Krystal Kyle & Friends

This week, we were lucky enough to invite Briahna Joy Gray onto Krystal Kyle & Friends. Former senior politics editor for the  Intercept  and national press secretary for Bernie 2020, current host of  Bad Faith  podcast and  Current Affairs  contributing editor, Briahna has brought her gifts to the American left in a number of ways, and we had the opportunity to talk to her about her work and poli...

You might be inclined to think that the story of drug criminalization begins with the Reagan administration, or with the culture of substance use in the Sixties. Ismail Ali says otherwise. Ismail is this week’s guest on Krystal Kyle & Friends; he’s from MAPS [Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies], an organization that produces research on the healing and therapeutic potential of p...

This week, we were honored to hold a discussion with Gabriel and John Shipton, the brother and father of American hero Julian Assange. As we mention in our introduction to this conversation, the violations of First Amendment rights and basic human rights that led to Assange’s incarceration have an impact on all of us. We’re humbled to share this episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends with you. In our l...

We’re thrilled to report that Hasan Piker — you know him as HasanAbi, the wildly popular leftist Twitch streamer and commentator — joined us for this week’s episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends. Hasan provided his trademark keen insight on the key leftist struggles of our moment, what’s wrong with the infighting among leftist political commentators, how we can productively critique progressive lawmak...

On to this week’s episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends. We brought siblings David and Margaret Talbot onto the show to talk about their work unearthing and portraying leftist history. For historians of the ‘60s and ‘70s, one of the most pressing questions to ask is: What did the revolutionary movements of this period get right, and where did they go wrong? Of course, David and Margaret give us though...

I’ve come to believe that this is the defining characteristic of my generation:  keeping our options open. Pete Davis begins his 2021 book  Dedication: The Case for Commitment  by describing the modern refusal to commit with a low-stakes example. “Infinite browsing mode” is perfectly captured by an evening spent trawling the full Netflix database, rejecting each movie option in case a better one c...

We’re honored to be joined by political activist and actress Rose McGowan for this week’s episode, discussing the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party, the culture of fear and violence in Hollywood, and the solidarity of the ruling class — from the CIA to the media. For Rose, the story of the Democratic Party is the story of a cult: Google the definition, she suggests, and it’s all too obvious. The d...

With the announcement of Breaking Points , Krystal’s new independent YouTube show and podcast with co-host Saagar Enjeti, it’s been a whirlwind week. Big things are coming on Krystal Kyle & Friends, too. We’re bringing Rose McGowan on the show to discuss the cult of the Democratic Party, the struggle to bring Harvey Weinstein to justice, and the ways that social media platforms protect dangerous p...

As this week’s guest on Krystal Kyle & Friends, Vaush had plenty to discuss with us. Because of his experience as a debater and his political identification as a leftist, we brought up the big issues — how leftists should regard the Biden presidency, the legacy of Bernie or Bust, supporting Palestine — and Vaush didn’t disappoint. Without further ado, here’s the newest episode of Krystal Kyle & Fr...

As continued Israeli violence against Palestinians led to a Palestinian  general strike,  we had the opportunity to speak with Abby Martin about mainstream coverage of the apartheid — and about how Israel, aided by the U.S.’s imperialist interests, has controlled the narrative. This comes at a time when journalists willing to support Palestinian liberation face silencing and  punishment.  Days aft...

We were so grateful to have Rania Khalek as our guest for Episode 20 of Krystal Kyle & Friends. Rania gave us her insight into Israel’s current ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, taking us through the past history of the Israeli occupation and the conditions of Israeli military rule. At a time when all of our minds and hearts are with the oppressed people of Palestine, we truly appreciated Rania’s...

For some, the prospect of an automated future heralds an era of robotic convenience. For others, it is another fateful step on the journey toward a cybernetic dystopia. But for many, the prospect of an automated future raises only one immediate question: what will happen if a robot takes my job? So begins James Suzman’s compelling and thorough history of work, beginning at the dawn of the Stone Ag...

It was an honor to be joined this week by Dr. Cornel West, celebrated author, philosopher, and professor, for a conversation about Dr. West’s political activism and personal journey. Moving from the topic of keeping one’s personal faith to a discussion of how Harvard limits leftist perspectives on campus, this episode touches on a wide range of subjects — appropriate, given our guest’s many intell...

We were very excited to welcome Professor Richard Wolff to Krystal Kyle & Friends this week. As a prominent Marxist economist and a prolific writer on the crises of capitalism, Professor Wolff is someone we always look forward to hearing from — we know many of you probably feel the same way. That’s why we couldn’t wait to get him on the show to discuss Modern Monetary Theory, how the Biden admin i...

Author and longtime Steelworkers labor lawyer Dan Kovalik joined us on KK&F this week to talk cancel culture. Why does cancel culture matter? When should people be “cancelled,” and when is cancellation harmful to the left’s political goals? You’ll find these questions, as well as Dan’s thoughtful answers, in this week’s episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends. We feel that understanding how to relate to...

This week’s guest on KK&F is Christopher Ryan, an author and researcher on human sexuality. If you’re not familiar with his book  Sex at Dawn , we hope you’ll enjoy watching our conversation with him, covering everything from the personal — are our brains wired for monogamy? — to the societal and political. Drawing upon Christopher’s expertise on ancient hunter-gatherer societies, we were curious...

This week, our friend June Lapine (you know her as Shoe0nHead) tells us about her political journey and radicalization among the online left, her personal journey as an online content creator, and why she’s glad she went for Bernie in 2016 — among many other things. In this episode, June speaks candidly about her relief at the political opportunity that Bernie’s first campaign offered. Juxtaposed...

We’re so glad that Andrew Yang was able to join us this week after his recovery from COVID-19. At last, we got to sit down with him and dig into the million-dollar questions about his advocacy for a UBI and how that fight has changed in the last year, his stance on Medicare for All, his thoughts on the NYC political landscape, and more. Yang is currently running for the NYC mayoralty, meaning that...

This week on Krystal Kyle & Friends, we chat with Matt Taibbi about being deported from Uzbekistan for criticizing its president, staying at a monastery, and playing professional baseball in Uzbekistan and professional basketball in Mongolia — but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’re probably familiar with Taibbi’s work with Rolling Stone, where he’s  covered  presidential campaigns from an...

This week’s episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends, which brought us into conversation with the journalist and author John Nichols, turns to the history of American progressivism in order to understand how the left can analyze its opportunities in a Biden presidency and strategize to build institutional power. Nichols, whose book  The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party  we strongly recommend, b...

This week’s conversation with Dr. Carl Hart gave us the chance to dig into the topics of the U.S.’s racist and dysfunctional criminal justice system, the importance of personal freedoms, and the struggle to legalize drug usage. In books like  Drug Use for Grown-Ups , Hart has  written  about the double standard applied by wealthy Americans who advocate for the normalization of psychedelic usage an...

We knew that our conversation with Dylan Ratigan would give us the opportunity to pick the brain of a prominent populist, someone who has used his platform on mainstream media to call out the corruption of a bought Congress and corporations with more political power than working-class people. Episode 9 of  Krystal Kyle & Friends  focuses on Dylan’s critiques of money in politics, but in order to u...

For our eighth episode, we spoke with Glenn Greenwald to discuss his political work and his philosophical roots. Co-founder of  The Intercept  and current author of the  Glenn Greenwald  Substack, Glenn is someone whose opinions we want to know when it comes to important topics, as Kyle points out in the episode. That’s why we were thrilled to sit down with him for the following discussion. If you...

Friends,First of all: we were so sorry to hear that Andrew Yang couldn’t join us this week, as he’s currently battling COVID-19. Please join us in sending him well wishes for a speedy recovery. We start off by discussing the impeachment proceedings and the confirmation hearing of Neera Tanden. As Sen. Bernie Sanders has pointed out, it’s worth pondering whether Neera’s time spent securing corporat...

How can a new generation of leftists learn from Chomsky’s practice as well as his theory? Our own conversation with Professor Chomsky on this week’s episode of Krystal Kyle & Friends reveals how important this question is to him. Chomsky hopes that his lifetime of work will provide insight into current political struggles — against corporate looting of workers’ wages, against the repression of org...