Unauthorized Disclosure

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola discuss Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, President Donald Trump's crime executive orders, Senator Joe Manchin, David Frum's advice for effective protest, and the CIA giving a Saudi prince an award for fighting terrorism.

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola are joined by Jacqueline Keeler, a writer who is of Dineh and Yankton Sioux Dakota heritage, is our guest this week. She is the of "Edge of Morning: Native Voices Speak for the Bears Ears." Her work has been published by The Nation, Yes! Magazine, and other publications.  Keeler talks with us about the U.S. government's decision to recommit itself to the Dakota Access Pipeline Project. She describes what can be done to fight the project and show solidarity with indigenous people. But she also goes deeper in her analysis and highlights the centuries-long history of America as a settler colonial state and how that remains true today. America is not really a country in the sense that sovereign tribal nations are countries. America is still a colony, she contends. If you would like to support the show and help keep us going strong, please become a subscriber on .

Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola are joined by Jamil Dakwar, the director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program. Dakwar addresses how the Muslim ban signed by President Donald Trump has been applied. He highlights the issues involved in arguing the executive order is discriminatory and unconstitutional. He also outlines how dangerous it is that the Trump administration treats Islam as more of a political ideology than a religion. The interview was recorded just before a federal judge in Washington issued a restraining order against the ban, the broadest directive yet. It forced the Homeland Security Department and State Department to go back to issuing visas and admitting travelers as they did prior to the ban. During the discussion, Khalek and Gosztola discuss how the left talks about the Muslim ban, the saber-rattling of the Trump administration against Iran, the kill operation in Yemen that went horribly wrong and killed dozens, and Trump's Black History Month event. If you would like to support the show and help keep us going strong, please become a subscriber on .

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola are joined by Sarah Jaffe, a journalist, Nation Institute fellow, and author of "Necessary Trouble: Americans In Revolt." Jaffe talks with us about the first week of resistance against President Donald Trump. We discuss everything from the millions, who came out for the Women's March, to the protests in response to executive orders, like the orders against immigrants and refugees. Jaffe describes a protest she covered at a GOP retreat in Philadelphia. She also addresses how citizens recently becoming engaged can keep up the pressure and handle fatigue and how Trump really does not like seeing all these crowds turn out against him—and citizens should take advantage of that. If you would like to support the show and help keep us going strong, then become a subscriber on .

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola kick off a new season of the podcast with guest Abby Martin, host of "The Empire Files." She joins the show for the entire episode. Martin discusses how a show she anchored for RT America was mentioned in the recent intelligence report on Russian hacking. We discuss the deep state's push to increase aggressive action against Russia, and whether that is good if we all truly believe Donald Trump is erratic. We talk about where RT America fits in the media economy and how we need to focus on media literacy. And we talk about liberal delusions about America's history of meddling in democracies and supporting dictatorships. Trump will not be the first president to normalize this — at all. If you would like to support the show and help keep us going strong, then become a subscriber on .

In this year-end show, hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola look back at 2016 with deep contempt and look forward to whatever struggles and catastrophes lie ahead for the world. They are joined by Roqayah Chamseddine, co-host of the "Delete Your Account" podcast and a columnist for Shadowproof.com. The show highlights the Flint water crisis, the contentious debate over identity politics among progressives and the left, and the strawman argument that people who focus on class politics are somehow automatically guilty of ignoring structural racism.  Khalek, Chamseddine, and Gosztola also comment on a future in need of resistance, where there is more oil and gas drilling on indigenous land, where professors are targeted for expressing unpopular or controversial views, where the water crisis persists and impacts communities, and where the arming and funding of jihadist opposition groups in Syria directly results in more violence against Western countries.  * Thank you for listening and supporting the show all year. We will be back in 2017 with another season of the show and wish you a happy new year.

John Washington, a volunteer for No More Deaths which is a humanitarian aid organization, joins the show to talk about a report on the missing persons crisis created by the brutality of United States border patrol agents. The report is called, "Disappeared: How the U.S. Border Enforcement Agencies Are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis."  Washington highlights the strategy of "Prevention Through Deterrence," which aims to make it harder on border crossers by pushing them into the desert and creating situations where they will die. The border patrol agents also use deadly apprehension tactics that chase and scatter border crossers so they wind up alone, split from their guides, injured, and fail to make it to the border because they die. During the discussion portion, Rania Khalek, who has just returned to the U.S. after going to Syria twice, talks about what happened in Aleppo this past week and comments on the narrative pushed by media that fails to acknowledge the true nature of the "rebels," who were in control of the part of Aleppo.

In an extra 20-minute discussion segment, Kevin Gosztola and Rania Khalek talk about the narrative pushed by United States press and establishment politicians that Russia interfered with the U.S. election to elect Donald Trump. We also mock the hypocrisy of those outraged because the U.S. has quite a record of interfering in other countries' elections.

With great effort—we tried no less than four times to record this episode, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola highlight some major developments from the past week, including updates on resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a horrible piece of legislation against speech that passed in the Senate against pro-Palestinian students, the vile attacks on Congressman Keith Ellison, and the debate on "fake news."  Rania Khalek also provides an update on Syria, particularly the government's retaking of Aleppo, in the beginning of the episode.

In the first half of the show, Rania Khalek shares a bit of what she's seen while reporting in Syria and, for the first time, she publicly addresses the smear attacks on her reputation, which came when she chose to travel with other journalists to a conference in Damascus. Khalek was listed as a speaker, and because the conference primarily advanced a government perspective on the war and she is an easy target, Khalek was attacked, even forced to resign from her editor position at Electronic Intifada. She ended up not attending the conference. Meanwhile, other journalists at the conference spoke and attended but were not attacked by smear artists, who despise Khalek's politics.  During the second half, the show highlights the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance and the police assault on water protectors that occurred one week ago. (Note: The show was recorded on November 25, hours before the Army Corps of Engineers issued an eviction notice to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. So that unfortunately goes unaddressed.)  Khalek and Kevin Gosztola also slam pundits who think Donald Trump is now acting "presidential" and address progressive dishonesty toward Bernie Sanders just about any time he talks about the concepts of race and class and focuses on material conditions for working and middle class people instead of identity.