The Scott Horton Show from The Libertarian Institute

Scott talks to Kevin Gosztola about day two of Julian Assange's extradition hearing. Gosztola covers some of the highlights of the day's proceedings, including witness testimony for Assange's defense, the main purpose of which was to emphasize the fact that Assange's behavior in running Wikileaks is not categorically different from any other journalistic practices as carried out by, say, the New York Times. Gosztola explains that the prosecution's main strategy seems to be to emphasize these newer supposed hacking charges, which, though specious, distract from the plain fact that the charges under America's Espionage Act are simply not credible.

Discussed on the show:

"Kevin Gosztola's Great Coverage of Assange Hearings" (The Libertarian Institute)

"9/7/20 Joe Lauria on Julian Assange's Show Trial" (The Libertarian Institute)

"The Guantanamo Files" (WikiLeaks)

"Kabul War Diary" (WikiLeaks)

"Baghdad War Diary" (WikiLeaks)

"State Department Cables" (WikiLeaks)

"WikiLeaks" (WikiLeaks)

Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture

Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." Follow him on Twitter @kgosztola.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIhxjAVPRLY

Joe Lauria gives an update on Julian Assange's extradition trial in the UK. The biggest piece of news from day one is that certain media outlets are reporting 17 new charges added to Assange's indictment, when in reality, there was simply a superseding indictment to add a little bit of new evidence, but which had to restate all of the original charges. Lauria explains that this new indictment is nothing more than a PR move, designed to elicit exactly this kind of false narrative that there's a whole slew of new charges. In reality, none of Assange's supposed crimes should stick—he's basically guilty of jumping bail to evade questioning in connection with the dubious sexual assault charges from 2010. Everything else about this trial, says Lauria, is for show, and in particular to allow the U.S. government to demonstrate what happens to people who publish things that they don't like.

Discussed on the show:

"The WikiLeaks Mole" (Rolling Stone)

"UN expert says "collective persecution" of Julian Assange must end now" (United Nations)

Joe Lauria is the editor-in-chief at Consortium News. He is a former UN correspondent and wrote at the Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal. You can follow him on Twitter @unjoe.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygNKKbVq87c

Scott interviews James Carden about his latest article, which explores the recent return of many prominent neocons to the Democratic Party in opposition to Trump. Carden reminds us that during the 1960s a group of hawkish Democrats moved over to side with the Republicans in response to some of the radical social movements in America at that time, thus founding the neoconservative movement. Now, as we near the end of Trump's first term, many of them are supporting Biden—and it's easy to see why, says Carden: Biden and Harris represent the exact same establishment foreign policy consensus shared by both Bushes, both Clintons, and Barack Obama. Sadly, even many progressives find themselves siding with the centrist establishment, since they will do anything to oppose Trump.

Discussed on the show:

"The Rotten Alliance of Liberals and Neocons Will Likely Shape U.S. Foreign Policy for Years to Come" (Public Seminar)

"Don't Look Now, but We May Be Re-Winning the War in Iraq" (National Review)

"Baghdad Delenda Est" (National Review)

"Israel's Friends at the RNC: 'Christian Zionists' Dictate the Agenda of the Republican Party" (Antiwar.com Original)

Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

"Groups didn’t disclose grants from Israeli government" (The Forward)

"The Bernie Sanders Doctrine on Foreign Policy" (Jacobin)

"Veterans doubt value of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan in new poll" (Military Times)

"Transcript: Joe Biden foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken on COVID shortfalls, failures in Syria" (CBS News)

"Jake Sullivan leaked Syria email" (WikiLeaks)

"Ghislaine Maxwell’s Nephew Worked At Hillary Clinton’s State Department" (Analyzing America)

James Carden is the executive editor for the American Committee for East-West Accord and former adviser on Russia policy at the US State Department. He is a contributing writer at The Nation.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDz_ncIs8UU

Gareth Porter discusses President Trump's foreign policy as we near the end of his first term. The story of Trump's time in office, as everyone knows, has been that despite his sense for the futility and unpopularity of America's endless wars, he, like Obama before him, hasn't been able to resist the pressures of the military-industrial complex and actually follow through with ending them. The news in Afghanistan is somewhat positive, where Trump has put Zalmay Khalilzad in charge of negotiating a U.S. withdrawal. But Porter is concerned that because there are no stipulations about peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban, any conflict between them could easily be used as an excuse for American troops to go back. In the opposite case, Trump has been absolutely horrible when it comes to Yemen, where he has helped Saudi Arabia wage a war of genocide, basically in exchange for weapons sales by American companies.

Discussed on the show:

An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan

"Yemen: 85,000 Children May Have Died from Starvation Since Start of War" (Save the Children)

"Report: Strategies of the Coalition in the Yemen War" (World Peace Foundation)

"Quiet Support for Saudis Entangles U.S. in Yemen" (The New York Times)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state. He is the author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare and, with John Kiriakou, The CIA Insider's Guide to the Iran Crisis. Follow him on Twitter @GarethPorter and listen to Gareth’s previous appearances on the Scott Horton Show.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2wP0HXcu6s

Scott interviews David Henderson about the threat to the U.S. posed by China's growing stature as an economic powerhouse. In general, Henderson thinks that such concerns are overblown, citing the real economic figures behind the trade relationship. In particular, he explains the way that losses from outsourcing tend to be concentrated to a few employees in a specific industry, whereas the (much larger) gains to are spread out over a whole population of consumers. This results in a skewed narrative that Americans are losing out on global trade with China. He also dispels the myth that America doesn't produce anything anymore, explaining that we produce the same amount as ever, just with many fewer workers. Henderson and Scott go on to discuss the prospects for war between the U.S. and China, a very real and concerning threat that is mitigated, at least to some extent, by an open economic relationship between the two nations.

Discussed on the show:

"Is China An Economic Threat?" (Hoover Institution)

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story

"TikTok Pot Luck | GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution" (YouTube)

"Testing the “China Shock”: Was Normalizing Trade with China a Mistake?" (Cato Institute)

"War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2007)" (IMDb)

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

"Special Report: Pentagon's latest salvo against China's growing might - Cold War bombers" (Reuters)

David R. Henderson is a Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey. Read his work at DavidRHenderson.com and AntiWar.com.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kSVhL5gv9A

Trevor Timm discusses an important new ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which says that the NSA's mass data-gathering program, famously exposed by Edward Snowden, was illegal all along. It also came out during the court proceedings that not a single act of terrorism was ever prevented by the program. This ruling is a major vindication of Snowden's decision, and may bring him one step closer to exoneration.

Discussed on the show:

"James Clapper denies lying to Congress about NSA surveillance program" (AP News)

"State Department Cables" (WikiLeaks)

"Afghan War Logs" (WikiLeaks)

Trevor Timm is a co-founder and the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. He is a journalist, activist, and lawyer whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today, The Atlantic, and many others. Follow him on Twitter @trevortimm.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9SBtkHJYmI

Ramzy Baroud shares the heartbreaking story of Ahmed Amarneh, an engineer who decided to build a home for his family in a network of caves near their town after getting repeatedly denied building permits for a real house by the Israeli government. Now that he has moved his family to the caves, Israel is threatening to demolish the entire cave system. The Amarnehs are not alone, says Baroud—if anything, their story is representative of the general trend of the Israeli government using every legal means possible to prevent Palestinians from living on land that is rightfully theirs, and in many cases even trying to force them out altogether. This kind of ethnic cleansing will probably continue until the West comes to its senses and stops defending the worst of Israel's human rights abuses.

Discussed on the show:

"‘People of the Cave’: Palestinians Take Their Fight for Justice to the Mountains" (CounterPunch.org)

Oslo Accords

"8/28/20 Alan MacLeod on the Tight Relationship Between the US and Israel" (The Libertarian Institute)

The Israel Project's Global Language Dictionary

"Biden forces try to debunk story that he threatened to cut aid to Israel over settlements– 38 years ago" (Mondoweiss)

"Opinion | For Israel and Palestine, Equality in a One-State Solution" (The New York Times)

Ramzy Baroud is a US-Arab journalist and is the editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: The Untold Story of Gaza and The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story. His new book is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons. Follow Ramzy on Twitter @RamzyBaroud and read his work at RamzyBaroud.net.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSwJgwiX6Gk

Gareth Porter debunks a series of bogus incidents in which Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, has accused various Lebanese men over the years of being Hezbollah agents attempting to orchestrate terrorist plots all around the world. In each of the cases that Porter explains, false evidence for the possession of ammonium nitrate was used to sell the idea that these men were trying to make bombs. And in the wake of the recent explosion in Beirut, Israel has been selling the old narrative even harder, citing the accidental explosion as proof that Hezbollah is more active than ever.

Discussed on the show:

After Beirut Blast, Israel Revives Tales of Hezbollah Ammonium Nitrate Terror Plots (The Grayzone)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state, and author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. Follow him on Twitter @GarethPorter and listen to Gareth’s previous appearances on the Scott Horton Show.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oy2A5LcOZA

Scott interviews Phil Weiss about the deplorable state of the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel policy. Weiss calls Joe Biden the most pro-Israel candidate of all time, which is somewhat ironic given that he's running against the most pro-Israel president of all time in Donald Trump. Unlike in the Republican base, where support for Israel enjoys near universal popularity, Weiss says that among Democratic voters support for Israel is actually very controversial. Generally the more establishment wing of the party, represented by candidates like Biden and Harris, is staunchly in favor of Israel, while the younger, more radical voters view Israeli occupation of Palestine as nothing short of a new apartheid. The Party may be able to hang together long enough to defeat President Trump, but Weiss predicts a major clash over this issue in the near future. Weiss feels certain that whenever the party changes its stance on Israel, Harris will be right there pretending like she's been on board the entire time.

Discussed on the show:

"Biden is most pro-Israel nominee ever" (Mondoweiss)

"Biden forces try to debunk story that he threatened to cut aid to Israel over settlements– 38 years ago" (Mondoweiss)

"The Democratic Party won’t be out-Israel'd this fall" (Mondoweiss)

"Munich (2005)" (IMDb)

"Jeffrey Epstein ‘Belonged to Intelligence’?" (WhoWhatWhy)

Philip Weiss is the long-time editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow him on Twitter @PhilWeiss.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq86DFqn_74

Alan MacLeod discusses a recent round of bombing by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, which as usual is either being completely ignored by mainstream media outlets, or is being described as justified retaliation for initial Palestinian aggression. MacLeod says that kind of language is consistently used by pro-Israel voices when trying to whitewash Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people. The extent of the dissimulation is so great that most Americans have no idea whatsoever of the real state of things for Palestinians, whom Scott describes as essentially living in open-air prisons. Unfortunately there's no end in sight for the current state of affairs, given that Trump and Biden are two of the most pro-Israel politicians of all time. No matter who wins the presidency this November, Israel is sure to come out on top.

Discussed on the show:

"Media Show Little Interest in Israeli Bombing of Gaza" (FAIR)

"Israeli Soldiers Placed Explosives in West Bank Village for ‘Deterrence’" (Haaretz)

One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

"Joe Biden, the Hawk" (Jacobin)

The Israel Project's Global Language Dictionary

Alan MacLeod is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. He is the author of Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. Follow him on Twitter @AlanRMacLeod.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAeIbM1mL4Y