Danny and Derek speak with Séamus Malekafzali, a Beirut-based journalist focusing on the Middle East, about his recent piece for The Nation, “The Rotten Partnership Between the US Media and the Israeli Military.” They check in about the current atmosphere in Beirut amid exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah, the Biden administration and US media’s current narrative around Hamas and Iran, the violence Israel has inflicted on Palestinian journalists, the double standards of their portrayal in the US media, and whether there might be any meaningful difference in a Trump or Harris presidency with regards to America’s support for Israel.

Recorded Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Further reading:

* Séamus Malafzali on Substack

* Séamus’s piece "Do You Want Total War?"

* Follow Séamus on Twitter/X @Seamus_Malek

Danny will be talking on a panel at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft at 10am PST/1pm EST on ‘Trump vs. Harris: Whose Foreign Policy Will Win the 2024 Election?’. Here’s the link if you’re interested.

Danny and Derek welcome John Washington, staff writer at Arizona Luminaria, to catch us up to date on the state of play in the United States’ policies toward the southern border and asylum. They explore the extremism in the Biden administration’s recent decisions, how the current policies continue a thread going back to the 90s’ “Prevention Through Dete…

The Prestigehead Convention at the Ho-Ho-Kus Inn has drawn a record crowd, but Danny and Derek still find time for your news roundup. This week: in Russia-Ukraine, an update on Ukraine’s Kursk invasion (0:29), reports of cancelled peace talks (3:57), and a continued Russian advance in Donbas (6:32); in Palestine-Israel, an update on Gaza ceasefire talks (9:34), the IDF is moving into the last Gaza “safe zones” (15:14), an Israeli strike kills a Fatah commander in Lebanon (17:04), and the status of the long-anticipated Iranian retaliation (18:52); Afghanistan sends its ambassador the to United Arab Emirates (20:43); a new Philippine-Chinese confrontation in the South China Sea (22:29); failed ceasefire talks in Sudan plus a cholera outbreak (24:39); troubles for the Central Bank of Libya suggest a further deteriorating political situation (26:56); and the Biden administration prepares new sanctions for Venezuela (29:58).

AP champion Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, returns for a discussion of his recent piece for Carnegie, “Strategic Change in U.S. Foreign Policy.” The group muses on the difficulty of altering established foreign policy paradigms before delving into several case studies such as NSC-68, Nixon's Vietnam Withdrawal, Carter's Failed Korea Withdrawal, NATO Enlargement, and the Global War on Terror, emphasizing the need for foresight, strategic planning, and a willingness to incur political costs to make such change possible.

Check out the companion piece to this episode, Rethinking U.S. World Power w/ Michael Brenes and Stephen Wertheim.

Fritz Bartel, assistant professor at the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University, is back for one final episode on his book The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism. They explore Paul Volcker's monetarism in the 70s and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis in the Global South and commu…

Danny and Derek are just two guys who, unfortunately, pay their taxes. This week: conditions in Gaza continue to worsen under Israel (1:14), “ceasefire talks” continue to amble along (7:58), the US again to send massive amounts of weapons to Israel (12:59), and the IDF is again reported to be using Palestinians as human shields (17:18); the US lifts its ban on “offensive weapons” sales to Saudi Arabia (19:57); new attacks on Myanmar’s Rohingya people (22:51); a surprise resignation from Japan’s PM Kishida Fumio (24:29); ceasefire talks begin for Sudan’s conflict (26:08); trouble in South Sudan’s political transition (29:14); an update on Ukraine’s invasion into Russia while Russia continues its advance toward Pokrovsk (31:02); the Wall Street Journal makes a big claim about the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabatoge (35:49); and the Biden administration offers Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro “amnesty” (38:42).

Check out Danny and Derek on the Only One AirPod podcast this week!

Danny and Derek are back with Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and visiting scholar of history at Emory University, for the second part of their discussion on the history of policing in New York City. They delve further into the NYPD’s efforts at “ethnic policing,” exploring the Italian squads of the early 20th century, how tackling the Mafia anticipated modern-day police efforts at tackling transnational crime, how World War I challenged the idea of police squads recruited from immigrant and minority communities, the NYPD’s relationship with the nascent FBI, and how these past efforts at reform inform contemporary debates.

Listen to the first episode here!

Grab a copy of Matthew’s book Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York.

We return with Danny and Derek’s series on the end of the Cold War with Fritz Bartel, assistant professor at the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University. In this second episode, the group gets into the nitty gritty of Fritz’s book The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism, discussing…