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Jennifer Taub: Will Senate Trump Impeachment Trial be a Sham or Credible Search for Truth? Alex Lawson: Trump Drive to Cut Social Security Disability Benefits Could Kill Thousands; Barbara Fair: Connecticut Activists Campaign to End Prison Solitary Confinement; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.

Carey Gillam on Monsanto’s manipulation of science; Arun Gupta on normalizing concentration camps; Sasha Abramsky on racist immigration policy; Dorothee Benz on “Swiss cheese civil rights” for LGBTQ people; Brian Mier on Brazilian politics; Joe Uehlein on labor and the Green New Deal; Kevin Kumashiro on student debt cancellation; Brenda Choresi Carter on the electability myth.

Today, more than 30 million Americans still dont have health insurance and even more are underinsured. Even for those with insurance, costs are so high that medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Incredibly, we spend significantly far more of our national GDP on this inadequate health care system per person than any other major country. And despite doing so, Americans have worse health outcomes and a higher infant mortality rate than countries that spend much less on health care. Because Medicare for All or what has also been referred to as single-payer system is so much in the news, we're bringing you a live explainer with our experts. They'll discuss the current Medicare program. And what about coverage for long-term care expenses and coverage of hearing, dental, vision or foot care? And what's wrong with expanding ObamaCare? ...

Few moments in American history have held the tension of the early 1970s. The nation was fundamentally divided between the jaded counter-culture and Nixon’s ‘silent majority,’ a rupture particularly connected to the still-escalating Vietnam War. The release to the public of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 focused national attention on US foreign policy and on our right as individual citizens to freedom of the press. Daniel Ellsberg recommends “Our War,” by David Harris.

This is the 2nd part of UmassAmherst's 11-12-2019 blockbuster pro-Palestinian conference of the year, taking on the Zionists lobby’s attempt to censor speech on American campuses. This week we hear Tim Wise, Cornel West, and Dimi Khalidi, all introduced by Linda Sarsour.

A large population of monarch butterflies migrates from the United States and Canada to central Mexico every year. Tourists typically arrive in droves to see the butterflies at the reserves set up in their overwintering grounds. Right "now" [i.e. February 2019] is a particularly good time to see the butterflies, as Mexico’s national commissioner for protected natural areas has announced that, after years of declines, the number of monarchs spending their winter in Mexico is up 144 percent from last year. ...

Michael Parenti says that democracy can’t survive under religious rule – whatever that religion may be. Parenti’s warning in this archival recording is as timely and urgently expressed as it was when this speech was first given on April 12, 1987, during the second term of the Reagan administration. This talk is also very funny. Parenti explains how God may be considered as a “founding father” and why Woody Allen calls him an underachiever. It is easy to extend this timeless analysis to the present circumstances.