Police State

It’s Hump Day! Sam speaks with Alec Karakatsanis, founder of the Civil Rights Corps and author of Alec’s Copaganda Newsletter on SubStack, to discuss his recent writings on police body cameras. First, Sam runs through updates on the US Presidential race, dropping inflation, Ilhan Omar’s primary W...
It’s an EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Max Felker-Kantor, associate professor of history at Ball State University, to discuss his recent book DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools. Then, she speaks with journalist Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsle...
It’s another EmMajority Report Thursday! Emma is BACK from vacation! She speaks with Samantha J. Simon, Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology and School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, to discuss her recent book Before The Badge: How Academy Training Shapes ...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma speak with political commentator Olayemi Olurin to round up the week in news. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on the totally natural passing of Alexei Navalny, Israel’s raiding of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, Israel’s new West Bank settlement program, c...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with independent journalist Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsletter on SubStack, to discuss the state of anti-trans legislation moving its way around the country in 2024. Then, they speak with Margie Mason & Robin McDowell, investigative repor...
It’s Casual Friday! Emma speaks with Alex Pareene, contributing editor at The New Republic and co-host of The Politics of Everything podcast, to round up the week in news. Then, she is joined by Francesca Fiorentini, host of the Bitchuation Room! First, Emma runs through updates on Biden’s war in...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with Joseph Jewell, professor and department head of black studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, to discuss his recent book White Man’s Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era.
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Edwin Raymond, whistleblower & former lieutenant in the New York Police Department, to discuss his recent book An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight To Change Policing In America, co-authored with Jon Sternfeld.
It’s another EmMajority Report Thursday! Emma speaks with Spencer Headworth, associate professor of sociology at Purdue University, to discuss his recent book Rules of the Road: The Automobile and the Transformation of American Criminal Justice. First, Emma runs through updates on the arrest of 5...
It’s an EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Orisanmi Burton, assistant professor of anthropology at American University, to discuss his recent book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. Then, she’s joined by David Vine to discuss his project en...
It’s Hump Day! Sam speaks with Yohuru Williams, historian and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, and Michael Lansing, Professor of History at Augsburg University, to discuss their documentary project on the history of the Minneapolis Police Departm...
It’s an EmMajority Report Thursday! Emma hosts Sarah Brayne, professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss her recent book Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing. Then, Emma is joined by Donna Murch, associate professor of History at Rutgers Un...
Sam and Emma host Meg O’Connor, senior reporter with The Appeal, to discuss her recent piece ”POLICE KILLED HIS SON. PROSECUTORS CHARGED THE TEEN’S FRIENDS WITH HIS MURDER.”. Then, they’re joined by Kathy Hempstead, senior policy advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to discuss the impen...
It’s Casual Friday! Emma speaks with Alex Pareene, Contributing Editor at the New Republic and proprietor of the AP newsletter on Substack, to round up the week in news. Then Emma is joined by political commentator Olayemi Olurin!
Emma speaks with Trevor Aaronson, contributing writer at The Intercept, to discuss his recent podcast Alphabet Boys. Then, she’s joined by freelance journalist Zachary A. Siegel, to discuss his recent coverage in Bolts Magazine of the Chicago mayoral race. First, Emma runs through updates on decr...
Emma hosts Joanna Schwartz, professor at UCLA Law School, to discuss her recent book Shielded: How The Police Became Untouchable. Then, she’s joined by Sam Mellins, senior reporter at New York Focus. to discuss New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top judicial nominee, Judge Hector LaSalle, being struck ...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Jamelle Bouie, opinion columnist at the New York Times and co-host of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast, to round up the week in news. Then, they’re joined by Hamza Syed, co-host of The Trojan Horse Affair podcast, available from the New York Times and S...
Sam speaks with Matthew Johnson, interim director of Beloved Community Ministries, to discuss the demonstrations surrounding Atlanta’s “Cop City.” Then, Sam and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on the backlash to the officers responsible fo...
Sam and Emma host Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon.com and proprietor of the blog Hullabaloo, to round up the week in news. First, Emma and Sam run through updates on Elon Musk’s assault on now-former Twitter staff, surging US employment numbers, Democratic polling in Georgia an...
Emma hosts Dan Bouk, associate professor of history at Colgate University, to discuss his recent book Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them.Then, Emma’s joined by Akela Lacy, politics reporter for The Intercept, to discuss her recent reporting on the Pennsyl...
Emma hosts Natasha Lennard, columnist at The Intercept, to discuss her recent reporting before, during, and after Roe V. Wade’s overturning by the Supreme Court. Then, Emma is joined by Greg Casar, candidate for Congress in Texas’s 35th District, to give us an update from the campaign trail. Firs...
Emma hosts Devon Carbado, professor at the UCLA School of Law, to discuss his recent book Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment. First, Emma runs through recent news from Ginni Thomas’ communications with John Eastman about overturning the election, to the Fed raising ...
Emma hosts Alex Sammon, staff writer at the American Prospect, to discuss his recent article ”The RNC’s Ground Game of Inches.” Then, Emma is joined by Joe Eskenazi, editor and columnist at Mission Local, to discuss San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s recall last night. First, Emma cov...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Alex Pareene, Contributing Editor at the New Republic and proprietor of the AP newsletter on Substack, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by comedian Sarah Silverman to discuss her recent Off-Broadway musical The Bedwetter! First, Emm...
Emma hosts Dorothy Roberts, professor of Law, Sociology, and Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss her recent book Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families–and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World. Emma first covers yesterday’s simultaneous mass shoot...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon.com and proprietor of the blog Hullabaloo, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by Matthew Film Guy! Emma and Sam first dive into the Uvalde Police’s ever-changing story, the White Hous...
Sam and Emma host Tony Messenger, Metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, to discuss his recent book Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes The Poor In The Name Of Justice, on how municipalities across the US have instituted a system of debtors’ jail, trapping poor folks into a ...
Emma hosts Paul Elliott Johnson, Assistant Professor of Communications at the University of Pittsburgh, to discuss his recent book I The People: The Rhetoric of Conservative Populism, on the transformation of the conservative populist movements over the last century, and how they worked to define...
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...
Sam and Emma host Carl Lindskoog, assistant professor of history at Raritan Valley Community College, to discuss his recent book Detain and Punish: Haitian Refugees and the World’s Largest Immigration Detention System, to discuss his recent book Detain and Punish: Haitian Refugees and the World’s...
Sam and Emma host Kate Crawford, Research Professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg, to discuss her recent book Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, on our relationship with big tech, and the concept of the AI industry as a continuat...
Emma hosts human rights lawyer Katherine Todrys to discuss her recent book Black Snake: Standing Rock, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Environmental Justice, on how far the fight against DAPL has come even as it’s faded into the background of the media cycles. Todrys first discusses how she first...
Sam and Emma host New Yorker contributor Eyal Press to discuss his recent book Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America, on the moral division of labor and the emotional burden of getting by for countless Americans. They start off with Everett Hughes’ essay “Good Pe...
Sam and Emma host Keisha Blain, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, to discuss her recent book Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, on how Hamer’s long life led up to a final decade and a half of incredibly influential activism. Professor Bl...
Emma hosts Alexandra Brodsky, civil rights attorney at Public Justice, to discuss her recent book Sexual Justice: Supporting Victims, Ensuring Due Process, and Resisting the Conservative Backlash, and how the culture around sexual assault and harassment has shifted drastically over the last decad...
Sam and Emma host public sector immigration lawyer Daniel Melo to discuss his recent book Borderlines: The Edges of U.S. Capitalism, Immigration, and Democracy, which contextualizes immigration policy within the history of the US, and exploring what we can do to push back against the unfair desig...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective and author of the recent book Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions, to discuss the 10-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Then Sam and Emma are joined by Heather Digby Parton, proprietor of Hull...
Emma hosts Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation, to discuss his recent book The Kaepernick Effect: Taking A Knee, Changing the World. Emma starts off by weighing in on former Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney’s excoriating testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, where she...
The MR Crew are off for Rosh Hashanah today (happy New Year for all who celebrate!), but Sam doesn’t leave you hanging-he sits down with Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California, Berkeley Law School, to discuss his recent book Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Po...
Emma hosts Dr. Nikki Usher, professor of journalism in the College of Media at the University of Illinois, to discuss her recent book, News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism, on the troubles of both the supply and demand sides of mainstream US media. D...
Sam and Emma host Nick Estes, host of The Red Nation Podcast, to discuss his recent book Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence To Native Liberation, on the relationship between policing and surveillance, and Native communities in the US, both inside and out of reservations. Nick, Emma, and ...
Sam and Emma host Rosa Brooks, law professor at Georgetown University, to discuss her recent book Tangled Up In Blue: Policing in the American City, and her experiences as a part-time volunteer reserve police officer in Washington, D.C. Professor Brooks discusses how she came to the topic; follow...
Sam and Emma host Spencer Headworth, professor of Sociology at Purdue University to discuss his recent book, Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance, on how welfare law enforcement has crippled public assistance programs. Professor Headworth begins by walking through what t...
Sam and Emma host professor of African American studies Carol Anderson to discuss her latest book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America on how the right to bear arms has been a means to suppress black Americans. Anderson details how black Americans throughout history have organiz...
Sam and Emma host Yale professor of history Elizabeth Hinton to discuss her new book America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s and the importance of recasting what were once considered “riots” as rebellion, and how the original framing of those eve...
Sam and Emma host Heather Parton, columnist at Salon.com and proprietor of “Digby’s Hullabaloo,” and talk with attorney Steven Donziger about the criminal conspiracy that Chevron has been enacting against him. Heather, Sam, and Emma delve deep into the chokehold Donald Trump has over Republican f...
Sam and Emma host author and activist Victoria Law to discuss her new book, “Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration, on how our perception of incarceration has been wrong from the start. Sam, Emma and Victoria explore our carceral state and how racism and social contr...
Sam hosts Heather Parton, columnist at Salon.com and proprietor of the überblog “Digby’s Hullabaloo,” and friend and known pacifist David Feldman. With the former, they chat about the U.S.’s relationship with both domestic and foreign violence, discussing the devastating tragedies of gun violence...
Sam hosts Daniel Nichanian (@Taniel), Founder and Editorial Director of The Appeal: Political Report, to discuss his What’s on the Ballot? project and the local and state criminal justice votes that could shape the future of immigration enforcement and policing.
Sam and the MR crew break down the top stories of the past week including protests in Kenosha and Portland as well as the RNC as we hurdle into the homestretch of the 2020 presidential election.
Sam hosts Garrett Felber, professor of history at the University of Mississippi, to discuss his new book, Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State. Sam and Felber discuss the organizing tactics used by black nationalists from within the car...
Sam hosts Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) of The Benjamin Dixon Show and David Roth (@david_j_roth) of the New Republic to discuss this week’s top stories and the continued protests against police brutality.
Michael Brooks hosts Alexandria Neason, staff writer at the Columbia Journalism Review, to discuss her piece “Officials Say…” and her reporting on the relationship between the media and police.
Sam and Michael Brooks break down the latest headlines and stories from last night’s primaries, police reform messages from Capitol Hill, and the on-going Covid19 pandemic.
Brooklyn College professor Alex Vitale (@avitale) joins Sam to discuss law enforcement reform, police abolition, and his book The End of Policing. (Free ebook version available now from Verso books!)
Michael Brooks hosts Wosny Lambre (@BigWos) of the Athletic and Count the Dings network to discuss the protests underway across America.
Sam hosts Aaron Kleinman (@bobbybigwheel), director of research at the Future Now Fund, to discuss last night’s primary results and voting during Covid-19, and Michael Brooks joins for the fun half.
Sam breaks down the latest round of protests and Trump’s efforts to rally the silent majority. Sam reviews Trump’s call state governors in the show’s free half, where the president demanded they “dominate” protestors and jail those who organized the protests. He also investigates Trump’s bible ph...
Sam hosts Scott Roberts, Senior Director of Criminal Justice Campaigns at Color of Change, to discuss the nationwide protests against police brutality. John Barry, author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History also joins the program to discuss how the 1918 Spanish Fl...
Sam hosts Howard Bryant (@hbryant42), ESPN writer and author of Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field, and the New Republic’s Alex Pareene (@pareene) to discuss the week’s top stories and the on-going protests and unrest in Minneapolis.
Michael Brooks hosts Professor Daniel Bessner (@dbessner) to discuss what’s happening in Minnesota as protestors square off with authorities in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Also: the growing gig economy in academia.
Sam hosts historian Walter Johnson to discuss his new book The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States and how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted black Americans. Johnson describes the history of St. Louis and his theory of western anti-black raci...
Good morning, this Thursday is another Sam/Michael hybrid episode. Today’s show features an interview Sam recorded with Iowa University Law Professor Sarah Seo about her latest book, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom. Sam and Seo discuss how the rise of personal automo...
aAward-winning investigative reporter Ben Westhoff joins us to discuss his book, ‘Fentanyl, Inc: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic.’
Peter Edelman (@peterbedelman), Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy and the faculty director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown University Law Center, joins us to discuss his book, Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America.
Matt Stroud (@MattStroud), author of “Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High-Tech Policing,” joins us.
Alexandra Natapoff (@ANatapoff), Law professor at U.C. Irvine, criminal law scholar, and author, joins us to discuss her book, “Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.” What is a misdemeanor, and how is it different from a fe...
Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon ), co-founder of the North Star and Virgil Texas (@virgiltexas ), of Chapo Trap House, join us.
Bernard E. Harcourt (@BernardHarcourt), the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of  Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, joins us to discuss his new book, ‘The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens.’