Episodes

This week, we're joined by Anna Gifty Opoku-Ayeman. Anna is a is a researcher, writer, science communicator and activist. She is the co-founder of The Sadie Collective, the only nonprofit organization addressing the lack of Black women in economics and related fields, and the editor of The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System, a new book of essays on policy solutions to social problems written by black activists. Editorial Reviews Review "An expansive set of essays highlighting th...

We’re at a last-gasp inflection point for the climate. Humans have so polluted the world that our entire climate is changing. We talk a lot about the human cost of this change, but what about the changes for other species? In his new book The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth, Ben Rawlence explores the northward migration of trees, and what it means for all of us. He joins us this week to discuss. About The Treeline: In the tradition of Elizabeth Kolbert and Barry Lopez...

This week, we're joined by Bryan Osorio. Bryan is a Berkeley graduate, the 26 year old mayor of Delano, California, and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for congress in California’s 21stCongressional District. We’ve got an election coming up this year, and there are truly impressive younger candidates like Bryan Osorio running. We challenge each of you to find emerging young candidates in your states, and help them change the world.

Rhode Island is a small state, but one which is so reflective of so much of the country. It has a governor’s race this year, and Dr. Luis Daniel Munoz is running for the office. He's a medical doctor with a progressive vision for the future. He joins us today to discuss his campaign.

The last five years highlighted the racism, xenophobia, and islamophobia which exists in American society—but it didn’t start then. In his new book Go Back to Where You Came From And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American, my guest Wajahat Ali takes a clear-eyed and very funny look at this dark part of our American identity. "Wajahat Ali’s deeply personal and keenly perceptive memoir is a clear-eyed account of his American immigrant experience.… We are all fortunate to be on th...

If the Democrats want to increase their razor-thin majority in the Senate, allowing them the possibility of changing senate rules and passing voting rights legislation and other critical goals of the Biden Administration, the State of North Carolina is an essential pickup. Incumbent Republican Richard Burr is retiring, and the state has been trending more and more blue. Late last year, our producer Ben Jackson sat down with Erica Smith, a progressive rural Democrat and former state senator who w...

The past several years shocked both our national and global economies. As the government undertakes massive spending programs to counteract the damage, the national debt, the deficit, and inflation have become issues of national debate. We’ve invited Stephanie Kelton, author of The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy to take us behind the rhetoric and make the case for a different way of looking at the way we raise and spend money at the federal level.

The United States is entering its third COVID winter, with no end to the pandemic in sight. There is a loud minority of vaccine-averse Americans, and a dangerous number of anti-science politicians cynically manipulating that for power. At the same time, the mental health of Americans is entering its own crisis from the stresses of pandemic life. Our guest today is the Surgeon General of the United States, Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, whose job it is to help navigate these dangerous waters and keep...

This year started in an attempted coup and an attack on our capitol. It’s ending with criminal indictments for some of those who took part in the planning and execution of that attack—but so much more happened this year. We’ve now lost more than 800,000 to COVID, but the arrival of safe and effective vaccines offers hope. A new president and new government has made progress on important issues, but obstructionists are getting in the way of desperately needed reforms. And all along the way, so ma...

Our guest this week is Michael Tubbs. Michael served as the mayor of Stockton, CA. He was the city’s first Black mayor and the youngest ever mayor of a major American city. He is the founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and Ending Poverty in California, a Special Advisor to California Governor Newsom on Economic Mobility, and a commentator for MSNBC. His new book “The Deeper the Roots” is now available.

If the Democrats want to retain control of the Senate in 2022, the path goes through Pennsylvania. With a retiring republican incumbent and a state that voted for President Biden, it’s seen as one of the most likely pickups. Our guest this week is Congressman Conor Lamb. He’s a Marine Corps veteran, currently the Representative from Pennsylvania’s 17th District, and a candidate for the United States Senate.

The wealth gap in America creates any number of problems—but perhaps the most pressing is its expansion of poverty. When this poverty intersects with a broken criminal justice system, it becomes criminalized. The cycles of poverty and incarceration can span generations, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post Dispatch has spent years covering the stories of the people affected. In his new book Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name...

It seems like we live in a world where every issue divides us on the extremes, and Climate Change is no exception. It’s killing people and economies, and yet it seems like all we can do is yell at each other about it. Our guest this week is trying to change that, one conversation at a time. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy and author of the new book Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. NATIONAL BESTSELLER “An optimistic v...

Thanksgiving is an American holiday with, at best, a complicated history. Rooted in colonization and stolen land, it is also a time when families often come together and many of us reflect on the things for which we are grateful. It is this gratitude that we’ll focus on today—not Thanksgiving the holiday, but gratitude the emotion. We asked you, our listeners to submit stories of gratitude, and you came through. In this episode, we’ll hear from a variety writers and poets and every day people wi...

There is no doubt that our democracy remains threatened. Donald Trump and those who supported his election lies and other corruption continue to exert influence over our political system, and the rise of authoritarianism in America risks everything we hold dear. In his new book Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, Adam Schiff examines this threat and shares his behind-the-scenes story of confronting it. Audio excerpted courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio ...

In October of 2021, Alyssa Milano joined other advocates and activists in the first hearing about the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress in decades. This episode is the unedited (safe to remove some dead air during a technical difficulty at the hearing) and uninterrupted. It will sound a little different than our usual episodes as a result. We've included the opening statements of all witnesses and Committee leadership, even those which disagree with Alyssa's to provide a comprehensive view of ...

In the view of this podcast, the National Rifle Association is one of the most evil organizations in America. Through its financial influence, it’s allowed the wholesale slaughter of 40,000 Americans a year so that its funders can keep making money. But things are not all rosy at the NRA, and we’ve asked Tim Mak, NPR’s Washington Investigative Correspondent and author of the new book “Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA” to join us to discuss. Praise For Misfire: Inside The Downfall Of The ...

For a special episode of Sorry Not Sorry, Alyssa Milano leaves the host's microphone and takes the guest chair to discuss her new book "Sorry Not Sorry," which releases October 26th. She discusses the process of writing, her life as an activist, her family, and her recent trip to Washington DC to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment. Praise for Sorry Not Sorry “Actor Milano puts her political activism center stage in these resonant and hopeful essays that grapple with systemic racism, abort...

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a quarter century since the impeachment of Bill Clinton. This season of the American Crime Story franchise is focused on that impeachment and the events surrounding it. Our guest this week is Sarah Burgess, the writer and showrunner of Impeachment: American Crime Story.

Over the past nearly two years, we’ve seen the horrible and deadly harm the anti-vaccine movement has done to our nation and our world. While we know that vaccines are safe and effective, charlatans spreading lies, snake oil, and disinformation have eroded the public’s confidence and belief in those vaccines, and so many people are dead as a result. In a recent article Kurt Eichenwald exposed Andrew Wakefield, a doctor at the root of much of this skepticism. Kurt joins the podcast today to discu...

Deborah Tuerkheimer served for five years as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office, where she specialized in domestic violence and child abuse prosecution. In her new book Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers, she provides a much-needed framework to explain how we perceive credibility, why our perceptions are distorted, and why these distortions harm survivors. Social hierarchies and inequalities foster doubt that is commonplace and predi...

On October 2nd, 2021, women and allies across the country marched in opposition to the attacks on women's reproductive freedom. Alyssa Milano spoke at the Los Angeles march. This is a recording of her speech.

Our guest this week is John Pavlovitz. John is a pastor, writer, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. He’s spent nearly three decades teaching, studying, dissecting, deconstructing, and reconstructing the Christian faith. His new book If God Is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk invites us to re-examine the modern faith community and ask if it is as loving as it should be. ABOUT IF GOD IS LOVE DON'T BE A JERK: Thou Shalt Not Be Horrible. Imagine for a moment what the world might look like if we ...

We talk a lot on this podcast about the importance of using whatever platforms we have to make the world a better place. Those of us with large platforms, especially, have a responsibility to use them. Our guest this week is certainly using his. Adrian Grenier is an actor, filmmaker, musician, entrepreneur and philanthropist who came to prominence as Vincent Chase in the hit show Entourage. Although first known as an actor, over the last decade, Adrian Grenier has cemented his place as an activ...