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Our guests this week are Ben Relles, Head of Innovation for Youtube Originals, and Tess Finkle, Founder of Metro Public Relations. Together, they lead #GoodToVote, a non-partisan voter registration and engagement initiative featuring celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson, David Dobrik and many more rewarding fans for registering to vote.
Critical legislation on issues ranging from racial justice, the Equal Rights Amendment, gun violence prevention, economic justice, LGBTQIA rights, and so much more are at risk of dying in the senate because of the tyranny of the minority. The filibuster, an accident of the senate rules, is holding the chamber hostage, turning a majority-rule body into an arena of obstructionism.
To discuss the filibuster and efforts to do away with it, we invited Adam Jentleson on to the show. Adam served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, where he advised on strategy and led one of the largest and most diverse communications teams on Capitol Hill during the Obama administration. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico Magazine. His new book Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy is now available.
Adam Jentleson’s Kill Switch is the most exquisitely timed book I’ve encountered in years. Jentleson’s explanation of the filibuster’s ignominious roots, and of the mendacious arguments made today by its defenders, is careful and thorough and exacting. Every senator should be forced to read it and then reread it.
— Michael Tomasky - New York Review of Books
[An] excellent, surprising new book . . . Jentleson is knowledgeable and adept, offering an account of increasingly flagrant obstruction that culminates in the age of McConnell.
— Benjamin Wallace-Wells - The New Yorker
An impeccably timed book. . . . In Kill Switch, Jentleson explains how ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body’ has come to carry out its work without much greatness or even deliberation, serving instead as a place where ambitious legislation goes to die. . . . [Jentleson’s] intimacy with the Senate turns out to be his book’s greatest strength. Jentleson understands the inner workings of the institution, down to the most granular details, showing precisely how arcane procedural rules can be leveraged to dramatic effect.
— Jennifer Szalai - New York Times
[L]eading Democrats, including Reid and former president Barack Obama, are pressing for a sweeping rehab of the “home” Biden has found so comfortable. Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, a new book by Adam Jentleson, makes for a powerful brief on their behalf… a compelling read.
— Kathy Kiely - Washington Post
[A]n important new book… Adam Jentleson offers a harrowing portrait of how anti-majoritarian dysfunction has paralyzed the U.S. Senate… he writes with an insider’s knowledge… As the Senate has deviated further and further from majoritarian norms, the House and the state legislatures have followed. Among the great merits of Jentleson’s Kill Switch is that it reminds us how recent this trend is.
— David Frum - The Atlantic
[P]erfectly timed… authoritative and well-documented.
— Lloyd Green - The Guardian
— Julian Zelizer - CNN.com
Our guest this week is David F. Walker. David is an award-winning writer known primarily for his work in comics including Luke Cage and Bitter Root. He is the co-creator, with illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson, of the new graphic novel history “The Black Panther Party.”
A bold and fascinating graphic novel history of the revolutionary Black Panther Party.
It's been a year since the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. As bad as COVID is in the United States, we have the resources to confront it head on. But what about people in poorer countries around the world? Americans spent billions of dollars to develop the COVID vaccine, and now drug companies are selling it to the highest bidder. To examine the state of the global pandemic and what we can do to fight it equitably, we've invited Gina Cummings of Oxfam America and Dr. Vanessa Kerry of Seed Global Health to the podcast.
On February 23rd, 2021, Alyssa Milano hosted a special live episode of Sorry Not Sorry with Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District. He’s the lead sponsor of H.R. 1, the “for the people act.” This act corrects so many critical shortcomings and vulnerabilities in our election system, and is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the Congress in a very long time. This is a rebroadcast of that live episode.
About Rep. Sarbanes
Born and raised in Baltimore, Congressman Sarbanes has experience working in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. He and his family live in Towson, giving him the opportunity to drive home every night and hear from the people he serves in Congress. Listening to their concerns allows him to better represent Maryland and has shaped his work in the House of Representatives.
Our guest this week is Heather McGhee. Heather is the Chair of the Board of Directors for Color of Change, America’s largest racial justice organization. She’s also the author of the new book “The Sum of Us,” now available in bookstores across the country.
One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.
After producing The Hangover and its sequels, Scott Budnick took the incredibly rare step of leaving Hollywood to work full-time on sentencing reform and keeping young people out of jail. Through his work with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, he was instrumental in passing sentencing reform and other key social justice measures in California. He's continuing in this work and is now pack in Hollywood with One Community, a production company making socially-minded entertainment.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been stripped of her committee assignments in Congress, but California Congressman Jimmy Gomez doesn't think that's enough. In this week's episode, he joins Alyssa Milano to discuss why he wants to expel the QAnon-supporting, gun-toting, victim-blaming conspiracy theorist from the halls of American government.
Our guest this week is Desmond Meade. When Desmond was sentenced on felony charges, he lost his right to vote. After completing his sentence, on the other side of addiction and the recipient of a law degree, Desmond was the driving force behind Amendment 4, a constitutional amendment which restored voting rights to those in Florida who served their sentences and were back in society. He joined Alyssa Milano to discuss his successes and the current state of voter reinfranchisement in Florida.
Our guest is Laura Packard. Laura is a Stage 4 cancer survivor, a national co-chair of Health Care Voter, and an advocate for effective and affordable health care for everyone. In 2017, just as the Congress was trying to end the Affordable Care Act, Laura was diagnosed with cancer. Like millions of Americans, losing access to affordable healthcare would have been a death sentence, and it inspired a life of activism for Laura.
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