TRILLION DOLLAR WAR MACHINE - the title of the new book BILL HARTUNG & BEN FREEMAN wrote together - is about a trillion dollar a year machine for waging wars and for creating them. Donald Trump has discovered he likes using it. We spend more than we did in 1985 for a military half the size. Hartung & Freeman talk about a military-lobbyist-newsmedia-entertainment-sports-industrial complex. The tech bro’s want in on the gravy train and see AI as their ticket. I assume we don’t talk about defense spending because no one expects anything to change. We’re about to find out once again how crazy that is. We recorded this conversation 2/26 - one day before the war on Iran. Learn more about Bill & Ben at the Quincy Institute - quincyinst.org/

Here’s my 2017 conversation with CHIP BERLET, investigative journalist, research analyst, activist - and friend - who died January 30, 2026. Over the last 50 years, Chip was one of a handful of folks who consistently tracked and organized against right-wing extremism. As MAGA grew and metastasized from its roots in the Silent Majority and the Tea Party, Chip was on the beat. Can’t say he didn’t warn us. Berlet was part of a team at the National Lawyers Guild who revealed the COINTELPRO program, in which US security and military forces disrupted left-wing movements for years, and co-authored (with Matthew N. Lyons) Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort a year before 9/11. We recorded this conversation two months into Trump One and five months before Tiki Torches in Charlottesville.

How we “talk” to each other has changed dramatically since 1990 when Georgetown linguistics professor DEBORAH TANNEN brought gender differences in communication style to public awareness in her phenomenal best-seller, YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND. Personal interactions now include email, texting, What’s App, Slack, emojis, and AI. Over the years, Tannen has explored everyday conversation between men and women, parents and children, family members, at work, in argument, etc. We look back together at what she’s learned over those 35 years, and you can learn more at deborahtannen.com