Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Ralph Nader
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Ralph Nader talks about what’s happening in America, what’s happening around the world, and most importantly what’s happening underneath it all. www.ralphnaderradiohour.com

  1. 5 DAYS AGO

    Listener Questions & Feedback

    Ralph answers some of your recent questions about the genocide in Gaza, how to jumpstart civic engagement, and more! Your feedback is very important. And the more detailed and factual it is, the better off the impact will be by your initiative and getting back to us. You have to be active in a program like this. Because we’re not just talking to the choir here. We want the choir to sing back—in affirmation or dissent. Ralph Nader I was astonished…how disinterested the American people are in empowering themselves. That’s the problem we have. The lack of civic motivation, the lack of saying, “Look, we’ve given our power to only 535 people in the Congress, and they’ve turned it against us on behalf of some 1,500 corporations. We’re going to turn it around. We’re the sovereign power.” As I’ve said a hundred times, the Constitution starts with “We the people,” not “We the Congress” or “We the corporations.” And the people don’t seem to want to focus on that. If they had anyone in their neighborhood and community who were treating them the way Congress is treating them—as voters, as workers, as consumers, as parents, as children, as taxpayers—they would never allow it. Ralph Nader You get more and more voters vulnerable to just what comes out of a politician’s mouth. Remember, everything Trump has achieved politically has come out of his mouth—not out of his deeds, just out of his mouth. Repeatedly, unrebutted largely over the mass media, and faithfully relayed to the American people by a supine media which points out his mistakes once in a while, but it was too little, too late. Ralph Nader News 9/26/25 * This week, the campaign for Palestinian statehood notched major victories. According to the BBC, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia and Portugal all announced on Sunday that they would recognize the state of Palestine. They are expected to be joined by a number of smaller states, including Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra and San Marino. These countries, all traditionally close allies of the United States and Israel, join the 140 countries that already recognize the State of Palestine. A statement by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese explains that this move is “part of a co-ordinated international effort to build new momentum for a two-state solution, starting with a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages.” These heads of state are pursuing this policy despite a thinly veiled threat from Congressional Republicans, a group of whom – including Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Elise Stefanik – sent a letter to President Macron and Prime Ministers Starmer, Carney and Albanese warning them of possible “punitive measures in response,” and urging them to “reconsider,” per the Guardian. * In more Palestine news, as the Global Sumud Flotilla draws near to the coast of Gaza, they are apparently under low-level attack. Al Jazeera reports the flotilla, “has reported explosions and communications jamming as drones hovered overhead.” In response, the United Nations has called for a probe, with UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan stating, “There must be an independent, impartial and thorough investigation into the reported attacks and harassment by drones and other objects.” In response to this harassment, Reuters reports Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto expressed the “strongest condemnation” and ordered the “Italian multi-purpose frigate Fasan, previously sailing north of Crete, to head towards the flotilla ‘for possible rescue operations’, focusing primarily on Italian citizens.” The strong response by the Italian government is likely related to the labor unrest the targeting of the flotilla has engendered within the country. ANSA, a leading Italian news outlet, reports the Unione Sindacale di Base or USB “would proclaim a wildcat general strike and protests in 100 Italian cities for Gaza after the success of Monday’s stoppage and protests involving an estimated 500,000 people in 80 cities.” The union has organized these massive protests under the slogan “let’s block everything.” * In more foreign policy news, following on the heels of the protests in Nepal, anti-corruption protestors took to the streets in the Philippines this week, Time reports. The acute cause of these protests was a recent audit which found widespread corruption in the country’s flood control projects. The Philippines has invested around $9.5 billion on such projects since 2022, but these have been plagued by kickback schemes, resulting in shoddy work and even deaths. Even President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., aka “Bongbong,” sympathized with the protestors, saying “Do you blame them for going out into the streets? If I wasn’t President, I might be out in the streets with them…Of course, they are enraged. Of course, they are angry. I’m angry. We should all be angry. Because what’s happening is not right.” The potency of these protests is likely to grow as the Philippines was hit this week by Typhoon Ragasa, which is reported to have killed three Filipinos this week, per NBC. * For our final foreign policy update, just days after the dubiously-legal strikes that killed 11 Venezuelans on a boat the U.S. claims was being used to transport drugs, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro sent a letter to American special envoy Richard Grenell, per CNN. In this letter, Maduro denies any involvement with narco-trafficking, calling the allegations “fake news, propagated through various media channels,” and calling for Trump to “promote peace through constructive dialogue and mutual understanding throughout the hemisphere.” Trump brushed off Maduro, saying “We’ll see what happens with Venezuela,” perhaps implying a renewed attempt to remove the Venezuelan president. Since then, the U.S. has conducted more of these lethal strikes, with no conclusive proof of the victims’ criminality. The U.S. government is offering a $50 million bounty for Maduro’s arrest. * Moving northward, a disturbing story comes to us from Florida. The Miami Herald reports, “As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined.” Speaking to the paper, attorneys characterized entering the facility as entering “an alternate [immigration] system where the normal rules don’t apply.” This story cites one case of a man “accidentally deported to Guatemala before a scheduled bond hearing,” similar to the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, and a Cuban man supposedly transferred to a facility in California but who could not be located there. This kind of disappearing of migrants adds fuel to the fire of the worst suspicions about the administration’s immigration policies. The Florida facility was forced to halt operations after a court ruling in August, but an appeals court has now overruled that ruling. The future of the site and its detainees remains uncertain. * In another instance of what appears to be a cover-up by the Trump administration, NPR reports the Department of Agriculture will “end a longstanding annual food insecurity survey.” In a statement, the USDA called the report “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.” This removes another crucial data tool, following the discontinuation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report Trump ended just weeks ago. The signature legislation of Trump’s second term thus far, the One Big Beautiful Bill, expanded work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which is estimated to cut food aid to 2.4 million Americans. That will surely add to the 47.4 million food insecure households recorded in 2023. Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), told NPR “The national food insecurity survey is a critical, reliable data source that shows how many families in America struggle to put food on the table…Without that data, we are flying blind.” * And in another assault on the regulatory state, the Supreme Court this week allowed Trump to keep Rebecca Slaughter – the last remaining Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission – out of her post for another three months. POLITICO reports the high court is reviewing a 90-year-old law which “limit[s] the president’s power to fire…officials for political reasons.” According to this report, many expect the conservative majority on the court will rule that that law “unconstitutionally interferes with the president’s ability to control the executive branch.” If so, Trump will be able to remove Slaughter permanently – along with any other remaining Democrats within the regulatory apparatus. * On the media front, ABC – and its parent company, Disney – have balked, reinstating Jimmy Kimmel’s late night television program after abruptly suspending the show last week. Kimmel, in his return, clarified that “it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” but excoriated the ABC affiliates who took his show off the air, calling the move “un-American.” This from AP. Theories abound as to why exactly ABC and/or Disney walked back what seemed like a cancellation; these include a potential costly lawsuit due to wrongful termination of Kimmel’s contract, as well as a coordinated boycott campaign targeting Disney’s streaming service, Disney+. For his part, President Trump washed his hands of the fiasco, writing that Kimmel can “rot in his bad Ratings,” per New York Magazine. * In tech news, Axios reports the Trump administration has approved Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, for official use by every government agency. This news comes via a press release from the General Services Administration. This release quotes Musk, who says “We look forward to continuing to work with President Trump and

    1h 16m

  2. 20 SEPT

    Dirtbag Billionaire

    Ralph interviews New York Times reporter, David Gelles, about his new book, “Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away.” Then, we welcome back former IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, to update us on how the Trump Administration is dismantling the IRS and stealing your personal information. David Gelles is a reporter on the New York Times climate team and he leads the Times’s “Climate Forward” newsletter and events series. He is the author of The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy, and his new book is Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away. He [Yvon Chouinard] saw Patagonia as a role model for other corporations and believed that by running Patagonia in a different way, he could show that capitalism just didn't have to suck so much. David Gelles There's a paradox that runs through the pages of Dirtbag Billionaire and it's never fully resolved…It's the fact that Chouinard is an environmentalist who wants to reduce the impact of mankind on planet earth, and yet he runs a big, complicated clothing company that is taking a toll on the environment that he's trying to protect. He runs a company that in theory, he says, and in practice is largely doing, the work of funding grassroots activists and environmental conservation. But he's doing it by participating in the very capitalist system that is responsible for so much of the damage to our natural world. And the list goes on. These contradictions are what really has animated Chouinard and his executive team for all these years. They understand their own perfections. But unlike most, they are willing to really examine their own failings, to look it square in the eye, straight in the mirror, and try to figure out how to make things better. David Gelles Chouinard being a “dirtbag” is something he always identified as and he still does at a certain level. The great insult in his mind is being called a “billionaire.” David Gelles John Koskinen served as the IRS Commissioner from 2013 to 2017. Lobbyists and corporations are very good at making sure that [tax advantages] always stayed. You never hear too often of tax advantages taken out of the code, what everybody argues about as new ones being put into the code. John Koskinen These (IRS workers) are very skilled people who in fact have given up the opportunity to make two or three times more money in the private sector because they believe in public service. John Koskinen News 9/19/25 * Just weeks after David Ellison’s Skydance Media completed their $8 billion takeover of Paramount Global, Ellison is setting his sights even higher – a proposed $70 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Variety reports. If this deal proceeds, it would mean that Ellison would control CNN in addition to CBS news, the latter of which he seemingly plans to place under the supervision of “anti-woke” arch-zionist media personality Bari Weiss. While true that cable news does not possess nearly as much clout as it did just a few years ago, this would represent a nearly unprecedented consolidation in that sector. Ellison and his lieutenants would wield a tremendous amount of influence in the media, which would translate to real impacts on the political process. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration media regulators will take any action to block this deal. Based on their actions so far, it seems unlikely. * In more media news, ABC has indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which the comedian has hosted since 2003, after he criticized Trump and his allies for “capitaliz[ing]” on the murder of Charlie Kirk to score political points, CNN reports. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened action up to and including revoking the broadcast license for ABC, which airs the program, or possibly blocking their merger with Nexstar. While Rolling Stone reports multiple executives at ABC and its parent company Disney, felt that Kimmel “had not actually said anything over the line,” they folded immediately under the threat of retaliation by the administration. This move represents a major contradiction of Carr’s previously stated belief that “[the FCC] must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.” Democrats are incensed at this attack on free speech, Congressman Ro Khanna is seeking to subpoena Carr to testify to the House Oversight Committee. Trump, feeling confident after claiming the scalp of both Kimmel and Colbert – two outspoken critics – is now calling for NBC to remove Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, via Truth Social. Variety reports conservative media conglomerate Sinclair will “replace the Friday timeslot of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ with a Charlie Kirk tribute special on its ABC affiliate stations — and is offering the special to all other ABC stations across the country.” * Regarding social media, the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. and China are nearing a deal on control of TikTok, under a framework in which “an investor consortium including Oracle... Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz” would acquire an 80% stake. Oracle is of course run by David Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world, while Andreessen Horowitz is the venture capital firm of Trump ally Marc Andreessen. Silver Lake is another Silicon Valley private equity firm. This deal would finally put an end to the nebulous legal limbo created by Congress passing the TikTok ban and Trump refusing to enforce it. According to this report, the new company that would be created to run TikTok in America, “would also have an American-dominated board with one member designated by the U.S. government.” * The administration is seeking to shore up support in corporate America in other ways too. Trump has renewed his 2018 push to eliminate the reports businesses are mandated to issue on a quarterly basis, moving to a biannual reporting system. Trump argues that this shift would “cut costs and discourage shortsightedness on the part of publicly traded companies.” Others however believe that this change could be harmful to the economy, making companies less transparent and therefore increasing potential investor risk. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it is “making Trump's proposal a priority.” This from Reuters. * More troubling signs are emerging in the U.S economy. Per Bloomberg, “Consumers in the top 10% of the income distribution accounted for 49.2% of total spending,” in the second quarter of 2025. This is the highest percentage of consumer spending accounted for by that demographic going back to 1989, according to an analysis of the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts and Survey of Consumer Finance data conducted by Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s. Chandan Economics reports a spike in late rent payments in August, suggesting stress in the “financial health of renter households,” while for homeowners, Polymarket reports that even more people are searching "help with mortgage" on Google than during the 2008 housing crisis. This comes as only 1.3 million home building permits were issued in August, the lowest level since the Spring of 2020, according to economist and Washington Post columnist Heather Long. Taken together, this data paints a picture of an economy flailing, and kept afloat only by the very rich. * Speaking of the very rich, the first American Pope, Leo the XIV, condemned the precipitous rise in CEO pay compared to their employees. Leo remarked that CEOs now make “600 times more than what average workers are receiving," adding "What does that mean…If [money] is the only thing that has value anymore, then we're in big trouble." Specifically, Leo was referring to the proposed new compensation package for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which could turn the billionaire into a trillionaire. This from Yahoo! Finance. Senator Bernie Sanders echoed this sentiment, writing “The Pope is exactly right. No society can survive when one man becomes a trillionaire while the vast majority struggle to just survive — trying to put food on the table, pay rent and afford health care. We can and must do better.” * Turning to Israel and Gaza, AP reports Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s is resigning from the company after 47 years. In a letter, Jerry explains that he could not “in good conscience” remain at Ben & Jerry’s because their parent company – the British conglomerate Unilever – has been constraining his ability to advocate against the genocide in Gaza. Jerry writes “For more than 20 years under their ownership, Ben & Jerry’s stood up and spoke out in support of peace, justice and human rights, not as abstract concepts, but in relation to real events happening in our world…It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone.” This is the largest, but by no means only, rupture between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever; this report notes “In March Ben & Jerry’s said that its CEO was unlawfully removed by Unilever in retaliation for the ice cream maker’s social and political activism.” However, as Greenfield’s departure illustrates, the founders have little recourse besides their public platform and resignation. * In a sign of Israel’s waning influence in the Democratic Party, POLITICO reports Democratic public affairs “megafirm” SKDK has ended their $600,000 contract with the state of Israel which was supposed to run from April 2025 through March 2026. The firm’s recent focus had been “pitching guests for news shows to hear Israel’s side of the war in Gaza.” The firm has been tight-lipped on this decision, saying only the work “had run it

    1h 26m

  3. 13 SEPT

    Trump’s Attack on Science/ Year of the Co-op

    Ralph welcomes Timothy Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to speak about how federal workers across all government agencies are being unfairly denigrated and summarily fired by the Trump Administration to clear the way for corporate corruption. Plus, we are joined by Toby Heaps, Editor-in-Chief of “Corporate Knights” magazine to talk about the benefits of the cooperative business model over the corporate shareholder model. Timothy Whitehouse is executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Prior to joining PEER, he was a senior attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency and was head of the Law and Policy Program at the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation in Montreal. The time to stigmatize federal workers is over. It's time to start rallying for unions for federal workers and what they do, and to support the idea that government plays an important role and that government (the civil service) must be as non-political as possible. Our country will be much better for it. Timothy Whitehouse That's a good way to describe it: supersonic. We knew things were going to be really bad, but they are much worse than bad because there's no check and no balance on this President's madness. And some of the people and institutions we had hoped would stand up a little bit are collapsing one by one. Timothy Whitehouse Our foreign enemies could not have devised a better way to grind our system to a halt, and that's what's happening. Timothy Whitehouse Toby Heaps is the CEO and co-founder of Corporate Knights, and Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Knights magazine. He spearheaded the first global ranking of the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations in 2005, and in 2007 coined the term “clean capitalism.” Toby has been published in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Globe and Mail, and is a regular guest speaker on CBC. I think in the co-op movement, the biggest bugaboo holding it back (in North America, that is) is people's perception that it's not a significant force. And it is already a significant force. In many cases, we're not familiar that the company might be a co-op (such as Associated Press or Ocean Spray) but in the United States alone, the turnover of co-op enterprises sales in 2023 was $324 billion US. And so, it's a significant part of the economy already. Toby Heaps I can't underline enough that if you care about a sustainable economy that works for people and planet, that the operating model is not just the clean economy (the environmentally friendly economy), it's the cooperatively-run economy. Toby Heaps The principal obstacle to co-ops is the inadequate engagement of consumers to know about the huge benefits— to control the local economy from multinational corporations (absentee), who are pulling strings in ways that are very damaging, and basically to assume the purchasing power of the consumer. Ralph Nader News 9/12/2025 * Several major stories surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein case have emerged in the past week. First, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released a note written by President Trump to Epstein included in the latter’s “birthday book” from 2003. In this note, Trump refers to Epstein as his “pal” and writes “May every day be another wonderful secret," according to Reuters. Trump has denied that this letter even existed, going so far as to sue the Wall Street Journal for defamation over their reporting in July. Trump continues to deny that he wrote the letter, though his signature is a perfect match, and he has sought to tamp down the matter, calling it a “dead issue,” per NBC. * In Congress, Republican allies of Donald Trump are seeking to quash the Epstein issue as well. On Tuesday, Republicans on the House Rules Committee “shot down a bid to put the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which would compel the Justice Department to release all unclassified records related to Jeffrey Epstein—to a floor vote,” in an 8–4 party-line vote, the New Republic reports. However, despite this setback, dissident Republican Thomas Massie continues to press the issue. Speaking about the birthday note, Massie said “It’s…indicative of the things that might come out if we were to release all of the files…embarrassing, but not indictable. And I don’t think avoiding embarrassment is a reason to avoid justice,” per CNN. Massie added in an interview on ABC that "I think it's going to be embarrassing to some of the billionaires, some of the donors who are politically connected to [Trump’s] campaign. There are probably intelligence ties to our CIA and maybe to other foreign intelligence." Democrat Ro Khanna insisted in this same interview that he and his allies, including Massie, will be able to pull together a House majority of 218 members to force a vote on releasing the files. * Our final Epstein story for the week concerns James O’Keefe. Former leader of Project Veritas, O’Keefe continues to carry out far-right hidden-camera sting operations. In a rare move targeting conservatives, O’Keefe engineered a date between Joseph Schnitt, a deputy chief of staff at the Office of Enforcement Operations at DOJ, and an operative in his employ wherein Schnitt admitted that the Trump administration will “redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, [and] leave all the liberal, Democratic people.” In this video, Schnitt also implies that Epstein’s lieutenant, Ghislaine Maxwell was relocated to a lower security prison to “keep her mouth shut,” as part of a deal with the government. This according to the Hill. One should certainly take revelations from O’Keefe with a heavy dose of salt, but these troubling comments should also raise suspicions about the government’s possible plans to manipulate information related to this case for political ends. * Aside from the Epstein affair, the Trump administration continues to issue destructive policy directives in all directions. AP reports the federal Department of Transportation has scrapped a Biden-era rule that required airlines to “compensate stranded passengers with cash, lodging and meals for flight cancellations or changes caused by a carrier.” This rule, which sought “compensation starting at $200…[and] as high as $775…for delays of nine hours or more,” was consistent with European aviation consumer protections. Unsurprisingly, airlines – represented by lobbyists in the employ of the industry trade group Airlines for America – bitterly resisted the rule and celebrated the administration’s abandonment of this basic consumer protection. The Biden Transportation Department had also been weighing rules that would have required airlines to provide, “free rebooking on the next available flight, including flights on rival airlines, as well as meals and lodging when passengers are stranded overnight.” * At the same time, the Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission is abandoning its rules banning noncompete clauses for employees. An eye-popping 1 in 5 workers are bound by noncompetes, approximately 30 million Americans, and experts estimated that banning such clauses could boost wages to the tune of nearly $300 billion per year and help create 8,500 new businesses, per NPR. The FTC voted 3-1 to vacate its defense of the rule, with Chair Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak, both Republicans, issuing a joint statement. Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the lone remaining Democrat on the commission after Trump purged the FTC earlier this year, voted no. * Turning to foreign affairs, the Guardian reports two ships in the Gaza aid flotilla have been struck by drone attacks while docked in Tunisia. The first struck the Family Boat, which carries activist Greta Thunberg, though she was not on board at the time. The second struck the Alma, a ship bearing British flags while docked in the port of Sidi Bou Said. In a video, one can see, “a luminous object hitting the boat and fire erupting on board.” Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, is quoted saying, ‘‘Authoritative sources suggest the attack involved an incendiary grenade, wrapped in plastic materials soaked in fuel, which may have ignited before even hitting the vessel.” These attacks come amidst a renewed Israeli bombing campaign against its neighbors, including bombing the Qatari capital of Doha and the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Trump says he is “very unhappy” about the strikes; Israel’s ambassador to the United States however says the world will “get over it.” This from Al Jazeera. * Meanwhile, Drop Site is out with yet another bombshell report, this time on Israel’s propaganda push to cover up the scale of the hunger crisis in Gaza. According to this report, the Netanyahu government signed a previously unreported $45 million deal with Google to push false propaganda through the massive platform. One video, viewed more than 6 million times, asserts “There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie.” Israel also reportedly paid $3 million for an ad campaign on X, formerly Twitter, and another $2 million on a French platform called Outbrain. This report also cites other examples of Israeli propaganda campaigns in recent years, including against UNRWA and regarding the illegal strikes in Iran. * In more positive news, the pro-Palestine campaign in Hollywood continues to grow. This week, Variety reports a group of over 3,900 filmmakers, actors and other industry professionals signed a new pledge to boycott working with “Israeli film institutions and companies that are ‘implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.’” This group includes many household names, such as Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix, Jonathan Glazer, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Emma Stone, Boots Riley, Ayo Edebiri, and many, many

    1h 41m

  4. 6 SEPT

    The Right to Exist

    Ralph welcomes Palestinian-American writer, activist, and scientist Susan Abulhawa to discuss the ongoing Palestinian genocide and the evidence that supports a vastly higher death toll in Gaza. Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian-American writer and political activist. She is the author of Mornings in Jenin—translated into thirty languages—and The Blue Between Sky and Water. Born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, she moved to the United States as a teenager, graduated in biomedical science, and established a career in medical science. In July 2001, she founded “Playgrounds for Palestine,” a non-governmental children’s organization dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children. I consider this, first of all, immoral. It's disrespecting the Palestinian dead while they kill the Palestinians who are still alive with US bombers and artillery shells and other weapons coming from Washington, D.C. And it underestimates the kind of urgency that should be confronting this genocide. Ralph Nader This is something that I think generations will study for a very long time to come. The complicity of Western media across the board is no less criminal than the genocide itself. Susan Abulhawa This is a complete wiping out of life. A total destruction. And it's completely driven by this unfathomable hate and colonial arrogance and Jewish supremacy and this notion of entitlement. Of being favored by God, of being promised some real estate by a real-estate-agent Lord. I mean, it beggars belief the narratives that we see spoken in mainstream outlets and in the halls of power. Truly, it beggars belief. Susan Abulhawa No, I don't believe Israel has a right to exist. It has never had a right to exist. No political entities have a right to exist. People have a right to exist. They have a right to exist in their own homeland with dignity. People have a right to universal dignity. A supremacist ideology—and that's ultimately what Zionism is predicated on, on supremacy and entitlement for a group of people at the detriment of another group of people—that is not a right, and it should never be a right. It should be anathema, in fact. Susan Abulhawa News 9/5/25 * The Intercept reports AIPAC has lost another Democratic ally in Congress. Congresswoman Deborah Ross of North Carolina has pledged that she will not accept AIPAC campaign contributions in her 2026 reelection bid. In previous elections, Ross has accepted over $100,000 in AIPAC donations. This comes on the heels of another North Carolina Congresswoman, Valerie Foushee – who received over $800,000 in AIPAC contributions – also renouncing donations from the group. As the Intercept notes, in June, the North Carolina Democratic Party adopted a resolution calling for a “complete arms embargo on all military aid to Israel until it ends its apartheid rule of Palestinians.” Dr. Paul McAllister, a reverend and chair of the Interfaith Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party, is quoted saying “AIPAC uses the muscle of their resources to oust anyone who disagrees with them regarding Israel, the conduct of Israel and the atrocities that may be committed by the government of Israel — so it is good that Deborah Ross is willing to recognize and acknowledge that.” * In more Israel news, a new aid flotilla bound for Gaza departed from Genoa, Italy last Sunday. Unlike previous flotillas however, this one carries the protection of a surprising group: Italian dockworkers. According to POLITICO EU, “Speaking at a rally on the docks of Genoa, one of Europe's largest ports, a dockworker representing the USB union said…‘Around mid-September, these boats will arrive near the coast of Gaza. If we lose contact with our boats, with our comrades, even for just 20 minutes, we will shut down all of Europe.’” Genoa has expressed unprecedented solidarity with Gaza. A food drive in the city collected “more than 300 tons of humanitarian aid…[and] over 40,000 people, including the city's mayor, Silvia Salis, joined a torchlit march through the streets in support of the [humanitarian flotilla on Saturday].” During the procession, Salis remarked “Every day I am proud to be the mayor of this city, but tonight, if possible, I am even more so.” * In yet another Israel story, Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, an Israeli cybersecurity apparatchik, who was arrested in August during an undercover operation “targeting child sex predators,” failed to appear for his court date in Nevada. Alexandrovich fled to Israel after being bailed out of jail in the U.S.; his lawyer, David Chesnoff, told the court that he told Alexandrovich not to attend the hearing. Judge Barbara Schifalacqua is now demanding that Alexandrovich appear before the court this week, but it remains to be seen whether he will actually show. This case has become politicized, with liberals and conservatives accusing one another of allowing Alexandrovich to flee the country. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu falsely denied that Alexandrovich was arrested at all. This from Al Jazeera. * In more sex predator news, Representatives Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor-Greene held a press conference this week with survivors of abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein to push for full disclosure of the Justice Department’s files on the case. At this conference, survivors also said they will release their own list of names. This comes amidst a renewed push for Congressional action spearheaded by the survivors. On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee released a batch of records, but most of these have been made public before. The survivors met with lawmakers this week, including Speaker Mike Johnson, who said “I think the Oversight probe is going to be wide and expansive, and they’re going to follow the truth wherever it leads,” per the Washington Post. Congresswoman Nancy Mace was also seen emerging from a meeting with the survivors visibly upset, though we do not know what exactly was discussed in this meeting. What is clear is that the Epstein story is not going away any time soon. * In local news, the National Guard has shared a statement with CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane in which they boast that, “Guardsmen have cleaned more than 3.2 miles of roadways, collected more than 500 bags of trash, and disposed of three truckloads of plant waste.” Looking beyond the absurdity of deploying the National Guard to pick up trash, Samuel Littauer, Commissioner of ANC 3C01 – a local government district in Washington – crunched the numbers and found that “DC’s cleaning crews cover around 81 miles/day for around $150K/day… [while the] National Guard has cleaned a total of 3.2 miles and costs more than $1M/day.” This means, “It’s about 170X more cost efficient per mile to fund DC’s existing work.” * Yet, despite the staggering inefficiency of the federal occupation – to say nothing of the outrageous, authoritarian government overreach – D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has signed an order outlining how the District will “continue to work with the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, U.S. Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, [and] the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” according to WTOP. This report notes that, “Bowser’s order provides a path for working with federal law enforcement…[a] public indication that federal law enforcement could remain in the city indefinitely.” Other D.C. officials, including the District’s delegate in Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton, have decried the occupation. Unfortunately, Norton is not even afforded the power of a single vote in Congress. This debacle further underscores the necessity for sovereign statehood for D.C. * In more news of federal law enforcement overreach, Prem Thakker of Zeteo reports new figures that show, “61,226 people are currently in ICE detention — the highest number ever in US history.” Thakker goes on to report that “According to ICE data, 70% of these people have no criminal conviction.” This unjustifiable mass detention shows no signs of slowing down, with ICE being granted larger and larger budgets and more and more latitude by the administration. The parallels to other shadowy secret police organizations throughout history continue to grow more pronounced. * Labor Notes editor Luis Feliz Leon reports Columbia University is seeking to bust graduate worker unions – at Columbia and beyond. A statement from the union reads “Over the summer, the university expelled and suspended 80 students, eliminated all but ten…graduate instructor jobs, and filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge that could reshape the future of higher ed.” This marks yet another blow to the august reputation of Columbia, already damaged by their authoritarian overreaction to pro-Palestine protests and their capitulation to borderline extortion by Trump. * In the federal government, Trump continues to attack critical safety regulators. Reuters reports, “Two of the three remaining commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. nuclear safety watchdog, told a Senate hearing on Wednesday they feel President Donald Trump could fire them if they obstruct his goal to approve reactors faster.” Trump, via executive order, has committed the United States to, “fast-tracking new reactor licenses and quadrupling U.S. nuclear energy capacity by 2050…while also reducing staffing at the NRC.” The Commission is already down to just three members from its usual five and according to this report, “a dozen senior level managers…have left or announced they will leave since January, and…143 staff departed between January and June.” The Commission is currently considering five reactor applications and “expects another 25 to 30 soon.” Whatever one’s thoughts are on nuclear energy in general, it is wildly irresponsible and dangerous to consider these reactor

    1h 10m

  5. 30 AUG

    Impeach Trump!... Again

    Ralph welcomes constitutional scholar, John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of the group “Free Speech for People,” which has launched the non-partisan campaign “Impeach Trump. Again.” Plus, Ralph, Steve, and David discuss Donld Trump’s servile corporatist agenda and his attempt to rig the midterms by ordering Texas to gerrymander him five more districts. John Bonifaz is a constitutional attorney and the co-founder and president of Free Speech For People. Mr. Bonifaz previously served as the executive director and general counsel of the National Voting Rights Institute, and as the legal director of Voter Action. In 2004, Mr. Bonifaz wrote the book Warrior-King: The Case For Impeaching George W. Bush. We either have a constitution,or we don't. We either have an impeachment clause, or we don't. If we're not going to invoke the impeachment power at this critical moment in our nation's history, then we might as well say we're giving up on the Constitution. We refuse to give up on the Constitution. John Bonifaz I think the biggest thing that we have to deal with are the naysayers. Those who somehow claim that we're not going to invoke the impeachment power because either it's not the right time, or he's already been impeached twice and what's the point or we just need to move on. John Bonifaz These are high crimes against the state. These are not policy disputes. These are political high crimes against the state, for which you must be held accountable via the impeachment process. John Bonifaz I think it's disgraceful for any member who claims that they're out there defending the Constitution and defending our democracy, and yet they won't even want to mention the "I- word”. As much as I respect them on other fronts and what they do, if they're not invoking the impeachment clause at this critical hour, frankly, they're part of the problem. John Bonifaz News 8/29/25 * In an interview on “Hamakor” or “The Source” on Israel’s Channel 13, former Biden State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told former Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he planned to continue fighting in Gaza for decades, per the Middle East Eye. Other revelations in this interview include behind the scenes accounts of ceasefire negotiations, such as a story about Netanyahu blowing up a proposed six-week ceasefire with his declaration that Israel would invade Rafah “whether there was a ceasefire or not,” according to the Times of Israel. It is disgraceful that Miller and the Biden administration kept this information from the public at the time, but better late than never. * A new report in the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals that, “Hundreds of pages of previously unseen documents reveal that [Pennsylvania Governor Josh] Shapiro’s office was intimately involved in managing the controversy [over the pro-Palestine demonstrations and encampments at the University of Pennsylvania], seizing an unprecedented level of influence over the university in the process.” Through a proxy, a lawyer named Robb Fox, Shapiro “pushed the university to ban Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine (PAO), its main pro-Palestinian student group,” and “worked closely with the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee — a significant pro-Israel group on campus — to a great enough extent that PIPAC effusively thanked Shapiro and Fox for their ‘partnership.’” Shapiro putting his thumb on the scales against pro-Palestine student activism is sure to come back to haunt him if he seeks the presidential nomination in 2028, as many speculate he will. * In more foreign policy related news, investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reports “The Trump administration has directed the military to prepare for lethal strikes against cartel targets inside Mexico…which are to be ready by mid-September.” This is the latest escalation in Trump’s campaign against transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, but critically, “sources say that military action could be unilateral — that is, without the involvement or approval of the Mexican government.” If so, this would constitute an extremely aggressive act within the sovereign territory of another country. It is unlikely that Mexico would respond with any kind of military action, but diplomatic and economic sanctions would be on the table. * In domestic political news, the Democratic National Committee held a much-anticipated meeting in Minneapolis on Tuesday, featuring dueling resolutions to lay out the party’s position on Gaza – one of which called for a “military arms embargo and suspension of military aid to Israel.” As POLITICO reports, “The committee initially voted to reject that measure while advancing…one backed by [DNC Chair Ken] Martin, which called for ‘unrestricted’ aid to Gaza and a two-state solution. But soon after the arms embargo vote failed, Martin announced he was withdrawing his successful resolution.” Martin stated “There’s a divide in our party on this issue,” and urged Democrats to “keep working through” what their position should be. Allison Minnerly, the progressive Florida delegate who sponsored the more strident resolution, expressed that while she was glad Martin didn’t ram through his preferred position, she considered the result “disappointing” when “it’s clear what voters want.” According to Gallup, just 8% of Democrats approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza. * More Democratic Party division surfaced in Minnesota this week, with Axios reporting that, based on a technicality, the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's rules committee vacated the local DFL’s endorsement of democratic socialist mayoral candidate Omar Fateh. Fateh, who has been hailed as the “Mamdani of Minneapolis” won the local party’s endorsement in July, which gave him – rather than incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey – exclusive access to the party’s voter database. According to this report however, a third candidate was wrongfully eliminated from the endorsement vote process, rendering the endorsement null and void. Fateh’s campaign is understandably incensed by this decision and views it as an attempt by the state party to intervene on behalf of Frey. Moreover, Ryan Faircloth of the Star-Tribune reports “the state DFL committee [also] barred the Minneapolis DFL from holding another endorsing convention this year…placed the Minneapolis DFL on probation for two years and said it must be supervised by [the] state DFL executive committee.” Fateh co-campaign manager Graham Faulkner is quoted saying “Our campaign sees this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucus-goers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day…The establishment is threatened by our message…They are scared of a politics that really stands up to corporate interests and with our working class neighbors." Congresswoman Ilhan Omar called the move a “stain on our party.” * In more local politics news, the administration of New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been rocked by yet new corruption indictments. On August 21st, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, “announced the indictment of INGRID LEWIS-MARTIN for accepting more than $75,000 in bribes…in a wide-ranging series of bribery conspiracies …while serving as Chief Advisor to the Mayor of the City of New York.” Lewis-Martin was previously charged in an alleged bribery conspiracy totaling more than $100,000 in December 2024. This new indictment is related to Lewis-Martin accepting bribes in exchange for favorable treatment by city agencies, including “help[ing] fast-track permit approvals for a karaoke bar in Queens,” and “hav[ing] the New York City Department of Transportation…withdraw its approval for a street redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn, which would have included new, protected bike lanes.” For the latter, Lewis-Martin allegedly received a speaking role on the television show Godfather of Harlem. This indictment further cements the comically corrupt reputation of the Eric Adams administration. * In more news of possible corruption, Unusual Whales, which tracks congressional stock trading, reported on August 19th that Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott just disclosed trades worth $26,000,000 more than a year late, noting that Scott “traded millions on companies he legislated.” Scott, one of Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, previously served as CEO of Columbia/HCA, the largest for-profit healthcare company in the nation in the 1990s. He was forced to resign in 1997, when the Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company and imposed a $1.7 billion fine, the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history up to that point. * Moving on to consumer news, the Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against “LA Fitness and other gyms over allegations they make it exceedingly difficult for consumers to cancel their gym memberships.” The agency is “seeking a court order prohibiting the allegedly unfair conduct and money back for consumers harmed by the difficulty in cancelling memberships.” This lawsuit is related to the FTC’s “click to subscribe/call to cancel” rule, but these gyms go far beyond requiring customers to merely call to cancel their memberships. As the FTC explains, “LA Fitness has required consumers who want to cancel their membership to either go to the gym itself or send a cancellation notice by mail,” and they make both processes as difficult as possible. For instance, “consumers who tried to cancel in person…could only cancel with one specific employee, even though LA Fitness authorized several employees to sign consumers up for memberships. This restricted cancellation hours to times when consumers are typically at work, despite most locations operating up to 19 hours per

    1h 11m

  6. 23 AUG

    Up in Arms

    Ralph welcomes Ben Cohen (anti-war activist and ice cream entrepreneur) to discuss his new campaign, "Up in Arms," which advocates for a common-sense Pentagon budget. Then, Ralph speaks to Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi about her recent piece: "When will we finally admit: the Gaza death toll is higher than we’ve been told." Ben Cohen is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and longtime anti-war activist. He is a co-founder of the ice cream company Ben & Jerry's and a prominent supporter of progressive causes. He is co-founder of Up In Arms, a public education and advocacy campaign pushing for a common-sense approach to military budgeting. In May of this year, Ben was arrested by Capitol Police after he interrupted Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s testimony by screaming,”Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid.” We're up in arms because the government has taken the kindness, the heart, the soul of the American people and essentially replaced it with so many bombs that there's no rational use for them. They've turned us all into mass murderers. Ben Cohen You know, politicians starting from Reagan are fond of saying “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” And then they turn around and spend $100 billion a year on a nuclear arsenal that's capable of blowing up the entire world several times over. So they say one thing and they do another. I mean, a nuclear arsenal capable of blowing up the entire world several times over? That's not deterrence. That's delusion. Ben Cohen I just go back to the moral issue of our time, which is Gaza—two-thirds of the American people don't support continuing to arm Israel. And we need to make our politicians pay the price for continuing to arm Israel… We have a midterm election coming up. If your guy voted to continue to essentially facilitate the genocide, vote them out. Ben Cohen When you have more money than is needed, you tend to invite corruption, cost overruns, machinery that doesn't work, and I would advise that you look into why the GAO and the Pentagon auditors are being asked to do fewer audits of the military budget. Because there's almost a direct correlation between throwing money at a government program (especially at that scale) and corruption. And corruption is understandable to everybody. It's the number one political issue all over the world, when the pollsters poll. Ralph Nader Arwa Mahdawi is a columnist for the Guardian and author of Strong Female Lead: Lessons from Women in Power. Here is her recent piece on the genocide in Gaza: “When will we finally admit: the Gaza death toll is higher than we’ve been told” (The Guardian, August 8, 2025) To be fair, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal have published some pretty devastating reports from their reporters in that area. They've put out some devastating features on what's going on [in Gaza], but it doesn't translate into editorial denunciation by these papers. And it doesn't translate into taking the next step and doing what they would do in other conflicts around the world where there isn't so much prejudice and domestic pressure Ralph Nader I'm an opinion writer, but as journalists, you're always supposed to report facts. And the fact is: we have absolutely no idea how many people are dead in the Gaza Strip. But there are plenty of studies (which I reference in the article—one Lancet peer-reviewed study, one letter to the Lancet by a highly-respected scientist, one empirical study by Michael Spagat) which show that the death count is a lot higher. So I truly believe that unless you're saying “the official figure from the Ministry of Health is around 60,000 but studies show it is probably much higher,” then that's just journalistic malpractice. Arwa Mahdawi I think there's just this instinct to believe that Palestinians are lying and Israelis are telling the truth. And it also goes back to…this isn't just Israel's war, this is America's war as well. And this desire to see America as the good guys—we're the good guys, the Palestinians are the bad guys. And to have this black-and-white narrative where, obviously, we're the good guys, you know, and so if the Palestinian narrative casts doubt on that, then it must be wrong. Arwa Mahdawi I always suggest that people write to the media outlets and say that they want to see more Palestinian narratives, they want the media outlets to voice their concern that foreign reporters are not being let in, that more aid workers are not being let in, that pictures are not coming out. Arwa Mahdawi There are very few pictures coming out of the scale of this destruction in Gaza, but when you see the ones that do come out, it is very, very obvious that there are more than 60,000 people dead.But there seems to be this lack of curiosity with some of my peers. Why aren't they asking, “Why aren't we seeing more pictures?” There should be nonstop outrage that their press freedom is being stifled like this and so many Palestinian journalists are being slaughtered. Arwa Mahdawi News 8/22/25 * Last Thursday, during an event in her Masscusetts congressional district, Congresswoman Katherine Clark – who holds the position of House Minority Whip, making her the number two Democrat in the House – called Israel’s campaign in Gaza a “genocide,” per Axios. According to Zeteo, this makes Clark the 14th member of Congress to use the “g word.” Lest she be accused of bravery however, Clark quickly walked back her comments. In a statement to the Jewish News Syndicate, Clark said “last week, while attending an event in my district, I repeated the word ‘genocide’ in response to a question…I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide.” This incident illustrates the cross-cutting pressures facing Democratic Party leaders. This divide will be on the agenda again at the DNC meeting on August 26th, where among other issues, party leaders will vote on competing resolutions to lay out the Democrats’ position on Gaza. Allison Minnerly, the progressive DNC delegate sponsoring the resolution to end arms shipments to Israel, is quoted saying “Our voters…are saying that they do not want U.S. dollars to enable further death and starvation anywhere across the world, particularly in Gaza…I don’t think it should be a hard decision for us to say that clearly,” per the Intercept. * Even as Democrats wrestle with their position on Gaza, the politics are clearly shifting. The Reject AIPAC coalition has released a new statement saying that among Democrats, AIPAC is now a “toxic pariah.” As evidence of this, Reject AIPAC cites the fact that only 14 House Democrats attended the AIPAC-sponsored Israel trip this year. According to Mondoweiss, “In 2023, the lobbying group brought 24 House Dems to Israel over recess. In 2019, over 40 attended.” Reject AIPAC also cites the fact that Reps. Valerie Foushee and Maxine Dexter, both recipients of millions of AIPAC dollars, voted to block arms to Israel and Foushee is even now rejecting AIPAC money. As these small victories mount, the horizon of possibility for movement within the party grows ever wider. * Last week, Tom Artiom Alexandrovich – a senior department head in Israel's National Cyber Directorate – was arrested in a “multi-agency operation targeting child sex predators,” in Clark County, Nevada according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. According to Reuters, “Alexandrovich faces a felony charge of luring or attempting to lure a child or mentally ill person to commit a sex act ‘with use of computer technology.’” Yet, inexplicably, Alexandrovich was released by U.S. authorities and is back in Israel. This set off a firestorm in the U.S., with many accusing the Trump administration of facilitating Alexandrovich’s release. The State Department was forced to issue a statement denying these claims, stating that Alexandrovich "did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge…Any claims that the U.S. government intervened are false." The AP adds that the “Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office did not immediately return messages.” Disturbingly, the mainstream media seems to be purposely ignoring this case. While it has been covered by the Guardian, the Times of Israel, and Haaretz, there has been zero coverage in the New York Times or Washington Post, or ABC, NBC, or CBS. This media blackout adds fuel to the speculation that this case is being tamped down by the administration for political reasons. * Another troubling story regarding minors on the internet comes to us from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI. According to Reuters, internal documents from Meta Platforms detail “policies on chatbot behavior…[permitting] the company’s artificial intelligence creations to ‘engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,’ generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are ‘dumber than white people.’” Former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan called these reports “disturbing” and cited a legal complaint filed by the FTC to the Justice Department against Snap in January, under her leadership, “charging that [Snap’s] AI chatbot was creating risks and harms for young users.” Khan noted that the “DOJ hasn’t filed the case or taken any steps to protect these kids,” and demanded that “Any lawmaker concerned about big tech’s abuse of kids should ask what is going on.” The administration’s lack of action on these issues indicates that despite their rhetorical inveighing against the tech industry, they are treating SIlicon Valley with the same kid gloves they use for the rest of corporate America, even when it affects minors. * In more positive news from abroad, the Washington Post reports that between 2022 and 2024, Mexico lifted a stunning 8.3 mi

    1h 28m

  7. 16 AUG

    The Real Death Toll in Gaza

    Ralph devotes the entire program to challenging the “official” count of 60 thousand fatalities reported so far in the genocide Israel, aided and abetted by the United States, has perpetrated on the Palestinians in Gaza. First, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who volunteered twice in Gaza hospitals, presents the various studies that revise estimates into the hundreds of thousands. Then weapons expert, Professor Theodore Postol, backs that up with his knowledge of the destructive power of the weapons being used and the photographic evidence of the rubble. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma, general, and critical care surgeon. He has volunteered twice in Gaza since 2024 and three times in Ukraine since 2022. He has published on humanitarian surgical work in the New York Times, Politico, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. I've made my point clear month after month that I believe the death toll is now well over 500,000. And it's important to have an accurate death toll to respect the Palestinian dead and to intensify diplomatic, political, and civic pressures from around the world (and particularly from the White House and Congress) to cease fire, to let the humanitarian trucks that are already at the border in (with food, medicine, water, hospital supplies), and to make sure that this conflict is resolved safely. Ralph Nader It certainly seems that every single international expert on the topic does think that this is a genocidal attack, so I don't see any reason to disbelieve what they're saying. But that doesn't have to do with how many people are killed. So what I'm just trying to point out is that even if the numbers of people that we talk about here today are (like Ralph said) half a million, or whatever number of people have been killed, nobody disputes that huge numbers of mass killings have taken place. And it doesn't seem that anybody who knows what they're talking about disputes that it's genocidal at this point. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa It’s been very widely understood by lots and lots of people, of a huge variety of political leanings, a huge variety of life experiences, of professions, et cetera, that this is the image that springs to mind when they go to the Gaza Strip—it's something like a gigantic concentration camp. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa If the U.S. or Israel cared at all about how many people (including, remember, this is a territory that is half children) —if we cared how many people, including children, we have starved to death, have shot dead, have blown up, et cetera, we could figure it out in two weeks and with 10 grand. The Israelis wouldn't even have to stop their assault. They could keep doing it. They could just agree to de-conflict this group of a few people. But they won't do it for obvious reasons. And I shouldn't say “they” —we won't do it for obvious reasons. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy Emeritus in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. His expertise is in nuclear weapon systems, including submarine warfare, applications of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defense, and ballistic missiles more generally. When you have a large building collapse, everyone is going to be dead unless they're out of the building. It's just that simple. And even when you have large buildings collapse and you have people coming in to search for people, you typically only find a few people who happen to have been lucky enough to be trapped in a cavity that's near a surface area of the rubble heap. If you're deep in the rubble heap, your chances of surviving are near zero. Professor Theodore Postol News 8/15/25 * New Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index data shows Trump’s new tariff regime has resulted in significant increases in tariff-sensitive staple consumer goods. Some startling price spikes include a 38.9% rise in the price of vegetables, 14.5% increase in the price of coffee and an 11.3% increase in the price of beef and veal. Beyond food, electricity is up 5.5%, rent and shelter is up 3.6%, and health insurance is up 4.4%. These increases are sure to be politically unpopular, as Trump campaigned on bringing down inflation and the price of groceries. The reporting of this data also raises questions about Trump’s response, given his response to the recent negative BLS data reporting on new job creation. * Speaking of job creation data, while the U.S. only reported the creation of 73,000 new jobs in July, Mexico, under left-wing economic nationalist president and AMLO successor Claudia Scheinbaum, created over 1.26 million new jobs in the same month, according to Mexico News Daily. Furious about the jobs report, Trump forced out the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is now seeking to install right-wing economist EJ Antoni. According to the BBC, economists have said his “economic commentary [is] rife with basic mistakes.” Antoni, kowtowing to Trump, ​​has proposed ending the monthly jobs report. Antoni would need to be confirmed by Senate Republicans, who have expressed some trepidation about his appointment, but whether that will be enough for them to stand up to Trump on this appointment seems unlikely. * In more domestic economic news, Jacobin reports corporations are experimenting with a new method of worker exploitation – so-called “stay-or-pay” contracts. According to this article, millions of employees – from nurses to pilots to fast food workers – are, often unwittingly, being “inserted into…restrictive labor covenants [which] turn employer-sponsored job training and education programs into conditional loans that must be paid back — sometimes at a premium — if employees leave before a set date.” These contracts, known as Training Repayment Agreement Provisions, or their acronym TRAPs, have become a major new battleground between corporate interests and groups fighting for labor rights, including unions and regulators. However, with Trump administration efforts to rollback even the modest labor protections promulgated under the Biden administration, the possibility of any federal intervention on behalf of workers seems remote. * In more Trump-related news, the occupation of Washington, D.C. has commenced. Trump has deployed federal agents, including officers with the Department of Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as National Guard troops, to patrol the streets of the capital. Some of these deployments seem to be mostly for media spectacle; feds have been seen patrolling tourist areas like the National Mall, Union Station and Georgetown, but others have been going into District neighborhoods and harassing District residents for smoking on their own property. Moreover, while Trump has said "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people," the Justice Department has in fact announced that this year violent crime in Washington has hit a 30-year low, per NPR. Trump is restricted to a 30 day takeover of the District by law, but is seeking to extend this window through Congress. * As usual, even as Trump claims to be cracking down on crime, his administration treats corporate crime with kid gloves. Despite major news of corporate misconduct this week – including the reopening of a Boar’s Head facility shut down earlier this year due to a listeria outbreak despite ongoing sanitation issues and an explosion at the Clairton Coke Works in Pittsburgh that left at least two dead and ten injured – a new Public Citizen report shows the extent of the administration’s soft-on-corporate-crime approach. According to this report, “the Trump administration has already withdrawn or halted enforcement actions against 165 corporations of all types – and one in four of the corporations benefiting from halted or dropped enforcement is from the technology sector, which has spent $1.2 billion on political influence during and since the 2024 elections.” * Turning to Gaza, the Financial Times reports, “Israel has killed…prominent Al Jazeera correspondent [Anas Al-Sharif] in Gaza and four of his colleagues…in an air strike targeting them in a media tent.” This report notes the Israeli military “took credit” for the strike after “months of threats and unproven allegations that [the journalist] was the head of a Hamas cell.” The Committee to Protect Journalists called these claims an attempt to “manufacture consent for his killing.” The network called this move a “desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.” Anas Al-Sharif was a prominent journalist in the Arab world and was part of a Reuters photo team who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2024. Israel has already killed six Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza prior to this strike. * Meanwhile, in Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi last Tuesday issued his harshest criticism of Israel thus far, accusing the nation of prosecuting “a war for starvation, genocide, and the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.” Yet, according to Drop Site News, Sisi’s comments came just days before an announcement that an Israeli company will begin supplying Egypt with vast amounts of gas. This $35 billion deal between Egypt, neighbor to Israel and Palestine and the largest Arab nation, and Israeli energy company NewMed is the largest export agreement in Israel’s history. This deal adds a new dimension to other comments Sisi made in those same remarks, wherein he defended Egypt against criticism for “not opening the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to allow in aid.” It remains to be seen whether the genocide comments represent a new chapter of Egypt-Israel relations, or whether they are just a smokescreen to cover Egypt and Israel’s increasing economic interdependence. * In Palestine news from the homefront, Semafor reports the Democra

    1h 36m

  8. 9 AUG

    The State of Labor/ Forever Chemicals

    Ralph welcomes labor organizer Chris Townsend to discuss the current state of the labor movement under the second Trump administration. Then, Ralph talks to journalist Mariah Blake about PFAS and her new book “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals.” Chris Townsend has been a union member and leader for more than 45 years. He was most recently the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) International Union Organizing Director. Previously he was an International Representative and Political Action Director for the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), and he has held local positions in both the SEIU and UFCW. We've moved up an administrative layer of labor leaders, time markers, folks who see their role as at best guiding the sinking ship, managing the decline, taking best care as they can think of the members as their lives are destroyed, as the employers move to liquidate us. Chris Townsend In many ways, exceeding the gravity of the political action crisis (our subordination to the Democratic Party, our membership estrangement from the political process, the lack of any significant trade union education of the rank and file other than a few cheap slogans)…is that the crisis that we face is the crisis of our very existence. Chris Townsend It's far easier to shrink the labor movement than it is to build it and grow it. And that's our job. No other force in the country is going to do the work of adding the many millions of unorganized toilers—I use the word “toilers” very carefully…Toil is really what we've been reduced to, and increasingly so. So there's absolutely, I would indict the labor movement loudly, daily, that there is as yet no understanding that unless we go back out to the unorganized and take the spirit of trade unionism—unity, one for all, take on the employer, organize, defend each other, move forward, recapture some of this gargantuan wealth that we create each day on the job—unless that spirit is returned into an organizing wave or at least an attempt to do this, our fate has been sealed. Chris Townsend Mariah Blake is an investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Mother Jones, the New Republic, and other publications. She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. And she is the author of They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. PFAS are a large family of chemicals with some pretty amazing properties—they're extremely resistant to heat, stains, water, grease, electrical currents. They stand up to corrosive chemicals that burn through virtually every other material (including, in some cases, steel). And this makes them extremely useful. And as a result, they found their way into thousands of everyday products. On the other hand, they are probably the most insidious pollutants in all of human history. So they stay in the environment for hundreds or even thousands of years. Those that have been studied are highly toxic, even in the most minuscule of doses. And they are literally polluting the entire planet. Mariah Blake The way we regulate chemicals in this country at the moment makes zero sense. You do see changes happening in response to the unique threat posed by these chemicals on a state level. And this is really in response to citizen activism. So a number of states are passing laws that have banned the entire class of chemicals. That is not how we regulate chemicals in this country normally. We normally regulate them one by one, but at this moment 30 US states have passed at least 170 laws restricting PFAS, including 16 full or partial bans on the entire class of chemicals in consumer goods. Mariah Blake The amazing thing is the families of all these lobbyists have got these chemicals in their own bodies, their own kids, their own infants. I mean, don't they crank that into their daily mission as to how they're going to confront efforts by citizens around the country to ban and regulate these chemicals? How oblivious can you be? These oil and gas executives and lobbyists in Washington, their own families are being contaminated. Ralph Nader These were people very much like Michael, people who had never taken much of an interest in politics, who'd spent their lives trusting that there were systems in place to protect them. And now that trust had been shattered. But rather than becoming cynical or resigned, they fought like hell to protect their families. And along the way, they discovered these hidden strengths that turned them into really remarkable advocates. Mariah Blake News 8/8/25 * In Gaza, even the Israeli media is starting to acknowledge the scale of the starvation crisis. The New Yorker reporters, “Channel 12 [Israel’s most-watched mainstream news broadcast], aired a series of startling…photographs of emaciated babies, and of children being trampled as they stood in food lines, holding out empty pots…[as well as] pictures of mothers weeping because they had no way to feed their families…Ohad Hemo, the network’s correspondent for Palestinian affairs, concluded, ‘There is hunger in Gaza, and we have to say it loud and clear…The responsibility lies not only with Hamas but also with Israel.’” According to the U.N.’s World Food Programme, more than one in three people are not eating for days in a row. Yet, polls show that a “vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are ‘not so troubled’ or ‘not troubled at all’ by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza,” according Haaretz. This callous disregard for the lives of Palestinians among Israel’s majority population ensures that this humanitarian crisis will worsen even more unless the government faces real external pressure to end the devastation and provide humanitarian aid. * Meanwhile, Axios reports the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “unanimously voted Monday to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who is currently prosecuting [Netanyahu] for corruption.” As this piece explains, “This is the first time an Israeli government has ever voted to fire an attorney general,” sparking “immediate accusations Netanyahu was seeking to protect himself and his aides.” The Israeli Supreme Court issued an injunction blocking the move. However, this act, and the ensuing backlash, all but guarantees the bombardment of Gaza will continue as Netanyahu uses the campaign as a political liferaft. * Speaking of political crises, a major one is unfolding here at home. In Texas, the Republican-dominated state legislature is seeking to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give Republicans five additional seats, which President Trump claims they are “entitled” to, per ABC. This naked power grab has set off a firestorm, with Democratic-controlled states like California and New York vowing to retaliate by redrawing their own maps to maximize their party’s advantage. Texas state Democratic legislators, in an attempt to deny Republicans the quorum they need to enact the new maps, have fled to Illinois. Attorney General Ken Paxton has ordered their arrest, but they are seeking safe harbor in Illinois. Gerrymandering has plagued the American body politic since the foundation of the republic; perhaps this new crisis will force a resolution to the issue at the federal level. Then again, probably not. * In more positive legal news, former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan reports that in an “Important win…A court rejected Google’s effort to overturn a unanimous jury verdict finding that Google illegally monopolized key markets.” Crucially, the court also found that “digital monopolies can enjoy the fruits of their illegal conduct even after it stops.” In practice, this ruling means a remedy “may need to go beyond just stopping the illegal behavior so that the market can truly be opened up to competition.” However, Google is still appealing the ruling to the corporate-friendly Supreme Court, so the ultimate fate of this decision remains in the balance. * On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article giving an inside look at financier and pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s “Manhattan Lair.” Among other notable features of the seven-story townhouse: a surveillance camera inside Epstein’s bedroom. One can only imagine the images it captured. Another notable feature: the preponderance of photographs of powerful and influential figures with Epstein, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Epstein’s Saudi connections, including a passport with a fake name and an address in Saudi Arabia which he used to enter several countries, including the Kingdom in the 1980s, have not been deeply probed. * Our remaining stories for this week all revolve around the Trump administration. First, after complaining that the Bureau of Labor Statistics “rigged” economic data to make his administration and Republicans look bad, Trump has fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. As POLITICO notes, budget constraints and workforce cuts have already enfeebled BLS, and the bureau’s attempts to insulate itself from political pressure will now be strained to the limit as whomever Trump does install will – implicitly or explicitly – understand that their fate will be tied to reporting out positive economic data. In the long run, this blow against accuracy in official economic reporting could do immense damage to the confidence of those considering investing in the United States. * Another Trump power grab is aimed at the District of Columbia. At 3 a.m. on Sunday, an altercation occurred between two fifteen-year-olds and Edward Coristine, the infamous DOGE staffer nicknamed “Big Balls,” in Washington’s Logan Circle neighborhood. According to AP, “the group approached…[Coristine’s] car and made a comme

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About

Ralph Nader talks about what’s happening in America, what’s happening around the world, and most importantly what’s happening underneath it all. www.ralphnaderradiohour.com

Information

  • Creator
    Ralph Nader
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2025
  • Episodes
    607
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ralph Nader
  • Show Website
    Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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