Lever Time

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 testified that the state government’s pro-fossil fuel policies were unconstitutional. Held v. Montana was the first of several youth-led U.S. climate lawsuits to make it to trial. Olson is the executive director and lead counsel for Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit public interest law firm that represents plaintiffs in a number of these youth-led state climate cases as well as in a federal lawsuit, Juliana v. United States. Julia and Frank spoke with Julia Olson about this historic win, how the case’s legal strategy can be applied across the country, and why the Biden administration is attempting to prevent other youth-led climate lawsuits from going to trial. A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: Our Children’s Trust ‘Gamechanger’: Judge Rules In Favor Of Young Activists In US Climate Trial (The Guardian, 2023) Biden DOJ: “No Constitutional Right To A Stable Climate” (The Lever, 2023) BONUS: On Monday's bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, exclusively for The Lever’s supporting subscribers, we’ll be sharing our interview with historian Harvey Kaye and progressive activist Alan Minsky about the unfinished business of FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights. If you'd like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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 “promote American values through the creative use of educational videos” and “[offer] a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education.” In 2021 PragerU launched PragerU Kids, focused on “educational content for children.” Now PragerU has raised the stakes, as it was recently announced that PragerU Kids content has been approved as supplemental teaching material in Florida public schools — even though PragerU is not an accredited educational institution. Prager isn’t planning to stop there: They recently published an online petition to get their content into schools across the country. Hosts Josh and Dave, who examined the rise of PragerU in the latest season of The Audit, sit down with John to discuss PragerU’s official entry into the American education system. They break down how PragerU managed to get approved in Florida, how their work plays into the larger conservative movement to capture public education and siphon taxpayer money to fund charter schools, and what parents can do to stop PragerU from indoctrinating children.A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: The lessons Florida public school students will learn from PragerU Kids (Media Matters, 2023) Florida’s conservative PragerU teaching texts labeled ‘indoctrination’ (Tampa Bay Times, 2023) What It Means That Florida Will Allow Conservative PragerU Content in Schools (Time, 2023) BONUS: On Monday's bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, exclusively for The Lever’s supporting subscribers, we published our recent live chat with Yale law professor Samuel Moyn where we examined whether or not Congress has the authority to regulate the Supreme Court and the troubling legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts.If you'd like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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 country, and ocean temperatures in parts of Florida reached 101 degrees, potentially shattering the world record for ocean heat.It’s not just the temperature that’s rising. Over the past few months, there has also been an increase in heat-related deaths and hospitalizations, including for life-threatening burns people have suffered from falling onto scorching concrete. Heat is the deadliest type of weather, each year killing on average more than twice as many people as tornadoes and hurricanes combined. Of course, the groups that most acutely suffer from extreme heat events tend to be the most vulnerable, like unhoused people, the elderly, and those with pre-existing medical conditions. To examine these problems, Sirota sits down with Goodell, a climate journalist and bestselling author. Together they break down which regions of the country will experience the most severe heat in the future, the limitations of air conditioning as a potential solution, our new geologic era, and how our concept of summer is set to drastically change from fun to survival. A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet (Hachette Books, 2023) The Anthropocene began in 1950s, scientists say (NPR, 2023) BONUS: This past Monday’s bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, exclusively for The Lever’s supporting subscribers, featured David’s interview with political economist and economic geographer Brett Christophers, author of the new book Our Lives In Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own The World. If you’d like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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 protect yourself from the scam. The grift goes like this: When you deposit your money at a bank, they should pay you interest for your money. That’s because they make money off of it: Banks lend out your deposits for mortgages and small business loans, or deposit money with the Federal Reserve — all of which generate a much higher interest rate return for the banks. The difference is profit.Until recently, banks would pass along increased interest on these efforts to its customers. But over the last two years, as the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to combat inflation, banks haven’t been sharing the wealth. Today, the gap between the profit banks generate by lending out those deposits and what they pay their customers is the largest it’s ever been: On average, banks are paying its depositors 0.4% interest, while reaping anywhere from 5 to 7 percent interest via lending. This has resulted in one of the largest upward wealth transfers in the modern economy, from customers to bank executives.A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: The Great Bank Robbery of 2023 (The Lever, 2023) BofA profit surges on interest income, surprise investment banking gain (Reuters, 2023) TreasuryDirect.gov BONUS: Monday's bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, exclusively for The Lever’s supporting subscribers, featured our interview with climate scientist Dr. Andrew Pershing about “attribution science” — a new technique that can pinpoint how manmade climate change influences extreme weather events.If you'd like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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 strike after failing to secure their own contract, putting Hollywood on standstill for the first time since 1960.Over the last decade, the economy of Hollywood has been completely upended by the advent of streaming services like Netflix, as well as the consolidation of major entertainment companies such as the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery. This has led to a “content arms race” as companies have competed to amass their own libraries of movies and TV shows. The result has been a shift to faster and cheaper film productions, which have adversely affected almost all of Hollywood’s workers.In the face of such rapid changes, David speaks with Alex about what the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are demanding from the studios. This includes increased pay for shorter production schedules, residual payments for content on streaming platforms, and protections against AI programs taking over their jobs. The two discuss what’s at stake if workers’ demands aren’t met, and whether or not the unions are being “unrealistic,” as Disney CEO Bob Iger recently put it.A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: LEVER WEEKLY: What Workers Are Up Against (The Lever, 2023) SAG actors', writers' strikes bring revolution to Hollywood (LA Times, 2023) Hollywood Studios’ WGA Strike Endgame Is To Let Writers Go Broke Before Resuming Talks In Fall (Deadline, 2023) If you'd like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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 professor of government and business relations at the University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith has an extensive history of working in government, including as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and an economist for the House Banking Committee. Galbraith and Grim discuss the implementation of price controls by the U.S. government and how such measures bring down prices. They also explore how the Biden administration could expand its price control efforts, and how Galbraith’s father — economist and politician John Kenneth Galbraith — was instrumental in setting price controls during World War II.If you like Lever Time with David Sirota, be sure to check out Deconstructed on all podcast platforms and subscribe.A transcript of this episode is available here.

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 affirmative action. But there’s another very important court procedure that doesn’t receive nearly as much attention: the aptly named “shadow docket.”These are the cases that occur outside of the court’s regular docket and usually involve urgent matters, such as requests for emergency stays, injunctions, and other types of temporary relief. These cases are often decided through brief orders, meaning without oral arguments, full written opinions, or even disclosing how the justices voted. But in recent years, the court has increasingly used the shadow docket to effectively leapfrog over the appeals court system on major decisions, sometimes with devastating effects.David and Stephen dive deep into the shadow docket’s history, how it continues to undermine the Supreme Court’s credibility, and how most of these decisions are not based on any kind of legal rationale or precedent. A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic (Hachette Book Group, 2023) Supreme Court “Shadow Docket” Under Review by U.S. House of Representatives (American Bar Association, 2021) BONUS: This past Monday’s bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, exclusively for The Lever’s supporting subscribers, featured David’s interview with media critic Norman Solomon about his new book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.If you’d like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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 with powerful business interests, and explains how the Senator ended up with such power over the Democratic legislative agenda.In recent months, Manchin has been noncommittal when asked about a presidential run. Meanwhile, No Labels, a centrist political organization funded by dark money donors, is looking to run a split ticket featuring one Republican and one Democrat — and Manchin is considered one of the likely candidates. Sears helped Manchin secure political wins across the state before switching parties and throwing his support behind Donald Trump.If you like Lever Time with David Sirota, be sure to check out Deconstructed on all podcast platforms and subscribe.A transcript of this episode is available here.

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 also failed to disclose gifts he received from his own billionaire benefactor, Harlan Crow. David, Andrew and Justin discuss how these new revelations raise questions about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, why a lack of judicial oversight contributes to the problem, and how powerful GOP  operative Leonard Leo ties all of these stories together. A transcript of this episode is available here.Links: Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court (ProPublica, 2023) Alito Could Deliver Another Ruling For Billionaire Benefactor (The Lever, 2023) Clarence Thomas And The Billionaire (ProPublica, 2023) BONUS: This past Monday's bonus episode of Lever Time Premium, exclusively for The Lever’s supporting subscribers, featured our interview with Brandon Tizol, a New York-based organizer who was part of the campaign that helped pass a transformative renewable energy bill in the state.If you'd like access to Lever Time Premium, which includes extended interviews and bonus content, head over to LeverNews.com to become a supporting subscriber.If you’d like to leave a tip for The Lever, click the following link. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. levernews.com/tipjar

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-Osorio discuss why progressive messages often succeed while moderate messages typically fail, and how strategists can meaningfully reframe an ideological conversation to craft a message that resonates and wins. They also revisit Ryan’s conversation with tech executive and political strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn, who made news last May for helping finance E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against former president Donald Trump. Grim and Shenker-Osorio unpack why messaging that gravitates toward the center is less effective than messages that challenge entrenched power. Links:The May 6, 2023 Deconstructed episode with Dmitri MehlhornIf you like Lever Time with David Sirota, be sure to check out Deconstructed on all podcast platforms and subscribe.A transcript of this episode is available here.