Growing Concern at the Supreme Court’s Impunity From Ethical Norms as Its Credibility With the Public Plunges
We begin as this year ends with selected programs from our archives following yesterday’s coverage of events from early in the year. Today we cover stories from the middle of the year, then on tomorrow’s show from later in the year, before special programming on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Let’s start with a broadcast of Background Briefing from May 1, 2023, “Growing Concern at the Supreme Court’s Impunity From Ethical Norms as Its Credibility With the Public Plunges.” We begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee to deal with the need for an ethics code of conduct at the Supreme Court after the Chairman Dick Durbin was rebuffed by Chief Justice Roberts, who declined to testify. This followed recent revelations of unreported favors from a billionaire to Justice Thomas, Gorsuch’s sale of a hunting lodge to the head of a law firm with business before the court, and the Chief Justice’s wife’s $10 million in earnings from law firms also with business before the court. We are joined by Moira Donegan, a writer-in-residence at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, whose work has appeared in The London Review of Books, Bookforum, and The Paris Review. She is a columnist at The Guardian where her latest article was, “The US supreme court’s alleged ethics issues are worse than you probably realize.”
Evidence That It Was Ukraine, Not Russia, Behind the Sabotage of the Nord Stream Gas Pipelines
Then we go to a broadcast of Background Briefing from June 7, 2023, “Evidence That it Was Ukraine, Not Russia Behind the Sabotage of the Nord Stream Gas Pipelines.” We begin with the revelations from The Washington Post that a small group of six Ukrainian operatives blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, an event which the US government blamed on Russia, leading many journalists, including myself, to report that the Kremlin was most likely behind the sabotage. We discuss how Ukraine’s military intelligence, headed by General Budanov, is striking back at Russia, as Putin wantonly destroys Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Joining us is Michael Weiss, Senior Correspondent for Yahoo News, who has reported on international affairs for over ten years, with a focus on the Middle East and Russia. He has interviewed ISIS operatives and Russian spies; published and curated a series of still-classified KGB training manuals; reported from rebel-held Syria and war-torn Ukraine; broken major stories about financial corruption; and exposed the Russian intelligence services’ ongoing subversion efforts in the United States and Europe. He is the the author of The Menace of Unreality: How Russia Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money and coauthor of the New York Times Bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.
Is America Now Divided Between “Team Crazy” and “Team Normal”?
Then finally we play a broadcast of Background Briefing from July 9, 2023, “Is America Now Divided Between ‘Team Crazy’ and ‘Team Normal’?” With the Special Counsel Jack Smith looking into the December 18, 2020, White House meeting between what has been characterized as “team crazy” and “team normal,” we assess the extent to which America is now divided between team crazy and team normal, as a Trump-appointed Federal Judge has decided to forbid the government from interacting with social media companies based on fringe conspiracy theories with crackpot plaintiffs. We are joined by Ryan Cooper, Managing Editor at The American Prospect. He is the Cohost of the Left Anchor podcast as well as the author of the new book, How are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics. We discuss his latest article at The American Prospect, “Trump Judge Effectively Names Himself President.”