The The Hello and

welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood.

Two guests today both making return appearances.

In moments Sophia Joporizae will report on wage theft in the

Libertarian Paradise of Georgia, country not state.

And then Margaret Kimberly will review the historical relationship, mostly a painful and ugly one,

between US presidents and the black population.

Georgia is a country of not quite 4 million people in the Caucasus mountains,

perhaps most famous as the homeland of Joseph Stalin.

In the years following the dissolution of the USSR, Georgia was transformed into a

libertarian paradise, a land of flat taxes and absolute freedom for business to do whatever

it wants. Lately George has been in the news because a Houston-based oil company for Interior Resources

hasn't been paying its workers for the last couple of years.

That was too much even for the Georgian government which made some vaguely threatening noises against the company.

This prompted Pete Olson, a Republican from Texas,

to take to the floor of the House of Representatives to denounce the country as despotic

and of course during the work of Russia.

How Russia figures into this case is

unclear but it's become the all-purpose villain these days. Here's Sophia Joporizae

to fill us in in the news from a country few Americans paying attention to.

She's a labor organizer based in Tbilisi, a place is not very friendly to labor organizers.

Sophia Joporez.

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