Rackets Podcast

This episode's guest is Michael Ames. He is an investigative reporter and book author based in Brooklyn, New York. After a decade working in media in southern Idaho, Ames moved east and shifted to national issues, writing mostly for the Daily Beast and Harper's and Newsweek magazines. His first book, American Cipher, which he co-authored with former US Army infantryman Matt Farwell, was published by Penguin Press in March. 

In this interview, Michael set the record straight about this former soldier, along with the manner in which his capture was a pretext for many vested interests. Ames also demonstrated a variety of ways in which Bergdahl's exploited public image paralleled the endless war in Afghanistan. 

This excellent and critically-acclaimed book, American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan, is available on Amazon, in Barnes and Noble, and all independent book stores. 

(The audio for this episode isn't great. This issue will be corrected in the following episodes.)

The highlights include:

Censorship in Arizona's state prisons

Backlash against the maker of OxyContin and the heirs to the company's fortune

Racketeering by Big Pharma

Lindsey Graham's buffoonery

Central American Narco-State

Wasteful Military Spending

Former CIA Director's Ironic Choice of Words on Terrorism

Baltimore being held ransom by hackers using former tool of the NSA 

(Image - Flickr - Jim Greenhill)

This episode covers a range of topics including:

Robert Kraft's lawsuit

Possible Chinese espionage

A Federal Lawsuit involving Trump's Emolument Violations

Trump's Pay to Play System

A Number of Revolving Door Officials Finding High-Paying Work in the Private Sector

Boeing Whistleblowers

Foreign Lobbying

War Crimes

Bribery by Shell/ENI of Nigerian officials

Leon Lee is the Peabody Award winning director of the documentary film, Human Harvest. Lee explained that the Chinese government began persecuting a group known as Falun Gong in the 1990s. They can best be described as prisoners of conscious. Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured, harassed, falsely imprisoned, etc. And many of them have been executed with the sole purpose of selling their organs within the Chinese medical system. It's a subject that is so sinister that it's difficult to believe, but evidence provided by Lee and a few award-winning journalists demonstrate that this is a vile human catastrophe that needs much more international attention.

The latest episode covers a bribery scandal involving the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, corporate drug pushers, Russian election interference in  Madagascar, corrupt foreign and domestic officials, and much more.