WATCH THE REPLAY: Nils Melzer, Aaron Mate’, Mike Gravel on CN Live! Premiere

Hello Skip – I am totally with you in respect to Cohn. Her site is slathered with her TDS. She seems completely antagonistic, and I have read enough of her writing to now just move past her portion of the program. One would hope her students take it all with a grain of salt and do their own thinking. Cheers.

Thank you for this great set of discussions! Highly knowledgeable, sensible people willing to look at the facts, and not intimidated into abandoning their common sense. A great line-up, great moderating, informative and insightful all.

Much appreciated Boyle’s in-depth discussion of the Epstein case. Question: Would the Deep State really want to destroy one of it’s most valuable honeytrap operations to take down Trump? Especially since it implicates Israel (again) in some sort of assault on the U.S. (Epstein’s closest insider was the daughter of a Mossad agent versus a CIA agent.) I’m thinking here of the USS Liberty, and the stolen nuclear bomb secrets and materials. Also, this is a time when Israel is coming under greater scrutiny in the alternative press. Would Israel want this revealed?

(Apologies if this is a duplicate comment. Wrestling with system.)

I enjoyed it very much, especially the interview with Aaron Mate, who has emerged as one of our brightest and most courageous young investigative journalists. It would be really nice if viewers could download the podcast, so that they could watch anytime and anywhere and also be able to skip over portions that they do not have the time or interest to watch.

It is Saturday night and I just finally saw the tightened up replay here on CN. Thank you for your patience.

Congratulations to Joe Lauria and Elizabeth Vos on an excellent new weekly news program.
Judging by the uniquely informative and insightful discussion, this has potential to become best in the business.
I had been disappointed that Unity4J had stopped broadcasting the weekly vigils for Julian A., but it’s great that there is now a worthy successor. The Unity4J commentators were a “who’s who” of the best in alternative media, and it’s good to see that they will be back on air.
One suggestion: would be great to have interviews with Max Blumenthal and Yasha Levine.
Recommendation for improvement (the only one): hire a video technician, so that the minor technical glitches are ironed out (such as different volumes for different speakers, missing link to video from website, etc.).
Keep up the good work!

Congrats, and thanks, on the launch! Great guests and content. Kudos all ’round.

More real real meaning and import in your two-hour edition of news and analyses than one can find in any length of “legacy” media watching.

Tech hiccups you’ll get past. As long as you can maintain the standards of thoughtful and thought-provoking discourse you’ve set with your debut – this will prove invaluable for us all.

Senator Gravel has emailed that he has passed the signature limit and will be at the Dem debates! I will be glad to see him here at CN to get a better understanding. Those who wish to see real progressives at the debates should donate $1 to his campaign to ensure that he has enough signatures. Here is the link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gravel65000

That was a very informative and most interesting couple of hours.

A fine premiere!

CN Live! will be on my must watch list.

Great appreciation to CN, to Joe Lauria to Elizabeth Vos, and to all the guests.

Considering all of the various interviews, I wonder if it might not be appropriate, and timely, to actually define what the term “progressive” actually means.

I do realize that an imprecise, even vague, and infinitely malleable term has great value, as it can mean either “anything”, or “nothing” at all.

I have asked, over a number of years, if anyone would dare a definition.

So far, there have been no takers, in fact there has been, curiously, no response at all.

I had some difficulty establishing initial connections to the broadcast, so I joined when Francis Boyle had already been talking and answering questions.

Seemingly, the Epstein case, according to what I heard, is about either impeaching Trump or forcing him to go to war with Iran, in which case Epstein, and Trump would be immediately forgotten as the people would be expected to rally ’round the flag and Trump.

There were reasonable questions about where Epstein got his billions, whether he was an intelligence asset, perhaps used to get the bare facts on powerful Guys Getting IT On, which might explain the light open-door prison sentence Epstein received in Florida.

Okay. So Russiagate failed to “get” Trump.

Therefore, Trump (along with Bill Clinton and other prominent Power Guys), yet Trump, specifically, can now be removed or made to go to war because that benefits certain of the political elite, the Deep State, and “National Security” interests.

Trump sucks, without a doubt.

Yet do not those who benefit, presumably, from the anticipated ouster or new war, suck equally badly, or even worse?

I found it interesting that Marjorie Cohn did not know about the DNC Super Delegate’s ability to intervene on the second ballot, and that she had no clue, at all, that the Duper Supes were even still around.

Okay.

I really have to wonder who still imagines that candidates who are truly “progressive”, whatever that actually means, or does not mean, can be elected and, if elected can actually change the foreign policy of forever war?

This goes to my concern that voting is truly a sacred rite. Merely an empty ritual designed to confer legitimacy on either of the sacred duopoly political parties, which are simply the two right wings of the money, property, and war party, whilst convincing the many that by choosing a candidate selected for them by a private club, not a public entity, somehow proves that those many have exercised their franchise in “democracy” for the betterment and benifit of all.

That really is quite a stretch. It would even be funny were it not so patently destructive of actual democratic participation.

Just out of curiosity, would an aspect of actual “progressive-ness” entail a clearly stated opposition TO perpetual war, TO avoiding war, and TO reducing the military budget, closing the foreign military bases, removing U$ troops from, what is it 130, 170, other nations, many of those troops being in multiple places without the U$ public even realizing that they ARE there?

Of the gaggle of “progressives” honking their shallow, superficial wares, waddling noisily along intent upon gobbling up the presidential prize, how many even talk, even a little about the war machine?

I do not mean crowing that the machine can be made “green”, but that it be turned off, dismantled, and, or, put to other uses like, oh, dealing with environmental calamity BEFORE it reaches the calamitous state

Kamala Harris would be happy to prosecute the war(s), continuing her long “service” to injustice and criminal oligarchy. Yet, she would be a fine replacement for Obama, she is photogenic, glib, duplicitous, and smug, just the sort to put the liberal middle class back to comfortable complicit sleep.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren DO discombobulate the oligarchy, the media, and think-tank thugs, but pose little threat to the killing machine which neither acknowledge in terms of the opportunity costs its budget precludes.

How “progressive” is that, really?

Mike Gravel.

A really decent, wise, and courageous human being.

His points about nuclear insanity are spot on.

His suggestion that a lottery, with a nationalized Fed, could turn 100 million folks into “millionaires”, does make me wonder about two things.

Would the others who were not lotterized to wealth not feel left out?

Would the “winners” suddenly become instantly oligarchical and assume that their “merit” had plucked them from obscurity and lifted them to the ranks of “job creators”?

Which leads to this question, would not a more humane, sustainable, and just society not be more likely if everyone were to benefit, even those who our empire has harmed, you know, beginning with the folks whose land we stole at the outset, those we enslaved, and those whose nations we invaded and took over?

Starting with Hawaii.

Which brings me to Tulsi Gabbard.
Whose words about war I much appreciate, yet whose allegiance to certain U$ mindsets, regarding Israel quite specifically, but other “friends and foes” as well, she has not mentioned, has not discussed, except in venues, and before certain audiences that cannot but recall, once again, just what being “progressive” actually means TO Tulsi Gabbard?

The other Dem contenders are essentially forgettable.

Nil seems, “pessimistic” about whether the people of the U$, and “the West, generally, “get it”.

I think his pessimism well-founded, especially as he admits to having been manipulated by the legacy media to “believe” absolute nonsense about Assange, until he began to do his own research,

Consider, the legacy media ??’s the legacy political parties, at least in the U$, and that the media might even be more prejudiced, in other lands, toward specific legacy parties and polices, just as they are here, and toward specific narratives, such as those promulgated around Assange and Russiagate.

What if “democracy” depends upon folks, living in “the West”, who have been intimidated by the media spouting official propaganda, by a intentionally deficient educational system, and a brutal economic embrace of neoliberal austerity, to the point that “learned helplessness” prevails?

You may recall that the psychologists, Mitchell and Jesson, called the torture program they deviously devised, “Learnef Helplessness”.

Mayhap the program has wider applications?

That is depressing to consider. Isn’t it? It might even cause one to become a wee bit pessimistic.

Arron Mate well lays out the Mueller farce, as have numerous articles and even more numerous commenters, here, at Consortium News.

A lot to think about.

A lot to talk about

There might even be a term, or two, that we really should consider could stand at least a general definition.

Or not.

Again, a wonderful premier.

A fabulous site.

And the most erudite, well-informed, tolerant, and understanding group of commenters to be found anywhere on this much-abused and far too little appreciated planet, our only home in the immensity of universe.

So far, we have all been, relatively, lucky.

Were I to hazard a guess, I think we face some very hard times ahead, that require of us thought, empathy, compassion, and right action.

The definition of all those things I leave to you.

We are dealing with systemic corruption, orchestrated deceit, vile manipulation, and vicious depravity.

Again, define or deny these things as you will.

We really need to share our thoughts about whether we dare confront the realities of this time, different from any time, in the “nature” of those realities, than ever humanity has faced before.

We are at the existential crux point.

Is it time for meaningful change?

What do you think?

I would really like to know what George was saying about Jeremy Hunt blurting out something regarding Julian Assange please.

What happened? No broadcast. I think it is a wonderful idea but I don’t have time for an extra broadcast lasting two hours each week. I had thought perhaps I could listen for one hour and come back later for another hour. However I hope you figure out what is wrong.

What happened to the broadcast?

I will be glad to see Sen. Gravel here at CN. Those who wish to see real progressives at the debates should donate $1 to Sen. Mike Gravel to that he will have enough signatures to debate. Here is the link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gravel65000