We’ve Got Issues

This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how Biden continues to enjoy bipartisan support as long as you count Republican voters and not elected officials. 

 

Then we're joined by civil rights attorney Tahir Duckett to help us process the Derek Chauvin murder trial and the purportedly "accidental" killing of Daunte Wright just miles away. 

 

And finally, we speak with journalist Katelyn Burns about what's behind a spate of nasty, gratuitous anti-trans bills being pushed through red state legislatures across the country. 

This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how the right has completely dropped the mask and is openly saying that we would be better off if fewer people voted. 

 

Then we're joined by Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor and legal analyst for NBC, to talk about how corporate America is pushing back on Republican efforts to make it harder to vote--and how Trump may well be held accountable for his ham-fisted but nonetheless dangerous attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

 

And then we speak with Dr. Brandy Schillace, author of Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey’s Head, the Pope’s Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul, about the macabre Cold War race to perform a human head transplant and the fascinating surgeon who almost pulled it off.

 

Playlist
Morgan James: "Cecilia" (Simon & Garfunkel cover)
The Valentines: "Guns Fever"
Karen O and Willie Nelson: "Under Pressure" (Queen &  David Bowie cover)

This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with a look at how conservative dark money groups are running scared at the thought of Democratic electoral reforms. 

 

Then we're joined by The Washington Post's Paul Waldman to talk about Joe Biden's big infrastructure and jobs bill, and the rapidly changing politics in Congress. 

 

Finally, we welcome Kaili Joy Gray, executive editor of The American Independent, to run through the bizarre scandal that has engulfed performative wingnut Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida and indulge in a little gloating.

 

Playlist
Rev. Gary Davis: "Death Don't Have No Mercy"
Southern Culture on the Skids: "Camel Walk"
Manu Chao: "Desaparecido"

This week, we're joined by Alex Shephard, a staff writer at The New Republic, to talk about why the legacy media fell so hard for a demonstrably false conservative narrative about the Biden administration's policies creating a "crisis" at our southern border. Are they just trying to demonstrate to Trump's supporters that they're going to be tough on Biden, or is something else going on. And will crying "border crisis" work for conservatives this time? 

 

Then we welcome Stephanie Langel, a research fellow at Duke University's Human Vaccine Institute, to give us the latest on vaccine production and distribution--including a PR disaster for Astra-Zeneca--and the new Covid-19 variants, and talk Joshua out of going to a bar after he's fully vaccinated. Important stuff. 

 

This week, Joshua Holland warns that Democrats had better get to the bottom of a disturbing report that suggests Customs and Border Protection officials are intentionally creating a border "crisis" to hurt Joe Biden's presidency. 

 

Then we check in with Eric Boehlert, who writes PressRun, for his insights about the legacy media's early coverage of the Biden administration after four years of struggling to properly report on the Trump regime. 

 

And finally, Joan McCarter from Daily Kos joins us to talk about what's next for Biden, his fragile congressional majorities and the future of the filibuster.

Joshua Holland kicks off this week's show lamenting the fact that the same people who insist on opening everything up and rail against wearing masks are now threatening to keep America from achieving herd immunity by refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19. 

 

Then we are joined by Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard University, to talk about his granular study on partisan "sorting"--with Democrats and Republicans increasingly living in the same areas. Enos and his colleague created a database with data on where 180 million American voters live.

 

And then we welcome Eli Zupnick, a spokesperson for Fix Our Senate, to discuss the grassroots efforts to... fix our Senate, and in turn, our democracy. 

 

Playlist
Black Pumas: "Fire"
Caroline Rose: "Soul No. 5"
Salt-N-Pepa: "None Of Your Business"
The Blasters: "I'm Shakin'"

 

This week, right-wingers were outraged over an inaccurate report that Hasbro was making Mr Potato Head gender-neutral, furious that Dr. Suess's estate decided to stop publishing a handful of his books and offended by Joe Biden claiming that Republican governors who rejected public health officials warnings and lifted their states' mask mandates were engaged in "Neanderthal thinking." Joshua Holland finds their never-ending supply of nontroversies exhausting.  

 

Then we're joined by Tess Owen, a senior writer at Vice, to talk about how Republicans' desperate efforts to draw a false equivalence between violent right-wing extremists and their favorite bogeyman, antifa, threatens to derail the quest for accountability for the January 6 insurrection.

 

And finally, we speak with The 19th's Ko Bragg about her piece looking at the women who participated in the Insurgency of Dunces. 

 

Playlist
Black Pumas: "Fire"
Prince Buster: "Shaking Up Orange Street"
Todd Rundgren & Rivers Cuomo: "Down with the Ship"
Vintage Vaudeville Style Cover ft. Puddles Pity Party & Haley Reinhart: "Mad World"

 

 

Ari Berman, a reporter at Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, joins us to talk about how Republicans are capitalizing on Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election being stolen to redouble their efforts to make it more difficult to vote-- and why those efforts might just fail. 

 

Then we welcome Salon columnist (and OG blogger) Heather "Digby" Parton to the show to talk about, among other things, Republican efforts to deflect from the Insurgency of Dunces and stymie a 9/11-style commission to investigate the roots of the attack. 

 

Playlist
Black Pumas: "Fire"
Baby Huey: "Hard Times"
OMC: "How Bizarre"
Maya Hawke: "So Long"

We kick off this week's show with a look at the immigration reform bill Democrats unveiled this week, which will likely be a key test of Joe Biden's belief that he can get legislation passed through the Senate with bipartisan support.

 

Then we're joined by Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, to talk about the vitally important fight for democratic reforms. Greenberg was one of a handful of former Congressional staffers whose analysis of the Tea Party movement's success under Obama provided a template for resisting Trump. Now they are part of a coalition pushing Democrats to use their power to create a more even electoral playing field. Right now, that hinges largely on persuading Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to support filibuster reform.

 

And then we get the latest on Covid-19 from epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. We talk about vaccines and reopening schools and some of the new variants emerging in various parts of the world.

 

We kick off this week's show with a look at what should be another blockbuster story of corruption during the Trump regime, when senior political appointees at William Barr's Department of Justice allegedly obstructed justice to protect Rudy Giuliani even as he sought to overturn Trump's loss.  

 

Then we're joined by Adam Jentleson, a former staffer for then-Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid and the author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. Jentleson argues that Senate Republicans will leave Democrats no choice but to reform the filibuster if they want to compete in a functional democracy. 

 

Then we speak with Keshav Poddar, a recent Yale Law School grad who has a simple but ingenious idea for how Democrats can keep a progressive agenda from being killed by a Supreme Court that Trump packed with conservative ideologues. 

 

Harry Nilsson: "Spaceman"
Bahamas: "Trick To Happy"
John Lurie Nacional Orchestra: "Let's get ready to rhumba"