KQED's Forum

The Jan. 6 House Committee is wrapping up its summer hearings this week with testimony from two former Trump staffers who both resigned the day of the insurrection: Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, a former White House deputy press secretary. The focus of recent hearings has been to detail former President Donald Trump’s role in inciting the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol and his repeated attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. We’ll talk about the latest revelations from the committee hearing, what could happen next and the political implications of the hearings so far.

Guests:

Shanlon Wu, criminal defense attorney and CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor who also served as counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno.

Grace Panetta, Senior Politics reporter, Business Insider.

Clara Jeffery, editor in chief, Mother Jones - San Francisco-based national magazine specializing in investigative, political, and social justice reporting.

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Kids aged 14 to 17 should get a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. But more than three-quarters of U.S. high school students report sleeping less than that on school nights, CDC surveys show. To help teens sleep better, California became the first state in the nation to set new start times for public schools: as of July 1, high schools cannot start earlier than 8:30, and middle schools no earlier than 8:00. We'll hear what you think of the new schedules and take your teen and adolescent sleep questions.

Guests:

Dr. Rafael Pelayo, clinical professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Division of Sleep Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center; author, “How to Sleep: The New Science-Based Solutions for Sleeping Through the Night”

Lisa L. Lewis, author, "The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, and How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive"

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In life, friends come in many buckets: school friends, teammates, neighbors. And then there is the work friend: the co-worker who understands how you spend eight hours of your day, the person who you seek out for coffee breaks to commiserate and who shares the workplace lingo. Work friends often remain just friends at work, but sometimes you start hanging out away from work and introduce them to your other friends and family. The importance of the work friend cannot be underestimated: a recent survey found that 70% of workers cited having friends at work as a critical component of a satisfying work place, and workers who report having a work friend are more likely to stay with their company. We’ll talk about friendships at work, the thrill of making your first work friend, and how to form work friendships in this pandemic-inflected world.

Guests:

Julie Beck, senior editor, The Atlantic - Beck has written extensively about friendships as part of The Atlantic's "Friendship Files." Her most recent piece is titled "The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship"

Emma Goldberg, reporter, New York Times - Goldberg covers the future of work for the New York Times. She wrote the article "The Magic of Your First Work Friends"

Dr. Marisa Franco, psychologist and friendship expert; author, her forthcoming book is titled "Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help you Make -- and Keep -- Friends"

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If you overheard someone shout, “nice dink in the kitchen!” you probably just walked by a pickleball court. Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in the United States, is taking over park and rec centers all over California as players clamor for more court time. Invented in 1965 by a Washington state congressman and his friend to entertain their bored kids, pickleball’s popularity took off during the pandemic, with an almost 40% increase in players. Across the country over four million people are playing pickleball, and its enthusiasts have formed a variety of professional organizations, leagues and tournaments with an eye to getting certified as an Olympic sport. We’ll look at how and why pickleball has become an American obsession. Have you picked up a paddle?

Guests:

John Walters, sportswriter, Sports Illustrated; adjunct professor of Sports Media, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Walters wrote the Sports Illustrated cover story about pickleball "Barbarians in the Kitchen"

Rachel Simon, author, "Pickleball for All: Everything But the 'Kitchen' Sink" which comes out on August 30

Jordan Briones, pickleball professional and instructor; co-founder, Primetime Pickleball; creator, pickleball YouTube instruction channel: @brionespickleball.

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Many Bay Area residents are scrambling and traveling long distances to get a monkeypox vaccine. Public health officials are warning of the serious shortage of vaccines needed to combat the growing outbreaks of monkeypox across the country. Since it was detected in the U.S. in May, the CDC has reported over 1,800 cases of the painful, but very rarely fatal, viral disease. About a quarter of the cases are in California, which expected to receive 15,000 doses of the vaccine this week but logistical, bureaucratic and technical errors on a federal level have slowed the distribution of nearly 7 million doses nationwide. Although anyone can get the disease, U.S. monkeypox cases have disproportionately affected men who have sex with men. LGBTQ activists protested federal offices in San Francisco this week out of concern we’re seeing a repeat of the public health failures of the early days of the HIV epidemic. We’ll discuss concerns about monkeypox and what local public health officials are doing to respond.

Guests:

Anne Rimoin , professor, Center for Global and Immigrant Health, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

Susan Philip, director of Director of Population Health Division, San Francisco Department of Public Health

Tyler TerMeer, CEO, San Francisco AIDS Foundation

Fernando Gomez-Benitez , deputy director, Mission Neighborhood Health Center

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In 1973, not long after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, Congress amended the Public Health Service Act to allow medical professionals to refuse to provide abortion care on the basis of their moral or religious beliefs. But if healthcare workers can be “conscientious objectors” to abortion care, couldn’t “conscientious providers” of abortion be legally protected, too? That’s the question University of San Diego law professor and bioethicist Dov Fox asks in his recent New York Times op-ed “What Will Happen if Doctors Defy the Law to Provide Abortions?” We’ll talk to Fox and other experts about the medical and moral dilemmas abortion providers face in the post-Roe world. 

Guests:

Dov Fox, professor of law and director, Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics, University of San Diego School of Law

Dr. Jennifer Conti, adjunct clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Stanford University

Sonja Sharp, metro reporter, LA Times

Dr. David Eisenberg , associate director, Division of Family Planning, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine

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Acclaimed poet and novelist Erika L. Sanchez’s memoir, “Crying in the Bathroom,” presents a series of poignant essays about growing up in Chicago in a working-class Mexican neighborhood, her rise to literary fame and her struggles with mental illness. Her book details many moments when she was successfully achieving her dreams and, simultaneously, considering ending her life. Sanchez is also author of the poetry collection, “Lessons on Expulsion,” and the young adult novel, “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,” that is being adapted into a movie. She joins us to talk about making it as a Mexican-American writer, sex and shame, Buddhism, and crying in the bathroom. 

Guests:

Erika L. Sanchez, poet, novelist, essayist and professor at DePaul University. Her new memoir is "Crying the Bathroom." Her other books include the poetry collection, "Lessons on Expulsion," the young adult novel, "I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter."

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By the end of the summer of 2020 -- after a violent militia group plotted to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and after Proud Boys members attacked Black Lives Matters protesters in cities around the country -- it was clear to intelligence professionals that these groups "were planning for war." That's according to counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance, whose new book "They Want to Kill Americans" traces the rise of what he calls TITUS, or the Trump Insurgency in the United States. We'll talk to Nance about who the insurgents are and how we can counteract the threat they pose to our democracy.

Guests:

Malcolm Nance, former United States naval intelligence officer, specializing in cryptology & counterterrorism. His new book is "They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency."

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Laguna Honda Hospital opened up in 1866 to care for the city’s poor and indigent. Now over 150 years later, federal officials have threatened to shut the hospital, which operates as a skilled nursing facility, because of failed inspections prompted by two nonfatal drug overdoses that occurred onsite. In order to be recertified to operate, Laguna Honda must move out over 600 of its residents and has until September 13 to make that happen. So far, they have only moved 48 patients. What happened to the hospital and how will these patients be taken care of? We’ll discuss the ongoing situation at Laguna Honda and talk about what this situation says about how we care for our most vulnerable friends and neighbors.

Guests:

Sydney Johnson, public health reporter, San Francisco Examiner.

Tony Chicotel, Staff Attorney, California Advocates For Nursing Home Reform.

Jessica Lehman, executive director, Senior & Disability Action.

Roland Pickens, director of the San Francisco Health Network, a network of 13 clinics in SF, interim CEO of Laguna Honda Hospital, Laguna Honda Hospital.

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President Biden’s approval rating is below 40%, and a poll this week from the New York Times and Siena College found 64% of Democratic voters would prefer a new presidential candidate in 2024. We’ll talk about what’s fueling voter dissatisfaction with the president, and we want to hear from you: should Biden run again? If not, do you have ideas of who should pick up the mantle?

Guests:

Tamara Keith, NPR White House correspondent, Co-host of the @NPRPolitics podcast.

Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent, KQED - Co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown show.

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