Start Making Sense

On this week's American prestige world news roundup: One more news episode before us Yankees have a holiday. Note: Although we will not have a news roundup next week, we'll have other new content.This week: In Israel-Palestine, the ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant (0:56) and the US vetoes another ceasefire resolution (6:11); US envoy Amos Hochstein is working on a ceasefire in Lebanon (8:50); in Sri Lanka, the leftist coalition wins a parliamentary majority (12:26); in Sudan, the RSF commits new atrocities (14:12) and Russia vetoes a ceasefire (16:33); in Russia-Ukraine, Biden gives Ukraine permission to use long-range US weapons in Russia (18:29), while Reuters reports that Putin is open to peace negotiations (23:19); the US recognizes opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as president of Venezuela (24:55); a new armed group wreaks violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (27:09); and we have a New Cold War update featuring the final Biden-Xi meeting (29:10) and Biden’s last G20 summit (31:

On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Becca Lewis to discuss the right-wing project to shape the internet in the 1990s and how we’re still living with the legacies of those actions today. Becca Lewis is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A lot of people who voted for abortion rights referenda this year also voted for Trump. What were they thinking? How do they understand politics? Amy Littlefield spent election day in Amarillo, Texas, trying to find out.Also: John Lewis, who died in 2020, challenged injustice from the sit-ins of 1960 to the Age of Trump. Historian David Greenberg talks about what we can learn from his example. Greenberg’s new book is “John Lewis: A Life.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of American Prestige, Abby Mullen, assistant professor at the US Naval Academy, joins the program to talk about her book To Fix a National Character: The United States in the First Barbary War, 1800–1805. We explore the conflict, American geopolitics in their infancy, the Barbary States and piracy committed on their behalf at the time, how US naval expeditions in an era without a global network of bases functioned, the myth of the war in "The Marines' Hymn", and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of American Prestige, your weekly news roundup. This week: struggles at the UN COP29 climate change conference (1:48), not the least of which is the incoming climate denier president of the US (5:45); in Israel-Palestine, the US doesn't follow through on its 30-day humanitarian aid deadline (7:57), Trump appointments signal imminent formal annexation of Palestinian territories (12:24), and Qatar withdraws from ceasefire talks (16:48); in Lebanon, Israel is working on a ceasefire as a "gift" for Trump (18:33); Xi and Biden to meet in China (21:35); the Japanese government survives a confirmation vote (23: 45); a new report on horrifying death toll figures in the Sudan war (25:48); in Russia-Ukraine, Russia pushers to retake Kursk (28:01) while Europe and Ukraine show new flexibility to exchange land for a peace deal (30:25); Germany prepares for a snap election in February in the wake of the government coalition collapsing (32:38); in Haiti, the transitional council fires the PM (34

On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss the fallout from the US election, what it means for the tech industry, and more importantly, what it might mean for all of us. They also celebrate the show hitting 250 episodes!Brian Merchant is a longtime tech writer and author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hope does not mean saying ‘this is not bad,’ Rebecca Solnit argues; it just means we will not give up—because we know that what we do matters, and we also know we’ve been surprised by good things we never expected.Also: The bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump cannot last – historian David Nasaw will explain why.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Historian Benji Rolsky speaks with Danny about how others in their profession have thought about the far right, a subset of history which has expanded greatly in the last decade or so. They explore how the study of the far right might be "broken", anti-fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, the episodic nature of this field, and how Trump might have changed the historiography.Read Benji's piece "Why the Study of the Right is Broken": Part 1 and Part 2.Also check out his book The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left: Politics, Television, and Popular Culture in the 1970s and Beyond.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this final episode of The Nation's election coverage podcast, See How They Run, D.D. Guttenplan is joined by John Nichols and Jeet Heer to discuss lessons learned from the 2024 Presidential races.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this week's edition of the American Prestige world news roundup: in Palestine-Israel, Netanyahu fires defense minister Gallant (0:57), a leak scandal involving Netanyahu's office (6:36), an update on the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza (8:52), and the IDF appears to admit to committing ethnic cleansing (13:05); in Lebanon, the ceasefire push collapses (15:39), the IDF looks to create a "buffer zone" (17:46), and the Washington Post reports that Israeli evacuation warnings are misleading civilians (19:31); in Iran, Supreme Leader Khamenei threatens an attack on Israel (27:19); a new report details the mistreatment of migrant workers in Arabian Gulf states (30:35); the DPRK/North Korea conducts a new ICBM test (33:09); new RSF massacres in Sudan (36:41); in Russia-Ukraine, North Korean soldiers join combat operations (38:35), future concerns in the US about how the war will be conducted under Trump (41:38), and Russia floats the possibility of ending the war (44:36); the German govern

On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by tante to discuss troubling developments in the open source world as WordPress goes to war with WP Engine and a new definition of open source AI doesn’t require being open about training data.tante is a sociotechnologist, writer, speaker, and Luddite working on tech and its social impact.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

John Nichols looks at the elections results: how we got here, and what we do next. For starters: Trump got fewer votes than 4 years ago; 55% of voters in the CNN exit poll said he was "too extreme."Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of American Prestige, Derek and Danny are joined by Eli Clifton, senior advisor and investigative journalist at large at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, to talk about the role of foreign policy in US presidential elections (including tomorrow's). They talk about chatter on the ground regarding Gaza/Lebanon, whether the Democrats are capable of "learning lessons" from a loss, how to once again make foreign policy relevant to American voters, the broken discourse around China, how money in politics defines the parameters of FP discussion in Washington, and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Jeet Heer is joined by Matt Duss to discuss Trump's anti-war pitch.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of See How They Run, D.D. Guttenplan is joined by Ettingermentum’s Josh Cohen on how political junkies can get through the next few days.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this week's American Prestige world news roundup: in Israel-Palestine, a new report of the Biden administration ignoring Israeli war crimes (0:30), the Knesset votes to ban UNRWA (2:43), and yet more ceasefire talks (8:12); in Lebanon, Hezbollah names a new leader (10:32) and a push for a ceasefire there (12:25); regarding Iran, the aftermath of the Israeli strikes (15:36) and reports of an imminent retaliation (19:10); North Korea/DPRK tests an ICBM (22:07); Japan's Liberal Democratic Party loses its parliamentary majority (24:33); in Sudan, a new massacre by the RSF (26:52) and a UN report on sexual violence in the conflict (29:18); Somalia kicks out another diplomat from Ethiopia (30:28); in Russia-Ukraine, North Korean soldiers in Kursk (32:49), Russia makes gains in Donetsk (34:50), and new talks on sparing energy sites (36:56), the results of Georgia's election (37:59); Venezuela withdraws its ambassador from Brazil over BRICS (41:07); and the annual UN General Assembly's vote over th

On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss all the money Elon Musk is pouring into the US election and what Silicon Valley’s political influence will mean regardless of who becomes president.Jacob Silverman is the author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, coming in September 2025 from Bloomsbury. His book Easy Money is now available in paperback.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

New research suggests what messages win working class votes in Pennsylvania – strong economic populism, and not Trump’s threat to democracy. Bhaskar Sunkara, the Nation’s president, is on the podcast to discuss.Also: The ACLU has been preparing for election day threats to voting and vote counting for years. Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project, explains.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of American Prestige, Derek and Danny are joined by Khalid Medani, associate professor of political science, director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, and chair of the African Studies Program at McGill University, to talk about the state of play in Sudan's civil war. They delve into the military stalemate between the Sudanese Army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the humanitarian crisis reaching 13 million displaced and 26 million on the brink of starvation, involvement from outsider actors including Egypt and the UAE, the strategic importance of the besieged city El Fasher in Darfur, the defection of the RSF’s Gezira commander, Abuagla Keikal, over to the Sudanese military, and more.Note: After the recording of this episode, the RSF massacred 120 people in eastern Sudan.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Jeet Heer is joined by David Klion to discuss 'The Apprentice' — a movie about Roy Cohn’s mentoring of a future president.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy