Out d’Coup Podcast

President Biden announces a COVID vaccine mandate for all businesses with 100 or more employees. His administration seems to have had it with the politicization of the pandemic. In his address he said: “What makes it incredibly more frustrating is we have the tools to combat covid-19, and a distinct minority of Americans, supported by a distinct minority of elected officials, are keeping us from turning the corner...We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”

Centrist and right-leaning Democrats’ are waffling on the big infrastructure bill. Writing in The American Prospect, David Dayen has is right: Democrats are bowing to the “curse of artificial scarcity,” allowing right-wing frames about deficits and wrong-headed economic reasoning to whittle away at critical climate and infrastructure investment. 

Scientists are finding that animals are literally shape-shifting in response to climate change. But hey, no rush Joe Manchin. 

Speaking of Manchin, looks like his daughter is in some hot water. Yup, seems like she was cashing in on the epipen price inflation scandal...uh oh. 

Is the paste causing sterility in men? One study showed that Ivermectin may do that. 

Senate Democrat Vincent Hughes cited Pennsylvania Spotlight’s research at the end of yesterday’s sham "fraudit" hearing.  It was so good it forced Senator Cris Dush to end the line of questioning and gavel out of the hearing.  Senator Hughes asked Fulton County Commissioner Stuart Ulsh about an email he sent to fellow committee members asking them to help overturn the 2020 election.  

Kutztown University president, Kenneth Hawkinson, warns faculty, staff, and students about an even bigger threat than COVID: discussions about a possible solidarity action in support of Steve Oross and others who the university has denied ADA accommodations for. In a 720 word missive, he sounded the alarm that students and faculty would misconstrue a few people dressed in cover-alls standing on a sidewalk with signs supporting stricter COVID precautions and in support of Steve Oross as an actual biothreat. Wow.

On today's Out d'Coup LIVE special I talk with Steve Oross, Associate Professor of Psychology at Kutztown University. Eralier this year, Oross had a heart transplant and has spent the last six months rehabilitating and recovering from his surgery. While he has made a remarkable recovery, his status as a recent heart transplant patient puts him in a "severe risk" status when it comes to the risk of dying if he contracts COVID-19.

When his doctors cleared him to return to work as long as it was remote teaching, Oross sought out direction for Kutztown University administration and human resources for shifting his classes from in-person to on-line for the fall semester. What followed was a devastating and cruel story of a university administration that has forced Oross to choose between his life and his livelihood. His story is equal parts devastating and enraging.

Don't miss this show and please share it as widely as you can. And there is more you can do to help:

• Sign the Open Letter Re: KU COVID-19 Mitigations Fall 2021" - http://bit.ly/KUFall2021Petition
• Email KU President Kenneth Hawkinson urging him to provide appropriate ADA accommodations to faculty, staff, and students who are at risk of severe complications and/or death from COVID-19: hawkinson@kutztown.edu
• If you want to reach out to Steve to lend your support or share your story, you can email him at oross@kutztown.edu

We will have additional resources and calls for action in the coming days and weeks.

It's Raging Chicken's Friday politics round-up with Kevin Mahoney and Sean Kitchen. It's been quite a week and we're here to dig into it.

You can help support homegrown, progressive media by becoming a patron of Raging Chicken for as little as $5/month: https://www.patreon.com/rcpress

Join our Discord to live chat during the show: https://discord.gg/BnjRNz3u

On this week's episode, I am talking with Kierstyn Zolfo from Bucks County Indivisible to dig into the myth vs. reality of Republican Rep. Brian Fiitzpatrick's (PA-01) reputation as a moderate. Fitzpatrick's "moderate" credentials have helped garner him endorsements from the PSEA, the PA AFL-CIO, and the Sierrra Club. But what's the real deal here? Zolfo will help us dig into his record in one of the most highly watched Congressional districts in the country.

Kierstyn Zolfo is a resident of Bucks County and a volunteer organizer with Indivisible Bucks County. She also serves on the steering committee of Pennsylvania Indivisible as the Legislative Chair, and in that position edits and contributes to the Pennsylvania Member of Congress Tracking report, an effort that keeps an eye on the votes and quotes from the Commonwealth's 20 Members of Congress. Kierstyn is originally from New Jersey, but moved to PA when she was an undergrad at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, and has stuck around the area ever since.

Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV Chatting on #livechat during and after the show.

Bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan leaves at least 112 people dead and 111 injured. That includes 13 U.S. service members. 

Florida is facing its worst COVID outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic thanks to a Governor stuck in a right-wing media fantasyland and the rapid spreading delta variant. The Orlando area has begged residents to conserve water because the oxygen used to clean the water is needed in hospitals.

And more devastating news on the COVID front. According to the go-to forecasting model, the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, the U.S. is expected to see an additional 100,000 deaths unless people start doing basic things like getting vaccinated, wearing masks, and social distancing. That hits extra hard as schools across the country send kids back to classroom with a hodge-podge of safety plans passed by local school boards. 

And for the fake-concern about the safety of vaccines, the FDA fully approved the Pfizer vaccine. That’s right folks, it’s official now. What’s your next excuse for putting other people at risk?

Poison control center calls in Texas are up 550% after residents start taking the horse medicine, ivermectin, in order to fight covid. 

Evacuation orders are given to residents and visitors in the Lake Tahoe region as the Caldor Fire has grown to more than 213 square miles and is only 12% contained. 

The Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission took the first huge step ending prison gerrymandering.  House Minority Leader Joanna McClinton’s resolution ending the practice passed 3-2 after years of Republicans ignoring McClinton’s legislation in the General Assembly.

A long simmering feud between Senator Mastriano and Senate President Jake Corman over the ongoing audit saga boiled over into the public and has been lasting all week.

Gov. Tom “too-little-too-late” Wolf pleads with the PA GOP to call the legislature back into session to pass a mask mandate. PA GOP leadership took a second away from their pool floaties and backyard cookouts to say, no thanks. 

Pennridge school district, under the leadership of Board Vice President Joan Cullen, shoots down their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion curricular initiatives. That’s several years worth of work down the drain. Now the ADL and the PA NAACP are publicly condemning the school board’s move. And after several articles in big market PA news outlets, even the national media is starting to get clued to how far off the rails the Pennridge School Board is. Did I mention that the Board also chose to ignore all medical expert advice and go with a mask-optional policy. Roll the dice. 

Once again Kutztown University’s presidential tin man, Kenneth Hawkinson, and his HR advisors show what it looks like to treat people like line-items on a balance sheet. If you caught my special Out d’Coup on Wednesday, you already know that a faculty member who just had a heart transplant is being forced to go back to in-person teaching despite his CDC indicated “high risk” status. 

In other KU related news, the university broke new ground on a musical mallet research center. 

On today's show, we dig into Kutztown University's back to school plans. If you've been following this show at all you'll know that the KU administration has been a bit belligerent when it comes to ensuring the health and safety of faculty, staff, and students. During the last academic year, KU had one of highest rates of COVID cases in the PA State System of Higher Education. 

As the delta variant rages, KU is determined to head back to campus using PR to help fend off the risks. Well, OK, there is a mask mandate. But there will be no requirement for notifying the university of vaccination status; no systematic testing to get ahead of an outbreak; and, no contract tracing.  

To make matters worse, the administration has denied some faculty requests to keep an all online schedule, despite being at high risk for dire consequences from contracting COVID. On today's show we'll get into the story of one faculty member, Steve Oross, who is being forced to make an awful choice between his job and his personal well-being. Today, we will set the stage for what's happening and next week we'll be talking directly to those faculty members on this podcast. 

Some faculty are not taking this lying down. They are circulating a petition among faculty, staff, students, and parents, calling on the university to require vaccination or, at the very least, to mandate regular testing for unvaccinated individuals. You can check out the petition here: http://bit.ly/KUFall2021Petition

You can help support homegrown, progressive media by becoming a patron of Raging Chicken for as little as $5/month: https://www.patreon.com/rcpress

 

On this week's episode, I talk with Ben Tupper about the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan.

Ben Tupper served in the United States military for 20 years, and was part of Task Force Phoenix in Afghanistan for a year long tour, responsible for mentoring, training, and fighting along side the Afghan National Army. Ben retired in 2015 at the rank of Major.

Ben had previously visited and worked in Afghanistan as part of a program to support the education of girls and women. Ben has a long history of involvement in progressive organizations working nationally and internationally to combat injustice on economic, gender, and racial fault lines. These include work and studies in Nicaragua, Cuba, and Costa Rica during the 1980s and 1990s.

Ben remains a strong supporter of democratic movements, organizations, and processes, and currently enjoys talking politics over good cigars and IPAs in Las Vegas and Syracuse NY.

Resources and links:

• Donate to No One Left Behind, a non-profit organization working to ensure that the U.S. keeps it's promises to Afghans that assisted Americans over the past 20 years. https://nooneleft.org/
• Read Ben's book, Greetings from Afghanistan, Send More Ammo. 
• NPR Interview with Ben following the release of his book. 
• More NPR dispatches from Ben. 

Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV Chatting on #livechat during and after the show.

It's a special Thursday version of Raging Chicken's weekly politics round-up. Surprise! 

On today's show, we spend a good chunk of time talking about the situation in Afghanistan, how to grapple with fallout and aftermath of U.S. empire; and, how the media is fueling misleading and unhelpful narratives about the U.S. withdrawl. 

We also talk more about the right-wing playbook for sowing the seeds of division, hatred, and violence in local school board meetings. It looks like Bucks and Montgomery County are ground zero.

Sean fills us in on his plans for making a photo book based on his Instagram-ready photos taking in the Harrisburg region. And, yes, you'll have to buy one if you want to see it :-). Rumor has it he's going to sign every copy under an inked footprint of his Adidas clamshells. 

You can help support homegrown, progressive media by becoming a patron of Raging Chicken for as little as $5/month: https://www.patreon.com/rcpress

 

 

It's a special Monday evening edition of The Wednesday Show with Cyril Mychalejko. It's been quite a week in Bucks County. We've seen rising tensions over mask mandates; right-wing ideologues flaming about Critical Race Theory; and, school board elections that seem to be smack dab in the middle of it all.

In the midst of all that, David Damsker, the Director of the Bucks County Health Department is under scrutiny for encouraging schools to evade state COVID regulations, dismissing the seriousness of the pandemic, and bragging about his dismissal of CDC guidance. That came after a series of emails were released showing Damsker encouraging a day care not to report COVID cases and so much more. 

Check out tonight's special episode for some behind-the-scenes on the Damsker Chronicles. 

Be sure to subscribe to Cyril's newsletter: https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com/

Resources:

• Bucks County Courier Times: Heated comments over masks and mental health halts commissioners meeting Monday
• WHYY: Bucks tweaks COVID guidance to schools following outcry over health commissioner’s emails

Support Raging Chicken. Become a patron for as little as $5/month: https://www.patreon.com/rcpress

 

On this week's episode, I welcome two candidates for school board in the Pennridge School District, Adrienne King and David O'Donnell.

Adrienne King was raised in a working single parent home in Warminster, PA, and is a graduate of the Centennial School District. She has a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and a Masters of Science in Pharmaceutical Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs from Temple University. As one of the few black families in her school district growing up, and often the only black student in her classes, she learned at an early age the value of learning about others and working together while also embracing her differences. She and her family have lived in the Pennridge School District since 2007 and she has two daughters in elementary school.

David O'Donnell and his family have lived in the Pennridge School district for the past 11 years. He has two children who have benefitted from the Pennridge School System. He has worked in management positions in retail and hospitality for over twenty years. He sees the School Board as the "bridge between the School District and the community," and he is following a family tradition in service to his community.

Both Adrienne and David are running as part of the "Pennridge United" slate of candidates that also includes Dawn Curran and Carolyn Sciarrino, which I hope to have on the show in the coming weeks. 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.

Get involved and support Pennridge United School Board Candidates:

• Pennridge United Facebook Page
• Donate to Pennridge United School Board Candidates
• Fundraiser @ Bishop Estate Vineyard & Winery, Aug. 26 @ 6:00 pm
• Adrienne King's Campaign Facebook Page
• David O'Donnell's Campaign Facebook Page

Join Raging Chicken's Discord server: https://discord.gg/WMW98RQEYV