The Chauncey DeVega Show

Vince Houghton is the historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. His new book is Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board. Houghton explains how the Cold War spawned fantastical science fiction-like weapons programs and plans by the United States government such as atomic bomb-powered spacecraft, nuking the moon, psychic soldiers with the powers of telekinesis and mind control, and cyborg cats and other animals.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun. His new book is Revolutionary Love. Rabbi Lerner reflects on what it means to be a truth-teller and moral human being who has fought for human rights and dignity for more than five decades. Rabbi Lerner also offers a vision for saving America from the evils of Trumpism and other cruelty based upon what he describes as “revolutionary love” and “radical empathy”.

William Cohan is a New York Times bestselling author of several books about finance and Wall Street. Cohan is also a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and a columnist for the New York Times. Cohan shares his theory and evidence connecting high-profile events such as Trump’s assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani with the advanced purchase of defense industry and other stocks. He also identifies the various people in Trump’s orbit who could facilitate alleged insider trading.

Harvey J. Kaye is the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. He is the author of many books including The Fight For The Four Freedoms: What Made FDR And The Greatest Generation Truly Great. He explains how the history of American democracy is, at its core, a radical project that can rejuvenate and empower the American people to resist and defeat Donald Trump and his authoritarian movement.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian at New York University who specializes in authoritarianism, aesthetics, cultural politics, and Italian history. She explains how Donald Trump is continuing to wear down America’s democratic institutions – and the public – to a point where authoritarian rule will be accepted as the new normal. Ben-Ghiat predicts that Donald Trump is still waiting for the moment when he can declare a national emergency and fully take power by suspending the Constitution and the rule of

Psychiatrist Dr. David Reiss is the guest on this week’s very special New Year’s 2020 episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is a contributor to the bestselling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. On this week's show, Dr. Reiss offers advice on goal setting, making and keeping personal resolutions and promises, self-reflection, and forging our best way in life during these very challenging and perilous times.

Chauncey DeVega and fellow Star Wars expert Bill the Lizard offer a very critical and spoiler-filled discussion of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the movie’s many problems with plot, narrative, characters, and emotion. They are also deeply concerned with how The Rise of Skywalker, specifically, and the Kylo Ren-Rey relationship, more generally, shows emotionally and physically abusive relationships as somehow being ultimately “romantic”.

Stephen Kinzer is the author of the new book Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. Kinzer explains how the CIA conducted horrific experiments involving LSD and other drugs during the Cold War with the goal of determining if they could destroy the human mind and then reprogram it for their own purposes. Kinzer also separates fact from fiction about “Manchurian candidates” and the hidden history of the United States government’s relationship to 1960s counterculture.

Ronald E Purser is a Professor of Management at San Francisco State University. His new book is McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality. Purser is also the author of the widely-read essay at the Huffington Post, “Beyond McMindfulness”. Purser explains how neoliberalism and its gangster capitalists use “mindfulness” as a way of creating a compliant, lonely and weak public that is not equipped for the collective action necessary to make a better and more humane soci

Chris Hedges is the author of numerous award-winning and bestselling books. His newest book is "America: The Farewell Tour." Hedges explains how Trumpism, white right-wing Christian Evangelicals, white supremacists and other right-wing groups are death cults birthed by a sick society. He also highlights how Trump’s impeachment is more evidence of a criminal plutocratic class in America and how the “one percent” are engaged in legal theft against the American people.

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author of the bestselling book "The Making of Donald Trump." His recent book is "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America." Johnston explains why the Ukraine scandal should not be a surprise given Donald Trump’s many years of success as a white collar criminal. He also details what the specific articles of impeachment against Donald Trump should be.

Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and author of the bestselling book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.  Dr. Snyder reflects on the health of American democracy in the third year of Trump’s presidency. And Dr. Snyder implores the Resistance and other Americans of conscience to craft a positive narrative of their political vision instead of just opposing Donald Trump’s regime.

Christian Picciolini's involvement in, and exit from, the early American white-supremacist skinhead movement is chronicled in his memoir White American Youth. Christian explains the recruitment techniques used by Nazis and other white terrorist organizations to target and recruit alienated young white men (and women). Christian also warns that with Donald Trump the white supremacist movement has now seized the White House.

Tom Nichols is the author of “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.” He is also a political columnist for USA Today.  Tom Nichols shares what it was like to be targeted by President Donald Trump who slurred him and other “Never Trumper” patriots as “human scum”. Nichols also offers some advice for the Democrats regarding how they are making decisions which will lead to their defeat by Donald Trump and his cabal in 2020.

Cornel West is one of the United States’ and the world’s leading truth-tellers. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He is the author of several bestselling books including Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. Cornel West explains the power of the Black Freedom Struggle to sustain and improve American democracy in an age of crisis and peril.