Background Briefing: January 14, 2020
Barr Blames Apple, Not the Saudi Education and Religious Establishment We begin with Attorney General Barr’s shifting the focus away from Saudi Arabia’s culpability for the December 6 shooting of 3 U.S. sailors at the naval air station in Pensacola by a Saudi...
Background Briefing: January 13, 2020
Trump's Reckless Defiance Matched by McConnell's Reckless Partisanship We begin with the impending move of the articles of impeachment to the senate and the apparent flaw in the thinking on the part of Democrats that at least some Republican senators would...
Background Briefing: January 9, 2020
Evidence the Iranians Shot Down a Ukrainian Airliner We begin with the information emerging from the crash of a Ukrainian Boeing 737 shortly after takeoff from Tehran International Airport just hours after Iran had launched a salvo of missiles in retaliation...
Background Briefing: January 8, 2020
Iran "Stands Down" But the Long War Continues We begin with the calibrated response by Iran in its retaliation for the U.S. killing of General Suleimani and assess whether the regime can bridge the gap between promising the Iranian people it would “crush the...
Background Briefing: January 7, 2020
Australia: A Continent on Fire We begin with a continent on fire, Australia, where bush fires from east to west, north to south have burned out of control for months and are likely to continue for at least a month more. With an area more than New Hampshire and...
Background Briefing: January 6, 2020
Trump Has the Opposition Inside Iran Rallying Around the Flag We begin with the massive funeral processions across Iran today for General Suleimani at which the Supreme Leader wept over his coffin and vowed to avenge the death of the martyred leader of the...
Background Briefing: January 5, 2020
Will the Green Zone in Baghdad Become the Alamo? We begin with the alarming possibility that American soldiers and contractors inside bases in Iraq and in particular, the Green Zone in Baghdad, could soon find themselves in an Alamo situation, surrounded and...
Background Briefing: January 2, 2020
An Examination of the Health of Our Democracy As we conclude our look back on the defining stories of the past year, today we look into the health of our democracy under assault from plutocracy and how to take it back. We begin with an interview I did on May...
Background Briefing: January 1, 2020
The Elite Charade of Changing the World On this New Years Day we continue our look back on the defining stories of the past year with our coverage examining our economic health and that of the global economy in what many see as a new gilded age. We begin with...
Background Briefing: December 31, 2019
The Dystopian Reality of the Tech Industry On this New Years Eve, we continue our look back on the defining stories of 2019, today looking into the promises from the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley compared to the dystopian reality of how the tech-industry...