Episodes
Tuesday Jun 14, 2016
Tuesday Jun 14, 2016
This week, Sean Kitchen is STILL on vacation in the great Mountain West. We fear he's lost in the wilderness with nothing but his cell phone and Instagram account. So, today, it's Kevin Mahoney going solo on Out d'Coup.
Today is of course the last primary in this year’s presidential election. It will take place in DC. I am sure that we are going to see lots of movement in the Democratic Party after tonight’s results come in and we’ll talk about that next week by way of recapping the road to the Democratic and Republican conventions in July. All eyes are on the next moves of the political movement that coalesced around Bernie Sanders; and, of course, what will be the next great circus act in the show that is Donald Trump.
But today we’re going to go with a little bit of a different format. Last night, that’s Monday, June 13, I was on the Rick Smith Show talking about the APSCUF contract fight with the PA State System of Higher Education. APSCUF is of course 5,500 member union that represents faculty and coaches in the PA State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). This past Friday, June 10, PASSHE basically dropped a 146 page proposal on the table after claiming for months it did not have any formal proposals - just “ideas.” The proposal amounted to a full-frontal attack on public higher education in Pennsylvania. Today I want to get in the weeds a bit and take a look at PASSHE’s contract proposal.
It’s got the makings of all the best right-wing tactics from their now familiar playbook: divide and conquer, destroy job security, shift power to highly-paid administrators, and turn education into a mindless process of producing cogs for the corporate machine. So, we’ll take a quick break now and then we’ll get into the weeds of a contract fight that might just lead to the first-ever strike by the faculty at the 14 state-owned universities in Pennsylvania.
Here's your resource list for this episode:
- Mahoney on the Rick Smith Show talking about APSCUF contract
- Raging Chicken article: "Wall Street on the Susquehanna," on PASSHE's Enron-style accounting schemes
- Background on PASSHE Chancellor, Frank Brogan's long association with education privatization as Jeb Bush's right-hand man in Florida
- PASSHE contract proposal
- APSCUF contract proposal
Tuesday Jun 07, 2016
Tuesday Jun 07, 2016
Tuesday Jun 07, 2016
Tuesday Jun 07, 2016
This week, Sean is on vacation in Boulder, Colorado, one of the craft brew meccas in the U.S. We hope to catch up with Sean later in the week to get an update on his Rocky Mountain high.
But today is a BIG DAY! Today California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota hold their primaries and Caucuses. The California race is, of course, the big kahuna, with its 546 delegates at stake. But in this increasingly tense race on the Democratic side, today’s final Super Tuesday can’t be without controversy. Last night, the AP and then NBC and others reported that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee based upon Democratic Party super delegate commitments. The fact that the media declared victory for Clinton before voters had a chance to vote today is leaving a sour taste in lots of people’s mouths. We’ll get into that with my surprise special guest on today’s Out d’Coup, Glenn Richardson!
Richardson is a Professor of Political Science at Kutztown University. He is the author of Pulp Politics: How Political Advertising Tells the Stories of American Politics published in a second edition by Rowman and Littlefield. He specializes in American government and political commmunication, especially campaigns and elections, political advertising, social media and news coverage of politics. His articles include "Visual Storytelling and the Competition for Political Meaning in Political Advertising and News in Campaign 2000," which earned the 2002 American Communication Journal Article of the Year Award; and "Ad Watch 3.0: Developing Audiovisual and Narrative Techniques for Engaging the Audiovisual Content of Political Advertising," in Poroi. He is currently working on projects focusing on the use of Twitter and politics and on political advertising.
Richardson is Chair of the state APSCUF Legislative Committee - APSCUF is the faculty union for the 14 state-owned universities in PA.
We’ll get Richardson’s take on today’s primaries, the tensions in the Democratic Party, and what’s happening in APSCUF’s current negotiations...faculty have been working without a contract for nearly a year.
Tuesday May 31, 2016
Tuesday May 31, 2016
Tuesday May 24, 2016
Tuesday May 24, 2016
Tuesday May 24, 2016
Tuesday May 24, 2016
It’s another Tuesday in this presidential election season. For the first time in a long time we don’t have a primary or caucus! But just because there are no primaries, doesn’t mean that there is no news. We’ll get into the big news of Bernie Sanders getting the opportunity to appoint a Dream Team to the Democratic platform committee. What will this mean for the future of the Democratic Party?
Plus, we’ll talk about the shocking proposal by Jay Badams, the Superintendent of the Erie School District, to shut down all of the city’s public high schools due to a lack of funding from the state. The proposal comes on the heels of a cutting video released by the school district, “Doing Nothing is Not the Answer,” putting pressure on PA politicians to adequately fund public education in the Commonwealth.
Then we’ll ask what’s creeping around in Philly public schools? Sean Kitchen will give us a preview of his upcoming story. And, what’s going on with the big shake up in the PA Department of Environmental Protection? DEP Secretary John Quigley gets the boot after some gas-loving Democrats put pressure on Gov. Wolf to kick him to the curb? Did the Governor cave to Big Gas?
Finally, Sean will give us a preview of his Rocky Mountain vacation and gives us a stellar beer recommendation. “I drank a growler,” says Kitchen. Can you say “Murren River IPA” from Pizza Boy Brewing?
Wednesday May 18, 2016
Wednesday May 18, 2016
Tuesday May 17, 2016
Tuesday May 17, 2016
A HUUUUUUGE day for Raging Chicken Radio. Today we officially roll out our expanded podcast! After our regular Out d'Coup podcast, keep on listening for our interview with Steve Horn, Research Fellow for DeSmogBlog and freelance journalist, about the on-going probe into ExxonMobil's role in the climate denial industry. Check out Steve's article RIGHT HERE.
Tuesday May 10, 2016
Tuesday May 10, 2016
On today's episode we do a little Election Reflection now that Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee for president...what are Trump's prospects in the General? Are the Democrats up to the task to defeat him? Meanwhile, the Democratic primary is still going strong. Today is Primary day in West Virginia and it looks like Bernie Sanders may take the contest for the second week in a row. Meanwhile, the Hillary Clinton campaign backs off their decision to focus solely on the general election and vows to begin running ads in the remaining primary states to secure the nomination.
Tuesday May 03, 2016
Tuesday May 03, 2016
It's May 3, 2016. On today's episode of Out d'Coup podcast, we talk to Sean Kitchen about his upcoming article on Katie McGinty's ties to the natural gas industry as she prepares to take on Pat Toomey for a PA Senate seat this fall. We talk about the sway of money in politics and the need for the Democratic party and Big Green environmentalist organizations to make a hard commitment to save our planet.