Month: March 2024

Background Briefing: March 24, 2024

 

The Do-Nothing Congress Descends Into the Chaos Congress

We begin with the do-nothing congress now descending into the chaos congress with Marjorie Taylor Greene filing a motion to vacate the speakership, as the House Republican majority hangs by the thread of only a one seat majority thanks to resignations of adult members who can’t stand the legislative terrorism of a minority of loudmouths. Joining us to discuss the takeover of the Republican Party by Trump’s no-nothing, attention-seeking nihilists who have become the tail that wags the dog of the GOP is James Thurber, the University Distinguished Professor of Government and founder and former Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. He is the author of numerous books and more than eighty articles and chapters on Congress, interest groups and lobbying, and campaigns and elections and he is the author of Congress and Diaspora Politics: The Influence of Ethnic and Foreign Lobbying and, most recently, Campaigns and Elections American Style.

Could Billions Made Out of Nothing Pumped Into Truth Social Rescue Trump Tomorrow?

Then with Monday’s deadline for Trump to come up with $464 million fast approaching, we look into Digital World Acquisition’s SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) that voted Friday to take Trump’s Truth Social public with a possible $3 billion windfall for the serially insolvent fraudster, in spite of Truth Social being next to worthless. Joining us is James Henry, an economist, lawyer and investigative journalist who has written extensively about global banking, debt crises, tax havens, money laundering and fraud. The former chief economist at McKinsey & Co., he is the co-founder with David Cay Johnston of the investigative reporting news service DCReport.org and is the author of Blood Bankers.

While Putin Has His Security Services Going After Gays and Lesbians He Prioritizes as Terrorists, Real Terrorists Strike

Then finally we go to the U.K. to speak with Alec Bertina, a freelance journalist and researcher of non-traditional security actors with a focus on Russian private military contractors, their security services and paramilitary groups. He is a conflict analyst for Militant Wire and we discuss the ISIS terrorist attack on the rock concert just outside of Moscow that U.S. intelligence warned was coming, which fell on deaf ears since Putin has his security services focused on arresting people who lay flowers on memorials for Navalny while going after gays and lesbians who Putin has labelled as terrorists.