FEATURING PETER JAN HONIGSBERG – Eighteen years ago the first of what would become nearly 800 men were processed at the US-run detention facility in Guantanámo, Cuba, as so-called “enemy combatants.” Today, 40 men remain incarcerated without being charged and most will likely die there. About 740 have been released, most of them never charged with any crimes. 

Having interviewed more than 150 former detainees, their family members, prison guards, chaplains, attorneys, and others involved in Guantanámo, my guest Peter Jan Honigsberg tells the sordid tale of that American gulag in a new book A Place Outside the Law: Forgotten Voices From Guantánamo.

Peter Jan Honigsberg, Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco School of Law, founder and director of Witness to Guantanamo and and author of the new book A Place Outside the Law: Forgotten Voices From Guantánamo.

FEATURING EMILIANA (EMI) GUERECA – Three years ago hundreds of thousands of mostly women gathered on the streets of cities around the country and even outside the US for the Women’s March. Coming just as President Donald Trump was getting ready to be inaugurated, the Women’s March was a massive show of resistance to what Trump and his anti-woman agenda represented. While Washington DC was inundated with marchers, the largest march of the day was actually in Los Angeles, California. 

Since then the Washington DC based Women’s March has been plagued with controversy as some founders stepped back when accused of anti-Semitism. But the march continues to be held every year in DC, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. 

Emiliana (Emi) Guereca, President of the Women’s March Foundation.

The US Senate formally opened its impeachment trial on Thursday with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts being sworn in to preside over what will be only the third time in US history that a president is tried in the Senate. A day of rituals around impeachment played out as the House impeachment managers that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had named, carried the two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the floor of the Senate to be read in their entirety. Once at the Senate, Congressman Adam Schiff, who is leading the House impeachment team, read the articles out to Senators. Senators are also expected to be sworn in individually pledging to do “impartial justice” in the impeachment trial. Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, who has openly promised anything but impartial justice, has said that the trial will begin “in earnest” next week. Top GOP Senator Lindsey Graham has also expressed his disdain for the process saying on Fox News on Wednesday that, “the best thing for the American people is to end this crap as quickly as possible.”

As the Senate trial formally begins, the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog group, made Trump’s defense even weaker announcing on Thursday morning that the White House’s withholding of US military aid to Ukraine without Congressional approval was illegal. The GAO formally issued its opinion that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) violated the Impoundment Control Act. The GAO statement also contended that, “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.”

At the same time, an associate of Trump’s personal attorney, Lev Parnas, has been giving interviews to media claiming that he acted in concert with Rudy Giuliani and President Trump to pressure Ukraine for political dirt on Joe Biden. Mr. Parnas gave an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night Parnas also spoke with the New York Times saying, “My biggest regret is trusting so much…I thought I was being a patriot and helping the president,” he said, adding that he “thought by listening to the president and his attorney that I couldn’t possibly get in trouble or do anything wrong.”

Among the documents that Parnas’s attorney turned over to House investigators this week was evidence showing that former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovytch was being illegally surveilled. Now Congress is demanding documents from the State Department to verify the surveillance and the government of Ukraine has opened its own investigation into the matter. 

Just before the Senate impeachment trial began on Thursday,

FEATURING JEFF COHEN – Tuesday night’s Democratic debate with six of the top candidates vying for voters hearts and minds, was the last one before the Iowa caucuses. As Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders surged ahead in polls in spite of corporate media’s negative coverage or lack of coverage, he continued to be targeted on Tuesday night – not as much by his fellow candidates but by the hosts from CNN and the Des Moines Register. 

Among the issues that came up was Senator Elizabeth Warren’s assertion that Sanders privately told her in 2018 a woman couldn’t win the White House. Although there was some tension between the two candidates neither appeared to take CNN’s bait directly. CNN continued to echo right wing talking points on the other issues that were raised including on foreign policy, trade, and healthcare.  

Jeff Cohen, media critic, writer and retired journalism professor at Ithaca College. He founded the media watch group FAIR, as well as the group Rootsaction.org.

FEATURING PETER WARD – Under President Donald Trump, the militarization of outer space has made a big jump with the recent formal creation of Space Force – an idea that started out as almost a joke during a Trump speech. Now, with bipartisan support the US military has a foothold in space. But beyond militarization, the realm of outer space has long been sought by commercial interests. Some of the world’s richest men such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been openly eyeing expansion into space. Now, a new book critiques our rush to commercial the skies above us. 

Peter Ward, journalist whose work has appeared in GQ, Bloomberg, The Economist, and Newsweek. His new book is The Consequential Frontier: Challenging the Privatization of Space. SP

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named 7 impeachment managers to act as prosecutors in next week’s Senate trial against President Donald Trump. The impeachment legal team named by Pelosi will be headed by California Democrat and chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff. Among the managers Pelosi named are House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, as well as Representatives Zoe Lofgren of California, Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Val B. Demings of Florida. First term Congressmembers Jason Crow of Colorado and Sylvia R. Garcia of Texas are also on the team. 

On the same day Democrats introduced new evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing provided by Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, showing the extensive work that Parnas and Giuliani did on the matter of pressuring Ukraine to investigate Trump’s rival Joe Biden. Parnas and another Giuliani associate Igor Fruman were arrested last year trying to leave the US and charged with campaign finance violations. A court approved the turning over of Parnas’ documents to the House impeachment investigators. The Washington Post put the new documents in context saying, “Giuliani explicitly states that he was representing Trump ‘as a private citizen, not as the president of the United States,’ and also that Giuliani was carrying out this mission with Trump’s ‘knowledge and consent.’ That confirms in Giuliani’s own words that his scheme was geared toward satisfying Trump’s personal interests, even as Giuliani was in effect carrying out U.S. foreign relations with an ally. Our national interests were subverted to Trump’s own, at Trump’s explicit direction.” Among the documentary evidence was an indication that former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch was being surveilled by a Trump supporter. Her lawyers have now demanded that the issue be investigated.

In other news President Trump signed a trade deal with China on Wednesday morning, a deal he had touted for many months as retaliatory tariffs hurt American farmers. The agreement apparently has 8 parts and includes the US backing down on tariffs on Chinese goods and China’s commitment to buying certain American goods for the next two years. It also addresses the intellectual property theft that American companies have accused China of engaging in. It remains to be seen if the deal addresses the long-term issues that have plagued US-China business relations and if China will keep its commitments. Trump on Wednesday morning hailed the deal in his usual bombastic style.

Six Democrats faced off on Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa, in the last debate of the election year before primary election season. The debate, hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register, started off focusing on the Iran conflict. The debate hosts quickly moved to focusing on a spat between Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders about Warren’s claim that Sanders privately told her a woman could not win the White House.

FEATURING CRAIG HOLMAN – As the House readies its two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to be sent to the US Senate many questions persist about how the Republican-dominated Senate will conduct an impeachment trial. In a blistering statement released a day before the House vote to send the articles to the Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of engaging in a cover-up. 

Although some Republicans, and most notably Trump, have demanded a quick dismissal of the impeachment, the GOP may not have the 51 votes needed. If the Senate does conduct a trial – as is constitutionally required – what would it look like? Would there be witness testimonies and would McConnell closely coordinate with the White House as he promised, instead of remaining an impartial juror?

Read the Public Citizens’ petition for the Senate for a fair Impeachment trial HERE.

Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics, lobbying and campaign finance rules.

FEATURING TAMIM ANSARY – We live in an increasingly globalized world, connected by digital communication and more aware than ever of the rest of humanity. But maybe our current world order is not so different from what went before. In a sweeping new book, acclaimed writer Tamim Ansary attempts to make sense of human history through our understanding of one another and ourselves. He points out that seemingly disconnected historical events were in fact linked to one another. And that today, although we may be more connected than ever, we are also limited by our world views and remain siloed by religion, culture, geography and more. 

Tamim Ansary, the acclaimed and award-winning author of West of Kabul, East of New York, Destiny Disrupted, and Games Without Rules. His new book is called The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000 Years History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection.

The House of Representatives will hold a vote on Wednesday to transmit two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the US Senate for a trial, and name the House impeachment managers. In a statement released Tuesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “The Senate GOP Leader has signed on to a dismissal resolution.  A dismissal is a cover-up. The American people will fully understand the Senate’s move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up.  Leader McConnell and the President are afraid of more facts coming to light.” However it is likely that Republicans will not have the required 51 votes in the Senate to dismiss the impeachment despite President Trump’s demand for a quick end to the trial. GOP Senator Roy Blunt said, “I don’t think there’s any interest on our side of dismissing.” According to the Washington Post, “Republicans were maneuvering behind the scenes about the vexing issue of witnesses as former national security adviser John Bolton said last week that he would be willing to testify if he receives a Senate subpoena.”

Senate Republicans are facing pressure from their own party on the impeachment issue. A GOP group critical of Trump called The Lincoln Project has targeted senators like Cory Gardner of Colorado with a critical ad. The ad refers to the GOP Senator as, “just another Trump servant: weak, frightened, impotent.” Meanwhile Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is himself central to the series of events in the impeachment articles, is reportedly desperate to join the President’s defense team. Huffington Post reports that the White House legal team told Giuliani, “thanks, but no thanks.” In other impeachment news, the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma that Trump was fixated with, has apparently been hacked by Russian spies. The same Russian organization called GRU that has been implicated in interfering with the 2016 US election, gained access to Burisma’s files. And, the US Energy department will begin releasing correspondence between former Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Ukrainian officials in response to a lawsuit filed by an ethics group. 

In electoral news, CNN is coming under fire for publishing what critics say is a “hit piece” against Vermont Senator and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The outlet, that has been generally critical of Sanders, published an article on Monday headlined, “Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in private 2018 meeting that a woman can’t win, sources say.” Writing for the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, journalist Dave Lindorff countered, that the, “journalistically shoddy” piece never used the word “allegedly” to make its dubious claims and did not actually use sourc...

FEATURING REESE ERLICH – Iranians are protesting their government after it admitted to mistakenly downing a passenger plane last week carrying 176 people. More than a hundred of the fatalities were of Iranian nationals. The downing of the plane came just after the US targeted a top Iranian military general in Iraq, Qassem Soleimani in a provocative show of force that pushed both countries to the brink of war. The Trump administration’s justification for the air strike was a claim of an Iranian plan to target of US Embassies but now that assertion is unraveling. A majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the crisis.  

Read Reese Erlich’s article ‘Foreign Correspondent: Trump Blinks, but the Iran Conflict Continues,’ HERE.

Reese Erlich, veteran foreign correspondent and author of a number of books about the Middle East and war on terror, including Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect. His latest book is called The Iran Agenda Today. His twice-monthly column called Foreign Correspondent appears in The Progressive.