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KPFA - Letters and Politics

Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.

news politics

All Episodes

5:01

Analysis: Megabill Final Vote in the House of...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/07/03

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

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12:53

Analysis of the Latest Version of Trump’s Megabill

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/07/02

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.

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59:58

A Perspective on Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/07/01

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

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59:58

Erwin Chemerinsky on the Implications of Undoing...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/30

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

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10:55

Stephen Greenblatt on Shakespeare and Freud

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/26

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.

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18:01

Rebecca Solnit on No Straight Road Takes You There

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/25

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

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14:44

D.D. Guttenplan on the History of the Nation Magazine...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/24

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.

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8:11

Viet Thanh Nguyen: In War Americans Experience...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/23

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

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18:27

Henrietta Wood: A Legacy of Slavery and Reparations...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/19

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.

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11:08

The Lives of Smugglers (Coyotes)

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/18

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

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59:58

The Israel-Iran Conflict and Trump’s Mega-Bomb

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/17

Guest: Stephen Zunes is Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He is the author of “Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism”, and the co-author of “Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution.”Photo credit: Wikimedia commons. The post The Israel-Iran Conflict and Trump’s Mega-Bomb appeared first on KPFA.

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24:21

Karl Marx’s Influence in the US

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/16

Guest: Andrew Hartman is professor of history at Illinois State University. He is the author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School, and his latest, Karl Marx in America. The post Karl Marx’s Influence in the US appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

The Bath Riots of 1917 & the People’s Response to...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/12

Host Mitch Jeserich recounts the story of a protest known as the “Bath Riots.”The riots are known to have been started by Carmelita Torres and lasted from January 28 to January 30 and were sparked by new immigration policies at the El Paso–Juárez Immigration and Naturalization Service office, requiring Mexicans crossing the border to take de-lousing baths. Carmelita Torres who crossed the border daily from Juarez to clean houses in El Paso. She refused to take a toxic disinfectant bath. Press

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21:31

Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/11

Guest: Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for best biography of the year. She is also the author of God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her latest Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers. The post Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation appeared first on

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59:58

The Military Response to Sanctuary Cities &...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/10

Guest: David Bacon is a photojournalist, author, political activist, and union organizer. His work focuses on labor issues, particularly those related to immigrant labor. He has written several books and numerous articles on the subject. He is the author of The Children of NAFTA, Communities Without Borders, Illegal People, The Right to Stay Home, and In the Fields of the North.Photo by David Bacon. At a protest against immigration detentions in Santa Maria, CA, a young woman holds a sign honoring

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39:52

Trump’s Deployment of the National Guard to LA

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/09

Guests: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award winning journalist, broadcaster, writer, and author. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali that airs at KPFK, KPFA and the Pacifica Radio stations. She is also a Senior Editor at YES! Media, and the author most recently of Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World is Possible. Ben Camacho is an investigative journalist and documentary photographer. His work focuses on state-sponsored violence and the communities impacted by

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3:10

Women in Ancient History

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/05

Guest: Emily Hauser is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of three novels reimagining the women of Greek myth: For the Most Beautiful, For the Winner, and For the Immortal. She is also the author of How Women Became Poets, and most recently, of Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It.The post Women in Ancient History appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

The 50 Year War on American Workers

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/04

Guest: Mark Blyth is a political economist and professor at Brown University. He is an expert on Global Finance & Banking and the author of several books including Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, and his latest, Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, coauthored with Nicolò Fraccaroli.The post The 50 Year War on American Workers appeared first on KPFA.

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40:57

A History of Indian Boarding Schools in America

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/03

Guest: Mary Annette Pember is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe. She is currently national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today. She is the recipient of several awards for her journalism and is the author of Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools. The post A History of Indian Boarding Schools in America appeared first on KPFA.

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19:52

The Witch Hunt Against the Left in the 1940s

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/06/02

Guest: Clay Risen is a historian and a reporter and editor at The New York Times. He is the author of several books including The Crowded Hour, a New York Times Notable Book of 2019, and his latest, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. The post The Witch Hunt Against the Left in the 1940s appeared first on KPFA.

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