Sam hosts Clara Mattei, Assistant Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, to discuss her recent book The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism. First, Sam runs through updates on Kevin McCarthy entering day three of House purgatory, the FTC banning non-compete agreements from labor contracts, mass tech layoffs, […]

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 shootings, including five dead in Tulsa, the continued shortage of US-produced baby formula, the Israeli […]

Sam and Emma host David Dayen, executive editor at the American Prospect, to discuss his recent piece in the Intercept “BLOWING THE TRUCK WHISTLE: A Carbon Dioxide Delivery Driver’s Long Journey to Expose Airgas”, on one of many examples of the US’ failing infrastructure. Sam and Emma begin by previewing tomorrow’s primaries in Texas and Georgia, also touching on the […]

Emma hosts Gina Dent, Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to discuss her recent book Abolition. Feminism. Now., co-written with Angela Davis, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie. Professor Dent and Emma begin by discussing how the mainstream roles of feminism and abolitionism have changed over the last half-century, including how certain forms of feminism […]

Sam and Emma host Michael Brenes, history lecturer at Yale University, to discuss his recent book For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy, on how the Cold War helped to ingrain the military-industrial complex within the American political, economic, and labor sectors. Michael takes Emma and Sam back to the forties, […]

Sam sits down with Marcia Chatelain, professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University, to discuss her recent book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, on McDonald’s, fast food franchises, and their ties to the success and failures of Black capitalism. Professor Chatelain discusses how McDonald’s came to occupy a state-like role in Black communities […]

Sam and Emma host Matthew Cortland, Senior Fellow at Data for Progress, to discuss Supplemental Security Income restorative/legislative efforts, and right to repair activist Louis Rossmann to discuss the change in right to repair laws after Biden’s competition executive order was signed into law. Sam, Emma, and Matthew cover the structural differences in disability social securities, […]

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 the U.S. sees as welfare, focusing on public assistance like TANF and SNAP, rather than […]

Sam hosts Vanessa Williamson (@V_Williamson), a Brookings Institute fellow, to discuss her recent piece in Dissent Magazine, “The Austerity Politics of White Supremacy,” on how the cult of the “taxpayer” functions as an effective veneer to push through racist attacks on democracy. On today’s show: Cori Bush says House should impeach Trump, a white supremacist president, […]

Visiting Associate Professor in Philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar, Karl Widerquist explains how a Guaranteed Basic Income would work. The push for Basic Income in Europe. The different ways of delivering a basic income. Would Basic Income replace the welfare state? Reversing Welfare “reform” overcome poverty? The problem with Libertarian thinking. Why Libertarians are all about […]