Show Notes
Ralph welcomes Keira Havens a United States Air Force veteran and the executive director of Citizens’ Impeachment a grassroots organization that lobbies Congress and supports candidates who are willing to impeach and convict Donald Trump for a myriad of Constitutional violations. Then Michael Marx, founder of the group CorpEthics that conducts marketing campaigns that apply public pressure to corporations to change their behavior, joins us to discuss his new book “Reining in the Bulls: How to Stop Corporate Abuse in an Age of Unbridled Greed.” Keira Havens is a United States Air Force veteran, a former scientist, and a longtime political activist. She is the executive director of Citizens’ Impeachment. I am a veteran. I was in the United States Air Force. My job was to launch nuclear missiles. I was an ICBM crew commander for four years. And that entire system, that entire weapons system is based on trust that the person at the top has a handle on what needs to be done and has good faith and good leadership to navigate this country. That is not the case right now. That cornerstone is beyond weakened—it has just crumbled straight into dust. The trust and faith in the American President as a capable leader, capable of effective leadership, is an assumption we can no longer make. Keira Havens
His entire cabinet, everybody that gets appointed to the judicial system under his people, everybody that is building out the roadmap for what the economy looks like, all of these failures of leadership—yes, they roll upward to the President. But it is an entire administration of people that do not respect the Constitution, and are not planning on upholding it, and require impeachment, removal and conviction at the bare minimum. Because these folks have had a taste of power now, and they will be back for more. And impeachment is the only way to insist that they never be allowed to hold power again. Keira Havens
[Democrats] will talk about how bad things are (and they will fundraise off it repeatedly over and over again), but they will not take the additional step and say: “And that is why I will impose consequences.” Our recommended consequence is: impeachment, conviction, removal. But there is more that can be done. There is their making a more plain-spoken assessment of the current situation. And people are hungry to hear it. You don’t have to pretend that this is business as usual. You can actually identify this as a crisis for the Constitution and for this democracy and outline the steps that you will take in your own legislative power. Keira Havens
Michael Marx is one of the world’s premier environmental corporate campaigners. He served as campaign director for both Rainforest Action Network and Sierra Club. He was the co-founder and executive director of ForestEthics (now Stand.earth) and founder of CorpEthics. He is the author of Reining in the Bulls: How to Stop Corporate Abuse in an Age of Unbridled Greed. I think we’re a corporatocracy. I think we have the illusion of being a democracy, but really we’re controlled by corporations. Because from the beginning, they control the way we think with their advertising, with the kind of programs they put on, with their investments in local and state and federal political campaigns. And then, they own the government. I mean…not only can they literally get away with murder (particularly not just in the U.S., but worldwide) but the government protects them from liability. Michael Marx
If you want to fight these companies—right now we’re on the defense, and particularly on the defense in the government. And the only thing saving us right now is legal cases in the courts by Earth Justice and NRDC and Sierra Club and groups like that. And we need to go on offense even stronger in the marketplace because companies don’t own civil society. They can’t buy the advocacy wing, the more ethical wing of civil society. And they don’t know how to play that game as well as they know how to play the gov
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Ralph speaks to Peter Maybarduk of Public Citizen about how the Trump Administration's drug pricing deals favor Big Pharma. Then, some advice for progressive candidates from Ralph and former NYC Public Advocate Mark Green.
Ralph welcomes Dr. Alison Galvani, the founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis, and co-author of the forthcoming article, “Projected Economic Gains and Lives Saved Under Universal Health Care in the United States.” Then our constitutional law expert, Bruce Fein, stops by to tell us about a letter he and Ralph sent to states Attorneys General urging them to prosecute Donald Trump for exhorting his followers to commit voter fraud in the forthcoming midterm congressional elections. Finally, we respond to your feedback on how to be a smart voter. Alison Galvani is the founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis and the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, Yale School of Medicine. She has applied her modelling and health economics skills to address public health challenges including HIV/AIDS, Zika, Ebola, influenza, and COVID-19. And she is co-author of the forthcoming article “Projected economic gains and lives saved under universal healthcare in the United States.” We analyze the American healthcare system as a national balance sheet. And on one side of the ledger, we have: covering the uninsured and expanding care for the uninsured (that costs money). And we took into account that utilization will increase for people that currently have inadequate health care… And when we initially started looking at this in 2019…I anticipated a hefty price tag as well. Our work has focused on the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of public health policy in the US and around the world, and usually we’re asking: How much will it cost to save lives? And we rarely get a no-brainer where you save money and you’re saving lives. Alison Galvani
Ralph speaks to Dr. Feroze Sidhwa for an update on the death toll in Gaza as well as the new documentary film “American Doctor.” Then Ralph and economic William Lazonick discuss Nvidia’s planned $235 billion stock buyback. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a general, trauma, and critical care surgeon in California. He is also a humanitarian surgeon who has worked in Palestine, Ukraine, Haiti, Zimbabwe, and Burkina Faso. He most recently volunteered at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza. He was blocked from entering Gaza by Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service in November 2025. His work in Gaza is featured in the new documentary film American Doctor. If I’m remembering the exact time right, March of 2016 was the deadliest month for children that [Airwars] had ever studied anywhere—so that’s the 31 days of March of 2016. In the first 25 days of the US-Israeli assault on Gaza, the rate of killing of children was 71 to 142 times higher than in the deadliest month they had ever studied for children anywhere else. And just to put these numbers in a little bit of perspective…If you look at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine versus Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Russian forces killed the same percentage of children in Ukraine in 10 months as the US and Israel kill in Gaza every 18 to 37 hours. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa
Ralph welcomes Mary Berry the daughter of the late American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer, Wendell Berry. Ms. Berry runs the non-profit Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky, which serves as a repository for the study of small farm agriculture and preserves the legacy of her family’s work. Then, with the midterms on the horizon, Ralph and the team talk about how to be a smart voter. Plus, Ralph has some choice words for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s so-called “Free Enterprise Express.” Leave a comment about how you are a smart voter. We will collect these and discuss them on our next program. Click the button below to get Professor Laura Nader’s book Controlling Processes.
Ralph welcomes “New York Times” reporter Natasha Singer to discuss her new book, “Coding Kids: Big Tech’s Battle to Remake Public Schools.” Then, Ralph talks about Donald Trump’s midterm convention speeches and the latest impeachment drive with Constitutional law expert Bruce Fein. Natasha Singer is a New York Times reporter covering the intersection of technology, business and education. She has covered tech industry influence in schools for the New York Times for more than a decade, and her school tech reporting helped prompt California to enact a landmark student online data protection law. In 2019, she was part of a Times team whose tech coverage won a George Polk Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting. She is also the author of the book Coding Kids: Big Tech’s Battle to Remake Public Schools. It’s not about the companies immediately making money off schools. It’s about influencing kids, getting customers early and for life. But I think more importantly, it’s about imprinting Silicon Valley worldviews and values on young people. So that you get docile consumers who maybe aren’t worried about wholesale surveillance and data gathering, and docile employees who are not going to push back against being surveilled by their employer or using AI tools or having AI replace them. And so I think this story about tech companies capturing the classroom is not just about how they’re shaping learning. It’s about how some of the most powerful, wealthiest corporations on the planet are able to influence school systems. Natasha Singer