Month: February 2023

What it is Like to Be a Person of Color and a Muslim American Constantly Having Your Loyalty Questioned

We begin with Kevin McCarthy’s pandering to a racist troll Marjorie Taylor Greene that resulted in Congresswoman Ilhan Omar being taken off the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a craven display of racist scapegoating made even more hypocritical since it was done in the name of antisemitism at the behest of Nazi sympathizers in the House Freedom Caucus. Joining us to discuss what it is like to be a person of color and a Muslim American whose loyalty to this country is constantly questioned is Wajahat Ali, a columnist for The Daily Beast, public speaker, recovering lawyer, and a tired dad of three cute kids. He is currently a Western States Center Senior Fellow for the Common Good Program and Leadership Initiative to Combat Anti Semitism whose latest book, just out on paperback, is Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American.

Did Xi Jinping Authorize the Chinese Spy Balloon’s Intrusion Over the US?

Then we examine the diplomatic fallout from a Chinese spy balloon drifting over America which caused Secretary of State Blinken to cancel top level meetings with Chinese officials. Joining us to discuss whether Xi Jinping authorized this intrusion and whether the leadership is testing the US is Victor Shih, a Professor in China and Pacific Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently engaged in constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China and is the editor of Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability: Duration, Institutions and Financial Conditions, and his latest book is Coalitions of the Weak: Elite politics in China from Mao’s stratagem to the rise of Xi.

As Pundits Warn of Recession and Inflation, We Get the Best Economic News Since 1969

 Then finally we assess how the public has been conditioned by Wall Street economists, media pundits and GOP propaganda to believe the US economy is in terrible shape crippled by recession and inflation when we just had the best jobs numbers and lowest unemployment since 1969. Joining us is Pavlina Tcherneva, a Professor of Economics at Bard College and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. She is also the co-editor of Full Employment and Price Stability: The Macroeconomic Vision and her latest book is The Case for a Job Guarantee.