Midday

Today, it’s another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates.

Tom's guest is Congressman Kweisi Mfume, who represents Maryland’s 7th District . Mfume won a special election in April to fill the vacancy left by the death of his long-time friend, Congressman Elijah Cummings. He bested a large field of Democrats in a June’s primary and now, as he did last spring, Congressman Mfume is running against Republican nominee Kimberly Klacik. He won their last race decisively.

Congressman Mfume previously represented the 7th district from 1987 to 1996, before leaving Congress to head up the NAACP. The seat he vacated in 1996 was filled by Elijah Cummings.

Rep. Mfume will turn 72 years old next month. He is married to Dr. Tiffany McMillan, an Assistant Vice President at Morgan State University. They live in Southwest Baltimore.

Congressman Kweisi Mfume joins us on Zoom.

Listeners are welcome to join the conversation.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guests now are two activists in the LGBTQ+ community who have organized a unique event to fund organizations that are helping their community to cope with COVID 19. Jon Adler Kaplan is the development chair of the LGBTQ+ Fund at the Baltimore Community Foundation. Franklin McNeil is the co-chair of the Fund.

Given that masks are a required fashion staple, they’ve organized an event, in partnership with Maryland Art Place that will run from November 7-13 in which people can make masks a fashion statement. It’s called MASKerade. You’ve got a couple more days to get involved! Jon Kaplan and Frank McNeil join Tom on Zoom…

[WYPR is a media partner witn Maryland Art Place for the silent auction portion of this event.]

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Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom today with a look at new works by two established theater companies who've taken novel approaches to their pandemic-proscribed craft.

In Single Carrot Theatre's "Keep Off the Grass: A Guide to...something" the itinerant company has found a way to do a real-live theater production without violating COVID-19 public health restrictions. Single Carrot describes the piece, devised by the ensemble and co-directed by Alix Fenhagen and B. Kleymeyer, as "an outdoor, walking audio play [that] weaves original folktales with visual performances (at a distance) to delve into the ethical questions that we grapple with..."

Playwright Lola Pierson, with Acme Corporation, an innovative Baltimore theater company, has written and produced an unsual piece called The Institute for Counterfeit Memory: A play in a box. Each ticketed audience member receives a small box to open at home. The box contains various items, including a tiny mp3 player with earbuds, a music box, a mirror, some printed cards, a candle jar to illuminate a photographic slide, and other objects, which are meant to be used according to the audio instructions. The interaction provides the user with a unique and moving narrative experience.

Also mentioned today: EverymanTheatre will be joining a growing nationwide consortium of over 80 theatres and performing arts venues in presenting a new adaptation of Berkeley Rep’s It Can’t Happen Here. Based on Sinclair Lewis political thriller, written in 1935 as fascism took hold in Europe, the drama follows the ascent of a demogogue who becomes president of the United States by promising to return the nation to greatness. The audio drama is due to stream on Tuesday, October 13 at 5PM PDT/8PM EDT via YouTube.

Everyman is also planning a treat for the Halloween season: starting this week, they are releasing five Ghostly podcast episodes, produced and and hosted by resident company member Danny Gavigan. Check it out here.

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As Coronavirus metrics continue to improve in Maryland and more parents are heading back to workplaces, many are struggling to find child care.

Tom talks with Anita Hilson, Executive Director of nonprofit child care provider Open Door, about the challenges area parents are facing in accessing safe and affordable childcare amid the continuing pandemic.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It’s the Midday Newswrap. The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg continues to make history. She is lying in state at the Capitol at this hour, the first woman to be so honored.

President Trump is expected to announce his nominee for Justice Ginsburg’s replacement tomorrow.

Last night, in Baltimore, and in cities around the country, protests continued expressing outrage at the in the shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville last March.

And on Wednesday afternoon in the White House Briefing Room, in an astonishing statement, President Trump would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the election in November. His comments, made in an exchange with Playboy Magazine reporter Brian Karem, have raised a political furor and stoked new fears that America's constitutionally guaranteed presidential transition process could be in for a rough ride this November.

Joining Tom via Zoom to discuss the controversy is Paula Reid, who covers the White House and the Justice Department for CBS News.

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We begin today with a news update from Louisville, Kentucky. Yesterday afternoon, Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General of Kentucky, and a judge, announced that a grand jury had decided NOT to indict two of the police officers who killed 26 year-old Breonna Taylor last March. News of the grand jury decision sparked loud protests in Louisville, and many other cities across the nation. Two Louisville police officer were reported to have been injured by gunfire Wednesday night, and the city remains under a 9pm-6am curfew. For a live update on the situation, we’re joined by Jared Bennett. He is a reporter with Louisville Public Media’s WFPL (89.3 FM) and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. Bennett joins us on the phone from Louisville.

Then, Tom spends the rest of the hour remembering Julian Bond, a civil rights icon and an influential and compelling voice for equality and justice. He had a long career as an activist, a legislator, and a teacher. Bond was a prolific writer and speaker, and it is striking to read his work from the 1960s on, and realize that, as with the case of Breonna Taylor, so many of the issues Julian Bond organized around for more than 50 years remain unresolved today...

Julian Bond passed away five years ago. This past February, a collection of his essays, speeches, op-eds, and interviews was published by City Lights Books. It’s called Race Man: Julian Bond. Selected Works, 1960-2015. We talk about it today with Julian Bond’s wife of 25 years, Pamela Horowitz, a member of the board and former attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and with Michael Long, the author of several books on the civil rights movement, and the editor of this volume. Pam Horowitz and Michael Long join us on Zoom…

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It’s been six months since restaurants in Maryland were forced to shut down because of the Coronavirus. The cessation of in-person dining lasted through most of the spring. Some restrictions were eased at the end of May. As of last week, restaurants are allowed to have 75% capacity in their dining rooms.

But despite their best efforts, much damage has been done. Thousands of restaurants have permanently closed their doors, leaving millions of restaurant workers unemployed. As the industry focuses on recovery, what will the future of dining-out look like?

Tom’s guest is Chef and author John Shields. He is the proprietor, along with John Gilligan, of Gertrude’s Chesapeake Kitchen at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away from cancer last Friday, is lying in repose at the Supreme Court at this hour. On Friday, Justice Ginsburg will lie in state at the Capitol. She will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery next Tuesday, the day after Yom Kippur.

And on Saturday, President Trump will announce his nomination for her replacement on the court. It does appear now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has enough votes among Republicans to move that nomination forward, over the objections of Democrats who say that, in accordance with public opinion polls and given the proximity of the election, the choice should be made by whoever wins in November...

Yesterday, Tom spoke with Ronald Weich, the Dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law, who argued that the Senate should not move ahead with the confirmation of President Trump’s nominee to the High Court, as voters will be deciding the fate of the executive and legislative branches of government in just six weeks.

Andrew Grossman joins Tom today. He’s an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies. He practices appellate law at Baker Hostetler's law offices in Washington. He has argued several cases before the Supreme Court, and he has testified more than a dozen times before the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate.

Mr. Grossman co-wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal last Saturday defending swift Senate action to confirm a new High Court nominee. He joins us on Zoom.

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Tom’s guest is Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings. She’s a political consultant and widow of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, who served that District for two and a half decades, and who called Maya his soul mate, in his words, “for 11 years of marriage and an eternity of connection.”

In the final year of his life, before he passed away last October, Elijah Cummings worked on a memoir with the writer James Dale. It’s called We’re Better Than This: My Fight for the Future of Our Democracy.

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The battle lines are being drawn around the timing of a Senate vote to confirm a nominee for the Supreme Court to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away from cancer last Friday. The iconic jurist will lie in repose at the Supreme Court tomorrow and Thursday. On Friday, Justice Ginsburg will lie in state at the Capitol. She will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery next Tuesday, the day after Yom Kippur.

And on Saturday, President Trump will announce his nomination for her replacement on the court. It does appear now that there is enough support among Republicans to move that nomination forward.

Tomorrow on Midday, I’ll speak with Andrew Grossman, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He’ll argue that the Senate should move ahead with the confirmation of President Trump’s nominee to the High Court and not wait until after the November 3rd general election. Today, we hear from a legal scholar who argues that the Senate should wait until after the election, which is just 42 days away.

Ronald Weich is the Dean of the School of Law at the University of Baltimore. He’s held that post since 2012. Before that, he served as an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department during the Obama Administration. Dean Weich joins Tom on Zoom to discuss his view, which he articulated in a weekend OpEd piece in the Baltimore Sun, that the Ginsburg vacancy on the Court should be the next president's to fill.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.