Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry

There seems to be no end to the violent conflict around the world. This violence seems to produce no end of human suffering, but as Stalin said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." OUr guest this week is a master of telling the story of the one person. Arwa Damon is an award-winning journalist, president and founder of INARA, a non-profit that provides access to life-altering medical and mental health care to children impacted by human-induced or natural disasters, and the director of the new film Seizing the Summit.

Friends, it's a hard week.

We lost, badly, and we learned more than we wanted to know about our neighbors. History gives us a lesson or two on what befalls those who govern with hate and abuses of power, and the resilience of the people who suffer under them.

They are lessons Trump would do well to remember, if only he was capable of learning them.

The election is this week. The choice is yours: do we elect a convicted felon who has been adjudicated responsible for rape, who tried to overthrow the government, who pushed the Supreme Court to a never-before-seen level of extremism, who has threatened journalists, Democrats, his opponent, and others with violence, who promises economic and immigration plans that will cause incredible chaos and harm and almost certainly crash the economy, and who has based his campaign on hate for women, trans people LGBTQ people, immigrants, Black people, Jewish people, Muslim people, the disabled, the poor, and anyone who is not a rich white man, or do you want to elect Vice President Harris?

This week, we take one last look at what is at stake.

For most of the past 200 years, the United States has held itself in a nearly mythical esteem–and sometimes, used that esteem to justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. In their new book The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World, Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson confront that ideology and its dangerous global effects. Robinson joins us this week to discuss.

Since the fall of Roe v Wade, the Republican extremists in Congress and in the states have been giddy at taking away the right to bodily autonomy–especially aimed at women and pregnant people. Jessica Valenti takes a clear look at what is happening and how to stop it in her New York Times bestselling book “Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win.” She joins the show this week.

The American right is weaponizing state-sponsored and endorsed vigilantism in an effort to impose Christian Nationalism in the United States. That’s the argument Jon Michaels and David Noll make in their new book “Vigilante Nation: How State Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy.” Noll, a professor of law at Rutgers University, joins us to discuss.

You’ve seen his videos–the hilarious sendups of Trump and his cronies almost always with a particular musical flare. Well, Randy Rainbow has a new book out–Low-Hanging Fruit: Sparkling Whines, Champagne Problems, and Pressing Issues from My Gay Agenda. We’re delighted to have him here this week to chat about it.

The saying goes that laughter is the best medicine. But it can be a powerful driver for social change. Our guest this week is Steve Hofstetter. Steve’s a comedian, a Nobel Prize nominee, and a philanthropist who’s been making people laugh and think for a long time.

There is perhaps no industry which intersects more completely with immigration, labor, and health and safety than meat packing. In her new book “The Life and Death of the American Worker” Alice Driver takes the industry head on through the stories of Tyson Food employees in Arkansas, and she’s joined us to discuss.