Welcome to MintCast, the official MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists the establishment would rather silence.In this episode, we are joined by Margaret Kimberly and Monique Cullars Doty. Kimberly is a New York-based writer and activist for peace and justice. You can find her work at the Black Agenda Report where she is a senior columnist. Her book, “Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents,” was published in February. Cullars Doty is a local organizer for the Black Lives Matter Twin Cities Metro and greater Minnesota region and the Twin Cities Coalition for Jamar Clark. While some are calling it a “revolution” and others an “American intifada,” one thing is clear, that millions of people have taken to the streets to demand justice for George Floyd and an end to police brutality. This after a viral video showed Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck, slowly suffocating the life out him while he begged for his mother. Floyd struggled for air for over eight minutes. His dying words “I can’t breathe” were heard around the globe, igniting a mass uprising and calls to defund the police, place law enforcement under community control, and even to dismantle law enforcement institutions altogether.The state, under the Trump administration, has met their calls with brutality, beating and shooting protesters and journalists with rubber bullets, tear gas, and so-called less than lethal weapons. The National Guard has been deployed in over 30 states as the government struggles to keep a lid on the public’s anger.Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Breonna Taylor. The list of victims of racist police violence goes on and on. Police, on average, kill over 1,000 Americans every year, vastly more than the rest of the developedSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast, the official MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists the establishment would rather silence.In this episode, we are joined by Aaron Mate --  investigative journalist, contributor to The Nation and host of “Pushback” on The Grayzone. Mate has spent the last four years covering the mainstream media and U.S. intelligence claim that Russia hacked the U.S. elections in 2016.Most recently, Mate revealed a bombshell that Crowdstrike, the firm behind the accusation that Russia hacked and stole DNC emails, admitted to Congress that it had no direct evidence that Russia actually stole the emails or infiltrated DNC servers. Thanks in part to the global pandemic that has been dominating headlines, the revelation was not picked up by corporate media, the same corporate media, that for the past four years, worked diligently to convince the American public that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections to help Donald Trump. The mass hysteria caused by Russiagate since 2016 caused so much paranoia that the American public became convinced that Russia was corrupting and manipulating the American political system. However, very little evidence was presented to the back that claim. In fact, the most famous claim published by the New York Times and the Associated Press in 2017 was that “all intelligence agencies agree Russia hacked our elections.” These same news organizations would later retract that claim yet they still continued to peddle that narrative. For another two years, U.S. political and media voices continued to promote the narrative that President Donald Trump conspired with the Kremlin and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it through his probe which was released last year.  Most recently, however, previously sealed FBI documents “indicate close contacts between Israel and the Trump campaign and that the Mueller investigation found evidence of Israeli involvement, but largely redacted it.” This Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast, the official MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists the establishment would rather silence.In this episode, we are joined by independent journalist Whitney Webb. Many of our readers and listeners are familiar with Webb from her extraordinary work at MintPress as a staff writer and investigative reporter. She is now a contributor and is working on her first book about Jeffery Epstein and his ties to the Deep State. Webb recently published a series of reports on the Last American Vagabond entitled "Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech-Industrial Complex." In them, she exposes the agendas of the national security state, Silicon Valley tech giants, billionaires, Big Pharma, the U.S. government’s years-long preparation for a flu-like pandemic similar to COVID-19 and how they planned to capitalize on that crisis to fulfill a vision worthy of George Orwell's "1984." As Webb explains: "For decades the U.S. ‘biodefense’ programs and pandemic preparedness efforts are now rearing its ugly head as pandemic panic distracts the American and global public from the fundamentally untrustworthy, and frankly dangerous, individuals who are in control of the US government and corporate America’s response.”While the American public is riddled with panic and fear over the spread of the coronavirus, a mass surveillance system far worse than that introduced to the nation after 9/11 is being built under the guise of protecting public health -- all with public consent. The effort to normalize this plan for the greater good will expand a surveillance system that will make authoritarianism the new normal and further reduce American civil liberties. From Jared Kushner to Bill Gates to the corruption-riddled vaccine companies tied to the opioid epidemic to Silicon Valley tech giants and their role in martial law, rolling back civil liberties and authoritarianism -- Whitney Webb unpacks the many conflicts of interests at play in the government and corporate response to COVID-19. She also discusses how the search for a cure ties into a  larger agenda to use public fear over the pandemic to build a techno-tyrannical statSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast, the official weekly MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh and Whitney Webb. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists who the establishment would rather silence.In this episode, we are joined by journalist Vanessa Beeley, who is covering the conflict in Syria from Damascus for MintPress News. Beeley is well-known in independent media for her expertise on the Syrian conflict and particularly the covert involvement of Western powers in the crisis through humanitarian front groups. More recently, she has been covering the conflict in Syria’s Idlib province, where groups directly linked to al Qaeda are fighting to maintain control of the province with the direct backing of Turkey while the Syrian military seeks to reclaim its territory.Recent developments in the conflict have seen Russia and Turkey negotiate a ceasefire of sorts after Syria and Turkey nearly went to war over Turkey’s backing of militants in Idlib as the Syrian military, backed by Russia, pushed forward. Despite the ceasefire, Turkey continues to lobby NATO, the EU, and the U.S. to support their efforts to halt the Syrian advance into Idlib, with limited success.Turkish President Recep Erdogan is so desperate for EU support for his military incursion in northern Syria that the Turkish state is effectively weaponizing refugees as leverage to induce European states to adopt Turkey’s position in Syria. This has resulted in millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees flooding Europe after Turkey opened its border with the EU. It was in 2011 that Turkey initially opened its borders to Idlib, where the current crisis was born. This set the stage for the rise of al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria. The terror groups viciously took control of this northern region which became ground zero in the fight for the geopolitical interests of Turkey, Western-backed armed groups linked to al Qaeda, and the Syrian military, which was trying to retake control of Syria’s most resource-rich region. That Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to MintCast, the official weekly MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh and Whitney Webb that re-launched in February 2020. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists who the establishment would rather silence.One such voice is independent journalist and editor of ShadowProof, Kevin Gosztola. He joins MintCast to discuss his exclusive on the ground coverage of the Julian Assange extradition hearings taking place in London this past week. Assange, who was forced to sit in a glass cage far from his defense team during last week’s hearings, faces extradition to the United States for alleged violations of the Espionage Act. The next hearing in the case is set to resume on May 18. He stands accused of 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, an archaic law that dates back to World War I and has increasingly been used to target whistleblowers in the United States. He also faces one count of violating a computer crime law that the U.S. government asserts is also a charge of espionage. If convicted on all counts if extradited, Assange would face 175 years in a U.S. prison. For the past decade, Wikileaks has helped expose a litany of crimes and corruption by the political class supported by both the Republican and Democratic Parties making Assange a target of the deep state and war-profiteering establishment. This includes publishing the Vault 7 leaks, exposing the CIA’s surveillance and intelligence capabilities worldwide, State Department cables -- highlighting the war agendas under Hillary Clinton to benefit Israel, DNC emails -- revealing how the Hillary Clinton campaign colluded with the DNC to smear and undercut Bernie Sanders and his supporters in the 2016 election and much more. And in 2007, Wikileaks published documents leaked by Army Private Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to the re-launch of MintCast, the official weekly MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh and Whitney Webb. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists who the establishment would rather silence.One such voice is independent Bolivian-British journalist Oliver Vargas. He joins MintCast to discuss his exclusive on the ground coverage of the post-coup crisis in Bolivia, including the country's upcoming elections scheduled to take place on May 3.Last November, the democratically-elected government of former Bolivian President Evo Morales was removed in a U.S.-backed coup that forced him to flee to Mexico and then to Argentina. Morales and his party MAS have since faced persecution, with several political allies and former Morales ministers now imprisoned. Other former ministers and officials have been forced to seek refuge in the Mexican embassy in the Bolivian capital of La Paz in order to avoid arrest. In addition to the threats faced by Morales' political allies, his supporters have also faced aggression from the far-right post-coup government that has killed scores of unarmed protesters and wounded even more, especially in the early days that followed the coup.Despite this, Morales’ successor, Luis Arce, has emerged as the election frontrunner according to recent polls. Bolivia’s so-called “interim” president Jeanine Áñe, however, has vowed to “fight” to stay in power, a move that has fragmented Bolivia’s pro-coup right, which has failed thus far in uniting in their effort to prevent Morales’ MAS party from retaking power. This backdrop has led many to worry that Bolivia’s upcoming election could be marred by fraud and manipulation.Earlier this year, Morales himself -- despite being in exile in Argentina -- announced his plans to run for Bolivia’s Senate. Following the announcement of his candidacy, Morales said he received numerous threats from the United States and was recently barred by a Bolivian court from running, a decision that Morales and his allies argue was orchestrated by the Trump administration. Morales has said he plans to appeal the court’s decision.Oliver Vargas joSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Welcome to the re-launch of MintCast, the official weekly MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh and Whitney Webb. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists who the establishment would rather silence.One such voice is journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin. She joins MintCast to discuss her free speech lawsuit against the state of Georgia after she was banned from giving a keynote address at Georgia Southern University last month for refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the apartheid state of Israel as part of Georgia’s newly passed anti-BDS law. Ironically, she was scheduled to give a presentation about critical media literacy and free speech. Over the past six years, 28 states including Georgia, have adopted anti-boycott laws. The majority of states have already mandated loyalty pledges to Israel as a means of outlawing dissent.The non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is the latest target of the pro-Israeli lobby, which is now trying to make support for the movement illegal. It’s no wonder since BDS is possibly the most powerful non-violent tool that places economic pressure on Israel to follow international law and end its apartheid system and military occupation of Palestine.   In their joint lawsuit, CAIR Legal Defense Fund Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas said: “There is no place where free speech is more important than on campus. And this attempt to suppress Abby’s views–denying students, academics, and others from hearing her lecture–is as brazen as it is illegal.”Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, added: “In 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr. was criminalized for leading a boycott against Jim Crow apartheid in Alabama. Southern states enforced anti-boycott laws to punish and derail civil rights organizing. The Supreme Court eventually made clear that peaceful boycotts are a protected form of political speech and expression. Abby Martin is an outspoken critic of Israeli apartheid and it’s colonialism and occupation of Palestine. She recently highlighted Israel’s ongoing aggression and human rights abuses against Palestinians in Gaza in her documentary “Gaza Fights For Freedom”Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

MintCast co-host Whitney Webb interviews author, investigative journalist and poet Doug Valentine about his extensive work on exposing the dark underbelly of the CIA and some of the agency’s most notorious covert programs. Webb and Valentine begin the interview discussing how Valentine’s journalistic work on the CIA led him to be spied on and even threatened by the agency and how being a dissident journalist in the 1990s compares to being one in the present. Valentine argues that, in the present, efforts to illegalize criticism of the state of Israel are like a gateway that will soon lead to the prohibition of criticism against the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies, the CIA among them.Valentine then touches on some of the themes covered in his book, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World,  including his assertion that the CIA operates as “the organized crime branch of the U.S. government” and how its activities have been influenced by its decades-long relationships with organized crime networks in the United States and throughout the world.Lastly, Webb and Valentine discuss the CIA’s long-standing interest in manipulating the media and how those efforts also extend to alternative media, not just mainstream media outlets. Valentine discusses the methods the CIA uses to target alternative, independent media and how we are seeing their efforts take place in real time.Follow Doug Valentine on Twitter or visit his website to learn more about his work.MintPress donors and patrons: Stay tuned later this week for a patron-exclusive extension of this podcast with Doug Valentine, which will discuss his work on the War on Drugs and the Drug Enforcement Agency and how both are key to unconstitutional, covert CIA programs. You can become a patron via Patreon or throuSupport the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

MintCast hosts Whitney Webb and Alan MacLeod recently interviewed investigative journalist Yasha Levine about his most recent book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet and his most recent articles on the xenophobia that lies beneath Russiagate and how this new anti-Russia fervor has impacted the Russian-American immigrant community at the national level.In discussing his exhaustively researched book Surveillance Valley, Levine details how the growing nexus between Silicon Valley monopolies like Google and Facebook and the U.S. government as well as today’s scandals over internet surveillance and warrantless spying are actually the logical consequence of the Internet's origins as a U.S. military project aimed at predicting future insurgent behavior by means of covert spying.Also, discussed is Levine’s controversial but invaluable work on the hidden face of the Tor Project, which is included in Surveillance Valley. Levine summarizes his research on the Tor Project, noting that -- far from being the browser that is the ultimate tool against government surveillance -- it has long been funded and continues to receive most of its funding from the U.S. government. In addition, leaders and top advocates of the Tor Project have been caught colluding with the U.S. government, particularly the government agencies funding the project, on more than one occasion, greatly undermining its carefully crafted public image as an anti-government surveillance-busting tool.Lastly, Levine describes his most recent work on the Russiagate scandal, highlighting the often overlooked impact of the media-driven hysteria on Russian-Americans and Russian immigrants to the United States. As Levine notes, much of this rhetoric in recent years has implied that ethnic Russians have undesirable “genetic” traits or are all secretly connected to Russia’s current leader, Vladimir Putin, who is often portrayed by some mainstream media outlets as a supervillain. As a result, Levin argues that many Russian-Americans have become alienated from the Democratic Party and have either embraced Trump or complete disillusionment with both parties.Follow Yasha Levine on Twitter and check out his latest work on Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

MintCast hosts Alan MacLeod and Whitney Webb discuss the latest current events including how U.S. political reactions to Trump’s Iran policy reveal the true motivations behind the Russiagate scandal and how big tech firms are teaming up with government players to suppress and intimidate journalists around the world. Also discussed is the U.S.’ secretive military base in the Chagos Islands. Attention is given to how the native islanders have fought for decades for the right to return to their lands, how the U.S. and the UK colluded to expel the Islanders and why the military base on the Chagos Islands, known as Diego Garcias, is so important to U.S. empire and the dangers it poses to international law.In the concluding segment, MacLeod and Webb add John Bolton to the MintCast’s Hall of Shame and Bolton’s long and storied history of hawkishness and dishonesty is discussed at length.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.