Lever Time

2025 has been a tremendous year for the artificial intelligence industry. Stock prices for AI companies skyrocketed, soaring beyond expectations and propping up an otherwise stagnant U.S. economy. But everywhere, there’s talk of an AI bubble — one even bigger and more threatening than the 2008 housing bubble or the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s. What makes this bubble so different? When is it likely to pop? And if it does, what does that mean for the rest of us?  In this episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Ed Zitron and Sruthi Pinnamaneni, journalists covering the AI frenzy, to recap the year of the AI Bubble — and predict what will happen next. To read Ed Zitron's blog, Where's Your Ed At, click here. Click here to check out Sruthi Pinnamaneni's two part series on AI data centers. Got three minutes? Please take our end-of-year survey! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As parents, we’re told homicidal maniacs, drug peddlers, and creeps are lurking in every shadow, waiting to grab your children. But is that true? Is our obsession with keeping our kids safe doing more harm than good? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota investigates the difference between good parenting and overparenting — and the political history behind our fear that kidnappers are roaming the streets. David enlists the help of author and advocate Lenore Skenazy, a champion for “free-range parenting,” who was once labeled the World’s Worst Mom when she let her child ride the New York City subway alone.  Want to hear more? As an exclusive bonus to our paid subscribers, click here for David’s full conversation with Lenore Skenazy. Lenore explains how to protect kids on social media, how she developed her parenting philosophy, and so much more. Not yet a paid subscriber? Click here for a special membership offer exclusive to Lever Time listeners. Click here for a full transcript of the episode. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From flying to online shopping to using social media, everything seems to be getting worse. It’s all — pardon our language here — shittier. According to today’s Lever Time guest, that’s no accident. Cory Doctorow is the author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. In this episode, Doctorow explains how enshittification works, how it’s infected our online spaces, and what we can do to stop it. Plus, as an exclusive bonus to our paid subscribers, click here for the rest of David’s conversation with Cory Doctorow. They talk about why Americans are trapped on Facebook or Microsoft Office and how Donald Trump is using tech companies as weapons in his trade war. Doctorow also offers a few simple solutions to stop our world from going to shit. Not yet a paid subscriber? Click here for a special membership offer exclusive to Lever Time listeners. To leave a tip for The Lever, ⁠click here⁠. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. ⁠Click here⁠⁠ for a transcript of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. House just voted to force the Trump administration to release every document it has on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful associates. The move comes after Congress released 23,000 pages of Epstein emails and text messages, a data dump that references Donald Trump more than 1,500 times and has so thoroughly tarnished former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers that he’s stepped back from public commitments. Now, many more revelations are likely to come. In this special episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down for a live interview with two people who’ve led the long and brutal fight to expose the Epstein scandal. First, investigative journalist Julie K. Brown, whose reporting originally broke open the Epstein scandal, joins the podcast to explore the revelations from the newly released documents. Then, David speaks with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has been leading the bipartisan fight to force the government to release the Epstein files. Click here for a transcript of this episode Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maine overwhelmingly voted last year to end Super PACs. A federal judge blocked the ballot measure — but left a kill switch inside the ruling. Larry Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School and head of the nonprofit Equal Citizens, is ready to flip that switch and take his case to the Supreme Court. In our final episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series, David Sirota speaks with Lessig about the legal battle against Super PACs and why he believes that we can stop Citizens United without touching it. To read more about Larry Lessig’s case against Super PACs, click here. ⁠Click here⁠ to order our new book, MASTER PLAN: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at ⁠levernews.com/join⁠. To leave a tip for The Lever, ⁠click here⁠. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices