Produced by KSQD 90.7, 895. & 89.7FM

“Be Bold America!” Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“When somebody has taken the time to draw up a playbook, they are going to use it.” - Tim Walz, 2024 DNC Vice-Presidential Acceptance Speech (re: Project 2025)

Call it what you want. The Republican Party is nakedly zealous about turning America from a democratic republic into a kingdom and the right-wing billionaires and their corporations are doing everything they can to make it happen … led by The Heritage Foundation, that also flew the American flag upside down after the January 6 insurrection just as did Justice Alito’s wife.

Everyone must realize that the Project 2025 scheme to dismantle the American government is for any future Republican president. It might be beaten back this upcoming presidential election but these people, who are fighting for a dictatorship, will not go away.

The right wing is not hiding it. They say it out loud and have proudly written their manifesto; their painstakingly detailed, 922-page, step-by step instruction manual titled, “The Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise - Project 2025.” This interview with Professor John Roth, cohosted by former KGO radio talk show host, John Rothmann, will peel back its pages with an emphasis on religion, health and education.

Yes, this is a detailed plot for a coup.

Interview Guest:

John Roth, PhD, is the Edward J. Sexton professor emeritus of philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Dr. Roth was named the 1988 U. S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Dr. Roth's expertise in Holocaust and genocide studies, as well as in philosophy, ethics, American studies, and religious studies, has been advanced by postdoctoral appointments as a Graves Fellow in the Humanities, a Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and a fellow of the national Humanities Institute, Yale University. In addition to lecturing widely throughout the United States and around the world, Dr. Roth has authored, coauthored, or edited more than fifty books, and he has published hundreds of articles and reviews. Dr. Roth graduated from Yale University with a Master of Arts and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees.

Guest CoHost:

John F. Rothmann is a renowned radio talk show host, formerly with KGO radio, and he is a popular lecturer and political and foreign policy consultant. John has also been involved in a broad variety of political campaigns on the national, state and local levels and Richard Norton Smith called John "a scholar of modern Republicanism.” John is the co-author of two highly acclaimed books and has been on the faculty of the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco since 2004.

John’s personal library of 15,000 volumes is widely recognized as one of the finest libraries of American political history and biography in the United States. Scholars, graduate students and authors in the process of research frequently access his extensive collection. Currently, John hosts his own highly successful podcast titled, “Around the Political World with John Rothmann.” John lives in San Francisco with his wife Ellen and their two sons, Samuel and Joel.

Produced by KSQD 90.7, 89.5 & 89.7FM

“Be Bold America!” Sunday, August 25, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

PART 1 Covers the following:

Editor's Note: Why "Citizen” is a Verb

Foreword: Truth vs. Cynicism (written by Fred Keeley, Mayor of Santa Cruz)

Introduction: Welcome to California, the Most American State

Prologue: Explanatory Journalism, Explained

Wishing that things worked one way or another is not the same as knowing how things work. It’s when we all know how things work that we can impact things, from democracy itself to a local development project in your neighborhood. – Fred Keeley, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, California

How does the 5th largest economy in the world … work?

What are some true stories about how California is leading the world toward a better future, from protecting women’s and voter’s rights to building a sustainable energy infrastructure? These true stories are not naïve or full of starry-eyed optimism.

The book “How California Works”, acknowledges that many Californians, well, lets’ face it … people the world over … are confronting a myriad of crises. Yet, individuals and organizations throughout California, maybe imperfectly, are making our state better, fairer, and a safer place.

How are they doing it? The word “citizen” is a verb.

Interview Guest:

Jonathan Vankin is a senior writer for California Local and an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Salon, L.A. Weekly and many others. He is the author of four previous nonfiction books, including Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes—the first comprehensive, journalistic investigation of America's conspiracy-theory underground, foreshadowing the current state of sociopolitical affairs by two decades—and more recently Close to Zero, a full account of Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jonathan Vankin has also written comic books, TV, screenplays, and even the "book" for a hit Off-Broadway musical, Forever Dusty, about the great British pop star Dusty Springfield. He has made numerous media appearances on such networks as CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, the BBC and the CBC, as well as numerous podcasts and hundreds of radio stations.

Produced by KQD 90.7, 89.5 & 89.7FM

In the new book, “Winging It: Improv’s Power and Peril in the Time of Trump”, the author explores popular cultural and public affairs, ranging deftly from the unmediated experience in Fred Astaire’s tap dancing, Frans Hal’s brush strokes, hook-up culture, psychedelic trips, social media, and Hamilton’s hip-hop to, last, though not least, the performative and demagogic posturing of Donald Trump.

The gesture all improvisations share is “I will create this on the fly,” or as Trump has stated, “my gut knows more than my brains” This defies rationality and elevates embodied emotions, instinct, and intuition that challenges our assumption that everything of value depends upon long study, tradition, and hard work. Claiming to be free of serious purpose … improvisation only pursues pleasure. Or so it says.

Interview Guest:

Randy Fertel, PhD, is a writer and philanthropist dedicated to the arts, education, New Orleans, and the environment. Randy holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard University and is the author of A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation and The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir.

Dr. Fertel has taught English at Harvard University, Tulane University, LeMoyne College, and the New School for Social Research. He specializes in the literature of the Vietnam War and the literature of exile. In addition to his writing, Randy is president of the Fertel Foundation and the Ruth U. Fertel Foundation, named for his mother Ruth Fertel, founder of Ruth’s Chris Steak House. He is co-founder of the Ridenhour Prizes for Courageous Truth-telling, now in its 20th year. He lives in New Orleans and New York.