Dirty Moderate with Adam Epstein

Desmond Meade's life story has been one of pain, perseverance, and finally, triumph.  From a drug addicted felon waiting for a train to jump in front of to heading up the groundbreaking Florida Rights Restoration Coalition which has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year for:

"their work in building democracies, supporting the human right to representation by government, and working towards a better organized and peaceful world."

Desmond, like FRRC is a force to be reckoned with. The nonprofit’s greatest success was the overwhelming passage of Amendment 4, the initiative that represented the nation’s largest expansion of voting rights since the civil rights era. More than 1.4 million Floridians who had served time regained the right to vote. After the amendment’s impact was tempered by “implementation legislation” pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Republican lawmakers — requiring individuals to first pay off any fines and fees connected to their convictions — Meade, who has been the head of the org for nearly a decade, and the coalition were able to raise millions of dollars to assist 40,000 “returning citizens” in settling those debts. 

Take that, RON.

We are thrilled to welcome Desmond to the show as he sits down with Adam for a robust, informative and moving conversation you do not want to miss. 

To learn more about and to support FRRC head to their website: https://floridarrc.com/

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 Jewish Americans - much like the U.S. public overall – hold widely differing views on Israel and its political leadership. Israeli domestic policies and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict generate fiery attitudes toward Israel during peace time, and after the brutal Hamas attacks on Israel of October 7, feelings have intensified. And rightly so. We invited 2 brilliant individuals, with deeply learned understandings of the complexities in the region on the show to have a roundtable discussion with Adam about Israel ,hoping to peel back some layers and get to the heart of the conflict. Boy, did we ever.

We lived up to our founding ethos here at Dirty Moderate:
 
We showcase the people who cut through the nails-on-a-chalkboard din of the modern-day American political scene while promoting rigorous analysis and lively debate in a respectful manner with individuals on both sides of the aisle and beyond.

Dara Horn- Award-winning author and Creative Adviser for The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. 

• Dara's People Love Dead Jews is a must read. For a deeper dive you can go back to Season 1 and listen to Dara's one on one with Adam here  

Ethan Chorin -Former diplomat, senior political analyst, and author

• With the highest praise from global experts, Ethan's book on Benghazi shows  is considered the definitive treatment of the attack and scandal in Libya. This is Ethan's 3rd appearance on Dirty Moderate and we certainly hope, not his last. 
• Ethan's episode on Benghazi  
• Ethan's episode on Israel 

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Stuart Stevens , Senior Adviser to the Lincoln Project, and longtime GOP campaign advisor and guru joins the podcast to talk with Adam about his new book: 

Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy

Apart from their discourse on the dangers of democracy,  Stuart and Adam lament the collapse of the party of the once, great party of Lincoln into a Trumpian puddle.

Pull up a chair and lean in to this to admitted political nerdfest covering presidential history, the Democrats’s political incompetence, early days Liz Cheney hoorah, the Mitt days and more.  

 

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Over the last three decades, Ethan Chorin has had an extraordinary view of developments in the Middle East and Africa as an American diplomat, oil and ports executive and advisor to senior government officials. We invited Ethan to return to the show to discuss his thoughts on the events unfolding after the Hamas attack on Israel.

You may remember Ethan’s first appearance on the show last October (Episode 70). when he joined Adam in conversation about the incredible book he wrote after witnessing first hand the fiasco in Benghazi:

Benghazi!: A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink (Hachette, 2022).

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We have been clear since minute one of this most recent attack on Israel.

Never Trump. Never Hamas. Always Democracy. 

Over the latest seven decades, war and conflict between Israelis and Palestinian terror organizations-currently Hamas- has resulted in countless lives lost, electrified the wider Middle East, and drawn global powers into the scenario time and time again. Last week, vicious stormtrooper styled attacks continued the spiral  into a seemingly never ending cycle of violence, hatred, pain and strife. 

It’s a lot to comprehend. It’s a lot to bear both as a Jew and as a human.

When our dear friend and fellow democracy loving podcast host Corey Nathan invited us to sit down to discuss some regional history, both personal and geographical while trying to unpack Israel’s seemingly never ending struggle and the world’s increasing levels of anti-Isreal and anti-Jew hate mongering we gladly accepted. 

Thank you to @coreysnathan of Talkin' Politics and Religion Without Killin' Each Other 
which you can check out here:
https://www.democracygroup.org/shows/talkin-politics-religion

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Adam on Israel. 

For more on the atrocities in Israel both modern day and historical join us in unabashedly standing up for Israel and our fight to save democracy  by becoming a member of the Dirty Moderate Nation.  @dirtymoderate

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Despite our deep partisan fault lines on the issue, America does has a border crisis and solving it must be of the utmost urgency.

Our dysfunctional system allows an unlimited number of people to cross our borders, prohibits them from working, promises free housing, and then leaves them in seven years of legal purgatory before a judge rules on whether they can remain in the country legally. 

Mayor Eric Adams last week declared of the 110,00 asylum seekers who are now in New York: “We have a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut — every service in this city is going to be impacted. All of us.”

Suffice it to say, Mayor Adams isn’t speaking in hyperbole. We are a nation of immigrants. And we should remain as such. But our current system is straining resources and is predicated on unrealistic and broke asylum laws which are neither good for the nation nor for the migrants themselves.

Both parties are responsible for our damaged policies, but Trump’s cruel policies shouldn’t mean that Democrats avoid the issue simply because of the fraught and inherently racial and ethnic politics which attend it, or because they lack the political will to do something. 

We are all the children of immigrants. And we should all demand a safer, fairer and more humane way for those that have fought to come here already as well as those who are yet to reach our shores. 

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Sure, Hunter Biden is a little sketchy, but would the average drug addict who lied on a federal form be prosecuted with such verve? We think not. 

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Mitt has bid adieu to the Washington clown show and is seemingly officially out of whatever the Mormon version of fucks are.  

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