Unauthorized Disclosure

Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola end the year with this episode featuring Katie Halper, co-host of Rolling Stone's "Useful Idiots" podcast and the host of "The Katie Halper Show."

Like previous year-end shows, Katie guest hosts for the full episode as Rania and Kevin highlight several major political developments in 2019.

They each offer predictions for 2020 in the latter part of the episode, looking ahead to the Democratic presidential primary and beyond. 

Direct download: S6E45.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:42pm EDT

Our initial plan for this week's episode fell through. We also had limited time in our schedules to record, since Rania Khalek was traveling across the world for work and to get home for the holidays.

So, to still give you all something, here is an episode from Kevin Gosztola's new show, the "Dissenter Weekly Update." It covers whistleblower stories as well as the most recent developments with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's case.

In this preview, Kevin
highlights how the United States government won its lawsuit against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and can now confiscate proceeds he earned from his book, Permanent Record, as well as his speeches.

The episode also highlights a
whistleblower report on medical care in immigrant detention facilities and how a federal judge backed a prison psychiatrist whistleblower in California.

Later in the episode, he talks about doctors who urged the Australian government to intervene on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as his health deteriorates in Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh. There also was a significant procedural hearing in Assange’s extradition case, where we learned key information about how his extradition hearing in February will likely unfold.
Direct download: S6E44.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:59am EDT

Asa Winstanley, an investigative journalist for the Electronic Intifada who has covered Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn since 2015, joins Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola to talk about the result of the UK election.

Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson and conservatives won a resounding victory. Corbyn announced his resignation as Labour Party leader after a harsh defeat.

Much of the outcome is owed to Brexit and how it divided the working class. There were many working people upset that the Labour Party supported a second referendum on Brexit, which seemed anti-democratic to them. Asa addresses this in the interview.

But as Asa argues, from the very beginning, Corbyn failed—or refused—to forcefully reject the "Labour anti-Semitism" lying smear campaign directed at him.

Propaganda pushed by the Israel lobby, the UK military and intelligence agencies, neoliberals, and right-wing conservatives was initially rejected by voters. But as the smears continued, it soon became accepted—Labour has an anti-Semitism problem and isn't doing enough to address it.

By November, the campaign fully escalated to Corbyn is an anti-Semite.

Asa discusses many aspects of this smear campaign and warns supporters of Bernie Sanders: don't let the same smears that sank Corbyn tank the Sanders campaign.

Direct download: S6E43.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:56am EDT

For this week, Tom Mueller joins the show to discuss his book, "Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing In An Age Of Fraud." It was released in October.

Tom describes how he came to work on this book, which over 500-plus pages documents and explores whistleblowing in many different arenas—corporate, institutional, government, etc. He highlights common threads he sees in various whistleblower cases, such as what leads one to become a whistleblower.

We talk about the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state and the incredible dangers the site poses to humanity. According to Tom, more whistleblowers than any other site on Earth come from Hanford. Yet, very few citizens know about Hanford.

Later in the interview, Tom outlines how corporate executives responsible for waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality use universities and philanthropy to launder their reputations. He shares a whistleblower case related to this practice.

We conclude with some conversation on national security whistleblowing, what is at stake with President Donald Trump's administration, and how President Barack Obama's administration gave Trump many of the tools he has available for continuing a war on whistleblowers. That includes prosecuting truth-tellers with the Espionage Act.

Direct download: TMuellerPublicEdit.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:28am EDT

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