Day: October 23, 2019

Background Briefing: October 23, 2019

 

A Member of the House of Lords on Brexit

We begin with the latest twist and turns of Brexit with Boris Johnson appearing to score a victory on Tuesday with his E.U. withdrawal agreement only shortly later to suffer a defeat on the timetable which insists on a Brexit Halloween deadline of October 31. Joining us from the U.K. is Lord “Jim” Knight,” Baron Knight of Weymouth who served as a Member of Parliament and was Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform. Lord Knight is now a Visiting Professor at the London Knowledge Lab of the Institute of Education in London and we will discuss the meeting today between Prime Minister Johnson and the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in which the prospect of a new general election arose. With Johnson also speaking with the European Council president, Donald Tusk on Wednesday to ask for a further Brexit extension until January 31 which Johnson does not want, the surreal nature of this continuing self-inflicted wound is apparent as many Brexiteers cling to the atavistic fantasy of a return of the British Empire and the chimeric expectation that Donald Trump will rescue the U.K. with a trade deal which will make Britain great again. Meanwhile the opposite reality is on the horizon of not just an economic catastrophe, but the possible breakup of the U.K. itself which appears to be looming with Scotland, Ireland and even Wales going their own ways.

 

 Trump’s Long History of Money Laundering for the Soviets Then the Russians

Then, with a group of Tea Party Republican congressmen storming an impeachment inquiry hearing today to disrupt the growing volume of damning evidence being compiled against President Trump, we speak with Kenneth McCallion, a nationally-recognized expert on constitutional law, especially the impeachment clause. A former federal prosecutor with the DOJ, he also worked on numerous sensitive counterintelligence investigations involving Russian espionage in the United States and is the author of “Treason & Betrayal: The Rise and Fall of Individual – 1”. We will discuss Trump’s long history of money laundering for Soviet and then Russian organized crime and examine the case of Giuliani’s shady associates Parnas and Fruman who were arraigned today in New York Federal Court on conspiracy charges in defense of which they claimed executive privilege.

 

How “We the People” Can Take Back the Supreme Court

Then finally we speak with Thom Hartmann, host of the national and internationally syndicated talk radio show the Thom Hartmann Program and best-selling author of twenty-four books, the latest of which is “The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America”. With the Supreme Court’s new session about to begin on November 4, we examine the history of the Supreme Court which today has become a tool of the right and their corporate interests, and look into how “we the people” can restore justice and subject the court to democratic governance.