Monday came right out and admitted his Republican Party would soon be defunct if voting in the United States was easier in a way that allowed more citizens to vote in elections, telling a national television audience it was a good thing that Democratic proposals for increased voting protections and ballot access were left out of last week's coronavirus relief package," Common Dreams reported Monday. What's going on here?James King was mistakenly seized by the authorities along a street in Grand Rapids, MI, in the summer of 2014, leading to "a severe beating, a lawsuit and, as of Monday, a Supreme Court case," the Washington Post reported Monday. "The justices will consider next term the complicated legal rules that come into play when someone seeks compensation for alleged unconstitutional behavior by law enforcement. In King's case, there was additional complexity involving state and federal law — [officer Todd] Allen worked for the Grand Rapids Police and was on a joint task force with [officer Douglas] Brownback, a special agent with the FBI." So, we have a few issues with this case. The first seems to be jurisdictional, having to do with the officers' status as joint agents. In a recent article in The Grayzone, Ben Norton writes, "In comments ignored by English language media, Lula da Silva slammed the US coup attempt against Venezuela, calling Nicolás Maduro a democratic leader who has supported dialogue, while blasting Juan Guaidó as a criminal." Why is this important?GUESTS:Dr. Jack Rasmus - Professor of economics and politics at St. Mary's College in California and the author of the new book "The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump."Eugene Craig - Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Dr. David Schultz - Professor of political science who teaches constitutional law at Hamline University and is the author of “Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter.”Nino Pagliccia - Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas, and is also the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations.”

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Dr. Linwood Tauheed, associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; and Margaret Flowers, co-editor of Popular Resistance."A Northern California woman has contracted the coronavirus without traveling to regions hit by the outbreak or coming into contact with anyone known to have the infection, the first sign the disease may be spreading within a US community, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday night," the Washington Post reported Thursday. All of this while the Wall Street Journal reports: "US Coronavirus Outbreak Would Pose Risk to Record Expansion." Given the news about the case in Northern California, where are we with this?A Thursday headline from the Guardian reads, "Julian Assange's lawyers: US files were leaked for political ends." The article states, "Julian Assange's legal team has rejected a suggestion by lawyers for US authorities that his actions were not 'political offenses,' arguing that the WikiLeaks founder had published classified documents to highlight human rights abuses." What's the truth?"Republican activists in South Carolina are urging party voters to do the seemingly unthinkable: support US Senator Bernie Sanders' bid for the White House in the state's Democratic primary on Saturday," Reuters reported Thursday. This comes after a Reuters headline Wednesday said: "Trump campaign plans information centers for black voters in battleground states." What are we to make of these plans?GUESTS:Dr. Linwood Tauheed — Associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.Margaret Flowers — Co-editor of Popular Resistance. Walter Smolarek — Producer for Loud & Clear on Sputnik News Radio.Niko House — Political activist, broadcast journalist and founder and CEO of the MCSC Network.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

In Taiwan's Saturday elections, President Tsai Ing Wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a second term in a landslide victory over her opponent, Han Kuo Yu of the Kuomintang (KMT), and her party maintained its majority in the legislature. What's the impact of this election going forward?"Senior administration officials declined Sunday to confirm President Trump's assertion that four US embassies had been targeted for attack by Iran, while saying that Trump's 'interpretation' of the threat was consistent with overall intelligence that justified the killing of a senior Iranian general," the Washington Post reported. “'I didn't see one with regard to four embassies,' Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said of intelligence reports. 'What I'm saying is I share the president's view that probably — my expectation was they were going to go after our embassies,' Esper told CBS's 'Face the Nation,'" the Post report continued. I thought the intelligence said the attack was imminent, as in ready to take place, happening soon. As all of this is happening, "Protesters denouncing Iran's clerical rulers took to the streets and riot police deployed to face them on Monday, in a third day of demonstrations after authorities acknowledged shooting down a passenger plane by accident," Reuters reported."A social media disinformation expert studied 60,000 tweets from nearly 10,000 accounts using the hashtag #IraniansDetestSoleimani and found that the most common phrases in those users' biographies were 'Make America Great Again' and 'Trump,'" MintPress News' Alan MacLeod reported Friday. What does this mean going forward?"For bucking a key arm of the Democratic Party establishment that has stood in the way of attracting and supporting progressive candidates, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) received applause over the weekend after she announced the launch of a new political action committee designed to directly challenge the power of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by helping insurgent, left-leaning challengers like herself take on both Republican incumbents and centrist Democrats," Common Dreams reported Monday. What does this mean going forward?GUESTS:Bob Schlehuber — Sputnik News analyst. Kathy Kelly — Co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Alan MacLeod — Academic and journalist. He is a staff writer at MintPress News and a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), as well as the author of "Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting."Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activists.

Reuters reports that after the evangelical publication Christianity Today published a blistering editorial on what it called Donald Trump's “grossly immoral character”, some church leaders and the U.S. president himself denounced the criticism as elitist and out-of-touch. There has been a big drop-off in white evangelical church participation among adults under 40, and publications such as Christianity Today and religious leaders are struggling to engage “Gen Z,” or those born after 1996. Does this give us greater insight into the depths of racism and homophobia in America? As Dr. King told us, the most segregated time in America is at 11 AM on Sunday. So, what are we to make from this fall out from the Christianity Today editorial?Georgia does not have to reinstate almost 100,000 voters removed from its rolls this month, a federal judge ruled Friday, backing the state over activists who said the purge violates people's rights. What does this mean for 1 person one vote democracy in America?President Donald Trump's personal lawyer held a back channel phone call with Venezuela's embattled President Nicolas Maduro in September 2018, according to The Washington Post, serving as the latest example of the scope of Rudy Giuliani's role in US foreign diplomacy. People familiar with the effort told the Post that Giuliani and then-Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas participated in the phone call with Maduro in a diplomatic endeavor to ease him from power and reopen Venezuela to business. Sessions' spokesman Matt Mackowiak told the newspaper in an article published Sunday that the call was a followup to a meeting Sessions had with Maduro in Venezuela that spring. What's going on here?The Indian government has allowed Chinese telecom company Huawei Technologies Co to participate in trials for 5G networks, a company spokesman said today. India's nod to Huawei comes at a time when the global rollout of 5G technology has been complicated by U.S. sanctions against the company. The United States has been lobbying allies not to use Huawei's network equipment in their 5G networks. Is this a signal to the US that its efforts are not yielding the desired results in certain spaces?GUESTS:Rev. Dr. Keith William Byrd Sr. — Pastor at the historic Zion Baptist Church in Northwest Washington, DC.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activists. Barbara Arnwine — President and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition and internationally renowned for her contributions on critical justice issues, including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 reauthorization of provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Greg Palast — Award-winning investigative reporter featured in The Guardian, Nation Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine, BBC and other high profile media outlets. He covered Venezuela for The Guardian and BBC Television's "Newsnight." His BBC reports are the basis of his film "The Assassination of Hugo Chavez."Yves Engler — Montreal-based writer and political activist. In addition to his 10 books, Engler's writings have appeared in the alternative media and in mainstream publications such as The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression."

US Military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials. How long will they continue to run with this?The White House has stepped up warnings to the UK about allowing Huawei into its 5G telecommunications networks, saying that any such move would pose a risk to MI5 and MI6, the British secret intelligence services. Washington has repeatedly urged the UK to completely ban Huawei, but the warning from Mr O'Brien raises that pressure to a new level. It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to decide whether to ban Huawei from the country's 5G networks. Sen. Bernie Sanders' recent surge in national and early-state polls, enthusiastic progressive base, and resilience in the aftermath of his heart attack have reportedly forced some within the Democratic establishment who were previously dismissive of the Vermont senator to concede—both in private and in public—that he could ultimately run away with the party's presidential nomination. This while 'Bernie Blackout' Strikes Again? Despite Iowa Poll Average Showing Sanders in Solid 2nd, CNN Uses Old Poll to Show Him in 4th. Are the Dems trying to set us up for something? The government estimates ending homelessness would cost around $20 billion, less than Americans spend on Christmas decorations, yet there appears to be little appetite to address the growing problem. How can the wealthiest country in the world, a country that just passed via 188 Democrats in the House a $788B NDSA be unwilling to address this internal threat?According to Alan Macleod at Mint Press, “While millions of Americans celebrate Christmas this year with loved ones, carving turkey and sharing gifts, others are not so fortunate.“ According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over half a million of us will spend Christmas on the streets. Benjamin Netanyahu has faced a serious challenge for the leadership of his Likud party in a primary election today, capping a year in which the Israeli prime minister's authority has been tested as never before. What's really going on here?GUESTS:Jim Kavanaugh, political analyst and commentator and editor of The Polemicist.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activists.Joia Jefferson Nuri — Political strategist and CEO of In The Public Eye Communications.Miko Peled — Israeli-American activist and author of "The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine."

Is it possible that Donald Trump could be twice impeached and as Shawn Blackmon from By Any Means Necessary said, and still remain president? House Counsel Douglas Letter said in a filing in federal court that a second impeachment could be necessary if the House uncovers new evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct investigations of his conduct. From the ridiculous to the sublime than 100-year history. What are we to make of this? China, Japan and South Korea have agreed to work together to promote dialogue between the United States and North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said today following a summit between the three countries in China. Should the US be concerned that it's failed diplomacy can have larger ramifications?Venezuela has arrested 11 people in connection with a weekend raid of a remote military outpost in southern Bolivar state, but some suspects have fled across the border to Brazil with stolen weapons, President Nicolas Maduro yesterday. Is this an issue that we should really be paying attention to?Defense Secretary Mark Esper is considering pulling U.S. troops from West Africa as part of a plan to shift deployments of the approximately 200,000 American forces stationed abroad. Under consideration is a plan to abandon a recently built $110 million drone base in Niger, and end assistance to French forces battling militants in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. What does this signal? Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression." Mark Sleboda — International affairs and security analyst. Nino Pagliccia — Activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. A retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada, Pagliccia is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas, and is also the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations.” Yves Engler — Montreal-based writer and political activist. In addition to his 10 books, Engler's writings have appeared in the alternative media and in mainstream publications such as The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. Netfa Freeman — Host of Voices With Vision on WPFW 89.3 FM, Pan-Africanist, internationalist organizer intimately involved with political prisoners' causes, from Mumia Abu Jamal to the Cuban Five, and an organizer with Family & Friends of Incarcerated People.

There's a "little-noticed Trump administration proposal that could strip life-saving disability benefits from hundreds of thousands of people by further complicating the way the Social Security Administration determines who is eligible for payments," Common Dreams reported Monday. How big of a concern should this be?We keep hearing discussions about how well the US economy is doing, but there's some data out there that indicates that the picture is not as rosy as the media would have you believe. The New York Times reported Monday, “The American economy has found its footing after a summer recession scare. But much of the Midwest is still stumbling.” Before we get to the Midwest stumbling part, has the American economy found its footing? US President Donald Trump has made the economy a centerpiece of his re-election campaign, but the Times notes that "job growth has slowed sharply this year in Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states that were critical to Mr. Trump's victory in 2016, as well as in states like Minnesota that he narrowly lost."A recent Common Dreams article titled "Voting Rights Advocates Vow to 'Organize Harder Than GOP Can Supress' After Judge Orders 200, 000 Voters Purged From Rolls" begins: "Pro-democracy advocates on Saturday vowed to ensure all Wisconsin voters are permitted to vote in the 2020 election after a state judge ordered more than 200,000 voters to be purged from the rolls. The state had sent letters to 234,000 people who were believed to have moved, who were told they would be removed from voting lists if they did not respond within 30 days — but that the purge would not take place until 2021. Conservative group Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed a lawsuit, saying the voters should be removed from the rolls before the next general election." What can be done to reverse voter purging, and who's really at fault?GUESTS:Teresa M. Lundy — Government affairs and public relations specialist and principal of TML Communications, LLC. Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression." Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Barbara Arnwine — President and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition and internationally renowned for her contributions on critical justice issues, including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 reauthorization of provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted Thursday on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He has previously called the cases against him a politically motivated "witch hunt" by the media and the left, and he has denied doing anything wrong. Netanyahu is currently serving as a caretaker prime minister, as neither he nor his main rival Benny Gantz has been able to form a majority government in the wake of Israel's September elections, the second round of ballots cast this year. There now remain 21 days in which any Knesset member could assemble a coalition and become prime minister, but if no one does, the country will return again to the polls. The Democratic presidential candidates are weighing in on the impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump. At Wednesday night's debate in Atlanta, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said the president must be held accountable for wrongdoing, and that no one is above the law. Former Vice President Joe Biden added, however, that Democratic supporters should not chant "lock him up" during rallies, and argued that it's time to start bringing the American people together. The debate also covered economic policy. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren defended her call for a 2% wealth tax, saying the US government is working very well for millionaires and billionaires but not for average Americans. However, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said a wealth tax is not the answer, arguing that the tax system must be reformed to become more equitable. Warren said she is "tired of freeloading billionaires."A former official with the National Security Council says she was surprised and concerned when she found out that US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland was overseeing Ukraine policy. Testifying in a House of Representatives impeachment hearing on Thursday, Fiona Hill said there had been "no directive" about Sondland and added, "We hadn't been told this." She noted that Sondland told her that Trump had put him in charge of Ukraine. Hill said Sondland was involved in a "domestic political errand." Sondland testified Wednesday that he and other administration officials pressured the Ukrainian government to publicly launch an investigation of the Bidens, and that he acted at the direction of the president, whose wishes were communicated through his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Hill also expressed concerns about Giuliani's unofficial diplomatic efforts in Ukraine. GUESTS:Robert Fantina — Pro-Palestine activist, peace and human rights leader, journalist and author of "Essays on Palestine." Catherine Shakdam — Political commentator and analyst focusing on the Middle East, and the author of "A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud."Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Lee Stranahan — Co-host of Fault Lines on Sputnik News Radio.

The Democratic presidential race shifts Wednesday night to the Deep South: the 10 leading nominees will square off on an Atlanta, Georgia, stage with less than 11 weeks left before the Iowa caucuses. With the impeachment inquiry getting most of the spotlight, can the Democratic candidates break through and reclaim national attention? While the race is still up for grabs, four candidates have emerged as leaders in the field: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are the progressive favorites; former US Vice President Joe Biden has strong support from black voters, which will help him particularly in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has broken out in recent Iowa polls. Quartz reported Wednesday: "Three septuagenarians are leading the race to challenge US President Donald Trump in 2020. But it's their ability to appeal to both young and old voters alike that will determine who comes out on top. An exclusive national poll conducted days before tonight's Democratic primary debate on MSNBC shows the top three candidates remain former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren."“'Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.' Those are the two most important sentences in today's opening statement by Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland's public testimony was the most hotly anticipated of the impeachment inquiry," The Atlantic reported Wednesday. In my opinion, you can call this the 'yeah, duh' moment or the 'and your point is?' moment. This, to me, is the impeachment bombshell that did not explode. Let's try to think through the logic here: Democrats get articles of impeachment out of the House of Representatives. There's a trial in the Senate, but no conviction. Where's the upside for the Dems here?"Bolivian lawmakers are set to meet later on Wednesday to try and agree on a path to new elections and defuse street violence that has killed 30 people since a disputed October vote," Reuters reported Wednesday. "The South American country's two chambers of congress will discuss annulling the October 20 poll and appointing a new electoral board, paving the way for a new vote after long-term leftist leader Evo Morales resigned under pressure this month. Currently led by a caretaker government, Bolivia is grappling to mend stark divisions between Morales supporters and opponents seeking to move beyond his nearly 14-year rule. He stepped down on November 10 under pressure from protesters, civil groups, security forces and allies, as well as an international audit that found serious irregularities in the election count and cast doubt on his announced outright victory."GUESTS:Joia Jefferson Nuri — Communications specialist for In The Public Eye Communications.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. David Schultz — Professor of political science at Hamline University. Yves Engler — Montreal-based writer and political activist. In addition to his 10 books, Engler's writings have appeared in the alternative media and in mainstream publications such as The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. Nino Pagliccia — Activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. A retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada, Pagliccia is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas, and is also the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations.”

In a leaked video released Tuesday, ABC News anchor Amy Robach, sitting at her desk on-set but apparently speaking to colleagues off-air, expressed frustration that the network did not air her 2015 interview with Virginia Giuffre, who said she was coerced into a sexual relationship with wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein when she was a teenager. Now we find out that CBS News has fired a female staffer believed to have had access to the tape when she worked at ABC, and who was reportedly responsible for the leak. It appears to me that many in mainstream, corporate media present themselves as defenders of whistleblowers. But not only do they either stay silent or actively vilify people such as Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and John Kiriakou — real whistleblowers, not CIA stooges — but they also actively retaliate against media whistleblowers. Do whistleblowers have a right to remain anonymous?"President Donald Trump plans to use Atlanta as a launching pad for his new African American coalition with a Friday rally at the Georgia World Congress Center," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday. "The president will kick off the Black Voices for Trump Coalition initiative at 3 p.m. Friday at the downtown Atlanta convention center after a high-dollar fundraiser in Buckhead to support US Sen. David Perdue." Is this a laudable effort or pandering to some in the African American community?"Kentucky's Senate President Robert Stivers suggested Tuesday night that the close race between Gov. Matt Bevin and Democratic challenger Andy Beshear could ultimately be decided by the state's Republican-controlled legislature, sparking warnings that the GOP could attempt to 'steal' the election," Common Dreams reported Wednesday. The article notes: "According to the New York Times, Beshear is leading Bevin by more than 5,000 votes with 100 percent of the precincts reporting. Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat, called the race for Beshear Tuesday night." Furthermore, it adds: "Bevin, a fervent backer of President Donald Trump, told his supporters Tuesday night that he has no plans to concede the election. The Republican governor claimed without evidence that there were 'more than a few irregularities' in the race. ... The local Courier Journal reported that Bevin has 30 days under state law to 'formally contest the outcome once it is certified by the State Board of Elections.'" In justifying his complaints, Common Dreams said that "Stivers pointed to Section 90 of the Kentucky state Constitution, which says: 'Contested elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall be determined by both Houses of the General Assembly, according to such regulations as may be established by law.'""An uprising in Iraq is the broadest in decades. It's posing an alarming threat to Baghdad and Tehran," reads the headline of a Washington Post article published Thursday. The piece notes: "From Baghdad to the Shiite Muslim shrine city of Karbala and farther south, Iraqis are pushing for a revolution. They fill central squares to sing and dance from daybreak, and face down riot police when night falls."GUESTS: Garland Nixon — Co-host of Fault Lines on Sputnik News Radio. Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Ernie Suggs — Reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1997, currently covering a variety of breaking news and investigative stories for page A1.Teresa M. Lundy — Government affairs and public relations specialist and principal of TML Communications, LLC. Dr. Gerald Horne — Professor of history at the University of Houston and author of many books, including "Blows Against the Empire: US Imperialism in Crisis."

Former Dallas cop Amber Guyger was found guilty of murder on Tuesday in September 26, 2018, shooting of 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean. The verdict elicited cheers from the hallway outside the courtroom and sobs from Jean's family, the Dallas Morning News reported. Guyger entered Jean's apartment, thinking it was her own, and shot him, as she believed he was a burglar. The fact that she has been found guilty of murder instead of the lesser charge of manslaughter is shocking to me.California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that would allow college student-athletes to sign endorsement deals and hire agents, a notable break from the status quo of such athletes not being paid, apart from tuition scholarships. Will this stand, and if so, what will be the long-term impact?On Tuesday, Florida became the eighth US state to allow some teachers to carry guns in their classrooms, due to a law passed after the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, in which 17 people were killed. Since teachers who carry guns can do so anonymously, it's impossible to say how many will take advantage of the law, though in order to carry a weapon, staff members must pass a background check and psychological exam, as well as undergo more than 140 hours of training. Furthermore, the school districts of Miami and Orlando, two of the largest in Florida, have opted out of the new law. The NRA loves to say that sensible gun legislation sends us down a slippery slope, does this take us down the dangerous slope of a greater potential problem than the solution is supposed to solve?"Turkey has no choice but to act alone given too little progress has been made with the United States forming a 'safe zone' in northeastern Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday in his most direct indication of a cross-border offensive," according to Reuters. The report continued: "Under the Turkish plan, up to 2 million Syrian refugees would be settled in the area that would be cleared of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara deems a terrorist organization. Since agreeing to set up the zone in northern Syria, Turkey has repeatedly warned of unilateral military action if efforts do not meet its expectations, saying it would not tolerate any attempts by Washington to stall the process. It set an end-September deadline for action."GUESTS:Mark Gray — Sports journalist and broadcaster with AFRO, Heritage Sports Radio Network and The Shadow League. John Burris — Lead attorney and founder of the Law Office of John L. Burris. He is primarily known for his work in the area of civil rights, with an emphasis on police misconduct and excessive force cases. Dr. Gerald Horne — Professor of history at the University of Houston and author of many books, including "Blows Against the Empire: US Imperialism in Crisis." Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by John Burris, lead attorney and founder of the Law Office of John L. Burris. He is primarily known for his work in the area of civil rights, with an emphasis on police misconduct and excessive force cases. The Department of Justice will not charge police in connection with Eric Garner's death. The decision came five years after Garner's dying words — “I can't breathe” — became a rallying cry. New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo will not face federal charges relating to the choking death of Garner, ending a years-long inquiry into a case that sharply divided officials and prompted national protests over the use of excessive force by the police. The United States attorney in Brooklyn, Richard P. Donoghue, announced the decision not to bring criminal civil rights charges on Tuesday morning, one day before the fifth anniversary of Garner's death. That is the deadline by which the department would have to file charges against Pantaleo. What are we to make of this?CNN reported Monday that it had exclusively obtained new documents which "reveal that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange received in-person deliveries, potentially of hacked materials related to the 2016 US election, during a series of suspicious meetings at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The documents build on the possibility, raised by special counsel Robert Mueller in his report on Russian meddling, that couriers brought hacked files to Assange at the embassy. The surveillance reports also describe how Assange turned the embassy into a command center and orchestrated a series of damaging disclosures that rocked the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States." Are the actions of Assange as described in this report as nefarious as CNN makes them out to be, or are there other possibilities for his behavior?Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti has tweeted messages suggesting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is an ineffective legislator, that a Native American lawmaker voted “to enable a racist system” and that moderate Democrats are modern-day segregationists because they backed a Senate border aid bill. How is this adding to the pressure on Ocasio-Cortez, who has taken Congress by storm?US President Donald Trump said early Tuesday his administration would investigate accusations that Alphabet Inc's Google worked with the Chinese government. The president repeated accusations made previously by Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and venture capitalist, that Google worked with the Chinese government. Also in the world of social media giants, US Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said Facebook is “delusional” to believe people will trust it with their money, as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle grilled the social media company on its plans for a digital currency at a hearing on Tuesday. What does all this mean?The recent MintPress News article, "The CIA is Invoking Wikileaks to Push for the Expansion of a Cold War Era Secrecy Law," states, "More than three decades later, the CIA is apparently unsatisfied with the protections the bill [the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) in 1981] granted 'covert agents.' It has enlisted a select group of senators and representatives to help expand the universe of individuals who are protected, making members of the press who cover intelligence matters more vulnerable to prosecution." What's really going on behind the scenes?GUESTS:John Burris — Lead attorney and founder of the Law Office of John L. Burris. He is primarily known for his work in the area of civil rights, with an emphasis on police misconduct and excessive force cases. Catherine Shakdam — Political commentator and analyst focusing on the Middle East, and the author of "A Tale Of Grand Resistance: Yemen, The Wahhabi And The House Of Saud." Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Linwood Tauheed — Associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Chris Garaffa — Web developer and technologist.John Kiriakou — Co-host of Loud and Clear on Radio Sputnik.

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Eugene Craig III, Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Special counsel Robert Mueller wrote to US Attorney General William Barr in late March and then spoke to him over the phone, complaining about the media misrepresenting the summary Barr gave to Congress of Mueller's report. Here is a direct quote from the Washington Post: “When Barr pressed Mueller on whether he thought Barr's memo to Congress was inaccurate, Mueller said he did not but felt that the media coverage of it was misinterpreting the investigation.” As a result, Mueller wanted Barr to start releasing parts of his report, which Barr said would make the confusion even worse, because the media would twist it into a sign that the Department of Justice is hiding something in the unreleased parts. Instead, Barr urged Mueller to work closely with him to release the entire report, minus parts that must be redacted in accordance with laws and procedures, so no one could say that the DOJ is hiding something. And Mueller agreed. This is really important, because the cable news channels are reporting the opposite of what really is in the story, knowing that the majority of people do not read the original articles and documents or never listen to the entire hearings, hoping that the media will give them a fair summary. But they are being lied to instead.Speaking to a crowd in Caracas, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido admitted that he did not have enough military defectors on his side to declare victory during yesterday's unrest. "We have to acknowledge that yesterday there weren't enough [pro-Guaido military defectors]," the National Assembly president said. He added: "We have to insist that all the armed forces [show up] together. We are not asking for a confrontation. We are not asking for a confrontation among brothers; it's the opposite. We just want them to be on the side of the people." What's going on on the ground right now?WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange broke bail to enter the Ecuadorian Embassy almost seven years ago. He was dragged out of the embassy last month and charged by the United States for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information. In London's Southwark Crown Court, Judge Deborah Taylor said Wednesday that Assange merited near the maximum sentence of one year in prison for skipping bail. She rejected his claim for leniency based on the nearly seven years he spent in the embassy. While sentencing him to 50 weeks in jail, Taylor told Assange it was difficult to envisage a more serious example of the offense. "By hiding in the embassy you deliberately put yourself out of reach, while remaining in the UK," she said. She said this "undoubtedly" affected the progress of the Swedish sexual assault case in which he was wanted for questioning when he entered the embassy, fearing extradition to Sweden would eventually lead to his being extradited to the US. Assange's continued residence at the embassy and bringing him to justice cost taxpayers £16 million, Taylor added. "Whilst you may have had fears as to what may happen to you, nonetheless you had a choice, and the course of action you chose was to commit this offense," she concluded.GUESTS:Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. Teri Mattson — Campaign To End US And Canadian Sanctions Against Venezuela.John Kiriakou — Co-host of Loud and Clear on Radio Sputnik.

US Attorney General William Barr released Thursday a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, entitled “Report On the Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Election,” to Congress and the public. Before the report was released, Barr held a press conference, or what appeared to be more of a spin session, with reporters. What does this mean, and how do we proceed from here? We'll get into the meat of the report and dissect the press conference Barr held. Am I correct to call it a spin session?GUESTS: William Binney — Former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency turned whistle-blower, who resigned on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency. Ray McGovern — Former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Peace. Carmine Sabia — Journalist and writer for Citizen Truth.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

After taking the weekend to pore over the Mueller report, Attorney General William Barr has sent Congress his four-page summary of the "principal conclusions" from special counsel Robert Mueller's 675-day investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia. The bottom line, according to AG Barr: "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."On the question of obstruction of justice, Barr writes that while Mueller's report "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."Barr says he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence "is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense," noting that the government would have to prove such a case "beyond a reasonable doubt." Does this tell us anything new? Federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Los Angeles charged attorney Michael Avenatti nearly simultaneously in two criminal cases Monday, unsealing complaints that alleged he attempted to extort more than $20 million from Nike and that he committed wire and bank fraud. Avenatti was arrested Monday afternoon in Manhattan, law enforcement officials told CNN. He was released on a $300,000 bond Monday night and said outside federal court that he is "highly confident" that he will be "fully exonerated." And according to the LA Times and other sources, Mark Geragos has gone from celebrity lawyer to alleged "un-indicted co-conspirator" in the Avenatti case. Whom can we trust, and whom can we believe? This sounds a lot like "A Tale of Two Cities": "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.According to MintPress News, Venezuelan authorities have alleged that self-proclaimed Interim President Juan Guaido and other opposition leaders were involved in a plot to carry out acts of terrorism employing foreign paramilitaries trained in Colombia. Venezuelan Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez presented what he claimed to be evidence of “ultra-right plans to promote regime change.” According to Rodriguez, Venezuelan intelligence services uncovered plans to contract mercenaries from Colombia and Central America and bring them into Venezuela to execute targeted killings and acts of sabotage, adding that “at least half” of the armed groups managed to make their way into Venezuelan territory and are currently being sought by authorities. What are we to make of these latest accusations? Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that it is siding with a district court ruling that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The DOJ previously argued in court that the law's pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated. How will this play politically, and what does it mean for the future of the ACA? GUESTS:Dr. Lenneal Henderson — Adjunct professor of government at the College of William and Mary and Assistant Dean for Civic Engagement and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore.Jackie Luqman — Co-editor-in-chief of Luqman Nation, and the co-host of the Facebook live-stream "Coffee, Current Events & Politics."Daniel Lazare — Journalist and author of three books: "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War." Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

Boeing 737 MAX jetliners are no longer flying anywhere on the planet. US President Donald Trump ordered the immediate grounding of the jetliners on Wednesday, citing two deadly international crashes of the same models. Trump called the disasters "a terrible thing." The Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement Wednesday saying the decision to ground the aircraft is based on new data gathered at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. The US move comes hours after Canada banned the Boeing 737 MAX from flying in that country. Paul Manafort is being hit with state charges in New York that cannot be pardoned by President Trump. The indictment came moments after Manafort was sentenced to an additional three-and-a-half years in prison today in Washington, DC, in his second trial related to the Russia probe. Manafort could spend seven-and-a-half years behind bars after being found guilty in two separate cases related to Robert Mueller's probe. British lawmakers voted no to leaving the European Union without a deal. Members of Parliament voted by 312 to 308 to reject leaving the EU without a formal withdrawal agreement. The new vote comes a day after Parliament overwhelmingly rejected the withdrawal agreement that Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the EU over the course of nearly two years. Britain is currently scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, but a vote to delay the date will likely take place later this week. While Meng Wanzhou awaits the next stage of her extradition hearing, her lawyers are likely to be watching events in Washington as closely as those in Vancouver, where her case is being heard following her arrest on US charges last year. On several occasions, President Trump has hinted he could stop the case against the Huawei CFO as part of a grand bargain with China to end the trade war between the two countries. Is it really a good idea for Trump to weigh in on this?The FBI and federal prosecutors say they are charging at least 50 people in the largest college cheating scandal ever. US Attorney Andrew Lelling said the indictments include current and former D-1 coaches at Yale, Georgetown, USC, Wake Forest and Texas. At least 33 parents, including actresses Felicity Huffman from "Desperate Housewives" and "Full House" star Lori Loughlin, are among those facing charges. Lelling said all of the parents knew their kids were cheating on the ACT and/or SAT entrance tests or creating false sports profiles to gain admission.GUESTS: Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. Dr. Binoy Kampmark — Senior lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at the RMIT University Melbourne.Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression." Dr. Micol Seigel — Professor of American Studies and History at Indiana University, Bloomington, and the author of "Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States," also published by Duke University Press.

It's Friday: that means it's panel time, as we discuss the major stories of the week.Just over 24 hours after announcing his presidential bid, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has already raised $6 million from more than 225,000 donors, his campaign said Wednesday morning. That amount far surpasses what any of his rivals have disclosed raising after their own announcements this year. I know that it is still very early in the game, but is this a data point that we should take note of? Previously, Senator Kamala Harris of California had claimed the biggest early fundraising haul that had been made public, with $1.5 million in 24 hours. In comparison, Sanders' campaign said its fundraising in the first 24 hours came to $5.9 million. Sanders' early fundraising success is not unexpected: After all, he raised well over $200 million when he ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 election, and his list of online donors dwarfs those of his rivals.US President Donald Trump said Wednesday the United States would not re-admit an American-born woman Hoda Muthana, who traveled to Syria to join Daesh and now wants to come home. She does not qualify for citizenship and has no legal basis to return to the country, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. In 2014, Muthana, then a 20-year-old student in Alabama, traveled to Turkey, hiding her plans from her family. She told them she was heading to a university event. In fact, she was smuggled into Syria, where she met up with Daesh. She has now seen the error of her ways and wants to come back home. Pompeo said Muthana did not have “any legal basis, no valid US passport, no right to a passport nor any visa to travel to the United States.” Muthana says she applied for and received a United States passport before leaving for Turkey. And she was born in the United States — ordinarily a guarantee of citizenship. Muthana's father was a Yemeni diplomat, and children born in the United States to active diplomats are not bestowed birthright citizenship, since diplomats are under the jurisdiction of their home countries. What's at play here?The Supreme Court struck an extraordinary blow for criminal justice reform on Wednesday, placing real limitations on what many have called policing for profit across the country. Its unanimous decision for the first time prohibits all 50 states from imposing excessive fines, including the seizure of property, on people accused or convicted of a crime. The Eighth Amendment guarantees that no “excessive fines” may be “imposed,” an ancient right enshrined in the Magna Carta and enthusiastically adopted by the Framers of the US Constitution. Police in the US employ civil asset forfeiture, a process that we would call theft in any other context. Here's how it works: Prosecutors accuse an individual of a crime, then seize assets that have some tenuous connection to the alleged offense. What are real implications of this decision? Three leading Democratic presidential candidates have recently signaled their support for some form of “reparations” for black Americans, broadly, if vaguely, backing the idea of compensating the descendants of enslaved people in the United States. Sens. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), as well as former Obama administration housing official Julián Castro, have all said in recent weeks they support reparations for African Americans. How will this translate on the election trail, and is it a realistic focus?GUESTS: Ariel Gold — National co-director for Codepink. She carries out creative actions for peace and justice in the US and throughout the world. Ariel has been published in The Forward, Huffington Post, Tikkun Magazine and more. Bob Phillips — Executive director for Common Cause North Carolina, the Raleigh-based chapter of Common Cause, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to encouraging citizen participation in democracy. Teresa M. Lundy — Government affairs and public relations specialist and principal of TML Communications, LLC. Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. Colin Campbell — PhD student in the Department of Communication, Culture and Media Studies at Howard University's School of Communication. He has been a TV news reporter for more than 20 years. As a senior Washington, DC, correspondent since 2008, he has been a reporter-at-large, covering two presidencies, Congress and the State Department.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said today that President Donald Trump is prepared to sign the spending and border security deal, while at the same time declaring a national emergency to get more money to build his border wall. “The president will sign the bill. We'll be voting on it shortly,” he said. The legislation would fund nine Cabinet departments and dozens of other agencies through September 30, removing — for now — the threat of another government shutdown. It provides $1.375 billion for 55 miles of new fences along the border in Texas, far short of the $5.7 billion Trump had sought for 234 miles of steel walls. The final funding number for border barriers is also less than in deals that were offered last year before Trump pushed the government into a record, 35-day shutdown. So, did he get a worse deal that was on the table before? Amazon announced today that it had canceled plans to build an expansive corporate campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce backlash from some lawmakers and unions, who contended that a tech giant did not deserve nearly $3 billion in government incentives. What does this tell us about the power of corporations in this country, how desperate cities are to attract them and the power of local groups to oppose them? The company, as part of its extensive search for a new headquarters, had chosen Long Island City, Queens, as one of two winning sites, saying that it would create more than 25,000 jobs in the city. Amazon's decision is a major blow for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had set aside their differences to bring the company to New York. But it was a remarkable win for insurgent progressive politicians led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose upset victory last year happened to occur in the district where Amazon had planned its site. Her win galvanized the party's left flank, which mobilized against the deal.The US House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to end American involvement in Saudi Arabia's war effort in neighboring Yemen. The chamber voted 248 to 177 to approve historic legislation that would direct the president within 30 days to "remove the United States armed forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen," where a years-old conflict has killed thousands of civilians. The vote puts pressure on the Senate to act. The Senate easily passed a similar measure late last year condemning the administration's defense of the Saudi kingdom, but it died as the last Congress ended with the then-Republican-controlled House not bringing it to a vote.GUEST:Carmine Sabia — Journalist and writer for Citizen Truth.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Jackie Luqman — Co-editor-in-chief of Luqman Nation, and the co-hosts of the Facebook livestream Coffee, Current Events & Politics.Phil Mattera — Research Director at Good Jobs First.Elisabeth Myers - Editor-In-Chief of Inside Arabia.

President Donald Trump went to El Paso, Texas, last night and delivered a speech highlighting why he sees the need for a border wall, as a bipartisan border deal in Congress aimed at averting another government shutdown is on its way to being written into legislation so that the House and Senate can vote on it and send it to his desk for his signature. Democrats have, in fact, supported additional federal funding for border security, but they oppose the border wall Trump proposed during his 2016 campaign. Trump's focus on “socialism” is based on more liberal Democratic presidential candidates who have called for a Medicare-for-all health care system or environmental proposals intended to lower carbon emissions. Trump said, “I've spoken to people who have been here a long time. They said when that wall went up it's a whole different ball game." Is that a correct statement? However, as CNN has repeatedly reported, per an analysis of FBI crime data and city law enforcement data by the El Paso Times, violent crime in El Paso peaked in 1993. Border fence construction didn't begin until 2008 and was completed in 2009. But violent crime went down long before the wall was built, falling 34 percent between 1993 and 2006 in the city.In a recent MintPress News article, "Ilhan Omar is Right: AIPAC Influences Congress To the Tune of $4 Million Annually," Alex Rubenstein asks, "What unites Republicans and Democrats, a former Jewish terrorist, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Nikki Haley, Chelsea Clinton and Liz Cheney? A Muslim lady with a mouth and some opinions, apparently. Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been the subject of bipartisan bullying that has reached a fever pitch since the lawmaker explicitly called out the number one Israeli lobby group in the US — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)." He went on to point out, "AIPAC continues its practice of using loopholes to further its agenda today. A recent documentary produced by Al Jazeera but censored by Qatar, which funds the outlet, showed how one fundraiser for a congressional candidate, organized by an unofficial 'AIPAC group,”'circumvented laws on maximum individual political contributions by pooling donors' grants together and doling out the official donations evenly among participants. And the organization's sway over Congress is difficult to dispute." Is this accurate?Under a new California state law, members of the public can now request to see investigative records, prying open for the first time the state's strict secrecy laws regarding police shootings and serious misconduct by officers. What does this mean for attorneys and their clients seeking justice in these cases? Were the records covered under this new law excluded from the records that you are supposed to be granted access to through the discovery process? Police unions have tried to close the door on these efforts. While police departments have said they will comply, police unions up and down the state, including in Los Angeles, have filed lawsuits challenging the law, arguing that it shouldn't be applied retroactively.GUESTS:Carmine Sabia — Journalist and writer for Citizen Truth.Eugene Craig — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Dan Cohen — Correspondent at RT America, filmmaker and director of "Killing Gaza" and writer for The Gray Zone Project. John Burris — Lead attorney and founder of the Law Office of John L. Burris. He is primarily known for his work in the area of civil rights, with an emphasis on police misconduct and excessive force cases.

President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address last night. During yesterday's program, I said to expect him to call for more bipartisan cooperation. He did. I said, pay close attention to how he delivers a message that most likely was not written by him and will be in direct conflict with his rhetoric and actions up to this point. I think that was correct. And I said pay very close attention to his tenor, tone and delivery. Overall, I thought it was well written and well delivered. There were numerous factual issues, but overall, I think he accomplished what he set out to accomplish. We'll turn to our guests for their assessments.According to the New York Times, four of America's largest cities (Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago) are under the dark clouds of major federal corruption investigations. Residents, politicians and power brokers in all of them are holding their breath, waiting for signs of how deeply their civic cultures will be shaken. How serious of a problem are we facing here? When we say corruption, most think of simple pay-to-play schemes. Is it just that simple, or are there deeper issues than just paying for construction contracts, the use of city-issued credit cards and lucrative concessions at the cities' international airports?Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) said today he dressed in blackface during college in 1980 at UVA, as Gov. Ralph Northam (D) continues to resist calls for his resignation after a photo emerged from his 1984 medical school yearbook page featuring someone in blackface standing next to someone in Ku Klux Klan robes. After acknowledging that he was one of the people in the photo, Northam retracted that admission and apology and now says neither person is him. He said it was not him in the yearbook photo, but he did use shoe polish to “blacken up” during a Michael Jackson dance contest. We are now coming to grips with another example of how our history is not that far back in our past. Last week, Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel resigned from office after photos surfaced of him wearing blackface and mocking Hurricane Katrina survivors. Anthony Sabatini, a 30-year-old Florida state representative and former city commissioner, also has a damning blackface photo on his record. While a sophomore at Eustis High School, he dressed up as one of his African American friends, complete with blackface, do-rag and gold chains. Should we forgive AND forget?GUESTS: Carmine Sabia - Journalist and writer for Citizen Truth.Eugene Craig - Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Dr. Dick W. Simpson - Author or co-author of more than 20 books on political action, ethics and politics, including Winning Elections in the 21st Century. Ebony McMorris - Producer for The Critical Hour on Sputnik News Radio.

Taliban fighters stormed an army post in northern Kunduz province early Tuesday, setting off a clash that killed more than two dozen people — most of them soldiers, Afghan officials said. At least 23 soldiers and three police officers died, the Associated Press reports, citing Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council. Taliban insurgents also attacked a police checkpoint in Baghlan Province Monday night, Tolo news reports. At least 10 police officers, including the outpost's commander, reportedly died in that assault. Today's violence was on the same day as a Taliban meeting with a group of Afghan politicians in Moscow, discussions that followed last month's optimistic talks between US and Taliban representatives. The two-day meeting in the Russian capital between the Taliban and Afghan figures is seen as another step in a process aimed at resolving Afghanistan's 17-year war. Abdullah Abdullah, the country's chief executive, said that the Taliban were the biggest obstacle to peace, but that if the Moscow meeting creates "an opening for real peace talks, it would still be a step forward." But the meeting has sidelined Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government, which has criticized the gathering. Will peace ever be achieved?Federal prosecutors in New York on Monday delivered a sweeping request for documents related to donations and spending by President Donald Trump's inaugural committee, a sign of a deepening criminal investigation into activities related to the nonprofit organization. The wide-ranging subpoena served to the inaugural committee seeks an array of documents, including all information related to inaugural donors, vendors, contractors and bank accounts of the inaugural committee and any information related to foreign contributors to the committee, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post. One of the things that I find interesting is that the subpoena was issued by the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. Many of those prosecutors have cut their teeth on mob and racketeering cases. They are investigating crimes related to conspiracy to defraud the United States, mail fraud, false statements, wire fraud and money laundering. This seems to be much clearer than the broader net that spcial counsel Robert Mueller has used. Trump's inaugural committee raised a record $107 million to fund events and parties surrounding his assumption of office in January 2017, more than twice the amount raised to fund President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration. Contributions were made by a wide array of corporate interests and wealthy Trump supporters, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Does the amount raised send a red flag to prosecutors? President Trump is expected to call for more bipartisan cooperation in his State of the Union address tonight. Pay close attention to how he delivers a message that most likely was not written by him and will be in direct conflict with his rhetoric and actions up to this point. Pay very close attention to his tenor, tone and delivery. Trump has made it clear that he could declare a national emergency if he doesn't get a border wall out of the negotiations with Congress. Will he use the speech to make his case, and if so, how much time will he devote to it? With the February 15 deadline looming, will he use his rhetoric from the bully pulpit as leverage to try to back the bipartisan conference committee into a corner? How will the Democrats respond to his call for bipartisanship? Will they stand and applaud for anything he says, and if they take the stoic approach, could those optics backfire?A recent Common Dreams article states that "a major tech company is tracking what you do on your phone, even when you're not using any of its services, down to the specific images that you see. It's also tracking all of your network traffic." Many of you might think this is another discussion about Facebook. No, this is about Google and its ScreenWise Meter. So, what's going on here? We had hearings a few months ago. All of these executives from social media companies came before Congress and testified, but nothing really seemed to come from it. Now this. In order to spy on iOS users, Facebook took advantage of Apple's enterprise application program to get around Apple's strict app distribution rules. When news of this Facebook program hit earlier this week, Google scrambled to pull the plug on its own “user research” application, which was taking advantage of the same Apple program. Apple quickly revoked both organizations' Enterprise Certificates, shutting down all of Facebook and Google's internal iOS applications and tooling, leaving the two giants in disarray. Although Google pulled its iOS application, all the other parts of its ScreenWise Meter surveillance program are still in operation — and in some cases, they collect even more data about their “research users” than the Facebook counterpart did.President Trump's plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border is held up in a political stalemate with congressional Democrats. But one of Trump's most prominent supporters in the tech industry tells me virtual border security is already here — and rapidly expanding. Palmer Luckey's company, Anduril Industries, is deploying a security system along the border designed to detect illegal crossings, using towers equipped with radar sensors and cameras, as well as artificial intelligence to spot abnormalities human eyes might miss. Anduril's system is known as Lattice. His company is expanding its systems in California this month under a contract with US Customs and Border Protection. The focus here in Washington is on Trump's call for a physical wall — especially as the president considers declaring a national emergency to build it. After the longest government shutdown in US history did not yield a breakthrough in border security negotiations, Democrats who are resistant to building a physical wall have said they are open to funding for a “smart wall,” or some other alternative to secure the border using technology.GUESTS: Elisabeth Myers — Editor-in-Chief of Inside Arabia. Carmine Sabia — Journalist and writer for Citizen Truth. Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. Chris Garaffa — Web developer and technologist.

Why no declaration of national emergency? This is an indication that President Donald Trump is serious. The US is into the 24th day of the government shutdown. There were no votes scheduled in Congress today nor any meetings between Trump and Democratic leaders on today's schedule aimed at ending the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump on Monday said he is standing by his demand for border wall funding. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that Trump sign a stopgap spending bill to buy more time for talks, but Trump responded, “I did reject it.” “I'm not interested. I want to get it solved. I don't want to just delay it. I want to get it solved,” he said. How do we move forward? A federal judge late Sunday stopped Trump's widely denounced attempt to roll back the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) birth control mandate from going into effect in 13 states and the District of Columbia by issuing a preliminary injunction, but the fight to protect birth control throughout the entirety of the US continues, as the judge rejected a request to block the rules nationwide. The judge's ruling protects contraceptive coverage in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia. The ACA's birth control mandate requires that employer-provided health insurance plans include coverage for free or low-cost birth control. With its attempted rollback of the mandate, the Trump administration is seeking to dramatically expand so-called "religious exemptions" from the law and allow employers to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage for "moral" reasons.Today, 32,000 Los Angeles educators walked off the job in the country's second-biggest school district. That means about 600,000 kids have no idea when they'll see their teachers again. This is the city's first teachers' strike in 30 years. But this strike isn't just focused on teachers' salaries. The debate is also about charter schools and public education and more money for their students. And while the LA walkout is the first major teachers' strike of 2019, it certainly might not be the last. What's at the crux of this issue? According to the New York Times, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests. Agents and senior FBI officials grew suspicious of Trump's ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president's activities before and after FBI Director James Comey's firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, reportedly helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry. What's going on here? Is the FBI investigation of Trump an overreach of the bureau's power when we account for the history of the FBI and its operations such as COINTELPRO?Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Dr. Jamilyah Parritt — OBGYN and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health.Glenn Sacks — Los Angeles Unified School District social studies teacher and United Teachers Los Angeles co-chair at his high school. He was recently recognized by LAUSD Deputy Superintendent Vivian Ekchian for exceptional levels of performance. Daniel Lazare — Journalist and author of three books: The Frozen Republic, The Velvet Coup and America's Undeclared War.

There's an NBC story from Saturday: Russians launched a pro-Jill Stein social media blitz to help Donald Trump win the election, reports say — as well as" another related story in the New York Times, "Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics." The report was one of two that leaked this week saying the Russian effort to disrupt the election specifically targeted black voters and harnessed America's top social media platforms. But the reports contained another finding that was largely overlooked — the Russians also focused on boosting Stein's candidacy through social media posts like the one from @woke_blacks. The problem is, the company responsible for writing the report, a research team led by the New Knowledge cybersecurity firm, has admitted it "orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.So, as allegations of Russia's online election machinations came to light last year and the mainstream media is bombarding Americans with stories of Russian hacking, the reality is that New Knowledge created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse write-in candidates to draw votes from Roy Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.The report claims that the project sought to “enrage and energize Democrats” and “depress turnout” among Republicans, partly by emphasizing accusations that Mr. Moore had pursued teenage girls when he was a prosecutor in his 30s. The project had a budget of just $100,000, in a race that cost approximately $51 million, including the primaries, according to Federal Election Commission records. Look at where the funding came from. Despite its small size, the Alabama project brought together some prominent names in the world of political technology. The funding came from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who has sought to help Democrats catch up with Republicans in their use of online technology.The money passed through American Engagement Technologies, run by Mikey Dickerson, the founding director of the United States Digital Service, which was created during the Obama administration to try to upgrade the federal government's use of technology. Sara K. Hudson, a former Justice Department fellow now with Investing in Us, a tech finance company partly funded by Mr. Hoffman, worked on the project, along with New Knowledge CEO Jonathon Morgan.So, what we have is a report about alleged Russian bot farms impacting the Green Party Stein election and the Roy Moore Alabama campaign, written by an American company, New Knowledge , which was the company that actually engaged in hiring bot farms to impact elections. This is not being covered by mainstream American media.As the partial government shutdown entered a third day today, President Donald Trump sought to cajole Democrats into a budget agreement, at one point lamenting he was "all alone" waiting for a deal. With little progress on his demand for a $5 billion border wall and most lawmakers away for Christmas, the president repeatedly took to Twitter to argue for the wall funding. He also scheduled a meeting for this afternoon with top Homeland Security officials. Trump blames Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, his own choice for the post, for the steep stock sell-off. Many on Wall Street say Trump deserves some blame, too. The president has complained about Powell for months, but in recent days he's been asking around about whether he can fire Powell, which would be an unprecedented act in the United States and one that would spook markets and banks. What's going on here?GUESTS:Dr. Ajamu Baraka — American political activist and former Green Party nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election. Dr. Anthony Monteiro — Author, activist, DuBois Scholar and former professor in the African American Studies department at Temple UniversityEugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Eugene Craig III, a Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Defense Secretary James Mattis will retire at the end of February, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday night.The announcement comes shortly after the White House said the US would be withdrawing its troops from Syria, a move that came despite reported concerns among Pentagon officials. "General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years," Trump tweeted in part. The Trump administration unveiled a plan today to force hundreds of thousands more Americans to hold jobs if they want to keep receiving food stamps, pursuing through executive powers what it could not achieve in Congress. What's the logic behind this plan? The country's food assistance program, which is run by the Agriculture Department (USDA), requires most adults without dependents to work if they collect food stamps for more than three months in a three-year period. But USDA regulations allow states to waive the requirement in areas with unemployment rates that are at least 20 percent greater than the national rate. These requirements were actually introduced during President Bill Clinton's administration as a part of his promise to end poverty as we knew it. The USDA is now proposing that states could waive the requirement only in areas where unemployment is above 7 percent. The current national unemployment rate stands at 3.7 percent. Helping poor families get into the workforce so they'd no longer need government aid was an admirable goal, and the new program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) did work for many families, but not all. As many low-income families have become more independent, many others have been left behind. Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his annual end-of-year press conference today, an event that I thought would have received - if not should have received - greater attention and analysis in this country than it has, at least from what I have been able to discern. President Putin emphasized that Russia is not interested in an arms race: "Generally, this is simply an element of containing and evening parties in the strategic balance. This is what it is. This means keeping parity and nothing more than that …We do not seek advantages, but we keep the balance and ensure our security … in actual fact, today we observe the disintegration of the international system of armaments and arms race containment." Putin hopes mankind will have enough common sense to prevent another world war from ever happening. He has said he regrets the growing global tendency of underestimating the risks of a nuclear war. Putin also warned that terrorists could spill over from Syria to other countries. "There is a danger that [terrorists] and groups akin to them could spill over to neighboring regions, such as Afghanistan, and also to other countries, including their origin," the Russian leader said. "That is a major threat for all of us."GUESTS:Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Ray McGovern — Former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Peace.

A few weeks, ago, Tom spoke with Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and Kathleen Matthews, who at the time were running to be the next chair of the MD Democratic Party. Maya Cummings won that election, and she has begun regrouping Democrats after their second loss in a row in their bid to capture the Governor’s mansion. Today, Tom looks at the prospects for Maryland's GOP. While enjoying their winning hand in Governor Larry Hogan's recent re-election victory and his bipartisan support across the state, MD Republicans have less to celebrate in their persistent minority status in all but a few of the state's election districts. We welcome to the Midday studio the newly re-elected chair of the Maryland Republican Party. Dirk Haire is a Washington DC-based attorney with the firm of Fox Rothschild LLP. He’s also a veteran Republican political operative; he worked as a legislative aide to former U.S. Senator Dan Coats who now serves as the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump Administration.Dirk Haire also managed congressional campaigns for Republican candidates in Indiana and Wisconsin, and he served as the Chair of the Maryland House and Senate Party Caucus Committees. Before taking on the chairmanship of the MD GOP in 2016, he served as the party’s legal counsel.This program was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page; the video can be viewed here.

In early August, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is pushing ahead with plans to legalize land expropriation without compensation in the country. As of 2019, white farmers in South Africa could be forced to give up their own homes in line with the constitutional go-ahead for land expropriation without compensation, according to media reports. What does this say about South Africa and what does this mean going forward? For these answers we turn to my first guest, he's the US correspondent for The Herald Newspaper in Zimbabwe, Obi Egbuna. So, land expropriation without compensation. Is that a proper description for the action being proposed by President Ramaphosa or, is that inflammatory rhetoric as was used when former Zimbabwean President Mugabe implemented land reclamation in Zimbabwe? A recent analysis of 4,484 killings of women in 47 major U.S. cities during the past decade found that nearly half of the women who were killed — 46 percent — died at the hands of an intimate partner. In many cases, they were among the most brutal deaths, and the most telegraphed. In a close analysis of homicides in five of the cities, The Washington Post found that more than one-third of all men who killed a current or former intimate partner were publicly known to be a potential threat to their loved one ahead of the attack. What is behind this problem and what solutions can be implemented? In 1980, an FBI agent testified in Elmer Daniels' rape trial that hair evidence found on both the victim and Daniels linked him to the assault. Thirty-nine years later, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have determined that testimony – ironclad at the time – has "exceeded the limits of science" and is "invalid," court documents say. The state won't go so far as to say Daniels, now 56, is innocent. But it does say that dismissing the indictment is the "most just outcome." What are we to make of this 39 years later? GUESTS:Obi Egbuna — Activist and US representative for the Zimbabwean newspaper The Herald.Amina McWhirter - Founder of Love By the Handles, domestic violence survivor and victims advocated and author of Shh…No More Be Free & Live Life.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

Today is midterm election day. The 2018 elections could see the highest turnout for a midterm since the mid-1960s, another time of cultural and social upheaval. "It's probably going to be a turnout rate that most people have never experienced in their lives for a midterm election," says Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who studies turnout and maintains a turnout database. He is predicting that 45 to 50 percent of eligible voters will cast a ballot. That would be a level not seen since 1970, when 47 percent of voters turned out, or 1966 when a record 49 percent turned out for midterms.What's driving so many voters to the polls, and will the results be as historic and impactful as the turnout? In his recent piece "What does it mean to be progressive in America?," Michael Blosser says, “These US midterm elections will be influenced by radical social movements, will be the first time that open socialists win numerous local, state and national elections, could provide a check on Trump and open up possible new ways forward for the US left.” Is this true? Are the so-called “progressives” such as Andrew Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York really that radical? Leftists and progressives in the United States have historically and with reason minimized the importance of electoral politics in moving forward revolutionary progress and reforms. Although the true power of progress is in the street and in the mobilization of the masses and working class, there is something to be said of having a backstop against some of the most reactionary laws and policies passed by the Trump administration. What can we say about this movement?Race or class: which will motivate voters in these midterm elections? Two years ago, in 2016, angry, white, working-class voters in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin pulled the lever for Trump as a way of expressing their anger over economic injustice — and a populist blue-collar wave swept the billionaire property mogul into office. But a range of studies published since then from political scientists, economists and pollsters have found that it was racial resentment and cultural anxiety — not economic anxiety — on the part of white voters that got Donald Trump into the Oval Office. What's the take on today's political landscape? Is 'Trumpism' here to stay? Even though Americans usually don't consider the foreign policy as being significant during midterms, most of the world is paying attention. If the Republicans do well, then many will conclude that 'Trumpism' is here to stay. The rest of the world would have to make a long-term adjustment to an America that is highly protectionist and suspicious of treaties on principle — whether they deal with climate change, arms control, refugees or migration. However, if the Democrats prosper tonight, then the US president's foreign critics will cling to the hope that the Trump years may yet turn out to be an aberration — and that the old America is waiting in the wings to return. Your thoughts on the foreign policy implications or potential implications of these mid-terms?Countries that have been targeted by sanctions or tariffs by the Trump administration — such as Iran and China— will be keen to see the president receive a bloody nose at the ballot box. It is unlikely that significant Democratic Party gains would be enough to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal or to roll back tariffs on China — not least because many Democrats also lean towards protectionism and are hawkish on Iran. But a big political setback for the president would weaken the sense of momentum behind the Trump agenda.GUESTS:Tom Porter — African American Studies Department at Ohio University and former director of the King Center in Atlanta.Eugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.Dr. Adolphus Belk — Professor of American Government, Race and Ethnic Politics in the US, the Politics of Mass Incarceration and Public Policy at Winthrop University.Dr. Riley Emmitt — Political scientist and assistant professor of Africana Studies at DePauw University.

Jamarlin talks to Eugene Craig III, former vice chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, about why he says f*ck MAGA and how the GOP has become the party of power at all costs. They discuss "What about Baltimore," holding local elected officials accountable and starting a Kanye West PAC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Under mounting pressure from senators of his own party, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will call Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault, Dr. Christine Ford, before the committee on Monday for public hearings. What does this mean for the Kavanaugh nomination going forward? Have times really changed with the #MeToo movement? As the UN General Assembly session gets underway in New York City this week, Inside Arabia is launching #SaveYemen, a massive public awareness campaign demanding that the United Nations act now to stop the war that has resulted in the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Thousands of Yemeni civilians are being slaughtered, and millions are at risk of starving to death or dying of preventable diseases. This has to be one of the most underreported stories in US corporate media. The children of Yemen are dying by the thousands in what the UN Secretary-General himself has called the “world's worst humanitarian crisis.” This is not a crisis of their making, but a crisis imposed upon them by the barbaric actions of a coalition of foreign powers that intervened three years ago to crush an uprising of Yemeni rebels and prop up the existing government. We'll talk about what's actually going on in Yemen and what the Inside Arabia campaign is all about. Today, McDonald's workers are demanding an end to sexual harassment. Dozens of groups have banded together, led by the Fight for $15, in an unprecedented #MeToo movement strike against McDonald's. The protests began at lunchtime at McDonald's restaurants in 10 cities, including San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. Workers are reportedly upset with the failure of McDonald's to address groping, propositions for sex and other illegal behavior in restaurants nationwide. The #MeToo McDonald's strike will also be used to push for better pay. GUESTS:Jackie Luqman - Co-editor-in-chief of Luqman Nation and co-host of the Facebook Livestream Coffee, Current Events & Politics.Eugene Craig III - Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist. Elisabeth Myers - Editor-in-chief of Inside Arabia.Torin Ellis - Human capital strategist, focused on the art of recruiting diverse talent using various creative methods. He is the author of Rip the Resume: Job Search & Interview Power Prep.

Paul Ellington, a seasoned Maryland Republican political operative has over 32 years of campaign and government experience, and is currently running the campaign of Amie Hoeber 6th Cogressional District candidate. to run her congressional campaign. Ellington, is the “Principle and Founder” of State and Local Advisors, LLC, a Maryland-based campaign consulting firm. Ellington’s political experience is far-reaching. Ellington was hired by Secretary David Craig (Maryland Department of Planning) to manage his 2014 Republican gubernatorial campaign. During Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s administration, Ellington served as chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele. From December 1998 until January 2003, Ellington worked for the Maryland Republican Party as its executive director as well as serving as a councilman on the Bowie City Council. Ellington served as the president of GOPAC, Inc., a training organization for elected officials in the District of Columbia, from January 2003 until January 2007. It is widely known that Ellington is considered to be one of the original brain trusts behind Change Maryland. A campaign grassroots expert, Ellington has worked with Maryland clients at the local, state and federal level and has been involved with over 50 political campaigns since entering electoral politics over 30 years ago

It's another edition of the Midday News Wrap, our Friday discussion of some of the week's top news stories with a panel of journalists and commentators. Joining Tom Hall on this week's panel: reporter Jenna Johnson, who covered the 2016 Trump Campaign. Now, she covers the White House for The Washington Post, and she joins Tom on the line from The Post's radio studio. Also on the panel and with us in Studio A is Pastor Shannon Wright. She is the Third Vice-Chair of the Maryland Republican Party and the first Black woman ever elected to any party office in Maryland. In 2016, she was a Republican candidate for president of the Baltimore City Council. She is also the co-host of the Wright Way With Shannon and Mike morning show and a panelist on Roland Martin on News One.

Join Eric Beasley and Ryan Miner this Sunday, November 27, at 9:00 p.m. with special guest host, The Prince of Darkness himself, Joseph Steffen.  Also joining the show:  - Maryland Republican Party 3rd Vice Chairman Eugene Craig - City of Hagerstown Mayor-elect Bob Bruchey  Topics this week include:  - The Maryland Republican Party will meet next weekend to choose their new executive leadership  - The Conservative Club of Maryland is running a slate; we'll talk about each nominee  - Hardly listened to and often ridiculed Red Maryland released their yearly nominated list of "least valuable conservatives." We're on the list, and we encourage our listeners to vote for us!  - Loyola Univesity is caving to political correctness  - President-elect Trump's choice for Secretary of Education - Betsy DeVos - is rattling teachers' unions and anti-school choice advocates  - We'll discuss some of Trump's other cabinet-level picks - The battle for secretary of state: will Trump appoint Mitt Romney, or is this Trump's way of embarrassing Mitt? - Eric's update on Frederick County  - Our Thanksgiving weekends and Black Friday stories - Karen Harshman's fate to be decided on December 5 - This week in the news (locally and nationally)  At 10:00 p.m., Hagerstown Mayor-elect Bob Bruchey will join the show to discuss his election victory as well as his goals and priorities for the City of Hagerstown. See you tonight at 9:00 p.m. on a brand-new episode of A Miner Detail! 

Diana Waterman, the chairwoman of the Maryland Republican Party, joins Ryan on a special episode of A Miner Detail to summarize all that occurred during the fall MDGOP convention at Solomans Island.