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David Swanson: Biden’s Syria Airstrike Jeopardizes U.S. Rejoining International Iran Nuclear Agreement; Loretta J. Ross: Republicans Can’t be a Legitimate Party Without Casting Out White Supremacists and Fascists; Adrian Huq: Militarism’s Direct Impact on the Climate Crisis; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.

While a federal minimum wage increase would affect millions of workers and the social fabric, it would have particular impact on one “essential” yet somehow expendable group: Black women.

Clifton is senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and investigative-journalist-at-large at Responsible Statecraft. He recently published an article, “Weapons Biz Bankrolls Experts Pushing to Extend Afghan War." "Talk Nation Radio" has become Talk World Radio, with new website talkworldradio.org. TWR is now available in audio and video. This week’s video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwo9T7bLKzw&feature=emb_imp_woyt .

Even as the pandemic crashed economies, extreme weather and natural disasters harried hundreds of millions of people. The American government reported an absolute record number of billion dollar disasters from mega-fires across the West through repeat hurricanes, flooding storms, and just plain strange stuff, like straight-line winds blowing down everything in a path across several states. Our first guest calls it “global weirding” – the title of her PBS YouTube series. Katherine Hayhoe is a climate communicator and a very serious scientist. We talk through the disaster year and behind them all – the new state of climate change. Smith reached Katherine in Lubbock Texas shortly after the big chill put millions in the dark, including her University Texas Tech. ...

Today we focus on Gaza through a webinar sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. In this forum we will examine the situation in the Gaza Strip, including how the Gaza Strip has been isolated from the West Bank and besieged by Israel, the role of Hamas and related Palestinian political dynamics, and the humanitarian situation in light of repeated Israeli military campaigns, more than a decade of blockade, and now COVID19.

Dowst explores why the Powers-That-Be try to suppress the word "capitalism." Economist Richard D. Wolff explores the public's growing disillusionment with the U.S. economic system and explores the prospects for change. Finally, Dowst reads an article on the huge trade in IRISH "indentured servants" (fancy term for slaves) shipped to the New World in the 17th and 18th centuries. Irish were made political prisoners, then sold, to be the first slaves, followed later by kidnapped black Africans.

Here come the nerds! Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Georgia Tech are working together to debug the balky software of the F-35, now the costliest weapons system in military history. Yet rather than teaming up to take down the bully, they’re joining forces to save his skin. But who can blame them? The Federal grants keep on coming, and this bully is far more cunning than his prosaic movie counterpart. For decades, he has figured out just how much he can throw his weight around to get what he wants without getting expelled. The F-35’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Corporation, has now shaken loose a mind-melting $1 trillion in lunch money from American taxpayers. Let me say that again, $1 trillion! Enough is enough. ...

On September 17, 2020 at least six anti-racist activists were arrested in an action denouncing the Colorado police, notably for the murder of Elijah McClain. In the summer of 2019, three Aurora Colorado police officers put 23-year-old McClain in a chokehold and medics injected him with ketamine. The young violinist and massage therapist went into cardiac arrest, was pronounced brain dead, and died three days later. The social justice activists now face a litany of felony charges, and possible decades in prison, on charges that include “kidnapping.” ...