Out d’Coup Podcast

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this week that the Earth is “firmly on track toward an unlivable world,” saying that unless dramatic and radical action takes place in the next few years, it is next to impossible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and makes even 2 degrees warming unlikely.  The IPCC said they have “high confidence” that unless countries make radical cuts in fossil fuel emissions, the planet will on average be 2.4C to 3.5C (4.3 to 6.3F) warmer by the end of the century — “a level experts say is sure to cause severe impacts for much of the world’s population.”

It’s official, Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed as the first Black woman to become a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Horrifying scenes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha emerged this week as the world now has to confront the full scope of Putin’s war crimes. 

New Amazon communications app for workers bans words like union, bathroom, justice, and slave labor. 

The newly merged Pennsylvania Western University - formerly California, Clarion, and Edinboro - launched their new registration app just a few days before students register for Fall 2022 classes. And, as you would expect, the last minute roll-out is not going so well. 

As we record today’s show, SpaceX is launching the first fully private mission to the ISS. The four person, all-male crew is part of Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission. Axiom Space seeks to make “living and working in space, commonplace.” 

From Gizmodo: “Axiom describes Ax-1 as a “precursor” private astronaut mission. It’s the first of four proposed missions, all of which are stepping stones for the company as it looks ahead to the construction of its private orbital outpost, dubbed Axiom Station. Construction of the station is scheduled to begin in 2024; a succession of modules will be incrementally added to the Harmony node of the ISS.”

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome David Backer to the show. David is an associate professor of educational foundations, policy studies, and leadership at West Chester University. He writes a weekly newsletter called Schooling in Socialist America and tweets at @schooldaves.

We'll be talking about his recent article in Dissent Magazine, "Toxic Finance." In that piece, David looks into how outbreaks of COVID-19 in schools across the country exposed the crisis in our schools' long-ignored infrastructure problems. But more than that, he shows how the way the United States finances school building improvements and maintenance worsened the problem. Another case of hiding the ball so students, teachers, staff, and parents get stuck with inefficient, inadequate, and unequal schools. We’ll also talk about some recent proposals - such as the Green New Deal for Public Schools - that would begin to take on the financial barons that profit off public education for personal gain.

Links:

• David Backer, "Toxic Finance," Dissent Magazine
• David Backer's newsletter, "Schooling in Socialist America" 

On this special episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome Rick Smith to the show. Listeners to Raging Chicken's podcasts know that Rick is the Founder and Host of the Rick Smith Show. For those who don’t know, The Rick Smith Show is by working people, for working people. It’s a place that serves up a heaping portion of democracy with a side of fairness, the grit of a Teamster, and no apologies. Where facts are the center, where science is real, and where everyone gets a seat at the table. 

I think you'll find today's show will only underscore Rick's commitment to building a strong, democratic, inclusive, and equitable union movement for and by working people. 

On his show last week, Rick blew the whistle about a history of allegations of sexist and abusive behavior by the newly appointed President of the PA AFL-CIO, Frank Snyder. As a result, there is now an investigation into the history of those allegations.

Rick is calling on out-going AFL-CIO president Rick Bloomingdale to "take responsibility for enabling the abusive behavior of the person who is replacing him as the most powerful labor voice in Pennsylvania." He is also calling Bloomingdale to release the women workers from their NDAs and "issue a statement allowing former employees to talk to the investigators and reporters about the abuses without fear of being sued for violating any NDA or confidentiality agreement." 

Links:

• Rick Smith Show: https://www.thericksmithshow.org/
• Follow Rick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RickSmithShow
• Call on out-going president of the PA AFL-CIO, Rick Bloomindale, to

  release women workers from their NDAs of confidentiality agreements and "issue a statement allowing former employees to talk to the investigators and reporters about the abuses without fear of being sued for violating any NDA or confidentiality agreement." Tag Rick Bloomingdale on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RWBloomingdale

• Tell the PA AFL-CIO to make public the findings of their investigation into allegations of sexist and abusive behavior by Frank Snyder. Tag them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaAFL_CIO

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Amazon workers' bid to unionize is looking pretty good. At the end of yesterday’s vote count at Amazon’s Staten Island facility, YES votes for the union stood at 57% according to Reuters. Vote counting continues today and union organizers are feeling pretty good. UPDATE: Amazon Labor Union WINS!!!!

Meanwhile, new information shows that Amazon spent $4.3 million in their anti-union campaign just this past year. So, is that why the costs of my packages are going up? 

Florida Gov. DeSantis signs the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the right-wing doubles-down on their anti-gay and anti-trans culture war. 

Oklahoma’s Abortion Ban sets its sights on completely gutting Roe v. Wade. 

County judge orders 5 West Chester Area School District Democratic board members to be removed. Why? Because they supported a policy to keep the district’s masking policy in place. The case calling for the removal of the board members stems from a lawsuit filed by Beth Ann Rosica the Executive Director of the right-wing PAC, Back to School PA. She is fresh off her landslide defeat in her bid to become West Chester’s mayor. 

Pennridge School District school board puts its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee on hiatus. 

It’s an inflection point for Pennsylvania’s labor movement. Newly appointed president of the PA AFL-CIO has got some skeletons in his closet and Rick Smith is taking out the laundry. Will PA AFL-CIO take a stand against the abuse of women in the labor movement? 

The Dungeon Run’s “Heroes of Bingle” campaign comes to a close. 

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome Jessica Corbett to the show. Jessica is a staff writer at Commondreams.org. We'll be talking about two of her most recent articles focusing on the fossil fuel links to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Biden's problematic LNG (liquified natural gas) plan to ease European energy needs in the wake of the conflict. Kelly Sheehan of the Sierra Club noted on Wednesday, March 13 that "allowing for the expansion of new and expanded pipelines and gas export facilities, which wouldn't come online for years, would do nothing to help Europe in the short term and would only line the pockets of fossil fuel executives and lock in reliance on risky, volatile fossil fuels for decades to come." As recent reports of record heat waves in Antarctica and the Artic should indicate, locking in more dependency on fossil fuels will be catastrophic. 

In addition to her work at Commondreams.org, Jessica has fact-checked for or been published by outlets including In These Times, Rolling Stone, Salon, The Nation,  and VICE. Her work primarily focuses on the intersection of politics, public health, and the environment. She also explores human and civil rights, gender and sexuality, and peace and labor movements. 

Reporting from Jessica Corbett from tonight's show: 

• Jessica Corbett, "'Ukrainian Blood on Their Hands': Analysis Details How Big Oil Funded Putin's War Chest," https://bit.ly/3qYFRhl
• Jessica Corbett, "Ahead of EU Gas Announcement, Biden Urged to Boost Clean Energy Not LNG," https://bit.ly/3IELVkX
• Jessica Corbett, "Sanders Intros Revival of 95% Windfall Profits Tax From WWII to Curb Corporate Greed," https://bit.ly/3qIf2xM

Additional articles from CommonDreams.org that we discussed on tonight's show: 

• Andrea Germanos, "McKibben 'Heat Pumps for Peace' Plan Gains Traction With Biden," https://bit.ly/3tOhrsk
• Jake Johnson, "Youth Strikes Worldwide Demand Climate Action That Centers 'People Not Profit'," https://bit.ly/3IO7P5t
• Kenny Stancil, "US Import Ban on Russian Oil a 'Blow to Putin's War Machine,' Says Biden," https://bit.ly/3INbhNq
• Julia Conley, "Majority of Americans Fear Nuclear Weapons Use After Russia's Ukraine Invasion," https://bit.ly/3qI18LQ

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Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, weathered three days of Senate confirmation hearings. Of course that meant she had to endure, QAnon infused conspiracy theories; Sen. Lindsey Graham storming out of the hearings in a hissy fit - twice;  and, as Gabrielle Gurley from the American Prospect put it, “The Ted Cruz CRT Minstrel Show.” 

Jackson is expected to be confirmed by the Senate early next week. But with Mitch McConnell making it public that he will not be voting for her, she may be confirmed without a single Republican vote. 

Ginni Thomas - the right-wing extremist who is married to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas - was actively pressuring Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and other Trump officials to overturn the 2020 vote. That according to texts recovered from materials Meadows turned over to the January 6 investigation. 

More good news on the guaranteed income front, the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund (GRO) and GiveDirectly are launching the largest guaranteed income program tried in the South. The program will target Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, providing $850 per month to about 650 women with no questions asked. 

As Chris Hayes laid out on his show last night, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine feels like the first armed conflict of a new era. An era in which authoritarianism is on the rise and liberal democracies have been backsliding. 

And Antarctica is seeing temperatures more than 70 degrees hotter than normal this week. 

Jim Worthington, owner of the Newtown Athletic Club in Bucks County, is at it again. A staunch supporter of Donald Trump and major financial backer of Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, is suing Democratic Congressional candidate Ashley Ehasz for $50,000, because she dared call attention to the fact that Worthington “spent thousands of dollars to organize bus loads of Trump supporters to attend the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that turned into violent insurrection.” 

Pennsylvania is facing a major teacher and school staffing shortage as teachers are leaving the profession due to COVID, lack of support, and contentious politics, according an excellent article by Marley Parish of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. In addition, Pennsylvania has seen a 66% decline in Instructional I Teaching Certificates granted - which is the most basic teaching certifications given to new graduates. 

The scuttlebutt is that the President of the Pennridge School Board, Joan Cullen, is floating the narrative that the community is supportive of abandoning all DEI initiatives. 

Pennsylvania remains the only state that does not provide state funding for public defenders. 

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I am joined by William Horne. William is an Arthur J. Ennis Postdoctoral Fellow at Villanova University who writes about the relationship of race to labor, freedom, and capitalism after the Civil War. He holds a PhD in history from The George Washington University and is co-founder and Editor of The Activist History Review. He is also the co-editor with Nathan Wuertenberg of the book, Demand The Impossible: Essays in History as Activism. 

0We'll be talking about his recent article in TruthOut, "The 'Legal Phase' of Fascism Has Begun. Threats of White Vigilante Violence Are Real" and how history provides little comfort if we expect the recent uptick in white supremacy and authoritarianism to fade away by themselves. 

• TruthOut Article: https://bit.ly/3679GVH
• The Activist History Review: https://activisthistory.com/

Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV

 

 

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, Cyril Mychalejko joins our Monday night show! Cyril is a progressive columnist at the Bucks County Courier Times/The Intelligencer & The Bucks County Beacon. It's been a bit since we've been able to catch up on all that Cyril is working on, so we thought a Monday night would be ideal! 

We'll be talking about the ever-present school board wars, with the right-wing turning their attention to banning books. We'll also touch base on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. We'll also take a moment to celebrate Cyril's one-year anniversary as a columnist at the Bucks County Courier Times/The Intelligencer. It's been a significant gain in progressive voices representing the growing progressive community in Bucks County. 

You should also sign up for Cyril’s newsletter on Substack: https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com/

Cyril's latest articles:

• "Will Rage Trump Reason in Central Bucks Book Banning Debate?," https://bit.ly/3CFu2B4
• "Pennridge School District Must Acknowledge Creationism Is Not Science," https://bit.ly/3t9Mizk

Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV

 

The invasion of Ukraine continues. 

In response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, TikTok extended its maximum video length to 10 minutes, as a response to increased pressure on the platform for its role in spreading misinformation and disinformation. However, Media Matters for America warns that rather than providing a solution to misinformation and disinformation, the longer videos may only lead to users taking advantage of the longer format to “spreak longer, more complicated” misinformation as happened when the platform expanded the length of its videos from 1 - 3 minutes in the wake of COVID misinformation. 

China locks down Changchun, a city with a population of over 9 million, due to a new outbreak of the omicron COVID variant, sticking to a strict policy geared on preventing the rapid spread of the virus. Meanwhile, it’s masks off for everyone in the U.S. COVID, after all, is a state of mind, right? 

Trucker Freedom Convoy couldn’t decide what to do or how to get there. 

Colorado-based, right-wing activist Joe Oltmann calls for mass hangings of U.S. senators who voted to avert a government shutdown this week. According to Raw Story, Oltmann said "There's your list of 19 traitors to the American People, along with all the other traitors to the American people," said Oltmann on the Conservative Daily podcast. "I want people to go out there and get some wood. The gallows are getting wider and longer. We should be able to build gallows all the way from Washington, D.C. to California."

They found Ernest Shackleton’s long-lost Antarctic ship almost perfectly preserved at the bottom of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. The ship sunk over 106 years ago after the ship was crushed by sea ice and Shackleton’s entire crew had to be rescued from his failed expedition. 

The PA state legislative maps are locked in. Bucks County Democrats have a real chance of flipping two seats given the composition of the new districts. 

Democratic candidate Gwen Stoltz visited with the Pennridge Democrats last night. She’s a strong candidate with a local background that has a real shot in flipping the 143rd to Blue. 

Central Bucks School Board meets and the extremists are not going to quit. During an extra-long public comment period, former anti-maskers and anti-CRTers took to the mic to read sexually explicty passages from books they want banned from the school library. 

Beginning to think these parents want to control the schools so their own kids don’t start to call them out for their own racism and bigotry. 

Become a patron for the price of a good beer once a month. Help keep the media in the movement and the movement in the media. Become a patron for as little as $5/month by going to Patreon.com/RCPress.

Join our Discord to continue the conversation all week long: https://discord.gg/BnjRNz3u

 

On this episode, I welcome Alyssa Bowen to the show. Alyssa has a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is currently senior researcher and managing editor for the progressive watchdog group True North Research where she tracks and writes about dark money in U.S. politics. She has written for The Nation and is a regular contributor to Truthout.

We’ll be talking about her new article in TruthOut, “Dark Money is Behind ‘Women’s Groups’ Attacking Biden’s Supreme Court Pick.” In that piece, Alyssa shines a bright light on the deep pockets funding right-wing women’s groups such as the “Independent Women’s Forum” and “Concerned Women for America” who are seeking to sink Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat. We’ll also talk about her research and reporting on the dark money funding “concerned moms” groups leading the extremist charge in local school boards. 

• Follow Alyssa on Twitter: @AlyssaAnnBowen
• Check out her writing on TruthOut: https://truthout.org/authors/alyssa-bowen/
• Check out the great work by True North Research: https://truenorthresearch.org/
  
• Follow True North Research on Twitter: @itstruenorth
• True North's Substack: https://truenorthresearch.substack.com/

Additional Resources (from Alyssa):

• Judd Legum's Popular Information 
• Documented
• Dave Sirota’s newsletter The Daily Poster
• Unkoch my Campus
• Center for Media and Democracy
• DeSmog
• Greenpeace

Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV