"American Extremists Aiding Radicals Across Border," trumpeted the Detroit Free Press in 1919. "707 Illegal Aliens Arrested in Checkpoint Crackdown," reported the Los Angeles Times in 1987. "87 Bronx gang members responsible for nine years of murders and drug-dealing charged in largest takedown in NYC history," announced the New York Daily News in 2016. "'Top secret' Hamas documents show that terrorists intentionally targeted elementary schools and a youth center," claimed NBC News in 2023.

Each of these headlines includes a label for a certain type of Bad Guy. Whether it’s the "Extremist," the "Illegal Alien," the "Gang Member," or the "Terrorist," these terms—and their cousins—seek to exceptionalize the alleged transgressions of their targets, separate them from both the law and history and dehumanize them, all while priming media audiences for crueler laws, harsher policing, longer incarceration and sometimes even extrajudicial punishment. The terms, of course, don’t have clear, universally accepted definitions—nor are they supposed to—their use is often heavily racialized and, by their very nature, subject to the whims and ideologies of the Security State and the media doing its bidding.

What effects, then, do these Bad Guy Labels have on public perceptions? How do they serve to foreclose critical thinking about who is deemed inside the bounds of due process and humanization and who is categorically an other in urgent need of disappearing and punishment?

On this episode, we examine four thought-terminating Bad Guy labels, analyze their origins, why they rose to prominence and explain how they are selectively evoked in order to turn off people’s brains and open up space for quick and cruel state violence.

Our guest is attorney and author Alec Karakatsanis.

"Poverty plan hit for fraud, waste," reported the Associated Press in 1966. "Study says government waste is unbelievable,” insisted United Press International in 1983. "Beneath Trump’s Chaotic Spending Freeze: An Idea That Crosses Party Lines," announced The New York Times in January of this year.

It’s an argument that dates back decades, even centuries: Government is bloated, spending wastefully, and enabling widespread fraud and abuse. The only solution to this waste, fraud, and abuse is to root it out. Cutting salaries, personnel, or entire programs or agencies, it follows, will streamline government bodies, saving millions to billions of dollars. 

But who gets to decide what’s “wasteful” in the first place? How are these concepts routinely racialized? What effect does it have on a public dependent on social programs and essential government services like safety inspections? And why should governments be expected to “save” money, when their job—at least in theory— isn’t to make money in the first place, but—again in theory—improve the welfare of its citizens? On this episode, we detail the past and present of the “waste, fraud, and abuse” framing, looking at how it’s long been used to justify the degradation of essential social programs; mischaracterize governments as businesses; and weaken protections for workers, renters, and everyone else who isn’t a capital-owning member of the elite. 

Our guest is Death Panel's Beatrice Adler-Bolton.

"Senate Weighs Investing $120 Billion in Science to Counter China," trumpeted The New York Times in 2021. "A New Economic Patriotism Can Help Unite Our Divided Congress," argued Newsweek in 2023. "US cedes ground to China with ‘self-inflicted wound’ of USAid shutdown, analysts say," cautioned The Guardian in 2025. In recent years, we’ve been exposed to the latest version of a centuries-old geopolitical message: We all have a common enemy, and we all need to unite to fight it by making our own country stronger. That enemy—most commonly China—is threatening to outpace, if it isn’t already outpacing, the US in infrastructural investment, educational programs, technological development, and elsewhere, and we need to devote millions, billions, even trillions of dollars to restoring the vitality of our institutions in order to reverse this trend. But why must defeating an "enemy" be the justification for policy that has the potential to benefit the public? Why should we just accept the premise that there must be an "enemy" to compete against and defeat? Why can’t policy be enacted for the sole purpose of improving people’s lives? And how does this messaging about the threat of a looming adversary serve the ruling class? On this episode, we detail the timeworn trope of the common enemy as a "unifying" device, looking at how increasingly so-called progressives are appealing to feel-good sentiments of unity and to the genuine needs for sound infrastructure, robust social safety nets, corporate regulation, and functional institutions in order to sell the idea that there is, and always will be, a shadowy bad guy that must be vanquished.  Our guest is historian, professor and author Greg Grandin.

In this public News Brief, we discuss the media and high-profile Democratic Party leaders and 'Free Speech' crowd's muted—or, in many cases, completely silent—response to the greatest attack on free speech in recent memory: Trump's kidnapping and disappearing of Palestinian solidarity students.

“Israel built an ‘AI factory’ for war. It unleashed it in Gaza,” laments the Washington Post. “Hospitals Are Reporting More Insurance Denials. Is AI Driving Them?,” reports Newsweek. “AI Raising the Rent? San Francisco Could Be the First City to Ban the Practice,” announces San Francisco’s KQED.

Within the last few years, and particularly the last few months, we’ve heard this refrain: AI is the reason for an abuse committed by a corporation, military, or other powerful entity. All of a sudden, the argument goes, the adoption of “faulty” or “overly simplified” AI caused a breakdown of normal operations: spikes in health insurance claims denials, the skyrocketing of consumer prices, the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. If not for AI, it follows, these industries and militaries, in all likelihood, would implement fairer policies and better killing protocols.

We’ll admit: the narrative seems compelling at first glance. There are major dangers in incorporating AI into corporate and military procedures. But in these cases, the AI isn’t the culprit; the people making the decisions are. UnitedHealthcare would deny claims regardless of the tools at its disposal. Landlords would raise rents with or without automated software. The IDF would kill civilians no matter what technology was, or wasn’t, available to do so. So why do we keep hearing that AI is the problem? What’s the point of this frame and why is it becoming so common as a responsibility-avoidance framing?

On today’s episode, we’ll dissect the genre of “investigative” reporting on the dangers of AI, examining how it serves as a limited hangout, offering controlled criticism while ultimately shifting responsibility toward faceless technologies and away from powerful people.

Later on the show, we’ll be speaking with Steven Renderos, Executive Director of MediaJustice, a national racial justice organization that advances the media and technology rights of people of color. He is the creator and co-host, with the great Brandi Collins-Dexter, Bring Receipts, a politics and pop culture podcast and is executive producer of Revolutionary Spirits, a 4-part audio series on the life and martyrdom of Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco Madero.

In this Citations Needed News Brief interview, we're joined by Rutgers professor Eric Blanc to discuss his new book "We Are The Union," and lay out how any meaningful resistance to Trump and Trumpism has to be grounded in a growing, strong, confrontational labor movement.

In this News Brief, we detail how Center-Left institutions and media have cynically wielded "lived experience" claptrap to assist Trump's overtly fascistic crackdown on dissenting speech.

“It’s fair to call the deteriorating situation at the US/Mexican border a crisis,” declared NBC’s Meet the Press in 2021. “[CNN anchor Dana] Bash presses Netanyahu on Gaza death toll: 'Is Israel doing everything possible to... avoid civilian casualties?',” boasted CNN’s State of the Union in 2023. “Principle over party… The latest high-profile Republican endorsement for Harris. And she got another Cheney endorsement,” announced ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

These shows – ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s State of the Union, CBS’s Face the Nation – are fixtures of a major genre of television: the Sunday morning news show. Since the 1940s, these weekly shows have featured panel interviews with government officials, lawmakers, candidates, and other political figures, usually from the US, as part of their stated missions to “tackle pressing issues,” produce robust discourse on current events, and hold electeds and aspiring electeds accountable.

A relic from a different era, these Sunday News Show still loom large today. No, they don’t have particularly high ratings, but much like the role editorial boards of major newspapers play, they matter to people who matter. They shape the agenda and tell lawmakers, advisers, CEOs and other people who wield power across our political, economic and social systems what to care about that week and how to analyze the current moment.

But to what extent do they serve any real journalistic function? To what extent do they actually ask difficult and challenging questions? Do the Sunday morning shows truly illuminate our political moments and interrogate the powerful, or essentially do the opposite? And what effect do these shows, known for “setting the agenda” in Washington, have on policymakers, news media, and the public?

On this episode, we discuss the history, ideology, and effects of Sunday morning news shows, look at how—despite their lofty claims to challenging journalism—they prioritize and revel in prestige and access, flattering existing power structures and further enabling reactionary policy.

Our guest is FAIR's Julie Hollar.

In this Beg-a-Thon live show, "Ancient Rome and the False Histories Inspiring Musk & the MAGA World," with guest Dr. Sarah E. Bond, we discuss Sarah's new book, Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire, and how Elon Musk and everyone in his MAGA orbit appropriate the aesthetics of Rome while understanding almost nothing about the history they're seemingly so infatuated with.

Originally livestreamed on YouTube on Wednesday, February 19.