Month: May 2019

Is Another Gulf of Tonkin Incident Being Cooked Up?

We begin with the mixed messages coming from the chaotic Trump administration with Bolton leading the war party, Pompeo talking about peace and Trump warning Iran that something bad will happen to them if they do something bad. Mark Perry, an author and historian specializing in military, foreign affairs, and intelligence analysis and the author of Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with its Enemies, joins us to discuss whether we are repeating the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 which was used as a pretext to bomb North Vietnam even though the incident itself did not happen. As tensions spike over reports of sabotage of four oil tankers the U.S. is blaming on Iran, we assess whether this could be a pretext for a war against Iran even though Trump seems to be reluctance to get drawn into another war in the Middle East. However with the Pentagon confirming reports to deploy as many as 120,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East if Iran initiates an attack on U.S. forces or accelerates its nuclear weapons program, the line between psychological warfare and actual warfare could be easily blurred. Particularly if an incident real or manufactured were to happen, given that regional players like the Israelis and the Saudis are eager to have the U.S. fight a war against Iran on their behalf.

How Our Legal System is Failing the People as it Becomes Detached from Justice

Then with the judiciary increasingly captured by the far- right Federalists the Republicans are stacking the courts with, and Trump’s own rubber-stamp Attorney General facing contempt charges from the Congress, we speak with Bruce Gibney, a venture capitalist, author and lawyer who latest book is “The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of America’s Legal System”. He joins us to add an extra dimension to the chaos and lawlessness on display at the White House by arguing that our legal system is becoming an incomprehensible farce which is failing the people, denying them their day in court, and becoming more and more detached for the meaning of justice.

The Supreme Courts’ Conservatives Are Moving to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Then finally we speak with Jessica Mason Pieklo, the vice president of law and the courts at Rewire.News where she has an article “How a Pence-Era Abortion Restriction Could Undermine a Key Reproductive Rights Victory at the Supreme Court”. She joins us to discuss how the just-announced decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative to overturn precedent in a case involving the rights of states to sue each other could be a harbinger that the same conservative majority will soon rule to overturn Roe v. Wade in spite of pledges that these same justices believe in stare decisis, meaning let the decision stand.