Truman Burbank, the unwitting star of the world’s most popular TV show, is supposed to be an everyman. The Truman Show is set in an island town, Seahaven, that evokes the prefab conformities of American suburbia. Truman is a brand in a setting that is stridently generic. Since his birth, he has navigated a world manufactured—by Christof, the creator of his show—for lucrative inoffensiveness.
Whistleblower Dan Ellsberg joined us after the Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing U.S. military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Assange is locked up in London and faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited and convicted in the United States.
Daniel Ellsberg was best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers, but he was also a lifelong anti-nuclear activist, stemming from his time working as a nuclear planner for the U.S. government. In December 2017, he joined us to discuss his memoir, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. “This was an actual war plan for how we would use the existing weapons,” he noted, “many of which I had seen already that time.
Over the past 50 years Daniel Ellsberg remained an antiwar and anti-nuclear activist who inspired a new generation of whistleblowers. In his last interview with Democracy Now! in April, he spoke about the war in Ukraine and why it required a diplomatic solution, and about the latest leak of Pentagon documents by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who has been indicted on six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information.
We remember the life and legacy of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who died Friday at the age of 92, just months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, then a top military strategist working for the RAND Corporation, risked life in prison by secretly copying and then leaking 7,000 pages of top-secret documents outlining the secret history of the U.S. War in Vietnam.
The blockbuster weight loss drugs’ access to a key market — older Americans — is limited, as Medicare is banned from covering weight loss drugs as part of the Part D program.
The agency followed the guidance of its independent advisory committee, which identified a commonly circulating strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Mandy Cohen’s experience parrying GOP assaults is seen as a key attribute she’ll need in leading the CDC.
As many as 15 million people nationwide are expected to lose coverage as states check eligibility for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.
More than 140,000 residents have lost eligibility in one of the poorest states in the country.
Inflation slowed to just 4% in May.
The Fed is paying particular attention to so-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs and are regarded as a better gauge of longer-term inflation trends.
POLITICO asked a panel of strategists and elected officials what under-the-radar issue they think could play an outsize role in 2024.
Olympic track star Tori Bowie was eight months pregnant and in labor when she died on May 2, according to an autopsy. She was alone in her home at the time and may have suffered from respiratory distress and eclampsia, a rare but life-threatening pregnancy complication. Her baby also died.
We speak with the parents of Mika Westwolf, a 22-year-old Indigenous woman struck and killed in March by a driver as she was walking home along the highway in the early morning hours. The parents and allies are on a “Justice to Be Seen” march to call for justice and an investigation. Westwolf was a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and was also Diné, Cree and Klamath.
Brit Hume tried to sum up Trump’s latest attempt to defend himself, and it wasn’t easy.
Critics give the Missouri senator a blunt fact-check on Twitter.
“Before I send the boxes over, I have to take all of my things out,” the former president said on Fox News.
Washington’s allegedly been at war with the budget deficit for decades. The latest debt limit deal tells us which side won.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal argued the Saudis are essentially “taking charge of the entire sport” in a deal that could have national security implications.
We continue our Juneteenth special with more from Harry Belafonte, the legendary actor, singer and civil rights activist, who died in April at the age of 96. Belafonte last appeared on Democracy Now! in 2016 at a special event at the historic Riverside Church in New York to celebrate Democracy Now!’s 20th anniversary. He co-headlined the event with Noam Chomsky. It was the first time they had done a public event together.
We dedicate part of our Juneteenth special to remembering the life and legacy of the legendary actor, singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who died in April at the age of 96. Belafonte appeared on Democracy Now! numerous times, and we feature two interviews. We begin with our 2011 interview at the Sundance Film Festival, where a documentary about his life, titled Sing Your Song, premiered, and discuss his political awakening and activism in detail.
We feature a special broadcast on the newly created Juneteenth federal holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We begin with our 2021 interview with historian Clint Smith, originally aired a day after President Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth the first new federal holiday since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.On June 19, 1865, two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, word reached Texas notifying enslaved people of their freedom. Juneteenth is a holiday honoring this delayed freedom.
This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine.In the late 1700s, King George III glimpsed the future of shipping. Sir Charles Middleton, the comptroller of the British Royal Navy, approached the monarch with a vision. His pitch came with a demo—a specially modified model of a warship called the Bellona. The king’s eye soon fell on the shimmering copper plates that encased the miniature ship’s hull below the waterline.
It isn’t every day that you see right-wing Americans wildly celebrating the fact that a Mexican brand is now the best-selling beer in the U.S. But that is exactly what we saw this week, after the market-research company NielsenIQ announced that Modelo Especial had dethroned Bud Light at the top of the beer-sales charts. Naturally, MAGA fans had not discovered the virtues of globalization. Instead, they were gleeful at the success of their Bud Light boycott.
Most of my colleagues are college-educated. I am often the only product of felons, addicts, and foster care whom my peers have encountered outside of time spent volunteering in homeless shelters and group homes. Over the years, whenever affirmative action in higher education has come under threat, these folks have offered their sympathies. They believe that I—a child of a Black father and white mother who grew up in poverty and instability—feel the attacks more acutely.
Chris Christie is the hottest candidate in the Republican presidential race right now. Oh, not with Republican voters. He’s still polling in the low single digits among the people who will actually choose the nominee. But among liberal pundits, Christie’s reputation is on the rise.
The blockbuster weight loss drugs’ access to a key market — older Americans — is limited, as Medicare is banned from covering weight loss drugs as part of the Part D program.
The agency followed the guidance of its independent advisory committee, which identified a commonly circulating strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.