Day: June 7, 2022

Background Briefing: June 7, 2022

 

The January 6 Hearings Will Not Be Like the Watergate Hearings But It Could Expose Trump as a Criminal and a Fascist

We begin with the presentation of the evidence by the House Select Committee that Trump and his motley crew attempted a coup against American democracy on January 6 in a hearing which will air live on nationwide TV at 8 PM EST on Thursday carried on all major networks with the exception of Fox News. Joining us is Will Bunch, who is an award-winning national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and he blogs at attytood.com. He is the author of The Bern Identity: A Search for Bernie Sanders and the New American Dream and we discuss his latest article at the Philadelphia Inquirer is “What Jan. 6 hearings may show: This isn’t 1973” and how much the country has become polarized since the Watergate hearings at which, unlike Trump, Nixon eventually respected the rule of law and handed over the tapes then resigned instead of leading a fascist coup to stay in power.

 

Biden Moves to Stop One Defunct Company From Killing the US Solar Industry

Then, with the Biden administration announcing a two year tariff exemption on solar panels made in Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam that supply 80% of the US market, we look into the invocation of the Defense Production Act to spur US production and speak with Eric Wesoff, a prominent industry journalist, analyst, consultant, speaker and expert witness in the renewable energy field. He is currently the editorial director at Canary Media and recently served as senior editor for the solar publication PV Magazine. Prior to that, he was editor-in-chief at the green technology market analysis and media firm Greentech Media. We discuss his article at Canary Media, “Will the Biden administration let one company kill US solar?” and how one small obscure and defunct solar company was able to paralyze the US solar industry at a time when the transition to alternative energy is so urgent. 

 

A Report From Mexico on Its President’s Boycott of the Summit of the Americas

Then finally we go to Mexico to get a local reaction to President Lopez Obrador’s boycott of the Summit of the Americas underway in Los Angeles and speak with Laura Carlsen, the Director of the Mexico-based Americas Program at the Center for International Policy. In 1986 she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the impact of the Mexican economic crisis on women and has lived in Mexico City since. She blogs at Americas.org and hosts Hecho en América on Rompeviento TV and we discuss the caravan of 6,000 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, heading to the US to coincide with the Summit of the Americas.