Produced by KSQD 90.7, 89.5 & 89.7FM 

“Be Bold America!”

Aired March 6, 2026 at 5:00pm (PT)

“America presents an egregious paradox – it has both the most expensive healthcare and the shortest life expectancy in the West." - Robert Sapolsky

Living in the United States today means surviving in a society where the social fabric has been ravaged. 

How healthy you are is dependent on where you live. Americans suffer, more cancers, heart disease, mental illness, and chronic diseases than those who live in other wealthy nations, despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the world. 

Why? 

This Interview will embark on a journey to unravel the profound impact of public policies on American health from before birth in the book

"Born Sick in the USA" by Stephen Bezruchka, PhD.

Delve into the intricate web where economic inequality weaves a tapestry of sickness stemming from a highly stressed society.

Interview Guest:

Stephen Bezruchka, M.D., M.P.H. is Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Health Systems & Population Health and of Global Health at the School of Public Health, University of Washington. At UW he received the 2002 Outstanding Teacher Award, the 2008 Faculty Community Service Award, the 2017 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, and the 2018 Communicating Public Health to the Public Award. 

Dr. Stephen Bezruchka is a returning guest. His previous interview was on his book, Inequality Kills Us All, and was one of the most listened to "Be Bold America!" podcasts.

Dr. Bezruchka serves on the board of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, whose parent organization has shared two Nobel Peace Prizes. There he developed the Economic Inequity Health Task Force. He launched the Population Health Forum in 1998, which presents many of the ideas in this book. His previous books include The Pocket Doctor: A Passport to Healthy Travel; A Guide to Trekking in Nepal, with the 8th edition appearing in 2011; Nepali for Trekkers; and Altitude Illness: Prevention & Treatment. These books have been translated into other languages.

(Live streams, worldwide, on any electronic device. Visit the ksqd.org website)

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The Last American President: A Broken Man, A Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink

February 6, 2026 at 5:00pm (PT)

Democracy is dying. And we handed the killer the weapon.

The countdown has begun. As fascism spreads globally and climate catastrophe accelerates, Thom Hartmann exposes the terrifying endgame: a second Trump presidency that doesn’t just end American democracy – it triggers humanity's extinction. "The Last American President", through meticulous research and unflinching analysis, reveals how political cowardice and corporate greed created the perfect storm, threatening our species survival and our country.

Donald Trump didn’t break America – he’s the inevitable product of a system designed to create him. This explosive investigation reveals the chilling truth: from his brutal childhood to Roy Cohen’s mentorship and shamelessness, from a corrupted Republican Party to billionaire puppet masters, Trump was manufactured by the very institutions meant to protect us.

This is our final warning.

Interview Guest:

Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host whose shows are available in over a half-billion homes worldwide. He's the New York Times bestselling, 4-times Project Censored Award-winning author of over 24 books, in print in 17 languages, on five continents. Thom Hartmann's daily articles may be found at his Substack page titled: The Hartmann Report. Thom's wife, Louise Hartmann, contributes by writing lyrics for a Daily Song, created in folksong style.

Talkers Magazine named Thom Hartmann as the 10th most important talk show host in America in 2019 and has been in the top ten for over a decade and is the #1 most important progressive host, in their “Heavy Hundred” ranking.  The Thom Hartmann Program is heard on KSQD every weekday at 4:00pm.

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American Kompromat - Kompromat: noun, Russian for “Compromising Information”

January 2, 2026 at 5:00pm (PT)

American Kompromat is "the counterintelligence that was promised by the Mueller Report but which failed to materialize" - Journal of Cyber Policy

Craig Unger's bestseller, American Kompromat, shows that something much more sinister has been taking place than the public could ever imagine–that from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, kompromat operations documented the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world and transform them into potent weapons.

American Kompromat is based on extensive, exclusive interviews with dozens of high-level sources–Soviets who defected from the KGB, former officers in the CIA, FBI counterintelligence agents, lawyers at white shoe Washington firms–and analysis of thousands of pages of FBI investigations, police investigations, and news articles from across the globe.

Is Donald Trump a Russian asset? How could such an audacious feat have been accomplished? Craig Unger will answer these questions and more by explaining the operations that amassed compromising information on the richest and most powerful men on earth.

Interview Guest:

Craig Unger is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellers House of Trump, House of Putin and House of Bush, House of Saud.  For 15 years, he was a contributing editor at vanity fair, covering National Security, the Middle East, and other political issues. A frequent television analyst, he was a longtime staffer at New York Magazine, served as editor and chief of Boston magazine, and has contributed to Esquire, The New Yorker, and many other publications. Craig Unger has written about the Trump-Russia scandal for The New Republic, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. His graduate of Harvard University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday, December 15, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“First they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.” – Maria Ressa

Every year, Project Censored highlights the vital stories that corporate media underreported, exposes rampant news abuse, and tracks emerging threats against the press from financial and political powers

“State of the Free press 2025” comes at a time when trust in the media is at an all-time low.  A 2024 Pew Research Poll found that a remarkable 73 percent of adult Americans believe a free press is either extremely or very important to the well-being of society—though only a third of those polled believe that US media are completely free to report news.

Half of those surveyed believe that US news organizations are influenced a great deal by corporate/financial or government/political interests. Reporters Without Borders gave the US a score of 66.59 out of a possible 100 points in their 2024 World Press Freedom Index—a drop of nearly five points from 2023.

Tragically, 2024 stands out as the year that the corporate media failed to adequately cover Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and the threat it poses to the whole world. With their gaze trained elsewhere, the powerful got a pass from the very institution that should hold them to account.

In 2023 Reporters Without Borders labeled US press freedom “satisfactory;” in 2024, they called it “problematic.”

Interview Guest:

SHEALEIGH VOITL is the digital and print editor at Project Censored. She first began her research with the Project at North Central College alongside Steve Macek, co-authoring the Déjá Vu News chapter in the State of the Free Press 2022 and 2023 yearbooks, and the Top 25 chapter in SFP 2023. 

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday,

December 1, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“Severe problems of democracy are much in the news, but actually go way back to the beginning of the country. We now want to look at how both the deep state and American fascist forces played a key role from the very beginning of the United States.” – Charles Derber, Professor of Sociology at Boston College

The two “deep states” of cultural and ideological ideals, as well as their clashing trade and other economic interests, led, as in many marriages, to an increasingly troubled relationship, that led ultimately to a violent divorce and military destruction of the Confederate deep state. But it did not end the enduring legacy of both deep states that shapes our nation’s divisive politics today.

A MAGA conspiratorial concept is that there is a “deep state.” But could there be a very real “deeper state” that has been evident throughout history, back to the founding of American democracy?

Interview Guest:

Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College and has written 26 books - on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, culture and conversation, and social change. His bestselling books include The Pursuit of Attention and the Wilding of America. He writes for and has been reviewed in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Truthout, and other leading media. 

His books are translated into 14 languages including Chinese, Korean, Tamil, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish- and he is a bestseller in South Korea, done extended book tours in German bookstores and blues coffee houses, and has lectured in Italy in June for seven years. Derber is a public intellectual - shortlisted in 2006 by the American Independent Booksellers Association for Hidden Power, the best book in current affairs - who believes that serious ideas should be written in an accessible and entertaining style. His most recent books include Dying for Capitalism(https://ksqd.org/are-we-dying-from-capitalism/), Welcome to the Revolution, Moving Beyond Fear, Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States; Capitalism: Should You Buy It?

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday,

November 17, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“Wishing that things worked one way or another is not the same as knowing how things work. It’s when we all know how things work that we can impact things, from democracy itself to a local development project in your neighborhood.” – Fred Keeley, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, California

How does the 5th largest economy in the world … work?

What are some true stories about how California is leading the world toward a better future, from protecting women’s and voter’s rights to building a sustainable energy infrastructure? These true stories are not naïve or full of starry-eyed optimism. 

The book “How California Works”, acknowledges that many Californians, well, lets’ face it … people the world over … are confronting a myriad of crises. Yet, individuals and organizations throughout California, maybe imperfectly, are making our state better, fairer, and a safer place.

How are they doing it? The word “citizen” is a verb.

Interview Guest:

Jonathan Vankin is a senior writer for California Local and an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Salon, L.A. Weekly and many others. He is the author of four previous nonfiction books, including Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes—the first comprehensive, journalistic investigation of America's conspiracy-theory underground, foreshadowing the current state of sociopolitical affairs by two decades—and more recently Close to Zero, a full account of Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Jonathan Vankin has also written comic books, TV, screenplays, and even the "book" for a hit Off-Broadway musical, Forever Dusty, about the great British pop star Dusty Springfield. He has made numerous media appearances on such networks as CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, the BBC and the CBC, as well as numerous podcasts and hundreds of radio stations.

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"Be Bold America!" Sunday, November 3, 2024

“A vote for Trump is a vote for fascism and a betrayal of American democracy and for everything it stands.”  - Judge J. Michael Luttig (R), Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, retired

Listen to this fast-paced interview that covers Congress, Fox News, the Media, Mass Deportation, the Climate Crisis, Voting,  and Oligarchs as they relate to:

What will our lives be like in our country if Trump wins? 

What will our lives be like in our country if Harris wins? 

And, if Harris wins, what will life be like after the voters rejected the billionaire-funded Republican candidate and their rightwing Agenda 47 and Project 2025 plans? 

It has come to this.

After fifty years of implementing a velvet coup, Tuesday (election day) we have been forced into deciding between two very different Americas. Elect Harris/ Walz and we continue with a democracy and the Rule of Law our founders designed. Elect Trump/Vance and our original form of government is gone and an authoritarian regime supplants it as being Above the Law.

As Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University, recently stated: “If Trump wins; America ends.” 

INTERVIEW GUEST:

Bette Dangerous, also known as Heidi Siegmund Cuda, is an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, filmmaker, and bestselling author. She writes about American politics, culture, and Russian active measures at her Bette Dangerous substack magazine and is a political columnist and US correspondent for Byline Supplement and Byline Times. Her column Hot Type appears weekly in Byline Supplement. She is the co-host and producer of RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast, an investigative show about disinformation and radicalization.

https://www.bettedangerous.com

https://www.bylinesupplement.com

https://youtube.com/@radicalizedpod

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What does each political party mean by “The American Dream” when they invoke this touchstone of American success? 

Our comprehending the difference between the Democratic and Republican definitions of “The American Dream” provides us a clear understanding of each political party’s motivations and the future they would design for America and whether or not "The American Dream" could be renewed.

Before Ronald Reagan’s presidency the middle class was 66% of the country. Now, it is 43%.

Interview Guest:

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author of over thirty books and has been America’s #1 progressive talk radio show host for more than a decade. His influential show is carried on SiriusXM and radio stations nationwide, and it is simulcast as a television program on Free Speech TV.

Hartmann's latest series of books, titled Hidden History, tackles critical subjects such as guns, healthcare, the Supreme Court, democracy, voting rights among others. His newest release, The Hidden History of the American Dream: The Demise of the Middle Class―and How to Rescue Our Future, explores the erosion of the American middle class and offers actionable solutions to restore economic opportunity and fairness. With his incisive commentary and well-researched insights, Thom Hartmann continues to be a trusted voice in progressive media, engaging audiences with his articulate analysis of today's most pressing issues.

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

How do historic documents show that fire suppression was driven by explicit racist and colonial beliefs? Is there nothing in American history that isn’t based in racism in some way? Well, fire suppress in California is and learn how in this "BurnScars", KSQD podcast during interviews with Dr. Char Miller and Dr. Peter Hess. 

There have been efforts to suppress fire in California since the 18th century Spanish invasion continuing through the US Forest Service’s relentless nationwide campaign in the 20th century. The Forest Service argues that suppression is critical for good forest management especially, but not exclusively, in the American West. Yet, in recent years, suppression has come under increasing scrutiny as a contributing factor to our current climate crisis exacerbated era of mega-wildfires.

Interview Guest:

Dr. Char Miller is an award-winning teacher and writer. Dr. Miller is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College. His new book is “Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning.” Dr. Miller’s previous book was Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet and Peril, and he also authored: West Side Rising: How San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement, and Theodore Roosevelt: Naturalist in the Arena. Dr. Miller is a senior fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Corresponding Member of the Society of American Foresters and a Fellow of the Forest History Society.

Guest CoHost:

Dr. Peter M. J. Hess earned his M.A. in Oxford and his Ph.D. in History in Berkeley, and writes and lectures on the relationship between religion, culture and sciences.  A former Director of Outreach of the National Center for Science Education, Peter is the author of Catholicism and Science and of numerous articles and book chapters on religious and ethical aspects of climate disruption.  Dr. Hess is qualified as a Firefighter Type Two (FFT2) and is co-founder of the Lake County Prescribed Burn Association, a consortium of trained fire practitioners. Dr. Hess is currently writing a paper for the Sierra Club on the similarities and differences between ancient cultural burning practiced by indigenous tribes in California, and the prescribed burning increasingly practiced by forest agencies, municipalities, and private groups. Dr. Hess is also a contributing chapter author in “Climate Abandoned: We’re on the Endangered Species List.”

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“The coast is never saved. It’s always being saved” - Rosanna Xia

Along California’s 1,200-mile coastline, the overheated Pacific Ocean is rising and pressing in, imperiling both wildlife and the maritime towns and cities that 27 million people call home. 

What are the impacts of engineered landscapes, the market pressures of development, and the ecological activism and political scrimmages that have carved up our contemporary coastline? Do they foretell even greater changes to our shores?

 Hear about the beaches from the Mexican border to the sheer-cliffed North Coast; from the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small town mayors, urban engineers, and tenacious environmental scientists on the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future.

Interview Guest:

Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. Her award-winning book, California Against the Sea, has been praised as a beautiful and revelatory exploration of how we relate to the natural world.