Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry

Watching the news has been especially horrifying lately. We’re drowning in video of armed, masked ice agents charging into neighborhoods, refusing to identify themselves, snatching up our neighbors, and the next thing you know they’ve been deported to terrible prisons in other countries, deprived of due process, and at the mercy of a government that is refusing to follow orders of federal courts. Cristina Jimenez knows that fear, and also knows how to fight back. She is the co-founder of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country, and the author of the new book “Dreaming of Home."

The archetype of “mother” is a weight many women carry-but it’s certainly not our whole story, or necessarily an accurate one. In fact, the stories we are told about women, the complexities of womanhood, are often shackles that serve to keep us bound to a society that claims to value us but holds us back in so many ways. Nicole Graev Lipson’s new memoir in essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters captures the complexities of motherhood, of relationships, of womanhood–and defies expectations in so many ways. She joins us to discuss.

The early part of this decade seemed like it might signify a realignment of the social and cultural power of Black Americans. But the realities of that power–and how it translates into meaningful justice and social change–are less clear, and perhaps less optimistic. Especially now in the second Trump era, where everything which does not perpetuate white power is treated as suspect and anti-American. To discuss the shifting dynamics and a path forward to meaningful change, we’ve asked Andre Perry onto the show. Andre is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Community Uplift at the Brookings Institution and a professor of practice of economics at Washington University in St. Louis. He is also nationally known and respected commentator on race, structural inequality, and education and the author of the new book “Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It.”

The Trump regime built much of its identity–and certainly campaigned around–its hatred of LGBTQ Americans. Unfortunately, the success of that campaign again revealed just how much anti-queer bias there is in the American populace. And while there may be no populated nation in the world that is truly free of anti-queer bias, there are places that are better, are different, or that offer new perspectives. Alden Jones’ work explores queer travel. Alden is an assistant professor at Emerson College and the author of the memoirs The Blind Masseuse and The Wanting Was a Wilderness and the story collection Unaccompanied Minors. Best American Travel Writing and other venues. She edited the new anthology of queer travel writing “Edge of the World” and he is here to discuss that work and the queer travel experience.

It’s hard to overstate the danger the Trump regime is posing to Americans. This is especially true for Americans who rely on our healthcare system for chronic diseases or conditions. From cuts to research funding, building registries for people with autism, attacks on women’s access to healthcare, and so much more, it’s truly horrifying what is in store in this country.

To help us unpack it, and maybe help find a way to act against it, we’ve asked Laura Packard, Founder of Voices of Health Care Action back onto the show.

There is a rapist presiding over the United States. That rapist has directed his government to gut federal efforts to protect women from violence of all sorts. Health and Human Services fired nearly all of its staff at the Division of Violence Prevention. The office on violence against women has removed all funding opportunities from its website and reports are coming in that all of the grants it issues are being cancelled. Online, platforms owned by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg–billionaires who support Trump and his regime–own giant social media platforms rife with digital violence against women and seemingly no efforts at all to curtail it. It is a dangerous time to be a woman. This has always been true, but it is especially true in Trump’s America.

Our guest for this episode is Alia Dastagir. Dastagir is an award-winning journalist and former reporter for USA Today who was one of eight U.S. recipients of the prestigious Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Her book on women and online abuse, “To Those Who Have Confused You to Be a Person: Words as Violence and Stories of Women’s Resistance Online,” is now available.

Most weeks, we bring a guest onto speak in depth on a single issue. But every once in a while, there’s so much going on that Alyssa and Ben take an episode to check in on...all of this nonsense. That’s what we’re doing this week. And we even start with some good news: It’s baseball season.

The United States executes more people than nearly any other country. In fact, in 2023, the only countries with more reported executions were Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Iraq. Inside the United States, courts are trying to navigate the legality of execution and methods of execution, and the various states have different rules and customs of this barbaric practice. Gianna Toboni has faced some of the world’s most dangerous people: ISIS fighters, cartel hitmen, and sex traffickers. In her new book --- THE VOLUNTEER: The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate’s Quest to Die with Dignity -- Gianna dives into her most intense year yet—covering the life of a death row inmate, all while uncovering the shocking, dirty truths about our criminal justice system. And it should be noted that this episode contains frank discussions of both capital punishment and suicidality.

In late March, thousands of writers, publishers, students, and writing educators gathered in Los Angeles for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference. Since our own Ben Jackson is a writer and professor of composition, we thought it would be a great opportunity to hear how writing is changing the world for the better in a time when we desperately need to change the world for the better.

In the two months since the Trump regime took power, it has worked feverishly to dismantle the higher educational apparatus in the United States. Grant money funding research in the billions of dollars has been stopped or held to use as leverage against researchers and institutions. At the same time, Trump and his cronies are working to suppress free speech on campuses, deporting faculty and graduate students who do not share the administration’s views on the Israel-Gaza conflict. The effects of these actions are terrifying. To discuss, we’ve invited Todd Wolfson, President of the American Association of University Professors and an Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University.

Right now, our government is making dramatic slashes to the federal workforce. Tens of thousands have already lost their jobs, and healthcare benefits are definitely on the chopping block. At the same time, the Trump regime is perhaps the most anti-union administration in our history, working to lessen the power of workers. In her recent article for Capital and Main, Jesse Baum tells the story of The Southern Women Handling 1-800-MEDICARE Calls and their demands for a Union. She’s with us to discuss.

Donald Trump won a second term in part because of a disingenuous populist message that was intended to harness the anger of poor Americans at a system that does not serve them. Their anger is righteous–and while Trump is certainly not doing anything that will change this, his presidency is at least in part a symptom of our national contempt for the poor. Sarah Jones’ new book “Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass” digs into this problem, and we’ve invited her here to discuss it further.

Back in 2018, Ben and I started NoRA as we watched the Parkland school shooting unfold. In the work to reduce gun violence and the deadly influence of the gun lobby on our nation we discovered so many amazing people doing so much important work in this field. Kris Brown, president of Brady, is one of those people, and we’re happy to have her here with us today.

We’ve been talking a lot this year about effective resistance and the need for each of us to do something. That’s all well and good, but it can be hard to figure out exactly how to start. Jamia Wilson’s new book Make Good Trouble: Discover Movements that Sparked Change can help! Jamia is an award-winning feminist activist, writer, speaker, and podcaster and author of Young Gifted and Black, Step Into Your Power, Big Ideas for Young Thinkers, and more.

Can you believe it’s barely been one month? Trump’s regime has only been in power a few weeks, and it has already done so much damage to the basic tenets of our democracy that it’s hard to get our heads around it.

And while Trump is moving quickly, this is not the product of quick and fast action. Rather, it's the result of a decades-long effort that is only now coming to full fruition. To talk about it, we’ve invited Katherine Stuart to join us. Katharine is the author of the new book “Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy

In the first of our new live format, Alyssa and Ben dig into the evils and incompetence of the early Trump regime, and the need for focused, strategic, and effective activism.

Tune in LIVE every Thursday at 5PM ET/2PM PT for new episodes!

Yes, the world is a hot mess--but we're not ALWAYS about political or social issues.

Ok, we're always about political or social issues. And sometimes, those issues include love and sex. This week, we've got both for you!

Like a bad penny, Trump is back in office–in part because of the xenophobic hate he spewed during the campaign and, sadly, the millions of Americans who embraced that hate. Much of it was aimed directly at immigrants, and now the felon-President is turning that hate into policy. Our guest today is one of those standing in Trump’s way. Hassan Ahmad is an immigration attorney in Virginia and a former candidate for Congress.

Los Angeles is experiencing an unprecedented tragedy. Thousands and thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed by wildfires, and its not even fire season. Millions of people have been impacted, losing not just their homes and what they represent, but the contents of those homes and the communities they love. Kasey Lansdale has been in the middle of it all working to make a difference. Kasey is a writer, musician, and publisher who has been collecting, organizing, and distributing critically needed donations throughout the affected areas.

For the entirety of our existence as a nation, the United States has denied the full power of equal citizenship to women. Today, we have taken a huge step toward correcting that injustice.

We’ve got a powerhouse of a panel with us today. Zakiya Thomas is President and CEO of the ERA Coalition. Jessica Neuwirth is a board member of the ERA Coalition. Carol Jenkins is Chair of the Fund for Women’s Equality, and Sophia Armen is the co-founder and Co-director of Feminist Front.

For most of human history, power has come from landholding. How land is allocated–or taken and reallocated–determines who controls entire cultures. In his new book Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies Michael Albertus takes us through how it happens and what it means for all of us.

Late last year, President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100. President Carter exemplified a life of service, and we spend this episode looking back at just some of the remarkable things that made President Carter who he was.

If nothing else, this year has been momentus--potentially decisive as it pertains to the futre of American Democracy. All along, we've talked with the experts about issues which are driving that democracy and those of us governed by it. Here are just a few of our favorite segments from 2024.

One of the most important things President Biden can do before the end of his administration is to direct the Archivist to publish the Equal Rights Amendment. To discuss why this matters, we’ve invited Kate Kelly back to the show. Kate is Senior Director for the Women’s Initiative at American Progress.

Donald Trump has vowed to do away with the department of education. This will have wide-ranging impacts on students across the country. To talk about what it all means, we’ve invited Sari Beth Rosenberg back to the show. Sari is a public school teacher in New York City, a founder of Teachers Younify, and a member of the American Federation of Teachers.

Kash Patel, Trump's FBI Director-Designate, has an enemies list--patriots he wants to prosecute for upholding the law and American values. Turns out, it looks a lot like our guest list. This week, we hear from three of our guests who are on the list: Nina Jankowicz, Adam Schiff, and President Biden.

Hi Friends,

While Alyssa was starring in Chicago on Broadway, she took some time away from the podcast - but now she's back! We catch up on the election, the role of art in times of strife, self-preservation, and a whole lot more.

This year, many of us are struggling to find gratitude. Perhaps we can find it in the story of Sara Josepha Hale, the women who made it her life's mission to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. She had to face a nation in civil war, a president in crisis, the passage of time, and the apathy of power. Nevertheless, she persisted.

We too, shall persist. Our fights are not new, and they will not be won overnight. But they will be won.

In what has become a Thanksgiving tradition at Sorry Not Sorry, we are revisiting this episode with Denise Kiernan, bestselling author of "We Gather Together."

There seems to be no end to the violent conflict around the world. This violence seems to produce no end of human suffering, but as Stalin said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." OUr guest this week is a master of telling the story of the one person. Arwa Damon is an award-winning journalist, president and founder of INARA, a non-profit that provides access to life-altering medical and mental health care to children impacted by human-induced or natural disasters, and the director of the new film Seizing the Summit.

Friends, it's a hard week.

We lost, badly, and we learned more than we wanted to know about our neighbors. History gives us a lesson or two on what befalls those who govern with hate and abuses of power, and the resilience of the people who suffer under them.

They are lessons Trump would do well to remember, if only he was capable of learning them.

The election is this week. The choice is yours: do we elect a convicted felon who has been adjudicated responsible for rape, who tried to overthrow the government, who pushed the Supreme Court to a never-before-seen level of extremism, who has threatened journalists, Democrats, his opponent, and others with violence, who promises economic and immigration plans that will cause incredible chaos and harm and almost certainly crash the economy, and who has based his campaign on hate for women, trans people LGBTQ people, immigrants, Black people, Jewish people, Muslim people, the disabled, the poor, and anyone who is not a rich white man, or do you want to elect Vice President Harris?

This week, we take one last look at what is at stake.

For most of the past 200 years, the United States has held itself in a nearly mythical esteem–and sometimes, used that esteem to justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. In their new book The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World, Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson confront that ideology and its dangerous global effects. Robinson joins us this week to discuss.

Since the fall of Roe v Wade, the Republican extremists in Congress and in the states have been giddy at taking away the right to bodily autonomy–especially aimed at women and pregnant people. Jessica Valenti takes a clear look at what is happening and how to stop it in her New York Times bestselling book “Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win.” She joins the show this week.

The American right is weaponizing state-sponsored and endorsed vigilantism in an effort to impose Christian Nationalism in the United States. That’s the argument Jon Michaels and David Noll make in their new book “Vigilante Nation: How State Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy.” Noll, a professor of law at Rutgers University, joins us to discuss.

You’ve seen his videos–the hilarious sendups of Trump and his cronies almost always with a particular musical flare. Well, Randy Rainbow has a new book out–Low-Hanging Fruit: Sparkling Whines, Champagne Problems, and Pressing Issues from My Gay Agenda. We’re delighted to have him here this week to chat about it.

The saying goes that laughter is the best medicine. But it can be a powerful driver for social change. Our guest this week is Steve Hofstetter. Steve’s a comedian, a Nobel Prize nominee, and a philanthropist who’s been making people laugh and think for a long time.

There is perhaps no industry which intersects more completely with immigration, labor, and health and safety than meat packing. In her new book “The Life and Death of the American Worker” Alice Driver takes the industry head on through the stories of Tyson Food employees in Arkansas, and she’s joined us to discuss.

As the American right becomes more and more authoritarian, it is attempting to rewrite history. From its claims that the United States isn’t a democracy to its attempts to remove books from libraries and rewrite curricula, the reshaping of the past risks our future. In light of this evolving reality, bestselling author Jason Stanley joins us to discuss his new book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.

For the Labor Day holiday, we're revisiting a critical bit of ongoing organizing happening in the United States.

One of the interesting side effects of the post-Covid economy has been a surge in the power and influence employees hold. Wages in service industry jobs have risen dramatically as employers struggle to find workers. However, there have also been increasing stories of worker exploitation, leading to a surge in new unionization efforts. To discuss all of it, we’ve invited Michelle Eisen onto the show. Michelle is a Starbucks Barista and organizing member of Starbucks Workers United.

The traditional way of influencing a foreign nation’s policy is through diplomacy. But, as recent headlines have shown us, that’s certainly not the only way. Foreign lobbyists are working to shape our policies globally, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Casey Michel’s new book Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World examines this dark underside of international relations.

The voting rights act of 1965 restored voting power to people of color across the United States. Of course, the American right couldn’t have that, and it begane a 50-year fight to overturn it. In his new book “Undemocratic,” David Daley, bestselling author of “Ratfucked,” takes us inside that fight and its consequences.

On January 20th, 2001, Donald Trump left Washington in disgrace. After losing the election, losing every court case related to the election, his supporters attacking the capitol, and his second impeachment, it should have been for good. Yet somehow, in his years of exile, he solidified his power base and may well retake the white house. Politico’s Meridith McGraw was in constant touch with Trump’s inner circle during this time, and her new book Trump in Exile examines how it happened.

In early July, Russia’s illegal and immoral bombardment of  Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv forced doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators to work to save the lives of hospitalized children while scrambling to stay alive themselves. In this episode, we’ll hear from several of those workers who will share their stories of trying to help children overcome disease and injury in a war zone. We’ll also hear from Helen Kovalska, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, who will talk about United 24 and their critical mission in that country.

Well, the news changes quickly. President Biden has dropped out of the race. This episode was recorded prior to that withdrawal, and considers the complexities surrounding that then potential decision and what might come next. In this episode, we talk about what it means, what’s on the line, and how we as Democrats, patriots, and pro-democracy Americans from all political stripes might want to think about the situation.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a Trump-aligned nightmare that the extreme right wants to enact if Trump is re-elected. It is a wide-ranging reshaping of our society in a mold that leaves us wondering if “Under his eye” will be the new “see you later” should it come to pass. This week, we’re looking back at just a few of our former guests to show some of what’s at stake. We hear from Amanda Zurawski, Kate Brookes, Tim Alberta, and Sadvhi Siddhali and Sadvhi Annabhuti.

It’s hard to believe that when President Obama was elected, we barely had social media. In less than two decades, giant tech companies have completely changed how we interact with one another–and in doing so have fundamentally changed our perceptions of reality. In his new book “The Death of Truth” bestselling author Steven Brill, cofounder and co-CEO of NewsGuard, examines how this happened and how to recover from it.

It's the time of year we celebrate Independence Day in the United States. This week, we’re featuring patriotism–the real patriotism, the people we’ve featured on the show who love this country so much that they won’t stop fighting to make it better. Featuring Heidi Przybyla, Barbara F. Walter, Christian Piccolini, and PEN America.

Healthcare is one of the greatest challenges facing not only our nation, but the people who inhabit it. One political party seems to want to make it more affordable and accessible, and the other seems to want to make it more profitable for large corporations and more deadly for women. Laura Packard is the founder of Health Care Voter, a healthcare activist, and a cancer survivor. She’s here to help us make sense of it all.