The Katie Halper Show takes a (hopefully) humorous look at the news, politics, pop culture, and the arts through news segments and conversations with writers, journalists, activists, artists and political comedians. Katie Halper, co-host Gabe Pacheco and engineer Reggie Johnson chat it up and bring you segments like "Excuse You," "Right Wing Erotica," "Family Values,"  and “The Sixty-Second Rant."

Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comedian, writer, filmmaker and history teacher based in New York. 

A co-founder and member of the comedy ensemble Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival,  and The Nation Magazine Cruise. Katie's writing and videos have appeared in Salon, The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Jezebel,  Guernica, Alternet, Raw Story, Feministing and more. Katie appears regularly on HuffPost Live as well as MSNBC, RT, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once).  The National Review calls comedian Katie “cute and somewhat brainy.”

Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, the Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit.

Katie went to Florida in 2008 with Judy Blume and Letty Cottin Pogrebin to tell Jews to vote for Obama and wrote the viral online videos Women for McCain, Jews for McCain and Gays for McCain. 

Katie’s latest project is her award-winning film, COMMIE CAMP, a documentary about Camp Kinderland, the summer camp the Right loves to hate.

Katie went to the Dalton School, where she has taught history, and Wesleyan University, where she learned that "labels are for jars."


The Katie Halper Show

:1995-2001:

The HBO documentary THE SWAMP (2020) follows three "maverick" Republican congressmen who seek to fulfil Donald Trump's promise to "drain the swamp," even if that means alienating their party leaders. But what you really need to know about this documentary is that the main one is Matt Gaetz, and he is a huge doofus. PLUS: thoughts on Canada Day, Alex Gibney's Agents of Chaos, and a look back at the media coverage of the War in Iraq.

Michael and Us

#248 - Enemy at the Gaetz

On today's "In the News" roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem, Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek discuss how the U.S. government and corporate media are hoping for regime change in Cuba, but the Cuban people and government are mobilizing to defend their revolution in spite of the severe hardships caused by the U.S. blockade. They also discuss the political crisis in Haiti and the danger of U.S. intervention, and more. This episode includes a special interview with Cathy Rojas, the socialist candidate for mayor of New York City.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

U.S. Strangles Cuban Economy & Seeks Counter-Revolution

Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff continue a discussion on the Marxist understanding of the housing market, today focusing on the system of rent and the current crisis resulting from soaring rents. Today's episode is also part of a series of discussions about the basics of Marxism — a method for understanding and changing the world used by many of the great revolutionaries of modern history.

Richard Wolff is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many books, the latest being “The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself”. You can check out his work at rdwolff.com.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

Soaring Rents Lead to New Housing Crisis

Today's episode is the sixth in a multi-part series that takes an in-depth look at the history of China's foreign policy. In 1997, China achieves another milestone in its long struggle to unify the country and end foreign domination -- the return of the city of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. Meanwhile, China's economic growth accelerates as the country plays a bigger and bigger role in the global economy. In 2001, this culminates with China's entry into the World Trade Organization

Brian is joined by Kenneth Hammond, a Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University and an activist with the organization Pivot to Peace.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

China's Foreign Policy Part 6, 1995-2001: Hong Kong Returns to China and China Joins the WTO

(Patreon-only Rose McGowan interview here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/rose-mcgowan-57953217)
Labor journalists Alex Press (https://twitter.com/alexnpress) & Jonah Furman (https://twitter.com/JonahFurman) discuss the labor movement, strikes, John Deere and what it has to do with Alec Baldwin's deadly shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Alex Press is a writer and editor at Jacobin Magazine, whose latest article is "Halyna Hutchins’s Death on the Set of Rust Was 'Not a Freak Accident'."Jonah Furman is a labor movement organizer and writer for Labor Notes (https://twitter.com/labornotes), the media and organizing project that since 1979 has amplified the voice of workers and labor militants. He is also a frequent contributor to The Intercept.

Alec Baldwin Shooting 'NOT a Freak Accident' With Alex Press & Jonah Furman

On the second episode of The Katie Halper Show, historian Claire Potter joins us live in studio to talk about the Confederate Flag, how we talk about history and when racism and heritage are the same thing. She'll probably surprise you with her recommendations for reliable sources. I play an interview with one of the major organizers of Take Down The Flag SC, Mariangeles Borghini. We also bring you a Trump update or "Trumpdate," and how one Mexican artist responded to his claim that Mexico is sending over a bunch of rapists. Spoiler alert: it involves candy, a stick, and bashing. And we debut our how-full-of-it-are-you-eter. 

Ep 2: Historian Claire Potter debunks the Confederate Flag debate

The debut episode of The Katie Halper Show looks at Donald Trump, his "great relationship with the blacks," and the song he should have played when he announced his presidency. Then Rebecca Carroll and Syreeta McFadden discuss  the "transracial mishegas" that is Rachel Dolezal story, and Ava Farkas, the executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing talks about what she got arrested and placed in string handcuffs over. Also in the studio are Gabe Pacheco and Reggie Johnson. 

Ep 1: "Transracial Mishegas" Rebecca Carroll & Syreeta McFadden on Rachel Dolezal

On Episode 3 of the Katie Halper show, we talk to Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker about the sliding scale definition of racism, which makes it so easy for people to claim they're not racist.  Pablo Benson Silva talks about the Puerto Rican debt crisis, Giovanni Zelko and Andrew Kirell talk about Islamophobia. And Gabe Pacheco and I talk about our night with Jimmy "The Rent is too damn High" McMillan. Plus, Gabe has a thing for blue-eyed gorillas and Katie floats a brown-eyes-only guest policy. 

Ep 3: Jelani Cobb & Jimmy "The Rent is Too Damn High" McMillan

On episode 4 of The Kate Halper Show, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight talks to us about a study which finds that Black Americans are almost eight times as likely as white Americans to be victims of homicide. Comedians Ted Alexandro and Desiree Burch talk about politics and humor, and Chris Cobb discusses how he encouraged New York City to recognize site of a former slave market on Wall Street and mark it with a plaque. And speaking of terrible, greedy, rich white men, we give you a Trumpdate. Did you know that there is a Donald Trump State Park? Well, we at The  Katie Halper Show are renaming it. We have some great candidates. And they're Mexican. 

Ep 4: Nate Silver, Ted Alexandro, Desiree Burch, NYC's Slave Market

On episode 5 of The Katie Halper Show, political comedian Justin Williams goes through the headlines of the week, Ali Gharib talks about Iran and his infiltration of alcoholic terror-cells, Meredith Clark shares her Wisconsinite and journalistic insights into Scott Walker, And Fernando Sosa the Mexican-born and raised artist explains what inspire him to create the Donald Trump The Butt Plug as well as other butt plugs and inaction figures. 

Ep 5. The Donald Trump Butt Plug, Meredith Clark, Ali Gharib, Justin  Williams

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The Katie Halper Show takes a humorous look at the news, politics, pop culture, and the arts through news segments and conversations with writers, journalists, activists, artists and political comedians.