FEATURING CLIFFORD D. CONNER – The coronavirus pandemic has drawn scrutiny and even pity from the international community toward the United States. How is it that a nation that has for decades boasted of its scientific prowess and innovation has so badly bungled its response to an entirely predictable health emergency? 

The backstory is a lengthy one and is the subject of a new book by my guest Clifford Conner, who lays out chapter by chapter what he calls “The Tragedy of American Science.”

Clifford D. Conner, historian of science at the School of Professional Studies, CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of A People’s History of Science and his latest book is called The Tragedy of American Science: From Truman to Trump. 

Deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. are nearing 190,000 fueled by a spike in infections in Midwest states. About half a million children in the U.S. have now tested positive for Covid-19—this after numerous officials in the Trump Administration repeatedly claimed that children were not susceptible to the disease. In the state of Florida infections among school-aged children have jumped by a third—a predictable outcome of the Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ directive to reopen in-person instruction. But in a very unusual and disturbing move, state officials are forcing some counties to keep the data secret which means parents may not know if their children are likely to become infected. A new report by the Rockefeller Foundation and Duke University has concluded that the U.S. needs to be conducting 200 million Covid-19 tests per month in order to bring the virus under control. Currently it is only conducting about 25 million or fewer tests every month. Journalist Bob Woodward’s new book about Trump called Rage reveals that Trump knew the virus was far deadlier than he was saying in public. In a February 7th phone call with the journalist Trump apparently said, “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed…It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu. This is deadly stuff.” Meanwhile in public forums he promised the virus would just “disappear”—which it clearly has not.  

Trump has invested most of his virus-related strategy into the release of a vaccine before the November 3rd election but now one of the companies working on a vaccine has just halted its development after a worrying adverse reaction was noted during trials. AstraZeneca announced a, “potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials,” and has stopped to investigate. White House adviser and one of the few trusted science experts left in government, Dr. Anthony Fauci explained that the incident was evidence that proper scientific vetting of vaccines can catch potential problems and stuck with his original projection that a new vaccine would not be available until 2021. Fauci also said he was deeply concerned about the lack of social distancing and mask wearing at recent Trump rallies such as the one in North Carolina on Tuesday. The state government ordered Trump to wear a mask at his rally in Winston-Salem but the President refused and instead mocked virus precautions. Meanwhile on Wednesday, top government health officials faced questioning from U.S. Senators on the pandemic. Dr. Francis Collins,

FEATURING DR. STEPHEN ZUNES – President Donald Trump this week compared himself to Dwight D. Eisenhower, a critic of the American “military industrial complex,” casting himself as an anti-war leader who was unpopular with the generals but loved by troops. Trump, who appears to be losing the military vote to his rival Joe Biden, has been attempting to do damage control to his reelection campaign after a damning article in The Atlantic exposed his denigrating remarks toward fallen US soldiers during a 2018 visit to Paris. In fact, under Trump’s Presidency, top ranking officials have hailed from the weapons manufacturing industry and Trump has overseen the escalation of an air war in Afghanistan—the longest official war in US history. 

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He also serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also an associate editor of Peace Review. 

FEATURING LAURA E. GÓMEZ – Journalist Jorge Ramos recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times saying “there is no route to the White House without Latino voters.” He accused Republicans and Democrats of rediscovering Latino voters every 4 years and then forgetting about them. Now, in a new book Professor Laura E. Gómez digs into the racial identity that has been known by so many different names over the years: Mexicans, Latinos, Hispanics, Latinx. Her book is called Inventing Latinos, a New Story of American Racism.

Laura E. Gómez, professor of law, sociology, and Chicana/Chicano studies at UCLA. She is the author of Manifest Destinies, Mapping Race, and Misconceiving Mothers. Her newest book is Inventing Latinos, a New Story of American Racism. 

President Donald Trump went on the offensive against the U.S. military on Monday during a White House press conference, accusing the “top people in the Pentagon” of fighting endless wars in order to help arms companies make profits. Trump’s remarks came days after The Atlantic published a tell-all account of the President’s 2018 trip to Paris and the disparaging remarks he made about veterans and fallen soldiers in World War I. The Huffington Post said that “critics were flabbergasted” in response to his Labor Day comments and pointed out that, “It was Trump who picked Mark Esper — former chief lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon ― to be the current secretary of defense.” When asked about The Atlantic story, Trump called it “a hoax,” and the writer a “slime ball,” and that “”Only an animal would say things,” of the type that were attributed to him. Several reporters and media outlets, including Fox News corroborated Trump’s private comments calling soldiers “losers” and “suckers.”

On Sunday Trump tweeted a report about the state of California implementing a New York Times-led project about the US’s history of slavery called 1618. He warned that the “Department of Education is looking at this,” and that the state’s schools would lose funding. When asked about it on Monday by reporters Trump denounced “cancel culture” and then went on to demand the cancelation of the 1618 project. His comments are in line with continued assaults against racial justice and come soon after his government sent a memo to agencies canceling racial sensitivity training for staff. The memo read, “All agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on ‘critical race theory,’ ‘white privilege,’ or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.” Trump’s Presidency has emboldened white supremacist groups, some of which showed up in the town of Salem, Oregon over the weekend in order to clash with Black Lives Matter protests. In another part of the country, Trump-supporting groups came together in Texas on numerous boats in Lake Travis in an event that ended in disaster after 15 calls for distress were made, and 5 boats festooned with Trump flags sank. 

As Trump heads to Florida and North Carolina on Tuesday, reports emerged that his reelection campaign that was flush with cash just months ago is now dangerously short of funds. On Sunday the New York Times pointed out that Trump spent about $58 million of his reelection campaign funds on his personal and business legal expenses against lawsuits seeking his tax returns.

FEATURING WILLIAM ATTIG – A lengthy report in The Atlantic that revealed Trump’s attitude toward US soldiers who lost their lives has put the President on the defensive. Trump in 2018 canceled a visit to a US military cemetery during a state trip to Paris. According to 4 people who witnessed Trump’s reasoning, he apparently did not want to mess his hair up in the rain and referred to fallen soldiers as “losers,” and “suckers.” 

 Trump has repeatedly courted the military and veterans, lying repeatedly about his role in passing and signing into law the Veterans Choice bill – an Act that President Obama signed in 2014. 

 A recent Military Times poll that was done before the bombshell Atlantic article, shows Trump’s support among military personnel having dropped behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden. 

William Attig, Executive Director Union Veterans Council AFL-CIO. 

FEATURING JIM HIGHTOWER – President Donald Trump in North Carolina recently advised voters of that state to vote twice—a clearly illegal action. He said voters should send in their ballots by mail and then try to vote in person on top of that. Voting twice is a felony – something that Attorney General William Barr—the nation’s top law enforcement officer – seemed to be unaware of during a CNN interview. When host Wolf Blitzer asked if he knew it was illegal Barr acted as though it was dependent on state laws. In fact, as Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu wrote in a one-sentence letter to Barr, “Federal law prohibits voting twice in the same election.” The statements by Trump and Barr, likely confusing voters about the laws, are just the latest attempt by American conservatives to attack voting rights and trust in our election systems. 

Jim Hightower, National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and New York Times best-selling author, twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner. His monthly newsletter is called The Hightower Lowdown. He recently wrote the piece Six Ways the Right Is Shredding the Vote.

The suspect in the Portland, Oregon killing of a rightwing Trump supporter has been killed by law enforcement during an attempted arrest. Michael Forest Reinoehl was facing arrest in the shooting death of Aaron Danielson that happened last weekend during a pro-Trump action aimed at countering on-going Black Lives Matter protests. The 48-year old Reinoehl was shot and killed by Federal officers in the U.S. Marshals as part of what the New York Times called, “a federally led fugitive task force.” The Marshals put out a statement saying, “Initial reports indicate the suspect produced a firearm, threatening the lives of law enforcement officers…Task force members responded to the threat and struck the suspect who was pronounced dead at the scene.” The Times also explained that, “Mr. Reinoehl, who lived in the Portland area, had been a persistent presence at the city’s demonstrations over recent weeks, helping the protesters with security and suggesting on social media that the struggle was becoming a war where ‘there will be casualties.’” Just a day before Reinoehl’s killing, Vice News published an interview with him where he admitted that he killed Danielson saying he had no choice.

In other news, 7 police officers in Rochester, New York have been suspended over the killing by asphyxiation of a Black man named Daniel Prude who was naked and defenseless in the middle of the street this past March. Prude’s last moments resemble a police lynching, as per a video of the incident. Public outrage over the brutal and shocking killing was aimed at the city mayor and other officials over their inaction for many months after Prude’s killing. At a protest on Thursday evening, police used what one witness called “an irritant” into the crowd. In New York City, where a crowd had gathered to protest Prude’s killing, a car drove through those that had gathered. According to the Guardian, “Video posted on social media showed the car jerking through the crowd with its horn blaring as demonstrators scream and scramble out of the way.” It has become a common tactic of opponents of racial justice to plow their cars through peaceful protests in a manner similar to the terrorist Islamic State. 

Meanwhile a new report on the mass Black Lives Matter protests that swept the nation this year shows that about 93% of those actions were peaceful and nonviolent. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday visited Kenosha, Wisconsin where police had shot a black man in the back 7 times paralyzing him. The former Vice President said that President Donald Trump “

FEATURING SHANE BURLEY – Dozens of activists are getting arrested in Portland, Oregon, seemingly every night as protests against police brutality continue. Days after a rightwing Trump supporter was fatally shot in Portland, the city has been pinpointed by the Trump administration as indicative of the breakdown in law-and-order plaguing Democrat-run cities. Even though Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is the target of protesters who are demanding that he resign, Trump now says he plans to cut off federal funding to Portland and other cities. 

Shane Burley, writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in ROAR Magazine, In These Times, Labor Notes, and make/shift. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is And How to End It. 

President Donald Trump in an interview in North Carolina on Wednesday advised voters of that state to vote twice—a clearly illegal action. He said voters should send in their ballots by mail and then try to vote in person on top of that. Voting twice is a felony in many states and, according to the New York Times, “constitutes the kind of voter fraud the president has railed against.” On Thursday Trump appeared to backtrack saying on Twitter that people should only vote in person after mailing in their ballot if they cannot verify that their mail-in ballot has been processed. He wrote, “go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE.” Meanwhile the nation’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General William Barr, in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer appeared unable to clarify the one-person-one-vote law that the nation is founded on. 

During the same CNN interview Mr. Barr echoed another mysterious and ludicrous claim by Trump that anarchists were “flying around the country” to make trouble. He made no mention of the Trump-supporting rightwing armed white vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse who are crossing state lines to shoot at protesters. Meanwhile Trump in a memo this week announced that he would be cutting federal funding for Democratic-run cities saying he was asking federal officials to identify “anarchist jurisdictions.” Elected officials slammed his move as “petty and divisive.” 

In other news, Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden headed to Kenosha, Wisconsin on Thursday two days after Trump’s trip there. Biden called for the Kenosha police officers who shot Jacob Blake to be charged and said he planned to meet Blake’s family. Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien ascribed the President’s lack of ethical boundaries to Biden, shockingly saying, “The president was there earlier in the week as the president of the United States. Vice President Biden is there today as a candidate, as a political candidate. This is not the time to be injecting politics into a really serious situation that president helped solve.” In fact, Trump’s trip to Kenosha resembled a massive governm...