Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

On this edition of Parallax Views, Emily Peterson-Cassin of the Demand Progress Education fund joins the program in the first segment to discuss the landmark decision made in the Google antitrust lawsuit that saw a judge declare that Google is a monopolist. This is a major win for the antitrust movement and those seeking to challenge monopoly capitalism in America. We'll discuss what this means as well as why anti-trust is important for consumers and workers as well as society as a whole. Additionally, we'll discuss the billionaire attacks on FTC chair Lina Khan by billionaires like Reid Hoffman who dislike her antitrust agenda. Recently, Hoffman donated millions to the Kamala Harris campaign and then went on TV to talk about how he'd like to see Khan sacked form the FTC. Supporters of Khan have accused using his status as a mega-donor to curry favor with the Harris campaign in the hopes that a Harris administration will repay him by removing Khan from her position. We'll discuss all of this as well as the work Khan and Jonathan Kanter of the DOJ's Antitrust Division have done over the past four years of President Joe Biden administration. We'll also discuss how Khan, Kanter, and others have inspired a new generation of antitrust enthusiasts that want to break up concentrated corporate power's grip on America. In the second segment of the show, The American Prospect's Macy Stacher joins the show to discuss his article, "Waffle House Workers Challenge the Southern Economy". Waffle House workers are fighting back against ridiculously low, non-livable wages as well as lack of safety at their jobs, wage theft, meal deductions policies, and, overall, labor policies of the Jim Crow-era that have persisted in today's American South. You may have heard about the phenomena of "Waffle House Fights" that go viral on Twitter and garner chuckles in social media, but what is happening to Waffle House workers who face safety risk and a lack of concern from corporate office in Atlanta when it comes to their needs and rights is no laughing matter. We'll discuss how the Union of Southern Service workers are changing all that and the struggles that Waffle House workers like Cindy Smith, who is prominently featured in Macy's article, face regularly. Macy will also explain how the Atlanta HQ of Waffle House locked out protesting workers and threw out their petition. But even with all the grimness of what these workers face, we'll also delve into the successes they've been able to achieve especially in regard to wages recently. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views.

On this edition of Parallax, "America's angriest political cartoonist" Eli Valley joins the show to discuss his upcoming book The Museum of Degenerates: Portraits of the American Grotesque, available for pre-order now from OR Books, and his savage comics/cartoons that offer biting, scathing, acidic critiques of American political life and public figures like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben Shapiro, Joshua Shapiro, Abe Foxman, and many others. Although the focus of this episode isn't on Israel/Palestine and what is happening in Gaza or the West Bank specifically, it certainly lingers in the background and informs the discussion given how Eli's own views on the matter. In this conversation we'll discuss the influence of horror comics like EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt & the pulp-noirs of the 20th century on his cartoon style, Jewish authenticity and the influence of Jewish culture and intellectual thought on Valley's work, the Jewish American radical/progressive tradition, Netanyahu's speech to Congress, the rage that informs Eli's cartoons, right-wing American Jewish public figures aligning themselves with antisemites, the ADL, the role of the grotesque aesthetic in Eli's work, Eli's infamous cartoon lampooning Meghan McCain's appropriation of Jewish identity, Joshua Shapiro comparing pro-Palestinian protesters to the KKK, the Jewish American right-wing vs. Jewish American progressives, misconceptions people have about Eli's work, the disingenuousness of claims that Tim Walz was chosen a Kamala Harris' VP pick over Shapiro because of the antisemitism in the Democratic Party, has Eli paid a price for the approach he's taken to political cartoon (and, if so, has that price been worth it), and much, much more! A sampling of Eli Valley's cartoons. These lampoon, in order, Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Joshua Shapiro, and Meghan McCain:

On this edition of Parallax Views, New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study's Prof. Alejandro Velasco, author of Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of  Modern Venezuela, joins the show to discuss the controversial Venezuela elections and the ways in which analysis of the elections and the modern history of Venezuela from U.S. commentators of the Left, the Rigth, and the Center has proven facile. Prof. Velasco, argues that the picture is more complex than either those on the Right who believe Maduro is being couped by an orchestrated color revolution, those on the Right who believe Biden's easing of sanctions has led Nicolás Maduro to consolidate more power in Venezuela, and Centrists who argue all Venezuela's problems are contingent on the legacy of Hugo Chavez. The recent Venezuelan election resulted in much controversy, with even Chavistas being upset with Maduro and footage of resident of the Venezuelan barrios, the urban streets from which Chavismo have traditionally garnered much support from ordinary people, dissenting after the election results were announced. The election results which led to Maduro being declared victorious are believed by a number of different parties. The Carter Center, for example, has said that the elections "cannot be considered democratic". Protest have erupted in the streets of Venezuela's capitol, Caracas.  Given the history of coup attempts in Venezuela, many Leftists in the U.S. and internationally the controversy around this election is actually just U.S.-directed dirty tricks. Prof. Velasco offers a different analysis while also directly addressing the problems with the virulently anti-Chavista elements that lay the blame for all of this on the deceased Chavez. We'll discuss all of this as well as the effect of U.S. sanctions in Venezuela, how Maduro ignored warnings from left-wing economists about how his policies would cause inflation in Venezuela, why Prof. Velasco takes issue with historian and pundit Anne Applebaum's analysis of Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, how this year's election in Venezuela is different than previous elections, the National Electoral Council and the lack of precinct-by-precinct data released in the aftermath of this election, Hugo Chavez's concept of a "socialism for the 21st century", misperceptions about private property in Venezuela, Venezuela's economy and oil, Chavez vs. Maduro, the continuities between Chavez and Maduro and the even more important differences between Chavez and Maduro, material incentives for the Maduro government clinging to power, police raids and discontent in Venezuela, and much, much more.

NOTE: Record 5/29; Released 8/2/24; subject matters deal with history as well as current events that are still unraveling before us now; also Producer's Credits on this episode were recorded in July so if you are a new $10 or above tier subscriber on Patreon you'll hear your producer's credit on the next episode. On this edition of Parallax Views, Paul R. Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, returns to discuss his incredibly interesting book, Beyond the Water's Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy. You're probably thinking that's an incredibly academic title that indicates a rather dry survey of how Republicans and Democrats have handled U.S. foreign policy over the years in ways that were more driven by ideological concerns rather than National Security interests. But while Pillar's book is a scholarly examination of those issues, one should not mistake the book for being a boring look at these matters. Which is to say that Pillar exposes all kinds of skullduggery related to how political partisans, especially on the Republican side of the spectrum but also encompassing the Democratic Party as well, when it's come to U.S. foreign policy over the years. Case in point: there's an entire section on the October Surprise. For those unfamiliar the October Surprise was an alleged plot by the Ronald Reagan campaign to pay of the Iranians to not release the hostages of the Iran hostage crisis until after the election in order to sabotage Jimmy Carter's reelection chances. Paul and I will cover that as well as skullduggery related to Richard Nixon and the Vietnam war. And by the end of the conversation, we'll delve into the ideological underpinning of the neoconservatives that made up the George W. Bush administration and pushed America into the Iraq War. Additionally, we'll discuss Donald Trump, Russiagate, George HW Bush's showdown with AIPAC on Israel, how Wilson and FDR dealt with WWI and WWII, Israel/Palestine, and a number of other issues. I won't give away all the subjects we cover because this is one you really just need to listen to.

On this edition of Parallax Views, I was asked by a listener to have a guest on that could offer a critique of Lichtman, who appeared on my show recently, and his model. So on this edition of the program, The Postrider's Lars Emerson joins the show to discuss Allan Lichtman's 13 Keys to the White House model for predicting Presidential elections. The Postrider is a small media outlet run by two American University alumni, but has recently gained some attention for their critique of Lichtman's model. We'll discuss the nature of their critique in this model. Additionally, Lars and I will discuss his writing on the "Rust Belt or Bust" mentality talked about by Democrats during election seasons dn whether this will hold true in coming elections, especially by the 2030s. We'll also discuss the Sunbelt in this regard. And finally, we'll talk about the Postrider's tool for determining what potential Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate would make for the strongest ticket alongside Harris this election.   Links: Allan Lichtman is Famous for Correctly Predicting the 2016 Election. The Problem? He Didn’t (thepostrider.com) Letter: Allan Lichtman’s Response (thepostrider.com) Is the Biden Campaign Really Relying on the Debunked 13 Keys to Make This Decision? (thepostrider.com) When Will the Rust Belt’s Electoral Supremacy End? (thepostrider.com) Is the Rust Belt Still the Lowest Hanging Fruit for Biden? (thepostrider.com) The 2024 (Emergency) Democratic Vice Presidential Power Index (thepostrider.com)

On this edition of Parallax Views, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston has becomes widely known for his reporting on Donald Trump. He first reported on Donald Trump in 1988 and his since written three books on the former President: The Making of Donald Trump (2016), It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America (2018), and The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family (2022). Before writing those books on the MAGA movement leader, however, David wrote about what he refers to as the "hidden-in-plain sight system we have that takes from the money and redistributes to the very few". Turns out, there's a connective tissue between Davide's books on Trump and his reporting on that hidden system. Namely, David says, Trump is the embodiment of that system. In this interview, David and I will delve into how his books Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business (1992), Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else (2003), Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill (2007), The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind (2012), and Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality (2014). We'll delve into Trump's pro-corporate, anti-working class agenda; some of the specific mechanism that have been used to make massive wealth transfer to the rich at the expense of the working class and poor since Reagan; the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025; the Build the Wall charity scam; President Joe Biden, the U.S. economy, inflation, job creation, and wage increases; Trump's views on minimum wage not being pro-worker; Trump's reverse Robin Hood tax policy and tax cuts to the rich; the problem with big mainstream media today and why the legacy media outlets don't intensively cover issues effecting everyday Americans enough; the warping of the campaign finance system since the Watergate scandal; how the donor class became so powerful in the American political system; a history lesson going back to the Civil War through to the Nixon years and beyond on how we got to this moment; the Supreme Court decisions that helped shaped politics in favor of big business; the poverty found in low-tax societies and David's reporting on "hidden taxes" in Singapore; the modern world's need for investments in public infrastructure and the creation of common wealth that benefits all; issues facing the education system today and how failing literacy rates in America are ruining the American political system; China's innovations in education and what it means for America; and much, much more! This is by far the best interview of had with David Cay Johnston.

UPDATE: Intro fixed; made a mistake in editing some of the extracted audio that's used to introduce the first segment. Brief sample from another show that I edited incorrectly and ended up being longer than it was supposed to be. On this edition of Parallax Views, another double feature with two guests. First up, if there's any interview you listen to on my show this week make it this one, folks. David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, joins the show to discuss his important article "The Corporate Wishcasting Attack on Lina Khan". Lina Khan was apponted by President Joe Biden to chair the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In this role Khan, alongside the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department's Jonathan Kanter and others, has attempted to take on big tech, corporate power, and monopoly capitol in America. Billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is apparently not happy about this because after donating $8.6 million to Super PACs supporting Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has claimed Khan is “waging war on American business” and pushed for a Harris administration to dump her as FTC chair. Dayen and I will discuss why billionaires like Hoffman are so opposed to Harris and those who support strengthening antitrust laws and their enforcement in the U.S. We'll also discuss what Dayen argues the billionaire anti-antitrust crowd are leaving out about how Khan's agenda benefits working people over corporate profits. Although some reports indicate that Harris is skeptical of Khan's antitrust agenda and may as a result remove her, Dayen cautions that we don't know what a Harris administration will do with the antitrust agenda that has been ushered in by the Biden administration in recent years. Nonetheless, he argues that supporters of the antitrust movement should mobilize in support of Lina Khan now. Recently, a number of organizations, including the AFL-CIO and NAACP, signed a letter in support of Khan. At the end of the conversation we also discuss Dayen's latest article in "The Only Member of Congress Who Has Worked for Kamala Harris" in which he interviewed former Rep. Katie Porter who worked with Kamala Harris about her thoughts on how Harris will deal with big business and corporate interests. In the second segment of the show, the Revolving Door Project's Chris Lewis joins the show to discuss his American Prospect article, "The Dangerous Authoritarian Gunning to Serve as Trump’s Grand Vizier". Chris and I take a closer looks at the figure of Trump loyalist and Christian nationalist Russ Vought, founder of the Center for Renewing America. Vought worked for the Trump administration from the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. Since then, he has become involved in the saga of the controversial Project 2025. Chris explains Vought's beliefs and rather authoritarian, even anti-constitutional or post-constitutional views on America. Additionally, Chris and I delve into the Project 2025 Schedule F scheme that would allow the President to sack numerous civil servants in various federal agencies to replace them with loyalists. Theoretically, this could lead to cranks with no knowledge in an agency's expertise in key positions they are not equipped to be in. In other words, imagine Infowars' Alex Jones, who has promoted using colloidal silver as supplement to counter coronavirus (despite the dangers of colloidal silver consumption), in a key position at the FDA.

On this edition of Parallax Views, a double feature edition of the show featuring returning guests Eli Clifton and James W. Carden. First up, Eli Clifton joins the show to discuss his article in The Guardian entitled "Netanyahu is presiding over a sharp decline in the US’s pro-Israel consensus". We discuss Netanyahu's speech to Congress and the fact that almost of the Democrats in Congress did not attend. We'll also discuss Republican figures like Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie introducing conservatives to a more critical/skeptical view of the reigning U.S. consensus on the U.S.-Israel special relationship. It leads us to the question: Will this U.S. consensus change in the future due to fracture in the Democratic Party on Israel over its conduct in Gaza as well as potentially emergent fractures in the GOP over unconditional U.S. support for Israel? In the second segment of the show, James W. Carden, a former advisor to the State Department and a regular contributor to The American Conservative, joins the show to discuss article he recently co-wrote with former Trump appointee Col. Douglas MacGregor entitled "Neoconservatism by Another Name". We'll discuss the movement known as "National Conservatism" that has been backed by prominent figures like Peter Thiel and JD as well as its origins in the form of an Israeli philosopher, Yoram Hazony, who was a youthful admirer of the late far-right wing American-born Israeli political extremist Rabbi Meier Kahane. Carden discusses this from a particular perspective. He himself is a conservative. But he's put off by both the hawkish tendencies of National Conservatism on China and Iran and very akin to that of the Bush-era neoconservatives of the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Project for a New American Century, and what he judges to be their desires for a "theocratic revolution". He also argues that NatCons would do well to distinguish between patriotism and national, and offers an analysis of why ethno-nationalism, on even simply pragmatic grounds, is a fool-hardy endeavor for conservatives to pursue and would be disastrous in America. Moreover, James will go over the interest NatCons have in Israel and Hungary as a model for their vision of America, and why this will not work for the U.S. We'll also go over what could be described as "Caesarist" tendencies within the National Conservatism and adjacent integralist movements, as pointed out in 2021 by Rod Dreher, and his views on the NatCons interest pushing for, again, what he judges to be a plan for Christian theocracy in the United States.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Israel commentator Ori Goldberg joins me from Tel Aviv to discuss the rocket that hit a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams within the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel has blamed the attacked on a Hezbollah strike. Hezbollah denied being behind the attack. Speculation arose that it was actually due to a malfunction of Israel's Iron Dome. That said, there is evidence that this was likely a Hezbollah rocket. In any case, 12 Druze children perished due to the rocket. At the funeral for the dead children, members of the Druze community protested the presence of Israeli ministers. Meanwhile, a number of Israelis are turning "We Are All Druze Now" into a slogan as fears of a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah grow. Ori offers his thoughts on the incident, and makes the case that the deaths of the Druze children was likely accidental based on Hezbollah past history and concerns that any false move could start a war. He DOES NOT deny that Hezbollah conducted strikes. Nor does he seek to deny the tragedy of children being killed. Additionally, he questions/challenges the conspiracy theories arising that this was an Israeli false flag and gives his reasons for believing this is not the case. With that in mind, he cautions against drawing any firm conclusions about whether this was a mistake or intentional until there is further investigation. Ori also argues that this will not lead to a war between Israel and Hezbollah because, in his analysis, neither the IDF or Hezbollah want a full-blown war at this time. In addition to all of this we'll also discuss the death of Mohammad Bhar, a young Palestinian man afflicted with autism and Down syndrome who was mauled by an Israel Defense Forces attack dog and bled out in the aftermath. Moreover, we will discuss the Israeli psyche at this moment, the situation of the Bedouin and Druze minorities in Israel and discrimination against them, the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People that was passed by the Israeli Knesset in 2018, why Ori believes the Gaza war is slouching towards an inevitable close/end, Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to U.S. congress, post-war Gaza and "The Day After", Netanyahu announcing the he's "postponing" the departure of sick children from Gaza who need life-saving therapy because of the Majdal Shams indecent, the blowing up of Rafah's water reservoir, Israeli hopes of introducing "de-radicalization" into Gazan education post-war, and much, much more.

On this edition of Parallax Views we've got a double feature. In the first half hour of the program historian Allan Lichtman of American University discusses his The Keys to the White House model for predicting Presidential election. This model has proven extremely robust at getting election predictions right and is based on 13 true/false statements about the candidates and/or their parties preceding the election. According to the model, "If five or fewer of the following statements are false, the incumbent party is predicted to win the election. If six or more are false, the incumbent party is predicted to lose." We'll discuss a number of issues related to this election including Joe Biden recently dropping out of the election and Kamala Harris becoming the presumptive Democratic Party Presidential candidate. What does it entail for the election? Find out in this conversation with Allan Lichtman! In the second segment of the show, a segment yours truly recorded a few months ago with Ukrainian lawyer Kateryna Busol. In a recent edition of the Journal of Genocide Studies, Busol penned a peice entitled "When the Head of State Makes Rape Jokes, His Troops Rape on the Ground: Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Russia’s Aggression against Ukraine". We'll be discussing the issue of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in relation the Russo-Ukrainian war, the worrying rhetoric of Timofey Sergeytsev's "What Should Russia Do With Ukraine?" that was published in Russian state-owned outlet RIA Novosti, reparations for victims of CRSV, Kateryna's work on destruction of cultural heritage in war, and the importance of applying international law to other issues like the Gaza War.