It’s been called the most progressive Democratic Party platform ever, but in terms of foreign policy, it’s pretty much as militaristic as ever. On this show, Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies dissects the foreign policy aspects of

With Trump as president, it would be a major effort to just move back to the center. With Hillary Clinton, and sustained  pressure from progressives, forward motion is possible, if difficult. This is for progressives thinking about the election. Michael

How many women do you think have run for president? Of the 200 or so who have done it, there are three before Hillary who made a difference. In her new book, The Highest Glass Ceiling; Women’s Quest for the

From ruthless cold warrior to taking on his nemesis LBJ over the war in Vietnam, was Bobby Kennedy an opportunist? Who was the “runt” of the Kennedy litter?  In this remarkable interview, bestselling author Larry Tye tells us how Bobby’s

Girls of color make up 16% of female high school students, yet they make up more than a third of all girls with a school-related arrest. They are systematically pushed out of the education system, and that helps no one.

Are we watching a train wreck in progress? Journalist Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories, offers his insight into how the 2016 Democratic Party may have ignored important lessons from the 1968 crack up. There will be

Adam Hochschild has written best selling books about a Belgian King’s holocaust in the Congo and another about the brave British women who fought against the insanity of the first world war. His new book is Spain in Our Hearts:

To research for his new book, Thomas Frank specifically went to pro-Bill Clinton sources. Yet what he found left a profoundly negative impression of his presidency and what it did to the Democratic Party. Author of 2004’s What’s The Matter

America Aflame is a major new interpretation of the civil war era. In this interview with author David Goldfield, light is shed into important dark corners, such as the tragic role played by evangelicalsm on both sides, why a post-war

It’s not just the rapacious, perhaps truly pathological greed of the super rich. The Supreme Court has actively participated in the devastation of the formerly-large middle class. According to law professor Michel Gilman, the US Supreme Court has taken a

Politics is theater and yet the mainstream media is missing the real drama. It’s not on the Republican side: the genuinely close race is for the Democratic nomination. On this podcast, Robert Borosage, founder and president of Institute for America’s

How significant a change in policy toward Latin America does Obama’s trip to Havana mean? As Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy research explains, while the opening to Cuba is beneficial, it seems the American tradition

He’s a mirror of our culture, the question is: will America look in the mirror? Guest on this show is Erin Aubry Kaplan, author of the new book “I (heart) Obama,” and a long time writer about the black experience

How did a pink flower beat the world’s only superpower? After 15 years, 2200 Americans dead, more than a trillion dollars The US has not been able to pacify one of the worlds poorest nations. One of the worlds leading

She may not be trusted on many things, but at least she never claimed to be a peace candidate. If you liked the Bush/Cheney policy of selective “humanitarian intervention,” you’ll be fine with Hillary Clinton’s positions. Researcher and author Nicolas

Throughout American history there have been times, rare moments in which the political establishment’s movers and shakers quiver as their best laid plans have gone awry. Their too-often successful efforts to keep citizens believing that we are powerless are on

He’s a leading contender, surging in the polls but the Democratic Party is wielding a real war on Bernie Sanders. According to Princeton history professor Matt Karp, it’s without precedent. Bernie Sanders is clearly carrying on FDR and LBJ Democratic

When Americans hear the word socialism, they feel frightened. Bernie Sanders has looked to the nations of Scandinavia for models, while Hillary Clinton runs away from that. What is reality? On this show, Ann Jones (author of Kabul in Winter

Of course our democratic system of government comes from Italy. So do chocolate, cigars, and hammocks. Instead of simple brute force, the Italian style of empire building relied on commerce and culture. Guest Christopher Kelly (Italian by marriage) talks about

The ice princess, the black widow. Since the circus of a trial on 1990, Pam Smart has remained in jail with a sentence worse than for Charles Manson. It was a made-for-the-movies spectacle in which the judge said he wanted

Talk about threats to democracy and to America itself: The Trump phenomenon is blatantly racist, xenophobic, and fascist, more and more from both parties are recognizing this. Does Trump give voice to what many Americans secretly feel? In this discussion,

Chuck Collins, founder of Wealth for the Common Good and senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies talks about the new report on the top .01 percent and the impact on our democracy. They are not job creators as

Is there a worse crime than child abuse? Is the complicity by knowing adults just as bad? Is there something about the very nature of authoritarianism in schools? Guest on this show lived through an atmosphere of abuse in a

For decades police have gotten away with murder. Thanks to cell phones, today they’re getting caught. And they are fighting back, actually threatening such people as Quentin Tarantino. On the first half, guest Travis Morales of Rise Up October and

Perpetual war is now widely accepted. Henry Kissinger’s unique apparently amoral approach to assertion of his and America’s power still casts a shadow on America, both domestically and across the world. This new book: Kissinger’s Shadow, The Long Reach of

You may have thought our schools, at least the better ones, successfully tackled the problem of institutional racism. But in this surprising new study, well-established assumptions based on style of clothes, culture, and, really, skin color serve to keep down

There are a lot of similarities and differences: They are both men over 65 but England’s Jeremy Corbyn is a traditional Labourite leftist while Bernie Sanders is an all-American left-leaning Democratic populist. But both campaigns earned their descriptions as political

We’ve all seen the images: refugees crammed in rubber rafts, mobbed trains, young children drowned in the seas. Hundreds of thousands are leaving war zones in hopes of a better life. But in Europe there are those who want to

As the worlds number one jailer,  Americans are finally starting to pay attention to our unique mass incarceration. Author James Kilgore knows about the issue from the inside. His new book is Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key

Republican presidential wannabes fall over themselves to see who can hate Iran the most. And of course, ISIS is despicable. Yet with all their state run beheadings and human rights abuses, somehow Saudi Arabia remains America’s best Arab ally. Guest