Lever Time

On this week’s episode of Lever Time , David Sirota is joined by lawyer Caroline Fredrickson, who recently penned an op-ed for The Atlantic titled, “What I Most Regret About My Decades of Legal Activism.” As the former head of the American Constitution Society — the liberal counterweight to the conservative legal network The Federalist Society — Caroline speaks with David about the strengths and w...

On this week’s bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, The Lever ’s Nick Campbell speaks with music writer Robin James and drummer Greg Saunier from the band Deerhoof to discuss the shifting corporate landscape of the music industry, and the larger dynamics of our economy. The three zero in on a worrisome development: The online music platform Bandcamp was recently sold to the multinational music con...

On Wednesday, October 18, The Lever ’s David Sirota hosted a live event with Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein and Palestinian-American political analyst Omar Baddar to discuss the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas and the mounting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.  David, Naomi, and Omar spoke about the historical and political context that led to this moment, the double s...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by journalist and Citations Needed podcast co-host Adam H. Johnson to discuss the contradictions and hypocrisies of the multibillion-dollar self-help industry — an industry that has long convinced people that unhappiness is an attitude problem, and not a societal issue that needs to be addressed at a systemic level. Adam’s recent story f...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy think tank, and Daniel Bessner, an international studies professor at the University of Washington, both of whom served as foreign policy advisors to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, to discuss the deadly conflict unfolding in Israel-Palestine. In today’s media landsc...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by Matt Stoller, the director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, who explains the failures and successes of President Joe Biden’s economic policies, also known as “Bidenomics.”  In the past several months, unemployment has dropped and the rate of inflation has begun to slow, while consumer spending and manufacturing...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by Brendan James and Noah Kulwin, producers and hosts of the wildly popular historical narrative podcast Blowback . Their new season covers the history of foreign intervention in Afghanistan and both the intentional and unintentional blowback from those efforts.  “Blowback” refers to an old CIA term meaning, “the unforeseen and unwanted...

On this week’s Lever Time, David Sirota and journalist Laura Krantz  are joined by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb to discuss his research into extraterrestrial life. In 2017, a Maui telescope discovered an interstellar object that astronomers named Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout” or “messenger”) that had an elongated shape and an unusual acceleration not explained by gravity alone.  That’s when Ha...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota and Peter Goodman, The New York Times ’ global economics correspondent, explore the pivotal role of Indonesia’s vast nickel reserve in the global electric vehicle (EV) revolution and the high-stakes geopolitical chess game the mineral has ignited.  The strategic tug-of-war between the U.S. and China over nickel — a crucial component for electric v...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota talks with author Richard Reeves about the growing evidence that men are struggling in modern America. In his latest book, Reeves delves into recent economic and social shifts that have negatively impacted men's lives. They discuss empirical data showing that men are falling behind in both college attendance and graduation rates, and how they are...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time , producer Frank Cappello speaks with Labor Notes staff writer Luis Feliz Leon about why a potential autoworkers strike could be transformational for younger union members struggling under depressed wages and limited benefits. Luis has been reporting on the ground about the ongoing contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers union and the “Big Three”...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, Lever news editor Lucy Dean Stockton speaks with former Hawaii state representative and national director of the Green New Deal Network Kaniela Ing about the recent wildfires in Maui. On August 8th, a wildfire swept through the historic city of Lahaina, reducing almost every building to ash and killing more than 100 people. Scores of Lahaina residents have los...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, Julia Rock and Frank Cappello speak with environmental lawyer Julia Olson to discuss a recent historic win for young climate activists who she represents in Montana.  This past Monday, a judge in Montana ruled that young people are entitled to a “clean and healthful” environment. The case, known as Held v. Montana , included 16 plaintiffs ages 5 to 22, who tes...

On this week’s Lever Time, Audit hosts and friends of the show Josh Olson and Dave Anthony are joined by journalist and media expert John Knefel to discuss how the conservative propaganda operation PragerU landed a major new partnership with Florida’s public schools. PragerU produces short-form video content on politics, social issues, and history. The media organization’s stated goal is to “promo...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time , David Sirota is joined by Jeff Goodell, author of the new book The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet , to discuss recent deadly heat waves and how they’re a prelude to dangers to come. This past July was the hottest single month in recorded history. In the United States, temperatures rose above 120 degrees in several regions of the...

On today’s Lever Time , David Sirota sits down with law professor and policy advocate Robert Hockett and former FDIC attorney Todd Phillips, to explain “The Great Bank Robbery of 2023” — a financial grift that very well could be impacting you. The three explore how this complicated bank swindle has become so prevalent, what federal regulators could do to stop it, and how consumers like you can pro...

On this week’s Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by The Bear writer and Writers Guild of America (WGA) union member Alex O’Keefe to discuss the stakes of the current Hollywood strike. The WGA has been on strike since early May after failing to secure a contract with the country’s major film and television producers. This past week, SAG-AFTRA, the union representing film and TV actors, joined the...

Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Deconstructed from our friends over at The Intercept , an award-winning investigative news organization.  Centrist and right-wing economists continue to advocate for laying off workers and engineering a recession to address inflation. But why not set price controls instead? This week on Deconstructed , host Ryan Grim is joined by James K. Galbraith, a...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by law professor Stephen Vladeck, author of the new book, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic .  The Supreme Court has received a lot of attention in the last several years for its extreme rulings on matters such as abortion rights, environmental regulations, and affirma...

Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Deconstructed from our friends over at The Intercept , an award-winning investigative news organization.  In this episode, Daniel Boguslaw, a politics reporter for The Intercept , interviews Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) former political advisor Scott Sears. Boguslaw tells the story of Manchin’s rise in West Virginia politics, his strategic alliance...

On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota and Andrew Perez are joined by ProPublica ’s Justin Elliott , who recently co-authored an exposédetailing how Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito failed to disclose luxury gifts provided by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer.  This story follows ProPublica ’s reporting from earlier this year about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who...

Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Deconstructed with Ryan Grim, D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept , an award-winning investigative news organization.   In this episode, Grim,  speaks with communications consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio, host of the podcast Words to Win, and whose company ASO Communications works with progressive think tanks like the Voting Rights Lab. Grim and Shenker-...

As the Writers Guild of America strike enters its eighth week, David Sirota sits down with writer, director, musician, and activist Boots Riley to discuss the ongoing labor struggle, as well as his radical new TV show.  In all of Boots’ work runs a deep commitment to social justice and organized labor. In 2018, Boots released the celebrated film Sorry to Bother You , an absurdist dark comedy about...

David sits down with prominent investigative journalist Leslie Kean , who earlier this month published a blockbuster report about a potential secret government UFO effort. According to Kean and her co-author, a former U.S. intelligence official-turned-whistleblower recently gave Congress classified information about covert programs that he says possess intact and partially intact aircraft of non-h...

The country may have narrowly avoided a debt default catastrophe by passing a debt ceiling deal on June 3, but that doesn’t mean we should allow the fiasco to fall into the memory hole. David Dayen , executive editor of The American Prospect , joins host David Sirota to dissect the event, discuss the political misuse of the debt limit, and explore what was traded away in this crisis.  While the Bi...