This week on American Prestige's news roundup: the US and Iran are making moves risking escalation to a conflict (0:43); Israel rejects another Gaza ceasefire as it plans to carve up the Strip (7:28); the IDF resumes bombing Beirut (11:41); Myanmar suffers a devastating earthquake (13:44); the South Korea supreme court will rule on Yoon’s impeachment today (17:16); the Sudanese military secures the capital, Khartoum (18:38); the African Union sends a mediation team to South Sudan (20:26); the US...
Apr 04, 2025•39 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by JS Tan to discuss his experience seeing first hand how Microsoft deployed its cloud and machine learning services to help Chevron extract more oil and gas, and the state of tech worker organizing around climate change. JS Tan is a PhD student at MIT, researching cloud computing in the US and China. He’s a a member of Collective Action in Tech and writes the Value Added newsletter. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands ...
Apr 03, 2025•53 min
The Wisconsin Supreme Court election tested the political power of Musk’s money, and voters rejected his candidate. The results have huge implications for the midterms. John Nichols has our analysis. Also: A big victory in federal district court: Trump cannot shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Rob Weissman of Public Citizen will explain. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Apr 02, 2025•37 min
Yoni Appelbaum, a deputy executive editor at The Atlantic , joins the program to talk about his book Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity . We discuss mobility in the US and how that might sacrifice community for opportunity, the “frontier” as a way of taking land and easing class antagonism, the birth of American zoning from anti-Chinese practices in 19th century California, the move toward the single-family home and it being a symbol of the Amer...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr 3 min
This week Washington was abuzz with a security scandal over a group chat planning the bombing of Yemen accidentally included magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. Lost amid the finger pointing about operational security was the fact that the bombing of Yemen is illegal, immoral, and ineffective. To take up the actual scandal of the war, Jeet Heer spoke with Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy. We also discuss the actual contents of the group cha...
Mar 30, 2025•31 min
On this week's news roundup from American Prestige : the IDF seizes more territory in Gaza (1:01) and the Israeli government forms a “voluntary emigration bureau” (5:19), while protests against Hamas break out in the Strip (7:53); there’s unrest in Turkey over the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor (10:27); a court in South Korea overturns the impeachment of PM Han Duck-soo (13:31); in Sudan, the military makes major gains in Khartoum and kills scores in a Darfur airstrike (15:17); South Sudan VP Riek M...
Mar 28, 2025•38 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by Kate Green and Milo to discuss how Elon Musk’s DOGE is dismantling the US Digital Service and the consequences that has on really improving service delivery in government. Kate Green and Milo are former US Digital Service engineers. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Mar 27, 2025•53 min
Bernie Sanders and AOC are on their “fighting oligarchy” tour, and in Denver last weekend they had the biggest political event there since Obama in 2008. It was also the biggest rally of Bernie’s life--bigger than anything in his presidential campaigns. And the first big election of the year is underway in Wisconsin. John Nichols has our analysis. Also: Elie Mystal, The Nation’s Justice Correspondent, talks about popular laws that are ruining America – starting with our voter registration requir...
Mar 26, 2025•39 min
Hugh Wilford, professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, is on the program for the first of two episodes on his book The CIA: An Imperial History . In this episode, we explore the historiography of intelligence today, how the CIA fits into an imperial lens of US history, whether the CIA is a liberal way of managing the world, the agency’s origins and shift from intelligence gathering to covert actions, gender relations among officers, their families, and agency partners, in...
Mar 25, 2025•57 min
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas turned out to be short lived: Israel has now decisively broken the ceasefire and launched an even more intense onslaught into Gaza. Coupled with this renewed attack, Israel (sometimes in conjunction with the united States) is also carrying on military campaigns against Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, with rumors floating of a new attack on Iran. I discuss this rapid resumption of regional strife with Yousef Munayyer of the Arab Center Washington, D.C . Advertisin...
Mar 23, 2025•45 min
In this week’s news roundup from American Prestige : Israelis break the Gaza ceasefire (0:33); Trump resumes America’s war on Yemen’s Ansar Allah/Houthis (6:09); clashes break out on the border of Syria and Lebanon (10:15); a presidential candidate is arrested in Turkey (12:27); the South Sudan peace process continues to break down (16:02); calls for a ceasefire go unheeded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (18:10); the US expels the ambassador from South Africa (21:02); in Russia-Ukraine ...
Mar 21, 2025•36 min
Paris Marx is joined by Jen St. Denis to discuss how Silicon Valley thinking is creeping into Canadian politics as Donald Trump continues to threaten the country with tariffs and annexation. Jen St. Denis is a reporter with The Tyee. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Mar 20, 2025•52 min
A key source of opposition to authoritarian regimes in recent history has come from universities and colleges. Trump has been attacking the independence of American universities, demanding they submit to his requirements and using massive funding cuts as his weapon. David Cole, formerly National Legal Director of the ACLU, has our analysis. Also: Mahmoud Khalil is the Palestinian student activist at Columbia arrested and jailed by ICE. The Trump administration intends to revoke his status as a p...
Mar 19, 2025•43 min
On this episode of American Prestige, Danny and Derek speak with Chicago-based historian and writer Charlotte Rosen about the end of so-called “Resistance history”, a particular strain of liberal historiography that emerged during the first Trump administration. They talk about Resistance history’s defining characteristics, how it might have been an overcorrection to defend liberal democracy against attacks by Trump, how historians who engaged in this form of history viewed it as political actio...
Mar 18, 2025•1 hr 2 min
This week on the news roundup: the Copernicus Climate Change Service reports that global sea ice fell to the lowest level ever recorded in February (1:18); Alawites in northwestern Syria have been massacred over several days (3:19) while the government and SDF cut a deal (6:49); Israel intensifies its blockade of Gaza (9:38) as the US proposes a new compromise for the Strip (10:55); Armenia and Azerbaijan look to be on the cusp of a peace agreement (14:31); the Philippines arrests former preside...
Mar 14, 2025•41 min
Paris Marx is joined by Timnit Gebru to discuss where the AI industry stands in 2025 as AI increasingly becomes a geopolitical football even as the big promises made by AI companies fail to materialize. Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Mar 13, 2025•55 min
The Supreme Court ruled against Trump last week in the first test of his refusal to release money appropriated by Congress, and more than a dozen more similar cases are likely to come before the court –– probably including a challenge to his withholding hundreds of millions from research universities on the grounds that they have failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism. But what if Trump defies court decisions that go against him? Erwin Chemerinsky comments –– he’s dean of the Law Sc...
Mar 12, 2025•43 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Independent journalist and lawyer Jessica Pishko sits down with Danny and Derek to talk about sheriffs and the power that they hold. The group explores the rise of sheriffs in the 1820s under Andrew Jackson, their unique position as both law enforcement officers and politicians, their relationship to militias, the rise of “constitutional sheriffs”, figures from Wyatt Earp to Joe Arpaio, sheriffs and border policy, and more. Advertising Inquiries: https://re...
Mar 11, 2025•59 min
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Daniel Bessner on a radical critic’s achievements and the limits of protest. For nearly seven decades, Noam Chomsky has been the most important critic of American foreign policy. Daniel Besser, co-host of the Nation podcast American Prestige , recently reviewed for the magazine a new book authored by Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson, The Myth of American Idealism . In his review, Daniel both extolled Chomsky’s monumental achievement and raised questions abo...
Mar 09, 2025•42 min
This week in the American Prestige news roundup: the Gaza truce expires and Israel resumes its blockade (0:29); the Arab League proposes a “day after” plan for the Strip which Trump rejects (5:53); the US is negotiating directly with Hamas (10:30); the PKK declares a ceasefire in Turkey (13:24); fighting breaks out on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan (15:10); a political crisis emerges in South Sudan (20:04); in Ukraine news, Zelensky embarks on a “repentance tour” while Trump suspends arm...
Mar 07, 2025•39 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by James Meadway to discuss how the UK Labour Party is embracing AI regardless of the cost and the consequences of allowing US companies to dominate the digital economy in so many other countries. James Meadway is an economist and the host of Macrodose. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Mar 06, 2025•45 min
On this week's episode of Start Making Sense : Trump suffered a big loss at The Supreme Court in the first challenge to his unconstitutional seizure of power: an order to release USAID funding appropriated by Congress. The suit was brought by Public Citizen; their co-president, Robert Weissman, will explain. Also: John Nichols with our protest update for the week. Topics include: includeTesla dealer showroom picketing; Ukraine support demonstrating; national park protesting, and Town Hall yellin...
Mar 05, 2025•33 min
Derek welcomes back to the program Gönül Tol, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, and Djene Bajalan, associate professor of history at Missouri State University, to talk about leader Abdullah Öcalan’s call last week for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to disarm and disband. They talk about Öcalan’s history in this conflict, the need to manage his constituencies when announcing this ceasefire, how this fits into Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s plans, whether this move could br...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 8 min
On this episode of the Time of Monsters, Jeet Heer is joined by Stephen Wertheim to discuss how 'America First' went from rhetoric to policy. -- During his first term in office, Donald Trump often talked about his radical America First agenda but in practice his foreign policy was that of a conventional Republican hawk. Just five weeks into his second term, there has been a marked shift. As Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recently noted in The...
Mar 02, 2025•29 min
Danny and Derek, the greatest news anchors since Lennon/McCartney. This week's American Prestige News Roundup: Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan calls for the group’s disarmament (0:32); Syria hosts a “National Dialogue” conference to work through the country’s transition (6:34); Israel and Hamas salvage a hostage deal, but the end looms on Saturday (10:07); Yoon’s impeachment trial concludes in South Korea (20:46); in Sudan, increased fighting rages around Al-Fashir (23:27),...
Feb 28, 2025•51 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss the trouble with Tesla’s business model and how that makes Elon Musk’s power vulnerable to protest and boycott. Ed Niedermeyer is the author Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors and a co-host of the Autonocast . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Feb 27, 2025•54 min
House Progressive leader Ro Khanna says “economic empowerment” for the working class should become the Democrats’ “defining cause.” And he comments on this week’s battle in the House over the Republican budget. Also: Thomas Geoghegan argues that, to win back the working class, Democrats need to “promise something big – and keep it simple.” His suggestions: a bigger and better Social Security program, and an end to employers’ freedom to fire workers for any reason. Advertising Inquiries: https://...
Feb 26, 2025•28 min
On this episode of American Prestige , William Hartung — senior research fellow focusing on the arms industry and US military budget at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft — joins the program to discuss reports that the Trump administration is planning “sweeping budget cuts” for the Pentagon. We talk about these “cuts” being more accurately termed “reinvestments” into other areas, the enormous amount of defense spending and the culture that engendered this, how the defense industry h...
Feb 25, 2025•53 min
Danny and Derek are back with the news, but without much of a choice. This week's American Prestige News Roundup: the US and Russia meet in Riyadh to discuss future bilateral discussions to end the war in Ukraine (0:38); Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump feud in public comments (3:38); The Daily Telegraph reports on a US mineral rights deal that Zelenskyy rejected (8:22); in Israel-Palestine news, Saturday’s hostage exchange was successful (12:49) and Hamas offers an exped...
Feb 21, 2025•43 min
Paris Marx is joined by Makena Kelly to discuss how Elon Musk’s DOGE is reshaping the US government and the consequences that has for government employees and the wider public. Makena Kelly is a senior writer at WIRED and writes the weekly Politics Lab newsletter. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Feb 20, 2025•53 min
