Krystal Kyle & Friends

This week, the story at the front of our minds is the recent unwelcome development on the budget bill: because establishment Democrats like Manchin and Sinema are determined to deliver for their corporate donors, Americans won’t be getting the broad Medicare expansion, paid family leave, and free community college provisions that they were promised, among other things. As KK&F alum David Sirota points out in a Jacobin piece co-authored with Andrew Perez, there won’t be any building back better until the Democratic Party breaks its ties with big money. In the meantime, we’re getting scraps in the middle of the COVID crisis — and from climate change to infrastructure and basic welfare measures, our government can’t be trusted to deliver as long as it answers to corporate lucre.

We’re welcoming Jordan Chariton to the show this week, getting his expert’s insight into building an independent media platform, tracking the stories he’s following on the ground and documenting with everyday Americans’ perspectives, and delving into the week’s political developments. You can also hear this podcast on major streaming platforms like Pandora, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

This week's guest, Jonah Furman, gives us a crash course on why John Deere workers are striking, why the proposed contract was a no-go, and what’s at stake for the labor movement at large.

Taking a look at the conditions that brought the workers to reject the proposed contract, John Deere management is using a strategy dating back to the beginning of capitalist exploitation: dividing workers to prevent them from uniting behind common interests. But instead of accepting these divisions, Deere workers are fighting back. In this episode, we discuss how.

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This week, Ken Klippenstein joined us for Episode 42 of Krystal Kyle and Friends, giving us the scoop on national security, the political clout of big business, what’s new with the Left’s best friend Kyrsten Sinema, and our current media landscape. Recently, Ken has broken big stories for the Intercept on Kyrsten Sinema’s class on fundraising (leave it to the experts!) and CIA-backed Afghan resistance leaders fleeing the country. In his free time, you can find him filing FOIA requests and cultivating his famous Twitter presence (we discuss how it’s affected his work life). Thanks for joining us, and don’t forget to subscribe if you’d like access to Friday video posts.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

How can we contextualize Biden's leadership style with the Obama years? How do the important deals get made in US politics — and what can leftist agitators do to make the deals they want to make?

We address questions like these with this week's guest: Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for the Washington Post. From the budget bill to the debt ceiling and beyond, Jeff speaks to the key political and economic struggles of the moment, the role our president is playing in them, and how they will affect the American people. We're grateful to him for joining us.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

This week, David Sirota joined us on Krystal Kyle & Friends to discuss everything from his latest foray into film to his perspective on current events, particularly the holdup of the budget. David explains the strategy corporate lobbyists are pushing to kill the reconciliation bill — breaking its link to the infrastructure bill, which they hope to pass.

By joining the bills, however, progressives in the Senate have created a “take it or leave it” situation for Kyrsten Sinema, who will need to support the reconciliation bill in order to keep her corporate donors happy. Pulling a missed lesson from the Obama era, David argues that delivering big, substantive change for the American people will be the Democrats’ real key to building support for upcoming elections — not patting themselves on the back for victories that are too little, too late.

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In this week’s episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends, we discuss current events alongside the history of corporate greed condoned by the government. This is told through the lens of the 2008 financial crash, a story brilliantly brought together in the documentary The Con by writer/director Eric Vaughan and producer Patrick Lovell. Vaughan and Lovell join us to explain how the story of government regulation figures into the timeline of the crash: How was the corruption of the financial sector enabled by our political landscape, and how are we still paying the price for this setup? Vaughan and Lovell have the answers.

Audio of this conversation is available on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and more. Thanks for tuning in.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

Hi all: here’s a reminder about the weekly Krystal Kyle & Friends posting schedule. Paid subscribers receive videos of our weekly conversation at 9pm on Fridays through Substack. Audio conversations are available through Substack, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, and more on Saturday evenings, and we post a weekly sneak peek on Tuesdays at 9pm. To become a paying subscriber, just press the button below.

Thanks to Russell Brand for joining us on Krystal Kyle & Friends this week to discuss his political philosophy, the future of struggle against inequality and his current work “infusing political discourse with spiritual ideas.” We also had to get his views on Nicki Minaj/ballgate, Candace Owens, and AOC’s “tax the rich” dress. We hope you enjoy!

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This week, we’re joined by Faiz Shakir as we dive into the left pressures on the Biden administration, the challenges and rewards of creating independent media, the future of the reconciliation package, and much more.

After the Bernie campaign, Faiz has shifted to independent media work, founding More Perfect Union — which provides coverage of the labor movement, from the unionization effort in Bessemer to the current strike among Nabisco workers. He tells us about his experiences sharing working-class stories that have been excluded from mainstream coverage and bringing these critical issues to light. It’s a conversation we think you’ll enjoy.

Audio of this conversation is available on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

Krystal Kyle & Friends gets psychological this week — with a little help from our friends Charlie and Ben of Charisma on Command. In this episode, we dig into the famous personalities of the 2016 election (and how Hillary’s false. poorly-acted “outsider” role may have cost her public support), Democrats’ poor campaigning tactics for the California gubernatorial recall election, and much more.

But Charlie and Ben’s analysis of charismatic, engaging behavior extends beyond politics and into the realm of personal life. What qualities draw other people toward you? How can you strengthen those qualities in order to build your relationships and lead a more fulfilling life? Our guests lay it out for us — what they’ve explored in Charisma on Command, and what they’ve learned from work and life.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

In this week’s episode with guest Matthew Hoh, we strip away the layers of deception and manipulation that have been used to manufacture public consent for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Whether the supporters of America’s ruling class are weaponizing the stories of Afghan women and girls’ suffering to call for war, or claiming that the U.S.’s business in Afghanistan is that of building schools instead of destroying lives — or even calling for the U.S. to arm the mujahideen again — we hear far too little from the people whose lives have been put on the line by American imperial interests. How is it possible to reject the falsehoods we’ve been fed over the past two decades? That question drives this week’s conversation with Matthew Hoh.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe