Mark Riley: The Intersection of Politics and Culture

Trump, Trump, and more Trump. The fallout from the raid at Mar-a-Lago isn't over yet. The domestic terrorist that tried to storm an FBI office in Cincinnati was a big contributor to Trump's Truth Social website. One former cop in Louisville is about to plead guilty to falsifying the warrant that led to the murder of Breonna Taylor. Arctic warming is happening faster than predicted, which means the...

Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan, and the Chinese act like it's a declaration of war. Kansas strikes a big blow for reproductive freedom, Alex Jones gets his, and is embarrassed in court in the process. The Senate votes to offer NATO membership to Sweden and Finland. Guess who wants to end Social Security and Medicare? 

Quite a bit to unpack in this episode. Joe Manchin agrees to a deal on climate change. Leaked documents show US power companies have spent millions to protect their profits and fight clean energy. Remember this the next time you see some shill in a TV debate arguing against electric cars or renewable energy. African countries are being pushed to take sides in the Ukraine war. Knuckle dragging desp...

The walls are closing around Donald Trump as his former right-hand man, Steve Bannon, is found guilty of contempt of Congress. The January 6 th 'before and after' of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is appalling. Then there's the issue of missing Secret Service texts from the period around the Capitol insurrection. Don't want to say I told you so, but Republicans are now going after LGBTQ rights. When...

In this episode we talk about the tragic rape and pregnancy of a 10-year-old in Ohio, refused an abortion. Why did so many right-wing commentators and media refuse to believe her story? We also take an honest look at declining Democratic faith in Joe Biden, especially among the young. The young, btw, are also losing faith in both political parties. Wonder why?

Americans are taking a close look at voting in the wake of Trump's election denial in 2020. There are already a number of systems in place across the country, and almost an equal number that advocates believe could do a better job at truly expressing the will of the people. Aaron Hamlin is Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Election Science. We recently spoke about the different v...

A trio of major stories this week, as the Supreme Court destroys Roe v. Wade and ignites a seismic furore across the country. The January 6 th Committee uncovers some surprising revelations and the decision to boycott the committee comes back to bite. The Supreme Court also hands gun owners a big victory, while Congress appears close to passing a new gun bill. As the war in Ukraine continues, Chin...

Sad to say, Donald Trump and his lying machine sputters on this episode as the January 6 th Committee continues its work. Now half of Trump's appointees and inner circle are trying to act like heroes for telling him he lost the election. Ever wonder who's backing Trump's tall tales with their hard cash? We'll tell you. And he didn't just throw Mike Pence under a bus, he threw him under an express...

Two dominant stories this week, the January 6 th hearings, which are ongoing, and new inflation figures with a potential far reaching impact. Then there's the ongoing feud between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. This is evidenced by a recall vote in San Francisco and AOC's endorsements in New York. A fair amount of ground to cover, and we haven't even referenced Ginny T...

Uvalde, Texas. It's a name most Americans had never heard of until last week. Now it takes its place alongside Columbine, Sandy Hook, and other sites where children have been sacrificed at the altar of the almighty gun. 21 people shot dead by a kid who bought a pair of AR-15 assault rifles legally for his 18 th birthday. The mythology surrounding the nation's gun culture will never change. It's de...

The Great Replacement Theory...a deep dive is not worth my time, but it's connected to the recent Buffalo massacre and there are growing calls for some of it's more public adherents to be locked up! America passed a deadly milestone recently, 1 million people dead from coronavirus.  Oklahoma tries to out-Texas Texas with what they proudly call the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the nation....

A senior journalist from Al-Jazeera is shot and killed on the West Bank. Her funeral was disrupted, attacked by the Israeli military. The January 6 th Committee subpoenas 5 Republican colleagues. Another abortion fail by the Democrats in Congress. Finland is moving closer to NATO, much to the chagrin of guess who. And did the meatpacking industry and the Trump Administration lie about shortages at...

ABORTION... from several different angles; from the leaked Supreme Court decision and its potential consequences, to ways around it like the abortion pill. What lawmakers can do to mitigate the decision, if the final decision to kill Roe v. Wade becomes reality. What's it like to be Female, Black, Gay and locked up in Russia...even when you're an American basketball star #Brittney Griner. Texas Go...

The US gross domestic product shrank by 1.4% for the beginning of 2022. Does this spell doom for Democrats in the midterms and for Joe Biden's economic agenda? We take a look at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who got caught in a lie but with no consequence. Republicans in Ohio have made up a new, bizarre trope about undocumented immigrants voting in elections, and a lawsuit against the Post...

According to Google, the trending hashtag is not #Ukraine, it's #ElonMusk. The valiant struggle of the war-torn battle zone has to be balanced against the short attention spans of the West. There are already reports that neighboring Poland is experiencing fatigue with the war, and pushback against accepting more refugees. A different war is brewing in the US - The Republican Party vs The LGBTQ com...

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson went high when those questioning her nomination went low. From Republicans, I expected that. What I didn't except… and won't accept…is venom from her own community spousing nonsense about her marital configuration. NATO countries were ramping up sanctions when the first set have not stopped Putin. Is that really the best we can do? Personal shout out to Mr. Chris Smalls...

Has the Chris Rock slapdown boosted his ticket sales with the bloodthirsty clamouring to hear his side of the story?  Is it OK for our children see bad behavior rewarded by bling awards? War in the Ukraine - the only person who can end it is the person who started it. Has the Oxford Dictionary officially made the word 'Greed' synonymous with 'Trump,' or is that just a cruel April's Fool joke?  He'...

What does victory look like for Putin? Ask the same question for The Ukraine and in either direction your head will be spinning. Is it a question even asked by the so-called sanctions negotiators? Maybe if there were some definitive answers we could strive for conflict resolution? While the World's Ugliest Circus aka Supreme Court nomination hearings carry on, Uncle Thom's wife, Ginni, continues t...

Despite the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces and its people, the forces of Russia are pushing into Ukraine's biggest cities, and more than 3m Ukrainians have fled. Also looks like it's a firm 'no' to President Zelensky's request for a no-fly zone over his country and allowing his pilots to launch MIG fighter from out a US airbase in Germany. Supreme Court Nominee Ketanji Brown Jacks...

Residents of Russia say 'so what' to sanctions, and that Putin is on the right track.  How's the gas pump treating you these days? Guess what, just like Covid isn't going away, gas prices aren't going back either to what they used to be. Racial slurs...should they be punishable by law and what if a citizen decides to take matters into their own hands?  

This week's podcast is more like a quiz. Question: How does the US fund Putin's war? Answer: Geometry. Picture the financial triangle between China, Russia and the US.The US buys goods from China (yes, you Amazon hounds...that's you). China uses the dollars to buy energy from Russia to build the infrastructure for their total world takeover (scheduled 2049). Russia takes the money (that China got...

Russia vs the rest of the free world... Spotlight on Black HIstory Month in the US and interviews with living legends of the Black Drum Corps circuit.  

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: Firearm Rights and gun worship are two different things. While places like Canada are able to separate responsible gun ownership from the hands of maniacs – America sadly doesn't differentiate. Back in 2012, 20 children and six staff from my own elementary school in Newtown, CT, were gunned down by a blood-thirsty citizen. US Gun laws and reform have barely changed since the S...

COVID ad infinitum… the residuals of this virus are impacting more than just health as inflation and supply chain costs in the US and worldwide are spiralling out of control. Threats against members of Congress are surging over the past five years. If you count the throwdown in 1804 between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, it's just history repeating itself, but last year alone 9,600 documented...

"Liberal states are maliciously withholding COVID vaccines from white people, and Nancy Pelosi is responsible for the January 6 th Insurrection." Call it Diary of a Madman or Trump Trivia, but my left-side brain can't connect the lumpy Trumpy dots.  White Antivaxxers are now worried about being left out of vaccine distribution? The Trump army would follow Pelosi's instructions to raid her own offi...