3141 - Frank Church vs. The CIA & FBI: The Depths Of The Deep State w/ James Risen, Thomas Risen
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Sam Seder
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 July 2023
⏱️ 67 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's another EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with James Risen, senior national security correspondent at The Intercept, and Thomas Risen, aerospace and airlines reporter at Cirium, to discuss their recent book The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy. First, Emma runs through updates on ANOTHER Fed rate raise despite cooling inflation, rising child labor, a telecom probe, Mitch McConnell’s medical emergency, Niger’s coup, and Hunter Biden’s legal woes, before touching on Jim Cramer’s telling CNBC comments on the UPS Teamsters and UAW. James and Thomas Risen then join, diving right into a background on Senator Frank Church and his political evolution into a progressive, anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian legend of American politics, including his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War and the expansion of the US Intelligence community in the wake of the assassination of JFK, and eventual push for the establishment of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee). Next, the Risens explore the expansion of the US Intelligence community post-WWII, tackling the establishment of the CIA as a covert actor for US hegemony on foreign soil, putting them on track to rapidly become the international assassination juggernaut they are today, before expanding on their interaction with domestic actors, their mutually antagonistic relationship with J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and the FBI’s own relationship to political conspiracy and terrorism. After taking on the establishment of the Church Committee in the wake of Watergate, the state of disillusionment with the US government, and the revelations the Church Committee brought forward (particularly around COINTELPRO), James, Thomas, and Emma wrap up by assessing the absurdity of the GOP’s attempt to frame their Congressional farce as the Church Committee 2.0.
And in the Fun Half: Emma is joined by Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder as they discuss the British-American accent dynamics in Hollywood, DeSantis’ position on an RFK cabinet roll, and the Weinstein couple muses about their voyeuristic experience at a recent drag show. Lucas from Montana dives into the anti-woke hijacking of libraries, Cody from Georgia expands on today’s interview and connections with JFK and the Oswalds, Newsmax comes for the White House dogs, Kowalski proposes a prudent judicial philosophical conundrum, and Adam from Rhode Island brings up Elon’s active destruction of Twitter, plus, your calls and IMs!
Check out James and Thomas's book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/james-risen/the-last-honest-man/9780316565134/?lens=little-brown
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to a free version of Majority Report with Sam Steeder. |
| 0:05.0 | To support this show and get another 15 minutes of daily program, go to Majority.fm. Please. |
| 0:13.0 | The Majority Report with Sam Steeder. |
| 0:19.0 | It is Thursday. |
| 0:21.0 | July 27th, 2023. |
| 0:24.0 | My name is Emma Bigland, in for Sam Steeder, and this is the five-time award winning majority reports. |
| 0:29.0 | We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Goannas Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. |
| 0:40.0 | On the program today, James Ryzen, Pulitzer Prize winner journalist and author, co-author, I should say, along with Thomas Ryzen, journalist, co-author of the last honest man, the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia and the Kennedys. |
| 0:58.0 | And one senator's fight to save democracy. |
| 1:03.0 | Meanwhile, the Fed raises rates to their highest levels since 2001, despite all metrics showing cooling inflation. |
| 1:14.0 | NGDP is up in the second quarter of the year, but the European Central Bank is following our lead as well. |
| 1:22.0 | They just raise rates for the ninth straight time. |
| 1:27.0 | It's not going to end well. |
| 1:30.0 | Israel Supreme Court says it will review Netanyahu's far-right judicial overhaul bill that strips them of their power. |
| 1:39.0 | I think we can guess what their position is going to be on it, but it's the clash that follows that will be what determines this. |
| 1:50.0 | Meanwhile, Israeli forces kill a 14-year-old Palestinian in the West Bank, one of dozens of children killed by Israeli troops just this year. |
| 2:02.0 | The Labor Department says illegal child labor is up 44 percent since last year, mostly migrant children. |
| 2:10.0 | The DOJ and EPA launch a probe into telecom giants rising in AT&T over alleged contamination from toxic lead cables. |
| 2:23.0 | House Republicans fued over the inclusion of abortion pill, an abortion pill mail ban in the annual Ag bill since that would obviously make it DOA in the Senate. |
| 2:37.0 | Speaking of the Senate, McConnell had a medical episode of the press conference yesterday, health concerns about him trickle out. |
| 2:49.0 | There's been an apparent military coup in Niger, borders closed, ruling party headquarters burned, something will be monitoring. |
| 2:59.0 | Hunter Biden's plea deal blocked by a Trump-appointed federal judge, stupid. |
... |
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