American Exception

The “Free Press” in Crisis (DCC65 - Audio)

Mickey Huff joins Aaron to discuss the sorry state of American media. Mickey is Professor of Journalism at Ithica College in New York where he also serves as the Distinguished Director of the Park Center for Independent Media.  Additionally, Mickey Huff is the third director of Project Censored (founded in 1976), and he is the president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. Mickey Huff is the co-editor of Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2025. Special thanks to:Dana Chavarria, productionCasey Moore, graphicsMichelle Boley, animated introMock Orange, music

RFK vs. ‘Operation X’ (Gray Alliance 5 - AE194)

Aaron and Max Discuss how Robert F. Kennedy, by targeting the Teamsters and thus the Lansky Syndicate, was also threatening what Peter Dale Scott has termed Operation X—the institutionalized symbiosis between the drug traffic and national security state entities like Hoover’s FBI, Anslinger’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and James Angleton's clandestine counter-intelligence fiefdom at the CIA.
This is the fifth part of our Gray Alliance series, an investigation of the Lansky Syndicate-CIA-Mossad threads running through the JFK assassination, Watergate, and beyond!
To hear the full episode, subscripe to American Exception on Patreon!
Special thanks Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering and to Casey Moore for the episode art!
Music "Chrome Alligator" by Mock Orange

The End of Syria – Larry Wilkerson (DCC64)

 
Listen to the full episode and join us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/americanexeception.
To discuss the cataclysmic fall of the Syrian government, we are joined again by Lawrence Wilkerson. He is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Image credit: AFP (via The Cradle)
Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music

Taking One for the Teamsters (Gray Alliance 4 - AE193)

Aaron and Max Arvo explore how Jack Ruby’s Syndicate and Teamster connections were covered up and obscured—first by the Warren Commission and then by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
This is the fourth part of our Gray Alliance series, an investigation of the Lansky Syndicate-CIA-Mossad threads running through the JFK assassination, Watergate, and beyond!
Special thanks Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering and to Casey Moore for the episode art!
Music: “I’m Leaving” by Mock Orange

Oligarchicide? Plus: McJihad in Syria (DCC63)

Aaron and Bryce discuss various, insane, history-making events we’ve seen in recent days, including the assassination of a health insurance executive (capo?) as well as Biden’s pardon of Hunter, new Russian super missiles, and the West’s new McJihad offensive in Syria--now spearheaded by Erdogan’s Turkey!
Check out:
Bryce Greene’s article: “As Most Ukrainians Prefer Ceasefire With Russia, Washington Says More Ukrainian Teenagers Should Die”
Kit Klarenberg’s article, “Syrian Dirty War's Secret Origins”
William Van Wagenen on Twitter
Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music

Blackmail and Establishment Sense-Making (DCC62)

 
We are joined again Sam Husseini—an independent journalist who has been piercing through the establishment’s falsifications for 25 years. Please check out Sam Husseini’s Substack where you can find the articles we discuss today:
Israel, Blackmail and the Presidents
"Russiagate" Was Israelgate
The Notable Timeline of Kennedy's Remarks on "Ethnic Bioweapons"
Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music

Jack Ruby as Deep State Functionary (Gray Alliance 3 - AE192)

 
Aaron Good and Max Arvo interrogate the absurdly suspicious life and times of Jack Ruby—the "pimp for all seasons" who assassinated Lee Oswald, the most politically important prisoner in US history. Over the years, many people have come to find it suspicious that a mob-connected figure could murder Oswald in a room full of armed policemen whose one job at the time was to effect an orderly transfer of prisoner Lee Oswald.
Rather than looking exhaustively at the assassination here, we explore what Ruby represents. From that, we may discern why the plotters would have utilized someone like Ruby--given that he was situated within so many sensitive parapolitical networks within the American deep political system.
Special thanks Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering and to Casey Moore for the episode art!
Music: "Hawks Can Go" by Mock Orange

Jeffrey Sachs and Aaron Good Discuss ‘American Exception: Empire and the Deep State’ (DCC61)

This special episode features Professor Jeffrey Sachs interviewing Aaron Good about American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. The interview was for Professor Sachs' excellent podcast and video series, Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs.
We decided to make a DCC episode which includes the interview, along with extra material before and after the discussion in which I speak about Jeffrey Sachs and then, eventually, about the history and and scholarship behind the concept of the deep state. 
I encourage everyone to follow Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs. The Professor is a great interviewer, and his choices of books and authors are excellent. They have a YouTube channel and they are on the major podcasting apps.
The official website is here: Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs
Image: American Exception, by Abby Martin, graphics by Casey Moore--cover art for American Exception: Empire and the Deep State (Skyhorse Publishing: New York, 2022) by Aaron Good
Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music

Down to the Wire (Gray Alliance 2 - AE191)

 
Aaron Good and Max Arvo continue to explore the evolution of American organized crime. In particular, we discuss the key importance of the racing wire service and the obscured nature of mid-20th century American organized crime: Did mafia or La Cosa Nostra models really apply? Or alternatively, were the ethnic Italian elements, which seem to confirm those theories, merely the lower and thus more visible levels of a larger and more nefarious entity—the Lansky Syndicate?
Special thanks Dana Chavarria for the sound engineering and to Casey Moore for the episode art!
Music: "Silent Motion" by Mock Orange

Searching for the Real ‘Deep State’ (DCC60)

Aaron speaks with Charles Derber and Yale Magrass, authors of the new book, Who Owns Democracy?: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America.
Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. He has written 26 books on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, and social change. Yale Magrass is a Chancellor Professor of Sociology at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. He is the author/co-author of nine books and 80 articles. His work explores how militaristic capitalism distorts everyday life as it promotes inequality, bullying, environmental devastation, and war.
Image: The Bosses of the Senate, Joseph Keppler, Puck (January 23, 1889)
Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music