Start Making Sense

On Friday, the self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced the US was sending anaircraft carrier to bolster its attacks on Venezuelan boats (which the Trump administrationalleges, without evidence, are trafficking drugs). I spoke to international relations scholar VanJackson (whose work can be found here) about the motives for this new war as well as themuted opposition to it from Democrats.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On October 14, Donald Trump announced that the United States had blown up a boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people on board. It was the fifth such US strike on a vessel in the Caribbean in the last six weeks. In total, 27 people have been killed in the attacks.Trump has claimed that the bombings are part of a fight against drug cartels. But there is no legal basis for this campaign. We're not at war with cartels, none of the victims had been charged with a crime, and there's no evidence that Americans were under imminent threat from any of them.Longtime Nation contributor Greg Grandin's piece about the strikes, "Trump's Caribbean Killing Spree," is in our November issue.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Solving the climate crisis isn’t about reinventing the wheel or the latest tech scheme — it can be as simple as growing food and building community. Host Shilpi Chhotray chats with Leah Penniman, farmer, educator, and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, about the intersection of land, food justice, and racial equity. Leah shares how Afro-Indigenous farming practices offer solutions to the climate crisis— but also serve as a tool for personal and community healing. From the legacy of Black farmers in the U.S. to the ongoing exploitation of agricultural workers, this conversation reveals how land is not only the foundation of sustenance but the basis of revolution, independence, and justice.Key Topics Covered:Farming as a spiritual and ecological practice that reconnects humans to the earth.Pitfalls of Industrial agriculture, from soil degradation, pesticide contamination, and contributions to the climate crisis Afro-Indigenous farming practices that sequester carbon, restore soil, and increase resilience to extreme

Rest assured, no one on the AP team has any undeclared tattoos. In this week’s news roundup: In Israel-Palestine, Gaza’s so-called ceasefire holds after another weekend of Israeli strikes (1:36), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders Israel to allow more humanitarian aid (8:16), and reports emerge of a plan to partition Gaza (11:48) as J.D. Vance arrives in Israel and the Knesset advances West Bank annexation votes (14:21); Donald Trump looks set to host Mohammed bin Salman for the Saudi crown prince’s first U.S. visit since the Jamal Khashoggi murder (18:36); Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to a fragile ceasefire after cross-border clashes (21:16); Myanmar’s junta retakes a key commercial town and resumes its offensive (23:47); Japan elects hard-right Takaichi Sanae as its first female prime minister (27:27); in Sudan, drone strikes delay the reopening of Khartoum’s airport (29:59); new data shows jihadist groups tightening their grip across West Africa (31:19); the Trump-Putin-Zelensky saga takes s

Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss the proliferation of delivery bots and robotaxis and how they recycle disproven claims about how technology will improve transportation.Joanne McNeil is a freelance writer and the author of Wrong Way and Lurking: How a Person Became a User.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

No Kings Day on Oct. 18 was the largest peaceful protest in American history. Rebecca Solnit comments, and refutes Republican statements about violence on the left. Her most recent book is “Orwell’s Roses.”Also: the fight to control the LA police: a decades long effort that culminated in 1992, after the Rodney King riots, when longtime police chief Darryl Gates was forced out. Danny Goldberg comments – at the time he was board chair of the ACLU of Southern California Foundation, and his new book is “Liberals With Attitude.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek speak with historian Fara Dabhoiwala, author of What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea, about the complex history of one of liberalism’s proudest ideals, and how it largely emerged from hypocrisy and self-interest. They trace its 18th-century birth in the polemics of corrupt British journalists, its exclusion of women and colonized peoples, the U.S. founders’ rejection of France’s more balanced model, and the later reappropriation of the slogan by abolitionists and reformers. The group also traces free speech’s evolution through the Cold War and into the age of Big Tech, revealing how a principle meant to liberate became a tool of power and a license for unaccountable media.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

"Are Trump and Trumpism best understood as the consolidation of an elite economic program, as a nostalgia-­laced brew of prejudice and rage, or as a coherent, forceful new style of authoritarian rule—and if it’s the latter, why is this happening now?" That's the question that historian and Columbia professor Kim Phillips-Fein asks in her latest piece for The Nation, which you can read in our November issue.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The fragile ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas hasn’t ended the violence, but it hasfor now lessened it. But even if the ceasefire holds, the need for a political solution toPalestinian dispossession remains. To discuss the issue of accountability, I spoke to YousefMunayyer, who is the head of the Palestine/Israel Program and Senior Fellow at Arab CenterWashington DC. We talked about how the shocking events of the last two years have shiftedglobal public opinion, including in the United States. Both parties are heading towards a long-delayed debate about the value of the US/Israel relation.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

For the first time in over a century, the Klamath River flows free again—thanks to the vision, courage, and determination of the Yurok Tribe. In this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray talks with Amy Bowers Cordalis, a member of the Yurok Tribe and leader in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. From devastating fish kills and lost salmon runs to confronting corporations and navigating the law, Amy shares a story of environmental restoration, Indigenous sovereignty, and the power of nature-based solutions. This is a story of rivers, resistance, and the multi-layered fight—legal, political, and cultural—to heal the land and its people.Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org Resources:- “The Water Remembers” by Amy Bowers Cordalis (Bookshop) (Amazon)- Yurok Tribe Celebrates 50-year Anniversary of Mattz v. ArnettPresented by Counterstream Media and The NationPowered by Wildseeds FundAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Lead might be in our protein supplements, but Danny and Derek bring you the news free of most heavy metals. This week: the ceasefire in Gaza begins with prisoner exchanges (1:38), but controversy arises over deceased captives (5:30), plus Israeli violations and Hamas clashes with armed factions (9:35), and a summit in Sharm El Sheikh (14:36); a United Nations report shows a record-breaking spike in atmospheric carbon levels and growing evidence that natural feedback loops are worsening climate collapse (17:14); border clashes escalate between Afghanistan and Pakistan following a failed Pakistani airstrike on a Taliban leader (19:39); Japan’s ruling coalition collapses after Komeito breaks with the LDP (23:06); Nathaniel Powell joins Derek to break down the military coup in Madagascar sparked by Gen Z-led protests and a mutiny within the elite CAPSAT unit (25:16); in France, Macron re-appoints PM Lecornu and the government survives no-confidence votes (45:04); Peruvian president Dina Boluarte is impeached amid

Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss how tech CEOs are pushing a new generation of AI-powered smart glasses by promising they’ll be stylish and indispensable to workers in a desperate attempt to convince us we should want their luxury surveillance gadgets.Chris Gilliard is the co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute and is working on a book called Luxury Surveillance.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Saturday is the second No Kings Day – it should be the biggest single day of protest in American history, with more than 2,500 events planned. Leah Greenberg will explain the preparations – she’s co-founder of Indivisible, the group that called the first No Kings day, June 14 – five million people participated in that one, held the same day as Trump’s birthday parade – the one no one came to.Also: there’s “a forthrightly antifascist film” that critics call “wild and thrilling” -- of course, that’s “One Battle After Another,” the Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring Leonardo di Caprio as a burnt out left wing bomber, targeted by an ICE captain played by Sean Penn. John Powers will comment—he’s critic at large on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek speak with sociologist Charles Derber about how American society is tearing itself apart, as explored in his book Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy. They discuss the decline of civic trust, the rise of atomized “me” culture, the tech-driven Gilded Age, neoliberalism and loneliness, Silicon Valley’s alliance with the national security state, how a country built on expansion and individualism turned those forces inward, and what, if anything, can stop us from destroying the relationships that hold this society together.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Few movies have ever been as timely as Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film One Battle AfterAnother, which traces the battle between revolutionary resistance groups trying to protectimmigrants and an authoritarian government run by racists. There are scenes from the moviethat feel like they are being played out right now on the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles andPortland. Although it presents a stylized version of reality, the film raises important questionsabout different strategies of resistance. David Klion, a frequent guest, wrote about the moviefor The New Republic. David and I talked about the film, its roots in actual history but alsovariance with that history as well as its relationship with the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What does true climate justice look like when it’s rooted in sovereignty, resistance, and liberation? In this powerful episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Nick Tilsen—Oglala Lakota land defender and CEO of NDN Collective—to unpack the meaning of LandBack, the historic fight for the Black Hills, the release of political prisoner Leonard Peltier, and the deep ties between Indigenous struggles and Palestinian resistance. From direct action at Mount Rushmore to building legal strategies against unjust laws, this conversation is a call for big, bad bold courage.Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org Resources:- NDN Collective- Nick Tilsen’s Podcast: LandBack for The People- LandBack- The Fallout From The Greenpeace Verdict (The Nation)Presented by Counterstream Media and The NationPowered by Wildseeds FundAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yes, we will be releasing 25 subtle variations of this news roundup in order to catapult ourselves to the top of the podcast charts, and no, we are not sorry. This week: a ceasefire agreement was reached for Gaza, but there was too much information for us to cover in the news, so please check out our special here. Syria’s interim government handpicks a new “parliament” under tight presidential control (1:01); Iran debates moving its capital from Tehran as drought and other ecological issues worsen (3:24); Myanmar’s junta carries out a deadly airstrike on civilians celebrating a Buddhist festival (6:32); Japan’s ruling LDP turns to hard-right Takahichi to become Japan’s first female prime minister (9:03); Sudan’s RSF shells Al-Fashir’s last functioning hospital amid a deepening siege (12:22); Ethiopia accuses Eritrea and the TPLF of funding militias in the Amhara region, raising fears of another war (14:23); Rwanda-DRC peace efforts stall over mineral deals and a lingering occupation (17:31); Trump muses on se

Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss Jacob’s new book Gilded Rage, which explores the radicalization of Silicon Valley leaders, who are exerting their growing influence to shape our society for the worse.Jacob Silverman is an independent journalist and the author of ⁠Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley⁠.Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

As the Supreme Court begins its new term, Trump lost six different cases in district courts just last week, ranging from bans on deploying the National Guard, to defending freedom of speech for noncitizens, to yet another court rejecting his executive order abolishing birthright citizenship. At the same time, Trump is claiming an illegitimate legal basis for ordering the murder of civilians he claims are trafficing in drugs. David Cole will comment—he’s former national legal director of the ACLU.Also, There’s a wonderful new history of New York City from the Depression thru WWII, out now - It’s called “Gotham at War,” written by Mike Wallace. He won the Pulitzer Prize in History for the first volume in his “Gotham” series. To talk about ‘Gotham at War,’ we’ll turn to Brenda Wineapple, who writes for the New York Review and the New York Times Book Review; her most recent book is the Scopes trial--it's called ‘Keeping the Faith.’Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHe

Donald Trump has plunged the nation into another government shutdown. I spoke with my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann about the larger political stakes. We take up Trump’s shifting rhetoric, which has started with false and racist claims about undocumented immigrants receiving benefits and now seems to be about gloating over austerity. We also discuss the Democratic Party’s response, and the way the base of the party has forced the leadership to take a stronger stance. Chris’s article on the shutdown can be found here.Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy