Sott Radio Network

Senator John 'The Maverick' McCain III is dead. This week on NewsReal, Joe and Niall look back on the illustrious career of an American hero and titan of US politics, whose indelible contributions to the War Party over four decades have earned him a place in the pantheon of Exceptionalistan. Also this week: 'revelations' in two court cases stemming from the Mueller investigation produced a terrible week for President Trump, spurring the media to again go all out with calls for his...

Renowned neuroscientist Antonio Damasio's newest book, The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures, makes some revolutionary claims. All organisms with nervous systems have consciousness. Feeling-based images are at the root all human experience. Consciousness would be impossible without feelings, which provide the subjective experience of homeostasis - a biological state of order that aims toward the future. Culture is rooted in feeling and is the complex means by...

Post-9/11, the 'Global War on Terror' and the US-led wars in the Middle East produced foreseeable consequences, chief among which was the displacement of millions of people, many of whom relocated as far away as western Europe and north America. While this was going on, political movements sprang up in reaction to the terrorism and the mass immigration, with the target of that reaction being Islam and Muslims. The result, in just a short period of time, has been a 'perfect storm' of social...

Random mutations. Natural selection. Time. According to the neo-Darwinian conception of evolution, this is all it takes. But there's a problem. In fact, there are several. No one has been able to demonstrate this model in the lab. Random mutations are either neutral or fatal to the organisms in which they occur. But natural selection only works on traits that are already there. So how to the new traits get there? How does genetic mutation actually occur? As shown in lab experiments, it is...

There's the old adage that money does not buy everything. But looking at the state of the world today, it seems the adage hasn't been taken to heart by the majority on our planet. The corruption of science, our food and agriculture systems, the medical establishment, industry - virtually everywhere you look, the worship of the almighty dollar takes precedence over the worthy goal of bettering human and planetary life. But for some, money does not buy a clear conscience. There are many...

Are you 'woke'? Besides it being grammatically-incorrect, what does this term mean to you? We have to ask because in these times of raging polemic about social justice, identity politics, and cultural values, it's become apparent that what it is to be 'woke' means different things to different people... This week on NewsReal, Joe & Niall discuss being 'awake and aware' in a world riven by ardent commitment to ideology, and consider where it'll likely all lead to. Running Time: 01:04:11...

Traditionally a male institution, the last decades have seen the rise of policies that push for equal inclusion of women in all areas of military service. But they're not working, for some strange reason. Men still dominate militaries all over the world, including in western democracies. This has led to charges of systemic discrimination, misogyny and toxic masculinity. But no worry, the gender activists have the solution: affirmative action, including special woman-only incentives to...

Shortly after being exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave a series of talks in the U.S. and UK. Those talks, including his Harvard Address of 1978, caused many in the West to turn against him. Once the hero of the anti-Communist movement in the West, his criticisms of Western culture, including its materialism, legalism, shallowness and cowardice, cut a little too close to the bone. His warning to the West - that we are in a weak enough state to...

Race is a hotbed topic that many people continue to tiptoe around (mainly out of fear of being labeled a racist or an Uncle Tom). White privilege, police shootings, the Black Lives Matter movement, strident calls for 'diversity' and 'inclusion', race-baiting, seeing racism everywhere, affirmative action, racial sensitivity training, racial equity policies -- in today's political and social environment issues surrounding race have become more polarizing than ever. We're not living in a...

The election last week of Imran Khan as Pakistan's new prime minister is the latest political upset to rock 'the establishment' across many countries in recent years. Derided as a 'populist', Khan leads a new movement that is socially conservative, economically 'leftist', and ultimately nationalist. From Mexico's AMLO to Malaysia's Mahathir, 'Trumps' are coming to power all over the world. Whatever their political background, the one thing they have in common is an essential patriotism that...