Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday morning demanded that Democrats drop the matter of the 2-year long Special Counsel investigation. In a speech on the Senate floor he called it a, “Groundhog Day spectacle.” Democrat Chuck Schumer took to the floor immediately afterward and issued a strong counterpoint. 

Meanwhile, 450 former federal prosecutors signed on to a letter on Monday agreeing that President Donald Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice based on Mueller’s findings, if he were not president. The prosecutors have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations and say that anyone doing what Trump did would have resulted in felony charges of obstruction. It offers a strong rebuttal to Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s narrative of the Mueller report. On Tuesday former White House Counselor Don McGahn, whose testimony about Trump forms a large part of Mueller’s report on obstruction, formally refused Congress’ subpoena to testify. The White House just earlier ordered McGahn to defy Congress.

On Tuesday FBI Director Christopher Wray testified at a Congressional hearing and contradicted Attorney General Barr’s assertion that his agency had engaged in spying on the Trump campaign before the 2016 election.

Federal Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has officially refused Congress’ request for Trump’s tax returns, saying, “I have determined that the Committee’s request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.” Mnuchin has already missed two deadlines to deliver the information, which Congress has requested on the basis of a tax code law.

In other news, President Trump is making good on his threat to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%. Following his Sunday announcement of the tax hike his trade representative Robert Lighthizer on Monday declared that the tariffs would kick in this Friday, setting of full-blown fears among Americans businesses who worry they will be the ones hurt from his actions. The CEO of one company told CNN, “It’s very difficult to understand what the President is going to do by a business perspective. To spring it on us all at once like this is a very poor judgment on his part.” Additionally the US will begin imposing a 17.5% tariff on Mexican tomato imports starting Tuesday. The tariffs stem from a dispute over an anti-dumping investigation that has not been resolved. Mexico’s Deputy Economy Minister Luz Maria de la Mora said, “Mexican exporters will be affected, it’s going to affect their financial flows but that is going to be directly transferred to U.S. consumers.”

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FEATURING MAZIN QUAMSIYEH – Israel dropped hundreds of bombs on Gaza over the past several days in the worst violence since the 2014 war. At least 25 people have been killed including children and a pregnant woman.

Four Israelis were also killed after Palestinian militants returned fire with rockets. Newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the attacks and blamed Hamas as is the tradition. He and others have said that the violence was the result of two Israeli soldiers being shot on Friday.

Mazin Qumsiyeh has been on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities. He is now a professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. His books include Popular Resistance in Palestine and Sharing the Land of Canaan. He is founding director of the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability.

FEATURING MICHAEL J. THOMPSON – There is a tremendous irony in President Donald Trump’s use of his Twitter account to deny the science of global warming. The very means that he uses to communicate with millions of Americans is possible because of the same sort of reasoning through which climate scientists have declared a global emergency.

We are deeply dependent on the technologies ushered in by great scientific advances and yet our societies are succumbing to inherently irrational and anti-science positions – from climate denialism and a skepticism of vaccines, to a dismissive attitude towards scientists and science-based decisions in general.

Michael J. Thompson, professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at William Paterson University, founding editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture, and the author of four books and editor of eight books. He has edited the new book Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy: Defending Reason in a Free Society.

**This segment was originally broadcast on January 8, 2019.

President Donald Trump made a veiled threat on Twitter over the weekend implying that he ought to remain in power for two more years beyond his four-year term. Trump re-tweeted a post by evangelical leader Jerry Fallwell Jr. saying, “Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup,” referring to the Special Counsel’s investigation into the 2016 election. Trump later echoed this idea in a separate tweet saying, “they have stolen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.”

The idea that Trump might not respect the results of the 2020 election has been floated by several people including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who in an interview with the New York Times on Saturday warned that, “We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that.” Pelosi and other centrist Democrats have implied that only by appealing to centrist voters can Trump be beaten. She said, “Own the center left, own the mainstream.” Democrats have also been pursuing subpoenas on current and former Trump officials which the President has been resisting in line with the idea of unaccountable Presidential power. According to the Times, “The president seems energized by the confrontation, and he views the compliant Republican Senate majority — which is unlikely to convict him if the House brings impeachment proceedings — as a license to goad Ms. Pelosi’s team, according to two people familiar with the president’s thinking.”

On Sunday Trump also said that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not testify to Congress. He tweeted his constant wrongful assertion that the Mueller report exonerated him and added, “Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!” This is a reversal from his position on Friday when he told reporters that Mueller’s testimony was, “up to our attorney general.” Vermont Senator and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders shot back, “Sorry, Mr. President, you are not a dictator. In our democracy, when Congress calls on Robert Mueller to testify, he will testify.” Democratic Congressman David Cicilline who sits on the House Judiciary Committee publicly said, “we are aiming to bring Mueller in on the 15th, but nothing has been agreed to yet.” Meanwhile committee members plan to vote on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress this Wednesday after Mr. Barr refused to testify last week. And, Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen starts his 3-year prison sentence on Monday. Cohen was convicted for crimes related to the Special Counsel investigation and will serve his term in a federal prison in Otisville, New York, which has been dubbed, “one of “America’s 10 cushiest prisons.”

FEATURING RACHEL WEBER AND JOSEPH LEVINE – A panel discussion about free speech and Palestinian rights at the University of Massachusetts taking place May 4th has become yet another flashpoint in the fight to speak out freely on a contentious topic. Well known commentators like Linda Sarsour, Mark Lamont Hill, and Vijay Prashad were being advertised as speakers for the event which is called, “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech, and the Battle for Palestinian Rights.”

A panel on the backlash against pro-Palestinian voices itself ironically faced a backlash with a legal request to stop the panel from taking place. But a judge has just ruled that the First Amendment does not have an exception when it comes to discussing Palestinian rights. The lawsuit attempting to stop the panel is one of many such attempts to squash any and all discussion of Palestinian rights around the US.

 

Rachel Weber, Attorney based in Massachusetts, Joseph Levine, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Both are also members of Western Mass Jewish Voice for Peace. 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly in direct talks with House Judiciary Committee members about whether he will testify in front of Congress. The reports first emerged on NBC and ABC News based on sources in the Judiciary Committee, and come a day after Attorney General William Barr refused to testify to the same panel.

On Thursday the Washington Post reported that it had obtained a formal complaint letter from White House attorney Emmet Flood written to the Justice Department last month about the Special Counsel report. According to the Post in the letter, “Flood accused Mueller of exceeding his authority by spilling into public view a recitation of facts far more detailed than what is typically included in criminal indictments. He described the report as ‘prosecutorial curiosity — part ‘truth commission’ report and part law school exam paper.'” The letter asserts that Mueller should have exonerated President Donald Trump since it did not recommend prosecution. However, Mr. Mueller cited the Justice Department’s position that a sitting president cannot be indicted as the reason why he did not recommend prosecution.  

Meanwhile Trump said in a Fox News interview on Thursday that he was not willing to let former White House Counselor Don McGahn testify to Congress about his documented actions in the Mueller report. He also said he approved of Barr’s refusal to testify to the House Judiciary committee. And on Friday morning Trump had his first publicly known phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Mueller report was apparently among the things the two discussed. According to the Wall Street Journal, “White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation came up briefly and that the leaders said, ‘It’s over and there was no collusion,’ and it was time to move on.” Trump and Putin also discussed the situations in Venezuela and North Korea.

The latest jobs report is out and as per the Labor Department the economy added 263,000 jobs in the month of April – a larger number than the 190,000 that economists expected. The unemployment rate has fallen to a new low of 3.6%. But according to the New York Times, “As good as the dip in the unemployment rate looks, the factors behind it aren’t as hopeful as the headline number itself. There was a big drop in the number of people who said they were looking for work. The labor-force participation rate, which measures the share of people 16 and older who are employed or seeking a job, fell to 62.8 percent, from 63 percent in March.”

The US Senate on Thursday failed to override President Trump’s veto of a bill to end US support for Saudi Arabia’s devastating war on Yemen. The bill, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders had passed with all Democrats and several Republicans voting in favor and also passed the Democratic-controlled House.

FEATURING STEPHEN VITTORIA – The book authored last year by award winning journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal together with filmmaker Stephen Vittoria now has a companion book 2. Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, and Manifest Destiny is a series of three books and the first book, Dreaming of Empire was published in 2018. Just out is Book 2, subtitled America’s Favorite Pastime.

The ambitious book series explores the history of the United States and takes on the myth that the US is a beacon for freedom and democracy. It is a powerful antidote to the misguided nostalgia of Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” showcasing in visceral terms how racism, slavery, genocide, and terrorism have long been the basis of the American project.

Stephen Vittoria, award winning documentary filmmaker, whose films include Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary. He is the co-author with Mumia Abu Jamal of a series of three books, Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, Manifest Destiny. Book 1 was subtitled Dreaming of Empire and Book 2, just out now is subtitled America’s Favorite Pastime.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted on Thursday that Attorney General William Barr lied to Congress. During a news conference that took place shortly after Mr Barr was a no-show at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Pelosi said this to reporters.  Meanwhile the House Judiciary Committee met on Thursday morning despite the fact that Mr. Barr was a no-show. Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler slammed the Attorney General in his opening remarks.  Barr testified for 5 hours a day earlier in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee where he avoided taking responsibility for mischaracterizing Special Counsel Mueller’s report on the 2016 election. During that hearing Senator Mazie Hirono demanded that Mr. Barr resign. 

In other news Reuters published an exclusive report on Thursday showing how the US State Department in 2017 allowed the governments of seven or more foreign nations to rent condos in President Donald Trump’s New York property, without obtaining approval from Congress. The countries include Iraq, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Thailand and the European Union. According to Reuters, “The 1982 Foreign Missions Act requires foreign governments to get State Department clearance for any purchase, lease, sale, or other use of a property in the United States.” Through documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, the outlet found that, “in the eight months following Trump’s January 20, 2017 inauguration, foreign governments sent 13 notes to the State Department seeking permission to rent or renew leases in Trump World Tower. That is more solicitations from foreign governments for new or renewed leases in that building than in the previous two years combined.” The report gives new urgency to Congressional investigations of Trump’s violations of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution.

Trump’s pick for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, Stephen Moore, has withdrawn his name from consideration. Moore, a controversial conservative commentator known for making misogynist remarks, and with no financial experience, removed himself from consideration on Thursday. Lawmakers were concerned that Moore, who would have had the power to vote on setting interest rates for years, would have been loyal to Trump instead of remaining independent. The Federal Reserve this week refused to acquiesce to Trump’s demand that it lower interest rates.

The Trump administration on Wednesday formally requested that the entire Affordable Care Act be struck down. US Attorneys made their arguments in a case saying that the entire law, “should not be allowed to remain in effect.” Trump has promised that the GOP would introduce a better healthcare bill with lower premiums which would be introduced and voted on only after he was reelected.

FEATURING LINDSEY BOYLAN – When Lindsey Boylan, a former advisor to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to run for Congress challenging incumbent Democrat Jerrold Nadler, she received a threatening letter from a prominent party donor and activist. The donor said, “I am totally behind Nadler,” and added, “you may have seriously impaired any realistic chance to run for the other offices you were considering.”

Establishment Democrats were stunned last year when long-time incumbents Joe Crowley in New York and Mike Capuano in Massachusetts were toppled by first time primary challengers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley.

Now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has instituted new rules for vendors and consultants, barring them from working on primary campaigns against Democratic incumbents.

Follow Lindsey on twitter @Lindsey_Boylan.

Lindsey Boylan, former adviser to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and a candidate running for Congress in New York’s 10th district, mounting a primary challenge to incumbent Rep. Jerrold Nadler.

FEATURING LUCAS KOERNER – A US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela has failed. On Tuesday April 30th, opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has simply declared himself President, gathered in front of supporters along with another leader Leopoldo Lopez, and claimed that military generals were defecting from President Nicolás Maduro.

Tens of thousands of protesters were gathered in Caracas hoping for a downfall of Maduro’s government as US leaders like Vice President Mike Pence, and former Vice President Joe Biden, were tweeting their ardent support for the opposition. There have been violent clashes with government security forces.

But Maduro declared that the attempt to sway military generals had failed. Mass protests in support of his regime took place elsewhere in Caracas. In addition to the violence on the streets there is an information war taking place around Venezuela.

Lucas Koerner, Political analyst and editor at Venezuelanalysis.com, joining us from Caracas.