As we’ve said repeatedly at Gaslit Nation, the crisis in the US was never about Trump vs Mueller, but about corruption and exploitation – about massive institutional failure that worsened over multiple decades, culminating in a kleptocracy backed by a transnational crime syndicate. We discuss what’s next for the US and the world as the Trump team ramps up its autocratic goals.
Read MoreMarch 2019 marks the five-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. We explain why the fake referendum in Crimea is called a "referendum by gun point" and provide background on Russia's annexation which had been in the works since the mid-2000s. The story of human rights abuses that continue to this day in Russian-occupied Crimea are told through the political prisoner Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker kidnapped from Crimea and held in a Siberian penal colony on trumped up charges. Despite the harsh conditions, Sentsov defies the odds by continuing to produce art, including a feature film. His story is an urgent reminder to choose hope over despair.
Impeachment sends a message about who we are as a country and what we will accept and abide. The rule of law demands action. Refusing to take action is normalizing atrocity. Lawlessness must be confronted regardless of the outcome, as a matter of principle and conscience. Fighting only the battles that you know you will win is a sure way of ensuring you lose; preemptive surrender, in a rapidly consolidating autocracy, is permanent surrender. The American people have suffered enough under Trump; they should not have to suffer due to Pelosi’s capitulation as well. We all deserve better than this.
Read MoreLike Trump Tower Moscow, which was supposed to be the tallest building in Europe with a penthouse for mass-murderer Putin and an Ivanka Trump branded spa, the White House was another monument for Trump, in a long list of monuments he's built for himself over the years, and one that would help him and his family continue to live above the law.
We are thrilled to welcome Carole Cadwalladr to Gaslit Nation. Carole is an investigative journalist who breaks major stories on the Kremlin and Mercer-backed Brexit vote, revealing a cast of nefarious characters that were also behind the election of Donald Trump. Her brave reporting, which won her the Orwell Prize and makes her a target of hit pieces, has uncovered the growing vulnerability of elections in a time of kleptocracy.
Read MoreWe break down decades of intertwined corruption in both the US and the UK and urge officials to seek actual accountability, because time is running out. Kleptocracy anywhere is kleptocracy everywhere, and it is ordinary citizens who pay the most painful price.
Read MoreUkrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, the head of the independent media network Hromadske TV, co-founded by a journalist - Mustafa Nayyem - that launched the EuroMaidan revolution with a Facebook post, looks back on lessons from Ukraine for the West. The discussion includes important insights for understanding international conflicts generally, like Ukraine and Venezuela, by focusing on the people caught in the middle and resisting seeing the world as a geopolitical chessboard. Gumenyuk shares how, while covering the 2016 election in the U.S., she knew Trump would win. And she provides advice for Americans and journalists living in a political climate similar to Ukraine's given the Putin-puppet in power, enrichning himself and his family.
Read MoreThis week, we discuss the continued economic, environmental, and psychological fallout of the government shutdown, and speculate on what’s in store later this month. We have a long discussion about the horrific forced separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border, which both violates the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and is reminiscent of the worst racist abuses of America’s past. For a family, especially kleptocrat princess Ivanka, that likes to brand everything, their most enduring brand will be the deaths their administration has caused. We talk about how rampant income inequality has created a level of plutocrat seemingly immune from legal consequence, and how plutocracy is the new manifest destiny. We debate whether the Mueller probe targets are really all that worried about imprisonment. Finally, we discuss the adult Trump children, their various criminal acts, the urgency of removing Jared Kushner from office, and how Don Jr should turn himself in because his father couldn’t care less what happens to him.
Read MoreWelcome to a very angry episode of Gaslit Nation! The government may be back open, but the US is not out of danger – we are merely in the eye of the hurricane as damage from the shutdown mounts and Trump threatens both another shutdown and a scheduled “national emergency.” Sarah and Andrea discuss the toll the shutdown took on workers and how the broader ambition of the GOP – to strip the US down and sell it for parts – continues unimpeded. We note how female representatives like Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grasp the stakes and are acting as responsible leaders while Congress and the justice system, on the whole, continues to fail citizens.
Read MoreWe breakdown Trump's war on America in the form of the longest government shutdown in our nation's history, the urgent case for#ImpeachmentNow, and examine Deripaska's very sweet sanctions deal.
Read MoreThis isn’t just a shutdown – it’s a hostile restructuring. As the longest shutdown in US history drags on, Sarah and Andrea discuss the incredible toll it’s taken on workers, the economy and national security. We discuss the apocalyptic vision of much of the GOP elite, including rapture-fiend Mike Pompeo and nuke-lover Trump, and how their destructiveness ties into the current goals of the shutdown. We also discuss the NYT non-revelation that Trump is a Russian asset (see every damn episode of Gaslit Nation for more on that, folks!) who is being investigated by the FBI, and ask yet again why the FBI didn’t do anything earlier. Andrea explains how “The Comey Effect” is the new butterfly effect. We also discuss Ivanka helping pick the leader of the World Bank, the yellow vest protests in Europe, the latest attacks on Andrea’s sister from acting Attorney General Whitaker (!) and more.
Read MoreWe continue examining the diastrous fallout of the government shutdown and the toll it’s taken on unpaid federal workers, national parks, and public safety. We debunk the myth that Trump did not understand what the shutdown would entail and argue that this is exactly what he and his camp have wanted: controlled chaos that allows him and other operatives to more easily strip the country down and sell it for parts. With Trump raising the prospect of a “national emergency," we stand on the precipice of something we’ve dreaded for a long time, and that in other settings has been how dictators consolidate power – by fabricating a massive crisis and exploiting it with a show of force. We discuss how the urgent threats of climate change and technological surveillance culture make the rising authoritarianism of the present distinct from that of decades before.
Read MoreThere is treason in the treasury, nepotism in the government, and corruption everywhere – it may be a new year, but it’s the same sad story for the US! This week Sarah and Andrea discuss the cabinet shakeups that have left our government in the hands of a criminal syndicate bound by blood, marriage, and guilt; the retirement of James Mattis and what it means for US foreign policy, especially in Russia and Ukraine; the explosive Buzzfeed expose on how the Treasury was compromised by the Kremlin in 2015 with the help of complicit American employees, and how whistleblowers were the only people punished; the disturbing background of the Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and his ties to international kleptocrats; and the strange spy saga of Paul Whelan.
Read MoreAt Gaslit Nation, every week is Festivus because we have so manygrievances to air! Our Feat of Strength is that we survived 2018. This week, Sarah and Andrea’s Airing of Grievances includes an in-depth look at Russian spy Maria Butina and her NRA “lover” Paul Erickson; a recap of the many criminal acts of Michael Flynn and some speculation as to why he may be eluding punishment; and a long, hard look into the way the mainstream media has covered – or shall we say covered up – the Trump-Russia case, sometimes at the behest of mafia operative and propagandist Paul Manafort.
Read MoreIt’s another wild week in the United States of America, where any child can grow up to be Individual One! Actually, that’s not true, you have to choose a life of crime and complicity, and this week’s Gaslit Nation discusses what’s new for the indicted (Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort), the people who failed to stop them (James Comey), the accomplices (John Kelly, Nick Ayers), and the new guy who will likely let everyone walk, Iran-Contra style (William Barr). Sarah and Andrea discuss how extreme wealth and corruption of the justice system have created a stratified class that can in a sense do no wrong -- because no one will punish them for the wrong they’ve done! We also weigh in on the crisis in France, the role of social media in political protest, and the ongoing fallout from the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Read MoreIn this week’s Gaslit Nation, Sarah and Andrea express their ongoing frustration about last week’s deja news avalanche of stories about corruption that remains unpunished. As America, the land of collective amnesia, realizes yet again that Trump is a Russian asset following the confessions of Michael Cohen, Sarah and Andrea discuss what it means for brazen, blatant criminals to go caught but unpunished.
Read MoreIn this special episode of Gaslit Nation, Andrea interviews her mother Tanya Chalupa who championed the child carseat law and the seatbelt law in California, as well as working on other child safety bills. She explains how to get a law passed even if, as she was, you're an outsider with very little experience.
Read MoreHappy Thanksgiving, Gaslit Nation listeners! Sarah and Andrea are hosting a feast of interesting (and terrifying) commentary from folks around the US as they welcome winners of the Gaslit Nation Get Out the Vote contest onto the show. Our special guests – Valerie Carzello (@ScullyBully) of South Burlington, Vermont, Catherine Snyder (@catherinecritz) of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Brian Covey (@hidvorak) of Seattle, Washington discuss their experiences as activists in the 2018 election, the outcome of the midterms in their states, and their dreams for the future. Sarah and Andrea are very grateful not only to the contest winners but to everyone who helped get out the vote in this record-breaking midterms, which not only resulted in important wins for progressive candidates but demonstrated a massive rise in civic engagement that will extend well into the future.
Read MoreIn this episode of Gaslit Nation, Sarah and Andrea are still way too excited about the midterm elections! The Blue Wave turned out to be a slow motion river flowing through the country and reshaping the political map in the process.
Read MoreThe midterms are over and the results are…decidedly mixed! Sarah and Andrea discuss the historical night from their perspectives in Andrea’s blue trifecta of New York and Sarah’s red nightmare hellhole – er, trifecta – of Missouri.
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