Background Briefing with Ian Masters

Extreme Weather and Its Connection to Climate Change as Trump and DOGE's Cuts Impacted The National Weather Service's Response to the Tragic Flash Floods in Texas | Putin's Cabinet Officials Commit "Suicide" as More Top Oil Executives Fall From 10th Floor Windows | The BRICS Summit and Trump's Threats to Countries That Side With BRICS music: Nighttime - The Way Itasca - Milk backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump Gets Stiffed Again by His Idol Putin as China Admits It Wants the Ukraine War to Drag on to Keep the US and NATO Out of Asia | Trump Says he Expects to Close a Ceasefire Deal Between Israel and Hamas Next Week | Trump as a Man of the Past as Zombie Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism Comeback From the Dead backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Republican's Cynical Ploy to Give Billionaires Tax Breaks Immediately While Delaying Cuts to Medicaid and Food Assistance Until After the Midterms | In Spite of Ratcliffe's Spin to Please His Boss, the CIA Report Finds That Putin Did Help Trump and Hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Election | US Contractors Shoot Gazans For Sport as Hamas Approves the US Plan for a Hostage Release backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Another Big Media Company Caves to Trump's Extortion | Four of the Worst Horrors in the Awful Republican Megabill | As Trump Uses War and the Threat of War, He Ignores the UN and the US Congress backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Casualty Cruelty as He Tours a New Gulag Celebrating the $75 Billion He Just Got For ICE and DHS | Republican Senators Shamelessly Pass a Massive Transfer of Wealth From the Poorest to the Richest Americans | Today's Misanthropic Assault on Our Kids and Grandkids From Republican Whores and Hirelings of Big Oil and Dirty Coal

The Supreme Court Has Sold Out the Constitution and the Rule of Law to Reward a Lawless Trump, and Now The Republican Legislative Branch is Selling Out Their Constituents to Reward the Super-Rich | From Authoritarianism to Totalitarianism as Trump Erases the Distinction Between Civil Society and the State | Signs That Iran Was Not "Obliterated" and Could Quickly Resume Their Nuclear Program backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Welcome to One Party Rule As SCOTUS Removes the Last Check on Trump | We Are Back in the 1850's With ICE Repeating the Cruelty of the Fugitive Slave Act | There Was a Respectable Right Before Trump's MAGA Took Over the GOP backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Supreme Leader Congratulates Iranians on Their "Victory" over Israel and the US While the Head of the IAEA Says Fordo is "No Longer Operational" | As Trump Demonizes Democrats and Democratic Lawmakers Are Assassinated, How Long Before ICE and DHS Start Rounding up His Political Enemies? | Explaining the 60-Fold Rise in Autism While the Quack Heading HHS, RFK Jr. Still Blames it on Vaccines backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

With Trump and Hegseth's Bombastic Claims of "Total Obliteration" Blowing Up, Will Iran Now Sprint to a Bomb? | While Talking Peace, This is Trump's War and It's Only Just Beginning | Trump and Miller's ICE Stormtroopers' Reckless and Brutal Roundups of Non-Criminals on the Streets of LA backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Waffling on Article 5 of the NATO Treaty as European Leaders Try to Avoid a Clash Between Him and Zelensky at the Summit Underway | Today's NY City Race For Mayor Exposes the Division in the Democratic Party as a Talented Young Leader Faces a Disgraced Relic | Iran's Divided Opposition With the US and Israel-Backed MEK and Shah's Son Hated For Their Collusion With Israel backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

A Specialist on Iran Who Recently Met With Iranian Foreign Ministry Officials and Nuclear Negotiators | The State Of the Iranian Opposition as Trump Muses About Regime Change | The MAGA and Project 2025 Plan to Dumb Down America to Become an Idiocracy in Service of a Plutocracy backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

US Bombs Have Fallen on Iran, What We Know and Don't Know About Iran's Secret Nuclear Program | Trump, the Triumphant and Imperial President at Home and the Emperor Abroad backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump on the Brink of Embroiling the US in Another Forever War | Repeating the Ignorance and Hubris That Got Us Into the Iraq War, There Appears to Be No Plans For the Day After We Bomb Iran | The Iran Nuclear Issue Moves From Crisis to Tragedy backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's "To Do Or Not To Do" on Bombing Iran | The Split in MAGA Illustrated by the Clash Between the Insidious Tucker Carlson and the Odious Ted Cruz | The Legacy of Charlottesville Now That White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis Can Apply For a Job at ICE and DHS backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Putting the US in Alignment With Israel, Trump Claims We Own the Skies Over Tehran | The Moral Dilemma of Fleeing Trump's Fascism or Making a Stand With the Growing Opposition backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

MAGA Political Hatred Has Moved From Talk to Action With the Assassination of Democratic Lawmakers in Minnesota | Raining on Trump's Parade as Our Fuhrer Takes the Stand to Review the Troops Like the Dictators He Admires | Trump on the Sidelines as Israel Wages War on Iran With Netanyahu Promising Regime Change backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Lawless Unleashing of the Military as He Threatens Americans Not to Protest His Strongman Military Parade | Finally Governor Newsom Steps Up to Challenge Trump | Trump is Asking For $45 Billion More for Private Prisons Where 90% of Immigrants Are Detained backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Like All Dictators, Trump Now Controls the Security Services Via His Obedient Flunkies | A Young Latino Journalist Who Has Covered the LA Protests Since Friday | Is Trump's Triumphant Announcement of a Trade Deal With China and EXCELLENT Relations With Xi Jinping Warranted? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Escalating War of Words Between President Trump and Governor Newsom | In Sending in the Marines Against Protesters in LA, is Trump Stoking a Possible Civil War? | Trump Offers Up His Tesla For $69, Trashing His Former Best Buddy and Biggest Donor Who Bought Him the Presidency

An Eyewitness to Trump's Dictatorial Dream of Crushing Blue State Opposition on His Way to Becoming An American Fuhrer | With Trump Itching to Provoke an Insurrection to Justify a Dictatorship, Has LA Played Into His Hands? | Trump's Dual Strategies of Scaring Off Protests and Instigating Provocations to Enact Fascism backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

More Tabloid Headlines From a Tabloid Presidency As the Marriage of Wealth and Power Between Two Infantile Ego-Maniacs Heads For Divorce | Political Activism Versus Centrist Pragmatism: The Choices Facing the Moribund Democratic Party in New York City's Mayoral Race | Trump Claims Putin is "Tapping Him Along" But is Trump Stringing Us All Along? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

What it is Like to Be An American Citizen Targeted by the Most Powerful Person in the World Who is Accusing You of Treason For Speaking the Truth | Trump's America: The United States of Cruelty backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump Digs the Deficit Hole $2.4 Trillion Deeper to Punish the Poor and Reward the Richest | Trump Sells Out Ukraine Again in His Call Today With Putin | Trump Pressure Iran to Sign or Get Bombed, Making a War That Will Not Be a Cakewalk More Likely Trump Digs the Deficit Hole $2.4 Trillion Deeper to Punish the Poor and Reward the Richest | Trump Sells Out Ukraine Again in His Call Today With Putin | Trump Pressure Iran to Sign or Get Bombed, Making a War That Will Not Be a Cakewalk More Likely backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Pentagon's Slow Learning Curve on Asymmetrical Warfare | The Latest Attacks on Jewish Americans As Our President Continues to Signal his Anti Semitic Leanings | A Former FBI Counterintelligence Whistleblower on the Wrecking of the FBI by Patel and Bongino backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Smallest Man With The Biggest Job in America Calls Out China in a Hegemonic Showdown | Trump and Musk's Refugees From an Imaginary White Genocide | Part 2 of George Packer's Atlantic Article on Our Next President, "The Talented Mr. Vance" backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

President TACO Zig-Zags on Tariffs as the Senate Takes Up His "Big, Beautiful Bill" Which Some Republicans Want to Cut More and Others Cut Less | Trump Calls Leonard Leo a "Sleazebag" and Regrets Following the Advice of the Federalist Society | The Growing Possibility Our Next President Will Be J.D. Vance Before Trump's Term is Up backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

How the Trump Wrecking Crew Are Destroying Our Defense and National Security | How the Media Falls for Trump's Theatre While Ukraine Burns | A Pulitzer Prize-Winning NYT ME Bureau Chief and Veteran War Correspondent on Gaza backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump Says the Quiet Part Out Loud About How He Protects Putin | Musk, JD Vance and Rubio Praise the German Neo-Nazi AfD Party While the Trump Administration Weaponizes Aniti-Semitism | The Impact of the US Senate's Republicans Revoking California's Electric Car Mandate backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Cruelest Cuts in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill | Trump's Golden Dome - A Massive Boondoggle and Payoff to Musk and Thiel | As Trump Monetizes His Presidency, Thanks to Crypto, His Family's Net Worth Increased by $2.9 Billion to $ 5.4 Billion backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Memorial Day and West Point Politicization of the Military | An Investigation of the Evident Deterioration of Trump's Mental Health | Instead of Randomly Imposing Tariffs, The World's Biggest Debtor Should Be Showing Some Humility Towards Its Creditors backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Netanyahu Blames the Leaders of the UK, France and Canada For the Murders of Young Israeli Diplomats in DC | A Path Forward For Those Who Want to Stop the Killing of Innocents | The Ongoing Humanitarian Nightmare in Gaza backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

What Will the Senate Do With Trump's Robin Hood In Reverse "Big, Beautiful Bill"? |1 Why the Democratic Party's "Brahmin Left" Lost America's Working Men and Women and How to Win Them Back backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The 10 Richest Americans Made $365 Billion More in 2024 and Trump and the GOP Wants to Give Them a Huge Tax Break | In an Oval Office Ambush of South Africa's President, Trump Spewed Lies Musk Had Filled His Head With | More Conspiracy and Quackery From RFK Jr. Before Today's Senate as Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums and Alien Enthusiasts Wreck Science backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Deference to Putin and His Unwillingness to Press For a Ceasefire and Sanction Russia If It Refuses Stuns European Leaders | As the UK, France and Canada Condemn Israel's Gaza Offensive and the Starving of Children, Trump Does Not Come To Netanyahu's Defense | A South African Perspective on Trump's Welcoming of Its White "Refugees" backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Phone Call Today With Putin and Others and the Need For More Than a Russia/Ukraine Ceasefire | A Ukrainian Perspective on Trump's Conversations With the Warring Parties | Trump and Family Have Elevated Corruption to an Industrial Scale backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Putin Plays Trump Again Not Showing Up For Farcical "Peace" Talks in Istanbul | A Report From Kyiv on How Much Ukrainians Want Peace But Not Surrender on Putin's Terms | The Death Toll In Gaza Reaches 53, 272 As Trump Plans to Send a Million Gazans to War-torn Libya backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump is Using the Birthright Citizenship Case to Get the Supreme Court to Stop Federal Judges From Blocking His Agenda Nationwide | The History of Birthright Citizenship Which Has been Settled Law Since 1898 | Russia's "Girlfriend" Tulsi Gabbard is Neutering the IC as MAGAworld Makes America Deaf, Dumb and Blind When it Comes to What is Happening in the Real World backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump Lifts Sanctions on Syria Calling Its New Leader, a Former Islamic State Fighter, "a Young Attractive Guy" | A Judge Orders ICE to Release Another Wrongly-Detained Scholar Held For 8 Weeks in Detention in Texas | Will Putin Show Up For Peace Talks and Tulsi Gabbard Fires Top Intel Officials For Telling Truth to Power backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump Signs a $142 Billion Weapons Deal In Saudi Arabia, Not the Peace Deal With Putin He Expected To Sign, But He Still Hopes to Sign a Deal With Iran | As Trump Throws His Lot in With Rich Arabs, How Much is Netanyahu Out in the Cold? | The Good "Christians" Speaker Johnson and the OMB's Vought Are Working Tirelessly to Hurt the Poor and Reward the Rich backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's FBI is Trying to Silence a Whistleblower who Revealed Russian Recruitment of Musk and Thiel | The Mismatch Between Our Constitution and Weaponized Partisan Politics backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Manhandling Congresswomen and Arresting a Mayor Makes it Clear We Already Have an Authoritarian Government | As Stephen Miller Talks of Suspending Habeas Corpus, Justices Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson Warn it is Time to Stand Up | The Law is Being Put to the Test by a Lawless President Who Has Been Given Immunity by a Supreme Court Captured by Right Wing Billionaires backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The 267th Pope is an American and a Peruvian Citizen Who Spent 2 Decades in Peru as a Missionary | A Roman Catholic Woman Priest on The Men-Only Cardinal's Choice of Pope Leo XIV | Is It Safe To Fly After Musk Gutted the FAA and a Reality TV President Chose a Reality TV Secretary of Transportation? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

After Claiming the Houthis Have Cried Uncle, Next Week in Saudi Arabia Will Trump Announce a Nuclear Deal With Iran? | Tit-For-Tat Military Strikes by India and Pakistan Appear Performative Not Escalatory | Musk's Alarming Plan To Build a Single Centralized Database For All the Confidential Government Data DOGE Has Scooped Up backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Unprecedented Monetizing of the Oval Office by the Most Corrupt President in US History | How the Trump Mafia Family's Extortion Can be Stopped | Understanding the Nazi Mind and How it Applies to Trump backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Netanyahu's Plan to "Capture" Gaza Is a Death Sentence For the Remaining Hostages | Does Trump Want to Repeal the 20th Century? | What If America Abandons Ukraine, the Linchpin of European Security? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Budget Cuts the Well Being of the American People While Boosting Exclusion, Retribution and Destruction | Trump Defunds PBS and NPR in His War Against the Truth and Facts | Trump Turns the World Against Us as First Canadians and Now Australians Vote Against Pro-Trump Candidates backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump's Reality TV Reshuffle of His National Security Team | SCOTUS Appears Poised to Smash Through the Wall Separating Church and State to Force Taxpayers to Subsidize Religious Indoctrination | On This May Day, How Unions Would Be the Only Way Reindustrialized American Factory Workers Could Make a Living Wage to Support a Family backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Two Nuclear Powers India and Pakistan are Poised to Go To War | Trump's 100th Day and the Record-Breaking Collapse of His Poll Numbers | Today's 50th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon Which Trump is Boycotting While Slapping 46% Tariffs on Vietnam backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Thanks to Trump's Bullying, Bluster and Bombast the Liberals Won In Canada | A Presidential Historian on Trump's 100 Day Reign of Ruin | The Intertwined Two Americas as the Colossus of the North Exports State Terror to the South backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Governor Pritzker Wows Democrats in the Key New Hampshire Primary State | Thiel, Musk and Vance's Pro-Natalist Movement Wants More Superior White Children | The Historical Comparisons Between Hilter's Rapid Extinction of German Democracy and Trump's First 100 Days backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia