Out d’Coup Podcast

More than 22,000 people have been killed by the devastating earthquakes that ravaged Turkey and Syria this week and the death toll keeps rising. There is a desperate need for humanitarian and medical assistance. You can help by donating to Doctors Without Borders (DoctorsWithoutBorders.org) or UNICEF (UNICEFusa.org). 

Biden does some effective political theater of his own, by saying some Republicans wanted to cut Social Security. On the spot, Biden got all the Republicans to stand and cheer that they do not want to gut Social Security or Medicare. Well done sir. 

And, AR-15 lapel pins accompanied American flag pins on Republican members of Congress at the State of the Union this week. 

And, do we need to talk about that balloon?

Senator John Fetterman was admitted to the hospital after feeling light-headed during a Senate retreat on Wednesday. Tests found that Fetterman did not have another stroke, and were running additional tests. 

PA Democrats swept the three special elections, giving them the outright majority in the state assembly.  

The Zombie Fungus continues to spread as the voices of those infected by right-wing media and extremist politics flood a local Telford, PA council meeting. The Council wants to slash the public library’s budget and hand it over to the police. The police already receive half of the town’s resources. And, can you guess why they want to cut funds to the library? I bet you can. 

Walter Masterson of political satire group The Good Liars, showed up at the Central Bucks School Board meeting as the district continues to be a laboratory for extremist politics. 

And the Pennridge High School principal was arrested for a DUI this past weekend.

This week I welcome Hannah Leffingwell to the show. We'll be talking about her recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The Academic Career is Broken" and the need for fundamental change in higher education. She argues, "We are in the midst of a crisis in academe, to be sure, but it’s not an economic crisis. It’s a crisis of faith. The question is not just whether our institutions pay faculty fairly, but whether any wage is worth the subservience and sacrifice that modern higher ed requires." No longer will hopeful stories about "revision" do the job. "We need a revolution, not a revision." 

Hannah is a writer, historian, and PhD Candidate at NYU. Her dissertation in progress, “Becoming Lesbian: Sex, Politics, and Culture in Transatlantic Circulation, 1970-1998,” chronicles the spread of lesbian culture in the United States and Europe in the wake of Women’s Liberation. Her research has been published in Gender & History, and her writing has been featured in Jacobin, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Public Seminar, Eurozine, and Sinister Wisdom. Her first chapbook, A Thirst for Salt, was published by Gazing Grain Press in 2018.

LINKS:

• Follow Hannah on Twitter: @hanleffingwell | https://twitter.com/hanleffingwell
• "The Academic Career is Broken," The Chronicle of Higher Ed | https://bit.ly/3JkVOYS
• "I Love Higher Education. It Isn't Loving Me Back," Jacobin | https://bit.ly/3DhDyf5

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress.

Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.

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

Raging Chicken's Friday Politics Roundup for February 3, 2023. We're here to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics. Today I'm joined once again by Amy Knecht! We'll take a look at the politics of the week and ongoing school board craziness. Then we'll dig into our takes on the The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon (and, who knows, maybe we'll even sneak in a little of The Wheel of Time).

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. 

Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.

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

 

Welcome to this week's Out d'Coup LIVE. It's MLK Day. We've got an open show tonight. Taking a look at the headlines, your thoughts, and more.

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. 

Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.

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

The U.S. and Germany are sending a whole bunch of tanks to Ukraine as the war continues into its second year. 

Later today the Memphis, TN police will release video of the brutal and fatal police beating of 27-year-old Tyre Nichols. The five police officers who fatally beat Nichols have been fired and are facing second-degree murder charges. 

PA-based libertarian billionaire, Jeffrey Yass, is funding a new poliitcal action committee called “The Moderate PAC” that will target progressive primary challengers in favor of centrist and corporate Democrats. 

Colleges and Universities are starting to hire “Chief Experience Officers” to “ensure that consumers are having satisfying interactions” with the institutions - a practices imported from the corporate world. 

We’re seeing the new censorship policy in the Central Bucks School District in action. A librarian at Central Bucks South high school was told by his principal to take down a quote from Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate Holocaust survivor, because it violated the district’s new ban on advocating “partisan, political, or social policy issues” to students. The principal later reversed his order, but left a chilling effect on speech behind. 

Turns out that Central Bucks is using a conservative Christian law firm with ties with anti-LGBTQ, Christian nationalist organization the Family Research Council. The Family Research Council is recognized as a extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The Pennridge School District school board is seeking to impose versions of the Hillsdale College 1776 curriculum on teachers and students. Hillsdale College is an infamous right-wing, Christian college in Michigan that has been fueling flames of resentment and pushing a whitewashed curriculum in charter and public schools. The president of Hillsdale College, Larry Arnn III, provides a window into the college’s believes. In 2013, he referred to minority students as “dark ones” in legislative hearings; earlier this summer - in the midst of Hillsdale’s partnership to take over charter schools in the state - Arnn told the Gov. of Tennessee that “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country." Hillsdale’s 1776 curriculum was launched in the wake of Trump’s 1776 Commission to push back against the 1619 Project.

The battle over voting rights has not let up. Republicans in several key states have kept up their agenda to restrict access to voting. 

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced that she’ll step down in a few weeks. 

A new Pew Research Center survey found that only about half of Americans think that colleges and universities are “having a positive effect on the way things are going in the country these days. About 38% say they are having a negative effect. And, as I bet you are already thinking, yes, there is a big partisan divide on the issue. 

Florida is banning a new Advanced Placement test on African American Studies that was to be offered in its high schools. The Florida Department of Education said “the content of this course is inexplicitly contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value. That law is the new law passed last year and signed by Gov. DeSantis restricting discussions of racism in schools. 

Anti-Abortion activists gather in DC to demand a federal ban on abortion. 

Google announced layoffs of about 12,000 workers, which amounts to about 6% of its total, global workforce. 

Josh Shapiro sworn in as Pennsylvania’s 48th governor. 

In one of his first acts in office, Shapiro removed the college degree requirement for most government jobs in the Commonwealth. That means about 65,000 jobs will not be open to people regardless of if they went to college. 

Wizards of the Coast (owned by Hasbro) is in hot water with the Dungeons and Dragons community over attempts to roll back its Open Gaming License or OGL. Now gaming companies like Kobold Press, are looking to launch new Tabletop Roleplaying Gaming systems that will remain open access. Wizards of the Coast finally relented to community pressure. But damage is done.

Welcome to this week's Out d'Coup LIVE. It's MLK Day. We've got an open show tonight. Taking a look at the headlines, your thoughts, and more.

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress

Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.

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

 

Both-sider-ism prevails in DC as Merrick Garland appoints a special counsel to look into the confidential documents that turned up at Biden’s old office space and garage. Are you ready for non-stop investigations from now until the presidential elections in 2024? 

Catastrophic weather continues. In California at least 18 people are dead following climate change-charged “atmospheric rivers” that led to widespread flooding, mudslides, and power outages. The National Weather Service reports that Central California received more than half of its average yearly precipitation in just two weeks. In Alabama, at least 7 people were killed as a series of tornados and extreme weather rolled across the state. 

Meanwhile, researchers released findings from Exxon internal documents that Exxon scientists were strikingly accurate in their climate change modeling as early as the 1970s. The researchers call the documents a “smoking gun” that Exxon knew the devastating consequences of burning fossil fuels even as it invested heavily in climate change denial propaganda. 

New York City nurses won a huge victory after a three day strike. 

New research shows that the Heritage Foundation spent big bucks in 2021 to help undermine voting rights. 

On Tuesday, the Central Bucks School Board approved a policy 321, banning what they call “advocacy activities.” The policy takes aim at teachers to display LGBTQ pride symbols or “safe space” stickers in the school. 

Students in the Pennridge School District say they feel “erased” after that district instituted a similar ban there.

Happy New Year!?!? Here we are crawling into the New Year. What's going on?

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. 

Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.

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

Raging Chicken's Friday Politics Roundup for December 23, 2022. We're here to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics. We'll check in for a quick end-of-the-year wrap-up and see what's on your mind for 2023!

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. 

Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money. You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.