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On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Ted Rall, an award-winning journalist and editorial cartoonist whose work is at www.rall.com.

President Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives last night to the surprise of literally no one. The vote was 230-197 to charge Trump with abuse of power and 229-198 to charge him with obstruction of Congress. Only two Democrats voted no on both measures and one vote yes on one and no on the other. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted present on both and later issued a statement saying that Trump should have been censured, but that an impeachment should have focused on his and every other president’s unauthorized use of force overseas. The action will soon move to the Senate, where Trump will go on trial.

Democrats will host another presidential debate tonight, this time in Los Angeles. And it’ll be a lot smaller than previous debates, with only seven candidates participating. Tulsi Gabbard, the only candidate with a focus on ending U.S. wars abroad, will not be on stage however. That leaves Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, and Tom Steyer. Joe Lauria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News, founded by the late Robert Parry, and the author of the book "How I Lost, By Hillary Clinton,” joins the show.

Wikileaks cofounder Julian Assange appeared at a preliminary extradition hearing via video as his UK attorneys argued that the US-UK extradition treaty specifically bars the extradition of defendants accused of political crimes. Today’s hearing was to set guidelines for the formal hearing in February and to identify other relevant legal issues. Meanwhile, Chelsea Manning spent her 32nd birthday on Tuesday still locked up in a jail in Alexandria, VA for refusing to testify before the Assange grand jury. And the notorious federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled yesterday that CIA could seize all profits from Ed Snowden’s new book, saying that it had not been cleared by the Agency’s Publications Review Board. Brian and John speak with Dr. Margaret Flowers, co-coordinator of Popular Resistance at www.popularresistance.org.

The House approved the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement today. This massive deal replaces NAFTA, an agreement that went into force in 1994 and has been a lighting rod for criticism by progressive and labor groups. Sputnik News analyst Walter Smolarek joins Brian and John.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party will finally pass a Brexit bill tomorrow that will ensure that the UK will withdraw from the European Union on January 31. What most British voters are not talking about, however, is the fact that what will follow will be at least a year of torturous negotiations over the terms of the departure. Remember the Irish border? Duties and tariffs? Travel to and from the continent? None of those issues have been resolved. Neil Clark, a journalist and broadcaster whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Week, and Morning Star, joins the show.

Thursday’s weekly series “Criminal Injustice” is about the most egregious conduct of our courts and prosecutors and how justice is denied to so many people in this country. Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), and Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, join the show.

A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space. As the US continues to withdraw from international arms treaties, will the weaponization and militarization of space bring the world closer to catastrophe? Brian and John speak with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues, and with Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.