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.
As we remember Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who died in June, we look at how 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.
In a special broadcast, we look at voices of a people’s history inspired by the late great historian Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking book, A People’s History of the United States, which helped reshape how history is taught in classrooms. Twenty years ago, Zinn and Anthony Arnove began organizing public readings of historical texts referenced in A People’s History of the United States.
We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.
On the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, we speak with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about recent revelations detailing many of the Supreme Court conservative justices’ close relationships to Republican megadonors, and how allegations of financial impropriety further delegitimize the court’s standing as an objective legal authority. “These are lifetime appointments,” says Dayen. “This is what arrogance looks like.
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.
As we remember Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who died in June, we look at how 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.
In a special broadcast, we remember the life and legacy of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who died in June 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.
On the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, we speak with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about recent revelations detailing many of the Supreme Court conservative justices’ close relationships to Republican megadonors, and how allegations of financial impropriety further delegitimize the court’s standing as an objective legal authority. “These are lifetime appointments,” says Dayen. “This is what arrogance looks like.
The Supreme Court has struck down President Biden’s plan to provide relief to 40 million student borrowers of up to $20,000 in student loan debt. We speak to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about how one of the key complainant states, Missouri, hinged its opposition on the argument that its state agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, will be harmed by the debt relief plan.
In one of the last cases in the Supreme Court’s current session, the justices ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group’s ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may be built on a lie.
The conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has declared race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities across the country to be unlawful, effectively ending affirmative action in education. The landmark 6-3 ruling was along ideological lines and strikes down decades of precedent, but stops short of banning legacy admissions and allows military academies to continue using affirmative action.
On the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, we speak with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about recent revelations detailing many of the Supreme Court conservative justices’ close relationships to Republican megadonors, and how allegations of financial impropriety further delegitimize the court’s standing as an objective legal authority. “These are lifetime appointments,” says Dayen. “This is what arrogance looks like.
The Supreme Court has struck down President Biden’s plan to provide relief to 40 million student borrowers of up to $20,000 in student loan debt. We speak to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about how one of the key complainant states, Missouri, hinged its opposition on the argument that its state agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, will be harmed by the debt relief plan.
In one of the last cases in the Supreme Court’s current session, the justices ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group’s ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may be built on a lie.
The conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has declared race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities across the country to be unlawful, effectively ending affirmative action in education. The landmark 6-3 ruling was along ideological lines and strikes down decades of precedent, but stops short of banning legacy admissions and allows military academies to continue using affirmative action.
On the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, we speak with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about recent revelations detailing many of the Supreme Court conservative justices’ close relationships to Republican megadonors, and how allegations of financial impropriety further delegitimize the court’s standing as an objective legal authority. “These are lifetime appointments,” says Dayen. “This is what arrogance looks like.
The Supreme Court has struck down President Biden’s plan to provide relief to 40 million student borrowers of up to $20,000 in student loan debt. We speak to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about how one of the key complainant states, Missouri, hinged its opposition on the argument that its state agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, will be harmed by the debt relief plan.
In one of the last cases in the Supreme Court’s current session, the justices ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group’s ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may be built on a lie.
The conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has declared race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities across the country to be unlawful, effectively ending affirmative action in education. The landmark 6-3 ruling was along ideological lines and strikes down decades of precedent, but stops short of banning legacy admissions and allows military academies to continue using affirmative action.
A highly anticipated court ruling is expected soon in Montana, where a groundbreaking, youth-led climate trial just ended after five days of dramatic testimony on who can be held responsible for the climate crisis.
We speak with author Genevieve Guenther about “climate silence” and how the corporate media routinely fails in reporting on worsening extreme weather events. “You need to connect the dots from what you’re reporting to the climate crisis, and then through the climate crisis to the use of fossil fuels that is heating up our planet,” says Guenther, whose forthcoming book is titled The Language of Climate Politics.
As wildfire smoke fills the skies and record heat waves cook much of North America, Canadian climate activist Tzeporah Berman says governments need to be pushed to phase out fossil fuels more rapidly. “We need people to stand up to this industry. We need activism to protest in the streets, to demand our governments stand up to this industry. And we also need international cooperation,” says Berman.
After the Wagner Group’s aborted mutiny in Russia, the Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on companies accused of profiting from the activities of the Wagner Group in Africa. This comes as Russian military police raided Wagner mercenary bases in Syria.
Veteran national security reporter James Risen joins us for an in-depth look at his new book, The Last Honest Man, about the work of Senator Frank Church to rein in the FBI, CIA and other agencies after the Vietnam War, Watergate and other fiascos had shaken the public’s trust in the U.S. government.
In Honduras, communities are fighting back against privatization and foreign exploitation after Honduran President Xiomara Castro and Congress repealed a law that established so-called Economic Development and Employment Zones, where private companies have “functional and administrative autonomy” from the national government.
Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, says it’s “grotesque and immoral” that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, higher than homicide and respiratory illness, citing recent findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Why do we hear so much about crime rates and opioids and gun violence in America, but poverty kills more people than all of those things?” asks Barber.
The Supreme Court’s term is ending this week with rulings on several blockbuster cases. On Tuesday, voting rights advocates welcomed a decision in a major election law case that preserved checks and balances in elections. In a 6-3 decision, the justices dismissed the so-called independent state legislature theory that state lawmakers have nearly unlimited power to make rules for federal elections.