PRESS ROOM

Major Rayburn was smarter than your average professorial bear – even among his more cerebral, academic-inclined officer peers who’d applied for the rather competitive – approximately 15 percent selection rate – West Point gig. I took his elective on modern British History (circa 1815-present), and it was one of my favorite courses at the academy. I felt a certain kinship with this thoughtful, softer-spoken, and less brash army major.

The Pentagon’s latest report on Chinese military power has sparked alarm in the press, on Capitol Hill, and within the Trump administration. It shouldn’t.

The recent police killing of George Floyd has sparked a long-overdue nationwide reckoning with police violence and systemic racism in America. Although police brutality in the US results from various domestic issues endemic to America’s long history of institutionalized racism, some of America’s militarized framework for law enforcement is imported from abroad: for years, US police forces have been learning the wrong lessons through extensive training with Israel’s military as well as its national police and intelligence forces.

According to Transparency International’s 2019 Corruption Perception’s Index, the US is the world’s 23rd least swindling state. Still, I think the index was rather generous to Uncle Sam. Maybe that’s because it "ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people."

Mike Monetta, National Director for Wolf-PAC, stops by the podcast to discuss his organization’s vision of fighting money in politics amid a sea of political corruption, how progressives and those who align with them can find common cause, and how the American ideal of thanking veterans for their service desperately needs reform.

Recent reports that the Trump administration is planning to sell advanced combat aircraft and armed drones to the United Arab Emirates should prompt a clear-eyed assessment of the security relationship between our two nations. Quite simply, this is no time to be selling weapons to the UAE.

Danny’s final discussion with Oliver Stone is here!!! The discussion includes how Oliver expressed his angst with his parents’ divorce through the stories of Elias and Barnes in Platoon, boot licking war films (like Gladiator and Blackhawk Down) and their exceptionally narrow points of view, and the DOD’s reaction to providing support for Platoon.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has pledged to ban all foreign lobbying in the United States. This bold proposal reflects how seriously Biden and his advisers take the threat of foreign interference in U.S. politics. But such a sweeping measure risks causing more problems than it solves. A Biden administration should instead focus on reforming and refining existing regulations to help protect the United States’ democracy from the corrupting influence of foreign money.

It is time for the United States to debate the downsizing, if not the dissolution, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). U.S. national security would be strengthened by the demise of NATO because Washington would no longer have to guarantee the security of 14 Central and East European nations, including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. European defense coordination and integration would be more manageable without the participation of authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary.

Why would American universities accept money from corrupt regimes who actively work against American interests? Why would they accept money from regimes whose human rights records clash with every American value we hold sacred? Covert Cash seeks to blow this subject wide open and drive awareness of the corruption and lack of transparency in US universities, which allow foreign governments to gain influence and a nefarious foothold in the United States.

As it seeks to develop a transparency-based registration framework to counter foreign influence activities, the UK can learn from the rich experience of the US and the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

We're joined by former US Army Major and current peace activist, Danny Sjursen, in a discussion about his forthcoming book Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War, coming out September 8th.