In 2005, the Clinton family's own foundation created a DVD compilation of times when Bill and Hillary brought the funny. We discuss A TIME TO LAUGH: THE CLINTONS' HUMOR (2005), and glean a little bit of insight into how the former First Family view themselves. PLUS: From an assassination attempt of the former U.S. president to a coup attempt on the current one, we've got a lot of news to catch up on.

Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

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The second round of elections in France and in Iran both yielded surprise results that we could characterize as historic, especially in France, and to be seen in Iran. Sebastian Budgen returns to discuss the French results, which upset Le Pen's far right RA and Macron's Center, putting the left New Popular Front in the strongest position in Parliament. How were the various organizations of the left able to come together so quickly in their new alliance? How did they achieve agreement with the center to get candidates in constituencies with 3 or 4 candidates to withdraw so that only the strongest candidate could face down the RA rightist candidate? What comes next? With the left now the majority force in France’s parliament, we get Sebastian’s take on the challenges it faces in implementing the popular proposals in their platform — and whether they can continue the alliance with the center to thwart the right.

Suzi also talks to Yassamine Mather to get her views on the surprise result in Iran’s second round. At a moment when the hardliners seemed fully in control, the Iranian people elected Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate reformer, as President. He won with 3 million votes over the regime insider and hardliner Ali Jalili, who mouthed all the regime’s hardline positions on internal security and foreign policy. It is a dramatic turn of events signaling the population’s desire for change. Pezeshkian focused on social reforms, economic improvement and renewed nuclear negotiations — and won, but his success depends on the Supreme Leader’s approval. We get Yassamine’s understanding of this result and ask if it sets the stage for potential change in Iran where the nation is grappling with deep-seated discontent, geopolitical turmoil, a crippled economy, rampant corruption, and a repressive regime.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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Richard Seymour, author of a recent rundown for New Left Review's Sidecar blog, discusses the British election. Trita Parsi talks about the Iranian election. Finally, we remember Jane McAlevey with a 2017 Behind the News interview. See a catalog of further interviews here: https://lbo-news.com/2024/07/11/jane-mcalevey-the-behind-the-news-interviews/

Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

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On July 4, voters in Britain went to the polls to elect a new government. Labour ended up with 411 seats in the House of Commons, while the Conservative Party had just 121.

At first glance, the result seems like a massive popular mandate for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. But we have to reckon with the British electoral system, which can give parties a large majority of seats without even a small majority of votes. Labour will form a government with less than 34 percent of the overall vote. That’s barely 2 percent more than the party achieved with Jeremy Corbyn as leader in 2019, on a much lower turnout.

The real story of the election was a Tory collapse. The Conservative vote share dropped by 20 percent. The right-wing Reform Party of Nigel Farage divided the right-wing bloc with its anti-immigrant platform. Reform received 14 percent of the vote, but only ended up with 5 seats.

For a conversation about the election and the future of British politics, Long Reads is joined by Phil Burton-Cartledge. Phil is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Derby, and he’s the author of a book about the Conservative Party called The Party’s Over.

Support for this podcast comes from Haymarket Books, offering free shipping on orders over $25 (or £20). One title you might enjoy is Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba.

Support also comes from A Sense of Rebellion, a new podcast from tech critic Evgeny Morozov that explores counterculture at the dawn of the digital revolution.

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

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It's Studio 60 vs the unions in Episode 17 ("The Disaster Show") of Aaron Sorkin's STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP. We're pleased to welcome Will Menaker (of Chapo Trap House and Movie Mindset fame) to help us make sense of Sorkin's perspective on organized labor. PLUS: So have you heard about Joe Biden?

This is an unlocked episode from our ongoing Patreon series about Studio 60.

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Robert Pape, author of a recent piece in Foreign Affairs, talks about how, despite Israel’s murderous onslaught on Gaza, Hamas is winning. Wanda Bertram discusses how US incarceration rates stack up against the rest of the world (massively) and other news on crime and punishment. See the Prison Policy Initiative's 2024 report: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html

Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

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Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FOURTEENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the rise of the Palestinian Revolution and then its explosion after the Arab defeat in the June War of 1967 with Israel. Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation and Palestine, and other factions launched an armed guerrilla struggle against Israel, engaging the Palestinian people in a full-scale mobilization for their liberation. Also: Ba'athists Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, as did Muammar Gaddafi’s Free Officers in Libya. 

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Journalist Marc Cooper and historian Robert Brenner join Suzi in conversation following the painful first presidential debate held on June 27. Most of the immediate post mortems are panicked responses and calls for Biden to step out of the race. We go beneath the surface to parse the issues discussed or omitted, and ask what they think is now possible in the remaining months before the election. We also look at the way CNN handled, or mishandled, the debate itself, with no attempt to fact check or challenge falsehoods. Finally we look at the danger of a possible second Trump term for the US and the world.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can go looking for the zeitgeist, but only the zeitgeist can find you. That's what the makers of countless pieces of failed Oscar bait have learned. In this special episode, we run through some of the most legendary failed Oscar bait of the last 25 years and speculate why they didn't catch anything. PLUS: presidential libraries, the Obama Foundation, and an autobiographical novel from an unlikely Hollywood star.

Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sebastian Budgen, Editorial Director of Verso Books, splits his time between London and Paris. He joins us to discuss the surprising elections called in each country.

In the UK, Rishi Sunak called a general election for July 4 at what seems like the worst time for Tory rule. And across the pond, Emmanuel Macron called a snap election in France for June 30 and July 7 after Marine Le Pen’s far right Rassemblement National swept the European elections on June 9. He didn’t have to do it, any more than Sunak did, though Macron’s government isn’t teetering like Sunak’s.

Why now? Conventional wisdom holds that Macron called the election after the right trounced the center in the European elections because he was certain the divisions in the left would make him the rational choice, apparently betting that the center can hold. But the left responded to this new reality, getting its act together and forming a New Popular Front consisting of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise, the Parti Socialiste, the Greens, and the Communist Party. According to the NYT on June 21, the new coalition is increasingly well-positioned to form a new government that could weaken Macron’s grip on power.

In the UK, PM Rishi Sunak called a general election for July 4 at a terrible time for his government. Whereas Macron is unpopular, Sunak’s Tories are falling apart after fourteen years in power. What’s behind both these elections? What are the possible outcomes? To get a deeper analysis and perspective, we turn to Sebastian Budgen in Paris.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.