While attending the 2014 Netroots Nation conference, Gaius Publius — contributing writer at AmericaBlog and member of the Virtually Speaking Sunday media panel — conducted three interviews under the heading "Five Questions." This year he spoke with House Democrat Keith Ellison; economist Dr. Stephanie Kelton of the MMT school of economics; and Democratic strategist Robert Cruickshank. In this podcast, Gaius talks with Dr. Kelton about: · Her view of the so-called "budget for burnable carbon" and the looming climate crisis. · How to guarantee a minimum wage without a passing minimum-wage law (this answer is striking). · How seeing the film "Roger and Me" changed Kelton's approach to economics. Gauis first published this series of conversations at AmericaBlog.  He provides a fast look at how MMT views money, and what that means for progressive politics.Ste ·

While attending the 2014 Netroots Nation conference, Gaius Publius — contributing writer at AmericaBlog and member of the Virtually Speaking Sunday media panel — conducted three interviews under the heading "Five Questions." This year he spoke with House Democrat Keith Ellison, co-leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; economist Dr. Stephanie Kelton of the MMT school of economics; and Democratic strategist and activist Robert Cruickshank. In this podcast, Gaius talks with Rep. Ellison about — • Ellisons's view of the so-called "budget for burnable carbon" and the looming climate crisis • How progressives can "win" if Clinton is the nominee in 2016 • What his Muslim faith means to Ellison, a former Catholic Gauis first published this series of conversations at AmericaBlog.

Historian Rick Perlstein returns to Virtually Speaking to discuss his new book, The Invisible Bridge.  Blogger extraordinaire Digby joins us as guest interviewer.  RIck has described Digby this way: My other favorite political writer, Heather Parton, blogs under the name “Digby.” Daily for over 10 years she’s been unleashing a fire hose of brilliance on the fecklessness of the Democrats, the craziness of the Republicans and especially the way that what we now call the “culture wars” has been seared into our national DNA at least since the Civil War. In the acknowledgments to “Nixonland,” I called her the other half of my brain. We're delighted to have them both here tonight.

This is a rerun of Jay Ackroyd's interview with Rick Perlstein, about his monumental tour de force, Nixonland. Rick is one of the nation's leading popular historians, and, until now, the capstone of his career.  He has actually exceeded himself in his latest book, The Invisible Bridge. He will be discussing that book with Digby as our guest host on August 28.

Richard (RJ) Eskow has a rich history of engagement with public policy making, in the Eastern Europe transition to market economies, in addition to extensive technical work in health care and finance in the US. He recounts his experience being on the inside of policy discussions. This conversation provides an interesting contrast to Joe Sudbay's talk with Gaius Publius, on tactics conducted for an outside game.

The role of intelligence in U.S. domestic and foreign policy, a conversation beween investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler and Jay Ackroyd. One of a series of conversations about surveilllance, national security, NSA, CIA, and Congressional oversight. follow @emptywheel @jayackroyd

June Carbone & Naomi Cahn, authors of Marriage Markets, talk with Jay Ackroyd about the economics of family life, children, marriage, social structure.

Stephanie Kelton, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the top-ranked blog New Economic Perspectives.  In this episode, she and  Gaius Publius discuss the basics of Modern Monetary Theory.  Also, at the bottom of the hour, Gaius Publius on the Unpeople of the World.  More information here. Also, help out the show by checking out Audible's free 30 day trial, or visit our virtual bookstore.

Jay and Ian Welsh continue the discussion rerun last week regarding the need to develop a new ideology in the face of the failure of our technocratic centrist elite to  deal with the consequences of the petroleum economy: A powerful ideology is a scary thing. If your ideology isn’t strong enough, doesn’t create enough fervent belief that people will die for it, then it won’t change the world.  But if it does create that level of fervent belief, then it will be misused, so the question is simply: will this do more harm than good? An ideology which leads to us killing a billion or more people with climate change, let me posit, is a bad ideology.  At the end of its run, neo-liberalism will kill more people than Marxist-Leninism did, and will be thought of by our grandchildren as monstrous.  Most of them will no more be able to understand how we submitted to it or even believed in it than we can understand how Hitler or Stalin or PolPot or Mao came to power.  Hyperbole?  Not in the least, because the body count is going to be phenomenal.

Stuart Zechman discusses the policy framework that underlies the US health care system with Joseph White, Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy at Case Western Reserve University. Professor White is also the author of Competing Solutions: American Health Care Proposals and International Experience.