We've Got Issues: Recent Episodes
Raw Story & AlterNet
Focusing on issues, not tweets, Joshua Holland talks politics and culture with newsmakers, journalists and academics.
This week, we are joined by Jared Holt, who researches domestic extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, to talk about how Congressional Republicans are using their power and your tax dollars to harass and attempt to silence those who study and attempt to mitigate dangerous disinformation.
Then Joshua Holland welcomes journalist Parker Molloy to consider whether the political press has really failed to learn any lessons about how to cover Trump and his authoritarianism movement over these past eight years.
Playlist
- Cornershop: "Brimful of Asha"
- Paul McCartney: "Live and Let Die"
- The Bangles: "Hazy Shade of Winter"
On this week's show, we are joined by journalist Evan Urquhart, who is transgender, to talk about a topic that's rarely covered by the legacy media: The psychological and emotional toll that the right's relentless assault on the LGBTQ community's rights--and in many cases, on their very existence--takes on queer people. It is hard to be the target of an energized neo-fascist movement with a lot of power.
Then we take a look at a more positive side to the same story, as veteran legal reporter Chris Geidner tells us about some important recent wins that civil rights activists have secured in the courts against some of the laws that red states have passed to punish their perceived enemies in the queer community and beyond.
Playlist:
- The Cramps: "Goo Goo Muck"
- The English Beat: "Save It For Later"
- Music Machine: "Talk Talk"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at how the GOP's performative approach to governing led them to stake out a position on the debt limit negotiations that will add hundreds of billions of dollars to federal budget deficits over the next decade.
And then we're joined by legal analyst Marcy Wheeler to talk all about the historic federal indictment of Donald Trump--and preview what may lie ahead as our country's most lawless president finally faces some real efforts to hold him accountable for his crimes.
Playlist:
- Talking Heads: "Psycho Killer"
- Boogie Down Productions: "The Bridge Is Over"
- A Tribe Called Quest: "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at a... very busy news week marked by some manifestations of the climate emergency that were impossible to ignore in much of the country.
Then we'll speak with The Hill's Saul Elbein about how polluters, the gun industry and private prison companies--among others--are desperately trying to make socially responsible investing a new front in the right's endless "culture wars."
And then we'll be joined by Matt Scott of the Atlanta Community Press Collective to bring us up to date on the latest in the unprecedented campaign to suppress activism against the completion of "Cop City," The Big Peach's massively expensive police training center.
Playlist
- Courtney Barnett: "If I Don't Hear From You Tonight"
- Israel Nash: "Down In The Country"
- Black Pumas: "Strangers"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at how Republicans always derail every effort to combat America's top terror threat: White supremacists and anti-government extremists.
Then Heather "Digby" Parton joins us to talk about the deal Joe Biden cut with Speaker Kevin McCarthy to raise the country's borrowing limit and avert a catastrophic default. There's a glass-half-full reading and also one that's not so rosy.
And journalist Evan Urquhart explains how the legacy media tends to obscure the dangers of the right's campaigns of harassment and intimidation against companies that dare celebrate Pride Month.
Playlist
- Cage The Elephant: "Cold Cold Cold"
- Wild Child: "End of the World"
- Stevie Nicks: "For What It's Worth"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show by violating his no-presidential-punditry-before-Thanksgiving rule with a look at the shambolic rollout of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's (ill-fated?) presidential campaign on Twitter.
Then we're joined by author and analyst David Pepper to talk about his new book, Saving Democracy: A User's Manual for Every American. Pepper sounded an alarm over the growing extremism evident in red state legislatures in 2021 with The Laboratories of Autocracy, and now he's followed up with a plan to fight back.
Playlist
- Altın Gün: "Yüce Dağ Başında"
- Bruce Springsteen: "Because the Night"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at why the GOP is incapable of pivoting away from their most unpopular positions.
Then we're joined by Oliver Willis from The American Independent to talk about the press and the majestic flop of Special Counsel John Durham's much-hyped report detailing various imaginary grievances against the FBI.
And Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte helps us understand how Republican women tolerate their party's misogyny.
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at how Trump once again implicated himself in various criminal acts during his controversial CNN 'town hall' event.
Then we are joined by John Stoehr, managing editor of The Editorial Board, to talk about some curious polling around the GOP's debt limit hostage-taking, containing autocratic red states, the Dems' geriatric leadership and serial fabulist George Santos's indictment on 13 federal charges.
Playlist
- Bahamas: "Trick To Happy"
- David Bowie: "Man Who Sold the World"
- Baby Huey: "Mighty Mighty"
The benign-sounding "Moms for Liberty" has largely flown under the radar, in large part because political reporters tend to portray it as a grassroots movement of conservative parents fighting for "parental choice." The reality, explains Vice's David Gilbert, is that Moms for Liberty is a dark money-funded organization with close ties to the GOP that has terrorized educators, school board members and other perceived enemies with vicious campaigns of harassment and intimidation.
Then we welcome WaPo's Greg Sargent back to the podcast to talk about the GOP hurtling toward a debt limit breach and the Supreme Court's ethics crisis.
Playlist
- Cannonballers: "Colony House"
- Meghan Trainor: "Made You Look"
- King Schascha: "Rudeboy Skankin (feat. Neville Staple)"
Cliff Schecter is joined by Dan Perry for the view on American politics from Israel. Then Matt Robison reflects on how traditional media have characterized debt ceiling negotiations as a "juice political standoff" instead of hostage-taking by Republicans.
Cliff Schecter is a former ad writer for President Joe Biden, author of the bestselling book, "The Real McCain" and founder of the Blue Amp Channel w/ Cliff Schecter on Youtube, which features regular commentary, and takedowns of Republican lies & conspiracies.
Dan Perry is the former Top Editor for Associated Press in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He writes a substack on politics, international affairs and cultural issues called "Ask Questions Later" that can be found at danperry.substack.com.
Matt Robison was Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill to former Congressman Paul Hodes, a congressional and senate campaign manager and co-hosts the podcast "Beyond Politics" with Hodes and creates video commentary for the Blue Amp Channel.
Playlist
- Garbage: "I Think I'm Paranoid"
- Allen Halloween: "Crescer"
- The Beatles: "Sexy Sadie"
The QAnon movement that emerged with the rise of Trumpism has been marked by a great fluidity, morphing as events dictate. It draws on old antisemitic conspiracy theories and more recent moral panics and has inspired quite a bit of deadly violence, but its inherent goofiness made many people slow to recognize the dangers it poses.
This week, we are joined by one reporter who has been covering QAnon since its inception, Will Sommer from The Daily Beast. Sommer is the author of Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America. Will tells us about QAnon's roots, how it has adapted to Trump's loss and what new permutations might change this reactionary movement going forward.
Playlist
- Ma: "Freedom"
- Sampa The Great: "Final Form"
- Mollie Tuttle: 'She's a Rainbow'
This week, we're joined by Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, to talk about how a new generation of younger Democrats who have come to age in an era of right-wing extremism are getting national attention for standing up and fighting back--and offering a model for defending their values and their communities that their older colleagues could emulate.
Then Sabrina Talukder, Director of the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, helps us understand how an activist Trump judge hand-picked by a religious-right litigation group has seized the power to regulate abortion drugs from the FDA--and tells us where the case could go from here.
Playlist
- Wet Leg: "Wet Dream"
- Leon Bridges: "Smooth Sailin'"
- Wu-Tang Clan: "C.R.E.A.M."
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at a new effort to pressure the Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics—and a revelation of what appears to be some naked corruption by Clarence Thomas that drives home the need for some ethics rules.
Then we're joined by legal analyst Marcy Wheeler to talk about the 34 felony charges filed this week against Donald Trump and get her view of the likely status of three other criminal probes working their way toward the former president. Wheeler does not think the Manhattan DA is likely to have the final say on holding Trump accountable.
Playlist
- Patti Smith: "Redondo Beach"
- Caro Emerald: "Perfect Day"
- Joy Oladokun & Noah Kahan: "We're All Gonna Die"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at a Florida lawmaker who may perfectly represent the modern GOP--he wrote the state's infamous 'Don't Say Gay' law while swindling tax-payers out of fraudulent covid relief funds.
Then we're joined by Dave Karpf, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University to talk about how Elon Musk is steering Twitter straight toward bankruptcy, the saga surrounding the Silicon Valley Bank and the pitfalls of covering the right's endless moral panics.
Playlist
- The Big Takeover: "Love Understands"
- Boogie Down Productions: "The Bridge Is Over"
- Sonny & Cher: "The Beat Goes On"
This week, we spoke with two journalists about some of their recent reporting.
First, we're joined by The Texas Observer's Josephine Lee to talk about how the campus culture wars, which are fueled by deep-pocketed conservative donors, have shifted from an emphasis on "free-market" economics to a violent form of Christian Nationalism.
Then, Natasha Lennard shares her reporting for The Intercept on the movement to stop the "Cop City" project in Atlanta--a massive, corporate-funded, environmentally destructive police training facility that's being built in a forested area of a Black community--and local law enforcement's extreme over-reaction to the protesters, some of whom face up to 35 years in prison on flimsy "domestic terror" charges.
Playlist
- Lewis OfMan: "Attitude"
- Fiona Apple: "Across the Universe"
- Lewis OfMan: "Attitude"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how election conspiracy theorists in Arizona have turned on some of the very Republicans who fed their fantasies about the 2020 election.
Then we're joined by veteran journalist Judd Legum to take a good, hard look at Florida's pint-sized wannabe strongman, Ron DeSantis, who has become a darling of conservative pundits and influencers and has been enjoying some soft coverage from the so-called "liberal media" even as he has launched multiple attacks on press freedom.
Playlist
- Rihanna: "Desperado"
- Caro Emerald: "Pack Up The Louie"
- Brothers Johnson: Strawberry Letter
You knew the United States was an outlier when it comes to gun violence but Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at a study that found truly eye-opening disparities.
Then we're joined by AR Moxon to talk about Dilbert creator Scott Adams and other bigoted right-wingers who claim that they're being silenced when their real problem is that we can hear them quite clearly and reserve the right to judge them by their words and actions.
And then we speak to Parker Molloy about the challenges of criticizing the often slanted reporting from legacy media outlets like the NYT from the left given how deeply entrenched the right's ubiquitous claims that they are "biased" against conservatives have become after decades of working the refs.
Playlist:
- CeeLo Green: "The Way"
- El: "Mysterioso"
- Love: "Always See Your Face"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show by pointing out that the pro-Russian right's attempts to portray themselves as "antiwar" are pure gaslighting--and arguing that cutting support for Ukraine is ultimately the pro-war position.
Then we're joined by Washington Post data journalist Andrew Van Dam to try to solve a puzzle: Why do people in the Southern states have significantly worse credit scores than the rest of America? Some of the reasons that first come to mind don't explain it.
And then Jennifer Mercieca, a professor of communications and journalism at Texas A&M, helps us understand how fascist movements use control of the language to normalize their extreme ideology and justify their cruelty toward "the other." Think about the American right's current obsession with "wokeness" or obsession with "groomers." But as Mercieca tells us, there are some straightforward strategies to thwart them.
Playlist
- Sara Bareilles: "Single Ladies"
- Klaxons: "No Diggity"
- Vanessa Fernandez: "When The Levee Breaks"
This week, Joshua Holland offers a rant about all of the nearly identical pieces he's read about how the law is about to catch up to Donald Trump and his minions.
Then we speak with Dan Froomkin about how normalcy bias and both-sideism makes America's political press an enabler for an energized far-right movement that poses an ongoing threat to our democratic tradition.
And then we're joined by The American Prospect'sJarod Facundo to talk about how the right's relatively new propaganda about "critical race theory" and "wokeness" in our schools is just thin cover for its longstanding project to undermine public education and destroy teachers' unions--and how it isn't working out quite like they'd hoped.
Playlist
- The National: "Tropic Morning News"
- Maneskin: "Beggin'"
- Paulina Singer: "Milkshake"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a solemn pledge to not start covering the 2024 election until at least Thanksgiving.
Then we are joined by Karoli Kuns, the managing editor of Crooks and Liars, to give us a recap of Joe Biden's State of the Union Speech, which she found to be a master class in dealing with an often unruly audience.
And then New York Magazine's Eric Levitz tells us why Republicans are so eager to avoid laying out any concrete demands as they take the full faith and credit of the United States hostage.
Playlist
- COIN: "Chapstick"
- Rolling Stone: "The Spider And The Fly"
- Dave Matthews Band: "Madman's Eyes"
This week, Joshua Holland looks at how the madness that's taken root among House Republicans may prove to be a decisive advantage for the Biden team.
The Max Burns joins us to talk about how Elon Musk's capricious, conspiracy-driven mismanagement of Twitter is the best thing to ever happen to advocates of greater transparency on giant tech platforms--and how Musk is about to run headlong into even more problems as his user base declines and regulators around the world sharpen their tools.
Then epidemiologist Stephanie Langel, who teaches at Case Western, helps us understand whether we can just wish an end to a deadly and exhausting pandemic that continues to kill thousands of Americans each week.
Playlist
- Bryan Paul Bell: "Devil's Gotta Dance"
- The Ting Tings: "That's Not My Name"
- Snoop Dogg: "My Medicine"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at how right-wing conspiracism and a massive number of guns is driving a huge wave of mass shootings in America. At some point, we should probably think of it as a policy choice.
Then we're joined by Evergreen Action co-founder Sam Ricketts to talk about how the huge package of climate provisions that Joe Biden managed to push through a 50-50 Senate is creating something unusual: A virtuous trade war with our allies and rivals.
Playlist
- Beastie Boys: "Intergalactic"
- Shawn Colvin: "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a short rant about how observers tend to ignore the death toll that has resulted from the proliferation of right-wing conspiracy theories.
Then we're joined by The Washington Post's Paul Waldman to talk about the Republican civil wars growing in intensity--and how the party's disarray may constrain its ability to leverage its control of the House to advance its agenda.
And then Erin Reed, who writes the Erin in the Morning newsletter, offers us a bird's eye view of the dozens of bills Republican legislatures across the country are considering to target transgender people--and their families and support networks--in ways that should shock you.
Playlist
- Viagra Boys: "Punk Rock Loser"
- Cody Brooks: "First World Problems"
- Citizen Cope: "Brother Lee"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at the right's latest culture war idiocy--and how the legacy media is amplifying it.
Then we are joined by journalist Euan Marshall from São Paulo, Brazil, to discuss the similarities and differences between this week's riots by supporters of the defeated authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro and the MAGA Insurgency of Dunces almost exactly two years earlier.
And then Heather "Digby" Parton previews the next two years of relentless nonsense from the GOP-controlled House of Representatives and talks to us about the maddening false equivalence surrounding the discovery of a handful of classified documents in Joe Biden's old records.
Playlist:
- The Black Keys: "Weight of Love"
- ZZ Ward: "Tin Cups"
- Blondie: "Dreaming"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show throwing some cold water on a couple of bad hot takes about the clown show the Republicans' new House majority is putting on as they try to nominate a Speaker.
And then we're joined by David Cay Johnston, who's covered Donald Trump for decades and also won a Pulitzer Prize reporting on our tax system for The New York Times, to talk about what we learned from six years of Trump's returns that the House Ways and Means Committee made public just before the new House majority took over.
Playlist
- Trick Daddy: "In Da Wind"
- Elizabeth Moen: "Headgear"
- Trick Daddy: "In Da Wind"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how the GOP is leveraging their persecution complex to block efforts to study and combat violent extremism--and then some real news from our phony "border crisis."
And then we'll be joined by author Brynn Tannehill, whose latest book is titled American Fascism: How the GOP is Subverting Democracy, to talk about the nature of moral panics, how they have led to genocides in the past and why it's important to understand that history as the GOP is poised to claim The House's investigative powers.
Playlist
- Moonlight Benjamin: "Immigrant Song"
- Waste: "Withdrawal"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with the latest reporting in the bizarre story of Representative-elect George Santos, whose entire biography appears to be a pack of lies--and who just might be some kind of Manchurian Candidate.
Then we're joined by Michael Grunwald, the veteran journalist and co-host of the Climavores podcast, to talk about his recent New York Times piece looking at how destructive our agricultural processes are for the environment--and what innovative solutions we may see in the future.
And then Brandi Buchman, a senior staff writer at Daily Kos, tells us about the significance of the January 6 Select Committee issuing criminal referrals for Donald Trump and several of his henchmen and also gives us a preview of the Proud Boys' upcoming trial for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the Insurgency of Dunces.
Playlist
- The Raveonettes: "The Christmas Song"
- The Killers: "Don't Shoot Me Santa"
- Dropkick Murphys: "The Season's Upon Us"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how the FBI is at the same time pursuing more investigations into increasingly violent right-wing extremism and also making subtle changes to its definition of terrorism that are resulting in a lower priority for some of that extremism.
Then we are joined by Oliver Willis to talk about how the GOP's messaging apparatus has become so successful that it's left the party wildly out-of-touch with the concerns of normal Americans and, in many cases, just kinda weird. We also preview the coming GOP House majority and inevitable intra-party crackup.
Then we're joined by Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about the real scandal that lies at the heart of the right's clumsy conspiracy theories about Twitter, big tech and Hunter Biden's laptop.
Playlist
- Véronique Sanson "Chanson Sur Ma Drôle De Vie"
- Eddy Mitchell: "Fortissimo"
- Sylvie Vartan: "La Plus Belle Pour Aller Danser"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a deeper dive into the Democrats' remarkably strong showing in the 2022 midterms in down-ballot races, and a look at some new evidence for keeping those masks on in indoor spaces.
Then we're joined by Grand View University historian Thomas Lecaque to talk about the alarming significance of the right doubling down on their anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry after their rhetoric led to the deadly massacre of five in a gay bar in Colorado Springs rather than deflecting blame as they usually do in similar circumstances.
This week, we're taking a week off from politics with a special episode looking at the history of North America that European colonizers took great pains to obscure--a continent populated by sophisticated civilizations that were largely wiped out by disease and war. We're joined by Dr. Edwin Barnhart, Director of the Maya Exploration Center and host of the ArchaeoEd podcast, for his insights about ancient North American societies whose archeological artifacts dot modern America.
Playlist
- Violent Femmes: "American Music"
- House of Pain: "Jump Around"
The 2022 midterm results came as no surprise to Joshua Holland, who kicks off this week's show with a look at how the political press's groupthink is shaped in the Trump era.
Then we're joined by Business Insider's Linette Lopez, who spent years reporting on Elon Musk's business practices and sees his disastrous early stewardship of Twitter as par for the course.
And then we recap the midterms and talk toPhiladelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch about what the real story is in Trump finally making his 2024 campaign official.
Playlist
- Curtis Harding: "I Won't Let You Down"
- TOUCH & GO: "Would You..."
- Quincy Jones: "The Streetbeater"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at research into why even the most ludicrous propaganda is still so effective.
And then we are joined by Parker Molloy, who writes The Present Age newsletter, to talk about what it's like for transgender people who are just trying to live their lives at a time when their very existence has become a right-wing moral panic.
Playlist
- Aaron Frazer: "Can't Leave It Alone"
- The Civil Wars: "Billie Jean"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how Elon Musk is turning Twitter into a massive vector for right-wing disinformation.
Then we are joined by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick to talk about her new book, Lady Justice, and the new challenges journalists face covering a Supreme Court that decides cases on vibes rather than the law in order to achieve conservative goals.
Finally, we speak with Oregon Public Radio reporter Jonathan Levinson about some eye-opening revelations in a newly redacted Department of Homeland Security report of how relentless pressure from above resulted in a blatantly political and often violent response to Portland racial justice protests in 2020 by federal law enforcement.
Playlist
- Willie Nelson: "Time of the Preacher"
- Sampa The Great: "Final Form"
- Molly Tuttle: "She's A Rainbow"
With the Supreme Court giving anti-choicers decisive wins in red America, those who advocate using state power to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term are turning their efforts to drawing new battlelines in blue states. Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at a campaign that is just getting underway.
And then we are joined by Assal Rad, research director for the National Iranian American Council and author of State of Resistance: Politics, Culture & Identity in Modern Iran, to talk about the popular uprising that has spread across Iran after the apparent murder of a young woman who was detained by Iran's "morality police" for not wearing a head covering. Rad explains why these protests have cut across demographic and class divides despite often deadly suppression by Iarnian security forces.
Playlist
- Reza Pishro: "Freedom"
- Stevie Nicks: "For What It's Worth"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at a Congressional report on how Donald Trump set a course early on in the pandemic that would ultimately lead the US to have the highest Covid death rate in the wealthy world.
Then we're joined by The Guardian'sLuke Harding to talk to us about why Russia's stunning invasion of its neighbor appears likely to end in defeat. Luke's new book, Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival, is coming out in November.
And then we're joined by Salon's Amanda Marcotte to discuss Kanye West's jaw-dropping anti-semitism and the "misogyny-to-fascism pipeline" that may have sent the artist into the right-wing fever swamps.
Playlist
- RUN DMC: "It's Tricky"
- Tom Jones: "Little Green Bag"
- Lipps Inc.: "Funkytown"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a broadside against a common but very dishonest bit of whataboutism that's become popular among right-wingers when the topic of their "big lie" about the 2020 election comes up.
Then we're joined by Melissa Jo Peltier, who has a new film out about erstwhile Trump supporters who at some point, and for varied reasons, came to reject Trump and the movement he leads.
And then journalist Ben Lorber tells us about the rise of a neofascist movement that seeks to pursue MAGA's white nationalist project with more discipline and less chaos than Trump and his inner circle brought to it.
Playlist
- John Lennon: "(Just Like) Starting Over"
- Lana Del Rey: "Young and Beautiful"
- Prince Buster: "Enjoy Yourself"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at how Tucker Carlson's pro-Russia propaganda is so shameless that it might make the Kremlin's own masters of spin blush.
We'll then be joined by Ilya Yablokov, a professor of journalism and digital media at The University of Sheffield, to talk about how Putin's "partial mobilization" is changing the way Russians see the Ukrainian conflict.
And finally, we'll catch up with Michigan Advance Editor-in-Chief Susan Demas to get some insights into how the race for Michigan governor went from one of the GOP's best pick-up opportunities to one in which they are poised for a drubbing.
Playlist
- Kirsty MacColl: "In These Shoes"
- Nané: "Always On My Mind"
- Brandi Carlile: "Space Oddity"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at two cases in which right-wingers tasked with upholding the law appear to be targeting their political adversaries with dubious prosecutions.
Then we're joined by Scott Hechinger, a veteran public defender and executive director of the advocacy group Zealous, to help us sort fact from fiction in the debate over cash bail reform. Contrary to a lot of lazy media narratives, the policy, which once enjoyed very broad support across the ideological spectrum, has been correlated with a reduction in recidivism and Scott explains why.
Finally, we talk midterms and a Republican Party that appears to be trying its best to lose them with Salon columnist and OG blogger Heather "Digby" Parton.
Playlist
- The Pretenders: "Angel of the Morning"
- Nina Simone: "Sinnerman"
- Angelina Jordan: "Suspicious Minds"
This week, fresh off of his victory in a closely watched special election in New York's 19th district, Pat Ryan (D-NY) joins us to talk about how Democrats can take back the mantle of freedom and the GOP's "political malpractice" in pushing deeply unpopular abortion bans at a moment when they could win control of Congress.
Then, a related segment as progressive messaging guru Anat Shenker-Osorio talks to us about how to cut through right-wing propaganda by leading with your values--and warns that the Democrats are failing miserably in coming up with a coherent narrative on policing and safety.
Playlist
- Rihanna: "Desperado"
- Jetta: "I'd Love to Change the World (Matstubs Remix)"
- Amy Winehouse: "Some Unholy War"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how far-right leaders use public money to cause real hardship for real people in service of propaganda campaigns.
Then we're joined by Greg Sargent from The Washington Post to discuss the latest courtroom drama over the search of Mar-a-Lago, the tantrums MAGA has been throwing in response to Trump's constant incitement and why this is all very bad for his party as we race toward the midterms.
And finally, Slate's Mark Joseph Stern will run down why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's election police squad's first, highly selective arrests for "voter fraud" are likely to blow up in his face.
Playlist
- Allen Halloween: "Crescer"
- Veronika Fischer with Panta Rhei: "Nachts"
- Verdena: "Trovami un modo semplice per uscirne"
This week we are joined by Jesse O’Connell, senior vice president of education policy at The Center for American Progress, to talk about the student debt relief plan unveiled by the Biden administration this week. It's a much bigger deal than you might have been led to believe and it's causing a meltdown among those who hate seeing the government actually help ordinary people.
Then we'll speak with Alec Karakatsanis, the executive director of Civil Rights Corps and author of the Alec's Copaganda Newsletter, about how police agencies, prison companies and their unions leverage sophisticated PR operations to shape how the media covers crime and ultimately how the public views the issue.
Playlist
- Poe: "Hey Pretty"
- Garbage: "I Think I'm Paranoid"
- Luna: "Bonnie and Clyde"
Joshua Holland kicks this week's show off with a rant about the over-the-top coverage of Liz Cheney's easily predicted primary defeat in a party that has become slavishly devoted to Dear Leader--coverage that pushed a generational effort to combat climate change off of the front page.
And then we'll be joined by Sarah Posner, whose beat is the religious right. Sarah has been monitoring the disturbing reaction to the FBI's low-key execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in the Evangelical Christian media, which has featured a mishmash of conspiracy theories, whataboutism and calls for retribution.
Playlist
- Ol' dirty bastard: "Baby I Like It Raw"
- Melania: "Brand New Key"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at the dangerous but also totally ridiculous tantrum the entire right is throwing in response to a search warrant being executed at Mar-a-Lago--and the Republican propaganda that's fueling it.
Then we are joined by journalist and legal analyst Marcy Wheeler to talk about the overlapping investigations that appear to be closing in on Trump and his inner circle and to give her best estimate of what the FBI's action at Mar-a-Lago might portend.
And then we have some rare good news as David Roberts from Volts tells us why the climate provisions of the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act represent a game-changer not only for the country but perhaps for the planet.
Playlist
- Nichelle Nichols: "Know What I Mean"
- Delta Spirit: "People C'mon"
- The Analogues: "Sexy Sadie"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at the rapidly-expanding scandal surrounding security officials scrubbing their texts from the January 6 coup attempt.
Then we're joined by Salon's Amanda Marcotte to talk about the Kansas abortion referendum--an earthquake that shook the religious right and may have given Democrats a roadmap for beating back the authoritarian right's assaults on our liberties.
Finally, we speak with Jackson Hurley, political director for Voters of Tomorrow, about what inspires and worries young voters--and whether they will turn out for the 2022 midterms.
Playlist
- Patti Smith: "Redondo Beach"
- MoNa a.k.a Sad Girl: "Girls It Ain't Easy"
- Shawn Colvin: "This Must Be the Place"
This week, we embrace a rare good week in America!
Joshua Holland kicks off the show looking at a new study which found that the sanctions regime enacted against Russia by Ukraine's allies is doing much more damage to Vladimir Putin's economy than many observers believe.
Then we speak with WaPo's Paul Waldman about the surprising deal on climate and prescription drug prices that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced this week. Democrats' chances of holding control of Congress in November were already looking a lot better before the announcement. Will this prove a game-changer?
And then we are joined by historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, to talk about the January 6 Committee hearings and a bunch of new reporting that reveals that Trump and those in his inner circle may not be above the law after all.
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show looking at a new analysis of Americans' average life expectancy, which declined in 2021 for the second year in a row. There are some interesting demographic details to that story, which follows other public health analyses that revealed a growing life expectancy-gap between red and blue states.
Then we're joined by Thomas Zimmer, a historian at George Washington University, who argues that while there is a consensus among experts that American democracy is teetering on the brink of collapse, that reality is being obscured by outdated journalistic standards, Democratic leaders desperately trying to restore a bygone status quo and widespread belief in right-wing propaganda painting progressives as extreme.
Playlist
- Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: "Stranger To My Happiness"
- Bruce Springsteen: "Viva Las Vegas"
- Pierrot: "Safety Dance"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at some egregious media malpractice surrounding the story of a 10-year-old rape victim forced to flee Ohio to access abortion care--and warns that it's likely just a taste of what's to come as the press both-sides right-wing officials imposing their religious beliefs on their constituents.
Then we speak with Grid misinformation reporter Anya van Wagtendonk about the far-right's latest obsession with the purported plight of Dutch farmers. It may seem obscure but it's a story being promoted by Tucker Carlson and other propagandists.
And then we are joined by John Stoehr, founding editor of The Editorial Board, to talk about what we learned in this week's January 6 Select Committee hearing and discuss why polling on the 2024 presidential contest is both beyond worthless and also consistent with the relentlessly hostile press coverage that has dogged Joe Biden's presidency from the start.
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show talking about how after dodging it for almost three years, the 'rona finally caught up with him--and explains how our semi-official policy of pretending the pandemic is over is helping to spread the disease.
Then we're joined by Cliff Schecter, host of The Takedown, to talk about how public opinion polls are shifting toward the Democrats as a result of the Trump Supreme Court striking down Roe. It's looking increasingly possible for Dems to hold onto the House and perhaps expand their Senate majority if they have the will to fight for it, but it's not clear that the party's current leadership share's the Democratic base's sense of alarm.
Playlist
- Method Man: "Release Yo' Delf"
- The Beautiful Girls: "The Biggest Lie I Ever Told"
- The Sound Defects: "Take Out"
This week, we speak with Salon columnist Heather "Digby" Parton about Republicans' alarming embrace of threats and political violence against everyone from their own elected representatives whom they deem insufficiently right-wing to election workers just doing their jobs to count votes.
Then we're joined by Jezebel's Susan Rinkunas, who has a preview of the dystopian anti-abortion laws that prominent anti-choice groups are already pushing ahead of the widely anticipated overturn of Roe v Wade.
Playlist
- Lone Didion: "Andrew Bird"
- Lucinda Williams: "Righteously"
- First Aid Kit: "King Of The World"
We kick off this week's show with Brandi Buchman from Daily Kos, who joins us to discuss what we've learned so far from the January 6 Select Committee hearings--and to what end this historic process may be leading.
Then we speak with Jeff Hauser, executive director of The Revolving Door Project, about the serious structural obstacles the White House faces in its efforts to cut through the noise and get its message out--and how Joe Biden can leverage the powers of the executive branch to communicate his priorities to the public ahead of the midterms.
Playlist
- Aloe Blacc: "I Need A Dollar"
- Caro Emerald: "Pack Up The Louie"
- Cee-Lo: "Gettin' Grown"
This week, Joshua Holland offers a few easy predictions for the first hearings of the January 6 Select Committee.
Then, if a far-reaching executive order to ramp up America's renewable energy production falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, tells us all about an encouragingly bold move the Biden administration made this week on climate that barely registered as a news story.
And then we're joined by historian and radio host Thom Hartmann to talk about how a modern fascist government arising in the US might differ from the totalitarian fascist governments of the 20th century. Thom warns us that it could indeed happen here.
Playlist
- First Aid Kit: "King Of The World"
- Alanis Morissette: "King of Pain"
- Amy Winehouse: "The Girl From Ipanema"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show noting that Canadian security experts are becoming nervous about the potential for their big, heavily armed neighbors to the South to experience democratic collapse--and warn that America's conservative media is helping fuel a rise in right-wing extremism that's now dribbling over the border.
Then we speak withPhiladelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch about what the horrific slaughter of 19 children in a Texas elementary school tells us about the real role of American policing.
And then we're joined by historian and author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz to talk about the real history of the 2nd Amendment. Dunbar-Ortiz is the author of Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment.
Playlist
- Black Pumas: "(Sittin' On)the Dock of the Bay"
- King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: "Magenta Mountain"
- Bad Boy: "Marwa Loud"
This week, we're joined by Ari Rabin-Havt, a longtime advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders--and the progressive firebrand's deputy campaign manager in 2020--to talk about his book, The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders, and his love of diving with and photographing sharks. (Check out some of Ari's amazing images of these beautiful and misunderstood animals here.)
Then we're joined by Laura Chapin, who has had enough of DC pundits lecturing people who have long been fighting for the right to an abortion about how to talk about the issue.
Playlist
- Postmodern Jukebox: "Don't Stop Believin'"
- Talking Heads: "The Lady Don't Mind"
- Gorillaz: "Dracula"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at what he argues is the most destructive myth in America: that white people will soon be a minority of the population.
Then we're joined by author and journalist Jeff Sharlet to discuss the latest outbreak of white supremacist violence--this week's terror attack in Buffalo--and why these horrors keep happening.
And last but not least, Lindsay Owens, executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative, tells us that while Americans are feeling the squeeze of inflation, a majority of the past year's cost increases are the result of corporate profiteering, a cause that has largely been minimized or ignored by the legacy media.
Playlist
- Kizz Daniel: "Eh God"
- Lost Dogs: "Mad City"
- MC STAN: "Regret"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a roundup of recent news from America's thin blue line--and the corrupt police culture those stories reveal.
Then we are joined by Joan Walsh, The Nation's national affairs correspondent, to talk about her latest column, "F*&k Civility!" Joan pushes back on the maddeningly bipartisan effort to paint peaceful pro-choice protesters as a threat to Supreme Court justices' safety.
Playlist
- Durand Jones & The Indications: "Is It Any Wonder?"
- Sharon Jones & the Dap-King: "Matter of Time"
- Cat Clyde: "Like a Wave"
As an author, activist and operations director at a women's health clinic in the deep South, Robin Marty knows more about the abortion wars than anyone. She joins us this week to talk about how a maximalist Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v Wade would have far-reaching impacts on people in blue states as well as those living under Republican rule.
Then we speak with Michael Tomasky, the editor of The New Republic, about Democrats' hesitancy to describe the American right's assaults on democracy in plain terms and the legacy media's powerful bias toward reporting on our politics as if these are normal times--a tendency that helps enable the authoritarian far-right.
Playlist
- The Goo Goo Dolls: "Give A Little Bit"
- Gnarls Barkley: "Gone Daddy Gone"
- Pitbull: "Fireball ft. John Ryan"
This week, we speak with the authors of two New York Timesopinion pieces, published in the past week, that look at different aspects of the authoritarian far-right in Europe.
First, Ilya Yablokov, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield and author of “Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World,” tells us that Vladimir Putin once used propaganda instrumentally to maintain support at home, but he and his inner circle appear to believe their own conspiracy theories now--and explains why that's so dangerous.
Then we welcome Rim-Sarah Alouane, a legal scholar at Toulouse Capitole University in France, to talk about what has happened in France over the past 30 or so years to give Marine Le Pen, a smoother but dangerous Trumpian candidate, a mainstream veneer that made last week's French presidential election too close for comfort. Alouane warns that if present trends persist, a xenophobic far-right candidate like her may become president of the French Republic in the near future.
Playlist
- Dusty Leigh: "Like That"
- Breland: "My Truck"
- Jelly Roll: "Heaven"
This week, we take another dive into the fever swamps!
First up, Muckrake Podcast co-host Jared Yates Sexton joins us to talk about Tucker Carlson's bizarre new obsession with America's entirely imaginary "masculinity crisis." Sexton warns that while Carlson's new program, The End of Men, is easy to mock--and indeed, was designed to earn liberal derision--it fits into a long historical pattern of right-wing movements capitalizing on male insecurity to recruit new members and prepare them to commit violence against their perceived enemies.
Then Shauna Siggelkow, Define American’s director of digital storytelling, shares a new report she and her colleagues authored that exposes the network of xenophobic Youtube channels that promote dangerous conspiracy theories about immigrants with their wide reach--and tells us how pro-immigrant advocates should learn from and adapt to their strategies.
Playlist
- Travis: "Baby One More Time"
- Junior Byles: "Fade Away"
- Fiona Apple: "Across The Universe"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at Texas Governor Greg Abbott's performative approach to governing--and the very real harms it's causing all of us.
Then we're joined by Oliver Willis, senior writer at The American Independent, to talk about the sad state of play heading into the 2022 midterms, and help us figure out why neither the Democrats nor the legacy media seem to have a sense of urgency as we watch American democracy teeter on the brink of collapse.
Playlist
- Qawwali: "Sweet Child of Mine"
- Guns N' Roses: "Welcome to The Jungle"
- Guns N' Roses: "Since I Don't Have You"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at how the media are sucking up to insurrectionist Republicans in anticipation of Democratic losses in the upcoming midterms. He also argues that Trump's social media venture, ironically called "Truth Social," has been a smashing success and considers some stunningly clueless punditry about Russia's disastrous assault on Ukraine.
Then we are joined by Jaisal Noor, a correspondent with The Real News Network, to talk about his series of reports detailing how some progressive groups are learning to play a long game using "deep canvassing" to make gains in rural communities that have typically been hostile to their cause.
Playlist
- K7: "Come Baby Come"
- The Black Keys: "Eagle Bird"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at why the war in Ukraine is likely to be intractable for a long while to come. (We hope he got this one wrong.)
Then we're joined by Elie Mystal, The Nation's justice correspondent and author of the new book, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, to talk about this week's confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and why a good Constitution wouldn't require us to keep fighting overt basic rights for over two centuries.
And then we get caught up on some good news about an important green energy initiative in New York by Jessica Azulay from Alliance for a Green Economy. That's right--actual good news!
Playlist
- Love: "Always See Your Face"
- Kacey Musgraves: "Follow Your Arrow"
- Supertramp: "Give A Little Bit"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at a new study which found that living in states governed by Republicans can have serious consequences for your health.
Then we're joined by Have You Heard co-host Jennifer Berkshire, who reported for The Nation that the GOP and some deep-pocketed astroturf groups tried out a key midterm strategy in New Hampshire school board races last week--running against "critical race theory" and school mask mandates and other contrived grievances--and their message fell absolutely flat when public education advocates stood up to them.
And then we speak with Jim Kessler, a policy analyst at Third Way, about a new analysis which shows that the much-discussed spike in murders over the past couple of years has been more pronounced in GOP-leaning states than in Blue America--and what might explain the disparity.
Playlist
- Charles Bradley: "Changes"
- The Allergies: "Promised Land"
- Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: "Can't Let Go"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at an effort by Idaho Republicans to take over a local Democratic Party and destroy it from within.
Then we're joined by University of Maryland political scientist Brian Grodsky to talk about the potential pitfalls inherent in the most punishing sanctions regime the world has ever pursued in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
And then we welcome Jessica Mason Pieklo, executive editor of the Rewire Newsgroup and co-host of Boom, Lawyered!,to take a bird's eye view of an alarming trend of red-state lawmakers, emboldened by a judiciary captured by right-wing ideologues, pursuing an increasingly fascistic legislative agenda.
Playlist
- India.Arie: "Brown Skin"
- Southern Culture On The Skids: "Camel Walk"
- PACHYMAN: "Big Energy"
This week, Joshua Holland welcomes Global Dispatches host Mark Leon Goldberg to talk about how Russia's invasion of Ukraine is spurring a rapid and dramatic reorganization of the international order and is poised to send shockwaves through the global economy.
Then we are joined by Muhlenberg College historian Jacqueline Antonovich who recently unearthed the largely forgotten history of the Ku Klux Klan's deep involvement with public healthcare and symbiotic relationship with many prominent members of the medical community in the 1920s.
Playlist
- Courtney Barnett: "If I Don't Hear From You Tonight"
- Khruangbin & Leon Bridges: "B-Side"
- Rico Nasty: "No Debate"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how a tough primary contest is pushing Texas Governor Greg Abbott to launch a brutal assault on not only transgender kids, but also their parents and doctors.
Then we are joined by Heather Hurlburt, director of New America's New Models of Policy Change project, to talk about what caused Russia to invade Ukraine, what the consequences might be and how the shallow foreign policy discourse in the US does a poor job of informing Americans about the complex world in which we live.
Then we circle back to look at how an angry white guy hopped up on right-wing propaganda opened fire on a group of racial justice protesters--and the cops effectively covered up the political nature of his crime.
Playlist
- Grand Funk Railroad: "Gimme Shelter"
- Leikeli47: "Chitty Bang"
- Talking Heads: "Psycho Killer"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show explaining why you should take the lazy punditry to come as we approach the midterms with more than a grain of salt.
Then Mississippi Today’s Molly Minta tells us about what a stalwart young conservative in one of America’s reddest states discovered when she actually looked into what Critical Race Theory is really about.
And then economic writer Noah Berlatsky joins us to separate inflation fact from inflation fiction.
Playlist
- 5 Years Time: "Noah and the Whale"
- Jah9: "The Marijuana"
- Alabama Shakes: "I Ain't the Same"
This week, Ryan Grim, The Intercept's DC bureau chief, joins us to talk about the parallels between the police slaying of Amir Locke in Minnesota last week and the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville two years ago, and run down America's long history of trampling on African Americans' right to defend themselves.
Then we talk to Grid Misinformation Reporter Anya van Wagtendonk about the far-right truckers laying siege to Ottawa, some curious and inauthentic organizing surrounding the protests and how American cultural grievances and extreme polarization appear to be spilling over the Northern border.
Playlist
- Sampa The Great: "OMG"
- Southern Culture On The Skids: "Run Baby Run"
- Stompin' Tom Connors: "The Hockey Song"
This week, Joshua Holland gets a thing or two off his chest about the widespread belief that you can just wish away a historic public health crisis that is very much ongoing, and about the press's discomfort blaming right-wing propaganda for drawing out the Coronavirus pandemic.
Then we're joined by Eric Umansky, deputy managing editor at ProPublica. In 2019, Eric stumbled across a story when his family witnessed an incident in which some Black children were abused by the NYPD. Eric has followed the complaints that ensued for over two years, and he shares with us what he learned about police impunity in the process.
Playlist
- Linqua Franqa: "Wurk"
- A Clockwork Orange soundtrack: "Ninth Symphony, Second Movement"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show laying out why he's ultimately bullish on American democracy--if decent people stay engaged.
Then we're joined by Greg Sargent of the Washington Post to put the slew of vague, sloppily written gag orders that Republicans are passing across the country in order to whitewash history into a larger context.
And then Vice Senior Writer Tess Owen gives us insights from a massive leak of internal texts from the neofascist youth group Patriot Front. It turns out that membership offers routine humiliations and ample opportunities to get fleeced by your leaders.
Playlist
- David Bowie: "I'm Afraid of Americans"
- The Blasters: "Dark Night"
- Son Little: "O Me O My"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a couple of developments in the quest for accountability for the MAGA coup attempt.
Then we are joined by Marquette University political scientist Julia Azari to talk about the unique challenges Joe Biden has faced in the first year of his presidency, and the reasons why the conventional wisdom about the upcoming midterms could prove to be wrong.
Finally, Lee Drutman, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins and fellow at New America, explains why America's system of governance is poorly equipped to support a healthy, multiethnic democracy and argues that there is a way out of our current levels of tribal conflict.
Playlist
- Alabama Shakes: "I Ain't the Same"
- Cat Power: "New York"
- Noah and the Whale: "5 years time"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at the first sedition charges filed in relation to the January 6 coup attempt, and stunning new charges that Republican officials submitted forged election documents in an attempt to keep Trump in power.
Then we're joined by Justin Pickett, a professor of criminal justice at SUNY Albany, to discuss his new research examining fear of police violence across different communities and how the perception that the cops are a serious danger impacts the lives of people of color.
Playlist
- Joy Crookes: "Feet Don't Fail Me Now"
- Southern Raised: "Ghost Riders in the Sky"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at yet another example of the right-wing-cop-to-conservative-media feedback loop. This time, it's new revelations about the Seattle police.
Then we are joined by legal analyst Marcy Wheeler to talk about the sprawling prosecutorial efforts to bring the perpetrators of the January 6 attack, and the attempted coup surrounding it, to justice. Wheeler pushes back on critics who say the Department of Justice is only focused on bringing the MAGA idiots who stormed the Capitol to justice. (See Marcy Wheeler's taxonomy of the January 6 prosecutions.)
And then Jared Holt, a researcher and journalist who covers right-wing extremism, tells us about how the far-right has changed and adapted in the year since the Insurgency of Dunces. (See Jared Holt's new report, "After the Insurrection.")
Playlist
- The Rolling Stones: "Play With Fire"
- Love: "Always See Your Face"
- Nirvana: "Lake Of Fire"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with some important good news from the frontline in our battle for American democracy--and a warning.
Then we are joined by Dr. William Horne, a post-doctorate fellow at Villanova and the founder and editor of The Activist History Review, to talk about why even talk of another civil war doesn't necessarily capture the worst-case scenario for the United States.
Playlist
- Ramones: "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)"
- RUN DMC: "Christmas In Hollis"
- Fascinating Aida: "The Rudest Christmas Song Ever ...?"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at several efforts to sue the Proud Boys and other violent extremist groups into oblivion.
Then we're joined by former Assistant US Attorney Richard Signorelli to talk about some of the recent revelations about events surrounding MAGA's attempted January 6 coup. Signorelli tells us that he's frustrated that the Department of Justice hasn't already pursued charges against Trump but believes that what we've learned from the House's January 6 Select Commission in the past few weeks makes it likely that Trump and other senior officials in his orbit will be charged and ultimately held accountable for their crimes.
Then we speak with Heather "Digby" Parton about the Democrats' struggles to get Joe Biden's agenda into the end zone and whether the media have learned any of the vitally important lessons of the past five years.
Playlist
- Joe Cocker: "Let It Be"
- House of Pain: "Jump Around"
- Sinéad O'Connor: "All Apologies"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at some of the problems that are plaguing the 4,000 bored national guard troops who were sent to the Mexican border by Red State governors to serve as props in the right's propaganda war against the Biden administration.
Then we are joined by David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect, to discuss his in-depth piece on how the pandemic has spurred millions of American workers to say 'enough is enough' and strike, quit their jobs, switch careers or open their own small businesses. Dayen says it's the closest thing to a general strike we've seen in decades.
Playlist
- Devo: "Working In The Coal Mine"
- The Vogues: "Five O'clock World"
- Canibus With Biz Markie: "Shove This Jay Oh Bee"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week with some rare good news coming out of Georgia, a state undergoing a dramatic political shift.
Then we are joined by veteran journalist Kaili Joy Gray to recap this week's arguments at The Supreme Court that are almost certain to lead to Roe v Wade being overturned and millions of women being denied access to vital reproductive healthcare because of someone else's religious beliefs.
Finally, University of Maine political scientist Amy Fried talks to us about her new book, At War with Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump.
Playlist
- Bitter:Sweet: "Dirty Laundry"
- The 'Mighty' Maytones: "Money Worries"
- Morgan James: "Cecilia"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show recounting how his much-needed vacation turned out to be an awkward MAGA cruise.
Then we are joined by Mary Trump, who answers the pressing question of which Trump spawn is the dumbest, explains how someone who has enjoyed a pampered life of privilege like Donald Trump could be so full of resentment and says that her uncle's carefully curated media image was largely his father's creation.
Playlist
- Wannadies: "Blister In The Sun"
- Eek A Mouse: "Rude Boy Jamaican"
Guest host Michael Rogers is joined by activist Lauren Windsor to talk about how her team has used undercover video to expose the lies of public officials. Then Raw Story founder John Byrne discusses new reporting on the dark underbelly of TikTok.
Playlist
- Bruce Springsteen: "Born in the U.S.A."
- Bruce Springsteen: "Born to Run"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a small rant about the right-wing scare campaign around what they call "Critical Race Theory."
Then we're joined by WaPo'sPaul Waldman to help us sift through the flood of lazy punditry that has followed this week's off-year elections.
And then Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch talks to us about what is really at stake in the trial of accused murderer and right-wing folk hero Kyle Rittenhouse--and offers some alarming details about the judge overseeing the case.
Playlist
- Elvis Costello And The Roots: "I Want You"
- Christian Larsson: "I Walk The Line"
- Southern Culture on the Skids: "House of Bamboo"
Is it possible to enact $4 trillion in new spending on popular policies and piss everyone off in the process? Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show noting that Democrats are poised to achieve the unlikely feat.
Then we're joined by David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, to talk about his new book, Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines. It's a siren warning that if we don't pay a lot more attention to state and local politics, we will pay a steep price.
And last but not least, attorney and journalist Jessica Pishko reports on the "Constitutional Sheriff" movement, which is yet another branch on America's flowering tree of fascism.
Playlist
- Sammy Davis Jr.: "Baretta's Theme"
- Melbourne Ska Orchestra: "Get Smart"
- The Blues Brothers: "Peter Gunn Theme"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a rundown of the many lawsuits and scandals swirling around Facebook and its senior leadership. It's possible that the company that has contributed so much to the decline of liberal democracy may finally be facing a reckoning.
Then we are joined by USA Today reporter Will Carless to talk about the Not Fucking Around Coalition, a black militia that grabbed headlines and caused a lot of controversy during the summer of Black Lives Matter protests before its enigmatic leader was brought up on questionable charges--and then silenced by the courts--which effectively killed the group's momentum.
Finally, we speak with George Washington University political scientist Ethan Porter about the effectiveness and limitations of fact-checking in an era of hyper-polarized, "post-truth" politics.
Playlist
- Bee Gees: "Jive Talkin"
- The Secret Sisters: "Dust Cain't Kill Me"
- Cowboy Junkies: "Sweet Jane"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at an internal Department of Homeland Security report detailing how senior officials politicized the agency's response to Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon and directed DHS intelligence personnel to embrace bogus right-wing conspiracy theories about antifa.
We then continue to focus on Portland withNation contributor Zoë Carpenter, who wrote about how the right's relentless propaganda about The Rose City's supposed crises is not only influencing mainstream reporting but also infecting local politics and threatening to derail necessary reforms that activists have long been fighting for.
And then we are joined by Greg Sargent of the Washington Post to talk about Democratic attempts to thread the needle within their own caucus and get Joe Biden's agenda passed, look ahead to some key races this year and next and give us an update on the January 6 Select Committee's wide-ranging probe into the GOP's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Playlist
- Noah and the Whale: "5 Years Time"
- Jah9: "The Marijuana"
- Alabama Shakes: "I Ain't the Same"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with his ongoing quest to find some positive developments in our dystopian present.
Then we are joined by Lili Loofbourow to talk about the growing popularity and moral ambiguity of the Herman Cain Awards, which chronicle the Covid deaths of hardcore anti-vaxxers and belligerent anti-maskers in great detail.
And finally veteran border reporter Melissa del Bosque joins us to explain how Border Patrol officials work with right-wing media outlets to help craft their narrative of a border that's perennially in crisis in order to undermine Democrats and support their hardline immigration policies.
Playlist
- Lil Nas X: "Jolene"
- Beck: "Satellite of Love"
- Epic Symphonic Rock: "Kashmir"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week arguing that getting stressed out by the endless stories about the Democratic agenda teetering on the precipice isn't going to help--and offers some reasons to be optimistic they'll get a big package of good stuff through.
Then we speak with HuffPost Senior Reporter Jennifer Bendery about the Biden Administration's early successes making the federal judiciary more reflective of America after four years of Trump appointing mostly white, male wingnuts to the bench.
Finally, we are joined by Cerin Lindgrensavage, an attorney with the advocacy group Protect Democracy, to talk about how Trump's egregious abuses of executive power may have created a rare opportunity for Congress to wrench some power back from an executive branch that was consolidating it in dangerous ways long before Trump came along.
Playlist
- Lenka: "Trouble Is A Friend"
- Satellite and the Harpoonist: "Satellite Man"
- Woody Guthrie: "Jesus Christ"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at some fresh crime statistics that blow up some of the media's favorite narratives.
Then we're joined by HuffPost reporter Travis Waldron to talk about the growing ties between key figures in the MAGA movement and their allies in Brazil, which is standing up to a very Trumpian threat to its young democracy.
Finally, Democratic strategist Dante Atkins tells us about what lessons we should take away from California Governor Gavin Newsom's landslide victory in this week's recall vote, and what some of the pundits have gotten terribly wrong.
Playlist
- KRS-One: "Sound of da Police"
- Cat Clyde: "Like a Wave"
- Gangstagrass Tonez: "Long Hard Times to Come"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a report from Portland, where locals argue with their Fox News-loving parents over whether their city has really been burned to the ground--and fail to convince them that it hasn't.
Then we are joined by Will Wilkinson, a senior fellow, at the Progressive Policy Institute, to talk about how America's growing urban-rural divide--and rural America's embrace of Southern Culture--are redrawing our ideological battle lines from their traditional North-South axis.
Playlist
- Gramatik: "The Unfallen Kingdom"
- Lil' Troy: "Wanna Be A Baller"
Believe it or not, Joshua Holland has yet more grievances with the mainstream media's coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and he kicks off this week's show airing them.
Then we are joined by Imani Gandy, Rewire News Group's senior legal editor, to talk about how Texas Republicans are effectively banning abortion. No matter how extreme and ridiculous you thought this new law was, Imani will surprise you with some of the details. A really creative but of wingnuttery.
Then we speak with TruthOrFiction.com Managing Editor Brooke Binkowski, who explains why you might notice the same belligerent right-wing activists shouting about masks and CRT at multiple school board meetings and then protesting against vaccines in a bunch of other locations--and why they represent one element in a much broader attempt to subvert pluralistic democracy.
Playlist
- Lily Allen: "F You"
- N.W.A: "Fuck Tha Police"
- Gnarls Barkley: "Gone Daddy Gone"
This week, we are joined once again by Dr. Stephanie Langel from Duke University's Center for Human Systems Immunology. But this time, we're going to change things up a bit and ignore the loud minority who "do their own research" on Youtube and focus instead on what people who take Covid seriously should know about this new phase of the pandemic.
Then we welcome Eric Boehlert, founder and editor of Press Run, back to the show to talk about why ostensibly neutral journalists feel so comfortable offering their own, often poorly informed opinions about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan-- and how that editorializing is skewing public perceptions about the end of a fruitless 20-year war.
Playlist
- Lord Huron: "Mine Forever"
- Wet Leg: "Chaise Longue"
- The Civil Wars: "Billie Jean"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show arguing that political reporters' desperate desire to prove to their critics on the right that they weren't biased against Donald Trump is leading many of them to create a narrative of crisis around the Biden administration. Working the refs is as effective as ever.
Then we decided to go outside the box and welcome a guest to discuss Afghanistan who doesn't have undisclosed ties to the defense industry and isn't an advocate for permanent war. Stephen Miles,. executive director of Win Without War, joins us to have a very different conversation than they're having over on the cable news networks.
Playlist
- The Cranberries: "Zombie"
- System Of A Down: "Boom!"
- Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with an accountability moment and a look at some things that he got so very wrong this week.
Then Michigan Advance Editor-in-Chief Susan Demas joins us to talk about how responsible Americans are losing their patience with the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers who are prolonging the Covid-19 pandemic and potentially threatening the rest of us with new variants.
And finally, journalist and author Sarah Posner discusses the religious right's infatuation with autocratic leaders in the former Soviet states. She explains that Fox News's efforts to sell Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to its conservative viewers is the culmination of a years-long project to soften Orbán's image in the West.
Playlist
- Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: "Rumors"
- Emily Wolfe: "Holy Roller"
- Nirvana: "The Man Who Sold The World"
This week, we speak with science writer (and brain expert) Dana Smith about how the relentless stress and isolation of the Covid-19 crisis may have altered our brains in ways that really help explain a lot about what many people have experienced over the past year and a half. The good news is that the old noodle is really resilient, and Smith offers some insights into how we can help it heal.
Then we are joined by Lindsay Owens, executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative, to get us up to speed on the latest twists and turns in the Democrats' long slog toward Infrastructure Week.
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a warning to be very skeptical about the press shoe-horning local races for office into their favorite national political narratives.
Then we are joined by author and political analyst Jared Yates Sexton to talk about the harrowing early testimony before the House's January 6 Commission, the right's flexibility when it comes to supporting the police and why the MAGA insurrection provided the right with an opportunity to pull back from the brink of authoritarianism--an opportunity that they passed on.
Playlist
- Soweto Gospel Choir: "In The Name of Love"
- Southern Culture On The Skids: "Camel Walk"
- Prince Buster: "Earthquake"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at some troubling polling for the Republican Party--and for American democracy.
Then we're joined by Parker Molloy to talk about how the last four years of chaos may have altered the American media landscape--and why the GOP has struggled to get traction for their endless contrived scandals.
And then we speak with Arkansas-based journalist Monica Potts about her piece in The Atlantic, "My Community Refuses to Get Vaccinated. Now Delta Is Here."
Playlist
- Santana: "She's Not There"
- Black Pumas: "Strangers (feat. Lucius)"
- Angelina Jordan Official: "Bohemian Rhapsody"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with an important correction to some lazy journalism about inflation--and to the destructive conventional wisdom that it is fuelling.
Then we are joined by Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former advisor to Barack Obama, to discuss the $3.5 trillion infrastructure and jobs framework that Senate Democrats agreed to this week. It is, as Joe Biden said of Obamacare, a big f**king deal.
Finally, we speak with journalist Kim Kelly about a major strike that has been going on for almost four months in Alabama that has gotten virtually no coverage in the national media. Kim tells us that in a deep South that is notoriously hostile toward organized labor, workers at Warrior Met's Brookwood coal mine have been the targets of multiple attacks but have so far held firm.
Playlist
- Marcy Playground: "Sex And Candy"
- Heartless Bastards: "Only For You"
- Paula Fuga: "Too Hot Mama"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a modest rant about the ludicrous idea that social media companies are stifling conservative voices.
Then Billy Corriher, author of Usurpers: How voters stopped the GOP takeover of North Carolina's courts, joins us to discuss how North Carolina became the target of a Trumpian putsch years before Trump arrived on the scene, and how the effort was beaten back by a broad pro-democracy coalition. Corriher explains how other red states are following the North Carolina GOP's playbook, and the forces of good should learn from how it was defeated.
Finally, as the pundits spin former police officer Eric Adams' win in the Democratic primary for New York Mayor, Daniel Nichanian, founder of The Appeal: Political Report, runs down some big wins for candidates running on Judicial reform.
Playlist
- Aaron Frazer: "Can't Leave It Alone"
- Durand Jones & The Indications: "Witchoo"
- Alessia Cara: "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with some surprising new data on how deeply entrenched Trump's stolen election narrative has become on the right.
Then we're joined by Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for The Nation and Substacker, to talk about the right's heavily astroturfed campaign to terrify their voters to the polls with the specter of "Critical Race Theory." Will it work this time? It has in the past, but there are some important reasons to think it might not be the magic bullet Republicans are hoping for.
Playlist
- Lou Reed: "Perfect Day"
- Abba:"Fernando"
This week, we have a special double-segment with Devin Burghart, the executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights. Devin and his colleagues have been tracking the rise of Ammon Bundy's sprawling anti-government movement called "People's Rights," which is spoiling for another standoff with the federal government over a water rights dispute in the Klamath Basin in Oregon. Burghart says the group is developing into a kind of "Uber of the militia movement" with its capacity to quickly mobilize potentially violent far-right extremists on short notice.
Playlist
- Heartless Bastards: "Only For You"
- Morgan James: "Cecilia" (Simon & Garfunkel cover)
Twenty-five years ago, Carl Sagan worried that America was sliding into idiocracy. Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at whether he was prescient.
Then we're joined by journalist Rachel Cohen to talk about the spike in homicides and gun violence that America has seen in recent years, and look at some good and not-so-good explanations for why it's happening.
Finally, we speak with anthropologist and filmmaker Sarah Riccardi-Swarz on her study of the growing fascist threat in rural America.
Playlist
- Rolling Stones: "Gimme Shelter"
- The Civil Wars: "Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson Cover)
- Melanie Durrant: "Bang Bang"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at a new study that helps explain how disinformation spreads so much faster and further than real news.
Then we're joined by Heather "Digby" Parton to talk about how the Democrats don't seem to have the sense of urgency about safeguarding American democracy that this moment calls for.
And then The Intercept'sRobert Mackey talks about his investigation into "The Riot Squad," an informal group of videographers who feed the right-wing media out-of-context and often selectively edited video to smear the overwhelmingly peaceful Movement for Black Lives as a violent threat.
Playlist
- Mindless Drug Hoover: "The Reefer Song"
- Dan and Dan: "The Daily Mail Song"
- Bill Bailey: "I'm Going To Kill You So I Can Ignore You In Heaven"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show by administering a much-needed dose of reality to the discourse around Black Lives Matter protests.
Then we're joined by journalist and author Audrey Clare Farley to talk about her piece in The New Republic about right-wing priests weaponizing Catholic rites against the left--and in support of the Blue Lives Matter crowd.
And then Stephanie Mencimer from Mother Jones tells us about a new group of crank physicians that's joined forces with a motley crew of tax resisters and MAGA insurrectionists to fight to keep your kids unvaccinated.
Playlist
- Harry Nilsson: "Spaceman"
- Bahamas: "Trick To Happy"
- Love: "Always See Your Face"
There's spin, there's shading the truth and then there are brazen lies that aren't even remotely grounded in reality. Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at our post-truth Republican Party.
Then we're joined by Svante Myrick, the mayor of Ithaca, New York, who is leading one of the most ambitious efforts in the country--one that might prove to be a model for other communities.
And then Wall Street Journal reporter Drew Hinshaw brings us a bizarre but surprisingly common story from the shady world of international shipping.
Playlist
- Sampa The Great: "Final Form"
- Eartha Kitt: "I Want to be Evil"
- Chillin Style: "Crazy Train" (Ozzy Osbourne cover)
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at some consequential falsehoods being peddled about the state of the economy.
Then we're joined by Judd Legum, who writes Popular Information, to talk about how corporate America is trying to move past the January 6 insurrection under intense pressure from the GOP.
And then Alex Kane, a contributor to 972 Mag and and Jewish Currents, talks to us about why the outburst of violence currently engulfing Israel and Palestine is unlike anything we've seen in over a generation.
Playlist
- Lady Donli: "Classic ft. Kida Kudz"
- Alabama Shakes: "Hang Loose"
- David Byrne: "Sad Song"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show by throwing some shade on the idea that there is a "civil war" raging within the GOP.
Then we're joined by journalist and author Natasha Lennard to talk about the right's latest phony threat, critical race theory, and the very real danger of white backlash politics.
And then Vanderbilt University political scientist Noam Lupu shatters some very widespread myths about Donald Trump's performance among white working-class voters.
Playlist
- Southern Culture On The Skids: "Don't Spill The Java"
- Shungudzo: "It's a good day (to fight the system)"
- Molly Tuttle: "She's A Rainbow"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show with a look at the bizarre alternative universe right-wing politicians and their alternative media has created where peaceful demonstrations are always reported as violent riots. This kind of propaganda has a far-reaching impact given that most cops believe it.
Then we're joined by economist Dean Baker from the Center for Economic Policy and Research to talk about the newly robust economy that is set to really flourish when we get enough people vaccinated to return to some semblance of normal.
And finally we welcome Lila Corwin Berman, a professor of American Jewish history at Temple University, to discuss how the very definition of anti-semitism has become polarized because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--and why some scholars are trying to push back on a controversial but widely-cited definition.
Playlist
- Gorillaz: "Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head"
- Stevie Wonder: "Faith ft. Ariana Grande"
- Maddie Medley: "Buzz"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how Biden continues to enjoy bipartisan support as long as you count Republican voters and not elected officials.
Then we're joined by civil rights attorney Tahir Duckett to help us process the Derek Chauvin murder trial and the purportedly "accidental" killing of Daunte Wright just miles away.
And finally, we speak with journalist Katelyn Burns about what's behind a spate of nasty, gratuitous anti-trans bills being pushed through red state legislatures across the country.
Playlist
- Bahamas: "Trick To Happy"
- Junior Murvin: "Police and Thieves"
- Ice T: "Big Gun"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how the right has completely dropped the mask and is openly saying that we would be better off if fewer people voted.
Then we're joined by Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor and legal analyst for NBC, to talk about how corporate America is pushing back on Republican efforts to make it harder to vote--and how Trump may well be held accountable for his ham-fisted but nonetheless dangerous attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
And then we speak with Dr. Brandy Schillace, author of Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey’s Head, the Pope’s Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul, about the macabre Cold War race to perform a human head transplant and the fascinating surgeon who almost pulled it off.
Playlist
- Morgan James: "Cecilia" (Simon & Garfunkel cover)
- The Valentines: "Guns Fever"
- Karen O and Willie Nelson: "Under Pressure" (Queen & David Bowie cover)
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how conservative dark money groups are running scared at the thought of Democratic electoral reforms.
Then we're joined by The Washington Post'sPaul Waldman to talk about Joe Biden's big infrastructure and jobs bill, and the rapidly changing politics in Congress.
Finally, we welcome Kaili Joy Gray, executive editor of The American Independent, to run through the bizarre scandal that has engulfed performative wingnut Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida and indulge in a little gloating.
Playlist
- Rev. Gary Davis: "Death Don't Have No Mercy"
- Southern Culture on the Skids: "Camel Walk"
- Manu Chao: "Desaparecido"
This week, we're joined by Alex Shephard, a staff writer at The New Republic, to talk about why the legacy media fell so hard for a demonstrably false conservative narrative about the Biden administration's policies creating a "crisis" at our southern border. Are they just trying to demonstrate to Trump's supporters that they're going to be tough on Biden, or is something else going on? And will crying "border crisis" work for conservatives this time?
Then we welcome Stephanie Langel, a research fellow at Duke University's Human Vaccine Institute, to give us the latest on vaccine production and distribution--including a PR disaster for Astra-Zeneca--and the new Covid-19 variants, and talk Joshua out of going to a bar after he's fully vaccinated. Important stuff.
Playlist
- Amanda Lo and the Vitamin String Quartet: "Kashmir" (Led Zeppelin cover)
- Gramatik: "The Unfallen Kingdom"
- Robyn Adele Anderson: "Gangsta's Paradise" (Coolio Cover)
This week, Joshua Holland warns that Democrats had better get to the bottom of a disturbing report that suggests Customs and Border Protection officials are intentionally creating a border "crisis" to hurt Joe Biden's presidency.
Then we check in with Eric Boehlert, who writes PressRun, for his insights about the legacy media's early coverage of the Biden administration after four years of struggling to properly report on the Trump regime.
And finally, Joan McCarter from Daily Kos joins us to talk about what's next for Biden, his fragile congressional majorities and the future of the filibuster.
Playlist
- Southern Culture on the Skids: "Sugar Town"
- Willie Nelson: "Time of the Preacher"
- Lou Reed: "Perfect Day"
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show lamenting the fact that the same people who insist on opening everything up and rail against wearing masks are now threatening to keep America from achieving herd immunity by refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
Then we are joined by Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard University, to talk about his granular study on partisan "sorting"--with Democrats and Republicans increasingly living in the same areas. Enos and his colleague created a database with data on where 180 million American voters live.
And then we welcome Eli Zupnick, a spokesperson for Fix Our Senate, to discuss the grassroots efforts to... fix our Senate, and in turn, our democracy.
Playlist
- Black Pumas: "Fire"
- Caroline Rose: "Soul No. 5"
- Salt-N-Pepa: "None Of Your Business"
- The Blasters: "I'm Shakin'"
This week, right-wingers were outraged over an inaccurate report that Hasbro was making Mr Potato Head gender-neutral, furious that Dr. Suess's estate decided to stop publishing a handful of his books and offended by Joe Biden claiming that Republican governors who rejected public health officials warnings and lifted their states' mask mandates were engaged in "Neanderthal thinking." Joshua Holland finds their never-ending supply of nontroversies exhausting.
Then we're joined by Tess Owen, a senior writer at Vice, to talk about how Republicans' desperate efforts to draw a false equivalence between violent right-wing extremists and their favorite bogeyman, antifa, threatens to derail the quest for accountability for the January 6 insurrection.
And finally, we speak with The 19th'sKo Bragg about her piece looking at the women who participated in the Insurgency of Dunces.
Playlist
- Black Pumas: "Fire"
- Prince Buster: "Shaking Up Orange Street"
- Todd Rundgren & Rivers Cuomo: "Down with the Ship"
- Vintage Vaudeville Style Cover ft. Puddles Pity Party & Haley Reinhart: "Mad World"
Ari Berman, a reporter at Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, joins us to talk about how Republicans are capitalizing on Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election being stolen to redouble their efforts to make it more difficult to vote-- and why those efforts might just fail.
Then we welcome Salon columnist (and OG blogger) Heather "Digby" Parton to the show to talk about, among other things, Republican efforts to deflect from the Insurgency of Dunces and stymie a 9/11-style commission to investigate the roots of the attack.
Playlist
- Black Pumas: "Fire"
- Baby Huey: "Hard Times"
- OMC: "How Bizarre"
- Maya Hawke: "So Long"
We kick off this week's show with a look at the immigration reform bill Democrats unveiled this week, which will likely be a key test of Joe Biden's belief that he can get legislation passed through the Senate with bipartisan support.
Then we're joined by Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, to talk about the vitally important fight for democratic reforms. Greenberg was one of a handful of former Congressional staffers whose analysis of the Tea Party movement's success under Obama provided a template for resisting Trump. Now they are part of a coalition pushing Democrats to use their power to create a more even electoral playing field. Right now, that hinges largely on persuading Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to support filibuster reform.
And then we get the latest on Covid-19 from epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. We talk about vaccines and reopening schools and some of the new variants emerging in various parts of the world.
Playlist
- The Mavericks: "Come Unto Me"
- Jacob Miller: "Tenement Yard"
- Nina Simone: "Baltimore"
We kick off this week's show with a look at what should be another blockbuster story of corruption during the Trump regime, when senior political appointees at William Barr's Department of Justice allegedly obstructed justice to protect Rudy Giuliani even as he sought to overturn Trump's loss.
Then we're joined by Adam Jentleson, a former staffer for then-Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid and the author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. Jentleson argues that Senate Republicans will leave Democrats no choice but to reform the filibuster if they want to compete in a functional democracy.
Then we speak with Keshav Poddar, a recent Yale Law School grad who has a simple but ingenious idea for how Democrats can keep a progressive agenda from being killed by a Supreme Court that Trump packed with conservative ideologues.
Playlist
- Harry Nilsson: "Spaceman"
- Bahamas: "Trick To Happy"
- John Lurie Nacional Orchestra: "Let's Get Ready to Rhumba"
This week, we kick things off with Republicans in disarray, as the vestigial traditionalists struggle to prevent Marjorie Taylor Greene from becoming the leader of their party.
Then we're joined by Rewire News Group's Imani Gandy to talk about the second impeachment of Donald Trump and the unusual feeling that Democrats have learned from recent years that they can't let Republicans bog down their agenda.
And finally, we welcome Eric Knowles, a social psychologist at NYU, to talk about a recent study he co-authored which found that men who are insecure about their masculinity tend to be drawn to performatively tough politicians like Donald Trump and to favor "aggressive" public policies. This is one of those studies that confirms what we all know intuitively!
Playlist
- MC Solaar: "Un Ange En Danger"
- Banda MS ft. Snoop Dogg: "Que Maldición"
- Lake Street Dive: "Lola (The Kinks Cover)"
This week, we're joined by David Neiwert, the author of Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us, to talk about the heartbreak of losing a loved one to the QAnon cult--or down similar rabbit holes--and why it's so difficult to bring them back to the real world. This is something that social psychologists really need to figure out, because these conspiracy theories are ripping our society apart.
And then we welcome Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) to tell us about the comprehensive package of democratic reforms that he introduced in Congress, H.R. 1, the For The People Act. We talk about what this much-needed bill would do, and how he hopes his colleagues in the Senate might get it passed in the narrowly divided upper chamber.
PlaylistMaggie Lindemann: "Knife Under My Pillow"Jack Sheldon: "I'm Just a Bill"Sam Roberts Band: "All of Us"
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off our first show after the curtain fell on Donald Trump's failed presidency with a rant about the right's maddening weaponization of Joe Biden's promise to promote healing and unity.
Then we're joined by Slate's Jordan Weissmann to talk about what the new administration can and probably can't achieve with an evenly divided Senate if they don't eliminate the filibuster.
And finally, we speak Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at NYU and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, about why it's so important to hold Donald Trump and other seditionists accountable for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to stave off a more disciplined coup attempt in the future.
PlaylistQueen Latifah: "U.N.I.T.Y."Amanda Gorman: "The Hill We Climb"John Legend: "Feeling Good"
There's one one story that matters this week.
First, we're joined by Crooks and Liars Managing Editor Karoli Kuns to talk about the second impeachment of Donald Trump, and where the MAGA insurgency might go from here.
Then we speak with Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations at the University of Illinois and senior editor at Ars Technica, about how the far right got the attention of the real deep state--America's sprawling national security bureaucracy--with last week's insurrection, and why they will soon come to regret the heat.
Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show marveling at the emotional rollercoaster of winning two Senate runoffs in Georgia just before Trump incited a violent insurgency that shook the country.
Then we are joined by Adele Stan, director of Rightwing Watch, to talk about what went down in DC, and some of the likely ramifications of what Senator Chuck Schumer called another "day of infamy" in America's history.
Liz Preza and Joshua Holland kick off our final show of 2020 with a look at what may be the single most outrageous thing Donald Trump has done as president.
Then we're joined by Mike Rothschild, a writer and researcher tracking the increasingly mainstream far-right conspiracy complex, to talk about how the QAnon movement became so widely distributed and where it will go once Donald Trump's ludicrous coup attempt is foiled.
This week, we're joined by David Dayen, executive editor at The American Prospect, to talk about how the Biden administration could interpret existing laws to get around GOP obstruction in the Senate and deliver real progress on healthcare, wages, the environment and a host of other problems facing the American people.
This week, we're joined by ProPublica reporter Lydia DePillis to discuss Donald Trump's efforts to "burrow" loyalists into the federal civil service and pass or finalize a slew of federal rule changes that threaten to bog down a new administration even as he refuses to acknowledge his defeat.
We kick off the show with a look at what was truly a banner week in right-wing tantrums, with Trump lambasting Attorney General Bill Barr for not backing his election fraud conspiracy theories, a civil war breaking out in conservative media over the upcoming Senate runoff races in Georgia and recently pardoned former General Michal Flynn joining calls for Trump to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law.
Then we're joined by Jeff Hauser, director of The Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research to talk about Biden's early staff picks, how the new administration can interpret existing laws to advance their agenda even if Mitch McConnell controls the Senate, how to manage a far-right Supreme Court and more.
This week, Cliff Schecter is our guest host while Joshua Holland and Elizabeth Preza have the week off.
Cliff speaks with Kim Lawson, senior editor at Courier, to talk about President-elect Joe Biden's win in Georgia and the state's upcoming Senate run-off elections.
Then, Cardinal & Pine reporter Sarah Ovaska gives a firsthand account after witnessing voter suppression by law enforcement in North Carolina.
Cliff Schecter was an ad maker--through his firm Blue Amp Strategies--for President-Elect Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. He's a bestselling author, co-host of the UnPresidented Podcast and a contributor to The Daily Beast. Follow him @cliffschecter.
Liz Preza and Joshua Holland kick off this week's show lamenting how utterly exhausting it is that the Donald Trump show just keeps dragging on and on like a horror movie monster that just won't die. They also look at a wild presser by the few remaining lawyers still working for the regime, who are not the best and brightest.
Then we're joined by Princeton historian Kevin Kruse to put this crucial moment in America's often turbulent history into some perspective.
This week, we talk about election, the election and then discuss some details about the 2020 election. There's no other news anyway.
Liz Preza and Joshua Holland kick things off recounting the emotional roller-coaster rides they took on Tuesday night.
And then Salon columnist Heather "Digby" Parton joins us to talk about Trump's ham-fisted attempt to steal it, how Dems countered, the new Tea Party movement demanding that ballots be counted or not counted, depending on the state, and what might be ahead as we move to the next battle -- two Senate runoff races in Georgia.
This week, Liz Preza and Joshua Holland talk about two murders — one imaginary and the other metaphorical — and the mysterious disappearance and miraculous discovery of some top secret Hunter Biden papers that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is certain will swing the election to Trump.
Then we're joined by John Stoehr of The Editorial Board to talk about the most stressful election of our lifetimes.
Liz Preza and Joshua Holland kick off this week's show by recoiling in horror at the thought of sexy-time with Rudy Giuliani -- and by wondering if Borat will end up saving the republic.
Then we're joined by Oliver Willis, a senior writer at The American Independent,for a wide-ranging discussion of what a post-Trump GOP might look like, and what Democrats should and definitely not learn from Trump if they manage to regain power in January. (And Joshua continues his tireless campaign lobbying Oliver to get another dog.)
This week, Liz Preza and Joshua Holland talk about Rudy Giuliani's clumsy attempt to make an October Surprise out of Hunter Biden's emails and the predictable outrage from the right when the legacy media didn't run with it like they did Uranium One four years ago.
Then we're joined by attorney and CNN columnist Jill Filipovic to discuss Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings and what a 6-3 Court with Neil Gorsuch serving as the median vote might actually look like.
This week, Liz Preza and Joshua Holland survey the damage from Wednesday's unpleasant vice presidential debate, and talk about Trump bailing on the second presidential wrangle.
Then we're joined by Greg Sargent from The Washington Post to talk about how Trump contracting Covid has devastated his campaign, why seniors are fleeing the GOP and how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may have concluded that Trump is going to lose and is setting up a new Tea Party movement for a Biden presidency.
This week, Liz Preza and Joshua Holland kick off the show with a sad, very disappointed look at the nightmarish first -- and in a perfect world, last -- debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Then we're joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Cay Johnston to talk about what we learned from -- and may yet discover in the future -- the New York Times' getting its hands on years of Donald Trump's taxes.
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show arguing that Trump's relentless attempts to delegitimize the election--and recent refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses--are not only part of a strategy to sow chaos and doubt but also an effort to demoralize Democratic voters and suppress their turnout.
Then we're joined by Jessica Mason Pieklo, senior vice president and executive editor at the Rewire News Group, to talk about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the GOP's plan to ram through a Trump nominee to replace her and what the future might look like with a 6-3 court. We also discuss how this egregious abuse of power is shifting the conversation about the courts among Democrats.
We kick off this week's show with a look at Attorney General Bill Barr's push to prosecute Democratic elected officials and charge protesters with sedition, and his preemptive defense of meddling in criminal cases for corrupt purposes. This is all getting really bad and scary, but there is a path out.
Then we're joined by epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, to talk about where we are in the Covid-19 pandemic, where we could have been, and why it's virtually impossible to expect a vaccine to be widely available anytime soon.
This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a discussion of the ripple effects that resulted from Trump lying to the American people about the dangers of Covid-19, and a look at how Bill Barr's DOJ isn't the only federal agency being corrupted to aid Trump's re-election campaign.
Then we're joined by Daniel Nichanian, founding editor of The Appeal: Political Report, to run down the state and local races, judicial contests and referenda that will shape America's political landscape for the next decade to come.
Liz Preza and Joshua Holland aren't easily shocked, but the conservatives' vile defenses of police shooting Jacob Blake seven times in the back as his children watched in horror, and then of a 17-year old "militia" member murdering two protesters, did the trick.
Then we're joined by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research, to talk about the unusually wide divide between the stock market and the real economy, why Americans will get fleeced for a vaccine like the citizens of no other country and the coming crisis of long-term unemployment.