Forward Nation Radio

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   We celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with enthusiasm, as we finally breathe easier that the next President of the United States will be the guy Americans actually voted for a few weeks ago.  The transition to the incoming Biden administration gives us reason to be hopeful for the future.  At least hopeful for the fact that we will have decent, competent, qualified people running our government again; people who care about the fate of their own citizens.  We welcome the change this will bring, as we discuss Biden's early cabinet picks. Dave also talks about how Covid continues to rage, and how the current President continues to show us, in his failure to provide any leadership during this crisis, how much the new President is needed.  In the spirit of celebration, look out for our special holiday episode interview with Forward Nation Radio founder and creator Damian Hardeen, coming soon.   *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher...an

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Lest we be inclined to celebrate our stay of execution, Biden's win, America finds itself under assault from two enemies.  The first is Covid, the second is the President of the United States and his criminal political party. Dave looks at the latest evidence that we have a whiny little baby in the White House, not a President. As Covid roars back, the absence of a leader looms larger than ever. As the President continues to deny election reality, we ponder how much this is aimed at overturning the election result, how much is a whining tantrum, and how much is just trump's latest grift.  We have almost as low an opinion of 70+ million trump supporters as the President and his party have, and wonder about the future of a country with these voters in it.   *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher...and now Audible!-Please SUBSCRIBE   THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal    If you lov

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   The country has elected Joe Biden...barely.  We celebrate our survival, and try to forget for a few moments that we remain on life support.  Dave discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of this presidential election result.  There is much to celebrate in the defeat of the greatest internal threat to our so-called democracy that we have ever known...assuming trump and the GOP fail to incite a revolution and Biden gets to take office.  There is a dissipation of fear in this country, and perhaps even a renewal of hope.  We celebrate that, but remind ourselves that the theme song of the moment is "I Will Survive", and not "Hope Once Again". And 70 million Americans voted for donald trump.  We have our work cut out for us; Let that rain on your parade.      *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher...and now Audible!-Please SUBSCRIBE   THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal    If you love

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   One day before the most fateful election in US history, and perhaps in world history, Dave opines on what is at stake.   Including Covid, of course.   *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher...and now Audible!-Please SUBSCRIBE   THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal    If you love what you heard, Like Us and share on Facebook - Instagram - Twitter

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Dave looks to add substance to another presidential debate that had precious little on its own.  A debate that has value only to those awakening from a years-long slumber who are blissfully unaware of the disgrace that is the US President.  He and his whole criminal party continue to demonstrate that they are incapable of caring about another human being.   Trump's constant lying throughout the debate, and his presidency, are indicative of the right-wing propaganda mill for which reality is an enemy.  Dave talks about how that has created a likely-insuperable divide in this country, with reality the boundary.  It is why civilized people are looking at the current election as hostages dreaming of freedom from the most evil and stupid human beings to walk the earth.    *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher...and now Audible!-Please SUBSCRIBE   THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal   

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Dave discusses the VP debate, ramming through a Supreme Court apparatchik, the latest in COVID, and, through it all, the inability of decent people to grasp how profound is the evil of the republican criminal organization.   The main takeaway from the VP debate is that flies really are drawn to shit.  Pence tells us that in order to love America you must be a mindless trump cultist, and he certainly fits that bill.   Amy Coney Barrett, in turn, gives us insight into the mind of a religious zealot of the right.  Apparently, Jesus was all about the Benjamins.  The religious extremism will destroy the rights of millions, but it is really just a facade for morons engineered by the super-rich, that just wants more, and is happy to destroy lives to get it. Republican show their stripes in a busy week of theft.  They steal votes by setting up fake ballot drop-off boxes, showing there is no level of election theft they are unlikely to stoop to.  They t

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   The momentous week of Trump humiliations continues.  Dave updates the conversation regarding Trump's COVID diagnosis and its aftermath.  Having repeatedly downplayed the disease to the result of tens of thousands of unnecessary American deaths, Trump continues to go from negligent to murderous as he willfully inflicts others. Then we talk about the Trump tax returns, which manage to be shocking and unsurprising at the same time.  To no surprise, Trump is a spectacular loser and sleazebag.  But what they tell us about the super-rich are the most valuable lessons for the future: they tend to be worthless leeches feeding on the American public.       *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher...and now Audible!-Please SUBSCRIBE   THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal    If you love what you heard, Like Us and share on Facebook - Instagram - Twitter

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   It was a momentous week in news, as Trump repeatedly (again) humiliated himself and the US.  Too much to explore in one episode, today Dave talks about how Trump gets the COVID he thought he had only been inflicting on others, right after he turns a presidential debate into a clown show. Tomorrow we'll talk about his tax returns, finally obtained by The NY Times. Dave feels the same level of remorse for Trump getting COVID as the president himself has shown for the hundreds of thousands of others he inflicted.  We do wish him better health, so he can suffer the rest of his life in prison.  Dave wonders if the message to evangelicals is that God has decided to weigh in on the election and the US Supreme Court.   After more than four years embarrassing this country, Trump somehow manages to take it up a notch on an international stage.  Biden captures the civilized world's thinking in a nutshell: "Will you shut up, man?"  Trump refuses to condemn

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Death and life are in the news this week as iconic Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away, official US COVID death passes 200,000, and evidence of extraterrestrial life may be discovered around Venus. We discuss how trump and his supporters continue to show that there had better be intelligent life somewhere out in space because there is none in the republican party.  Dave discusses the impact of RBG's death and the GOP rush to fill her seat. Democrats are being left with no choice but to put down their olive branches as republicans continue to push us towards civil war. Will their race to fill RBG's seat finally show people how despicable they really are?  Trump shows again how much he respects his supporters, calling them disgusting as he continues to sacrifice them, and better people, to COVID. By corrupting the CDC and its MMWR, Trump continues his war on US health care, even as he continues his war on US health care...and rea

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   President Trump takes his case for greatest all-time mass murderer of Americans to another level by admitting intent to Bob Woodward.  In another example of explosive yet completely unsurprising revelations about our President, Trump continues to show that he is his own--and our--worst enemy by admitting to the veteran journalist that he knew for months how bad COVID was while he was telling the American public otherwise.  Turns out this particular snake oil salesman knew he was selling toxic snake oil (injectable bleach, perhaps?) to the rubes who follow him.  He also reminds us why this President couldn't merit a security clearance.   The US west coast burns in record wildfires and unknown numbers of Americans perish.  So Dave admits that our accounting of the numbers of Americans murdered by Trump and the GOP will sell them short, since we don't have a formula for attributing to them the climate change-related deaths they have caused. Dave al

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   President Trump burnishes his case for greatest mass murderer of Americans by killing baseball legend Tom Seaver...now among the tens of thousands of COVID victims attributable to Killer Trump.  We also mourn baseball legend Lou Brock, but we don't know if he goes in Trump's "win" column. Jerry Falwell, Jr. continues to show the humorous side of right-wing Evangelical cult leaders and their disdain for their own flocks...at least when we're not thinking of the threat they and their cult followers pose to civilization. Same goes for the President and the military, as President Bone Spurs shows how much he loves the military by calling fallen soldiers "losers". Meanwhile, the military continues to expose its "rape culture, racism, corruption and impunity," which explains its affinity for Trump, as some US soldiers find it safer to be fighting a war than living on US military bases.   Dave opines on Trump's latest efforts to steal the election.  A

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   The Republican National Convention shows again how much contempt Donald Trump and the GOP have for their own base. While the narrative maintains that Democrats do not respect GOP voters, it is their own party that needs to keep them ignorant in order to keep feeding off of them. We discuss the hate-and-lie-fest that is the GOP convention and its contempt for its own voters. This contempt is also examined in light of the fraud charges against Stephen Bannon, the latest shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer, and the subsequent killing of two protesters, apparently by a 17-year-old gun nut with a military rifle. Oh, and we celebrate 100 years of women's suffrage; 100 years with the right to vote which may end, along with all voting rights, if Trump prevails in November.      *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher-Please SUBSCRIBE   THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David L

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   An unconventional Democratic convention surpasses expectations, despite being all about unity.  So Dems are all about unity, while the Republicans continue to be all about dividing (and wrecking).  Dave continues his discussion on the great divide in this country between a political party that wants to govern for the benefit of the people and a criminal organization that just wants more for itself.  Dave expands the discussion by talking about how the media remains unequipped to acknowledge this distinction, and how that plays to the criminals' advantage.   These themes are explored in the context of the major news of the week.  A GOP-led Senate report details Trump campaign ties to Russia and reliance on Russia, as well as its all-around incompetence,  Trump and the GOP continue their war on the environment, the Post Office, democracy, and voting.  Tech lords appear before congress...and Republicans expose themselves.  Republicans mostly put aw

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Joe Biden chooses Kamala Harris as his Vice-Presidential running mate. Dave comments on the choice and uses it to explore how recent events continue to reflect the stark divide in this country between a political party and our governing criminal organization. Disinterest in governing, and the governed, is also evident in the latest in the republican non-response to COVID and the economy it has helped ruin. Dave also looks at the war trump has chosen to fight: that against democracy, including his corruption of the census, the US Post Office, and voting. Also, The NY Attorney General goes up against the NRA.    *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher-Please SUBSCRIBE     THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal    If you love what you heard, Like Us and share on Facebook - Instagram - Twitter

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Dave discusses the end-of-term US Supreme Court decisions, along with some other momentous federal court decisions. Despite some near misses and a couple of decisions worthy of celebration, this term is a tragic reminder of how extremist the republican criminal organization has become and how radical it has made our courts.  Despite appearances, the Supreme Court continues to further the republican assault on abortion rights, democracy, workers and the regulatory state. But it shows a real soft spot for religious fanaticism. Another reminder that to preserve this country and its best ideals, Dems must win in November and remake the courts in the image of what US voters have voted for.    *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher-Please SUBSCRIBE     THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS Forward Nation Radio with Professor David Leventhal    If you love what you heard, Like Us and share on Facebook - Instagram - Twitter

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Trump says he passed a very difficult cognitive test, possibly demonstrating he is not excessively brain damaged, and thus is his argument for remaining President. Then he goes about unleashing his Gestapo on American cities, and thus is his argument for remaining President.    When he is not fomenting civil war, Trump continues to protect the US from the deadly COVID pandemic by sacrificing US lives by the tens of thousands. As confirmed US death tolls surpass 150,000, the Republican criminal organization in the Senate introduces a relief bill apparently designed to cause maximum destruction of US workers. The GOP bill has three goals in mind: Stealing their way to further riches and perhaps reelection, class warfare, and hamstringing a future Democratic government.   Also, some of the latest in our corruption watch, baseball is back, and Biden shows us the alternative!   *Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and Stitcher-Please SUBSCRIBE  

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   The death of civil rights icon and long-time US Congressman John Lewis gives us chance anew to discuss what it means to be extremist in America today. Republicans further embarrassed themselves when two GOP Senators tweeted pictures of deceased congressman Elijah Cummings in their disingenuous tributes to John Lewis. But the greater insult was in the faux tribute to a man they were attacking yesterday and will be attacking again tomorrow.   Congressman Lewis gives us another chance to look at false equivalences and extremism. Lewis represented what extremism is on the left: a willingness to fight for social justice and opportunity. Several prominent republicans represent what it is on the right: support for donald trump, the lunatic right-wing conspiracy group QAnon, and fantasy over reality.   Dave discusses the latest in President trump's efforts to battle the coronavirus by sweeping it under the rug, as he continues his assault on facts and

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   To get even trump supporters on board with beating COVID, Dave suggests doing the unimaginable; making republicans accountable! Let's make people who don't follow guidelines personally liable for the injuries that result. (in fact, let's even have some guidelines!) Even better, Dave offers an additional modest proposal.  Since people not practicing good safety practices are posing a direct threat to others, let's invoke Stand Your Ground laws (instituted to allow whites to shoot black people with impunity) to justify shooting anyone not wearing a mask in public! And of course, let's vote the threat-in-chief out of office in November! Even the most selfish people respond to incentives.  We continue our discussions on free speech, American exceptionalism, the rich, and in light of trump's commutation of his henchman Roger Stone's sentence, our fascist-wannabee president. For fascists and rich people, both categories in which our president falls,

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:     Happy July 4 everybody! For most of us, a celebration of US independence; for our president, a celebration of secession and the US Civil War. In a bitterly racist and divisive speech at Mount Rushmore on a day of national unity, Trump continues to make it clear that the 2020 election will be a battle for white supremacy...and totalitarianism.  We take stock in America for Independence Day. As Americans pat ourselves on the back for our imagined superiority, we put our exceptionalism in a somewhat harsher light judged by world events. Our "exceptional" failure to address a deadly global pandemic is a symptom of a country with a huge segment of its population that is exceptional only in its ignorance, its stupidity, and its selfishness. And with a political criminal organization that can achieve electoral success only by ensuring they remain that way.    That brings us back to the latest arguments in support of a re-examination of how we treat

THE HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS This Week’s Discussion:   Dave switches gears a bit from our prior show on hope to talk about how Republicans elevate the interests of those who kill humans above the interest of actual humans. We take a few minutes to reflect on corporate America's role as undisputed champion of killing Americans. Dave talks about "tort reform" and other ways bad actors avoid suffering the consequences of their own actions. These basic themes not only explain the actions of corporate America, but also those of the trump administration and of the police that have led to the current movement for social justice. With the Fourth of July holiday approaching, we would never forget some of President Donald Trump's latest betrayals of his country. This week we learn that US intelligence agencies told the President that US geopolitical enemy (but, more importantly, friend of the President) Russia offered a bounty to the Taliban in Afghanistan on the heads of US military personnel. In response to