Brendan O'Malley 
Foreign service veteran Peter Galbraith talks about his 35 year history with the Kurds and how Trump’s rash decision to sell them out in Syria will undermine America’s standing and security in the world for years to come.
This week’s podcast is about a subject that means a lot to me. Children in foster care. My guest is Sherry Lachman, chief executive of Foster America. She was also my education legislative assistant in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee. As a child, Sherry herself had been in the foster care system for several years. People ask me all the time if I miss the Senate. I miss getting things done that make a difference in people’s lives. Some are what people consider big things. Like my provision in the ACA which requires health insurance companies to … Read More…
It’s been almost six months since so many of you donated more than 5,000 books and over $83,000 to stock the library at the new Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. I recently paid a visit to the school, and what I saw was thrilling. The library is stuffed with thousands of books. The kids are reading. In class. In study hall, And at home! Their parents are reading for fun and erudition. And they’re reading kids’ books to their little kids. This is now a different world for these kids. The physical plant of the … Read More…
Al talks to his former senior education counsel Sherry Lachman about her great organization, Foster America. She helped with a piece of legislation that is one of Al’s greatest achievements as Senator. In the process of getting it passed, Sherry broke a cardinal rule of the Senate and got in a heated conversation with a sitting Senator, much to Al’s delight. Plus, Al has some thoughts on the first day of the impeachment hearings. It turns out that the Republicans are acting as protectors for Donald Trump! Learn more about Foster America at www.foster-america.org
Often at funerals for our fallen, a speaker will quote from Ronald Reagan’s 1985 Veterans Day speech – the part where he talks about those who died in foreign wars. …most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives-the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their country, for us. All we can do is remember. When I hear these words, … Read More…
This week, The New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg and I discuss how the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will guarantee that the winner of the popular vote will become POTUS. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a compact to award member states’ electors to the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide It will take effect when states with 270 electors adopt it. So far, 14 states and DC (representing 187 electoral votes) have compact. Colorado’s legislature and governor have approved it (9 more electors) and nervous Conservatives have put it on the ballot as a Referendum in 2020. Hertzberg explains … Read More…
Jeffrey Toobin and Dahlia Lithwick examine the potential legal issues that may take center stage between now and the day the Senate decides whether Trump is guilty or not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Writer, director, producer Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The Larry Sanders Show, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Girls, Anchorman, Trainwreck) discusses comedy, mental health and politics. I laugh and get depressed.
Seventeen years ago, Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, three aides, and two pilots died in a plane crash. Every year on this day I write about Paul. About how the people of Minnesota knew what he stood for, what he was for and what he was against. They may not have always agreed with him, but they always knew where he stood. I usually write about the last time I saw him. It was at a rally where I introduced Paul by doing an impression of him ordering breakfast with over-the-top enthusiasm. “I’d like two eggs! I … Read More…
One of my heroes, Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, talks about transforming the lives of some of our poorest, most disadvantaged kids and how we can replicate that across the country.
Before I weigh in on last night’s debate, especially on health care, I’d like to point out a couple things. First is that I wrote the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) provision into the Affordable Care Act back in 2009. The MLR is literally the strongest containment on health insurance company profits in the ACA. It says that insurance companies must spend 80% of their premiums for individual and small group plans on actual health care. Not on administrative costs, profits, or CEO salaries. On large group plans, the MLR is 85%. When the insurance companies don’t meet the MLR, they … Read More…
I talk impeachment with veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew, whose heralded dissection of the Nixon and Clinton sagas makes her the go-to on the pending Trump impeachment.