The New American Podcast - The New American Magazine

Latest Episodes:

ACLU Sues to Stop Trump’s Migrant Relocation Pact With Guatemala Jan 17, 2020

Show notes

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging the “safe third country” asylum agreement that the Trump administration arranged with Guatemala in order to deal with the inflow of illegal migration at the southern border.

Negotiated last year, the agreement gives migrants the opportunity to claim asylum in a country other than the U.S. and is one of a number of agreements signed with Central American countries, including El Salvador and Honduras.

Read the article here!

Report: DOJ Looking at Comey in Probe of Russian Document Leak Jan 17, 2020

Show notes

Former FBI Director James Comey is once more the subject of a leak investigation.

According to a New York Times report published Thursday, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., are investigating a years-old leak into a suspicious Russian intelligence document that affected Comey’s handling of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server.

The subjects of the investigation are two reports in the spring of 2017, one from the New York Times and the other from the Washington Post. Prosecutors are investigating Daniel Richman, a friend and adviser of Comey’s who leaked the ex-FBI head’s notes about his private conversations with the president in 2017 following Comey’s firing.

Read the article here!

Glitch Reveals Greta’s Facebook Posts Done By Her Father and Another Activist Jan 16, 2020

Show notes

A glitch in Facebook’s software allowed the public to see exactly who posts to teenaged climate activist Greta Thunberg’s page and, perhaps not surprising, it’s not Greta. The edit history for Greta’s Facebook page shows that the content on the page was posted by her father, Svante Thunberg, and by Indian climate activist Adarsh Prathap, who serves as a delegate to the United Nations on climate change.

Color me shocked.

A report in Wired magazine last Friday revealed that for several hours from Thursday evening until Friday morning, a computer bug was active that allowed the public to see administrators who posted on accounts that aren’t tied to an individual. Among the administrators to Greta’s account were her father and Prathap.

Read the article here!

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Order That Lets States Refuse Refugees Jan 16, 2020

Show notes

In the latest blow to President Trump’s immigration agenda, a federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday blocked the enforcement of a presidential executive order that gives state and local governments the ability to refuse the resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions.

Peter Messitte, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, issued the preliminary injunction at the request of three national resettlement organizations: HIAS Inc., Church World Service Inc., and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Back in September, President Trump issued an executive order declaring that the federal government would only place refugees where permission has been given by both the state and local government.

Read the article here!

Skeptics Doubt China Will Adhere to Phase One Jan 16, 2020

Show notes

The centerpiece of Phase One of a new trade deal with China is the pledge China made to purchase at least $200 billion more of American products over the next two years. In addition, it allegedly puts in place enforcement mechanisms to keep China from stealing American companies’ trade secrets and advanced technology.

Skeptics scouring the 94-page agreement aren’t finding much to cheer about.

First, from a practical point of view, the near doubling of Chinese purchases in the four areas outlined in Phase One — farm products, energy purchases, manufacturing goods and services — isn’t likely to happen. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out: “To meet the targets, exports to China would have to rise to around $262 billion in 2020 and $309 billion in 2021.… That amounts to an increase of around 60% … an unprecedented jump.”

Read the article here!

Inspector General Confirms Government Lies About Afghanistan Jan 16, 2020

Show notes

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, confirmed the Washington Post’s December report that the government has routinely lied about the progress it has made in its 18-year Afghanistan war and reconstruction efforts.

“There’s an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue ... mendacity and hubris,” Sopko testified Wednesday. “The problem is there is a disincentive, really, to tell the truth. We have created an incentive to almost require people to lie.”

Read the article here!

Christian Symbols Under Attack in Europe Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

When the historic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris became engulfed in flames last year, there were suspicions that the fire was deliberately set, either by Islamic terrorists or militant atheists — or even someone else. Although Paris investigators immediately assured the public that it was not an intentional act of arson, but rather was likely owing to negligence, it is quite understandable that there were suspicions that an anti-Christian actor was the culprit.

After all, waves of attacks on Christian symbols have swept across Europe, even in small towns in Italy. This past Christmas season, for example, hundreds of cribs in Nativity Scenes were smashed, burned, and vandalized across Italy. Statues of the Baby Jesus, along with Mary and Joseph, have been either beheaded or otherwise vandalized. One was impaled on an iron pole, and left in a public square.

Read the article here!

The Debate Stage: Democrats Blame Their Voters for Their White Presidential Candidates Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

Some Democrats are angry about their presidential candidates; others are just embarrassed by them. But disturbing these liberals are not their contenders’ radical views — it’s their whiteness. And responding to the matter of race in the race, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Tom Perez has said, essentially: Don’t look at me. It’s the voters.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, “A Democratic presidential campaign field that was once touted as the most diverse in history has been whittled down to six candidates on its debate stage, all of them white. For Oakland Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, that’s a problem.”

Read the article here!

No Mention of China’s Human Rights Violations During Trade Deal Signing Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

Missing during the self-congratulatory handshaking that accompanied the signing of the Phase One trade deal on Wednesday was any mention that China remains one of the worst offenders of human rights in the world, if not in all of human history. It wouldn’t have been politic to bring up such a sordid subject. One wouldn’t want to spoil the mood. For the millions suffering from human-rights abuses and violations in China, the silence was deafening.

A week ago, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China issued its report on those abuses, stating that “the human rights and rule of law conditions in China continued to worsen this past year.” The 24-page report expounded and expanded on those abuses:

Read the article here!

Trump to Shift $7.2 Billion From Defense Budget to Build Wall Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

President Trump is planning to divert an additional $7.2 billion from Department of Defense programs to pay for the wall on the United States’ southern border. Approximately half of that amount will come from military counter-drug enforcement, and the remainder from DOD construction projects to be used for additional border fencing projects.

The Washington Post reported on January 13 that the funding would give the government enough money to complete about 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, which is considerably more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S.-Mexican border.

Read the article here!

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The New American Podcast – The New American Magazine

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected