On episode 225, we welcome Casey Michel to discuss the roles foreign lobbyists play in shaping US foreign policy, the good and bad aspects of the lobbying industry, Paul Manafort’s and Ivy Lee’s efforts to aid propaganda for dictators, the differences between government lobbying and diplomacy, US congressional ties to authoritarian regimes and how congressmen are bought, the reasons the democrats lost the 2024 elections and how much hope there is, dark money, and American universities taking in billions from regimes with human rights abuses.

Casey Michel is an author, journalist, and director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program with the Human Rights Foundation. He is the author of American Kleptocracy, named by The Economist as one of the "best books to read to understand financial crime." His writing on offshoring, foreign lobbying, authoritarianism, and illicit wealth has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post, among other outlets, and he has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNN, and MSNBC, among other stations. He has also testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the links between illicit financial networks and national security. His newest book, available now, is called Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World.

| Casey Michel |

► Website 1 | https://www.caseymichel.com

► Website 2 | https://hrf.org/program/combating-kleptocracy

► Twitter | https://x.com/cjcmichel

► Linkin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseymichel

► Foreign Agents Book | https://amzn.to/4hSI8U2

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On episode 224, we welcome Rob Jackson to discuss the effects of climate change, the human contributions to it, weighing the costs of revenue loss against environmental harm, the historical contributions of the Republican party to environmental protections and their road to climate denial, worries about another Trump presidency, the effects of climate change on poor communities, the promise of electric and solar power, and the everyday harms of methane gas.

Rob Jackson is the Chair of the Global Carbon Project, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, and a professor of earth science at Stanford University. Through global scientific leadership and groundbreaking research, communications, and policy activities, Rob’s work has reduced millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and improved human health, safety, and air and water quality. One of the top five most-cited climate and environmental scientists in the world, he has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, and his writings have appeared in many outlets, including The New York Times, Scientific American, and The Washington Post. His newest book, available now, is called Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere.

| Rob Jackson |

► Website 1 | https://jacksonlab.stanford.edu

► Website 2 | https://robjacksonbooks.com

► Into the Clear Blue Sky Book | https://amzn.to/4f74T4E

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On episode 223, we welcome Claudia Strauss to discuss the four types of work ethic, the glamorization of hustle culture and what type of work most people value, how productivity became associated with one’s moral standing, whether and how much meaning should be expected from a job, how automation might impact our work lives, studies about the effects of a four day work-week, and the myth of people on government assistance programs not wanting to work.

Claudia Strauss is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Pitzer College. She is the author of Making Sense of Public Opinion and coauthor of A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning.Her newest book, available now, is called What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic.

| Claudia Strauss |

► Website | https://www.claudiastrauss.org

► What Work Means Book | https://amzn.to/40bofkH

Where you can find us:

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► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment

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► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment

► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast

On episode 222, we welcome Jon Michaels and David Noll to discuss the alliance between vigilante groups and governments in the US, the four types of vigilantism and how they affect our lives, how vigilante groups utilize state laws to limit freedom of movement, the roots of vigilantism in the slavery era, the argument of individual liberty as a veil for tyranny, and the societal effects of the merger between business interests and right-wing cultural warriors.

Jon Michaels is a UCLA professor of law specializing in constitutional, administrative, and national-security law. His award-winning scholarship has been published in The Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and the Harvard Law Review; his popular essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, and The Forward. A Yale Law graduate and former Supreme Court clerk, Michaels is a member of the American Law Institute, serves on the advisory board of UCLA’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, and is a faculty affiliate of UCLA’s Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy. His first book, Constitutional Coup, was published by Harvard University Press.

David Noll is the associate dean for faculty research and development and a professor of law at Rutgers Law School. His scholarly writings on civil procedure, complex litigation, and administrative law have appeared in the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Texas Law Review, among others, and his popular writing has appeared in venues including The New York Times, Politico, Slate, and the New York Law Journal. A graduate of Columbia University and New York University School of Law, Noll is an academic fellow of the National Institute for Civil Justice. He clerked on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

| Jon Michaels and David Noll |

► Website | http://www.jondmichaels.com/about

► Twitter 1| https://x.com/davidlnoll

► Twitter 2 | https://x.com/JonDMichaels

► Bluesky | https://bsky.app/profile/david.noll.org

► Vigilante Nation Book | https://amzn.to/3zEjQvM

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On episode 221, we welcome Randy Fertel to discuss the rich history of improv, hot cognition and cold cognition, the importance of a liberal arts education for creativity, Trump’s charisma and use of off the cuff comments to charm his audience, the neuroscience of creativity, Saturday Night Live and how those comedians embodied the dark side of improv, improv as a symbol of authenticity and why that connects with an audience, trauma and reintegration into the community, and how to cultivate a “yes and” mindset.

Randy Fertel is a writer, scholar, and philanthropist, best known for his work exploring the intersections of improvisation, culture, and politics. Fertel holds a PhD in English and American literature from Harvard and has taught at institutions such as Harvard and Tulane. His previous works include A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation and The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak, a memoir of his family's New Orleans culinary legacy. He is the president of The Fertel Foundation and The Ruth U. Fertel Foundation, supporting various cultural and educational causes. His latest book, Winging It: Improv's Power & Peril in the Time of Trump, delves into how improvisation shapes our world—from the arts and neuroscience to politics and social media.

| Randy Fertel |

► Website | https://www.fertel.com

► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/rfertel

► Twitter | https://x.com/rfertel

► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/rfertel

► Linkedin | https://linkedin.com/in/randy-fertel

► Winging It Book | https://bit.ly/3zLKJ0A

Where you can find us:

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► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment

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► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast

On episode 220, we welcome Jason Stanley to discuss the rising tide of fascism among Republicans, the pivotal role education plays in cultivating it, the divided US and how winning came to override all other values, the authoritarian war on intellectualism, fascist historical revisionism and why the history written by fascists is based on fear and pride, the fascist tendency to target minority groups and the necessary creation of scapegoats, unionizing as an antidote to fascism, Putin’s rise to power, and the misguided attempts of populism to address corruption.

Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of six books, including How Fascism Works and How Propaganda Works. Stanley is a member of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School and serves on the advisory board of the Prison Policy Initiative. He writes frequently about authoritarianism, democracy, propaganda, free speech, and mass incarceration for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Project Syndicate, and many other publications. His new book, available now, is called Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.

| Jason Stanley |

► Linktree | https://linktr.ee/erasinghistory

► Website | https://campuspress.yale.edu/jasonstanley

► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/jasonstanley680

► Erasing History Book | https://bit.ly/4dbbsBD

Where you can find us:

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► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment

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► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast

On episode 219, we welcome Alice Driver to discuss the widespread labor violations of the meatpacking industry, Tyson’s treatment of its workforce, how the company is able to employ undocumented immigrants, the Arkansas law that allows child labor, how prison labor is used to keep company costs low, the political power of the industry and how government subsidies help sustain it, and the various personal stories of the people working in Tyson’s factories.

Alice Driver is a James Beard Award-winning writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. She is the author of More or Less Dead (University of Arizona, 2015) and the translator of Abecedario de Juárez (University of Texas, 2022). In 2024, she won the Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for her newest book, a: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company (One Signal Publishers).

| Alice Driver |

► Website | https://www.alicedriver.com

► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/alice__driver

► The Life and Death of the American Worker | https://amzn.to/3X5tpeR

Where you can find us:

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On episode 218, we welcome Constantine Sandis to discuss the manifestations of transphobia, why feeling you’re in the wrong body isn’t delusional, the errors of segregation, ways of addressing the placements of trans people in sports, how biology and culture may interact to form trans identities, the rates and common causes of detransitioning, the sensationalism behind transphobic reactions, epistemic injustice and why we question trans identities unfairly, Imane Khelif and the olympic boxing controversy, and the consequences of assuming widespread deception from trans individuals.

Constantine Sandis is Director of Lex Academic, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His books include The Things We Do and Why We Do Them, Philosophy of Action: An Anthology, and Human Nature, and From Action to Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Reasons and Responsibility. His newest book, coauthored with Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, is called Real Gender: A Cis Defence of Trans Realities.

| Constantine Sandis |

► Website | https://www.constantinesandis.com

► Twitter | https://twitter.com/csandis

► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/csandis

► Bluesky | https://bsky.app/profile/csandis.bsky.social

► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/csandis

► Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/constantine-sandis-723454a4

► Real Gender Book | https://bit.ly/46YA7bb

Where you can find us:

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► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment

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