Sott Radio Network

On this episode we discuss Dr. Karen Mitchell's new book Human Predators and her research on harmful people across settings such as business, law, medicine, media, religion, and politics. She argues that predators outside prison are common, often act covertly through emotional and social abuse, and share similar traits and tactics regardless of labels like narcissist or psychopath. We also discuss...

On the surface, the USA is thriving and a "light unto the world", as Trump recited in his speeches marking the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776. But is this 'national mythos' still valid? Was it ever? Does the US live up to its claims of uniqueness with respect to 'freedom' and 'democracy'? If not, what is this exceptional nation's 'chief feature'? Excess? B...

One week into the 'Peace Deal', the US and Iran are back to taking potshots at each other - both online and ballistically - over control of shipping through the strait of Hormuz. And, for all their recent criticism of Israel, US leaders this week gave Netanyahu something of a 'win' in Lebanon: a crooked deal between them and the official Lebanese leadership that sees the IDF withdraw from most of...

So Trump and Iran's president have at last come to terms, jointly signing a Memorandum of Understanding that 'solidifies', if that's not too strong a word, the de facto ceasefire between the US and Iran that stretches back some 16 weeks. It's the shakiest of peace deals, not least because key issues like charging shipping tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz have been 'kicked down the ro...

The seemingly endless 'negotiations' between the Trump White House and Tehran made a breakthrough last week, when, for the first time since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February, Iranian leaders signalled that a preliminary 'peace deal' is indeed within reach... until Israel nixed it by launching airstrikes into downtown Beirut. In the meantime the World Cup is underway, and the US, as on...

Ukraine's drone waves continue hitting Russia, last week targeting St Petersburg right as its annual 'Russian Davos' forum opened, Azerbaijani grain ships in the Sea of Azov, and the nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye. The Ukrainian puppet regime, egged on as ever by the Western Consortium that runs it, is feeling invincible, but its days are surely numbered. Meanwhile the American side of the 'US-...

The US government continues dragging out terms of settlement with Iran, Israel continues invading, occupying and ethnically cleansing southern Lebanon and Gaza, and the Trump White House continues playing 'MAGA Greatest Hits' to its base. Their detachment from reality is becoming more palpable - and unsustainable, surely? - by the day... Running Time: 01:40:15 Download: MP3 — 138 MB

Another 'TACO Tuesday' came and went... by Thursday the US military was again 'locked and loaded' for another go at Iran... and by Saturday evening Trump was dangling another peace deal - 'for realz this time'. As American diplomacy erratically yo-yo's, in the real world, some oil tankers are once more sailing the Strait of Hormuz, but now on Iran's terms. War is a cynical business, a 'racket', as...

Deferred due to the US-Israeli war against Iran, Trump finally visited China last week, where he received an apparently 'warm' welcome from Xi Jinping, along with a stern warning: do not mess with Taiwan, and let us work to avoid the 'Thucydides Trap', wherein a dominant power inevitably wars with a rising power. Whether Trump understood the finer points of Chinese diplomacy is unclear, but it's c...

Caught in a trap by Iran, the gulf between what US president Trump wishes were true, and what is actually real, continues to grow. While the Strait of Hormuz remains impassable to the US Navy, its distant "blockade of Iran's blockade" is apparently taking effect, with billions of dollars' worth of oil shipments failing to leave Iran and thus reducing the country's cash flows. Iranian officials rem...

Typically, the American president has blurted out 'the plain truth' about what his government is doing around the world - from the Caribbean to the Arctic to the Black Sea and Indian Ocean: behaving like pirates. This week we review, taking into account Richard Medhurst's excellent dot-connecting in his documentary 'The Petrogas-Dollar: The Secret US Strategy Behind the Iran War', the string of US...

Three aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea for the first time since March 2003 suggests another 'shock and awe' campaign is being considered. The 'ceasefire' between the US and Iran is holding, but for how much longer? Trump talks up his 'blockade of their blockade', but it's clear what is suffering most from Iranian defiance - Trump's reputation and American 'prestige', which the Americans are it...

It's not easy to do, and it's tempting to just 'turn it off', but we're all unfortunately doomed to have to endure Trump's erratic statements on Iran and wider geopolitics for the duration of this crisis (which he himself caused). For now a tentative ceasefire is holding, and further talks are scheduled in Pakistan this week, but from one hour to the next no one can tell which way things will go:...

If you were writing this for a Hollywood script, it would be rejected for being unrealistic. Trump's latest scheme to 'unblock the Strait of Hormuz' is almost certainly not going to work, but more importantly, what is the likelihood that hostilities will recommence between the US and Iran? Also, what really happened during that so-called 'rescue mission' south of Isfahan last week? And should we h...

A month into his "little excursion" in Iran, Trump's campaign of sustained airstrikes is yielding preposterous results: significant damage in Iran, but also in America's regional client-states, and also in key global supply chains. Every Monday he calms 'the markets' with assurances that the war is won and "very nearly over," and every Friday, when markets close, he threatens "TOTAL DEATH AND DEST...

Trump's "short-term excursion" in Iran is going from bad to worse. And so are his incoherent positions on the situation and what to do about it. With gas prices jumping the world over, humanity is staring down the barrel of global food shortages and severe energy disruptions, while the US military is seriously considering direct military confrontation with Iranian forces to "free the Strait of Hor...

Something's gotta give. Iran is being practically carpet-bombed, resulting in widespread civilian destruction. Despite near-total regional censorship, satellite imagery and some video footage is documenting mild-to-strong 'hits' on US bases and other assets across the whole region. Trump assures us Iran's military is 'destroyed', yet he acknowledges Iran's de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz...

One week into the US-Israeli attack on Iran, the mission has been extended from "4 days" to "4 weeks" to "4 months" to "as long as it takes." But what IS the mission? It was "regime change," but Iran is not "surrendering" despite its leadership being assassinated. In fact, surviving Iranian leadership is conveying that its counter-strikes will continue until ITS mission is accomplished. So, a war...

And so it begins. This time it isn't 'kayfabe' and 'negotiated strikes and counter-strikes'. The 'peace president', when announcing joint US-Israeli strikes against Iran on 28 February, said it would just take a few days, and gloated that he 'took out the regime' by targeting top Iranian leadership, including Ayatollah Khamenei. But Iran's swift and massive response - bombing 11 countries housing...

The 'major build-up' of US military forces in and around the Middle East sure makes it look like D-Day for 'war with Iran' is imminent. What people are overlooking, however, is that this is Trump doing his 'maximum pressure' routine with a view to 'deal-making', not blowing the world up to kingdom come. The situation is certainly tense, a lot is at stake, and Trump is under tremendous pressure by...

It seems as if everyone who is reading and discussing 'the Epstein Files', most of which are emails exchanged between Jeffrey Epstein and the 'great and powerful', is assuming the worst from them: that Epstein himself, and his co-conspirators, engaged in child sex-trafficking and indulged in the worst abuse of minors, including 'ritual sacrifice' and even cannibalism. While there is evidence for s...

The Epstein Files, however redacted, selective, and incomplete they are, are sufficiently damning for all 'with eyes to see' to understand - properly, and, really, for the first time - that we are indeed lorded over by corrupt, knuckle-dragging, deranged 'elites'. As online sleuths connect dots, solve cold cases, and shine a light on the worst crimes committed by Epstein and company, the glaring '...

It isn't all of 'the files', and it certainly isn't the 'kompromat' Epstein collected on all the rich and famous he schmoozed with for three decades, but there's enough in the 'final tranche' of some three million US law enforcement documents spanning multiple investigations into Epstein and his corrupt dealings to conclude that the political class (the whole world over, but particularly in the 'W...

Amidst growing protests in Minneapolis against the presence of "Trump's enforcers," more mayhem as ICE agents kill a SECOND local liberal disrupting their hunt for illegals. Are Americans losing their appetite for 'mass deportations'? Or will they 'follow the penguin to the mountains', as DHS seemed to suggest? Meanwhile, US support for extreme forms of 'disruption' in Iran has resulted in 3,100 d...

Trump's Greenland grab has finally got the Euros asking geostrategic questions about the wisdom of over-dependence on American 'military protection'. But is it 'too little, too late'? They insist there's no way Greenland will become American territory, but Trump has issued tariffs against his erstwhile allies, and a June deadline. If NATO is coming apart at the seams, what about the 'Five Eyes' of...