Will Trump and His Shills For Russia like Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard Turn Us Into Putin's America? | Israel and Turkey Appears to be the Winners in Syria While Russia and Iran are the Losers | How Rising Food Prices Played a Decisive Role in the Election and Efforts to Rein In Food Monopolies Like WalMart 
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December 12, 2024 - Robert Young Pelton | Nader Hashemi | Stacy Mitchell

Is Another Arab Spring Possible With Syria's New Leader and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood? | With Trump's Manic Fanboy Kash Patel in Charge of the Country's Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, Patel's Delusional List of "Traitors" Will Soon Fill the MAGA Gulag | Georgia's Pro-EU Protests Intensify as the Pro-Russian Parliament Installs a Right Wing Footballer as President
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December 15, 2024 - David Hearst | Jason Wilson | Alex Scribener

As Trump Declares War on the Press, ABC News Preemptively Capitulates | The Latest of 323 School Shooting This Year Involves a 15-Year Old Girl Who Killed 2, Wounded 6 and Shot Herself at Her Christian School | Our "Christo-Fascists" Compared to the Islamo-Fascists We Decry
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December 17, 2024 - Paul Waldman | Jonathan Metzl | Suzanne Schneider

The Democratic Old Guard Shoots Down a Rising Star Who Appeals to the Youth and Latino Vote | An expert on Terrorism on Charging Luigi Mangione With Terrorism | Jeff Bezos Bends the Knee Today at Mar a Lago as Trump Muses About Privatizing the USPS
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December 18, 2024 - Alexander Sammon | Thomas Mockaitis | Christopher Shaw

Plutocrats No Longer Shape Our Government Behind the Scenes, Musk is Now Giving House Republicans Orders | MAGA Republicans Follow Orban's Model With Project 2025 While Trump Moves to Control the Media as Orban Did, Turning a Democracy Into a Kleptocracy and Dictatorship 	
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December 19, 2024 - Brooke Harrington | Kim Lane Scheppele

Trump's Triumph of Lawlessness and the Weaponization of Kash Patel's Federal Bureau of Retribution | Will Elon Musk's Threat to Deploy His Unlimited Amounts of Campaign Money Bring All Republicans to Heel? | With Trump Back Hate and Extremism Are on the Back Burner For Now
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December 23, 2024 - Lisa Graves | John Nichols | Wendy Via

As Trump Encourages Secession and Threatens Civil War, He Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving to China and Russia | Strengthening the Laws of War as Non-combatants Die in Gaza and Ukraine | The Inevitability of Trump 250 Years in the Making With the U.S. Captive to Its Contentious Past
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December 29, 2024 - Miles Taylor | Oona Hathaway | Nick Bryant

Will the Democrats Confront the Economic Conditions That Gave Rise to Right Wing Populism? | How 9/11 Made the Trump Presidency Possible and Hollowed Out the Very Idea of Citizenship in the US | Plutocrats No Longer Shape Our Government Behind the Scenes, Musk is Now Giving House Republicans Orders
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January 1, 2025 - Wendy Brown | Richard Beck | Brooke Harrington

The Latest on the Investigations Into the New Year's Massacre in New Orleans and the Tesla Cyber Truck Explosion in Front of the Trump Hotel | Contrasting the Divisive Trump With Jimmy Carter Who Tried to Bridge Divides | Could Trump be a Peacemaker Even If He Only Wants to Win a Nobel Prize?
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January 2, 2025 - Robert Pape | Chris McGreal | Stephen Wertheim

Trump's Ominous Response to the Recent Terrorist Attacks | An American Despot is About to Take Charge With So Much More Power Than Hitler Had in 1933 | A Republican Court Kills Net Neutrality to Reward Unpopular and Antiquated Cable and Telecom Giants
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January 5, 2025 - Karen Greenberg | Ruth Ben Ghiat | Craig Aaron

Today's Moving Memorial of President Jimmy Carter at His State Funeral | How Climate Change Supercharged the Wildfires That Swept Through LA | A Former LAFD Battalion Chief on What it is Like to Confront a Wall of Flame Driven by 80 MPH Winds
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January 9, 2025 - James Fallows | Glen MacDonald | Mark Whailing

Instead of Helping Angelenos Who Lost Their Homes, Trump Offers Insults | The Third Inauguration of Venezuela's Maduro Who Lost the Last Election in a Landslide | The Scofflaw-in-Chief is Now the Felon-in-Chief
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January 12, 2025 -  LeRoy Westerling | David Smilde | James Zirin

Republican Senators Roll Over the Democrats Determined to Do Trump's Bidding and Confirm a Dangerously Unqualified Ideologue as Secretary of Defense | A Former Female JAG Officer on Hegseth's Disparagement of Women in the Military and Military Justice | Jack Smith's January 6 Report Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted Had the Case Gone To Trial | Unlike Biden, Trump Uses Leverage to Get a Ceasefire and Hostage Release Deal Between Israel and Hamas 	
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January 14, 2025 - Robert Young Pelton | Rachel VanLandingham | Laurie Levenson | Annelle Sheline

An Analysis of the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire and Hostage Release Deal | Biden's Warning of a New American Oligarchy and the Danger of a Tech-Industrial Complex 	
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January 16, 2025 - Steven Simon | Quinn Slobodian

The Incoming Horror of Trump and the Outgoing Sadness of Biden | Biden's Warning of a Tech-Industrial Complex and That We Are Losing Our Democracy to Plutocracy | The Future of TikTok Which the Supreme Court Shut Down Today  
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January 19, 2025 - Sean Wilentz | Fred Turner | Cayce Myers

Today Trump Issued a Death Sentence to Our Children and Grandchildren | The Unreality of the Reality TV Star Spewing Lies as Promises | The Crypto Grift of $Trump Even Before He Became the Grifter-in-Chief
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January 20, 2025 - Dr. Allen Frances | Sidney Blumenthal | Molly White

A Manifesto to Stand Up in the Face Of Trump's Firehose of Reactionary Initiatives | Trump Threatens to Sanction Putin and Calls on OPEC to Lower Oil Prices to Force Russia's to End Its War On Ukraine | The Tech-Industrial Complex's Plans to Capture the Defense Budget 	
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January 23, 2025 - Gil Duran | George Beebe | William Hartung

In Their Jihad Against DEI, Trump and Hegseth Are Creating Affirmative Action for White Losers, Drunks and Incompetents | Trump's Wrecking Crew and the Politics of Destruction | Trump Eyes Panama, Greenland and Canada For a Land Grab
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January 26, 2025 - Michael Weinstein | Russell Muirhead | Michael Albertus

Republican Senators Who Know Better Appear to Roll Over For Trump, Poised to Confirm the Disastrous Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard | Rather Than Fix the FAA, Our Reality TV President Blames DEI For the Potomac Plane Crash
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January 1, 2025 - Gregory Treverton | Jeff Wise

The Fatal Combination of a Mentally Ill President and a Mentally Deranged Billionaire Out to Destroy Our Government and Democracy | Stopping the Deadly Fentanyl Trade in Mexico, China and Now India | The Folly of a Trade War With China and a Saner Way To Ease Tensions 	
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February 4, 2025 - Robert Kuttner | Ioan Grillo | Van Jackson

Netanyahu Meets With the Christian Zionist "Crusader" at the Pentagon Where Top Officials Want to Get Out of the Middle East Quagmire | A Palestinian Perspective on Trump's US-Owned Gaza as a "Riviera of the Middle East" | The Growing Alarm at Musk Having Every American's Social Security Number, Address, Email, Income and Personal Details
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February 5, 2025 - Jacob Heilbrunn | Leila Hilal | Jeet Heer

Government Workers Should Not Fall For the Musk/Trump Buyout Trick | The Moral Authoritarian and Billionaire Worshipping Author of Project 2025 About to Head the OMB | Collusion Between the Far Right and American Policing is About to Get Worse Under Trump, Bondi and Kash Patel
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February 6, 2025 - David Super | Lisa Graves | Michael German

Technocrats Are Purging Bureaucrats to Grab Data, Control Funds, Weaken Government, Cut Services and Install Loyalists to the Dear Leader | The One-Two Punch of Plutocracy and Theocracy Taking Over the Country | The Tinderbox in Eastern Congo Threatening a Regional War
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February 9, 2025 - Kathleen Clark | Katherine Stewart | Vanda Felbab-Brown

Has Fascism Already Arrived in America? | The MAGA Christian Nationalists' War on the Separation of Church and State | Musk and His Techies Are Purging Workers to Replace Them With Automation and AI Which is Why He's Buying OpenAI For $97.4 Billion
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February 10, 2025 - Jason Stanley | Jacques Berlinerbau | Allison Pugh

Trump is Selling Out Ukraine to Putin Who He Is Going to Bat For to Have the Pariah Readmitted to the G7 | Republican Senators Confirm an Anti-Vaxxer and Conspiracy Monger to Head HHS | How the Left Lost Its Political Footing and How to Get it Back
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February 13, 2025 - Allison McManus | Michael Hiltzik | Timothy Shenk

After Throwing Ukraine Under the Bus, Trump is Now Trashing Zelensky | What Can Ukraine Do to Defend Itself and Rebuild After Trump Sells the Country out to Putin? | How Trump Rode Into the White House Again on a Wave of Reactionary Nihilism
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February 19, 2025 - Simon Shuster | Emma Ashford | Katherine Stewart

The Confirmation of Kash Patel as Trump's Dumbest Self-inflicted Wound to Weaken America and Accelerate Its Collapse as a World Power | In Crushing of the Federal WorkForce, Musk and Trump Will Not Find the Trillions to Make Trump's Tax Cuts to the Super-Wealthy Permanent | The Fraud of the Can-Do Power of Positive Thinking as We Head Into An Era of Techno-Serfdom
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February 20, 2025 - Ryan Cooper | Eric Blanc | Erik Baker

As Assessment of the Damage Already Done by Musk and His Teenage Techies | The Need For Our Politicians, Business Leaders and Citizens to Recognize Trump's Sickness and Intervene Before He Does Any More Damage to the Country and the World | Trump's Lies-Laden Keynote Speech to CPAC
Host: Ian Masters
Producer: Graham FitzGibbon
Assistant Producer: Asher Price

February 23, 2025 - Nathan Tankus | Bandy Lee | Peter Montgomery

Is Putin Trump's Case Officer? | Will Trump be Able to Turn the Press Into His Propaganda and PR Arm as Putin and Orban Have Done? | Since Musk's Assault on the Federal Workforce is Only Saving a Pittance, the Real Intention Then Must Be To Cripple the US Government 

February 27, 2025 - Alexander Motyl | Victor Pickard | Brooke Harrington

The Similarities Between Trump and Musk Tearing America Apart and What Mao Did to China in the Cultural Revolution | An Assessment on How Much the Musk Assault on Government is Performative as Our Reality TV President Governs By Stunt
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March 6, 2025 - Orville Schell | Andy Kroll

Trump's Escalating Trade War Against Canada Has the Business Roundtable He's Meeting With Nervous | Trump Tries to Deport a Student Protester With a Green Card He Labels as "Pro-Terrorist, Anti-Semitic and Anti-American | As Tesla Stock Plunges by 40%, the World's Richest Man is Beginning to Feel a Reversal of Fortune
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March 11, 2025 - Matt Gold | Margo Schlanger | Mihir Desai

As Tesla Stock Plunges by 40%, the World's Richest Man is Beginning to Feel a Reversal of Fortune

With Trump Attacking Free Speech on Campuses, Expect Patel and Bongino to Order the FBI to Round Up Trump's Critics and Those on Patel's Enemies List? | The Dilemma Senate Democrats Face Whether to Vote For a Bad Bill or Stand up to Trump and Musk and Risk a Government Shutdown | Trump's Losing Strategy of Wooing Putin Away From Xi and Musk's Outsized Influence Over China Policy
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March 12, 2025 - Tom Mockaitis | Robert Creamer | Michael Swaine

Trump's Losing Strategy of Wooing Putin Away From Xi and Musk's Outsized Influence Over China Policy

The Dilemma Senate Dems Face Whether to Vote For a Bad Bill or Risk a Government Shutdown

With Trump Attacking Free Speech on Campuses, Expect Patel & Bongino to Round Up Trump's Critics

The Strategy Behind Trump's War on the So-Called Legacy Media

Trump's Conflation of Terrorism, Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism

The Strategy Behind Trump's War on the So-Called Legacy Media | An Assessment of How the Senate Democrats Might Extricate Themselves From the Government Shutdown Trap | Having Decided Chuck Schumer Is No Longer Jewish, Trump's Conflation of Terrorism, Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism
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March 13, 2025 - David Enrich | James Galbraith | Ben Burgis

An Assessment of How the Senate Dems Might Extricate Themselves From the Shutdown Trap

Background Briefing goes far beyond the headlines and deep under the radar to bring forward truths unheard elsewhere in American media. Background Briefing features international and national news, expert guests, policymakers, and critics offering analysis and insight on national security, foreign and domestic policy, political, cultural, and social issues. 
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