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Ralph Nader Radio Hour
Hosted by Ralph Nader · EN
Ralph Nader talks about what’s happening in America, what’s happening around the world, and most importantly what’s happening underneath it all.
www.ralphnaderradiohour.com
www.ralphnaderradiohour.com
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Hollow Constituencies/ National Popular Vote/ Tort Museum Interns
Dec 28, 202401:21:08Tap to summarizeFirst up on today's wide-ranging show, Ralph speaks to political scientist Adolph Reed about how American politics has started taking its cues from professional wrestling and how the left can rebuild itself. Then, we welcome Steve Silberstein from National Popular Vote to update us on their interstate compact's progress. Finally, we're joined by three interns from the American Museum of Tort Law—Dylan Bird, Gabriel Duffany, and Rachel Donovan discuss a rather unique summer assignment.Adolph Reed is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and an organizer with the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute’s Medicare for All-South Carolina initiative, and co-host of Class Matters Podcast. His most recent books are The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives and (with Walter Benn Michaels) No Politics but Class Politics.One of the things that struck me, especially, is during the pandemic it was striking to see how much full-blown animus toward government— or toward the idea of public and public goods—that there is out there in society at large. And we know Heritage (and the rest of the reactionary, the Koch brothers) have been fueling that and stoking that kind of resentment for as long as they've been around, frankly, right…But what's different is that since the Clinton years, the Democrats have been just as likely to attack the idea of government or public goods and public services, right? And they're more likely to do it backhandedly…So there hasn't been any space for people to connect even the fact that they like to go to the public library or like to use the public park with this bipartisan, full-bore attack on the idea of government. And that has gone so far and so deeply within society.Adolph ReedSteve Silberstein founded and served as the first president of Innovative Interfaces Inc., a leading supplier of computer software for the automation of college and city libraries. Mr. Silberstein sold his interest in the company in 2001 and now devotes his time to philanthropic and civic matters, one of which is sitting on the Board of Directors of National Popular Vote.Of the states that have passed [the National Popular Vote compact], it's mostly been with Democratic votes. Because for a while there's been a theory that Republicans couldn't win the national popular vote. That's why they opposed it. But now that they have actually won the popular vote this time around, that theory which caused some of them to oppose it has gone by the wayside.Steve SilbersteinThere's no reason for [Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan being “swing states”]. You know, those states didn't even exist when the constitution was established. It's just purely an accident…Those states are not typical of the United States—each state is unique in some way. So, Wisconsin has a big dairy industry. Pennsylvania has coal mining or fracking or something like that. So the candidates just concentrate on those—what are really very obscure issues to most of the people in the country. These states are not typical. They are not representative in any way shape or form of the rest of the country.Steve SilbersteinDylan Bird is a sophomore at St Lawrence University, pursuing a double major in Global Studies and Spanish on a Pre Law Track. Gabriel Duffany is a sophomore at the University of Connecticut, pursuing a double major in Human Rights and Communication also on a Pre Law Track, and he is an intern at the American Museum of Tort Law. Rachel Donovan is the Outreach Coordinator at the American Museum of Tort Law, and she is pursuing studies in education. All three recently worked as summer interns at the American Museum of Tort Law in the VoxBox Civic Engagement Summer Course, and they participated in Ralph Nader’s Dictionary Pilot.It’s a very daunting task when somebody hands you a full dictionary—over a thousand pages or so—and asks you to read it front-to-back. Once you start to actually sink your teeth into it…I actually found it to be a very positive experience. Rather than simply looking up individual words and ending your journey there, the goal really becomes the exploration of knowledge.Dylan BirdFor me, what really did stand out wasn't the individual words. It was more so the process of defining that I found the most compelling. So it showed up to me in the linguistic sense that these aren't exact definitions here. They're more so measurements, gauges of people's public opinions and definitions that would shift over time. So it was interesting to see how the evolution of words came, how meanings evolved over time with new technologies, new cultural moments. And as a news writer, I found that fascinating—the complexities of a word, the connotations that go with it, they can make or break the framing of any certain topic.Gabriel DuffanyI think that this project could be very important for students of all ages because it's not often that you would use a physical dictionary very much anymore—versus just going online and looking up a word. And now multiple definitions could come up—you may not even find exactly what you're looking for, because words undergo new meanings on a near-daily basis. And I think having the chance to read the original definition may give students new meanings to words that they may have thought they had the knowledge of due to social media.Rachel DonovanNews 12/25/241. On December 19th, the Teamsters announced they would launch “the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history.” This strike covers nearly 10,000 Amazon workers who have joined the Teamsters, with workers taking to the picket line in New York City Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Skokie, Illinois. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien is quoted saying “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it…This strike is on them.” Scenes from this strike went viral over the holidays; one video posted by Labor Notes journalist Luis Feliz Leon shows NYPD officers guarding a path for Amazon trucks to depart after clearing away a blockade by striking workers – in case you were wondering whose side the cops are on.2. In more Amazon union news, INDY Week’s Lena Geller reports that on December 23rd Amazon workers filed for a union election at the RDU1 warehouse in Garner, North Carolina. These workers are organizing under the auspices of Carolina Amazonians for Solidarity and Empowerment, aka CAUSE, which states that “despite an illegal campaign of intimidation by Amazon, which is desperate to keep unions out to continue paying poverty wages and failing to improve dismal work conditions,” the union believes they have “easily” exceeded the 30% card check threshold to demand an election. If successful, RDU1 would become the first unionized Amazon facility in the South.3. Independent investigative journalists Ken Klippenstein and Dan Boguslaw are out with a report on a potential conflict of interest in the Luigi Mangione prosecution. Apparently, “Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker, who is overseeing pre-trial hearings for…Mangione, is married to a former Pfizer executive.” Judge Parker’s husband, Bret Parker, had served as Vice President and assistant general counsel at Wyeth, and held the same titles after that company was purchased by Pfizer. According to financial disclosures, Mr. Parker still collects a pension from Pfizer in the form of a “Senior Executive Retirement Plan.” The Parkers also own hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in Pfizer itself, along with other pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and healthcare companies. These holdings raise grave questions about the impartiality of this judge.4. In more news from New York, Gothamist reports New York Governor Kathy Hochul has vetoed a bill which would have “reversed New York’s longstanding ban on jury service for anyone convicted of felonies at any point in their lives. If enacted, the bill would have allowed people with felony convictions to serve only after completing their sentences, including parole.” This bill passed with the support of the New York Civil Liberties Union and Phil Desgranges, an attorney at The Legal Aid Society, called this bill “common-sense legislation.” State Senator <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/JabariBrisp...
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Gideon Levy “Reports on a Catastrophe"
Dec 21, 202401:17:38Tap to summarizeRalph and team spend the entire hour with Israeli reporter, Gideon Levy, a singular voice in an otherwise compliant domestic press to discuss his book “The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe” a series of columns written before and after the October 7th, 2023 attacks that put this ongoing tragedy in historical context.Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. He is the author of the weekly “Twilight Zone” feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper. He is the author of The Punishment of Gaza, and his latest book is The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe.If you talk with me about a very broad scheme—not ending this war now in Gaza, but really for a long range, a real vision—the vision is only the choice between an apartheid state between the river and the sea, or a democracy between the river and the sea. There is no third way anymore, unfortunately. And we have to choose, and the world has to choose: Is the world ready to accept a second apartheid state, or is the world ready to act for having an equal democracy for Palestinians and Israelis living between the river and the sea?Gideon LevyWe have to stick to global, universal values: occupation is illegal, apartheid is immoral, and war is always cruel.Gideon LevyAfter the 7th of October, an iron curtain fell between Israel and any kind of human sentiments toward Gaza— the people of Gaza, the victims of Gaza, we don't want to hear, we don't want to know, we are not bothered, and we have the right to do whatever we want.Gideon LevyWe hear about the hundred hostages held by Hamas underground a great deal in the US media, but we don't hear much about the torture and the other mistreatment of thousands of Palestinians—some of them women and children—who were arrested, just arbitrarily kidnapped, and sent to Israeli jails.Ralph NaderNews 12/18/241. Our top story this week comes from Public Citizen Corporate Crime expert Rick Claypool, who reports that the Biden Department of Justice has opted to not prosecute McKinsey, the consulting firm that advised Purdue Pharma to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales even as the opioid crisis reached its peak. Instead, the DOJ announced they would enter into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the firm; in other words, the Biden administration is giving McKinsey a get out of jail free card for their role in perhaps the most expansive, destructive, and clear case of corporate crime this century. Claypool rightly calls this deal “Pathetic” and “A slap in the face to everyone who lost a loved one to the crisis.”2. On December 10th, a federal judge blocked Kroger’s proposed $20 billion acquisition of Albertsons supermarkets, per the Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal, U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson sided with the Federal Trade Commission, which had sued to stop the merger, agreeing that this consolidation in the grocery store sector would “erode competition and raise prices for consumers.” This argument was particularly poignant given the soaring cost of groceries since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of this decision, Albertsons has filed suit against Kroger alleging that the larger supermarket chain had resisted calls to “divest itself of a larger number of stores,” in order to stave off the inevitable antitrust actions federal regulators would bring against this merger. Albertsons filed this lawsuit, which seeks at least $6 billion in damages less than 24 hours after the ruling, per the Journal.3. On December 14th, the BBC reported 26-year-old OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment. In October, Balaji exposed that OpenAI had flagrantly violated US copyright laws while developing its flagship AI program ChatGPT. Balaji’s revelations form the underpinnings of lawsuits against OpenAI by news publishers, including the New York Times, as well as best-selling authors who allege their work was unlawfully used to train the company’s AI models. The BBC reports that Balaji’s death was ruled a suicide by the San Francisco medical examiner’s office and that his body was discovered by police when they were called in to “check on his wellbeing.” This report does not include who called in the wellness check.4. According to intrepid independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, the New York Times has issued internal guidance directing staff to “dial back” its use of photos of Luigi Mangione’s face. The reasons for withholding images of Mangione’s face – bizarre in its own right given the inherent newsworthiness of such photos – is however just the tip of the iceberg. The Times has also directed its reporters to refrain from publishing Mangione’s manifesto, despite having copies in their possession. As Mr. Klippenstein puts it “This is media paternalism at its worst, the idea that seeing the shooter’s face too much, or reading his 262-word statement, will necessarily inspire copy-cat assassinations and should therefore be withheld from the public.” To his immense credit, Mr. Klippenstein has published the manifesto in full, which is available on his Substack – as are photos of Mangione’s face.5. Turning to the Middle East, the diplomatic tension between Israel and Ireland continues to deepen. On December 11th, the Middle East Monitor reported that Ireland will “formally join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel,” at the International Court of Justice, following formal approval by the Irish government. Ireland will reportedly ask the Court to “broaden its interpretation” of what constitutes genocide, according to the nation’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin. Martin went on to say that Ireland is “concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised,” and that the government has also approved joining the Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar. Just days later, Israel announced that the country would shutter its embassy in Dublin, accusing Ireland of “extreme anti-Israel policies,” including joining the genocide lawsuit and recognizing the state of Palestine, per CNN. Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, facing harsh criticism from Israeli politicians, wrote “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-International law.”6. In more Palestine news, the Hill has published a heartrending op-ed by Hamid Ali, widower to Aysenur Eygi, the American citizen murdered in cold blood by the IDF during a protest in the West Bank in September of this year. This piece begins “What do you do with the clothes your wife was wearing when she was killed, now stained with her blood? How do you preserve them as evidence for an investigation that may never happen? What else can you do when your government has given no indication that it will hold her killer — a soldier in the army of a close ally — accountable[?]” Ali goes on to tell the story of how he met Aysenur, how they fell in love, and eventually got married – and recounts the eyewitness testimony that she was shot after “20 minutes of calm, sheltering behind an olive tree.” Ali also expresses his anger and frustration – both at the Israeli military’s flimsy attempt to cover up the murder by falsely claiming she was “shot accidentally during a violent protest,” an assertion that, he notes, was swiftly debunked by major news outlets – and at the United States government, which has refused to hold the Israeli military accountable. Ali ends this piece by laying out how he and his family will meet with the State Department and members of Congress next week to “plead with them to do something about Aysenur’s senseless killing…support our family’s call for an independent U.S. investigation into her death and accountability for the soldier that killed her…[and] urge President Biden to prioritize this case in the last days of his administration and uphold justice fo...
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American Scofflaws
Dec 14, 202401:24:07Tap to summarizeRalph welcomes retired diplomat Ambassador Chas Freeman to discuss the United States' disregard for international law, the incoming Trump administration's approach to foreign policy, and the decline of the American Empire (among other topics).Ambassador Chas Freeman is a retired career diplomat who has negotiated on behalf of the United States with over 100 foreign governments in East and South Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and both Western and Eastern Europe. Ambassador Freeman was previously a Senior Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok and Beijing. He was Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981. He was the principal American interpreter during the late President Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972. In addition to Chinese, Ambassador Freeman speaks French and Spanish at the professional level and can converse in Arabic and several other languages.He concluded his thirty years in public service as Assistant Secretary of Defense, responsible for managing defense relations with all regions of the world except the countries of the former Soviet Union. Ambassador Freeman is the author of several well-received books on statecraft and diplomacy, including The Diplomat’s Dictionary, America’s Misadventures in the Middle East, and America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East.I think it's fair to say that our country led the drive for international law, a world order that was based on rules established by consensus and legitimized at the United Nations. But we have also led the drive away from the rule of law, both internationally and domestically. And I think the connection is contempt for procedural justice or due process.Chas FreemanThat whole area of international law—which was a stabilizing force in the world—has gone [when Trump removed us from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement in Europe.] And the UN Charter is disrespected—not just the US Constitution is—in its fundamentals. We invade the sovereignty of other countries with no serious regard for the legal prohibitions against that. And in fact, those legal prohibitions—which once were something that smaller countries could rely upon when they confronted the great powers—are no longer effective. Therefore, we see at the local level, the regional level, a proliferation of weapons designed to counter and defend against attack by greater powers. So the whole world is in effect arming itself. This is very good for arms manufacturers, but it's very bad for the prospects for our species.Chas FreemanThere are no realistic threats against the United States—except those that we are provoking. Our view seems to be that the best way to deal with the hornet’s nest—I’m speaking of West Asia, the Middle East here—is to go and poke the hornets in their nest.Chas FreemanThe real risk now…is Israel has so much power in the US that it could create incidents which would flip the United States into a blazing barrage of empire expansion— and suppression in the United States domestically. And they have an incoming president who is ripe for that kind of manipulation to begin with.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantisNews 12/11/241. On December 4th, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated in broad daylight in Midtown Manhattan. Clues indicated that the killing was political; most notably, the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were each written on one of the three bullets fired at the scene. As AP notes, “The messages mirror the phrase ‘delay, deny, defend,’ which is commonly used by lawyers and critics about insurers that delay payments, deny claims and defend their actions.” Following nearly two full days of nescience, authorities turned up a suspect – Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of an established Baltimore family who had shown signs of increasingly erratic behavior in recent months, perhaps related to ever-worsening back pain. When Mangione was apprehended in an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonald’s, he was found with “a three-page handwritten document that indicated ‘motivation and mindset,’” the BBC reports, however authorities have not released this manifesto. Perhaps unsurprisingly, ABC 7 New York reports that Mangione’s actions have unleashed a torrent of “‘volcanic’ anger,” toward health insurance agencies, which many regard as capricious and cruel. It remains to be seen how this public sentiment will factor into what is sure to be a highly-publicized criminal trial.2. The reverberations of Mangione’s actions are already being felt. Back in November, the American Society of Anesthesiologists issued a statement decrying Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s unilateral declaration that it would refuse to “pay for anesthesia care if [a] surgery or procedure goes beyond an arbitrary time limit, regardless of how long the surgical procedure takes.” The ASA called on Anthem to reverse that proposal, but their pleas were ignored. That is until December 5th – just one day after the UnitedHealthcare shooting – when the company abruptly reversed themselves and even scrubbed the announcement of the policy from their website. Of course, Anthem insists that the outcry was based on “misinformation” and denies any correlation between the assassination and their decision, per NBC, but the timing frankly makes that difficult to believe.3. Another New York City killing also made the news last week: the trial of Daniel Penny, a former U.S. Marine on trial for strangling Jordan Neely to death in a New York subway car. Neely was an African-American street artist who had been experiencing homelessness. CNN reports Penny was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide, already a lesser charge than the original second-degree manslaughter allegation, which Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed Friday after jurors “twice told the court they could not come to a verdict on the count.” Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, is quoted saying “I miss my son. My son didn’t have to go through this. I didn’t have to go through this either…What’s going to happen to us now? I’ve had enough of this. The system is rigged.”4. Turning to the Middle East, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has fallen. Assad, with help from Russia, has clung to power since the country descended into civil war in 2011, beating back all manner of rival forces ranging from U.S.-backed rebels to left-wing Kurdish militias to ISIS. The faction that finally did wrest power from Assad is called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS, which splintered from Al-Qaeda but is now engaging in a so-called “charm offensive” per France24, and promoting itself as a tolerant faction that will not subjugate women or oppress ethnic and religious minorities such as Syrian Christians, Druze, and Kurds. In a statement, the group told the Kurds of Aleppo “You have the right to live freely … Diversity is a strength of which we are proud…We denounce the actions of the Islamic State group against the Kurds, including the enslavement of women … We are with the Kurds to build the Syria of tomorrow.” ABC reports the U.S. will “recognize and support a new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women.” So far HTS seems to fit the bill. And if this all wasn’t enough, the Syrian situation is further complicated by Israel using this moment to expand its foothold in the country. CNN reports Israel has “launched airstrikes at military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone for the first time in 50 years,” setting the stage for a possible new front in Netanyahu’s ongoing regional war.5. In Palestine, the <a target="_blank" href="https://theintercept.co...
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Israel's Wall of Impunity
Dec 7, 202401:15:56Tap to summarizeRalph welcomes international human rights lawyer and activist, and former senior United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiber to discuss Israel and Gaza—if Israel should be thrown out of the UN, how Trump's positions will compare to Biden's, and whether we're starting to see cracks in Israel's wall of impunity. Plus, Ralph shares a possible ray of light in Trump's cabinet, a warning about the cost of credit cards for small businesses, and some tough love for AARP.Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and activist, and a former senior United Nations human rights official. A human rights activist in the 1980s, he would go on to serve for more than three decades at the United Nations, with postings in Switzerland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and UN Headquarters in New York. In October of 2023, he left the United Nations, penning a widely read letter criticizing the UN’s human rights failures in the Middle East, warning of unfolding genocide in Gaza, and calling for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on international law, human rights, and equality. Gaza is now the world capital of child amputation. And that doesn't even cover the true horror, because Israel blocks any anesthesia from entering Gaza as a means of imposing further agony on the population that they are subjecting to genocide. Which means those amputations are being carried out on children and adults without anesthesia and often without sterile equipment or adequate hospitals, such that even if they survive the excruciating agony of an amputation without anesthesia, they may well not survive the side effects. They may well not survive the infection.Craig MokhiberThe irony is that in November, the UN announced that Israel had paid its dues in full in order to preserve its membership and to continue to fund the UN— an organization that the Israelis say is a terrorist, anti-Semitic organization dedicated to its destruction, is an organization that they have decided to be a member of and to fund. So when you look at the kind of propaganda that they distribute…You can see how ironic and how outrageous it really is. I've said that it would be hard to imagine any country in the history of the organization more deserving—at a minimum—of suspension from the UN General Assembly. No country in history has violated the principles of the UN Charter more than Israel, and it has done so from the moment of its admission in 1948. Craig MokhiberWe can certainly expect a dangerous four years under Trump. There's no denying it…But we shouldn't forget that we've just had a four-year term under Biden and Harris in which they undid none of those policies, and in which they actually supported horrific international crimes being perpetrated by Israel. And Biden and his administration were at the helm of the brutal repression of human rights defenders here in the United States, on college campuses and workplaces and the streets and in media places. So we're going to go from genocide abroad and repression at home under Biden to more genocide abroad and repression at home under Trump. The only difference is that Trump won't waste his time on the kind of mendacious pretense of civility and humanitarian concern that was peddled by Biden and Harris as it murdered babies in their thousands. Craig MokhiberAARP has maybe 18 million members. That's a big, big organization, and we want it on our side. We want it on the side of single-payer, universal insurance, full Medicare for all.Ralph NaderLink to Ralph’s letter to AARP CEO Jo Ann JenkinsIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantisNews 12/4/241. On Tuesday, right-wing South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted to stage a coup, declaring martial law and stationing troops outside of the South Korean National Assembly in an attempt to block lawmakers from assembling and voting to overturn his decree. Reuters reports that while Yoon used the pretext of cracking down on “North Korean anti-state forces," he “did not cite any specific threat” and instead focused on his domestic political opponents. Some contend that this move was meant to stave off prosecution of his wife, who is under investigation for corruption. When lawmakers were finally able to enter the National Assembly, all 190 members present voted to overturn the decree, including members of Yoon’s own party. Former Democratic President Moon Jae-in urged the National Assembly to “act quickly to protect our democracy from crumbling." Even still, Yoon initially refused to call off the military, only folding after the Korean unions declared a general strike and the defense minister tendered his resignation. South Korea has previously been ruled by U.S.-backed dictators, including Syngman Rhee, Park Chung-Hee, and Chun Doo-hwan. Almost 30,000 American troops are stationed in the country and a provision in the American-drafted Korean constitution gives the U.S. emergency powers to take over the South Korean military.2. In Western Europe, the governments of Germany and France are collapsing. CNN reports that weak economic performance led German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SDP to dismiss his finance minister, Christian Lindner of the FDP, which in turn resulted in that party pulling out of Scholz’s governing coalition – leaving Scholz in charge of a minority government. According to this report, Scholz committed to holding a confidence vote set for January 15th; if he loses that vote, a snap election could be held as early as March 2025, well ahead of the scheduled September elections. Meanwhile in France, Macron’s center-right coalition is facing no confidence motions from the Left and far-Right. This crisis boils down to a budget showdown hinging on a social security austerity measure that Prime Minister Michel Barnier rammed through without a vote, per Le Monde. Mathilde Panot of the left-wing France Unbowed party is quoted in Reuters saying "Faced with this umpteenth denial of democracy, we will censure the government…We are living in political chaos because of Michel Barnier's government and Emmanuel Macron's presidency."3. In their December 2024 report, Prisoners for Peace lists four Israeli refuseniks: Itamar Greenberg, who has already spent 105 days in prison and has now been sentenced to another 45 days; Yuval Moav, who has been in prison for 125 days and may face yet more jail time – and now Itamar and Yuval are joined by Soul Behar Tzalik and Iddo Eilam, who were both sentenced to 30 days on November 27th. All four refuseniks are just 18 years old. They are affiliated with the Israeli refusenik peace group, Mesarvot.4. The Financial Times reports that the United States is exerting pressure on Ukraine to lower its age of conscription from 25 to just 18 years old. A senior U.S. military official is quoted saying “The simple truth is that Ukraine is not currently mobilising or training enough soldiers to replace their battlefield losses while keeping pace with Russia’s growing military.” This piece frames this push as part of the Biden administration’s feverish attempts to “deploy $7bn in security assistance to Kyiv before…Donald Trump takes office,” and cites estimates that Ukraine needs at least another 160,000 soldiers to replenish its ranks. Anti-war advocates have long decried the United States’ role in perpetuating this war rather than seeking a negotiated settlement, resulting in a staggering loss of Ukrainian and Russian lives. For his part, President Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian parliament last week “Let there be no speculation — our state is not preparing to lower the mobilisation age.”5. In another case of foreign policy being made in the liminal space between the Biden and Trump administrations, AP reports China has announced they will ban exports of gallium, germanium, antimony and other high-tech materials with military applications to the United States. in retaliation for the U.S. limiting semiconductor-related exports – and for Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on the People’s Republic. Lin Jian of the Chinese Foreign Ministry is quoted saying “China has lodged stern protests with the U.S. for its…malicious suppression of China’s technological progress…illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction against Chinese companies.”6. In yet another instance of Trump conducting foreign ...
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Invisible Palestinians
Oct 21, 2023Tap to summarizeIn our continued coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ralph welcomes James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute and author of "Palestinians: The Invisible Victims.” Then, no-nukes activist Harvey Wasserman joins to warn us about the dangerous condition of nuclear reactors across the country, including the threat of “embrittlement” at the California reactor in Diablo Canyon. James Zogby is co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, and he is featured frequently on national and international media as an expert on Middle East affairs. Since 1992, he has written a weekly column— “Washington Watch” —that is published in 12 countries. He is the author of several books, including Looking at Iran: The Rise and Fall of Iran in Arab Public Opinion, The Tumultuous Decade: Arab, Turkish, and Iranian Public Opinion - 2010-2019, Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters, and Palestinians: The Invisible Victims.There are two narratives, and we have to understand both. There's Israeli trauma and Jewish trauma, and there's Palestinian and Arab trauma. Both are real because there are two groups of humanity who each have histories. When we adopt one and ignore the other, then we end up creating the kind of torment the Palestinians have been living with.James ZogbyThis does not make Israel more secure. Taking massive amounts of Palestinian lives, evacuating them, forcing them to flee from their homes, murdering them from the air—doesn't make them more secure. At the end of the day, when the dust settles and the tears dry, you're going to have a whole lot more dead people, a whole lot more anger, a whole lot more frustration, and nothing else will change in Gaza or in the West Bank.James ZogbyHamas was a tiny religious organization which was fostered into a more powerful organization by the United States and Israel. They thought that if they built up a religious organization, it would undermine the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organization). And once again, just as in Afghanistan, we create our own adversaries, blundering back and forth.Ralph NaderHarvey Wasserman is a journalist, author, democracy activist, and advocate for renewable energy. Mr. Wasserman is the author of Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, and The People’s Spiral Of U.S. History. He has written and researched atomic energy since 1973, and co-authored Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Energy.There's only one explanation why they're continuing to operate these two reactors and all the other reactors in the United States. And that's because the commercial reactor industry is now the infrastructure of the nuclear weapons industry. If you like nuclear power, you love nuclear weapons. They are joined at the hip, these two industries.Harvey WassermanThese two reactors are upwind of the entire United States. An accident at Diablo Canyon could—within four hours—send an apocalyptic radioactive cloud into Los Angeles, into the Central Valley where we get our fruits and vegetables for the winter, and into the Bay Area. The stakes could not be higher. And again, these are military facilities, masquerading as fighters of global warming, which is absolutely ridiculous.Harvey WassermanIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. The Huffington Post reports that the State Department has imposed a censorship regime, directing high-level diplomats involved in Middle East affairs to refrain from using the following phrases: “de-escalation/ceasefire, end to violence/bloodshed, and restoring calm.” This mirrors White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s response to a reporter’s question during a recent briefing, when she deemed calls for a ceasefire by progressives in Congress “wrong…repugnant, and…disgraceful.” Rejecting this censorious framework, Rep. Jamaal Bowman tweeted that the “Official statement from [his] office [is] De-escalate. End the violence. Restore calm.”2. According to Semafor, MSNBC has “quietly” pulled their Muslim anchors from the air, preventing them from covering the rapidly escalating situation in Gaza. “The network did not air a scheduled Thursday night episode of The Mehdi Hasan Show…reversed a plan for Ayman Mohyeldin to fill in this week…for…Joy Reid’s 7 p.m. show… [and] the network also plans to have Alicia Menendez fill in …for Ali Velshi.” This piece goes on to quote from anonymous MSNBC sources who “[feel] all three hosts have some of the deepest knowledge of the conflict.” NBC denies this is an intentional and coordinated move, instead claiming these shifts are merely “coincidental.” Meanwhile, MSNBC did prominently feature New York City Mayor Eric Adams making the extraordinarily dubious claim that “the DSA and others [were] carrying swastikas and calling for the extermination of Jewish people.” DSA members are now mulling a suit against the mayor for defamation, per City and State NY.3. The Intercept is out with a story about divisions within the liberal Zionist advocacy group, J Street. Per the story, J Street is supporting a congressional resolution that “pledges unconditional support to Israel’s war in Gaza,” which “makes no mention of Palestinian civilians.” In response, over 1,000 former J Street staffers and representatives are urging the organization to join calls for a ceasefire. J Street’s position mirrors that of many congressional progressives who have been hesitant to call for a ceasefire even as the civilian death toll continues to mount.4. Law schools have become another major venue for conflict on this issue. The Jewish Law Students Association of the City University of New York has issued a statement, expressing their “uncompromising solidarity with the Palestinian people in their righteous struggle for self-determination,” and noting that “institutions like the UN have consistently demonstrated an unwillingness and/or inability to hold Israel accountable over its blatant disregard for international law.” Similar statements have come out of Harvard, Columbia, and NYU – leading top law firm Davis Polk to rescind job offers they had extended to students from these institutions, per NBC. Some donors have also cut ties with Harvard over the statement, including the Wexner foundation, founded by former Victoria’s Secret CEO and close Epstein associate Leslie Wexner.5. The Washington Post reports Venezuela and the United States have reached a breakthrough agreement in which the U.S. will ease sanctions on the country’s oil industry, and in exchange the country will hold “a competitive, internationally monitored presidential election next year.” This agreement represents a win for both nations, with the Biden administration hoping it will ease oil and gas prices, while the Maduro administration will, at long last, have the opportunity to reaffirm its legitimacy following the Trump-backed coup attempt that began in 2019.6. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has called on the full Senate to expel Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey following his indictment on corruption charges and allegations by the Department of Justice that he was acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Fetterman’s statement reads “Senator Menendez should not be a U.S. Senator. He should have been gone long ago. It is time for every one of my colleagues in the Senate to join me in expelling Senator Menendez…This is not a close call.” This from the Hill.7. Negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP have broken down yet again, this time over two specific issues. The first, according to the <a target="_blank" ...
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The Punishment of Gaza
Oct 14, 2023Tap to summarizeRalph welcomes Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy to discuss recent attacks by Hamas and the Israeli military in Israel and Palestine. Then, international law expert Bruce Fein speaks with Ralph about the recent violence, America's response, and America's historical culpability. ‘Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. He is the author of the weekly “Twilight Zone" feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper. He is the author of the book The Punishment of Gaza.I think that there was something moving in [President Biden’s] speech because he seemed very sincere. But I was really, really missing the other side, the Palestinians, the siege, the occupation, the apartheid, nothing of this exists in his world. It was really a speech of a Zionist…not of a statesman who sees the siege and sees the agony and the suffering of the Palestinians for the last decades. And doesn't see the connection between this barbaric attack on Israel on Saturday and all those preconditions which are all of them criminal and inhuman.Gideon LevyBruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.In the international arena, justice is subordinated to power. And that's what we have here. And when President Biden yesterday says, “Oh, we're all in favor of a rule-based international order,” while he's supporting the very definition of genocide? It shows you how incredibly hypocritical and callous these politicians are. I don't want to single out Biden, because I think politicians in general are that way. And I'm not going to exclude some of those who are Palestinians too. It's a universal sociopathology in the political figures. And it's very, very tragic. 'Cause who loses? the peaceful civilians who want nothing more than a better life and opportunity to develop their faculties and have families.Bruce FeinGiven the current events and the destruction of Gaza, Biden should really demand an immediate ceasefire and negotiate to establish a truce. He's got to try to be an honest broker, and instead he's a dittohead bullhorn for more military activity by Israel. This is the low point in presidential positioning on the Middle East conflict since the end of World War II, and there's nobody in government to call him to account.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. First, I must address the situation in Palestine. There is too much to say and the situation continues to develop rapidly, so instead of getting into specific news items I will instead read the October 8th statement released by progressive Palestinian congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. “I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day. I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity. The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer. No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.”2. The United Auto Workers strike has notched their first major victory. According to a statement issued by the union on October 6th, “General Motors will include electric vehicle battery production work in the UAW’s national master agreement with the company.” The statement lauded this agreement as a “historic step forward,” which will guarantee “the transition to electric vehicles at GM will be a just transition that brings good union jobs to communities across America.” Another major breakthrough is a whopping proposed 23% pay increase from Ford, with other topics ranging from Cost of Living Increases to profit sharing to retirement security. As union president Shawn Fain remarked “We may be foul-mouthed, but we’re strategic. We may get fired up, but we’re disciplined. We may be rowdy, but we’re organized…We’re not here to start a fight, we’re here to finish one.”3. Last week, Dr. Cornell West announced that he would drop his bid for the Green Party nomination and instead continue his run as an independent. A statement from his campaign reads “The best way to challenge the entrenched system is by focusing 100 percent on the people, not on the intricacies of internal party dynamics,” per the New York Times. Barring other factors, this will complicate the activist academic’s ability to appear on the ballot in many states. Within the same week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he would drop out of the Democratic Party primary and also run as an independent. Semafor reports that the Trump campaign now plans to target, rather than boost, the RFK Jr. campaign as his independent bid is expected to draw more votes from Trump than Biden in a general election.4. AP reports the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4-3 in favor of hearing a challenge to the state’s legislative maps, long regarded as lopsidedly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. Liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz, under massive pressure from Wisconsin Republicans, refused to recuse herself from this case – setting the stage for a power struggle which could see Republican legislators go so far as to impeach her. Liberals took back a majority on the state supreme court following a 15-year run of conservative control.5. X, formerly Twitter, has “roll[ed] out [a] new ad format that can't be reported [or] blocked,” per Mashable. The article goes on to note that “the new ad format also doesn't disclose who is behind the ad or that it is even an advertisement at all.” This seems to violate FTC guidelines, which demand that disclosures of advertisements be “clear and conspicuous.”6. An ominous report in the Washington Post finds that if one asks an Amazon Alexa whether fraud was involved in the 2020 election, it will reply that the election was “’stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,’ citing Rumble, a video-streaming service favored by conservatives.” Amazon claims these responses were limited and that the error has been corrected, but this incident foreshadows a much larger issue of disinformation becoming so plentiful that it overwhelms reliable sourcing in terms of sheer volume online. Others have reported similar issues with so-called AI programs, which cull the internet for their answers to specific questions.7. Politico reports that, following a DNC meeting this past week, the Iowa caucuses will no longer be first on the presidential primary calendar. The state will now vote with many other, larger states on March 5th, also known as Super Tuesday. Iowa delegates have made clear that they plan to “lobby for an earlier nominating contest in 2028.” On the other hand, New Hampshire has signaled that it will not abide by the Committee’s decision to move their primary, and may hold a “rogue” primary on their chosen date. Elaine Kamarck, a DNC member told Politico “We’ve made our decision about the sequence of these early states and we’re going to stick to that sequence.”8. Finally, El Pais reports that the “Colombian hitmen who killed presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio [have been] murdered in an Ecuadorian prison.” Sources claim the men were hanged in a cellblock. Just days prior, “the United States offered a $5 m...
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Digital Addictions
Aug 5, 2023Tap to summarizeRalph welcomes Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics to talk about our addictions to screens and how to break out of them. Plus, our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, opens the program with everything you need to know about the latest Trump indictment.Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.I think it’s important for the audience to recognize that 100% of the incriminating evidence was supplied by Trump appointees or supporters. No Democrat made a cameo appearance. There was no incriminating evidence from any opponent of Donald Trump. It’s all his own people. And therefore, when you think about the indictment, the idea that it’s a witch hunt by Trump’s political enemies is facially lunatic.Bruce FeinThese expressions by Trump were not good-faith belief that there may have been a few blunders someplace or other. And [they demonstrate] that the whole goal was to defraud the American people out of the right to have a peaceful transition of power based upon a free and fair count of the electoral votes.Bruce FeinSherry Turkle is Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Professor Turkle is a sociologist, a licensed clinical psychologist, and she is an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics. She is the author of several books, including Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, and The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir.That’s really what you’re fighting— this ethos that says, “When technology makes a problem, technology will solve that problem. In a friction-free manner. It will not involve changing capitalism, changing the structures of power, or saying that science and engineering need to be dethroned as the moral and cultural arbiters for the society we live in.” So, I think that the resistance movement has to come from politics and really has to come from political organization.Sherry Turkle[If I were king in this domain,] you absolutely have legislation that treats generative AI as though it were nuclear energy. In other words, do not say, “Well, there’s kind of an analogy. Maybe there’s an analogy because it’s very powerful.” But to really say, “This is going to disrupt us, it’s a national security threat, and it’s certainly a threat to our elections…” So, it can wreak havoc— unless you’re extremely vigilant and the thing is controlled— with every aspect of our democracy.Sherry TurkleThere’s always a big-time gap between the damage of new technology and accountability catching up with it, or public awareness.Ralph NaderHi everybody, Steve Skrovan here. This is halfway between a shameless plug and some useful information. As some of you may know, I have my own Substack page called Bits & Pieces. It’s mainly funny stories and essays. I wanted to alert you specifically to the last piece I wrote concerning the Writers’ Guild Strike. It’s funny but also packed with a lot of information for those of you who are interested. Some of you may think writers and actors striking is not a big deal, but our strike is emblematic of what is going on across many industries where the corporations are trying to turn us all into gig workers. On the RNRH, we have talked a lot about AI for instance, especially on the program you just heard. The writers and the actors have a chance to be the first entities to address regulating AI in a meaningful way. We are on the cutting edge of what people are calling the Hot Labor Summer. So, check it out at steveskrovan.substack.com. That’s s-t-e-v-e-s-k-r-o-v-a-n dot substack dot com. We’ll link to it on the RNRH page also. Feel free to subscribe. It's free! Thanks.In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Bobby Scott announced that they have introduced a new bill to raise the minimum wage. To account for the rising cost of living, this new bill would raise the wage not to $15 per hour, but $17. Sanders and Scott note that “If the minimum wage had increased with productivity over the last 50 years, it would be $23 an hour today. If it had increased at the same rate that Wall Street…bonuses have increased, it would be more than $42 an hour.”2. USA Today reports that the Houston Independent School District in Texas has decided to “eliminate 28 school libraries,” and use at least some of those spaces as “discipline centers.” This article further notes that “The Houston Independent School District is the largest district in Texas and serves more than 189,000 students at its 274 campuses…[and that] The once- independent district was recently taken over by the Texas Education Agency.”3. The Intercept reports that, amid the strikes roiling Hollywood, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has introduced the Food Secure Strikers Act of 2023. This bill would “repeal a restriction on striking workers receiving SNAP benefits, protect food stamp eligibility for public-sector workers fired for striking, and clarify that any income-eligible household can receive SNAP benefits even if a member of that household is on strike.” This bill would provide a crucial lifeline to striking workers, particularly as the Hollywood bosses have made clear that they are willing to see workers lose their homes before coming back to the negotiating table.4. A new report in Reuters alleges that employees at Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors “had been instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service.” The company even went so far as to create a “Diversion Team” with orders to “cancel as many range-related [service] appointments as possible,” in order to stifle consumer complaints that the automobiles range on a single charge was far below advertised. According to the report “some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks.”5. Bloomberg reports that the Abraham Accords – Trump’s middle east peace plan which rested on inducing Arab states to recognize Israel by offering them money, weapons, or whatever else they desired – seem to be coming apart at the seams. The numbers are stark. While the agreements never enjoyed majority support in any Arab state, support has declined considerably – from 47% initially in the UAE, to just 27%, from 45% to 20% in Bahrain, and 40% to 20% in Saudi Arabia. This last drop is most significant, as the underlying purpose of the agreements were to align Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran. The Saudis now plan to extract further concessions from the United States.6. Listeners may recall a story from North Carolina about Tricia Cotham, a Democratic state legislator from a safe blue seat who switched parties, giving Republicans a super-majority in the state House – and cast the deciding vote to override the Democratic Governor’s veto and impose a 12-week abortion ban. Now, a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/30/us/inside-t...
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Police Misconduct/OSHA Turns 50!
Dec 26, 2020Tap to summarizeRalph welcomes firebrand attorney, Jason Kafoury, who helped pass a referendum in Portland, Oregon to create a commission of civilian volunteers who would have the power to investigate deadly force and other allegations of misconduct by police. Plus, former head of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Dr. David Michaels, joins us to mark the 50th anniversary of the agency that has saved countless lives and prevented innumerable injuries to workers on the job. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
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13 Articles of Impeachment of Donald Trump - Summary
Dec 2, 2019Tap to summarizeWelcome to this special edition of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. In this series, Ralph and Constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, will lay out the articles of impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. Summary Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
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13 Articles of Impeachment of Donald Trump - Count Twelve: Violation of the Due Process Clause
Dec 1, 2019Tap to summarizeWelcome to this special edition of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. In this series, Ralph and Constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, will lay out the articles of impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. Count Twelve: Violation of the Due Process Clause Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
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