CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM

JIMMY DORE—When Johns Hopkins Economics Professor Steve Hanke released a metastudy indicating that COVID lockdowns had only saved a small number of lives compared to the astronomical figure that had been reported by an Imperial College study, the backlash was quick and fevered. The Imperial College researchers, along with “fact checkers” like Snopes sought to refute the claims Hanke and his co-authors made. Jimmy interviews Professor Hanke, who explains what his antagonists got wrong, how the vast majority of their criticisms were misplaced, at best, and what minor corrections to their results had been made in subsequent releases.

Saudi Arabia took a change in direction while President Trump was in office, and moved away from the Obama administration directive of funding the terrorists in Syria for regime change.  In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain cut off ties with Qatar and blocked all air and land traffic to the emirate due to its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, while Qatar worked in tandem with Turkey, which is ruled by a Muslim Brotherhood AKP party, and their leader, President Erdogan.

On Wednesday evening Jimmy made another of his legendary appearances on Tucker Carlson’s show, the most popular cable news program in the country. In a finely targeted rant, Jimmy took aim at Democrats for cravenly trying to blame all of the nation’s woes on Vladimir Putin while also reserving plenty of his ire for both Republicans and Democrats who, he said, serve the interests of the oligarchy that funds them rather than the American citizens who vote for them. Jimmy and American comedian Kurt Metzger discuss the benefits of bringing an anti-imperialist, anti-oligarchy message to a Fox News audience that likely never hears such perspectives.

The link in that paragraph goes to “The Far Right’s Fear of ‘Glowies,’” a January 20, 2021, article in The Atlantic by Olga Khazan that explains the origins and meaning of glowie. It’s the term, Khazan writes, that far-right groups use “to describe people they suspect of being federal law-enforcement agents or informants infiltrating their communication channels, trying to catch them plotting violence, or prodding them into illegal acts.”

Inflation can be and has been controlled before by US presidents, from FDR to Richard Nixon, notes Prof. Richard Wolff in this chat with RJ Eskow. But Biden seems to have neither the inclination nor the mojo to implement the requisite policies.