Sam and Emma host Benjamin T. Smith, professor of Latin American history at the University of Warwick, to discuss his recent book The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade. They begin by addressing the myth of the Mexican drug trade, built by both US and Mexican authorities around this...

The Republicans war on health care and why we need to defend Medicare. The problems with Obamacare and the innate problems with health insurance. The components of Obamacare. The Medicare big lie. Why the Right will target Medicaid. The Paul Ryan and Tom Price plan to destroy public health care a...

Cliff Schecter explains why John Boehner finally resigned. Will the government shutdown and what are the implications for the debt ceiling. Marco Rubio’s feud with Donald Trump, Rubio’s rise and Jeb Bush’s Romney moment.

Wendy Brown a Professor of Political Science at the University of California Berkeley and author of Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution explains the idea of Demos and how it drives our Democracy. How Neoliberalism shrinks our capacity to be human and undermines democracy. Are hu...

Andrew Hartman author of the new book  A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, explains the importance of the 1960s social movements. The 1980s and 1990s and the new social map of America. The New Left and Neoconservative battle and how it defines us today. What drove Neocon...

Mitt Romney actually basically told Obama he won because of “black people”. Also Michael Bloomberg thought Barack Obama didn’t like people enough. Wow.

Cliff Schecter is sad that Mitt Romney isn’t running for President. Why Mitt didn’t run. Why Mitt Romney is such a asshole. Jonathan Chait’s whiney “PC Police” article for New York Magazine. “New Republic: Democrats and why we needed the blogosphere. Having platforms and absorbing attacks. Twitte...

More proof of the Lead theory of crime reduction.

Oil analyst and author Dan Dicker, explains what really is driving lower oil prices. How is it is to get started in the fracking business. How Dodd-Frank has effected the oil business. Speculation and oil prices. How Russians will bleed because of lower oil prices. How the Saudis are able to posi...

Political maestro Cliff Schecter explains how Citizens United led to McCutcheon, what comes after McCutcheon, how Justice Robert’s is sneaky, the Court’s shocking narrowing of the definition of corruption and why they are betraying the founders, Andrew Cuomo betrays the public on clean elections,...

Blommberg View Jonathan Alter, argued that cutting entitlements will guard investment in discretionary spending, guess how Sam felt about that argument? Sam and Jonathan debated whether or not CPI was a cut and agreed that the wealthy should pay more taxes.

Reuter’s Digital Editor Chrystia Freeland explained the global growth of the plutocracy, the economic and technological drivers behind the growth of small sectors of super wealth, the impact of the bubble the plutocrats live in globally, the challenge the left faces in talking about income inequa...

Digby explained how the beltway media test bad ideas, why elite Democrats are pushing for raising the eligibility age for Medicare, Digby still thinks President Obama wants a grand bargain and why pressure from the grassroots could save Medicare and Social Security.

Cliff Schecter explained by President Obama’s opening offer on grand bargain negotiations was hugely encouraging, how progressives are flexing more musclewhat does Obama’s new more aggressive negotiating strategy mean for his second term? Sam and Cliff chuckle over  charles krauthammer Civil War ...

Cliff Schecter and Sam explained why Simpson-Bowles would tank the economy, where we can make smart cuts, all the money we waste on the Drug war, is Social Security safe?, are progressives drawing a line in the sand? a much more forceful President Obama and the Real John McCain.

Janeane “Katherine Harris” Garofalo wanted to know how Sam was doing after last weeks “plague”, was confidant that Romney would win, commented on her  own history of voter disenfranchisement or “voter cleansing” and explained what are “sex pests” are.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas gave us his election day math, predicted a comfortable Obama victory, Democrats holding the Senate and gaining some seats in the House. Sam asked if Paul Ryan’s extremism was exploited enough?

It’s Casual Friday! Cliff Schecter described the fundamental difference in world view between the radical right and the rest of America, why Chris Christie is praising Obama so much, assessed the impact of Mike Bloomberg’s endorsement of thePresident for reelection, revisited the debate between S...

Sam updated us on the Hurricane Sandy aftermath, drew a connection between the hurricane and climate change. Sam argued that climate change deniers would be even more empowered in a Romney Administration and and again made the case for voting for President Obama.Independent journalist Michael Tra...

Sam hosted a heated interviewed with Veteran activist and Naked Capitalism Contributing Editor Matt Stoller. Matt argued that Obama’s policy agenda was regressive by design, that both major parties are pushing the United States towards petro state status and that progressives should consider voti...

Cliff Schecter let us know what was happening on the ground in a couple of swing states, the possibility of electing some progressive candidates for Congresswhy Michelle Bachman, Steve King and Allen West might lose, why President Obama’s numbers are rebounding and what will the impact of the hor...

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi explained President Obama’s latest comments on Wall Street reform, why he may defensive about his record, how Mitt Romney is the embodiment of all that has gonewrong in American capitalism, but Matt loves watching Romney lie because he is such a natural at it, reportin...

The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons explained what was missing in yesterday’s foreign policy debate, how President Obama offers tactical mastery but little strategic vision while Romney has neither tactical mastery or strategy,where President Obama has been a foreign policy success and where he has fall...

Cliff and Sam both see many paths to an Obama victory, Cliff praised George McGovern for his legacy on issues of war and peace, should recent polls make liberals worried? Could Obama lose the popular vote and win the electoral college?Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid throw monkey wrenches in potentia...

Obama comes out of debate 2 with a win. Digby was not surprised that he performed so much better this time, thought Romney did fine but fact checks will hurt him, people respond better to Obama’s articulation of a optimistic vision, as long as Obama talks grand bargain Romney can lie his way to t...

Labor journalist Josh Eidelson, caught us up on the latest news on the Walmart strikes, explained Walmart’s history of aggressive anti unionism, how its business modelis based on keeping people in poverty, why Walmart’s tactics have depressed wages across the service sector and what strikers are ...

First up Sam spoke with Cliff Schecter about why democrats struggle with messaging, what cutting social security will do to the American worker and how Joe Biden can win his debate with Paul Ryan tonight.

Cliff chronicled his many many moments of frustration with Obama’s debate performance, why the Social Security response was Obama’s weakest moment and the debate reminded Cliff of the mistakes President Obama made when he first came into office, the expected failure of Jim Lehrer, the many, many,...

Author Ari Berman and Sam agree-Romney won last nights debate, Obama looked and sounded tired and unfocused and didn’t take advantage of numerous opportunities to push back against Mitt, Ari wanted to know where the aggressive Obama was last night?

Nan Aron, President of the Alliance for Justice explained why the next Supreme Court term matters so much, the future of affirmative action and the voting rights act and Justice Robert’s troubling history of hostility to civil rights. How the Supreme Courts decisions on CitizensUnited and the Aff...

Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, discussed his new documentary on the war on drugs The House I Live In.  Jarecki, explained the origins of his commitment to social justice, how the business of the drug war works, why politicians from both major parties have internalized the idea that they always need be...

Cliff Schecter discussed the new evidence confirm his and Sam’s predictions that Ryan was an awful choice as a running mate for Romney, pretty much everyone agrees he should have picked Bob Portman instead also more polls showing the shocking result that people like Medicare. The success of Obama...

Thomas Frank explained why the mainstream Democratic Party rejects populism, the succes of the rights toxic social populism and how our economic debates are no longer empirical. Sam and Thomas reminisced about Rick Santelli’s rant at the Chicago Stock Exchange that helped launched the Tea Party a...

Cliff Schecter joined Sam to discuss, Romney’s awful week, how Mitt lurches from gaffe to gaffe, why he is dangerous on foreign policy and theman from Bain’s bizarre conviction that he is somehow at a disadvantage for not being Mexican.

On today’s show Matt Taibbi called in to discuss his new Rolling Stone feature story: Greed and Debt. The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. He and Sam talked about how Bain Capital and Mitt Romney exemplified the shift from an industrial economy based on making things to a economy run o...

On today’s Casual Friday, weekly guest and political maven Cliff Schecter, joined Sam to review this past weeks RNC. Both Cliff and Sam were angry at what the Republicans let Clint Eastwood do to himself. Although they both agreed that Eastwood best represented the wounded psyche of the Republica...

On today’s show Sam hosted Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Stein outlined her proposals for a “Green New Deal” and explained why she thought Democratic Party was a dead end for progressive politics. But, Sam wondered if she was missing the lessons of the Bush era and wanted to know...

On today’s show Sam and Cliff talked about the shooting outside of the Empire State Building, agreed that the NRA had more blood on its hands and discussed the need to get serious about Gun control. And poor Mitt Romney, Gawker now has their hands on his Bain documents and he can’t get Todd Akin ...

Cliff tells us why he thinks Romney picked Paul Ryan. Joe Biden says that Social Security won’t be touched and Sam and Cliff say that progressives should push  the Obama Biden campaign to make the same commitments for Medicare and Medicade. Circumstantial evidence that Mitt Romney may have been p...

On today’s Show, Sam discussed a disturbing new referendum that could allow thousands of students to skip out on there science education in Missouri. Also a Pennsylvania Judge will notgrant an injunction against the states voter ID laws and other news in voter suppression. Speaking of which a new...

On today’s show Sam talked about new research showing that banning junk in schools actually helps kids stay healthier (shocker). He also spoke with with progressive talk show host and anti mountain top removal activist Bob Kincaid, about the health and social justice crises in Applachia and the i...

On today’s show political maestro Cliff Schecter and Sam talked about why Senator Joe Manchin is just awful, the new employment numbers and whyHarry Reid’s attack on Mitt Romney is so smart. We also learned something unexpected about Cliff’s past.

Glenn Greenwald was on the program today, talking about his new article the “Normalization of Extremism.” Glenn and Sam talked about how policies once thought to be well outside of the mainstream such as torture and kill lists have become normalized in today’s politics and how some of our worst c...

Former Tarp Inspector General, Neil Barofsky joined Sam to talk about his new book “Bailout: An Insider Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.” Neil and Sam discussed the widespread fraud in the TARP program, how the  HAMP program was designed to provide a “so...

Cliff Schecter talks with Sam about Mitt Romney’s week of disaster oversees and revisits the Chick-Fil-A saga. Film Guy Matthew recommended a couple of gritty Brazilian movies, Elite Squad 1 and 2 that brought out his inner right winger.

Historian and journalist Rick Perlstein discusses the political roots of Mitt Romney, the enslavement of Santorum’s grandfather and today’s conservatism.  Plus, Jeff Smith on Occupy Congress, his experience in our nation’s capitol and why D.C. is so out of touch.  Plus, your calls and IMs.

Laura Clawson, Daily Kos, on Republican union bashing efforts in Indiana.  NFL Players Union pushes back against right-to-work causing Republicans toattempt blitz passage to avoid Super Bowl spotlight.  Occupy Bloomington supports striking workers, Occupy Movement gears up for J17 Occupy Congress...

Benlevi’s book Too Much Magic: Pulling the Plug on the Cult of Tech, Occupy Wall StreetD17, Trinity Church and arrest reports. Plus Republican Clown Car, Myths about unemployment insurance and the cost of gas at the pump.  And GOP position on payroll tax cut and MTVs “Choose or Lose.”