This week we kick off our Get Un-Gaslit Summer Reading Series with Greg Sargent, the author of the 2018 book An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics. Sargent is also known for writing The Plum Line blog for The Washington Post.
Read MoreHappy Fourth of July! In 1787, Benjamin Franklin famously declared “A republic – if you can keep it.” In these compiled interviews, experienced grassroots leaders tell us how we can keep our republic.
Read MoreWe join the women of the great podcast Mueller, She Wrote to debate a matter of vast geopolitical importance – the 1985 black comedy Clue! (In case you are counting, that’s one plus two plus one plus one people appearing on this show). Together we discuss why the McCarthy-era Clue explains so much about our Roy Cohn-created present, including our tenuous grasp on reality and our deep longing for alternative endings.
Read MoreThis week, we interview Billie Winner-Davis, a social worker and the mother of Reality Winner, an air force veteran and the former NSA contractor who provided The Intercept with an NSA report on the Kremlin’s hacking of US voting systems at a time when the issue was still largely being debated and the public kept very much in the dark.
Read MoreWe continue our interview with Andrea’s sister Alexandra Chalupa, the former DNC contractor who was one of the first people in the US to warn officials about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election. For the first time, Alexandra tells her story in depth in her own words, including how she discovered new Riker’s Island inmate Paul Manafort was conspiring with Russian actors to help Trump win, her unheeded warnings to the DNC about email hacks and Wikileaks, and the terrifying aftermath of the 2016 election.
Read MoreHey, it can talk! In this episode of Gaslit Nation, we break down Mueller’s surprise press conference on Thursday with a special guest – Alexandra Chalupa, the independent researcher who was one of the first people in the US to warn officials about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
Read MoreWe start off by looking at The Week The Mueller Probe Died in light of new information that’s been revealed since March. We go on to discuss the 2020 race, threats to election integrity, and the novelty of Elizabeth Warren.
Read MoreConstitutional law and voting rights attorney John Bonifaz answers our questions about one of the most contentious topics today – whether, when, and how to impeach Donald Trump. Bonifaz is the president and co-founder of Free Speech for People, a non-partisan advocacy group for a new constitutional amendment to limit campaign spending and repeal Citizens United, and the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush. He is also the co-author of the January 2019 op-ed “Time to Impeach Donald Trump” with Representative Rashida Tlaib.
Read MoreThis episode picks up where we left off last week in our breakdown of the Mueller Report, in particular the role of Paul Manafort who flagrantly announced his crimes and no one did anything to stop him; the constant underestimation of this transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government that spurred both the press and the Mueller probe to give them a pass; and the revelation that all fifty states were targeted and potentially compromised by Russia in 2016, despite earlier denials.
Read MoreAt long last, the Mueller Report is here, and we are…underwhelmed. In the first episode of a two-part Mueller Report Special, we do an overview of the bizarre sequence of events that led to the Barr Report and the Mueller Report, which have been eclipsed by propaganda and atrocious media coverage. We examine the contents of the report itself, and ask questions like: why did Mueller fail to indict? Why did it take two years for Mueller to release a report on crimes that were documented in the public domain? Since when is obstructing justice openly no longer obstructing justice at all?
Read MoreWe lay out, yet again, the urgent arguments for impeachment, and fact-check those we often hear against it. We also interview Alexandra Flores-Quilty (@AFQ_92) of the grassroots group By the People (@by_the_ppl) that works with Rep. Rashida Tlaib and other Congressional leaders to call for impeachment hearings. The worsening crisis at the U.S. border; the continued purge of our government leaving crucial key positions unfilled; threatening our national security and public safety; politically motivated attacks on investigators and other law enforcement; just this week alone strengthen the case.
Read MoreWe discuss the Barr memo fallout, the insipid media coverage, the unchecked assassins of Russia and Saudi Arabia, Ukraine's election, FBI purges, and more.
Read MoreAs we’ve said repeatedly at Gaslit Nation, the crisis in the US was never about Trump vs Mueller, but about corruption and exploitation – about massive institutional failure that worsened over multiple decades, culminating in a kleptocracy backed by a transnational crime syndicate. We discuss what’s next for the US and the world as the Trump team ramps up its autocratic goals.
Read MoreMarch 2019 marks the five-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. We explain why the fake referendum in Crimea is called a "referendum by gun point" and provide background on Russia's annexation which had been in the works since the mid-2000s. The story of human rights abuses that continue to this day in Russian-occupied Crimea are told through the political prisoner Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker kidnapped from Crimea and held in a Siberian penal colony on trumped up charges. Despite the harsh conditions, Sentsov defies the odds by continuing to produce art, including a feature film. His story is an urgent reminder to choose hope over despair.
Impeachment sends a message about who we are as a country and what we will accept and abide. The rule of law demands action. Refusing to take action is normalizing atrocity. Lawlessness must be confronted regardless of the outcome, as a matter of principle and conscience. Fighting only the battles that you know you will win is a sure way of ensuring you lose; preemptive surrender, in a rapidly consolidating autocracy, is permanent surrender. The American people have suffered enough under Trump; they should not have to suffer due to Pelosi’s capitulation as well. We all deserve better than this.
Read MoreLike Trump Tower Moscow, which was supposed to be the tallest building in Europe with a penthouse for mass-murderer Putin and an Ivanka Trump branded spa, the White House was another monument for Trump, in a long list of monuments he's built for himself over the years, and one that would help him and his family continue to live above the law.
We are thrilled to welcome Carole Cadwalladr to Gaslit Nation. Carole is an investigative journalist who breaks major stories on the Kremlin and Mercer-backed Brexit vote, revealing a cast of nefarious characters that were also behind the election of Donald Trump. Her brave reporting, which won her the Orwell Prize and makes her a target of hit pieces, has uncovered the growing vulnerability of elections in a time of kleptocracy.
Read MoreWe break down decades of intertwined corruption in both the US and the UK and urge officials to seek actual accountability, because time is running out. Kleptocracy anywhere is kleptocracy everywhere, and it is ordinary citizens who pay the most painful price.
Read MoreUkrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, the head of the independent media network Hromadske TV, co-founded by a journalist - Mustafa Nayyem - that launched the EuroMaidan revolution with a Facebook post, looks back on lessons from Ukraine for the West. The discussion includes important insights for understanding international conflicts generally, like Ukraine and Venezuela, by focusing on the people caught in the middle and resisting seeing the world as a geopolitical chessboard. Gumenyuk shares how, while covering the 2016 election in the U.S., she knew Trump would win. And she provides advice for Americans and journalists living in a political climate similar to Ukraine's given the Putin-puppet in power, enrichning himself and his family.
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