On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek.


Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective, including the strike by professional athletes in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the struggle for justice for Jacob Blake, the Republican National Convention and more.


A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space. As the US continues to withdraw from international arms treaties, will the weaponization and militarization of space bring the world closer to catastrophe? Brian and John speak with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues.



Professional basketball is in turmoil, but for all the right reasons. NBA playoff teams went on strike yesterday to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI. Blake had broken up a fight between two women, but then police shot him in the back seven times as he entered his car and while his children screamed in the back seat. The protest began in the Milwaukee Bucks-Orlando Magic game and quickly spread to other playoff teams. All NBA games are now canceled, and the protest has spread with the WNBA, MLB and professional tennis. Even sports journalists and commentators have walked off the job. Jamarl Thomas, host of the show Fault Lines, on Radio Sputnik every Monday-Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., and host of the show Progressive Soapbox, joins the show.



Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny was likely poisoned according to doctors in a Berlin hospital where he is being treated, though the exact substance has not yet been identified. Navalny fell ill during a trip to Siberia and was medically evacuated on Saturday. We’ll discuss this controversy and the effect it’s having on Russian politics. Brian and John speak with Bryan Macdonald, a journalist who specializes in Eastern Europe and Russia.



Thursday’s weekly series “Criminal Injustice” is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker is joined by Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of history at the University of Houston and the author of many books, including “Blows Against the Empire: U.S. Imperialism in Crisis.”

Two protesters were killed and one injured last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in ongoing demonstrations against police shooting Jacob Blake in the back. The shooter, who was part of a vigilante group, has now been arrested and charged with murder. The police’s bullets went through Blake’s spinal cord and severed it, and Blake is now being paralyzed from the waist down. The governor of Wisconsin has declared an emergency called in hundreds of National Guard soldiers.

The Republican National Convention last night was more like a presidential press conference, mostly located at the White House, featuring Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaking from Jerusalem on a diplomatic trip, and with a naturalization ceremony for new U.S. citizens. What does last night’s theatrics say about the state of democracy in the U.S.? Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net, joins the show.

Workers from across the country are converging on Washington, D.C. tomorrow at noon to hold a march on the mansion of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos -- the richest person in the world. They will demand that Amazon take a range of measures to protect employees from the Coronavirus pandemic. Brian speaks with Chris Smalls, founder of The Congress of Essential Workers and organizer of tomorrow’s march on Jeff Bezos’ mansion. Chris Smalls was fired by Amazon after organizing his fellow warehouse workers in New York City to demand health protections amid the pandemic.

Israel fired on Hezbollah observation posts yesterday in Lebanon, escalating the conflict between the two countries. Israel’s air attacks against Lebanon went on in the same week that Israel has increased the attacks and the siege on Gaza, where two million Palestinians are living on just four hours of electricity a day. Dan Cohen, a journalist and a documentary filmmaker, most recently of the film Killing Gaza, joins the show.

Wednesday’s weekly series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.

Wednesday’s regular segment, Beyond Nuclear, is about nuclear issues, including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, and Sputnik news analyst and producer Nicole Roussell, join the show.

Today is Loud & Clear’s weekly series about the biggest economic news of the week with special guest -- Prof. Richard Wolff.

Yesterday saw Day 1 of the Republican National Convention. And although the likes of Breitbart, the One America Network, and other right wing media lauded the evening as the single best day in the history of Republican politics, the mainstream media condemned it as a hate-filled night of half-truths and outright lies about President Trump’s record. Democratic nominee Joe Biden got no bump in the polls from his convention. How will Americans react to Donald Trump’s week in the limelight? Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books--“The Frozen Republic,” “The Velvet Coup,” and “America's Undeclared War,” joins the show.

Last Thursday, the US notified the U.N. Security Council that it would demand a reimposition of all previous U.N. sanctions against Iran under Resolution 2231. The Trump administration cited what it called significant violations of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, from which the United States withdrew in May 2018. All Security Council sanctions against the country were lifted under Resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal. Less than 24 hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo submitted the notice to the Security Council, 13 of the council’s 15 members expressed opposition to US efforts to reimpose the sanctions. They said that because the Trump administration had withdrawn from the agreement, it had no right to invoke the deal to return the sanctions. Meanwhile, Pompeo is in Bahrain as part of his Middle East tour to shore up opposition to Iran and support for the peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Brian and John speak with Miko Peled, the author of “The General’s Son - A Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and of "Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.

Tuesday’s regular segment is called Women & Society with Dr. Hannah Dickinson. This weekly segment is about the major issues, challenges, and struggles facing women in all aspects of society, with today’s special edition dedicated to the militant struggle for the right to vote for all women. Hannah Dickinson, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an organizer with the Geneva Women’s Assembly; Nathalie Hrizi, an educator, a political activist, and the editor of Breaking the Chains, a women’s magazine, which you can find at patreon.com/BreakChainsMag; and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Kofi Ademola, an activist and organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Police over the weekend shot two more black men, killing one, and anti-police violence protests have begun anew. 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin was shot from behind in Lafayette, LA at a gas station. In Kenosha, WI, Jacob Blake remains in stable condition after being shot in the back as many as seven times. A video shows Blake walking around his SUV and trying to enter it while a police officer tries to pull him out, and then opens fire while Blakes children scream in the back seat. It is unclear how many police officers fired, and an investigation is underway.

The number of new coronavirus cases across the country are down, as mask rules are being more stringently enforced, school districts are closing en masse, and doctors begin using a new plasma treatment. But a Hong Kong man is the first person known to be infected with the coronavirus twice, indicating that antibodies are either short-lived or are not a protection against the disease. Dr. Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor of viral pathogenesis at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in molecular pathogenesis of emerging and reemerging viruses, joins the show.

Democrats have completed their virtual nominating convention and have formally nominated Joe Biden to be president of the United States. The Republicans will have their turn beginning tonight. The RNC lineup is filled with nods to the far right and the president’s so-called “law and order” campaign messaging. Biden is leading in the polls, but Trump is hitting the campaign trail while Biden retreats to his home out of the public eye, and Republican strategists are counting on the enthusiasm gap to overcome their weak position in the polls. Brian and John speak with Ted Rall, an award-winning columnist and political cartoonist whose work is at www.rall.com.

Monday’s segment “Education for Liberation with Bill Ayers” is where Bill helps us look at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Bill Ayers, an activist, educator and author of the book “Demand the Impossible: A Radical Manifesto,” joins Brian and John.

In this segment, The Week Ahead, the hosts take a look at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world, including the Republican National Convention, the political effect of the Democrats’ convention, the latest on Coronavirus, protests against racist police violence, and more. Sputnik News analysts and producers of this show Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.

Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology and security analyst Patricia Gorky join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Mohammad Marandi, an expert on American studies and postcolonial literature who teaches at the University of Tehran.

The US military announced last night that Iran had briefly seized a Liberian-flagged oil tanker near the Straits of Hormuz. The ship was released five hours later. But today, Trump Administration officials say they have seized gas and oil from four Iranian tankers on their way to Venezuela. The Administration is also seeking the legal forfeiture of the ships and cargo in federal court. Tehran, however, is calling the reports fake news and is saying that no such seizures have taken place.

The Trump Administration is launching a historically unprecedented attack on the US postal service in order to prevent or to hamper voting by mail. The Postmaster General, a Trump appointee, has ordered that sorting machines be removed by postal facilities to slow the mail process, and that mailboxes be removed from street corners and other public places. Constitutional attorneys say that the president’s move is patently illegal and that the Constitution gives the states sole discretion over how to conduct elections, even presidential elections. Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net, joins the show.

The governments of Israel and the United Arab Emirates came to a historic peace agreement yesterday, apparently brokered by the Trump Administration. Israel will open an embassy in Abu Dhabi and the UAE will open an embassy in Tel Aviv. At the same time, Israel will end its plans to annex Palestinian territory. Egypt and Bahrain cheered the move and congratulated both sides. Iran and Turkey called the deal “a stab in the back of Muslims,” and all Palestinian political factions denounced the tmove as a maneuver to normalize the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Brian and John speak with Tamara Nassar, associate editor of Electronic Intifada.

It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell.

Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on the selection of Kamala Harris to be Joe Biden’s running mate, the spread of the pandemic especially among children, stalled efforts by Congress to pass a stimulus package, the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and more. Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Aislinn Pulley, an organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Protestors in Bend, Oregon last night were sprayed by ICE agents with pepper spray, the use of tear gas has resumed in Portland and activists are denouncing what appears to be a coordinated crackdown. Meanwhile, protests and police attacks continued in Richmond, Chicago and elsewhere, and cops and politicians are demanding heavier and heavier charges and elsewhere.

Presumptive Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appeared together yesterday for the first time since Harris joined the ticket. Harris gave a speech outlining the differences between the Democratic and Republican tickets, while President Trump responded by calling Harris “mean” and “a nasty woman.” And what can we expect in terms of the political relationship between Biden and Harris, considering that many don’t expect Biden to complete a full term in office? Ben Norton, a journalist with the Grayzone and co-host of the Moderate Rebels podcast, and Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent who in 2002 was named Time Magazine person of the year along with two other whistleblowers, joins the show.

Thursday’s weekly series “Criminal Injustice” is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show.

Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.

A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space. As the US continues to withdraw from international arms treaties, will the weaponization and militarization of space bring the world closer to catastrophe? Brian and John speak with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues, and with Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Margaret Kimberley, an activist, columnist, and author, whose latest book is called “Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents,” and KJ Noh, a San Francisco activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice.


Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden yesterday chose California Senator Kamala Harris to be his vice presidential running mate. Harris is the first African-American and Indian-American woman to appear on a major-party ticket. But not everybody is celebrating. Harris is a former prosecutor and state Attorney General, and she is responsible for imprisoning thousands of people under California’s drug laws. She has a conservative voting record on foreign affairs and issues of war and peace. And leaders of Wall Street banks are telling their clients that there is now no cause to worry about a Biden win in November.



Covid-19 continues to spread through recently reopened schools, especially in the southern United States. Many school districts there reopened two weeks ago, only to see thousands of new infections and then to close again. Meanwhile, cruise ship employees say that after passengers departed, they were stranded on the ships for months. Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician and vice chair of the Infectious Disease Society of America’s Global Health Committee, joins the show.



Large-scale protests continue in Bolivia against the decision by the coup-installed government of the country to once again postpone elections. As strikes and roadblocks bring the country to a standstill, right-wing paramilitary groups are being mobilized by pro-coup forces to violently repress demonstrators. Brian and John speak with Arnold August, a journalist, the author of three books on Cuba, Latin America, and US foreign policy, and a Fellow at the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.



Wednesday’s weekly series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.


Wednesday’s regular segment, Beyond Nuclear, is about nuclear issues, including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, and Sputnik news analyst and producer Nicole Roussell, join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Kofi Ademola, an activist and organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement.


Protests continued overnight and over the past weekend in both Portland and Chicago, and Chicago saw intense clashes, resulting in more than 100 arrests.



Russian President Vladimir Putin announced today that Russian scientists have developed a vaccine for the coronavirus and that it has received regulatory approval after two months of testing on humans. Frontline medical professionals will be the first to receive the vaccine, and Putin’s own daughter already has received it. Russian doctors plan to begin mass vaccinations in October. Bryan Macdonald, a journalist who specializes in Eastern Europe and Russia, joins the show.



Today is Loud & Clear’s weekly series about the biggest economic news of the week with special guest -- Prof. Richard Wolff. Professor Wolff, a professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and founder of the organization Democracy at Work whose latest book is “Understanding Socialism,” joins the show.


Loud & Clear’s series, In the News, is where the hosts look at the most important ongoing developments of the week and put them into perspective. Sputnik news analysts Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.


Tuesday’s regular segment is called Women & Society with Dr. Hannah Dickinson. This weekly segment is about the major issues, challenges, and struggles facing women in all aspects of society. Hannah Dickinson, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an organizer with the Geneva Women’s Assembly; Nathalie Hrizi, an educator, a political activist, and the editor of Breaking the Chains, a women’s magazine, which you can find at patreon.com/BreakChainsMag; and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell join the show.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Max Blumenthal, a bestselling author and journalist who is senior editor of The Grayzone and co-host of the podcast “Moderate Rebels.”

Four days ago, Twitter announced that it would begin identifying what it calls “state sponsors of information” on the platform. What that means is that when Sputnik, RT, Telesur, or any number of similar outlets post a tweet, Twitter will add a tag saying that the information comes from a foreign government. The implication is that reads should take what they read with a grain of salt. But the warning label will not be attached to tweets and news from the BBC, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Radio or TV Marti, or the Voice of America, all of which are government owned and operated.

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are still at loggerheads when it comes to a new coronavirus stimulus package. So President Trump this weekend took matters into his own hands. In a move that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called “absurdly unconstitutional” and that was even condemned by the conservative Wall Street Journal, Trump issued executive orders this weekend that cuts the payroll tax, deferrs student loans, and provides Americans with an unemployment supplement of $400 a week. Dr. Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of “The Scourge of Neo-Liberalism: US policy from Reagan to Trump,” joins the show.

We continue our segment “Education for Liberation” where we look at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Brian and John speak with Bill Ayers, an activist, educator and author, and host of the new podcast: “Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers”

In The Week Ahead, the panel looks at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world including Trump’s executive orders on Coronavirus relief, the spread of the pandemic among children, and more. Walter Smolarek, Sputnik News analyst and one of the producers of Loud & Clear, joins the show.

We continue our weekly half hour segment Technology Rules—a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the National Surveillance State are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa, and Patricia Gorky, a software engineer and technology and security analyst, joins Brian and John.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Ted Rall. He’s an award-winning columnist and political cartoonist and you can check out his work at www.rall.com.

Discussions between the White House and Congressional Democrats on a coronavirus relief package are on the brink of collapse, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now saying that there may be light at the end of the tunnel, but that light may be an oncoming train. Even after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell relented on continuing the $600 weekly supplement for the unemployed, the White House and Democrats are so far apart that no coronavirus aid bill is expected at least through the weekend.

President Trump yesterday issued executive orders that would ban popular apps TikTok and WeChat from operating in the United States if they are not sold to a US company in the next 45 days. The Wall Street Journal says that the executive orders are unprecedented in American history. Trump earlier in the week told Microsoft’s CEO that if the company buys TikTok, he expects “a great deal of money to go to the Treasury.” That, too, is unprecedented. John Ross, Senior Fellow at Chongyang Institute, Renmin University of China, and an award-winning resident columnist with several Chinese media organizations, joins the show.

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the US atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan. And Sunday marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The bombings killed as many as 226,000 people, almost all of whom were civilians. Even after 75 years, these two attacks are the only times that any country in the world has detonated a nuclear weapon against another. Brian and John speak with Greg Mello, the Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group.

It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog.

Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on the huge number of coronavirus cases and deaths, the problem US media has with Russia getting to a vaccine quickly, Biden’s comments about the African American community not being diverse, and more. Brian and John speak with Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.