Background Briefing: March 17, 2022

On By gram

 

Saudi Arabia’s Arrogant and Entitled MBS Adds Injury to his Insulting Behavior Towards the U.S.

We begin with the insulting behavior of a supposed U.S. ally Saudi Arabia which now after 50 years of American support and protection, the country’s Crown Prince MBS is refusing to talk to President Biden to help lower the price of oil which the Saudis have done for previous presidents and, on top of that, now the Saudis are talking with the Chinese to pay for Saudi oil with the yuan, not the dollar. Joining us is David Hearst, the Editor of Middle East Eye who formerly was the chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. We discuss his latest article at Middle East Eye, “Putin’s war means Mohammed bin Salman has Biden over a barrel” and actions the U.S. could take to get the attention of the arrogant and entitled Crown Prince who is dissing the U.S.

 

Trump Targets Secretaries of State in His War on American Democracy

Then we look into Trump’s war on American democracy which is aijmed at making sure Republicans will win in 2022 and that he will come back in 2024 by targeting the country’s election apparatus and installing loony loyalists as Secretaries of State in key swing states thus insuring that “Stop the Steal Trump” will steal the next elections. Joining us isSteven Harper, a professor at Northwestern University and regular contributor to The American Lawyer. He blogs at The Belly of the Beastand we discuss his article at Common Dreams, “The War on Democracy Is Here: Trump is using America’s democratic process to destroy democracy from within.”

 

Good News For a Change on the Labor Front

Then finally we examine some good news for a change on the labor front and speak with Steven Greenhouse, who was a reporter for The New York Times from 1983 to 2014 where he covered labor and the workplace for nineteen years. He also served as a business and economics reporter and a diplomatic and foreign correspondent. He is the author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker and Beaten Down, Worked up the Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, and we discuss his article at The Guardian, “U.S. unions see unusually promising moment amid wave of victories.”