Deconstructed With Mehdi Hasan

The CERAWeek conference took place this week in Houston. CERAWeek is an annual gathering of major players in the energy sector; CEOs, government officials, and financiers are among the conference's attendees. The major theme this year, of course, was the effect of Russia’s war in Ukraine on global oil and gas markets — in particular, President Joe Biden’s announcement Tuesday that the U.S. would move to ban imports of Russian oil. The New Republic’s Kate Aronoff was there in Houston to witness the conference. She joins Ryan Grim to discuss what she saw and heard, including — yes, actually — a Broadway song parody titled “Don’t Cry for Me, Hydrocarbons.”https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us,” declared Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. “It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” This conception of Ukrainian history forms the bedrock of Putin’s justification for invading the former Soviet republic, independent since 1991. On this week’s podcast, Ryan Grim talks with Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko about his country’s history, from the Dark Ages up the current war. They discuss Ukraine’s history of anarchist politics, the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution that toppled pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, and the tangled question of modern Ukrainian identity.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Crime is surging in Houston, and homicide detectives are given free rein as they race to close cases. Investigators are certain that Charles Raby is guilty of Edna Franklin’s murder — and that DNA evidence will prove it. But once Charles confesses, the forensic investigation stops.Murderville, an investigative podcast hosted by senior Intercept reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith, examines the systemic failures that lead to wrongful convictions. Season Two takes Segura and Smith to the death penalty capital of the country, Harris County, Texas, where they investigate a disturbing crime, a startling confession, and a story that doesn’t add up. To follow the series, subscribe to Murderville wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at https://theintercept.com/podcasts/murderville/If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/donate — your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The proposed Social Security 2100 Act would bolster the nearly century-old social insurance program through additions like caregiver credits and increased minimum benefits. Connecticut Rep. John Larson, the architect of the plan, joins Intercept reporters Ryan Grim and Jon Schwarz to discuss why he thinks an expansion of Social Security is overdue.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the waning hours of his presidency, Donald Trump issued an order designating the Houthis in Yemen as a terrorist organization; one of Joe Biden’s first actions upon taking office was to reverse that designation. Now, under pressure from the United Arab Emirates, he may be having second thoughts. Intercept reporter Ken Klippenstein and Michigan State University assistant professor Shireen Al-Adeimi join Ryan Grim to discuss the potential consequences of restoring Trump’s last-minute order.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his new book, congressman Ro Khanna tackles the question of how the prosperity generated by technology can be more broadly shared. In the foreword, Indian economist Amartya Sen writes “just as people can move to technology, technology can move to people. People need not be compelled to move from one place to another to reap the benefits offered by technological progress”. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in Congress, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the book and more.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Murderville, an investigative podcast hosted by senior Intercept reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith, examines the systemic failures that lead to wrongful convictions. Season Two takes Segura and Smith to the death penalty capital of the country, Harris County, Texas, where they investigate a disturbing crime, a startling confession, and a story that doesn’t add up. To follow the series, subscribe to Murderville at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at https://theintercept.com/podcasts/murderville/If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/donate — your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism." So declared famed Marine Corps officer Smedley Butler in 1935, at the end of a long career spent blazing a path for American interests in Cuba, Nicaragua, China, The Philippines, Panama, and Haiti. In a new book on Butler’s career, Gangsters of Capitalism, Jonathan Katz details Butler’s life and explains how it dovetails with the broader story of American empire at the turn of the century. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The normally reserved International Committee of the Red Cross recently made a surprisingly direct statement about the unfolding economic and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. They said, “Can the international community” — meaning the U.S. — “hold 39 million people hostage to the fact that they do not want to recognise the authorities that are now in place in Kabul and in Afghanistan?”Masood Shnizai is a journalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan. He joins Ryan Grim to discuss the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/01/09/afghanistan-sanctions-human-rights-hawks/">devastating effects</a> of the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/12/28/afghanistan-economy-collapse-us-sanctions/">ongoing U.S. sanctions</a>, and why the calls for help seem to be falling on deaf ears in the Biden administration.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Former senate majority leader Harry Reid died on December 28th at the age of 82. Reid, who was born into extreme poverty in Nevada in 1939, rose to become one of the most influential politicians in the modern Democratic party. Three of his former aides, Kristen Orthman, Faiz Shakir, and Ari Rabin-Havt, join Ryan Grim to discuss Reid’s life and impact on American politics.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Introduced during the Trump administration, “direct contracting” is a Medicare payment model that allows private medical practices and insurance companies to arrange set payments from Medicare for the year, rather than bill the administration for services. But critics warn that the system, which has continued under the Biden administration, is being exploited by venture capitalists. Merrill Goozner is a health care reporter who has spent decades covering the slow-moving crisis of American healthcare, and he joins to Ryan Grim to discuss the present and possible future of Medicare.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week the senate voted down a resolution that would have blocked a defensive weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. The measure attracted support from senators of both parties for its potential to pressure the Saudis to end the war in Yemen. Intercept reporters Sara Sirota and Ken Klippenstein join Ryan Grim to discuss what the politics surrounding Saudi Arabia look like with a democrat back in the White House.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Build Back Better Act is one of the biggest and most complicated pieces of spending legislation in American history. If it becomes law, it will be (among other things) the biggest investment in climate mitigation ever made. So what does it actually do on the climate front? Eric Deeble from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition joins Ryan Grim to discuss the bill’s climate and agriculture provisions.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Historians tend to frown on the practice of imagining “alternate histories”. Two people who don’t are Danny Bessner and Matt Christman, hosts of the new podcast “Hinge Points.” On each episode, they take an historical “hinge” moment and ask, could it have been different? What if, for example, the German Social Democrats had not fallen in line behind the march to war in 1914?https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Much of President Biden’s agenda rests on the minutiae of Senate rules and parliamentary procedures; this has led to a renewed interest in the obscure but enormously consequential role of the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough. An unelected official, she nonetheless has an extraordinary amount of influence over the current budget negotiations. Ari Rabin-Havt, former deputy campaign manager to Bernie Sanders, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the parliamentarian’s role in the legislative process.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The fallout from the 2008 financial crisis has defined national politics ever since. If he wants his “Build Back Better” agenda to have a chance of success, argues journalist and political commentator David Sirota in his new podcast Meltdown, he’ll have to take the lessons of the last twelve years seriously.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Three days after he was sworn in to his first term as a U.S. congressman, Jamaal Bowman watched as the Capitol was stormed by a Trump-incited mob. It was the start of a very eventful year on the Hill. Bowman joins Ryan Grim to discuss his first 10 months in congress and the battle over President Biden's budget reconciliation bill.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As the negotiations over President Biden’s sweeping budget reconciliation bill drag on, Democrats are struggling to find a set of compromises that will satisfy congressional progressives while still securing the votes of intransigent senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. California representative Ro Khanna, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the state of play. Then, investigative reporter Dan Boguslaw talks about his recent reporting for the Intercept on Senator Manchin’s coal entanglements in West Virginia.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As the US continues to pursue Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition from the UK, an explosive story from Yahoo News has revealed that top officials including the then CIA Director Mike Pompeo discussed extraditing and even assassinating him. Michael Isikoff, one of the reporters on that story, joins Ryan Grim to discuss Assange’s fate as well as his recent portrayal in the FX show American Crime Story, which dramatizes his role in the revelation of the Monica Lewinsky affair.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.