KPFA - Letters and Politics

Host Mitch Jeserich brings live analysis about the voting procedures of the megabill in the House of Representatives while Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries delivers a marathonic speech that stalled the final vote for more than 8 hours claiming that allotting only one hour of debate on the content of a 900 pages bill was not enough.  He decided to take his “sweet time” to compensate the lack of discussion on the bill. Photo by Sogand Gh on Unsplash The post Analysis: Megabill Final Vote in the House of Representatives & Hakeem Jeffries Marathonic Speech appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation Magazine. He is the author of several books including his latest co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders “It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.”  His latest article in the Nation is: Thom Tillis Figured Out How to Tell the Truth in Trump’s GOP Cult: Quit.   Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash The post Analysis of the Latest Version of Trump’s Megabill appeared first on KPFA.

I. A Perspective on Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign  Guest: India Walton is former Democratic candidate for mayor in Buffalo who won the Democratic primary 2021 but the party turned against her and helped re-elect the incumbent mayor through a write in campaign.  She is now the senior strategist for the national activist group Roots Action in Buffalo. II. Capitalism’s Critics Guest: John Cassidy is a journalist at The New Yorker and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. He is the author of Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI.   Photo by Bingjiefu He on Wikimedia The post A Perspective on Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign appeared first on KPFA.

I. The Big Beautiful Bill in the Senate Host Mitch Jeserich gives his opinion of the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” currently in the Senate II. Supreme Court’s Undoing Universal Injunctions Guest: Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the author of many books on constitutional law including his latest, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.    Photo credit: Ron Cogswell on Wikimedia The post Erwin Chemerinsky on the Implications of Undoing Universal Injunctions. And, Analysis on the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Stephen Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.  His numerous books include The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. His latest is Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud co authored with Adam Phillips.  He is also the general editor of The Norton Shakespeare. The post Stephen Greenblatt on Shakespeare and Freud appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Writer, historian, and activist, Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including Orwell’s Roses, and most lately No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. She cofounded the organization Not Too Late and coauthored the book Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility with Thelma Young Lutunatabua.  She also launched Meditations in an Emergency, an independent publication. The post Rebecca Solnit on No Straight Road Takes You There appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: D.D. Guttenplan is editor of The Nation magazine.  He is the author of several books including American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone,  The Nation: A Biography, and The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority. The post D.D. Guttenplan on the History of the Nation Magazine and the Politics of Today appeared first on KPFA.

I. Viet Thanh Nguyen on the Roots of Trump’s Imperial Ambitions Guest: Viet Thanh Nguyen is a professor of English, American studies and ethnicity, and comparative literature at the University of Southern California. He is the author of the novel The Sympathizer which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His article Greater America: Exporting Disunion was featured in the July/August 2025 of the Nation Magazine.   II. The US Bombing of Iran Guest: Phyllis Bennis is co-director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).  She is the author of several books including Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer and her latest, Understanding Palestine & Israel.  The post Viet Thanh Nguyen: In War Americans Experience Blowback; Then, US Bombing of Iran appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: W. Caleb McDaniel is associate professor of history at Rice University in Houston. He won the Pulitzer price in History in 2020 for his book, Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America. Photo: Henrietta Wood was enslaved at Brandon Hall in Mississippi on Wikipedia. The post Henrietta Wood: A Legacy of Slavery and Reparations in America appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Jason De León is an anthropologist who spent nearly seven years following and interviewing human smugglers in Mexico. He is a professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies and director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project and the author of the book Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling. The post The Lives of Smugglers (Coyotes) appeared first on KPFA.