Skullduggery

In the Pantheon of American conspiracy theories, the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy is the gift that keeps on giving. For nearly 60 years it has been dissected and debated by partisans of countless conspiracy theories. So what does the newly released material on the matter show? And what are they still keeping secret? We talk to two leading experts on the subject, former New York Times reporter Phil Shenon and forme...

On this episode of the podcast, we sit down with Ron Deibert, who runs the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, to discuss the “mercenary spyware” industry - and its proclivity for providing “almost god-like” spyware programs to governments who’ve been proven to use them to surveil “opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists, academics, embassy workers, and political dissidents.

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The violent insurrection at the Capitol last year was a sobering day for American democracy, and yet many people thought that - at the very least - it would break the fever that had overcome the Republican Party and push it to separate itself from Trump and move on from his repeated lies with respect to “the big steal.”

That is not what happened - instead, the past two years represented a pivot point between “this is not no...

“I have been accused of having obstructed the war. I admit it. I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone. I believe in free speech, in war as well as in peace.” So said Eugene Debs on September 12th, 1918 to members of a jury tasked with deciding whether he had, as prosecutors argued, during a speech given a few weeks earlier to a crowd of socialists attempted “to promote insubordination [in the military]” and “...

“Every so often over the past quarter-century, analysts have predicted that Iran was on the cusp of major change. They always turned out to be wrong. Now, unrest is engulfing the country yet again.” So writes Jason Rezeian in a recent piece for the Washington Post about the threats the Iranian government is facing, what people are saying - and why this time could be different. 

For the past three months, Iran has been ...

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday announced what amounts to a legal bombshell in the two most high profile investigations being carried out by his department. He's appointing a Special Council to oversee the ongoing probes into whether Donald Trump illegally sought to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. And whether he violated federal law by taking classified documents from the White House and ...

Donald Trump on Tuesday night announced to no one’s surprise that he will once again run for President. By Trumpian standards he seemed subdued as he described America’s decent into war, crime, and economic catastrophe ever since he left the White House twenty-two long months ago and Joe Biden took office. And yet the timing seemed curious. And to many Republicans infuriating. The party had just suffered un-expecting ...

Even while still reeling from their disappointing performance in Tuesday's election, Republicans are bracing for more turmoil, as they prepare to likely take over the House of Representatives with the thinest of majorities. Instead of celebrating the election results as he had expected, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is now facing serious unrest within his ranks, threatening his prospects of taking the gavel from House Sp...

For weeks the conventional wisdom in Washington couldn't have been clearer. There was a red wave coming that would sweep Republicans to a historic victory. Winning back control of the US House by wide margin and potentially control of the Senate as well. But then the voters spoke and the conventional wisdom of the pollsters and pundits was wrong once again. As we sit on Wednesday the GOP seems likely to win control of the ...

When Vivian Schiller signed on as a Senior Executive at Twitter in 2013, she was excited to be joining a company that seemed poised to remake the world. It was a heavy time for the social media start-up. Just a few years early, it had been messages on Twitter that connected Democracy activists throughout the Middle East leading to a revolutionary moment known as the Arab Spring. But Schiller soon became disillusioned and h...

This week, thunderous explosions rocked the Ukrainian Capitol of Kiev, as Russian forces unleashed another blistering attack of cruise missiles on the city and other regions throughout the country. The attacks targeted energy facilities and other critical infrastructure, cutting off the water supply for 80% of Kiev's residents. It was yet another reminder that despite recent gains by Ukrainians on the battlefield the bruta...

There may be no institution in American more consequential or divisive than the United States Supreme Court. Under the leadership of Justice John Roberts, the court has upended campaign finance laws, undermined the 1965 voting rights act, affirmed a previously unrecognized constitutional right to gun ownership, and this year embolden by its new 6-3 conservative majority struck down the constitutional right to abortion. Dec...

A few month ago, Democrats were upbeat, believing fervently that they had a decent chance of beating the historical odds and retaining the control of the United States congress. The Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade had energized women across the country, while President Biden scored some major legislative successes. Most notably a climate change bill, that they a bit deceptively labeled, the Inflation Re...

"We don't have a client, we weren't here to move some legislative agenda item. We were here to kick the s**t out of Donald Trump." That's from veteran political consultant Rick Wilson talking in a new five part documentary about the groundbreaking SuperPac he and a handful of other Republican consultants founded called The Lincoln Project. The group raised nearly 90 million dollars during the 2020 election, using the cash ...

With three weeks before the midterms, the outlook for control of the US Senate and possibly even the House, remains as it's been for some time. A jump ball in which either party can yet prevail. But there is little doubt that there is growing anxiety among Democrats, with inflation, gas prices, and crime, consistently ranking as the top concern among voters, outranking the fallout from January 6th or the alarming number ...

Liz Cheney, Wyoming's Congresswoman, revealed the January 6th Committee's final card at yesterday's hearing. Subpoena to Donald Trump to testify and to provide documents about his role in the events that lead to the attack on the US Capitol. It was a surprise move by the panel at the end of its final public hearing in which it revealed some new details about alarming intelligence warnings to the secret service about the po...

President Biden in an exchange with CNN's Jake Tapper, vowed there will be consequences for Saudi Arabia in light of their decision to join with Russia in cutting back oil production, a move guaranteed to help Vladimir Putin and his war with Ukraine, while at the same time, jacking up gas prices for American consumers. The Saudi move jolted the White House, coming barely three months after Biden famously fist-bumped the co...

It may have been the biggest investigative scoop of this year's election. This week, The Daily Beast reported that Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for the US Senate in Georgia and a staunch opponent of abortion rights, paid for a girlfriend's abortion in 2009 - sighting documents that included a receipt from the abortion clinic, an image of a seven hundred dollar check from Walker, and a "Get Well" card signed by...

It may be the most pressing question facing the world at this perilous moment. Is Vladimir Putin bluffing or not when he threatens to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Nuclear weapons analyst Joe Cirincione says we need to take the Russian president seriously. "We should believe Putin that this is not a bluff," he writes in a recent op ed in The Washington Post. In fact Cirincione points out, Russian military doctrine has ...