OK Talks

Another year come and gone - one I believe will go down in the history books as not-great overall. In this episode, I look at a couple of reasons why I believe the last calendar year was bad specifically vis-à-vis the promotion and preservation of democracy, from the effective return of Trump, to the Middle East, to the war in Ukraine. Views my own.

While the US has yet to elect a woman president (despite Hillary Clinton having received by far the most votes in 2016) and Republican states race each other to enact the most restrictive abortion laws they can conceive of, the neighbors south of the border are going in a rather different direction on both counts. In this episode I'm joined by Marta Treviño Leyva and Edgar Lopez Vallejo to discuss the, for lack of a better term or imagination on my part, "women in politics moment" happening in Mexico. Views our own.

In this episode, I look at the two big political stories out of the US this week: the dismal poll numbers for President Biden that caused the entire Democratic Party to go into a meltdown to begin the week, and then the very good showing barely a day later in the elections in a number of states.

I consider the intersection of these two stories, what it means for the next elections, and what it says about the Democratic Party.

Views my own.

After weeks of chaos and dysfunction, the Republicans in the House have finally settled on a new Speaker after turfing out Trump stooge Kevin McCarthy. The new guy is a little-known relative newcomer to Congress, but it turns out he is basically Gym Jordan with an inside voice. I explore how we got here and the implications. Views my own.

In this episode, I follow up on various themes explored in Episode 54 re the latest Israel-Hamas conflict, with a particular focus on the atrocious media coverage of the hospital explosion. I also have a look at the chaos in American domestic politics as Republicans fail yet again to pick a Speaker of the House. Views my own.

In this episode, I'm joined by Polish political organizing strategist and co-founder of Akcja Demokracja Weronika Paszewska to discuss the political earthquake that just took place in Eastern Europe. Poland just to oust the far-right authoritarian Law and Justice Party, which has spent nearly the last decade undermining democracy in one of the most important countries in the EU.

Views our own.

On October 7th, the Palestinian Islamic extremist organization Hamas carried out the worst mass-killing of Jews since the Holocaust. In this episode, I look at some of the tragic realities of the attack, what it means for Israelis and Palestinians, and what could happen next locally and at the broader regional level. Views my own.

Oh - here, by the way, is the link to Ali Rizvi's excellent Twitter thread that I draw on in the episode: https://twitter.com/aliamjadrizvi/status/1711867766334992468

This week, America avoided one crisis (a government shutdown) but faced another (albeit hilarious) one: the tragic fall of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. In this episode, I dig into the increasing problem in the U.S. of government-by-crisis, and take a look at the end of Kevin McCarthy, some of the absurd attempts by Republicans to apportion blame, and what might come next. Views my own.

It looks almost inevitable that the Republicans are going to drive the US off a cliff this week with a government shutdown. In this episode I explain what this means in practical and theoretical terms, and how this whole ridiculous exercise came into being. I also have a look at some of the most absurd stories to come out of Trumpworld this week.

Views my own.

In this episode I swing back to the theme of Republican hypocrisy, focusing in on the question of the proper handling of classified information, and profound irony of a man who won the Presidency by demagoguing Hillary Clinton's alleged mishandling of a few classified documents having then turned around and used highly classified materials as scratch paper. Views my own.

Oh, and here's the link to the Columbia Journalism Review study of media coverage of the Clinton 2016 race that I mention in the podcast.

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/fake-news-media-election-trump.php