Lever Time – Details, episodes & analysis

For the first time in the Citizens United era of billionaires and corporate money buying U.S. elections, change may be afoot. This week, Democrats campaigning on a populist message won resounding victories in the face of big-money opposition.  An aging party establishment is still calling for Democrats to be more moderate and centrist, but what if the center has moved? What if populism is the new centrism?  On this new episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series, David Sirota sits down with Stanford political scientist Adam Bonica, author of the newsletter On Data and Democracy, to discover how the labels that we use in our political system are changing — and how this week’s election results could shift the Democratic Party’s battle against corporate power and the oligarchy. For a full transcript of the episode, click here. Want to hear more of this conversation? Click here for a bonus episode. Click here to order our new book, MASTER PLAN: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ahead of the closely watched New York City mayoral race, everyone is looking for a lesson from progressive Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s rise to political stardom. The real answer may be a vastly undervalued political strategy: public money. Could public financing of elections overcome Citizens United and the flood of corporate cash and corruption in American politics? In the latest episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series, we explore the importance of publicly funded campaigns. David Sirota speaks with two people who have had front-row seats to how public financing is combating election corruption — Karen Wharton, democracy coalition coordinator for Citizen Action of New York, and Jillian Gilchrest, a Connecticut state representative now running for Congress. For a full transcript of the episode, ⁠click here⁠. Click here to order our new book, MASTER PLAN: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first nine months of his second term, President Donald Trump has filed more than 200 executive orders. State attorneys general are filing lawsuits to block the Trump administration’s blatant power grabs, but will our legal system prove strong enough to save American democracy? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), who has sued the Trump administration dozens of times, for an on-the-ground look at the battle to stop the Trump agenda. Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind nearly every hamburger or chicken nugget handed out in a school cafeteria is JBS Foods, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate run by a billionaire butcher family who bribed their way to become the world’s largest meat processor. Today on Lever Time, we look at how JBS captured the meat market, harmed workers, pulverized the environment, and generally tainted all your lunch meats with a hefty dose of corporate corruption. Every year, the U.S. government gives JBS Foods millions of dollars in subsidies, on top of the millions more it pays the company to supply meat for school lunches and the military. Despite JBS’ long history of illegal behavior, its market dominance has made it impossible for the government to avoid working with them, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. JBS isn’t an outlier; today, a handful of companies control most of the country’s agricultural supply.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Ticketmaster too big to fail? It’s the question some musicians and small venue owners are asking in the wake of the Justice Department’s decision to sue Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment over its alleged monopoly in the music industry. Today on Lever Time, Morgan Harper, an antitrust expert, and Greg Saunier, founder of the indie band Deerhoof, debate the strength of the Justice Department’s case, and whether a win in court would meaningfully benefit musicians, independent music venues, and fans themselves. Ticketmaster has drawn the ire of musicians for decades. In 1994, members of the rock band Pearl Jam went to Congress alleging Ticketmaster was engaged in price gouging — but nothing happened. Instead, the government allowed Ticketmaster to grow even bigger, giving it massive influence over most of the music industry, gouging customers, and strong-arming musicians into signing away the rights for their tours.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Lever Time, we dive into the heart of Capital One and hear from a former employee about the credit card titan’s tactics to keep customers forever submerged in debt.  When President Joe Biden moved to cap credit card late fees in March, the financial industry revolted — filing multiple lawsuits against the administration of a man once dubbed one of the banking industry’s favorite senators. Why are the credit card giants so threatened by losing their junk fees? How exactly have they assumed so much control of our financial lives? In today’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota and Arjun Singh go deep into the heart of the credit card industry and its lobbying army to hear how the industry has muscled its way into people’s wallets.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Jerusalem-based journalist Nathan Thrall to discuss what life has been like in both Gaza and the West Bank since the Oct. 7 attack in Israel. The pair also explores what is motivating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue the war, and why Netanyahu’s iron-fisted approach to the Palestinian territories may be the norm, not an outlier, in Israeli politics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For months, Joe Biden has struck a defiant tone in his support of Israel despite the concerns of allies and nationwide protests. Biden has been a fervent supporter of Israel throughout his political career, but his current moves appear to be driven by three close advisors who have consolidated control over the administration’s Israel policy.  Today on Lever Time, David Sirota and Arjun Singh look at the people shaping Biden’s Israel decisions and get an on-the-ground report on how the war has played out in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.  The Lever is subscriber supported. To become a subscriber, and get access to exclusive bonus content, head here: https://www.levernews.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since 2021, economists and pundits have tried to blame inflation on workers and rising wages. But a new bombshell exposé spotlights a different cause: oil companies engaging in an alleged price-fixing scheme with Saudi Arabia and other countries that may have fueled roughly one-third of all U.S. inflation in 2021.  A recent Federal Trade Commission case uncovered text messages and documents suggesting the founder of a big oil company colluded with the Saudi government and other oil-producing countries to keep energy prices high. Another lawsuit alleges multiple American oil companies were engaged in a price-fixing scheme.  Today on Lever Time, Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project discusses his groundbreaking reporting on the matter — and explains how this alleged collusion could have played a major role in the country’s inflation crisis.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As colleges and police departments crack down on campus protests, law enforcement are using tools borrowed from corporate America’s ballooning surveillance regime to spy on students — and anyone else they deem a threat.  When New York City police raided Columbia University on Tuesday to remove student protesters from a building they’d occupied, Mayor Eric Adams justified the move by claiming “outside agitators” had infiltrated the group. If the claim was even true, how did authorities get that information? What sort of technologies are authorities using to monitor the protesters — and where did these spy tools come from? This week on Lever Time, David Sirota and producer Arjun Singh look at college protests in the age of total surveillance. They talk with Alistair Kitchen, a student journalist who’s been reporting from Columbia’s campus, and explore how corporate America has taught the intelligence community new ways to use consumer data to spy on people everywhere If you’d like to follow Alistair Kitchen’s reporting, subscribe to his newsletter here: https://substack.com/@alistair  Our work is subscriber supported. If you want to support us, and hear exclusive podcast content, head to levernews.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices