After months of teasing voters and reporters, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has finally launched his presidential bid. He did it on an unusual platform: Twitter Spaces. The launch was widely viewed as a bungle because of its small audience and many technical glitches. Even if was a fiasco, it was significant as an example of Elon Musk trying to remake himself as a right-wing media mogul, a Rupert Murdoch of the digital age. To better understand what DeSantis and Musk are up to, I talked with Par...
May 31, 2023•35 min
On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we chat with the great Washington Post journalist, Michael Lee, about what makes the Denver Nuggets and their star player, Nikola Jokic, so special. We also have a lot of Choice Words about the passing of Jim Brown. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
May 26, 2023•53 min
Has Planned Parenthood gotten too cautious and too corporate? Are the risk managers running the organization? Eyal Press reports on the courage of independent abortion services, and the failures of Planned Parenthood. Also on this episode of Start Making Sense : What does it mean to be a politically committed writer? That's the central question of Adam Shatz's talks new book, “Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical imagination.” He joins the podcast to discuss. Shatz is The Nation ’s fo...
May 24, 2023•48 min
Joe Biden has a divided mind when it comes to the Republican Party. On the one hand, he’s all to aware that the GOP has become radicalized and is an existential threat to American democracy. On the other hand, Biden, drawing on his many decades in Washington, is drawn to the idea of bipartisan compromise and acts as if it is his duty to elevate the more moderate wing of the Republican party. We can see the two sides of Biden’s approach to the opposition party as he tries to navigate through the ...
May 23, 2023•34 min
The ideological roots of the January 6 insurrection go back decades before Trump entered politics -- back to the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. Jeffrey Toobin joins the podcast to explain. His new book is Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism. Also on this episode of Start Making Sense : Ron DeSantis is campaigning for president promising to “stop woke history.” That is, to stop teaching about slavery and its legacy of institutional racism. Adam ...
May 17, 2023•39 min
Over the last thirty years, Republicans, when in control the House of Representatives, have repeatedly used the debt ceiling to force Democratic presidents to make draconian budget cuts. This drama took place under both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. We are now witnessing a replay under Joe Biden. Under pressure from divergent political forces, Biden is being forced to make a choice between negotiating with the Republicans or figuring out a way to squash the debt ceiling threat. In a recent stat...
May 17, 2023•27 min
Progressives and Biden: what is to be done—about the 2024 election? Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation , comments. Also: 11,500 members of the Writers Union are on strike against the film, TV and streaming companies, with picket lines up in L.A. and New York. Both sides of the fight have prepared for a months-long conflict. Award-winning TV writer Josh Gondelman is on the show to explain the issues. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe . Ad...
May 10, 2023•35 min
The emerging scandals at the Supreme Court are only getting worse with new revelations about Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni being the beneficiaries of plutocratic largess. But it remains unclear whether the Democrats can mount an effective attack that uses the scandal to reform the courts. To discuss how gridlock and a lack of political will is allowing a constitutional crisis to fester, I spoke with Alexander Sammon, a political writer for Slate . He provides an expert tour of both the scan...
May 10, 2023•34 min
D.D. Guttenplan, editor of The Nation , argues that it's time to impeach Clarence Thomas. He also says it's time to remove and replace Diane Feinstein, whose inability to serve is denying the Democrats a majority on the Judiciary Committee.. Also on this episode: Joe Biden announced that the theme of his reelection campaign will be that the Democrats are the party of “freedom.” But the Republicans claim they are the defenders of freedom. Who's right? Eric Foner, author of " The Story of American...
May 03, 2023•29 min
On this week's episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we talk to Prof. Louis Moore, author of " We Will Win The Day," about Lamar Jackson's new contract, the NFL Draft, and what both say about the state of the Black Q.B. in the NFL. I have some Choice Words about France on the precipice of both the Olympics and social chaos. We've got a Just Stand Up award for Miami Heat legend, Dwyane Wade, for his courage in the face of the anti-trans bigotry his family has been facing, which caused them to le...
May 03, 2023•35 min
The American judicial system is facing a far reaching legitimacy crisis, with the Republican ominated judges continuing to push an extremist ideological vision and Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Neal Gorsuch standing accused of serious conflict of interest violations. Moira Donegan, who wrote on the issue in her column for The Guardian , joins the podcast to discuss how the courts are leading the country into a constitutional crisis. We also take up the failure of Democrats to use wh...
May 03, 2023•30 min
Anatol Lieven is back after three weeks in Ukraine, where he found soldiers determined to win, and Russian bombardment doing surprisingly little damage. Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: A neighborhood in Port-au-Prince fights back against the gangs. Amy Wilentz comments on the news from Haiti. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Apr 26, 2023•36 min
This has been an eventful week in both the news media and social media. Tucker Carlson was apparently fired from Fox News. Meanwhile, Twitter under the aegis of Elon Musk continues to be in turmoil as it changes verification policies, to the irritation of longtime users. To make sense of it all, I talked to Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect. Ryan has produced a fascinating Youtube video about the journalist Matt Taibbi, a one-time muckraking radical who in recent years has in...
Apr 26, 2023•53 min
This week, we speak to Washington media legend David Aldridge about the forthcoming sale of the Washington football team by its much-loathed owner Dan Snyder. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Apr 21, 2023•32 min
It’s getting late to take action about the climate emergency, but it’s not too late: that’s what Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua say in their new book, “Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility.” Also: abortion rights will be a key issue for Democrats in the 2024 election, especially after Republican judges have tried to ban medication abortions. John Nichols comments. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redci...
Apr 19, 2023•37 min
The victories of Brandon Johnson in Chicago and Janet Protasiewicz in Wisconsin are the latest signs that the upper Midwest, after a long period of trending right, is now the home of a liberal and left resurgence. Chris Lehmann, who surveyed the region in a recent column for the Nation, joins the podcast to talk about this development. We look at the history of how the “Blue Firewall” that helped Obama win in 2012 became a cornerstone of Trump’s victory in 2016, the disastrous impact of the 2010...
Apr 19, 2023•38 min
Donald Trump and his 34 felonies: can he really be brought to justice for paying off Stormy Daniels? We feature highlights of The Nation’s roundtable discussion among Elie Mystal, Justice Correspondent, Joan Walsh, National Affairs Correspondent, and Chris Lehmann, D.C. Editor. Also: Afghan girls who escaped from the Taliban. The story of a boarding school that evacuated its students from Kabul during the chaotic withdrawal of the Americans, and moved -- to Kigali, Rwanda. SOLA, the School of Le...
Apr 12, 2023•39 min
In an earlier podcast, Moira Donegan, frequent Time of Monsters guest and columnist for the Guardian, predicted that Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk would strike down FDA approval of mifepristone, the medication used in most abortions in the United States. Donegan’s prediction came true on Friday. Moira returns to the podcast this week to discuss the impact of this decision. We talk about how outrageous Kacsmaryk’s ruling was on both legal and factual grounds as well as the way the decision will likely ...
Apr 11, 2023•54 min
This week we speak to Theresa Runstedler, author of the book Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA. We'll have Choice Words about what Caitlin Clark has taught us throughout the fallout after the NCAA women’s championship game. We also have Jake’s Takes on the NBA finals and more. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & O...
Apr 09, 2023•1 hr 9 min
The landslide victory of the progressive candidate in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, Janet Protasiewicz, ten times bigger than Biden's, shows how abortion wins elections. And in Chicago, progressive candidate Brandon Johnson won the race for mayor. John Nichols joins the show to discuss these victories. Also on this episode: Will Trump's indictment on 34 felonies change anything in the 2024 election? Or had everybody already decided what they think about Donald Trump? The Nation's DC Bureau Chi...
Apr 05, 2023•37 min
While the arrest of former president Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business record can be welcomed as a rare example of accountability for the elite Americans, the actual case will have to be tested in court. My colleague Elie Mystal has written an important column cautioning against having high expectations. The fact is the case brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is for one of Trump’s lesser offenses (compared to ongoing investigations over obstruction of justice, over attempted in...
Apr 04, 2023•28 min
On this episode of Edge of Sports, we speak to Michael Lee of the Washington Post about why this has been the most dispiriting NBA season in recent history. We don’t just catalog the moments, though. We also try to understand the underlying issues. We have Choice Words about the late Willis Reed, and what his life meant for the New York Knicks as well as the city. We have a Just Stand Up awards for the Maryland Terrapins lady women’s team that went on a great tourney run. We also have a Just Sit...
Mar 30, 2023•50 min
In Los Angeles last week, a three-day strike by 30,000 public school custodians, food service workers, bus drivers and teacher's aides ended with a 30% pay increase. Harold Meyerson, the editor-at-large of The American Prospect, joins the podcast to discuss. Also: For a century, thousands of young baseball players have lived with low wages, overcrowded housing, and all-night rides in uncomfortable buses in order to play in baseball’s minor leagues, hoping to eventually make it to the majors. Now...
Mar 29, 2023•31 min
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Alex Shephard discusses why Ron DeSantis and other rivals are faltering. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the preferred Trump foe of the Republican establishment. Both the donor class and media outlets (notably those owned by Rupert Murdoch) have rallied around DeSantis as a figure who can unite the party by adopting the policies of Donald Trump but without Trump’s embarrassing personal flaws. But their theory of Ron Santis isn’t working out : he’s falter...
Mar 28, 2023•47 min
American women in 2023: the news is bad, but it’s not all bad. Katha Pollitt is on the Start Making Sense podcast to explain. Also: the largest anti-war demonstrations in American history were the protests in the fall of 1969--with more than two million people in the streets demanding “End the War in Vietnam.” But did those demonstrations help end the war? Historian Chris Appy comments on the new documentary, “The Movement and the ‘Madman,’” out on PBS American Experience March 28. Subscribe to ...
Mar 22, 2023•35 min
Last year, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision. This has only emboldened the anti-choice movement. Those who hoped that abortion would at least be safe in blue states and kept available in red states via mifepristone are waking up to a world where the anti-choice movement is using legal warfare to move towards its goal of a nation-wide abortion ban. As Moira Donegan notes in a recent column in The Guardian , a right-wi...
Mar 21, 2023•39 min
On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we speak to Daily Memphian columnist Chris Herrington about the personal troubles of Memphis Grizzlies point guard and budding icon Ja Morant. We talk about the Grizzlies, the city of Memphis, and what’s next for the superstar point guard. We have Choice Words about the MVP debate going on between Embiid, Jokic, and Giannis. We also have a Just Stand Up award to Lamar Jackson for standing on his principle, and a Just Sit Down award for the NFL owner...
Mar 17, 2023•40 min
Since the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last week, we need to understand how and why medium-sized banks have been allowed to avoid strict supervision from federal banking authorities and avoid safety requirements. John Nichols comments. Also: Do masks work to help stop the spread of COVID-19? A New York Times columnist recently said that they don’t, and cited an authoritative review of research as his source. But it turns he was wrong about that study. Gregg Gonsalves is...
Mar 15, 2023•35 min
The good news is we have one less thing to worry about: so-called Havana Syndrome turns out not to be caused by a mysterious super-weapon to harm American diplomats and military personnel, despite numerous press reports warning of a hypothetical ray gun created by a foreign foe (Cuba? Russia? China?). Instead, an assessment by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) concluded that the symptoms of Havana Syndrome, reported by hundreds of government officials working all over the world) likely...
Mar 14, 2023•40 min
On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we speak to author and sports opinionist Kate Fagan about her new illustrated history of the women in basketball, Hoop Muses: An Insider’s Account to Pop Culture and the (Women’s Game) . The book is illustrated by Sophia Chang and curated by the legendary hoopster Seimone Augustus. Fagan and I talk about her inspiration, creative process and what it was like working with Seimone Augustus. We'll have Choice Words about the effort to ban trans athlete...
Mar 09, 2023•38 min
