Week in Review Discussion on The Critical Hour (8/9/19)

Democrats In Iowa: Second Tier Candidates Are Carrying The Day

It’s Friday, so that means it's panel time. 

Democratic presidential candidates are traversing Iowa this week with lively summer bus tours, stopping with their families at the Iowa State Fair and eating fried butter and fried Oreos, and speaking at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox and the annual Democratic Wing Ding fundraiser. So, right now Real Clear Politics has Joe Biden up by nine points over Elizabeth Warren, followed by Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. Is there any sense of momentum on the ground that either confirms these numbers or provides a different perspective? Have the shootings in Gilroy, California; El Paso, Texas; and Dayton, Ohio, changed the focus of discussion for these candidates?


The man accused of carrying out last weekend's deadly mass shooting at a Walmart in the Texas border city of El Paso confessed to officers while he was surrendering and later explained that he had been targeting Mexicans, authorities say. The death toll is 22. Just hours after that attack, another man wielding a powerful firearm unleashed more horror, this time at a strip of bars and restaurants in Dayton, Ohio. Police said that in about 30 seconds, the shooter killed nine people and injured 27 more. Police in Dayton are still trying to determine his motive. On July 28, three people were killed, including two children, and 12 others wounded in a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California. Santino William Legan, 19, was the shooter. In April, 19-year-old John Earnest opened fire at the Poway synagogue in San Diego, California, killing one person and injuring three others. Last October, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing 11 people and injuring six others.
[Related articles: The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights (Reprise); Lawyers, Guns, and Twitter: Gun Battles and Class Struggle after San Bernardino]

The deputy director of national intelligence is resigning. Sue Gordon is leaving a vacuum at the top of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), resigning at the same time as her boss, DNI Dan Coats, who announced his resignation last month. Gordon spent more than 25 years at the CIA before becoming the second-in-command at the ODNI. US President Donald Trump praised her as a great professional in a tweet. She and Coats are leaving on August 15. But did Trump push her out? What's going on here?

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents rounded up nearly 700 suspected undocumented immigrants Wednesday in what's being called the biggest single-state immigration raid in US history. Agents who raided food processing plants in six Mississippi cities took 680 people into custody. The acting director of ICE says they'll go before an immigration judge to see if they should be allowed to stay in the US. The Southern Poverty Law Center says children had their parents ripped away from them parents during the first week of school. Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, called the raids "dehumanizing and ineffective" and is asking churches in the city to become immigrant sanctuaries. 

Trump is still insisting that Americans are not paying for the steep tariffs he has imposed on China. Economists and trade analysts say otherwise. Talking at the White House, Trump again expressed optimism about striking a deal with China to end the ongoing trade war with the US. More meetings between negotiators are expected next month. Trump said the US has been "hurt by China" for decades. What's the truth?

GUESTS:

Bob Schlehuber — Producer for By Any Means Necessary and Sputnik news analyst. 

Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression."

Jim Kavanagh — Political analyst and commentator and editor of The Polemicist.

Caleb Maupin — Journalist and political analyst who focuses his coverage on US foreign policy and the global system of monopoly capitalism and imperialism.

Listen to "Democrats In Iowa: Second Tier Candidates Are Carrying The Day" on Spreaker.

The Critical Hour is a daily 60-minute news analysis and talk radio program on Radio Sputnik hosted by Dr. Wilmer Leon. Introduction above is theirs, with related articles of mine referenced in brackets.