Flint Taylor, co-founder of the People's Law Office, joins us to discuss his new book, "The Conviction Machine: Prosecutors, Politicians, and Police Violence in Chicago" from Haymarket Books. Get your copy here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2733-the-conviction-machine
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18 June 2026, 12:04 am
1 hour 29 minutes
The Story Of The Jewish Bund / Molly Crabapple
Artist and writer Molly Crabapple joins This Is Hell! to talk about her new book, “Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund."
Molly is the author of two books, her 2015 memoir, "Drawing Blood," and "Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War," which is written and Illustrated by Molly and Marwan Hisham. "Brothers of the Gun" was long-listed for a National Book Award. She was a 2020 New America Fellow and her reportage was the winner of the Bernhard Labor Journalism Award, and has been published in The New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Her animations have won two Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Her art is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art.
We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon.
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
16 June 2026, 7:34 pm
1 hour 44 minutes
Inventing Antifa / Lauren Fadiman
Lauren Fadiman joins us to discuss her new piece in The Baffler, "The Invention of Antifa: The courts decree a new domestic terrorist": https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-invention-of-antifa-fadiman
11 June 2026, 1:25 am
1 hour 32 minutes
US Media’s Complicity In The Gaza Genocide / Robin Andersen
Robin Anderson joins This Is Hell! to talk about her her new book “The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage Of Israel’s Genocide In Gaza” published by OR Books. https://orbooks.com/catalog/the-complicit-lens/
Robin Andersen is professor emerita of media studies at Fordham University and an award-winning author of a dozen single- and co-authored books. Her work examines film, television, and media coverage of war, the environment, politics, and elections. She edits the Routledge Focus Book Series on Media and Humanitarian Action, serves as a Project Censored Judge, and contributes to the annual State of the Free Press. Andersen is on the Board of Directors of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), where she also writes regularly, and is an Izzy Award Judge for the Park Center for Independent Media. Her writing has appeared in CounterPunch, LA Progressive, The Progressive, Salon, Common Dreams, and ScheerPost, among others.
We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon.
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
9 June 2026, 6:54 pm
1 hour 43 minutes
We Are Being IP-ed to Death / Vicky Osterweil
Vicky Osterweil joins us to discuss her new book, "The Extended Universe
How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World" from Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2525-the-extended-universe
"The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview.
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
27 May 2026, 5:43 pm
1 hour 25 minutes
Immigration Detention Expansion During Trump’s Second Term / Nayna Gupta & Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
American Immigration Council's Nayna Gupta and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick join This Is Hell! to discuss their report, "Immigration Detention Expansion in Trump’s Second Term”. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/immigration-detention/
Nayna Gupta is an immigration attorney, policy expert, and the current Policy Director at the American Immigration Council. Based in Washington, D.C., she leads the Council's legislative, administrative, and policy advocacy portfolio. Her work primarily focuses on immigration enforcement, the U.S. immigration detention system, and the intersection of criminal law and immigration civil policy. She is a frequent commentator on major networks like Al Jazeera, analyzing mass deportation strategies and federal immigration expenditures.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick is a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. He previously worked as a Staff Attorney at the Council, working on impact litigation, Freedom of Information Act litigations, and practice advisories. Prior to joining the Council, he was an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow placed as a Staff Attorney at the Immigration Law Unit of The Legal Aid Society in New York City, representing immigrants placed in removal proceedings because of a prior criminal conviction. Aaron holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Politics and East Asian Studies from Brandeis University.
We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon.
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
26 May 2026, 6:28 pm
1 hour 28 minutes
The Politics of Police Reform in Minneapolis / Michelle Phelps
Sociologist Michelle Phelps joins us to discuss her book, "The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America": https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691245980/the-minneapolis-reckoning
20 May 2026, 9:56 pm
1 hour 26 minutes
How Money Dominates Human Lives Everywhere / Arjun Jayadev
Educator and author Arjun Jayadev joins This Is Hell! to talk about the new book published by The University Of Chicago Press that he co-wrote with J.W. Mason called “Against Money”, which talks about how money has gotten to dominate the lives of humans world wide as it become the most influential human creation. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo265118979.html
Arjun Jayadev is professor of economics and director of the Centre for the Study of the Indian Economy at Azim Premji University in India. He has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. He is also a Senior Economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. His research combines quantitative and theoretical analysis of Finance, Development, Political Economy and Intellectual Property. He is also a fellow at the Groundwork Collective. https://groundworkcollaborative.org/
We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon.
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
19 May 2026, 6:53 pm
1 hour 21 minutes
Another Bag of Mail / Chuck Mertz & the World's Best Audience
Due to an unexpected rescheduling of a guest, we present a rare mailbag episode that delves into our esteemed listeners' questions and insights. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. No producers were harmed in the making of this episode.
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Please rate and review This Is Hell! wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show ascend the algorithm to reach new listeners.
13 May 2026, 7:41 pm
1 hour 20 minutes
How The British Made The Far Right Acceptable / Daniel Trilling
Journalist and author Daniel Trilling returns to This Is Hell! to talk about his new book “If We Tolerate This: How the British establishment made the far right respectable”, published by Pan Macmillan. This is Daniel’s fourth appearance on the show. Daniel was shortlisted for the 2022 and 2023 Orwell Prizes, for his writing focused on homelessness, human rights and politics. His work has also been shortlisted for the Political Book Awards and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. Daniel is also an associate lecturer in journalism at London College of Communication, where he helps with the Refugee Journalism Project, a training and mentoring scheme for exiled media workers in the UK, which you can learn more about at refugeejournalismproject.org.
Link to purchase Daniel Trilling's new book
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/daniel-trilling/if-we-tolerate-this/9781037411571
We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon.
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
12 May 2026, 12:00 am
1 hour 46 minutes
The Death of Asylum / Tanvi Misra
Tanvi Misra returns to discuss her new piece at Jewish Currents, " The Death of Asylum: How centuries of efforts to deny refuge to persecuted people paved way for authoritarianism." "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview.
Check out Tanvi's essay here: https://jewishcurrents.org/the-death-of-asylum
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell