Unauthorized Disclosure

Days away from the Iowa Caucuses, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola spend this week's episode talking about evidence that indicates elites in the Democratic National Committee are working to rig the primary against Senator Bernie Sanders (again). Kevin for The Grayzone on the corporate lobbyists, Wall Street consultants, regime-change agents, think tank board members, and former campaign staff for Hillary Clinton that were appointed by DNC Chair Tom Perez to convention committees. A from Kevin featured bios on each of the individuals in this cartoonishly neoliberal cast. Only one of the people appointed to committees is a prominent Sanders supporter. Several are known for their open hostility to a presidential candidate, who has surged into first place in multiple state polls. "The Jimmy Dore Show" through this thread, trying to joke as they made sense of how these ghouls were elevated by the DNC this week. But even they were struggled to joke, as they were stunned at the brazenness of a political party that still engages in acts which are a slap in the face to working class people. We now see the DNC changed rules for debate qualifications to help Mike Bloomberg make the stage for the next debate. Bloomberg donated the maximum to most of the party's state committees. The DNC is allowing a Republican billionaire to hijack their party to stop Sanders. Even so, the Sanders campaign has a lot of strength going into the Iowa Caucuses on February 3, and Rania and Kevin spend the episode digging into these developments and what is at stake.

January 11 was the 18th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay military prison. It was opened by President George W. Bush's administration to hold detainees indefinitely in the "war on terrorism." President Barack Obama pledged to close Guantanamo, but he failed, and when President Donald Trump was elected, there were still 41 prisoners at Guantanamo and Trump could whatever he wanted with the detention facility. For this week's show, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola welcome Andy Worthington, who is an investigative journalist, author, campaigner, and activist. He is the co-founder of Close Guantanamo, and his work can be found at Each anniversary Andy makes a trip from the United Kingdom to the United States to participate in actions and speaking events aimed at shutting down Guantanamo. He's done this for 10 years and recounts his 2020 trip, describing what makes this political moment so bleak for prisoners still confined at Guantanamo. Andy highlights what has defined Trump's policy around Guantanamo, and he also comments on from CIA torture architect Dr. James Mitchell during a Guantanamo hearing this past week. Later in the show, Andy expresses his solidarity with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published the "Gitmo Files," which Andy incorporated into his work telling the stories of the 774 prisoners brought to Guantanamo.Shaving Mirror Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola discuss examples of censorship by major tech companies that occurred over the past week. They are targeting postings that relate to Iran. In The Now, which Rania works for, was censored and penalized with multiple months, where content on Facebook will be demonetized. The Grayzone experienced censorship. Wildly, Hulu took down an episode of Anthony Bourdain's CNN show, "Parts Unknown," where he traveled to Iran. Rania and Kevin highlight a story indicating eleven U.S. troops were injured by Iran's missiles that were fired in response to the assassination of Iran General Qassim Soleimani. Later in the show, Rania and Kevin cover what dominated most of the news cycle. Both believe CNN coordinated with Elizabeth Warrens campaign to some degree in order to boost their ratings and also strike a blow against Bernie Sanders' campaign by smearing him as "sexist." CNN and Clinton Democrats up their favorite myths about the 2016 election to attack Sanders again. But amidst all of this predictable behavior, progressive voters had a moment to rethink how they view Elizabeth Warren.Shaving Mirror Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

For the first interview of 2020, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola are joined by Mohammad Marandi, a Tehran University professor in Iran. We start the interview with Mohammad sharing his thoughts about the Iranian response to the U.S. assassination of Iran General Qassim Soleimani. Mohammad describes why Soleimani was and is so revered by Iranians. He talks about the critical role Soleimani played in ensuring the Islamic State did not seize control of Baghdad, Iraq, as well as Damascus, Syria. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, was assassinated in the same strike that killed Soleimani. His assassination received minimal attention in the press. Mohammad talks about Muhandis and what he did for the people of Iraq. Later in the show, Mohammad recalls volunteering at the age of 16 to fight in the Iran-Iraq War. He also discusses the impact of economic sanctions, as well as how the "Resistance Axis" in the Middle East appears to grow stronger with each act of war launched by President Donald Trump's administration.

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola end the year with this episode featuring Katie Halper, co-host of Rolling Stone's "Useful Idiots" podcast and the host of "The Katie Halper Show." Like previous year-end shows, Katie guest hosts for the full episode as Rania and Kevin highlight several major political developments in 2019. They each offer predictions for 2020 in the latter part of the episode, looking ahead to the Democratic presidential primary and beyond.Shaving Mirror Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Our initial plan for this week's episode fell through. We also had limited time in our schedules to record, since Rania Khalek was traveling across the world for work and to get home for the holidays. So, to still give you all something, here is an episode from Kevin Gosztola's new show, the "Dissenter Weekly Update." It covers whistleblower stories as well as the most recent developments with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's case. In this preview, Kevin how the United States government won its lawsuit against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and can now confiscate proceeds he earned from his book, Permanent Record, as well as his speeches. The episode also highlights a on medical care in immigrant detention facilities and how a federal judge a prison psychiatrist whistleblower in California. Later in the episode, he talks about doctors who urged the Australian government to intervene on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as his health deteriorates in Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh. There also was a significant procedural hearing in Assange’s extradition case, where we learned key information about how his extradition hearing in February will likely unfold.

Asa Winstanley, an investigative journalist for the Electronic Intifada who has covered Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn since 2015, joins Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola to talk about the result of the UK election. Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson and conservatives won a resounding victory. Corbyn announced his resignation as Labour Party leader after a harsh defeat. Much of the outcome is owed to Brexit and how it divided the working class. There were many working people upset that the Labour Party supported a second referendum on Brexit, which seemed anti-democratic to them. Asa addresses this in the interview. But as Asa , from the very beginning, Corbyn failed—or refused—to forcefully reject the "Labour anti-Semitism" lying smear campaign directed at him. Propaganda pushed by the Israel lobby, the UK military and intelligence agencies, neoliberals, and right-wing conservatives was initially rejected by voters. But as the smears continued, it soon became accepted—Labour has an anti-Semitism problem and isn't doing enough to address it. By November, the campaign fully escalated to Corbyn is an anti-Semite. Asa discusses many aspects of this smear campaign and warns supporters of Bernie Sanders: don't let the same smears that sank Corbyn tank the Sanders campaign.

For this week, Tom Mueller joins the show to discuss his book, "Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing In An Age Of Fraud." It was released in October. Tom describes how he came to work on this book, which over 500-plus pages documents and explores whistleblowing in many different arenas—corporate, institutional, government, etc. He highlights common threads he sees in various whistleblower cases, such as what leads one to become a whistleblower. We talk about the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state and the incredible dangers the site poses to humanity. According to Tom, more whistleblowers than any other site on Earth come from Hanford. Yet, very few citizens know about Hanford. Later in the interview, Tom outlines how corporate executives responsible for waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality use universities and philanthropy to launder their reputations. He shares a whistleblower case related to this practice. We conclude with some conversation on national security whistleblowing, what is at stake with President Donald Trump's administration, and how President Barack Obama's administration gave Trump many of the tools he has available for continuing a war on whistleblowers. That includes prosecuting truth-tellers with the Espionage Act.

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola welcome Margaret Kimberley, who is an editor and senior columnist for . One of Kimberley's most recent pieces, which we discuss, is "." Kimberley talks with us about how the United States empire navigates a citizenry that increasingly opposes deploying troops to intervene in countries and how propaganda seeps into our popular culture. She explores how Democrats almost universally support American imperialism, along with Republicans, as well as the limits of liberal opposition to wars launched by the United States. Kimberley comments on Bernie Sanders' foreign policy stances, including his latest comments on the coup in Bolivia.    Later in the show, Kimberley highlights a piece she contributed to an anthology published by , "In Defense of Julian Assange." (It appears right after Kevin's contribution on WikiLeaks and Democrats.)Shaving Mirror Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

For this week's episode, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola spend the full hour on the coup in Bolivia. The military and right-wing opposition forced President Evo Morales to resign after he won a fourth term. The first half of the episode features Kevin Cashman, a senior associate for the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), who worked on a that analyzed the October 20 election returns and tallies. The analysis concluded there were no irregularities or fraud that affected the outcome. As Cashman describes, the Organization for American States (OAS) put out a preliminary report that Western media relied upon to report there was "electoral fraud," when in fact it failed to prove there were “widespread or systematic irregularities." The second half of the episode is spent highlight some of the figures who are seizing power through violence and the promotion of anti-indigenous hatred. The woman who appointed herself president of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez Chavez, believes indigenous ceremonies are "satanic." She is a religious zealot. Luiz Fernando Camacho, as The Grayzone , is a Christian fascist. He stormed Morales' presidential palace. He held a Bible in his hand and a Bolivia flag in his other hand then pledged to purge the government of its native heritage. Morales and several other government leaders from the Movement Toward Socialism Party were threatened and forced to resign. They managed to flee after Mexico agreed to grant them asylum. In the final part of the show, Rania and Kevin how the United States Capitol Police showed up to Code Pink activist Medea Benjamin's home and attempted to arrest her for "assaulting" Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a press conference held to promote congressional support for the coup attempt in Venezuela. The police did not even know if the allegation against Medea was true or not, and they did not have a warrant.Shaving Mirror Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/