Background Briefing with Ian Masters

Will Trump Tear Down the Kennedy Center Because They Took His Name Off It? | As Trump's Blockade Squeezes the Iranian People, Rumors of a US/Israel Plan to Deliver a Knockout Blow Either Before Israel's Election or After the US Midterms | Having Lost the Narrows, With Diesel at $6+, Pentagon War Report Admits Worst Drubbing Since Vietnam

We begin with the Fed raising interest rates today by a quarter of a percent with an expectation there will be another increase to 4.1% later this year. Joining us to discuss how this is a response to inflation at 3.7% in July, in part caused by Trump's war on Iran, is Robert Hockett, the Edward Cornell Professor of Law and Finance and a Professor of Public Policy at Cornell University. He has first-hand experience working at the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and continues to consult for a number of US federal, state and local legislators and regulators. His latest books are Money from Nothing Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying About Debt and Learn to Love the Federal Reserve, Financing the Green New Deal: A Plan of Action and Renewal and most recently, Spread the Fed: Distributed Central Banking for Productive Monetary Policy.

Then we look into the Senate's blocking of the crypto-friendly Clarity Act in a rebuke to billionaire crypto bros trying to buy the next election while building unpopular data centers to manufacture crypto which has been a huge boon for criminals and scammers engaged in ransomware attacks etc. Joining us is Mark Hays, the Associate Director for Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress where he works to ensure effective regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency and other financial technologies. Previously, he was the Anti-Money Laundering Campaign Director at Global Witness.

Then finally we speak with Donald Moynihan, the Gerald Ford School's J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Previously he served as Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy Chair of Public Policy and the director of the La Follette School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He co-directs the Better Government Lab, which looks for technology and other types of interventions to help government improve access to the social safety net and has an article at his Substack, "China Thank Trump: The Big Winner of Trump's Assault on Higher Ed is America's Chief Geopolitical Rival." We discuss how Trump has untethered himself from reality as he destroys America's economy, alliances, health, education, science, environment, soft power, rule of law, diplomacy and now our military.

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Trump Hangs MbS Out to Dry After Jared "Peacemaker" Kushner Has Made Billions From Gulf Potentates Now at the Mercy of Iran | The U.S. Has Joined An Arms Race in Space | Settlers Are Not Only Invading the West Bank, They're Moving Into Captured Areas of Lebanon and Syria

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Trump and Mike Johnson's Plan to Steal the Election, Not On November 3 But On January 3, 2027 | Trump Rejects Guardrails on AI In a Race To the Bottom Which China Will Win | Trump Blames Zelensky For the Price of Gas And Diesel While Putin Escalates to Destroy a Country He Can't Conquer
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Iran's Proxies in Yemen and Iraq Shut Down Saudi Oil Exports as Trump and Netanyahu's War Is Hit With More Losses With Iran Now Controlling Two Chokepoints | The Alarm Sounded By An Anthropic Researcher That AI "Could Kill Us All By the End of the Decade" | Modi Tries to Heal Divisions At the BRICS Summit Underway
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