Scheer Intelligence

Film veteran Susan Lacy discusses her latest documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts. Lacy stresses that celebrated actress and political activist Fonda has been shaped by four “acts —the four men in her life—her father and actor Henry Fonda, and husbands, film director Roger Vadim, political activist Tom Hayden and media mogul Ted Turner. The last act is Fonda’s alone, on her lifelong journey to personal liberation.

Author Anand Giridharadas discusses the distorted libertarian ideology that they use to subvert the American experiment in democracy. They have done so by denying the legitimacy of government intervention into the economy on the side of fairness and justice, including decent working conditions, fair wages, regulation of the economy, and the right to form unions to represent them and fight for their interests. 

Helen Sklar, immigration attorney for more than 33 years, discusses the basis of the immigration family separation under Trump and how former President Clinton laid the groundwork for this.

Alissa Quart discusses her latest book, Squeezed, on living in a middle-class that is being crumpled by meritocracy and converted into what Quart terms the “Precariat,” which Scheer describes as “people who think they’re in the middle class, and they have the education, very often they find themselves living paycheck to paycheck.”

Jacob Snow discusses Amazon’s Rekognition program, which is being promoted for use at the state and federal level to use facial recognition to fight crime. 

Journalist and filmmaker Zeiad Abbas, a Palestinian refugee, describes living conditions of Palestinians under the state of Israel, which he calls “ethnic cleansing,” and discusses a toxic water crisis in Gaza and more.

Hollywood historian, film critic and writer Carrie Rickey discusses the lack of women behind the cameras in Hollywood; it wasn’t always so.

A deep look at how the accumulation of money has become the greatest goal, even at the peril of the self.

Nick Goldberg, the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, discusses print journalism, its financing, and the challenges it faces.

The Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist assesses his career reporting on some of most significant stories of the past 50 years.