Month: January 2025

Briefings

Background Briefing: January 22, 2025

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A Real Christian Confronts Trump Unlike the Christo-Fascists and Evangelical Hucksters Who Worship the False Idol 

We begin with the plea for mercy from Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral to Donald Trump as he sat stone-faced while she gently urged him, “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.” Joining us is Anthea Butler, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought and Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of a number of books including The Rise of the New Religious Right and, most recently, White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America.

 

Trump’s Choices to Head American Intelligence Might As Well Have Been Chosen By Putin

Then we examine Trump’s choices to head up America’s Intelligence Community, a group of compromised incompetents and delusional ideologues who might as well have been chosen by Putin to weaken if not neutralize the US IC. Joining us to discuss Gabbard as DNI, Patel at FBI, Hegseth at DOD and Ratcliffe at CIA is Loch Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia. He served on the staffs of both House and Senate intelligence oversight committees and is the editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security. He has written several books on American foreign policy including Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America’s Quest for Security, Seven Sins of American Foreign Policy, The Threat on the Horizon: An Inside Account of America’s Search for Security after the Cold War, and his latest book is Spy Watching: Intelligence Accountability in the United States. He has a recent article at New Lines Magazine we discuss, “Trump’s Plans for the Intelligence Agencies Chart a Dangerous Course.”

 

The Treason That Helped Elect Nixon, Reagan and Trump

Then finally we explore the treason that helped elect Nixon, the treason that helped elect Reagan and the treason that helped elect Trump and speak with Craig Unger, the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers House of Bush, House of Saud, and House of Trump, House of Putin. For 15 years he was a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, where he covered national security, the Middle East, and other political issues. He was a longtime staffer at New York Magazine and served as editor-in-chief of Boston magazine and has written about the Trump-Russia scandal for The New Republic, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. His latest books are American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related: Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery and Den of Spies: The Untold Story of Reagan, Carter and the Treason That Stole the White House.