Living in the USA

Listen HERE 
Kaiser Workers’ strike this week is the largest by healthcare workers in US history. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: ethnic politics in California.

Plus: Our politics today is haunted by the failures of Bill Clinton—the “centrist” who “triangulated” with Republicans, lost on healthcare, and proclaimed that “the era of big government is over.” Nelson Lichtenstein will explain Clinton’s turn to the right, and the lessons for today’s Democrats. His new book on Clinton has the wonderful title A Fabulous Failure.

Also: Your Minnesota Moment: a big new solar energy project is in the works.  10-5-2023

Listen HERE 
Joe Biden joined a UAW picket line on Tuesday – the first president ever to do so. Harold Meyerson comments.

Plus: the right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court has returned to a case about racial gerrymandering in Alabama, where Republicans have defied the Court’s order.  Dahlia Lithwick will comment about that, and about her book Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America—it’s out now in paperback.

Also: Adam Hochschild reports on visiting a gun show,  and explains why the Koch Brothers are major funders of the NRA—even though they are not especially enthusiastic about guns. (Broadcast originally in April, 2018).  9-28-2023

Listen HERE 
The UAW is being criticized by the corporate-Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party for seeking ‘too much’ in their current strike.  Harold Meyerson responds.

Plus: We face two kinds of insecurity in our lives today, Astra Taylor argues: existential insecurity, the unavoidable issues of life and death, and manufactured insecurity—intended to make workers more submissive to authority. Communal action can do a lot to reduce the second kind. Astra’s new book is “The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together As Things Fall Apart.”

Also: Melania and Ivanka Trump have been mostly absent from the former president’s side as he rages against the 91 felony charges brought against him in four different trials. Amy Wilentz comments on the news, the rumors, and the photos.  9-21-2023

Listen HERE 
Harold Meyerson reports on a major victory in the California state legislature that will raise pay for fast food workers from $15.50 to $20. Also: those Trump polls.

Plus: the news from Haiti, where the UN, with US support, is authorizing a new security force. Made up of mostly Kenyan troops, it’s supposed to restore “law and order” in Port-au-Prince. The Nation’s Amy Wilentz reports.

Also: Gary Younge, the award-winning former columnist for The Guardian, talks about Black writing and Black writers—and his own writing about Mandela, Obama, Trayvon Martin, and Claudette Colvin.

And Your Minnesota Moment: today, child labor violations in Mankato.  9-14-2023

Listen HERE 
Harold Meyerson analyzes Biden’s weak poll numbers, and our historic upsurge in labor activism.

Plus: September 11th is the 50th anniversary of the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile, ending 150 years of democracy there and putting the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Power. Marc Cooper will comment.

Also: Every night, more than a million people read Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter about the day’s political events.  We’ll talk with her about her new book, “Democracy Awakening,” and about the history of Americans’ fight for equality—she remains optimistic, despite Trump’s current polling.  9-7-2023

Listen HERE 
The Biggest news from the NLRB in decades: Harold Meyerson reports – also: the auto workers prepare to strike.

Also: Harvard’s first woman president, Drew Faust, talks about how she became a civil rights and anti-war activist in the sixties: her new book is “Necessary Trouble.”  8-31-2023

Listen HERE 
There seems to be progress toward a settlement of the strikes by Hollywood writers and actors–Harold Meyerson reports.

Also: if it was a good strategy for Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to charge Trump with four felonies, is it also a good idea for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to charge Trump and 18 other people with a total of 41 felonies? Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, explains.  8-24-2023

Listen HERE 
Public Libraries are often wonderful places, but they have become targets of right-wing attack in the culture war. Sasha Abramsky reports on the battle in one small town in Eastern Washington state.

Also: Cornel West should not run as a 3rd party candidate, but in the Democratic Primaries – that’s what D.D. Guttenplan says – he’s editor of The Nation.

Plus: A comic novel about Ethel and Julius Rosenberg?  Who’d have thought that was possible?  Francine Prose has written one:  it’s called “The Vixen,” and it’s terrific. (recorded in July, 2021) 8-17-2023

Listen HERE 
Ohio voted on a referendum that would make it harder to amend the state constitution – including the addition of the right to abortion. The amendment lost, abortion rights won – Harold Meyerson comments.

Next: Should Trump have been charged with incitement of insurrection, or at least violence? What’s the line between free speech and incitement? If Trump sincerely believed he’d won the election, can he still be prosecuted for conspiracy? Erwin Chemerinsky explains – he’s dean of the law school at UC Berkeley.

Plus: What’s bad about Barbie the doll, and what’s good about “Barbie” the movie—Katha Pollitt comments.  8-10-2023

Listen HERE 
Finally we have Trump’s indictment for his crimes around January 6. Harold Meyerson comments; also; Trump’s continued support among voters.

Also: A conversation with John Powers about the two hit movies of the summer, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” John is critic at large on the NPR show “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross.  8-3-2023