Natasha Explains It All

How do criminal courts work? This episode is part one of a series where I dive into how the system actually works (sorry, tv and news stories are generally not that accurate or representative). In this episode, I mention the importance of bail funds to help those who cannot afford bail, so that fewer people are in jail simply because they can't afford bail. Here is a list of some bail funds:

The Bail Project (national focus)

LGBTQ Freedom Fund (national focus)

Colorado Freedom Fund (greater Denver area)

Bukit Bail Fund (Pittsburgh, PA)

Little Rock Freedom Fund (Little Rock, AR)

Connecticut Bail Fund

Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee Bail Fund (San Francisco Bay Area, CA)

NorCal Resist (greater Sacramento area, CA)

The Massachusetts Bail Fund

The North Carolina Community Bail Fund of Durham

Luke 4:18 Bail Fund (greater Dallas area, Texas)

More mass shootings in the US. Through the ties between the Trump and & Bolsonaro camps, Brazil is adopting US gun culture. The newly-elected Brazilian president Lula is undoing a lot of the gun expansions enacted under former president Bolsonaro. I sincerely hope that Brazil does not become home to the type of mass shootings so commonplace in the US.

For additional reading, some suggestions:

Jair Bolsonaro and guns: A US culture war raging in Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro wants every Brazilian to have a gun

Lula decreta redução de normas que facilitam acesso às armas

Brazil’s New President Reverses His Predecessor’s Loosened Gun Laws

Lula tightens Brazil’s gun controls and curbs gold mining in Amazon

Newly-elected Republican member of Congress George Santos has lied about a lot of stuff, yet somehow the lies have only surfaced after he was elected. Some have argued that his story illustrates the importance of local journalism and that makes sense to me. I explore.

In this episode, I highlight one local news outlet I support called San Jose Spotlight.

Since today is MLK Day and we've been discussing voting and democracy in prior episodes, here is one way that you can promote voting and voter engagement: volunteering with Postcards to Voters. I'm a volunteer, so in this episode I'll share what my experience has been. 

Last time we talked about voter suppression in the US. We talked about tactics like reducing polling locations, reducing early voting, not allowing vote by mail, etc. Let's look at a couple of additional ways that suppression plays out: prison gerrymandering and felony disenfranchisement. 

In the episode, I talked about the Prison Gerrymandering Project by the Prison Policy Institute.

I also mentioned the book Let My People Vote by Desmond Meade, about the Amendment 4 fight in Florida to restore the right to vote for people with felony convictions.

Some follow up thoughts from the last episode. Let's dive in deeper to the history of democracy in the US and Brazil.

An insurrection in Brazil on Jan. 8th closely parallels an insurrection in the US from Jan 6, 2021. Why? I explore.