Ai Weiwei on Refugees: They Are Part of Us; plus David Dayen on JPMorgan and Amy Wilentz on Ivanka, Jared, and Don Jr.: The Nation Podcast

Human Flow is Ai Weiwei’s amazing documentary on the global refugee crisis. He’s our greatest political artist—here he talks about his first feature film, shot in 23 countries and dozens of refugee camps. It opens in New York and Washington on October 13 and Los Angeles October 20.
Plus: a special investigation conducted by The Nation: How America’s biggest bank paid its fine for the 2008 mortgage crisis—with phony mortgages. David Dayen reports on JPMorgan Chase.
Also: another chapter of The Children’s Hour: stories about Ivanka, Jared, and Don Junior. Today, the story of how Ivanka and Don Junior were almost indicted for fraud in 2012 over the failing Trump Soho project; while Jared had some unfortunate ideas about how to run his weekly newspaper, The New York Observer. Amy Wilentz has those stories.
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Trump and the Triumph of Fear: Sasha Abramsky–plus John Nichols on Trump’s Generals: Trump Watch Podcast

Sasha Abramsky talks about Trump and the triumph of fear — his new book is “Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph of Fear and the End of the American Dream.”
Also: Pundits say the three former generals on Trump’s staff are “the adults in the room” who will block him from doing his worst. John Nichols isn’t so sure about that — the generals are featured in his book “Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse.”
And, for something completely different: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. One of the darkest days at the end of what we call “the sixties” came on Sept. 9, 1971, after 1,300 prisoners at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York rebelled — to protest years of mistreatment. The true story of what happened at Attica was covered up by officials for decades. but now, 47 years later, we finally know the true story, thanks to Heather Ann Thompson.
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Say It Again: Donald Trump Did Not Win the Popular Vote E.J. Dionne on America after Trump, Ari Berman on gerrymandering, and Joan Walsh with Hillary: The Nation podcast

E.J. Dionne argues that Trump has mobilized progressive political forces that can transform America—and he reminds us that Trump never had a majority of voters, and is the most unpopular presidents in our history. E.J. is co-author of One Nation After Trump: A Guide to the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported.
Also: Ari Berman went to the Supreme Court on Tuesday to hear the arguments about political gerrymandering—he reports on the shocking facts behind the Wisconsin case, and the possibility that Justice Kennedy will join liberals on the bench in setting limits on this undemocratic practice. Ari is now a senior reporter for Mother Jones.
Plus: Last week Joan Walsh sat down with Hillary for a conversation about what happened in the election, and Hillary’s book What Happened. We have clips from their conversation, and comment from Joan about what it was like.
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Trump Is Inviting America Into the Torture Chamber: Sasha Abramsky, plus Katha Pollitt and D.D. Guttenplan on Hillary’s memoir.

 Sasha Abramsky talks about the way Trump cultivates fear to justify racist, violent, and criminal tactics. His new book is Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph of Fear and the End of the American Dream
Also, two very different views of Hillary Clinton’s new campaign memoir, What Happened. According to Katha Pollitt, Hillary acknowledges that she never quite grasped what she was up against until it was too late, while D.D. Guttenplan says Hillary points to the wrong future for the Democratic Party—a future tied to big donors and the party elite.
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Hillary’s ‘What Happened’: Sarah Leonard, plus Bob Dreyfuss on Paul Manafort and Todd Gitlin on Ken Burns

Sarah Leonard of The Nation says Hillary’s campaign memoir “What Happened” has its enjoyable parts, but fails to recognize the populist forces that explain what happened.
plus Bob Dreyfuss on the Robert Mueller’s coming indictment of Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort —
and Todd Gitlin replies to critics of Ken Burns’s Vietnam series on PBS — it’s a powerful portrayal of the reasons the war was a disaster, he argues.
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Hillary’s ‘What Happened’: D.D. Guttenplan Reports; plus David Dayen on Betsy DeVos & Harold Meyerson on Repealing Obamacare

Hillary’s book about what happened in her loss to Donald Trump – called ‘What Happened” — doesn’t really explain what happened, says D.D. Guttenplan of The Nation, and is significant mostly for what it says about her role in setting the agenda for the future of the Democratic Party.
Plus: the horrible Betsy DeVos – billionaire opponent of public schools, and now Trump’s Secretary of Education: David Dayen comments on her work on behalf of the student loan “servicing” industry, and for-profit colleges.
Also: the Republicans’ last and final attempt to repeal Obamacare is underway; Harold Meyerson reports–along with news about the California legislature declaring the entire state a sanctuary for undocumented people.
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Trump’s Campaign Chief Paul Manafort Faces Indictment: Bob Dreyfuss, plus Sarah Leonard on Hillary’s book and Todd Gitlin on Ken Burns’s Vietnam.

Bob Dreyfuss reports the big news in the Russiagate scandal: the first indictments. Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has told Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort that he’s about to be indicted. And not only that: Manafort has been the subject of a court-ordered wiretap for years.
Also: Hillary’s new campaign memoir ‘What Happened’ has its engaging moments, says Sarah Leonard of The Nation, but the former candidate still doesn’t really understand the populist political forces responsible for her loss.
Plus: Todd Gitlin responds to critics of Ken Burns’s 18-hour documentary for PBS on the Vietnam war. It makes the anti-war case powerfully, he says; it presents Vietnamese understandings of the war brilliantly, and it’s fair to the anti-war movement.
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Tom Frank on Hillary’s “What Happened” plus Joan Walsh on Mike Pence & Harold Meyerson on Bernie’s Medicare-for-All bill

Hillary’s book about ‘What Happened’ has a clear message, Tom Frank says: “don’t blame me.”  Tom is now a columnist for The Guardian US edition.
Also: Is Pence Worse? Do we really want Trump out? Joan Walsh says ‘yes’ to both.  (She’s a political analyst on MSNBC and National Affairs correspondent for The Nation.)
And Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect comments on the Medicare-for-all bill introduced in Congress yesterday by our man Bernie. He says it’s not only necessary, it’s “strategically savvy.”
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Hurricane Politics and Climate Change in the Age of Trump: Mark Hertsgaard and John Nichols, plus Alfred McCoy on Cyberwar with China

Scott Pruitt, who Trump appointed to head the EPA, says we should be helping victims of the hurricanes in Florida and Texas, and not debating climate change. Mark Hertsgaard disagrees: He says we still need to debate the politics of climate change, because the deniers still have a hold on the media. The debate, however, should not be about whether climate change is real—that’s scientific fact—but about what we should do to slow it down.
Also, John Nichols talks about hurricanes, toxics, and Trump’s EPA under Pruitt—he’s a disaster for the environment, because he’s spent his career defending the oil and gas industry.  John’s new book is “Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse.”
And Alfred McCoy reports on the Pentagon’s plans for war with China, which they are planning to fight in space and cyberspace. The Chinese, he reports, have more powerful supercomputers with better satellite communications and a stronger capability to hack our systems—that’s why we might lose.  His new book is “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.”
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