Loud & Clear

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Dick Nichols, the correspondent for Spain and Catalonia for Green Left Weekly, and Sputnik news analyst Walter Smolarek. Yesterday’s Italian elections are set to produce a deadlocked parliament, as the populist Five Stars Movement and the far right Northern League surge, leaving the Center-Left bloc of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in an embarrassing third place. The Trump Administration and Congress have been working to dismantle the Affordable Care Act despite their failure to outright repeal the law. While some states have embraced this effort, others are pushing back. Leo Cuello, an attorney and the director of health policy for the National Health Law Program, and Mary Gerisch, an organizer and member chair of the Rights & Democracy health care justice team, join the show. The leaders of West Virginia teachers unions say that they will remain out on strike after the state senate voted to cut the five percent pay increa