Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry

Our guest this week is Andy Borowitz. Andy is an award-winning comedian and New York Times bestselling author. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard College, where he became President of the Harvard Lampoon. In 1998, he began contributing humor to The New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” and “Talk of the Town” departments, and in 2001, he created “The Borowitz Report,” a satirical news column, which has millions of readers around the world. In 2012, The New Yorker began publishing “The Borowitz Report.” As a storyteller, he hosted “Stories at the Moth” from 1999 to 2009. As a comedian, he has played to sold-out venues around the world, including during his national tour, “Make America Not Embarrassing Again,” from 2018 to 2020. His new book Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber is now available.

Review

“How did we slide into the abyss of liking our politicians to be—or to act—dumb rather than smart? In this funny but serious book, Andy Borowitz chronicles our embrace of anti-intellectualism.” —Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker

The cruel, bizarre, and frankly evil supreme court decision taking away a woman’s right to choose is wreaking havoc in the medical community. To help us make sense of the legal lay of the land and the ethical status of abortion, we’ve invited Katie L. Watson onto the show. Katie is an Associate Professor of Medical Education, Medical Social Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also a lawyer who clerked in the federal courts, a bioethicist and the author of The Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion.

Our guest today is Michael Pollan. Since the 2018 publication of his New York Times bestseller How to Change Your Mind, Michael’s work on psychedelics has steered the national conversation on the medical potential and stigmas surrounding some of the most powerful, naturally-derived drugs. He furthers the discussion in his new book This is Your Mind on Plants and his Netflix Series “How to Change Your Mind.”

Our guest this week is Anya Kamenetz. Anya has covered education for many years including for NPR, where she co-created the podcast Life Kit: Parenting. She speaks, writes, and thinks about learning and the future. Her new book The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, And Where We Go Now is now available.

Our guest this week is Congresswoman Veronica Escobar. Congresswoman Escobar represents the 16th Congressional District in Texas, a position she’s held since 2019. When elected, she became one of the first two Latinas from Texas to serve in Congress. On July 19th, she and other members of Congress were arrested protesting at the Supreme Court against their evil decision removing the right to abortion from millions of Americans.

Critical Race Theory is widely maligned by those on the right, but poorly understood. Our guest for this episode, Dr. Victor Ray, can help us sort out the truth from the lies. Victor is nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. As an active public scholar, his social and critical commentary has appeared in outlets such as The Washington Post, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, and Boston Review. His new book, On Critical Race Theory: Why it Matters and Why You Should Care is now available.

Over the years, this podcast has focused on highlighting those people who are not only experts in identifying the significant problems facing the United States and its institutions, but those who propose bold solutions to those problems. In the past weeks, those problems have expanded significantly. Once again, Joe Manchin—a single senator representing a single state—has blocked critical environmental legislation. Despite being a democrat, he’s tanked the Democratic majority in the senate, and he can do this because of the filibuster. At the same time, a rogue, extremist supreme court has undermined very basic freedoms in our nation, from the right to access abortion, go to school free from religious influence, and even receive full Miranda protections if arrested. Today, we’ll look back at two of our episodes where our guests propose ways to get past these critical problems.

First, we’ll hear from Adam Jentleson. Adam is a writer and former Deputy Chief of Staff for then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He joined us to discuss his book Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.

Next, we hear from Tamara Brummer, Executive Eirector for Outreach with Demand Justice, who joined us to discuss efforts to reform and expand the supreme court.

When you share your life with someone, you take on the idea of being a caretaker if something goes wrong, but only in the abstract. But when that idea becomes a reality, life changes in so many ways you may never expect. My guest this week is Abi Morgan. Abi is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter ("The Iron Lady") whose new book “This is Not a Pity Memoir” is now available.

"With her trademark deadpan, trenchant wit, and a deeply soulful mindfulness, Abi Morgan takes a breathtaking hike on the cliff edge of a life upended by illness. By turns harrowing, cracking sharp and heartbreaking, it is...comforting to accompany someone with her sense of humor and the absurd on this trip- (this) book is a gift to anyone who has been similarly unmoored by fate and the furies.” -- Meryl Streep

Our guest this week is Gaby Dunn. Gaby is a New York Times bestselling author, comedian, and LGBTQ advocate living in Los Angeles. They are the host and creator of the podcast Bad with Money with Gaby Dunn. Their new piece Stimulus Wreck: Rebuilding After a Financial Disaster is now available on exclusively on Scribd.