We’ve Got Issues

This week, we are joined once again by Dr. Stephanie Langel from Duke University's Center for Human Systems Immunology. But this time, we're going to change things up a bit and ignore the loud minority who "do their own research" on Youtube and focus instead on what people who take Covid seriously should know about this new phase of the pandemic. 

Then we welcome Eric Boehlert, founder and editor of Press Run, back to the show to talk about why ostensibly neutral journalists feel so comfortable offering their own, often poorly informed opinions about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan-- and how that editorializing is skewing public perceptions about the end of a fruitless 20-year war.

This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show arguing that political reporters' desperate desire to prove to their critics on the right that they weren't biased against Donald Trump is leading many of them to create a narrative of crisis around the Biden administration. Working the refs is as effective as ever.

 

Then we decided to go outside the box and welcome a guest to discuss Afghanistan who doesn't have undisclosed ties to the defense industry and isn't an advocate for permanent war. Stephen Miles,. executive director of Win Without War, joins us to have a very different conversation than they're having over on the cable news networks. 

This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show with an accountability moment and a look at some things that he got so very wrong this week. 

 

Then Michigan Advance Editor-in-Chief Susan Demas joins us to talk about how responsible Americans are losing their patience with the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers who are prolonging the Covid-19 pandemic and potentially threatening the rest of us with new variants. 

 

And finally, journalist and author Sarah Posner discusses the religious right's infatuation with autocratic leaders in the former Soviet states. She explains that Fox News's efforts to sell Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to its conservative viewers is the culmination of a years-long project to soften Orbán's image in the West. 

 

This week, we speak with science writer (and brain expert) Dana Smith about how the relentless stress and isolation of the Covid-19 crisis may have altered our brains in ways that really help explain a lot about what many people have experienced over the past year and a half. The good news is that the old noodle is really resilient, and Smith offers some insights into how we can help it heal. 

 

Then we are joined by Lindsay Owens, executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative, to get us up to speed on the latest twists and turns in the Democrats' long slog toward Infrastructure Week.