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Activism, politics, and beer from PA-based Raging Chicken Press
Episodes
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Hundreds of Bans Off Our Bodies rallies were held across Pennsylvania and the United States last Saturday. The demonstrations brought out hundreds of thousands of people supporting access to abortion and reproductive healthcare.
The Senate Judiciary Committee releases a report saying we were much closer to a serious Constitutional crisis than we thought...and we already thought we were pretty close. And, of course, some PA regulars are in the cross hairs.
The House January 6 Commission says it will start issuing criminal subpoenas
The Pandora Papers dropped, exposing how world leaders, celebrities, and the uber rich are using U.S. tax havens and real estate to park their riches out of the reach of taxation and public scrutiny. As described in The Washington Post, “The investigation identified 206 U.S.-based trusts linked to 41 countries. Nearly 30 of the trusts held assets connected to people or companies accused of fraud, bribery or human rights abuses in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.”
Bernie Sanders is pretty much done with coddling Joe Manchin.
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus all go down the day after Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee turned whistleblower appeared on 60 Minutes and spilled the beans on Facebook ignoring its own research that its platform was causing real-world damage to democracy and well-being.
The American Prospect lays out - again - how Biden can use executive actions to take decisive action on climate. So, what’s it going to be, Biden? The climate or Joe Manchin’s Foo Foos.
And a great piece in In These Times, discusses a new report from Democratic Party consultants that shows evidence that the fate of the Democratic Party is intimately tied to the decline of union power. Pointing to the fact that the Democratic Party and the labor movement itself needs to throw everything it has into new organizing.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed 48 criminal charges against Energy Transfer Partners for environmental damage and contamination from the Mariner East Pipeline.
March on Harrisburg rained on Jake Corman’s fundraising golf outing at Toftrees resort near Penn State. Wealthy donors paid between $500 - $10,000 to bend Corman’s ear on the back 9. Activists lined the trail between the 10th and 11th hole, attempting to engage donors and holding signs that read “Senator Corman - Meet with Voters Not with Donors;” “Lawmaker Bribery: Par for the Course;” and “The Gift Ban Should be a Gimme.” Activists took this latest action after Senate Pro Tempore Jake Corman refused to bring Gift Ban legislation up for a vote.
School Board craziness continues.
I continue to dodge COVID.
Mikey Stacks is Back trying to get a hold of his old senate seat. Stack’s old senate seat went to John Sabatina - a Stack protege - when Mike Stack became Lt Gov. Senator Sabatina is leaving the Pennsylvania Senate for a Philadelphia court seat. Sabatina was picked as a replacement democratic nominee when the original nominee dropped out of the race. Philly politics at its finest.
Captain Kirk is going to get a shot to go to space...or a part of space at least. That’s right, William Shatner is getting a ride on the next Blue Origin scheduled for Tuesday, October 12. At 90 years old, he’ll be the oldest person to go to space.
Special shout out to Matthew Biniek for the nice cache of Half-Orc Pumpkin Ale, homebrewed by Biniek BioTech Brews.
And, Happy Birthday to my son who becomes a teenager this weekend! Love ya, Rowan!
Thursday Oct 07, 2021
Thursday Oct 07, 2021
On this week’s show…We’re going to dig into Cyril’s latest column, “Bucks County Youth Must Rise Up to Defend Education.” In that column, Cyril interviewed Edha Gupta, a Central York High School activist who helped lead organizing efforts to overturn a ban on a list of books confronting racism written by people of color. Cyril sees lessons in those students’ organizing efforts for battles being fought right here in Bucks County and across the Commonwealth. We’ll also take a peek at what’s happening in his newsletter and what he’s got cooking for his next column.
You should also sign up for Cyril’s newsletter on Substack: https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com/
You can help support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at patreon.com/rcpress. Your support has helped make today’s show possible.
You can also help out the show by heading over to our YouTube channel - if you are not there already - and smash that subscribe button, like the stream for this show, and hit that notification bell so you’ll know every time we go live.
And make sure to join our Discord Server to continue the conversation all week long. Just click on the link in today’s show notes: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV
A special shout out to Jonathan Mann who wrote our intro song, “There Are No People in the Future.” Check out all is great stuff on his YouTube page and follow him on Twitter @songadaymann
Monday Oct 04, 2021
Monday Oct 04, 2021
*** UPDATE ***
*** Unfortunately, Jordan was unable to join us for tonight's show. I provided an overview of Jordan's article and some of the political history around his piece. Hopefully, we'll be able to get him back on the show at a later date. My apologies for everyone who shared out the show promo over the past several days and were looking forward to tonight. We'll do our best to get him back on the show at a later date. ***
Tonight I welcome Jordan Hopkins back to the show. Hopkins is a writer, editor, and independent, investigative journalist based in Philadelphia. He's been covering the slimy money trail left behind the right-wing extremist slugs infecting our social and political networks.
Listeners of the show will remember that the last time Jordan was on the show, we talked about his article, “A Party of Grifters” unpacking the grift at the core of the emerging Patriot Party and the rise of extremism in PA more broadly. Jordan has followed the dark money trail once again, exposing the influence that right-wing extremist billionaires are having on local school districts.
His article featured in Unicorn Riot last week, “School Board Disruptions Escalate, Funded by Conservative Dark Money,” will be the focus on our show tonight.
You can check out all his great reporting at https://www.itsalienmuse.com and you can follow him on Twitter @jhop_phl.
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Progressives hold the line, forcing Nancy Pelosi to postpone a vote on the $1 trillion Kyrsten Sinima promoted the “bi-partisan” (aka the fossil fuel) infrastructure bill.
Meanwhile, Joe Manchin says he won’t support a reconciliation bill larger than $1.5 trillion - $2 trillion less than the compromise package and $4.5trillion less than the original package.
Some West Virginia kayactivists paddle up to Joe Manchin’s yacht, ask him better questions than most of the beltway media, and get more from him that any cable news show.
Writing in his newsletter The Daily Poster, David Sirota reported Thursday that: Joe Manchin backed a huge bank bailout for Wall Street execs almost 13 years ago to the day. That’s just rich as he deridedan "entitlement mentality" as a reason to kill the reconciliation bill that would help millions of people struggling to survive. The Wall St execs then bankrolled him.
Greta Thunberg chastises world leaders about their climate change “blah, blah, blah,” over the past several decades; she calls for immediate, decisive action.
FEMA is removing subsidies for flood insurance as claims are expected to rise significantly due to the effects of climate change. Insurance premiums are expected to rise 18% per year for at least the next 20 years, particularly in areas already prone to flood.
Twenty-three species have been removed from the endangered species list. But this is not good news. They are being removed because they have been declared extinct. In the 50 years since the passages of the Endangered Species Act. Until Wednesday’s announcement, only 11 species have been removed from the list - until today, that is.
Are you ready for some serious snail mail? “Beginning Friday, the U.S. Postal Service will start to "implement new service standards" for first class mail and periodicals — slowing its target delivery time by about 30%,” USPS spokesperson Kim Frum told NPR.
Back in the day there were the “sewer socialists;” today, “sidewalk socialists” are making the theoretical question about what it would mean to govern as a socialist into a very practical one. Rebecca Burns of In These Times has a great article on the victories of India Walton in the Buffalo Democratic Mayoral primary and over 60 DSA-backed candidates who have been elected to local office from Denver to Chicago to Knoxville, TN.
Supreme Court Justice and all-around horrible human being, Brett Kavanaugh, tests positive for COVID-19 just a few days before the new term begins. Before you have to google it, yes, he’s been vaccinated. Just didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.
Pennsylvania House Republicans shoot down their own school voucher bill. They were planning on giving vouchers to parents of students who didn’t want to wear masks and let them go to school districts or private schools that do not have masking requirements.
House Republicans advanced their voter suppression agenda once again. They voted House Bill 1800 out of committee and a series of constitutional amendments that would politicize the Secretary of State’s office, mandate voter ID, establish election audits and more.
About 3,000 people showed up in Harrisburg for a maskless, superspreader Pro-Life rally. Sean didn’t want to get close to that thing even with his zoom lens.
Tomorrow, Women’s Marches are happening around the country tomorrow including right here in the Commonwealth. Rallies will take place in Harrisburg @ 11 am. You can look for a rally times and locations near you by going to https://map.womensmarch.com/.
Cyril Mychalejko - Central York High School students light a path for student uprisings in Bucks County and across the Commonwealth.
Happy Birthday to NASA. Yes, on this day in 1958 the legendary space agency was born! On Oct. 1, 1958, NASA was born!
The FAA is investigating Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin about safety measures after an explosive letter published by a group of 21 employees blue the whistle on the company’s move to cut safety corners, pressuring employees to works long hours, in a rush to try and gain government contracts and compete with SpaceX. The letter also alleges that there is a toxic working environment at the company, especially for women.
Monday Sep 27, 2021
Monday Sep 27, 2021
On today’s show, we've got another round of open phones. From Bucks County, to Harrisburg, to Washington, the challenges we face just don't stop. What's on your mind? What's at the top of your agenda? We're taking your comments on YouTube.
Tonight we're talking about refusal to work, bread and roses, journalism fails, Biden's faltering agenda, and D&D!
Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV Chatting on #livechat during and after the show.
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Happy 10 year anniversary to Occupy Wall Street! We’ll be reflecting on that.
Here comes the subpoenas! The House Select committee on the January 6 insurrection issued subpoenas to several former Trump officials including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former social media director Dan Scavino and Kashyap Patel, who was chief of staff to Trump's defense secretary.
The CDC gave the green light for the Pfizer COVID booster shot for at-risk individuals. The third dose of the vaccine will be available for individuals over 65 and for adults who are at heightened risk of severe illness.
Guess who’s writing our climate policy. I’ll give you a hint. West Virginia & coal. Yup, you guessed it, Senator Joe Manchin is the chair of the Senate Committe on Energy and Natural Resources, Manchin will have an oversized influence on the shape of any climate policy that emerges from the Democrats’ reconciliation bill.
Meanwhile, climate activists connected with Greta Thunberg staged the first large protest today in Berlin Germany. This is the first significant Fridays for the Future protest since the pandemic.
Call it a win for the AZ election Fraudit. A win for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that is. That’s right, the Cyber Ninjas pulled out all their bamboo detecting apparatuses and found there was no there there. Now AZ has to clean up the mess (after they pay off all those invoices from Cyber Ninjas, that is).
The New York Times reports on how raging anti-masking policies are hitting students with disabilities especially hard. The article features anti-maskers in Tennessee as the state is one of seven being investigated by the Department of Education for descrimination against students with disabilities during COVID.
Florida continues to impress with its ability to find new lows. Gov. Ron DeSantis has appointed a new State Surgeon General who, according to Slate, “was last seen on the national stage participating in a COVID miracle cure event with another doctor who believes that lizard people control the government and that demons cause gynecological problems by implanting stolen sperm, as well as a third doctor who later got arrested for being part of the mob that smashed into the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the presidential election.”
Pennsylvania Senate Republicans launched their “sham election review” while we were away and at the second hearing last week. We’ll recap how Senator Cris Dush isn’t ready for the primetime.
After the Central York School District banned books on Rosa Parks and MLK, students rose up and demanded the books be returned to the curriculum. After national attention to the Central York Monkey Trial-esq book ban, the school board reversed course and lifted the ban.
Susan Snyder of The Philadelphia Inquirer published an excellent profile of Steve Oross and his case against Kutztown University. You’ll recall that We had Oross on Out d’Coup LIVE at the beginning of the month. Oross recently received a heart transplant, making him at the highest risk of severe/fatal effects of contracting COVID. Kutztown denied his ADA request to teach online.
Penn State suspends 117 students who missed their required COVID-19 testing.
PA Republicans looking to get back to work for the people of the Commonwealth, decide that going to war against Gov. Wolf’s mask mandate is one of their top priorities, just as COVID cases spike and parents grow increasingly concerned about the safety of their children in schools. Good thing they can’t get their shit together.
SpaceX launched four non-astronauts into REAL space for a three-day tour. The SpaceX Inspiration mission also raised about $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
The U.S. Federal Court of Claims released a redacted version of Jeff Bezos’s hissy fit lawsuit protesting NASA’s decision to give SpaceX contracts for the lunar lander system to be used in upcoming Artemis missions, leaving Blue Origin’s aspirations wanting. It’s rich that Bezos is claiming he and his Blue Origin space baby had been treated unfairly.
New Space Force uniforms have got some serious Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek feels going on.
Scientists have discovered footprints in the White Sands National Park (NM) dating back to more than 21,000 years ago. That means that there were humans in North America several thousands of years before scientists previously thought.
Roll a d20.
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
On this week’s show we talk about Cyril's latest column, "Bucks County GOP must reject militias, QAnon, Proud Boys, and other extremism."
We also check in with some of the Anti-MaskerRaiders in Bucks County. It's also the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street which is a good opportunity to talk about the critical importance of organizing.
You should also sign up for Cyril’s newsletter on Substack: https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com/
You can help support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at patreon.com/rcpress. Your support has helped make today’s show possible.
You can also help out the show by heading over to our YouTube channel - if you are not there already - and smash that subscribe button, like the stream for this show, and hit that notification bell so you’ll know every time we go live.
And make sure to join our Discord Server to continue the conversation all week long. Just click on the link in today’s show notes: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV
Monday Sep 20, 2021
Monday Sep 20, 2021
On today’s show, we've got another round of open phones. From Bucks County, to Harrisburg, to Washington, the challenges we face just don't stop. What's on your mind? What's at the top of your agenda? We're taking your comments on YouTube. You can also join the show live on Riverside.fm and call in to the show.
Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV Chatting on #livechat during and after the show.
You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at patreon.com/rcpress. If you’re listening to this show on the Podbean app, you can show us some love right now by hitting that green patron button at the top of the page.
You can also help out the show by heading over to our YouTube channel and smash that subscribe button, like the stream for this show, and hit that notification bell so you’ll know every time we go live.
Wednesday Sep 15, 2021
Wednesday Sep 15, 2021
We're back in your media feeds! Cyril Mychalejko is back with Kevin Mahoney to get us caught up on all the craziness in Bucks County.
The incredible disappearing Damsker? What? Rise in COVID numbers got you down? No longer the hero of local right-wing school board members? Worried about ties with Reopen PA? Who knows?
School boards throughout the county continue to go off the rails. Right-wing training camps sponsored by right-wing GOP activists. We're looking at you, Meehan.
And Cyril will give us a little preview of his brand new column.
You should also sign up for Cyril’s newsletter on Substack: https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com/
You can help support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at patreon.com/rcpress. Your support has helped make today’s show possible.
You can also help out the show by heading over to our YouTube channel - if you are not there already - and smash that subscribe button, like the stream for this show, and hit that notification bell so you’ll know everytime we go live.
And make sure to join our Discord Server to continue the conversation all week long. Just click on the link in today’s show notes: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV
Monday Sep 13, 2021
Monday Sep 13, 2021
On today’s show I welcome Pennridge United school board candidates Dawn Curran and Carolyn Sciarrino.
Dawn Curran is a teacher at Central Bucks High School West and has two kids, the oldest of which started first grade this fall. Dawn and her husband have been part of the Pennridge community for the past 15 years. Dawn is especially interested in helping Pennridge evolve and rebuild after the pandemic. Specifically, she is interested in enhancing education with the district’s new technology; promoting physical, social, and emotional well-being; and finding new ways to recognize and celebrate diverse backgrounds and experiences of the student body and the community. She comes from a family of teachers and has participated in curriculum writing and leadership activities at Central Bucks, coached several sports teams, is the faculty advisor for her school’s newspaper and the newly formed No Place for Hate leadership committee.
Carolyn Sciarrino grew up in Springfield Township in a close-knit Colombian family. Her parents emigrated to the U.S. in their twenties and ran an electrical repair shop and a hair salon. She carries their values of hard work, respect, honesty, strength of character, and kindness into raising her own family in the Pennridge school district. She and her husband are raising their four young children in the district and she has been a fierce advocate for her children and all the students in the district. She has a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Temple and a master’s degree from St. Joseph’s University. She has worked in foster care, adoptions, school-based educational programs, and in social service with the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
Dawn and Carolyn are running as part of the "Pennridge United" slate of candidates that also includes Adrienne King and David O’Donnell, who we had on the show back on August 16. This year's campaign is especially contentious as their opposition has embraced much of the right wing culture war tactics that are infecting school board races throughout Bucks County and across the nation.
Upcoming fundraising event: Next Monday, September 20 there is a Yoga and Wine at Sunset fundraising event in support of Pennridge United candidates. To get information about attending the event you can click right here: Yoga and Wine at Sunset Fundraiser
If you’re looking for ways to get involved and help get the Pennridge United candidates elected to school board, fill out their volunteer sign-up form here: Pennridge United Volunteer Form. You can help out with everything from knocking doors, to phone banking, to writing letters to the editor, to doing research on school board policies.