FEATURING CLAIRE BROWN – This week’s Amazon Prime Day was declared a whopping success for the online retail giant, surpassing sales from Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and even previous Prime Day sales. The sales were so thick and fast that they shut down the company’s website for a time. In the same week Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was declared the richest man in history now worth an obscene $150 billion dollars.

Meanwhile as Bezos and his fellow corporate executives were celebrating their riches on the other side of the world, Amazon workers in Europe were on strike calling attention to the low wages and poor working conditions they have to suffer through.

Claire Brown is a staff writer for the New Food Economy focusing on food policy and the environment. Her reporting has won awards from the Newswomen’s Club of New York and the New York Press Club.

FEATURING JOE DINKIN – Former Senator Joe Lieberman published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday headlined, “Vote Joe Crowley, for Working Families.” The incendiary title was followed by the claim that, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hurts the party, Congress and even America.”

The 28-year old Ocasio-Cortez stunned the nation when she beat long-time top Democrat Joe Crowley in New York’s primary race. The Democratic Socialist has put forward a bold agenda that includes Medicare-for-All, and other solidly progressive demands.

But Lieberman may be echoing establishment Democrats who see Ocasio-Cortez as anathema. Could Crowley actually retain his seat as a Working Families Party candidate and how does he even remain on the ballot in New York?

For more information visit www.workingfamilies.org.

Joe Dinkin, Working Families Party National Communications Director.

A new firestorm has broken out over President Trump’s Monday meeting in Helsinki with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. On Wednesday Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House was considering an offer from Putin to help with the Mueller investigation and in exchange would get the chance to interrogate some Americans including former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. At the Monday press conference this is President Trump referring to Putin’s offer.

On Wednesday this is how Press Secretary Sanders responded to a reporter asking if Trump would hand over Americans to Russia for interrogation. 

The Washington Post reported that, “The willingness of the White House to contemplate handing over a former U.S. ambassador for interrogation by the Kremlin drew ire and astonishment from current and former U.S. officials. Such a proposition is unheard of. So is the notion that the president may think he has the legal authority to turn anyone over to a foreign power on his own.”

Ambassador McFaul tweeted angrily, “Hey WH press Corps, can you confirm tomorrow with @PressSec that Putin discussed me personally in his one on one with Trump? Did he suggest that I was part of some alleged money laundering scheme? And did Trump push back on this completely invented, whacko idea?”

Meanwhile, in an interview broadcasting Thursday, Trump was asked by CBS News who he would like to run against in 2020 when he’s up for re-election. Trump responded, “I dream about Biden.” The former two-term Vice President is among a handful of Democrats posturing for a 2020 run including former Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.

On Wednesday the Republican-controlled Senate voted to confirm Andrew Oldham as a lifetime federal judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oldham, who was nominated by Trump, faced criticism from more than 200 civil rights organizations over his record on restricting voting rights and his poor record on discrimination cases. When asked if he agreed with the 1954 school desegregation case Brown Vs. Board of Education Oldham shockingly refused to answer. The Leadership Conference on Human and Civil rights wrote a strongly worded letter to the Senate saying, “Refusing to say whether this most important of cases, which established so many of the rights that we enjoy today, was properly decided should completely disqualify a nominee seeking a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.” But every single Republican voted to confirm him nonetheless. According to the Huffington Post, “Oldham is Trump’s 23rd confirmed circuit judge ― a massive number for a president only 18 months into his first term. At this point in their presidencies, Barack Obama had nine of his circuit court nominees confirmed, George W. Bush had 16.”

Progressive members of Congress are forming a Medicare-for-All caucus today with 60 members. Vice News first reported the caucus on Wednesday saying, “The caucus is expected to have over 60 founding members, or approximately one-third of all the 193 House Democrats with more expected to sign on in the coming weeks. More could join following the 2018 midterms with many Democratic challengers embracing Medi...

FEATURING HANNAH COMSTOCK – The ACLU of Southern California has filed a class-action lawsuit against Riverside County for a bizarre student disciplinary program called the Youth Accountability Team or YAT.

Founded more than 17 years ago, the YAT is run by the Riverside County Probation Department and was apparently meant to help at-risk youth stay in school. But the program’s punitive measures end up criminalizing children for such things as bad grades and acting out.

The suit was filed on behalf of three young people who have been targeted by the program as well as a youth mentoring program called Sigma Beta Xi which works with youth of color in Riverside. Not surprisingly the Riverside County YAT program disproportionately targets black and brown children.

Many have denounced YAT as facilitating the school-to-prison pipeline. The ACLU goes further calling it “oppressive” and “unconstitutional.”

Hannah Comstock, Attorney with ACLU, Loyola Law School Postgraduate Public Interest Fellow.

FEATURING JUAN ESCALANTE – A devastating report on the conditions facing undocumented children and families under the Trump’s administration’s harsh policies has been filed in court as part of an on-going case over whether the government violated the 1997 Flores Settlement. The report culled interviews with more than 200 parents and children that had been held in detention in border states in June and July.

Peter Schey, an attorney representing some of the children said, “They have spoken out loud and clear, and what they’ve said is they are experiencing enforced hunger, enforced dehydration, enforced sleeplessness. They are terrorized, and I think it is time for the courts and the public to hear their voices.”

Meanwhile the Trump administration has still not finished reuniting all children under the age of 5 as per a judge’s order to do so by a deadline that has already passed. The next major deadline to reunite older children is July 26th. That group is at least 2,000 strong.

Juan Escalante,is the immigration correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali and he’s the Communications Manager with America’s Voice and a DACA recipient.

President Donald Trump this morning is defending his performance in Helsinki, Finland on his Twitter feed. In one tweet he said, “So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki. Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!”

But only a day earlier Trump had attempted to walk back his position on believing Russian President Vladimir Putin over his intelligence agencies findings. The President said that during the now-infamous press conference in Helsinki he misspoke. After massive pushback from his own party he said, “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t, or why it wouldn’t be Russia'” instead of “why it would.” Trump made no attempt to correct all the other instances where he sided with Mr. Putin.

He also tried to revise his position on the election-related investigations albeit with a caveat, saying, “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place…It could be other people also. A lot of people out there. There was no collusion at all.”

Trump is celebrating the win in Alabama of a candidate he backed in a special election that took place Tuesday. Representative Martha Roby, who had denounced Trump and then embraced him, won a Republican primary against the Democrat-turned-Republican Bobby Bright.

Meanwhile James Comey the former FBI Director that Trump had fired, posted a serious endorsement for Democrats despite the fact that he has been a Republican for a long time. Comey tweeted, “This Republican Congress has proven incapable of fulfilling the Founders’ design that “Ambition must … counteract ambition.” All who believe in this country’s values must vote for Democrats this fall. Policy differences don’t matter right now. History has its eyes on us.”

Five potential witnesses in the government’s case against Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort are requesting immunity. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has asked a federal judge in Virginia to grant immunity to the witnesses who say they won’t speak without it. Mr. Mueller is preparing for a high-profile tax fraud trial against Manafort who remains incarcerated.

Former President Barack Obama gave a speech in Johannesburg, South Africa on Tuesday on what would have been Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday. During the speech Obama noted the, “strange and uncertain,” times we live in  and that, “each day’s news cycle is bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines.” Here is Obama’s veiled reference to Trump and Trumpism. 

In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May is slowly rebuilding her power base after a crisis over the Brexit negotiations led to two ministers resigning from her government. In a vote on Tuesday a bill that would have allowed Britain to join a “European customs union” failed by 3 votes. Now, according to AP, “The bill gives the government the power to set up new international trade relationships after Britain leaves the EU next March. The win is the second for May in two days, as her government avoided defeat in Parliament on a separate bill.”

Back here in the US,

FEATURING CRAIG AARON – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cast doubt on an impending merger between Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media. On Monday FCC chairman Ajit Pai unexpectedly announced that he had “serious concerns” about the nearly $4 billion deal. Mr Pai, who has overseen a pro-corporate agenda at the FCC that includes eviscerating net neutrality, may now hold a hearing on the deal.

His move comes just days after activists with organizations like Free Press delivered 600,000 signatures on a petition opposing the Sinclair-Tribune merger.

Craig Aaron, President and CEO of Free Press, and a leading advocate in the fight to preserve net neutrality. He is the editor of two books, Appeal to Reason: 25 Years of In These Times and Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age.

FEATURING RAHUL MAHAJAN – President Donald Trump has returned from his high-level summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to face harsh calls from both parties at home. At the summit in Helsinki, Finland, Trump publicly denied US intelligence agencies’ findings of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election and claimed that he believed Mr. Putin instead who has denied any wrong doing. Democrats were of course up in arms but this time it was Republican lawmakers that joined in with choruses of disapproval. And, some commentators even used the word “treason” to describe Trump’s actions.

What is not getting much attention are substantive issues such as US-Russia relations in the on-going Syria war. On Monday as Trump was apparently making progress toward ending the war in his talks with Putin, Russia was bombing civilian targets in Syria.

Rahul Mahajan is the US Foreign Policy and Empire Correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali. He’s the author of two books on the Iraq war: Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond and The New Crusade: America’s War on Terrorism. He also teaches sociology at University of Wisconsin, River Falls.

President Donald Trump has returned from his high-level summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to face harsh calls from both parties at home. At the summit in Helsinki, Finland, Trump publicly denied US intelligence agencies’ findings of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election and claimed that he believed Mr. Putin instead who has denied any wrong doing. But during their joint press conference Putin admitted he wanted Trump to win.

Trump, standing right next to Mr. Putin then strongly asserted he took Mr. Putin at his word and described the Russian President’s denials as “extremely strong and powerful.”

That was President Trump at yesterday’s summit in Helsinki with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Earlier at the same press conference a journalist who was credentialed by The Nation –  well known in progressive circles in the US as Sam Husseini – was forcibly removed by security guards. Husseini was holding an 8 x 10 sheet of paper with the words “Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty” when he was dragged out of the crowded room of journalists. Here is an NBC journalist’s description of what was happening. Husseini had been earlier circulating a petition calling for “secure elections and true national security” that we had covered on this program last week in an interview with Norman Solomon. Both Solomon and Husseini work for the Institute for Public Accuracy. No one in the media or Congress have raised the issue of the US and Russia refusing to sign the nuclear weapons ban treaty that was passed last year.

Meanwhile GOP lawmakers were horrified and many used strong language to describe Trump’s performance alongside Putin. Senator John McCain said, “No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it, “the most serious mistake of his presidency,” and former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said it was, “disgraceful and detrimental to our democratic principles.” Senator Jeff Flake who has been one of Trump’s strongest Republican critics said, “I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful.” And Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski said, “Sadly President Trump did not defend America to the Russian president, and for the world to see. Instead, what I saw today was not ‘America First,’ it was simply a sad diminishment of our great nation.” On Twitter former CIA director John Brennan even went as far as calling Trump’s behavior “nothing short of treasonous.”

Meanwhile a Russian woman named Maria Butina has been arrested in Washington DC. According to the Justice Department she is being charged with failing to register as a foreign agent after it was discovered that she had attempted to set up “back-channel” relationships between Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Later on today’s show we’ll delve into the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by Special Counsel ...

FEATURING DOROTHY GUERRERO – President Trump’s 4-day visit to the UK went about as badly as Trump had feared it would. After a year of avoiding an official visit given the planned mass protests, Trump visited the UK for the first time as President last week and stayed at his gold course in Glasgow through the weekend. Everywhere he went protesters attempted to get into his field of view.

In an interview with the British tabloid, the Sun, Trump shockingly criticized UK Prime Minister Theresa May right before his meeting with her. He claimed he gave her advice on how to negotiate a BREXIT deal but she didn’t listen to him. Then, in a CBS interview a few days later he admitted that the BREXIT issue was quite a bit more complicated than he thought.

Linked to BREXIT is a possible US-UK trade deal that Trump initially claimed was off before he predictably changed his mind and said in another interview, “I think we’re going to have a great trade deal.” But groups like Global Justice Now are urging Prime Minister May to reject any trade deal.

Dorothy Guerrero, Head of Policy and Advocacy at the UK-based organization Global Justice Now.