Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Russiagate is all Democrats and other members of the War Party want to talk about, but the author of a new book says the whole affair was concocted by the former head of the CIA; a Black activist and writer from Canada cautions that the Great White North has its own history of racial repression and police brutality; and, Mumia Abu Jamal has a requiem for the fading U.S. empire.

Dublin, Ireland, was the site of the world’s First International Conference Against U.S. and NATO military bases. The U.S. has between 800 and 1000 military bases around the world, and a military budget that equals all the other nations on the planet, combined. The United States has taken upon itself the duties of world policeman, waging war by military or economic means with no regard for international law. The U.S. is now the main military power in Africa, with an entire military command centered on the continent. Paul Pumprhey is a veteran Black activist and a founding member of Friends of the Congo. He told the conference in Ireland that the U.S. has been exploiting and causing mass death in the Congo for well over a century.

For more than two years, the Democratic Party and most the U.S. corporate media have been waging a non-stop campaign to blame Russia for the myriad social and political conflicts that plague the United States. They call their conspiracy theory “Russiagate.” Ron Ridenhour is a longtime activist and author, now living in Denmark, whose new book is titled ““The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert.” Ridenhour says there is nothing the U.S. military industrial complex fears more than the prospect of world peace. He says the whole Russiagate affair is a misinformation campaign concocted by former CIA director John Brennan to rekindle the Cold War.

Lots of folks in the United States think that Canada is a country of racial tolerance. But Robyn Maynard, a Black activist based in Montreal, Canada, says Don’t believe the Canadian hype. Maynard is author of the new book, “Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present.” She says there’s more to policing and repression of Black Lives than just brutal cops with sticks and guns.

The nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, reports for Prison Radio on the Twilight of U.S. Empire.