On October 19, 2026, I interviewed Eliot A. Cohen, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Before that he taught at the U.S. Naval War College. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve, was a director in the Defense Department’s policy planning staff, and led the U.S. Air Force’s multivolume study of the first Gulf War. From 2007 to 2009 he was counselor of the Department of State, serving as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice’s senior adviser.
His books include The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall (Basic Books, 2023), as well as The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force (Basic Books, 2017), Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battle Along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War (FreePress, 2011) and Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (Anchor, 2002), among others.
His latest book, is THE STRATEGIST, HOW TO THINK ABOUT WAR AND POLITICS, published this week by Princeton University Press. I have been listening to him and Eric Edelman, his partner as he likes to say in all things strategery, on their podcast, Shield of the Republic.
I have been listening to him and Eric Edelman, his partner as he likes to say in all things strategery, on their podcast, Shield of the Republic. As the global economy reels from the repercussions of the US/Israel war against Iran, he has things to say about the do’s and don’ts of successful strategy, and he shared them with us via Zoom
As issues continue to arise about the upcoming midterm elections, we invited the CEO of The League of Women Voters, Celina Stewart, to discuss their work. For over a century, they continue to rise to the challenge of protecting our right to vote.
Celina Stewart is a nationally recognized voting rights attorney, and champion of American democracy. Appointed CEO just three months before the 2024 presidential election, she guided The League of Women Voters through one of the most consequential election cycles in modern history, reaching more than 30 million voters and investing over $1 million in nonpartisan election education in her first year of leadership. She oversees The League’s operations, resources and strategies across a national network of more than 750 affiliates. We spoke with her on September 8, 2026 via Zoom.
Then, as we observe the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, we hear Wendell Berry, who recently died at the age of 92, read from his story, Making It Home.
“The Congressional elections are at hand. They occur in the most critical period our country has ever faced or is likely to face in our time. If you have approved of my leadership and wish me to continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman in affairs at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will express yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I am your servant and will accept your judgment without cavil, but my power to administer the great trust assigned me by the Constitution would be seriously impaired should your judgment be adverse, and I must frankly tell you so because so many critical issues depend upon your verdict.” -Woodrow Wilson, 1918
From Heather Cox Richards’ Letter from an American 9-3-26 https://substack.com/home/post/p-213960738“ in Tarrant County, Texas, county commissioners tried an even cruder way of rigging the election. As Cecelia Lenzen of the Texas Tribune reported, they voted 3–2 along party lines to get rid of 92 of the polling sites the county had in 2022 before the midterm election. In 2022 there were 316 election sites; the Republican commissioners cut that number to 224. They also cut three sites for early voting, from 50 to 47. Republicans voted for the cuts; Democrats voted against them. “It’s not about cost. This is about power. This is very political. This is campaigning from the dais,” said Democrat Alisa Simmons. Throughout the eight-hour meeting about the cuts, speakers from the audience called on the commissioners to increase, rather than decrease, the number of voting sites for the more than 1.3 million people registered to vote in Tarrant County. Those 1.3 million people are more than live in Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, or Montana, and about the same number of people who live in Maine or New Hampshire. FACT CHECKED: From the Tarrant County Registrar of Voters office: 1,329,559 registered voters – 81.27% of eligible population 18+ years old
Links to articles and videos pertinent to this show:
Our guest today on Forthright Radio is writer, analyst and investigative journalist, Casey Michel. He is Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, where he works on topics ranging from kleptocracy, oligarchy, illicit finance and dark money, as well as foreign lobbying and foreign interference. In addition, he is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the Center for International Policy.
Among his books are FOREIGN AGENTS: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World; AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History; and his most recent book is , United States of Oligarchy: How America’s Wealthiest Ally With Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy, published earlier this month by St. Martin’s Press.
We spoke with Casey Michel on August 24, 2026 via Zoom.
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official… It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.” –Theodore Roosevelt
“We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men. I want – as all Americans want – an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written, that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power – in other words by judicial say-so. It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937
Articles, etc. pertinent to our interview with Casey Michel:
“A new administration must screen out those who regard Government service as the door to power or wealth, those who cannot distinguish between private gains and public trust, and those who believe that old-fashioned honesty with the public’s money is both old and out of fashion.” John F. Kennedy, 1960
Returning to be our guest again is internationally renowned public intellectual, writer, and cultural and political critic, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, & The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy – Professor Henry Giroux.
He has authored, or co-authored over 65 books, written several hundred scholarly articles, delivered more than 250 public lectures, been a regular contributor to print, television, and radio news media outlets, and is one of the most cited academics working in any area of Humanities research. His books have been translated into many languages.
Henery Giroux is on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous national and international scholarly journals, and he co-edited a series on education and cultural studies with Paulo Freire for a decade. He is on the Board of Directors for Truthout. He is interviewed regularly on a number of different media including Democracy Now! Despite these illustrious credentials, he is never dull in conversation, and he certainly isn’t in this one, which was recorded via Zoom on June 5, 2026.
Liz Helenchild from the 2018 Mendocino Poetry Celebration Photo by Dan Roberts
This edition of Forthright Radio ends with a poem by Mendocino poet and radio colleague, Liz Helenchild‘s, poem: SLICE. Thanks to Dan Roberts for broadcasting it on Rhythm Running River (6-7-26) and for permission to include it. It was recorded at the 2026 Mendocino Poetry Celebration.
In our first segment we speak with Stanford University Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Michael McFaul. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
His latest book is AUTOCRATS VS. DEMOCRATS: CHINA, RUSSIA, AMERICA, AND THE NEW GLOBAL DISORDER, published by Harper Collins. His earlier books include Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin and the NYT bestseller, From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.
Jeff Mangan
In our second segment, we speak with Montana’s former Commissioner for Political Practices, Jeff Mangan, about a proposed amendment to the Montana State Constitution, titled The Transparent Election Initiative. It has garnered tremendous interest and excitement nationally, and is being dubbed The Montana Plan. If enacted, it would effectively kill Citizens United in Montana, and would serve as a model for other states. Instead of being cut off at the pass by the Supreme Court’s first amendment ruling that money is free speech, it instead asserts a 10th amendment states’ right to govern and control corporate charters to determine what they can and cannot do.
Articles, etc. that are pertinent to these interviews:
Today’s show is in two parts. First, longtime friend of Forthright Radio, scholar, public intellectual, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, and The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, Henry Giroux, joins us again to discuss many issues facing our nation and the world – from the increasing militarization of America at home and on the seas, to the young people he teaches who are rising to the challenges of becoming effective cultural producers in this era unlike any in human history.
In the last part of the show Nate Bellinger, Our Children’s Trust’s Supervising Senior Staff Attorney, shares with us about the latest in the recent federal district court decision that Federal District Dourt Judge Dana Christenson rendered on October 16, 2025, in the Lighthiser v Trump case, and their on-going legal efforts representing their youth plaintiffs suing for a livable climate.
In the KZYX pledge drive show, we read this poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:
Talk
You’re a brave man they tell me. I’m not. Courage has never been my quality. Only I thought it disproportionate so to degrade myself as others did. No foundations trembled. My voice no more than laughed at pompous falsity; I did no more than write, never denounced, I left out nothing I had thought about, defended who deserved it, put a brand on the untalented, the ersatz writers (doing what anyhow had to be done). And now they press to tell me that I’m brave. How sharply our children will be ashamed taking at last their vengeance for these horrors remembering how in so strange a time common integrity could look like courage.
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Translated by Robin Milner-Galland and Peter Levi
Sarah Schulman, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, and AIDS historian is the Ralla Klepak Professor of English at Northwestern University.
She was a member of ACT UP, New York from 1987 to 1992, and a co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers. Today she serves on the Advisory Board of Jewish Voice for Peace, and is co-director of The ACT UP Oral History Project ( https://www.actuporalhistory.org/).
She is the author of 21 books, including Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987-1993; Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair; and The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness To A Lost Imagination.
Her latest book is THE FANTASY AND NECESSITY OF SOLIDARITY, published by Thesis.
When Governor Greg Abbot called The Texas Legislature into special session ostensibly to deal with the aftermath of the devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River, but instead listed first on the agenda a highly unusual mid-decade redistricting to re-gerrymander the already gerrymandered redistricting after the 2020 Census, with the stated intention of providing 5 more Republican seats in Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm election; and After enough Democratic members fled Texas to deprive the Republican majority of the necessary quorum to do this, we invited Dave Daley back to help us understand what the heck is going on.
We had him on in September, 2024 when his book, Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections, came out; and in 2022 right after the midterms; and in 2020 when his book, Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy, was published.
Yale University History Professor and Prize winning author, Greg Grandin, has published widely on US Foreign Policy, the Cold War, and Latin American politics in the Nation, New York Times, Harpers and the London Review of Books.
His books include: THE EMPIRE OF NECESSITY: SLAVERY, FREEDOM AND DECEPTION IN THE NEW WORLD; EMPIRE’S WORKSHOP: LATIN AMERICA, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE MAKING OF AN IMPERIAL REPUBLIC; FORDLANDIA: THE RISE AND FALL OF HENRY FORD’S FORGOTTEN JUNGLE CITY; THE END OF THE MYTH: FROM THE FRONTIER TO THE BORDER WALL IN THE MIND OF AMERICA, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
His latest book is AMERICA, AMÉRICA: A NEW HISTORY OF THE NEW WORLD, published by Penguin Press. We spoke with him on May 20, 2025.
Susanne Mueller Redwood is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Montana State University. Her research focuses on the international dimensions of authoritarianism. She investigates the role that economic cooperation plays in the survival and breakdown of authoritarian regimes. Her work has analyzed the role of trade, central banking, and currency politics under dictatorship, and has been published in different outlets, including the Review of International Political Economy and Cambridge University Press.
The broadcast of this Forthright Radio program ended with an interview by The Kyiv Independent’s Chris York with U.S. historian and author, Marci Shore, who had announced that she — along with her husband, historian Timothy Snyder, and colleague Jason Stanley — would be leaving their posts at Yale University and moving to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto. It ended with John Lithgow‘s reading of Timothy Snyder‘s 20 Lessons on Tyranny. Due to copyright issues, we do not include them in this recording, however they can be accessed here:
