Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday morning announced that the US would be pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia. The treaty has been in place since 1987 and was the first such agreement between two countries that banned an entire class of weapons – missiles launched from the ground with the range of 300-3000 miles. For months President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to pull out of the treaty saying that Russia was in violation. On Friday Mr. Pompeo gave the required six-month notice for the end of the treaty. 

Just minutes after his announcement the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) released a statement urging, “Russia to use the remaining six months to return to full and verifiable compliance to preserve the INF Treaty.” Additionally it said NATO would take any, “steps necessary to ensure the credibility and effectiveness of the Alliance’s overall deterrence and defense posture.”

In other news, the new deadline for Congress and the President to fund the government for the rest of the year is February 15th and as of now there is no movement toward progress given Trump’s continued insistence on funding for a border wall. In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Trump called talks with Democrats, “a waste of time,”  and implied that he might simply turn to a declaration of a national emergency to obtain money for his wall.

Meanwhile the US Customs and Border Patrol agency announced that it had seized the biggest ever shipment of the opioid Fentanyl – nearly 254 pounds – from a truck of Mexican produce heading into Arizona. The drugs were apparently hidden in the floor of the tractor-trailer and discovered during a secondary scan after drug-sniffing dogs were suspicious. The total street value of the Fentanyl is about $3.5 million. There was also about $1.18 million worth of methamphetamine found in the drug bust. Trump, who has claimed that drugs and violence are pouring over the US-Mexico border proudly tweeted, “Our great U.S. Border Patrol Agents made the biggest Fentanyl bust in our Country’s history. Thanks, as always, for a job well done!” What has did not clarify is that the drug bust was not linked even remotely to the refugee crisis at the border. Most drugs that enter through the border are trucked in through official ports of entry and not smuggled in by individuals seeking asylum. Trump’s wall would have no impact on drugs hidden inside produce trucks.

Meanwhile US immigration courts have turned away hundreds of people who showed up for their scheduled government-issued appearances. It is part of an on-going phenomenon that immigrants arrive at courts with government documents in hand saying they should appear only to be told that they don’t have a scheduled appointment. In the latest instance courts are citing the government shutdown and harsh winter weather for the confusion over court dates.

Just one day after publicly insulting the intelligence department heads of his own administration Trump walked back his comments saying that the media had “misquoted” them. Trump had responded to the Senate Intelligence Committee testimonies of FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats by ranting on

FEATURING MARA EINSTEIN – The social media giant Facebook has had its fair share of criticism, from the role it played in fomenting polarizing and fake news ahead of the 2016 election to the ways in which it keeps tabs on users and scoops up personal data. But that criticism appears to be warranted, even after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to try to defend his practices.

In his op-ed, titled, “The Facts About Facebook,” Zuckerberg wrote, “We need your information for operation and security, but you control whether we use it for advertising.” Critics jumped to debunk his claims even as new reports emerged about a disturbing app that the company launched, to pay teenagers to spy on them.

Mara Einstein, Professor and Chair of Media Studies at Queens College, City University of New York, and an independent marketing consultant. She has been working in, or writing about, media and marketing for more than 25 years, and been an executive at NBC, MTV Networks, and at major advertising agencies. Dr. Einstein is the author of a number of books, including Black Ops Advertising: Native Ads, Content Marketing, and the Covert World Of the Digital Sell.

FEATURING JOHN PATRICK LEARY – Anybody who is struggling with unemployment in the US today knows that acquiring a job means “marketing” oneself to companies that are hiring. Being open to “flexible” hours, engaging in “creative,” and “innovative,” thinking, and developing a “personal brand,” are all considered essential to finding a way to make ends meet.

Where did this glossy language originate? And what do the words obscure about the reality of today’s capitalist job market?

John Patrick Leary, Associate Professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit. His earlier book is A Cultural History of Underdevelopment: Latin American in the US Imagination. His new book is called Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism.

The Polar Vortex slamming the Midwest with record breaking cold weather, has claimed at least 8 lives. Among them was a man who was shoveling snow and collapsed and then froze to death in his garage, and a University of Iowa student found frozen outside a school building. Hospital emergency rooms are inundated with frostbite cases. The cities of Minneapolis, Detroit, and Chicago opened “warming centers” for homeless people. Transportation came to a halt, including air, and rail, and schools were shut. In some places postal service was halted. The New York Times explained the dangers of instant frostbite: “Going gloveless for only a minute or two, in double-digit negative temperatures, left hands feeling numb, then clumsy and flipper-like, then white-hot with pain.” The worst of the low temperatures was expected on Wednesday night going into Thursday.  The Washington Post reported that, “Power outages roiled swaths of Wisconsin and Iowa, plunging thousands into a brief, unheated darkness.” To summarize, large swathes of the Midwest are experiencing temperatures normally felt at the Arctic Circle.

In other news, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell slammed the Democrats’ new anti-corruption, pro-democracy bill on Wednesday. In particular he viewed the section of the bill calling for election day to be a federal holiday, as a “power grab.”  Democratic Representative Ted Lieu tweeted in response, “I’m sort of happy that McConnell fears making election day a federal holiday. It’s such a frank acknowledgement that the GOP’s ideas are not accepted by the majority of American voters.” He added, “Any party that is scared of people exercising the right to vote, will eventually be doomed.”

A new report has found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been force-feeding six detained undocumented immigrants using nasal feeding tubes, that have been on hunger strike for a month. ICE Agents at an El Paso, Texas, detention center told Associated Press that nearly a dozen detainees have been refusing to eat, some of them for more than a month. A man named Amrit Singh, whose two nephews are from Punjab, India, and among those being force-fed said, “They are not well. Their bodies are really weak, they can’t talk and they have been hospitalized, back and forth…They want to know why they are still in the jail and want to get their rights and wake up the government immigration system.” Additionally Associated Press reported that,  “Detainees who reached the AP, along with a relative and an attorney representing hunger strikers, said nearly 30 detainees from India and Cuba have been refusing to eat, and some are now so weak they cannot stand up or talk.” There are apparently more hunger-striking detainees in other facilities around the country.

Reuters on Wednesday reported on the Foxconn manufacturing group that President Donald Trump had proudly touted as proof that he was bringing jobs back to the US. Foxconn has received huge subsidies from local and state sources in ...

FEATURING KEVIN MARTIN – The heads of several US intelligence agencies gave testimonies to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday directly contradicting the foreign policy positions of President Donald Trump and his administration. The officials included FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

All three contradicted the positions that Trump has taken on Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Syria. Most strikingly, they made no mention of the US-Mexico border – which Trump has constantly touted as the greatest national security threat facing the US.

President Trump angrily ranted on Twitter against the intelligence heads for contradicting him, saying, “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

Read Jon Rainwater’s article on Venezuela HERE.

Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action and convener of the Korea Peace Network.

FEATURING TODD MILLER – Before climate change was a tangible reality, social scientists predicting the impacts of a warming planet visualized mass movements of climate refugees on the move fleeing rising sea levels. Today, that moment is already here. The idea of climate refugees is not theoretical anymore.

In tandem with increasing numbers of displaced people more and more governments are building walls and focusing on border security rather than mitigating the causes of climate change.

Todd Miller, researcher and writer focusing on immigration and border issues. He has worked with groups like BorderLinks, Witness for Peace, and NACLA and is the author of Border Patrol Nation. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, Mother Jones, the Nation, Al Jazeera English, and Salon. His new book is called Storming The Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security.

** This segment was originally broadcast on November 20, 2017.

The heads of several US intelligence agencies gave testimonies to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday directly contradicting the foreign policy positions of President Donald Trump and his administration. The officials included FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Together they emphasized that North Korea will not denuclearize in spite of assurances it has given to the satisfaction of the Trump government; and, that Russia remains a threat to US alliances even though Trump has continually sought good relations with Moscow. The Intelligence officers also said that the Islamic State remains a threat despite Trump’s claims that it has been defeated, and that the Iran nuclear deal was working – a deal that President Barack Obama had negotiated and that Trump was dismantling. Most strikingly, they made no mention of the US-Mexico border – which Trump has considered the greatest national security threat. 

President Trump angrily ranted on Twitter against the intelligence heads for contradicting him in more than 5 separate typo-filled tweets on Wednesday morning. On Iran he said, “The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different…” Trump then added, “They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday introduced an amendment to a bill that would acknowledge, “al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to us here at home.” McConnell directly contradicted Trump on the President’s desire to ends the wars in Syria and Afghanistan, saying that his amendment, “would recognize the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan.” On Tuesday the New York Times published a report saying that most Republican lawmakers were at odds with Trump on foreign policy. Journalist Peter Baker summarized, “They think pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan would be a debacle. They think North Korea cannot be trusted. They think the Islamic State is still a threat to America. They think Russia is bad and NATO is good.”

In other news, the US began enacting a new policy of sending asylum seekers to Mexico to await the processing of their cases in what Associated Press called, “one of the most dramatic changes to the U.S. immigration system of Donald Trump’s presidency, if the policy survives an anticipated legal challenge.” The new policy has been introduced quietly and with no fanfare. The first person to be subjected to it was a 55-year old Honduran man named Carlos Gomez who was returned to Tijuana on Tuesday. Mexico’s government has said they would only accept asylum seekers on a case-by-case basis. On Monday, a spokesperson for the Mexican government, Roberto Velasco Alvarez,

FEATURING DR. STEPHEN ZUNES – Democratic Presidential contender Kamala Harris is launching her campaign with a bang. After a massive gathering over the weekend in Oakland, California she headed to the key electoral state of Iowa. While there is much media coverage of her positions on domestic issues like healthcare and gun control, there’s not so much emphasis on her foreign policy record. Now, Middle East expert and writer Stephen Zunes has published a new analysis entitled, ‘More AIPAC Than J Street’: Kamala Harris Runs to the Right on Foreign Policy,’ detailing in particular her uncritical backing of Israel over Palestinian human rights.

Like many liberal Democrats, Harris appears to be “progressive except for Palestine.” In fact, a number of prominent Democratic operatives have formed a new pro-Israel lobby group whose goal will be to keep the Democratic Party firmly behind Israel. The newly formed organization is called Democratic Majority for Israel, and according to the New York Times it, “is planning to wage a campaign to remind elected officials about what they call the party’s shared values and interests with one of America’s strongest allies.” The group was formed out of concern that a number of younger and more liberal members of the party are increasingly pro-Palestinian.

Read Stephen Zunes’ article HERE.

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. He recently published an article in Foreign Policy in Focus entitled ‘More AIPAC Than J Street’: Kamala Harris Runs to the Right on Foreign Policy.

FEATURING MANDY SMITHBERGER – Outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis was replaced at the beginning of this year by his Deputy Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan. Shanahan, until as recently as 2017, was a high-level executive at Boeing corporation – one of the leading weapons manufacturers in the US. In fact he worked at Boeing for 30 years.

There has always been a revolving door between arms manufacturers and the US government. But under President Donald Trump, has that revolving door been spinning out of control?

Read the article by Smithberger HERE.

Mandy Smithberger director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker announced on Monday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was close to being completed. He also said that some of Mueller’s decisions would be reviewed by the Justice Department – a statement that rattled some Democrats.  Just hours earlier a bi-partisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to require Special Counsel Mueller to summarize his findings in a public report for Congress. Meanwhile news broke on Tuesday that Roger Stone, a long-time associate of the President, has entered a not-guilty plea in charges brought against him by the Special Counsel.

Whitaker also announced on Monday new charges brought against the Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Huawei and its chief financial officer Meng Wangzhou – who was arrested by Canadian authorities on December 1st.  The DOJ’s charges include bank and wire fraud, and violating sanctions on Iran.  The Chinese government has been pressuring US and Canadian authorities to drop the charges and free CFO Ms. Meng who remains in Vancouver, Canada. Canadian authorities have formally received an extradition request for her from the US. A Chinese government spokesperson said, “For some time, the U.S. has used its government power to discredit and crack down on specific Chinese companies in an attempt to stifle their legitimate operations…We strongly urge the U.S. to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, including Huawei, and treat Chinese companies objectively and fairly.”

Meanwhile the US and China are expected to start a new round of trade talks this week with a top Chinese trade negotiator arriving in Washington on Tuesday. Although the Huawei charges are considered separate from the trade negotiations, they are likely to set the tone for talks and have worried many US business representatives that are counting on a favorable trade agreement. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that will jump from 10% to 25% by March 1st unless some sort of deal is reached. The chief US negotiator Robert Lighthizer has explained that his main goal is to stop the Chinese government from unfairly subsidizing Chinese corporations and to crack down on intellectual property theft of technological secrets. Expectations for progress on this week’s talks are low.

In other news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invited Trump to deliver his State of the Union address on February 5th – a week later than the traditional date. In a letter sent to the White House on Monday, Pelosi wrote, “When I wrote to you on January 23rd, I stated that we should work together to find a mutually agreeable date when government has reopened to schedule this year’s State of the Union address. In our conversation today, we agreed on February 5th.” Mr. Trump replied just hours later writing, “It is my great honor to accept. We have a great story to tell and yet, great goals to achieve!” Pelosi had cited the government shutdown as a reason for postponing the address.

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company as part of the latest tactic to push President Nicolas Maduro out of power. The US along with several other countries has recognized a 35-year old oppositio...