The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Friends, Today’s New York Times has a story about Russia’s powerful internet regulator, Roskmnadzor, whose collection of personal data about average Russians has, in the Times’s words, “catapulted Russia, along with authoritarian countries like China and Iran, to the forefront of nations that aggressively use technology as a tool of repression.” A few weeks ago, the Times ran a story about China’s...

It makes my blood boil. Since March I’ve been screaming about the Fed’s total misreading of inflation — believing it’s being caused by workers getting wage hikes, when the real cause is powerful corporations raising prices higher than their costs. I’m not so grandiose as to think my screams would have any direct influence on the Fed. My hope was that my argument and data might be picked up by a fe...

Friends, One of the most horrific legacies of Trump is the unwillingness of Republican candidates to commit to being bound by election results. Senate candidates who have refused to commit to accepting the results are Republicans Ted Budd in North Carolina, Blake Masters in Arizona, Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska, and J.D. Vance in Ohio, according to news reports . Two candidates for governor have also...

I’m against trafficking of migrants. But luring unsuspecting people onto planes with lies about jobs, housing, and education awaiting them, and then depositing them onto an island off the coast of Massachusetts that’s totally unprepared to receive them, is a form of human trafficking. The people you’re talking about aren’t American citizens. They have no rights. Even if they’re not Americans, U.S....

Hello friends, Welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch. Today I’m offline with family, so instead of our regular klatch, I’m bringing you a terrific conversation I just had with Nse Ufot , CEO of New Georgia Project (NGP). NGP is one of the most important grassroots voting-rights organizations — in one of the most important voting states. NGP is now registering over 600,000 young people and peop...

Yesterday, Donald Trump threatened that if he is indicted on a charge of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, there would be “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before,” adding “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.” These words followed on last month’s threat by Senator Lindsey Graham that if Trump is prosecu...

A few days ago, I received an email from an associate producer at the Dr. Phil Show. They recently came across my film “ Inequality for All”  and wanted to know “if I’d be interested in joining Dr. Phil as an expert guest for an upcoming episode.” Hey, why not? The Dr. Phil Show is the number 1 rated daytime TV talk show in America. It has over 2 million viewers. I have lots to say to those viewer...

Hello friends, Welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch with my colleague Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action — and my former student), where we talk about the highs and lows of the week, over morning coffee. Today we discuss: — The death of the Queen, what she symbolized for Britain and America, and why King Charles III may be the last of the British royals. —...

In early August, the good people of Kansas voted against a ballot measure that would have stripped from their state constitution a woman’s right to choose — and they did it by a whopping  18-point margin . Since then, and largely in response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, women have been registering to vote across the country in astounding numbers. Many appear to be...

I have a serious question. It’s for people who have power in America and who continue to deny the outcome of the 2020 election and enable Trump’s Big Lie: What are you saying to yourself in private? How are you justifying yourself in your own mind? I don’t mean to be snide or snarky. I’m genuinely curious. I’m not interested in Trump’s answer to this question. He is too far gone — lost in the dept...

Today marks the start of the school year for many public schools. Which makes me think of Alice Camp. (I wrote about her some months ago. Many of you have asked me to repost what I wrote — and add a bit more about her and about our teachers. So here goes.) I arrived in Mrs. Camp’s third-grade classroom in Lewisboro Elementary School, in South Salem, New York, as an extremely short, shy, insecure 8...

Hello friends, Welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch with my colleague Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action — and my former student). Today we discuss: * Biden’s speech to the nation — and why the media ignored it, or treated it as just another “political” event. * Ron DeSantis — and why he (and Mitch McConnell and much of the right-wing establishment) is just...

One week after a team of F.B.I. agents descended on his private club and residence in Florida, Trump  warned that things could get out of hand if the Justice Department kept the heat on him. “People are so angry at what is taking place,” Trump told Fox News, predicting that if the “temperature” isn’t brought down, “terrible things are going to happen.” But Trump and his allies are doing all they c...

Billionaire GOP mega-donor  Steve Wynn has some free messaging advice for Republicans, which he proffered in a conference call last Wednesday with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and Newt Gingrich (the audio was obtained by Politico ): He urged the GOP to run TV ads telling average working people that Democrats have funded the IRS to hammer them. Wynn even offered a script: “Tel...

I like to tweet. Not as much as I like to write here on Substack where I get to share my thoughts at some length. On Twitter it’s a different kind of conversation, and pace — like speed chess. Last Tuesday I tweeted: I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked. The Washington Examiner , for example: Ultra left-wing elitist and former secretary of labor during the Clinton administration...

When Robert Draper of the New York Times recently asked Rose Sperry, a state committeewoman for Arizona’s G.O.P., to name the first Republican leader she ever admired, she immediately mentioned former Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy. “I grew up during the time that Joe McCarthy was doing his talking,” Sperry said . “I was young, but I was listening. If he were here today, I would say, ‘Get him in t...

Among the many ironies and hypocrisies leading up to the 2022 midterms, one deserving special mention is Trump’s and the GOP’s unremitting claim that America has become more violent and dangerous under Biden and the Democrats. “Our country is now a cesspool of crime,” Trump said in a recent speech to the America First Policy Institute. “We have blood, death, and suffering on a scale once unthinkab...

For several years, Brian Stelter’s Sunday CNN show, “Reliable Sources,” has been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, rightwing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican Party. Last week, CNN abruptly canceled the show and effectively fired Stelter and his staff. Why? The show had good ratings and was commercially successful. (More pe...

As the saying goes, in America everyone is entitled to a second chance — especially con artists. Herewith the 6 rules for getting a second (or third or fourth) chance to sell a giant con: 1. Market a mundane idea as “disruptive.” Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, hyped his office-sharing startup as the first “physical social network.” In reality it was nothing more than what you’d find in any c...

Hello friends, On Saturdays I have a cup of coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse and we invite you to join us and chime in with comments. She asks questions that many of you also want to discuss. Heather is the Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student. We cover both the highlights and lowlights, and aim to provide a larger context for the news. I’m somewhat...

I was born on June 24 in 1946 to Mildred Freshman Reich and Edwin Saul Reich at the Mercy Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That was ten days after Donald John Trump was born to Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump at the Jamaica hospital in the borough of Queens, New York. It was 12 days before George Walker Bush was born to Barbara Pierce Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush at Grace-New Have...

The Clean Air Act of 1970 authorized the government to regulate air pollution. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Joe Biden just signed into law, allocates more than $300 billion to energy and climate reform, including $30 billion in subsidies for manufacturers of solar panels and components, wind turbines, inverters, and batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. Notice the difference? T...

Tomorrow, Wyoming Republicans will determine the fate of Representative Liz Cheney — whom Trump has targeted for revenge ever since she criticized him for inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Six days after that attack — when no other Republican in the House or Senate was willing to rebuke Trump — she said on the House floor: “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assemble...

On Saturdays I have a cup of coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse, and we press record on my laptop so you can listen and chime in with any comments. Heather is the Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student. She asks me about the economic and political happenings of the past week (this past one was a doozy). We cover both the highlights and lowlights, and aim...

Notably, the Inflation Reduction Act didn’t attract a single Republican vote in the Senate. (And at least one Democratic senator — Kyrsten Sinema — made sure its tax provisions wouldn’t raise tax rates on rich individuals.) Why? We talk a lot about money in politics, but there’s a huge and growing difference between the big money (campaign donations of $1 million or more), most of it pouring into...