Scheer Intelligence

Welcome to another compelling edition of the Bob and Ray Show, where insightful journalism meets deep expertise. I'm your host, Robert Scheer, joined by Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst with a rich background in Russian affairs. With 27 years at the CIA and a knowledge base that spans decades, Ray is uniquely positioned to dissect the intricacies of international relations, particularly concerning Russia and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

In today’s episode, we delve into the recent Alaska summit, a meeting many pundits dismissed as inconsequential, labeling it a “nothing burger.” But as we’ll discuss, both Pre...

Welcome to Scheer Intelligence, where insight meets honesty. I'm Robert Scheer, and in this episode, we're taking a deep dive into the shadowy world of nuclear technology with acclaimed author Thomas Bass. We'll explore the ongoing disaster at Fukushima, the dangerous illusions of peaceful nuclear energy, and the profound geopolitical and environmental risks that threaten our future. Join us as we uncover the truths behind the nuclear industry and question the promises of “safe and clean” energy in a world on the brink.

Welcome to Scheer Intelligence, where the insights come straight from the voices of our guests. In this episode, we explore the turbulent political and social landscape of Los Angeles and the United States, featuring a compelling conversation with Dr. Frances Gill—a psychiatrist, community advocate, and labor supporter. Join us as we delve into the rise of madness, the threat of authoritarianism, the power of organized labor, and the urgent need for collective action in times of crisis.

Join Robert Scheer in this illuminating episode of Scheer Intelligence as he explores the complex truths of Jewish identity, the fight for religious and political freedom, and the urgent need for justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through candid conversations with voices rooted in Jewish tradition and progressive activism, this series delves into how the principles of debate, human rights, and democratic liberty can guide us toward a more compassionate and equitable future. It’s a heartfelt discussion about what it truly means to stand "Not in Our Name."

In this compelling edition of Scheer Intelligence, Robert Scheer engages with journalist Kit Klarenberg to explore the complex dynamics shaping our world. From the enigmatic diplomacy of Donald Trump to the evolving landscape of Middle Eastern geopolitics, Klarenberg offers a nuanced perspective on shifts in U.S. foreign policy, the decline of American exceptionalism, and the rise of a multipolar global order. Their conversation sheds light on contradictions, realignments, and the potential for a fairer, more collaborative international system in uncertain times.

oin Robert Scheer and guest Peter Byrne as they delve into the dark side of artificial intelligence, exploring its militarization, misuse, and impact on global security and democracy. Through a series of in-depth investigations sponsored by Project Censored, they reveal how AI is being used to control societies, threaten peace, and undermine human rights—exposing what mainstream media often overlooks. Essential listening for those concerned about the true power of technology shaping our future.

Welcome to Scheer Intelligence, where the insights come directly from leading experts and insiders. In this episode, Robert Scheer sits down with Judy Karofsky, author of Diselderly Conduct, to explore the troubled landscape of assisted living and hospice care in America. From personal tragedy to systemic neglect, they delve into how a lack of regulation, corporate greed, and profit motives endanger our elders and what society must do to ensure dignity and safety in their final years. Stay tuned for an urgent conversation that affects all of us.

Welcome to our latest episode, where we delve into the complex international landscape shaping our world today. Joining us is Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst with over 27 years of experience and a seasoned observer of Russian and Soviet history. Currently in Russia, Ray shares his on-the-ground insights from the heart of Moscow, reflects on decades of Cold War tensions, and explores potential pathways toward peace amid ongoing conflicts. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking discussion on geopolitics, history, and the pursuit of diplomacy in a turbulent era.

Welcome to a compelling episode of Scheer Intelligence, where host Robert Scheer engages in a thought-provoking dialogue with political stalwart Dennis Kucinich. Join us as we delve into Kucinich's reflections on the devastating consequences of war, specifically addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the broader implications for both Israeli and Palestinian lives. In a time when questioning government policies can lead to severe backlash, Kucinich's courage shines through as he confronts the repercussions of warfare and the moral responsibilities we all share. Together, they explore the intertwined destinies of oppressors and the oppressed, the erosion of free speech...

Welcome to another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where host Robert Scheer dives into critical discussions with renowned guests. Today, we have Dr. Charles LeBaron, a distinguished physician and CDC veteran, who has authored a compelling and essential book, 'Greed to Do Good: The Untold Story of the CDC's Disastrous War on Opioids.' Dr. LeBaron offers a unique perspective on the opioid crisis, drawing from his extensive experience and personal encounters. Through his well-crafted narrative, he sheds light on the complexities of pain management, the challenges of public health policies, and the human stories behind addiction. Join us as...

Welcome to this week's episode of Scheer Intelligence, where host Robert Scheer dives deep into the compelling and complex world of international relations. In today’s episode, we are joined by Ben Norton, a distinguished journalist based in China, and editor at Geopolitical Economy Report. With a profound understanding of the intricacies of China's economy, Ben offers invaluable insights into the ongoing trade tensions under the Trump administration and the shifting sands of global power dynamics. As we discuss everything from tariffs and trade wars to the implications of a multipolar world, prepare to gain a clearer picture of th...

Welcome to another gripping episode of Scheer Intelligence, where we delve deep into the stories that shape our understanding of freedom, power, and the human experience. I'm your host, Robert Scheer, and today, I'm joined by the insightful Joel Whitney. We will uncover the harrowing tale of Pramodia Ananta Toer, a celebrated Indonesian writer whose life was turned upside down by U.S. intervention during a turbulent chapter of history. His imprisonment for over a decade serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of geopolitical maneuvering, and his writing offers a profound reflection on resilience and the quest...

Welcome to Scheer Intelligence, where the true brainpower comes from our guests. Today, join Robert Scheer as he engages in a thought-provoking conversation with the talented Natasha Hakimi Zapata. A former award-winning poet and influential journalist at Truthdig, she now sheds light on her new book, Another World is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe. With insights drawn from her unique upbringing and experiences across nine different countries, Natasha brings forth stories and solutions that challenge the prevailing narratives about our world today. In a time when despair seems so pervasive, she offers a refreshing look at...

Welcome to another edition of Scheer Intelligence with your host, Robert Scheer. Today, we delve into the profound implications of the Ferguson movement, a pivotal moment in American history that continues to resonate throughout our society. Joining us are two exceptional guests: State Senator Marie Chappelle Nadal, who was on the ground in St. Louis during the turbulent aftermath of Michael Brown's tragic shooting, and filmmaker Ray Nowaselski, known for his compelling documentaries that tackle critical societal issues.

As we explore their investigative efforts and the stories of those affected by violence and injustice, we'll uncover the...

Welcome to another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where insights come alive through the voices of our guests. I'm your host, Robert Scheer, and today we have the privilege of speaking with the insightful Vijay Prashad, a prolific author and the Director of the Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research. With an impressive body of work that includes over 40 books, Prashad has established himself as a leading voice on global affairs.

In our conversation, we explore the complexities of international relations, particularly focusing on the rising influence of China, the dynamics of capitalism, and the implications of a multipolar...

Welcome to another episode of Scheer Intelligence! I'm your host, Robert Scheer, and today we’re diving into a critical conversation about the state of media, censorship, and the role of independent journalism in our society. Joining me are two passionate advocates from the organization Project Censored: Shealeigh Voitl and Andy Lee Roth.

In this episode, we explore the alarming trends of censorship, particularly in an era where many attribute societal issues to the influence of the internet rather than systemic inequalities or failures within our democratic structures. We'll discuss Project Censored's important work in highlighting underreported st...

Welcome to another edition of Scheer Intelligence. I’m your host, Robert Scheer, and today marks a significant new chapter for our program as we transition to Scheerpost, where we’ll continue our mission of exploring vital issues with depth and clarity. After nearly a decade of broadcasting through KCRW, we’re excited to bring you more frequent conversations, allowing us to engage with the news as it unfolds.

In this inaugural episode under the Scheerpost banner, I’m joined by the esteemed Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst with over 27 years of experience, who has briefed three U...

On this final episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast hosted on KCRW but continuing on ScheerPost.com,  host Robert Scheer welcomes Larry Gross, author and Professor Emeritus of Communication at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The two cover Zionism, specifically through the lens of Gross, who lived in Israel and personally witnessed the country’s evolution from its earlier claim to progressive idealism under its Labor party founders to the brutalizing occupation of Gaza and the West Bank Palestinians.

Although the term Zionism carries negative international weight today, Gross tells the story of his fam...

Tariffs, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, electric cars: there is much to be said about the evolving relationship between China and the United States. While Donald Trump’s recent tariffs on the country are just the latest story, it is only a fraction of the news coming out of China that directly affects the U.S. and the future prospect for business and the government. Joining host Robert Scheer from China on this episode of Scheer Intelligence is Geopolitical Economic Report editor-in-chief and journalist Ben Norton.

The two discuss what the incoming Trump administration represents for U.S.-China relations as we...

This is the political season to be thankful for small favors of optimism, and in this edition of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer and guest Joe Lauria, editor of the Consortium News website, are excited to have found a gift of striking significance to what remains of the practice of serious journalism on the internet. It is Donald Trump’s delivery on a promise in his inauguration address that “After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all censorship and bring back free speech to ...

The wildfires in Los Angeles county have brought a multitude of difficult and prevailing questions to the forefront of the region as well as the system of capitalism. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast is Jacobin Magazine columnist Ben Burgis to discuss writer Mike Davis and how his book, “The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster,” (February 1998) serves as a kind of prognosis for everything going wrong in Los Angeles today.

The two dissect the multitude of issues at play in the wildfire disasters: the conceit of real e...

The American saber-rattling against China has been increasing almost as fast as China’s own development in the past few years. China’s economic prosperity and international influence is undeniable yet American politicians continue to treat their rise as a threat to their global hegemony. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence is Megan Russell, a writer, academic and CODEPINK's China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.

Scheer is quick to point out the intergenerational dynamic between his own work on China as a fellow in the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of C...

*This episode originally aired on December 21, 2018.

This is part two of a two-part interview. To listen to part one, click here.

In part two of this two-part interview, Death Row inmate Kevin Cooper, once coming within four hours of execution, details how he copes with the daily torment of impending death as his legal team fights to prove his innocence with new exonerating evidence Gov. Jerry Brown has refused to allow to be examined.

For the past 33 Christmas holidays, Kevin Cooper has inhabited an 11-by-4 ½-foot cell in California's San Quentin State Prison, the last eig...

Much needed attention has been brought upon the for-profit health insurance industry in the wake of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Personal stories about people’s tragic experiences involving not only UnitedHealthcare but many other insurance companies have spelled out a deeper issue that resonates across the American political spectrum.

Sean Morrow, a journalist and writer for More Perfect Union—a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on working class issues—has gained significant attention lately as a result of the shooting. Morrow joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to further elaborate on the is...

The assassination of Brian Thompson, the former CEO of UnitedHealthcare insurance company, has prompted a national reckoning of how corporate entities commit crimes on a daily basis and are not only not punished but rewarded for their profit-making prowess. Many point to Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin, as an example of vigilante justice, murdering someone who is responsible for the deaths of thousands who are denied medical care.

Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence is Anthony Grasso, professor of political science at Rutgers University and author of the new book, “Dual Justice: America’s Di...

Though one can debate the reasons, statistics and precedent of nuclear war, what is often left out of the conversation is the reality of it: destruction of the world as a whole. In her new immersive art experience titled, “Any War, Any Enemy,” immersive artist Lena Herzog throws this reality literally right in the faces of viewers. The film can uniquely be experienced via virtual reality as well as a traditional screen and it plainly shows what nuclear war looks like.

Herzog begins the film with a quote stating nuclear war is not war. She tells host Robe...

Gaza today symbolizes nothing but death, destruction and oppression. Israel’s genocide and scorched earth bombing campaign has not only wiped out its people but the rich history that stretches back thousands of years. Juan Cole, University of Michigan history professor and renowned Middle East historian, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to clearly lay out the history behind Gaza through his newest book, “Gaza Yet Stands.”

Gaza, Cole says, was a cosmopolitan place, a place people went through for travel, trade and its rich civilization. “If you were in Beirut and you...

The election came and went, and despite Democrats’ heavy emphasis on abortion rights, the election of Donald Trump makes it clear that the rights of women across the country are in grave danger. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to spell out this danger and talk about his new book, “Abortion in the Age of Unreason: A Doctor's Account of Caring for Women Before and After Roe v. Wade” is “America's Abortion Doctor” Dr. Warren Hern.

Hern possesses vast experience with abortion and abortion rights, from his days at the first private nonprofit abortion c...

Reporting on the election often involves being glued to computer screens dictating the polling numbers around the country and using statistics revolving around race and gender to make assumptions about how the country is politically swaying. Journalist and online host Michael Tracey actually went out to many prominent swing states throughout the election and spoke to various swaths of voters, engaging in what their vote really means and how ordinary Americans view newly appointed Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Tracey joins Scheer Intelligence host Robert Scheer to discuss the election, why Trump won and what...

Amidst the hype, excitement and nervousness of the election, the bigger picture of what the United States is and how it operates often gets lost on people. Many think that choosing one or another candidate will significantly alter their future to better represent their values, but in reality there is only one group of people that matter the most: those who Dr. Peter Phillips, professor emeritus at Sonoma State University, calls the “titans of capital.”

In his new book by the same name, Phillips studies the economic trends following the COVID-19 pandemic and how the wealth concentration in th...

Fewer people in the world had access to the personal moments experienced by Steve Wasserman, Heyday Books publisher, former LA Times Book Review editor and former editor at several of the nation’s most prominent book publishing houses. In his latest book, “Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It's a Lie,” he details his close encounters with a handful of some of the most significant people in the 20th century, including Jackie Kennedy, Susan Sontag, Christopher Hitchens, Gore Vidal, Barbra Streisand, Huey Newton and others.

Wasserman describes these accounts, or portraits, as focusing on people who “i...

Any urban street in America is guaranteed to be lined with popular fast food chains, the readily available nature of their products being the main attraction, with people barely giving a thought to the process behind getting the food from the farm to the table — or more likely, the take-out box. 

Joining host Robert Scheer on this week’s Scheer Intelligence are two people who dedicated their recent film, “Food and Country,” to understanding this process behind food in the United States and how big business, as usual, has almost complete control of the system. Renowned former food crit...

In the 365 days following the events of Oct. 7, the situation in the Middle East is as complicated as ever. Israel’s genocide in Gaza agonizingly continues, and its invasion of Lebanon and subsequent retaliation at the hands of Hezbollah and Iran has added more fuel to the fire. Tensions are escalating and Middle East expert and writer Juan Cole joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to explain its precedent and what the future may hold.

The extremism of the Netanyahu cabinet in Israel, Cole explains, is the basis for the sharp in...

At a time of book bans and the withholding of critically important struggles in our history, our education system has increasingly failed to provide our young with the tools to become engaged citizens in our much celebrated experiment in democracy. This miseducation of the young has been vastly accelerated by the shocking erosion of civic education in the standardized testing that separates winners and losers in the ranking of our meritocracy.

This reality has been made painfully obvious to Lindsey Cormack, a parent of two young children and a professor of political science at the prestigious Stevens...

In the midst of election season, conversations revolving around the levers of power become more frequent, and in the case of a U.S. presidential election, that often includes debates around the so-called “deep state”. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence, Professors Charles Derber and Yale Magrass discuss their new book, “Who Owns Democracy?: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America.”

There are many interpretations of what the 'deep state' actually represents in government, but Magrass offers a clear definition, breaking it down into two parts: the official...

The genocide in Gaza has brought the issue of Israel — and what it represents for Jewish people — into the forefront of Jewish communities worldwide. The powerful influence of the Israel lobby on Israel’s image in the United States makes this issue highly contentious and deeply complex.

In this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer and Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), a nonprofit dedicated to fostering peace between Israel and Palestine, explain — as two Jewish individuals — how they navigate these complex issues, both in their professional work and personal l...

Israel and its lobby today try to conflate the state with Jews around the world, that it speaks for Jews and encompasses the entire diaspora. Richard Silverstein, author and journalist of the Tikun Olam blog, says that this couldn’t be further from the truth. As the genocide in Gaza rages on, along with the killing of Israeli citizens and the mass torture of Palestinians, the support for Israel among Jews, particularly the younger generation, will continue to falter as the state itself plunges deeper into despair.

Silverstein speaks to host Robert Scheer on this episode of th...

The CIA’s destructive role in world politics since the end of World War II as a secret rogue spy agency controlled by unelected intelligence officers has become so ubiquitous that it can be joked about. But behind the jokes lies a far darker reality: the agency's imperial ambitions have fueled a legacy of death and destruction in the name of expanding American power. Hugh Wilford, author and professor of history at California State University Long Beach, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to delve into the specifics of CIA operations and their im...

The CIA’s destructive role in world politics since the end of World War II as a secret rogue spy agency controlled by unelected intelligence officers has become so ubiquitous that it can be joked about. But behind the jokes lies a far darker reality: the agency's imperial ambitions have fueled a legacy of death and destruction in the name of expanding American power. Hugh Wilford, author and professor of history at California State University Long Beach, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to delve into the specifics of CIA operations and their im...

The “big club” that “you ain’t in,” as George Carlin famously put it, is increasingly visible as the presidential election rolls on toward November. Politicians and the donor class that controls them have made it known to the public that they are not representatives of the majority but rather the small elite minority. Nomi Prins, financial historian, author and former Goldman Sachs managing director, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to describe exactly how this process works as well as touch on the evolution of the world economy away from the U.S.

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