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On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.


Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on the 2020 election, a new red-baiting smear against Bernie Sanders, the latest mainstream media attack on Sputnik, the Coronavirus outbreak, and more.


In the 1980s, when Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he traveled to the Soviet Union to promote the idea of pairing Burlington with a Russian city as part of the “sister cities” program, something that was common around the world at the time. But now the New York Times is accusing Sanders of having been a communist dupe. And NPR has jumped on the bandwagon, accusing Sputnik and RT of supporting Sanders’s presidential campaign. Brian and John speak with Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labor lawyer who is the author of the book “No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.”



The rapid spread of the coronavirus is beginning to have an economic impact around the world, with some economists predicting that it could push the United States into recession. Economic slowdown and recession have real impacts on the lives of workers, with many in the US not having sick days and others financially unable to miss work. What does that mean for workers and for the economy? Dr. Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of “The Scourge of Neo-Liberalism: US Policy from Reagan to Trump.” You can check out his work at www.jackrasmus.com, joins the show.



Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race yesterday, leaving Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and, many people forget, Tulsi Gabbard as the only remaining candidates. Warren declined yesterday to endorse anybody else, but in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night, she didn’t miss an opportunity to attack Sanders and his supporters. Brian and John speak with Jim Kavanagh, editor of thepolemicist.net.



Federal prosecutors have once again subpoenaed Chelsea Manning to testify before a federal grand jury in the Julian Assange case, despite the fact that Manning has steadfastly refused to testify against the Wikileaks co-founder. She has been jailed for more than six months and is being fined $1000 per day for her refusal. But why call her to testify in the first place? Is it because the case against Assange is in trouble? Kevin Gosztola, a writer for Shadowproof.com and co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, joins the show.



It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell.