In a two-part discussion, this week we’re joined by two experts on the frontlines of fighting for our democracy on the all critical state level. If you want to fight for our democracy and prevent the slide into authoritarianism, clean up your local state government! How to proceed? Two experts from The States Project – Melissa Walker, a widely read author for teen novels turned democracy defender, and the Head of Giving Circles, and Aaron Kleinman, the Director of Research – are here to tell you. Walker and Kleinman address structural impediments to democracy – including gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the composition of the Senate – as well as challenges from dark money shadow networks and astroturf protests. They also give advice on navigating state politics and staying strong in the midst of this onslaught on our rights. We need all hands on deck for 2022, and an informed public is a powerful public!

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

This is Part II of our interview. In this two-part interview, we take a deep dive into a right-wing hellhole with acclaimed scholar Nancy MacLean, the author of the bestseller Democracy in Chains, which discusses how anti-democratic networks run by powerful plutocrats came to hold the United States hostage. MacLean discusses the Koch dark money network and its shadowy political partners, the decades-long libertarian takeover of the Republican Party by far-right mercenaries, the infrastructure of this extremist network and how it has sustained itself for so long, the rise of the neo-confederacy, and the dystopian plans billionaires have for the American future. We also get MacLean’s opinions on recent crises like the pandemic, the Trump Crime Cult’s Capitol attack, and the assault on voting rights. And of course we ask her how we best battle these insidious adversaries, break America’s Koch addiction, and get our country back!

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

In this two-part interview, we take a deep dive into a right-wing hellhole with acclaimed scholar Nancy MacLean, the author of the bestseller Democracy in Chains, which discusses how anti-democratic networks run by powerful plutocrats came to hold the United States hostage. MacLean discusses the Koch dark money network and its shadowy political partners, the decades-long libertarian takeover of the Republican Party by far-right mercenaries, the infrastructure of this extremist network and how it has sustained itself for so long, the rise of the neo-confederacy, and the dystopian plans billionaires have for the American future. We also get MacLean’s opinions on recent crises like the pandemic, the Trump Crime Cult’s Capitol attack, and the assault on voting rights. And of course we ask her how we best battle these insidious adversaries, break America’s Koch addiction, and get our country back!

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Despite the Democrats holding the presidency, Senate and House, LGBTQ rights are in greater danger than they have been in over a decade. The revival of the right-wing culture wars along with sustained court packing by Republican radicals has put hard-won rights in jeopardy. Gaslit Nation welcomes Chase Strangio of the ACLU to break down the legal landscape of LGBTQ rights in the US today, including challenges to the legal right to gay marriage, the battle for transgender rights, and the religious extremism of today’s Supreme Court majority. He also addresses what ordinary Americans can do to preserve equal rights for all. Strangio is Deputy Director for Transgender Justice with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project and a history-making expert on transgender rights. He is the lawyer behind the historic June 2020 Supreme Court ruling protecting LGBTQ rights in the workplace and in 2020, was in Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

In this interview conducted a few weeks before Russia’s escalation of its invasion of Ukraine, Eastern European journalist and writer Maksym Eristavi explains the social and political crises that led the world to this point. Andrea and Maksym discuss corruption in Ukraine, how the Kremlin has weaponized that corruption, and how corruption in Ukraine is an enduring legacy of Russian genocidal colonialism, and how the West can help Ukraine by cleaning up its own corruption. They also discuss Ukraine’s efforts to build a free and just civil society despite corruption, in particular ongoing initiatives to preserve LGBTQ rights. This interview provides vital historical context on the ongoing regional conflict.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

This is Part II of our discussion. Gaslit Nation is excited to welcome Anne Nelson, an expert on American right-wing aspiring autocrats who has been warning about the conditions that led to our present national crisis for our entire adult lives! Yes, you should have listened to Anne Nelson’s warnings earlier but it’s never too late to start. In this crash course in America’s secret history, Nelson describes a radical right-wing takeover that was decades in the making. She explains the nefarious financial and political alliances that arose during the Reagan administration and still guide the US today, the rise of the religious right over the past five decades, “shadow network” think tanks like the Council for National Policy, and the infusion of dark money in politics. She also describes the ineffective response of the Democratic Party to Republican extremists, the January 6 attack on America, and what steps we can take to preserve our democracy.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Gaslit Nation is excited to welcome Anne Nelson, an expert on American right-wing aspiring autocrats who has been warning about the conditions that led to our present national crisis for our entire adult lives! Yes, you should have listened to Anne Nelson’s warnings earlier but it’s never too late to start. In this crash course in America’s secret history, Nelson describes a radical right-wing takeover that was decades in the making. She explains the nefarious financial and political alliances that arose during the Reagan administration and still guide the US today, the rise of the religious right over the past five decades, “shadow network” think tanks like the Council for National Policy, and the infusion of dark money in politics. She also describes the ineffective response of the Democratic Party to Republican extremists, the January 6 attack on America, and what steps we can take to preserve our democracy.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Next year, 2023, will mark the 50-year anniversary of the landmark Roe v Wade case…if it is not overturned by then. Gaslit Nation welcomes Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo, the cohosts of the podcast Boom! Lawyered, to explain the ongoing attack on reproductive rights, why prior warnings were not heeded, and what actions we can take to fight back now. We discuss the long-term Republican takeover of the courts, the questionable legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the connections between the erosion of reproductive rights and the strengthening of an autocratic surveillance state, new laws legalizing violent vigilantism against women in states like Texas, why the media played down these threats, how the Democrats should respond, and much more!

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Back in 2015 and 2016, as the GOP caved to the Trump crime cult and the mainstream media normalized their corrupt ambitions, a few voices from the right rose up in dissent. One of the leading lights in this regard was Cheri Jacobus, a political commentator and former Republican who was an early target of Trump’s vicious campaign and its propaganda machine. Currently a registered Independent, Cheri was the founder, President, and Executive Producer of “America Reads The Mueller Report” and the former host of the podcast “Politics with Cheri Jacobus”. She remains an outspoken critic of the Trump crime cult and its enablers.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Countries undergoing extreme instability – like, say, a violent insurrectionist coup, a deadly plague, climate change catastrophes, and domestic and foreign information warfare – tend to breed cults, and America is no exception! This week Gaslit Nation welcomes cult and extremism expert Dr Janja Lalich to explain the rise of fringe movements in the US and how to deal with it.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

As we’ve been saying since the start of the show, Ukraine is on the frontlines of Putin’s global war against democracy. Ukraine has long been a testing ground of Kremlin aggression, including cyberattacks and disinformation warfare that helped tipped the scales in both the Brexit referendum and bringing Trump to power. In this special episode, we feature insights over the years from the many Ukraine experts who have been on Gaslit Nation to share urgent lessons of hope and resilience in the global struggle of democracy versus fascism.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

We’ve got a new District Attorney in New York City – but it’s the same old story of entrenched corruption and impunity for criminal elites! Last month, new DA Alvin Bragg decided not to pursue the prosecution of Trump for obvious crimes, and last week, lawyer Mark Pomerantz, who had come out of retirement to aid then-DA Cy Vance in the Trump Crime Cult investigation, published a blistering resignation letter in which he blamed Bragg for stopping the investigation in its tracks. What Pomerantz failed to mention was that Vance had spent his entire tenure protecting criminal elites – including the Trump family! – while lawyers in the know like Pomerantz said nothing until it was too late. Bragg did not create these problems; he inherited them. But now it is Bragg’s job to fix them, and he seems more content to be the fall guy than to act.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

This episode tackles the urgent need for accountability in both the United States and in Putin’s war on Ukraine. We start out with yet another deep dive into the cesspool that is Merrick Garland’s political career and in particular, his alliance with lifelong mentor and corruption queen Jamie Gorelick. We then turn again to the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine and the urgent need for Ukrainians to be protected from the brutal Russian air strikes and ongoing mounting genocide of Ukrainian civilians. For that, we welcome a special guest this week: Ukrainian analyst Olena Tregub, Secretary General of NAKO (the Independent Defense Anti-Corruption Committee), an international oversight body created by Transparency International. 

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

In this episode of Gaslit Nation, we revisit some familiar terrain – you know, like Putin did when he decided to invade Ukraine yet again. In Monday’s bonus episode, available to Gaslit Nation listeners at the Truth-Teller level or higher, we answered questions about particular issues in Putin’s war on Ukraine: nukes, Israel, UK sanctions, and so on. In today’s episode, we revisit the history of the current conflict – since many people still do not grasp that the defense pact of NATO is not what prompted Putin’s invasion – and of the USSR itself.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Putin’s brutal escalated invasion of Ukraine was predictable – not only because he announced it in advance, but because Russia has carried out extreme military violence in other regions for decades, most notably Chechnya in the 2000s and Syria over the last decade. As Ukraine continues to fight back, Syria suffers due to the partnership of Putin and Assad and the war crimes they carried out on Syrian civilians, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced several million. To understand what may be in store for Ukraine, we need to understand Syria, so we invited an expert on Syria for an urgent discussion with Gaslit Nation.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

On Friday March 11 at 1pm EST, we’re holding a fundraiser with Agnieszka Holland, the director of Andrea’s film Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones himself, British actor James Norton, in support of The Kyiv Independent — journalism on the frontlines of Putin’s war — and Proliska — a humanitarian relief organization serving Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine under Putin’s invasion since 2014. Get access to the event by making a donation here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-agnieszka-holland-james-norton-the-kyiv-independent-tickets-291927923277

The rest of this clip is a teaser of Gaslit Nation’s Early Show. Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Our latest episode is not showing up on iTunes. We reached out to iTunes and Libsyn and have yet to hear back. So we’re attempting to publish the file again under a new name. This is only for iTunes and Stitcher listeners.

This week, we review the chaotic and horrific developments in Putin’s war against Ukraine. We cover the West finally sanctioning Russia and beginning to isolate it from positions of geopolitical power; Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons; the protests in support of Ukraine that broke out all over the world, in particular in independent states that were once colonized by the Soviet Union; the shameful and unforgivable role Kremlin media lackeys played in abetting Kremlin violence in Ukraine and Syria; and what NATO and the West should do to protect Ukrainians trying to flee to the border. Most of all, we discuss the toll this war has taken on the people of Ukraine. While their resilience is inspiring, it is also tragic.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Our latest episode is not showing up on iTunes. We reached out to iTunes and Libsyn and have yet to hear back. So we’re attempting to publish the file again under a new name. This is only for iTunes and Stitcher listeners.

This week, we review the chaotic and horrific developments in Putin’s war against Ukraine. We cover the West finally sanctioning Russia and beginning to isolate it from positions of geopolitical power; Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons; the protests in support of Ukraine that broke out all over the world, in particular in independent states that were once colonized by the Soviet Union; the shameful and unforgivable role Kremlin media lackeys played in abetting Kremlin violence in Ukraine and Syria; and what NATO and the West should do to protect Ukrainians trying to flee to the border. Most of all, we discuss the toll this war has taken on the people of Ukraine. While their resilience is inspiring, it is also tragic.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

This week, we review the chaotic and horrific developments in Putin’s war against Ukraine. We cover the West finally sanctioning Russia and beginning to isolate it from positions of geopolitical power; Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons; the protests in support of Ukraine that broke out all over the world, in particular in independent states that were once colonized by the Soviet Union; the shameful and unforgivable role Kremlin media lackeys played in abetting Kremlin violence in Ukraine and Syria; and what NATO and the West should do to protect Ukrainians trying to flee to the border.

Most of all, we discuss the toll this war has taken on the people of Ukraine. While their resilience is inspiring, it is also tragic. Putin’s escalated invasion was predictable and therefore preventable. The West owes Ukraine every bit of support it can give them after decades of looking the other way while taking Russian oligarch blood money

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Putin’s pre-announced escalated invasion and occupation of Ukraine has commenced, and it happened when we said it would: on the anniversary week of Ukraine’s 2014 uprising and the eight year anniversary of Putin’s annexation of Crimea. 2-22-22 is set to go down in history – should the future be lucky enough to have history – much as 8-08-08 did when Putin invaded Georgia fourteen years ago. The escalated invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation for over thirty years, is a humanitarian disaster and a profound violation of international law. We conclude our episode with an interview with Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow with the Wider Europe Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Gressel discusses the implications of Nordstream 2, and Germany’s Nazi past in relation to Putin’s aggression today.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

We have two special guests reporting from L’viv, Ukraine! Gaslit Nation welcomes back intelligence expert Malcolm Nance, the author of several bestsellers on Trump’s ties to the Kremlin as well as the aptly titled upcoming book on Trump’s insurgency, THEY WANT TO KILL AMERICANS. (Listen to our previous interview with Malcom here.)  We also welcome back journalist Terrell Starr, host of the must-listen podcast Black Diplomats which decolonizes foreign policy by amplifying historically marginalized voices and providing crucial perspectives on the crises the world faces. (Listen to our previous interview with Terrell here.)

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Welcome back to another week of us anxiously anticipating a European land war while contending with rising autocracy at home! We start out by analyzing the Trump crime cult’s destruction of federal records, contemplate who in the admin may have been responsible, and put it in the context of the nationwide book bannings and assault on collective memory. Sarah also gives the backstory into the strange circumstances that launched career criminal coverup guy Bill Barr into the Attorney General position in 1991.

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Subscribe today to access all episodes of Gaslit Nation by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher. You won’t hear every weekly episode unless you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.

Congratulations, you survived January 2022! Now it’s time for another disaster — Putin’s scheduled escalation of his ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which he announced months ago, thus giving his oligarchs plenty of time to get their dirty financial affairs in order. We dig deep into this complex conflict, examining the humanitarian toll it takes on Ukraine, Putin’s ambitions for other regions of the world (more on that in our Patreon bonus!), the American exploitation of the conflict for partisan purposes and the way the West can force Putin’s hand and clean its own house at the same time: sanction the oligarchs!

This post was originally published on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior.