Tonight on Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome Diana Leygerman to the show. Diana is a teacher, writer, and former Central Bucks School Board candidate. We'll be talking about the ongoing political and cultural battles that have erupted in the Central Bucks School district and districts across Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and the nation. Last month, The New York Times's podcast, "The Daily," ran a two-part story on the increasing tensions in the Central Bucks School District. Following that podcast, Diana Leygerman's article "Central Bucks is Not OK," filled in some of the holes and contexts in the Times's story. Her personal and critical account of what happened in Central Bucks should be required reading for all of us.

Diana Leygerman is a teacher, writer, and a former CBSD school board candidate. She lives in Warwick, PA with her husband and their two children. She is the recipient of the Anne Frank teaching award and was honored at the SAFA Gala in 2018. Her work has been published in The Week, Smercornish, The Independent, Women’s Health, and several other online and print publications.

Leygerman wrote of experience being honored at the Spirit of Anne Frank Awards on her Medium page. She concluded: "My grandmother grew up surrounded by war and death and dictatorship. My parents fled from anti-Semitism. At 11 years old, I came to the United States as a Jewish refugee. I live my life every day trying to create a better world for my children and, as a teacher, for the children of others. In our world today, when basic human rights are once again threatened, I refuse to fall short of teaching the lessons I know my students must learn if they are to grow up in a world my grandmother could only dream of. In our world today, in a world that is eerily Orwellian, I know I must be a voice of progress, change, and protest."

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President Biden presided over the launch of his virtual “Summit for Democracy” on Thursday. Biden warned the more than 80 leaders of democratic nations that the threat to democratic forms of government is pressing and all “the date we’re seeing is largely pointing in the wrong direction.” The statements may have fallen a little hollow as the U.S. is one of the nations that has been newly placed on the list of nations considered democratic backsliding nations. While the White House put out a list of actions it says its taken to protect the vote, one lawyer from the Texas Civil RIghts Project told The Guardian, “you have to be kidding me,” the actions are nothing but “minor tweaks on the edge of the problem.” 

Angela Merkel’s 16 year reign as German chancellor came to an end this week as the new chancellor from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Olaf Scholz, took the oath of office. He will lead a coalition between the SPD, the Greens, and the libertarian inclined Free Democrats. Scholz will be the first chancellor to lead a cabinet to include as many women as men. The coalition also has ambitious plans to fight climate change by phasing out coal and prioritizing renewable energy. 

And this little ditty from The Independent: “Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert has called out big businesses for their alleged duplicity on the climate crisis as well as their opposition to the Biden administration’s ambitious Build Back Better Act. 'The [corporate] sector has historically been full of s***, and the sector is still full of s***,' Mr Gellert told Fast Company on Monday."

Workers in Buffalo, NY become the first to get a union at a Starbucks.

UAW workers win the right to directly elect their leadership, bringing new measures of rank-and-file democracy to a powerful union. 

Canada bans conversion therapy and France moves to make it a criminal offense.

All I want for Christmas are legislative maps!  Maps, maps and more maps!  The Pennsylvania House Republicans released their congressional map drawn by former Lehigh County Republican Commissioner Amanda Holt.  It’s a solid GOP gerrymander.  

Then Senate Democrat Sharif Street released a “compromise map” that’s a 6-11 GOP Gerrymander.  Why?  Well, that map places a congressional district in his backyard and would set up a potential primary between Congressman Brendan Boyle and Sharif Street. State and national Democrats are pissed to say the least, calling the map a non-starter.

Lastly, the Legislative Reapportionment Committee, which is responsible for drawing the state house and senate maps, is getting ready to release their maps and vote on them in the coming weeks. 

The AP reported this week that Pennsylvania’s right-wing billionaire Jeffrey Yass is looking to spend $20 million on his endorsed candidate for Governor and all the usual suspects from the Commonwealth Foundation and the Commonwealth Partners are at the center of it.     

Hospitals in rural PA are facing are sounding the alarm in the face of rapidly increasing COVID cases. According to PennLive, “Geisinger hospitals throughout north-central Pennsylvania are operating at well over 100% percent of their capacities, with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients responsible for most of the strain.” 

The Philly Inquirer reports that COVID hospitalizations are at the highest rate since January - the peak of the last COVID surge. 

Scientists just discovered a planet that is 11 times as massive as Jupiter orbiting a dual star system, the b Centauri system. The discovery is changing scientists’ understanding of the conditions under which planets can form.

Tonight on Out d'Coup LIVE we're talking about the essential work of organizing muscular movements in the face of a lackluster Democratic Party leadership. While the last few years has seen a new vitality in local electoral politics from groups like DSA, the Women's March, PA Stands Up, and other like-minded organizations we continue to see generational defeats in pillars of democratic struggle. Witness last week's Supreme Court arguments which seem to indicate that right-wing justices seem poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. Or, consider the monumental anti-labor Supreme Court decision in the Janus case that stripped away a union's rights to collect fair-share fees while requiring those same unions still to service those workers who are not members. Or, we can look to the Citizen's United case which granted free speech rights to corporations to contribute unlimited funds to political campaigns.

All this is taking place against the backdrop of growing extremism in our communities. The resurgence of white supremacist organizations,; radical right-wing conspiracists infecting our school boards; and, extremists putting our communities at risk by refusing common-sense COVID protocols.

Tonight I'll be digging into a recent article by Rebecca Traister, "The Betrayal of Roe," and the most recent book by Jane McAlevey, "A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy." We'll also check out a new article by Talia Lavin, "Abortion, Hypocrisy, and the Will to Power." But I'd also love to hear from all of you. Your comments and calls will take priority!

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The Supreme Court’s right-wing majority seems prepared to deal a death blow to Roe v. Wade, sending women’s autonomy and equality back generations. Rebecca Traister’s article in New York Mag, “The Betrayal of Roe,” should be at the top of your reading list as we prepare for a protracted fight. 

The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus has now been confirmed in five U.S. states: California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, and Hawaii. Strap in, folks. 

No government shutdown after conservatives cave. 

So glad to see that The Daily Beast got it right: “Steve Bannon’s Jan. 6 Legal Strategy: ‘Blowing Up the Whole System.’”

Honduras elected its first female president, Xiomara Castro, from the leftist Liberty and Refoundation Party. Her husband, Manuel Zelaya was president from 2006-2009 and was ousted by a military coup. 

Barbados boots the Queen and becomes a republic. 

And Chris Cuomo also got the boot from CNN this week after it was revealed he worked with his brother, the former and disgraced New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, on a communications strategy following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct on part of the former governor. 

We’re not in Kansas anymore.  Nope! Just Pennsylvania.  Day-time TV show host Dr Oz has officially announced his campaign for the US Senate.  The New Jersey Resident is looking to run as a Republican for Pennsylvania’s open senate seat.

David McCormick, President of the venture capitalist firm Bridgewater, is also getting to run for Pennsylvania’s US Senate.  Expect McCormick to become the frontrunner given his connections to the Trump infrastructure.     

Central Bucks School District is back in the New York Times following their two-part podcast on their explosive school board meetings about mask requirements and critical race theory. In the latest article, we get to see the real crises hitting the district regarding inadequate staffing, overcrowded classrooms, and declining resources - even in this fairly well-off, Bucks County school district. 

In the #PA01 in Bucks County, Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is getting primaried from his right. Last week Perkasie resident and America First Party guy Bradley Lanning announced his challenge to Fitzpatrick. Yesterday, Trumpista Caroline Avery of Bristol threw her hat in the ring because she says Fitzpatrick "ignores the Trump agenda, ignores the Constitution, votes with the anti-American Democrat members, and basically (doesn't represent) anybody or anything but himself" in Congress. It will be a wild ride. 

Could “mushroom leather” be in your future? Could be. 

Diving into the Wheel of Time & the new season of Star Trek Discovery. 

In just a couple of weeks I’ll be jumping into Foundation on Apple+. Thanks one of our listeners, Chris, for letting me know that the series is based on Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series. Now I’m doubly interested.

On today’s show, I welcome Nick Marcil back to the show. Nick Marcil is a second-year Master's Student of Higher Education Policy & Student Affairs at West Chester University. He is a member of the PA Debt Collective Member, and Co-Founder of PASSHE Defenders. The PA Debt Collectives has joined forces with BuxMont DSA and Lower Bucks for Change to form the Bucks Cancel Lunch Debt Coalition. The coalition is working to raise awareness about K-12 school lunch debt and empower local residents to collectively seek ways to end this problem so that no student goes hungry or feels ashamed for needing food.

The Bucks Cancel Lunch Debt Coalition launched its first campaign focusing on the Bristol Borough School District, and for good reason. According to data from the School District, 212 students in the approximately 1,200-student district owe a total of $15,875.31. Seventy-five students owe more than $50. In Bristol Township School District, 922 of approximately 6,200 students owe a total of $113,085. Seven hundred and seventy two students owe more than $50.

As the coalition put it in a recent editorial in The Courier Times, “The BCLDC hopes to organize local students, teachers, parents, administrators, and community members to help free kids and their families from this debt and seek long-term solutions so that no child has to go hungry or be shamed and embarrassed for not being able to afford lunch.”

Info to join meeting Friday, Dec. 3 @ 5pm: https://buxmontdsa.org/events/cancel-lunch-debt/

Email: [email protected]

Op-Ed: Bucks County Courier Times

On tonight's show, I welcome Gwendolyn Marshall to the show. We’ll be talking about her book, "Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e," that’s the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. You mean THAT Dungeons & Dragons? Yes, that one. As the #BlackLivesMatter movement has brought renewed attention to the centrality of race in American history and contemporary capitalism, fans of tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons have been looking for ways to ensure the games they love don't reproduce exploitative and oppressive discourses on race. During the COVID-19 pandemic, D&D has seen an explosion of new players and a renewed energy to take the rules of the game into the 21st century. "Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e," is a standout example of this work. 

Gwendolyn Marshall is an associate professor of philosophy at Florida international University, where she works on early modern philosophy and feminist history of philosophy. As co-owner of Arcanist Press, she is also a game designer and publisher, having published the award-winning "Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e," and the upcoming "S5E: Superheroic Roleplaying for 5th Edition." She is also a parent, punk, leftist, and all-around geek, as well as a trans woman.

Check out all Arcanist Press publications: https://arcanistpress.com/products

New research shows that at least 50% of people who survive COVID-19 “experience a variety of physical and psychological health issues for at least six months following their recovery,” according to the Washington Post. 

The Congressional Budget Office says that Biden’s Build Back Better Bill will not be entirely paid for as the White House claimed. It’s close, but the CBO didn’t think the IRS would be able to raise $67 billion over 10 years; they put the number at $207 billion. That might just be enough for Manchin or Sinema to take a hatchet to key provisions of the Build Back Better bill. 

UAW workers at John Deere approved a new contract after a month on strike. The agreement will see a 20% increase in wages over the course of the contract and significant improvements in working conditions. Rank-and-file working power baby. 

The Ohio House passes a bill that will let residents 21 years old and older to carry concealed weapons without any kind of license or permit. If the Ohio Senate passes the bill, there will no longer be a requirement for a background check or training. 

A school district in Goddard, Kansas orders 29 books be banned from its libraries. You can already guess the kind of books being banned: the Pulitzer Prize winning play “Fences,” but August Wilson; Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale; The Hate You Give, by Angie Thomas; and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, are among the books on the list. 

Ithaca, New York votes to decarbonize all of its buildings by 2025. The unanimous vote for their “Efficiency Retrofit and Thermal Load Electrification Program,” will include everything from swapping out natural gas and propane cooking with electric induction to installing solar panels. The city of 30,000 is working with a Brooklyn-base company, BlocPower to manage the program. The move will eliminate 40% of the city’s carbon emissions. 

Right-wing parent groups at the forefront of “critical race theory” protests are now shifting their target to school-based mental health programs, according to reporting by NBC news. You heard that right. No more talk of suicide prevention, depression, or any “social emotional learning” is the goal. Right-wiing groups apparently believe that “social emotional learning has become a ‘Trojan horse’ for critical race theory…[and] encourage children to celebrate diversity, sometimes introducing students to conversations about race, gender, and sexuality.” God forbid. 

And, the QAnon Shaman is sentenced to 41 months in prison. 

Earlier this month, the Fulton County Commissioners denied the Fulton County Library a $3,000 budget increase because they host “hate groups” that are sympathetic to the LGBTQ communities or the Black Lives Matter movements. In response to this bigotry, Emily Best from the Sisters of the Night Caucus launched a gofundme page to help the library close the budget gap and ended up raising over $26,000.  

Pennsylvania House Republicans used their fall session to highlight their extremist agenda.  House Republicans passed a constitutional open-carry gun rights bill, a bill making bail funds illegal and advanced more voter suppression measures. 

The House Labor and Industry Committee held a hearing on a slate of radical anti-union bills.  Public Sector labor leaders refused to participate in the committee’s “farce,” and Democratic Chair Jerry Mullery walked out of the committee meeting and hosted a press conference outside of the meeting with members and labor leaders.

A landmark PA school funding trial got underway. The case involves the cash-strapped Panther Valley School District and five other Pennsylvania school districts. In opening remarks, of course, GOP House Speaker Bryan Cutler argued that there’s nothing to see here, everything’s fine. Tell that to the 75 kindergartners in the Panther Valley School District who are forced to share one toilet and two urinals. 

Spanning both Carbon and Schuylkill Counties, Panther Valley serves more than 1,600 students

On this week’s show, we’ll be talking about Cyril’s latest column in the Bucks Co, “Vanguard Group must stop financing the planet’s destruction,” latest column in Bucks County Courier Times. The Malvern PA-based Vanguard is the largest global financier in coal with $86 billion in investments, and second largest in oil and gas. This week the Bucks County School Board Wars got national attention as the New York Times podcast The Daily did a deep dive into the battles in the Central Bucks School District. We’ll also check in to see what’s happening over in Cyril’s Substack newsletter and get a preview of what he’s working on for his upcoming columns. 

Resources:

Cyril Mychalejko, “Vanguard Group must stop financing the planet’s destruction,” latest column in Bucks County Courier Times. 

New York Times podcast, The Daily

School Board Wars, Part 1 & Part 2 

Sign up for Cyril’s newsletter on Substack: https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com/

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On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE I welcome Dr. Lara Putnam to the show. Lara is UCIS Research Professor in the History department at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a historian of race, gender, and migration in the modern Americas. Her interest in grassroots social movements has led her into local civic organizing in Pittsburgh’s 11th Ward.  She is also a member of the advisory board of the New Pennsylvania Project. Lara’s Twitter account has become a must-follow for people looking to understand elections in PA, the emergence of a strong progressive/left movement in Western PA, and critical linkages between organizing and democratic politics. 

Tonight we'll be talking about this month's elections beyond the initial hot-takes about the meaning and causes of the election results. The backdrop of our discussion will be Lara's recent article, "Rust Belt in Transition: What has happened in Pennsylvania's, and the entire Rust Belt's, 'Middle Suburb' counties, and can it be reversed?," published last year in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. 

Follow Lara Putnam on Twitter: @lara_putnam

Resources:

Lara Putnam: "Rust Belt in Transition: What has happened in Pennsylvania's, and the entire Rust Belt's, 'Middle Suburb' counties, and can it be reversed?" in Democracy. https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/57/rust-belt-in-transition/

Lara Putnam: "On Postcards and Superpowers," The Forge https://forgeorganizing.org/article/postcards-and-superpowers

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Well, the big roads, bridges, and fossil-fuel infrastructure bill passed. And now...drumroll please...it looks like the more important Build Back Better reconciliation bill is on the ropes as fossil fuel industry and corporate-backed Democrats renege on their promises. Hope you have your flood and fire insurance updated. Earlier in the week, Brian Deese, the director of Biden’s National Economic Council told PBS:

“We are confident that this framework will pass the House and will pass the Senate. And what we're telling lawmakers is, this is an easy vote.”

As COP 26 wraps up in Glasgow, Scotland it is clear that the developed countries are going to rely on magic and wishful thinking to address the climate crisis. According to Climate Action Tracker, only four parties - Chile, Costa Rica, the European Union, and the U.K. - have any kind of concrete plan to meet their pledges to cut the carbon cord. While nations - including the U.S. - have committed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the Century, current policies put us on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius. And time is running out. 

It’s been a banner week for right-wing extremists.  Kyle Rittenhouse puts on a show in an attempt to avoid accountability for killing two people and wounding a third during a #BlackLivesMatter protest last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, tweeted out an altered anime video showing a character with his face killing a character with AOC’s face. 

Despite the dire warnings from scientists and direct experience with extreme weather, a new Washington Post-ABC News polls finds Americans’ views on the threat of climate climate change remains unchanged over the past seven years. And, surprise, surprise, the gap between Democrats and Republicans has only grown. 

Austria is preparing to place millions of unvaccinated people on lockdown as chancellor Alexander Schallenberg expressed the exasperation of many European leaders calling it shameful that people refuse to get vaccinated, putting their communities at risk. The move comes as COVID cases are surging in Europe. 

Oh, yea, and the leaders of Belarus have got an extremist grift going. They’re massing refugees from the Middle East on the border of Poland with promises they will be given entry to Poland. The problem? 1) it was a lie; 2) Poland’s right-wing government doesn’t want them. Prepared for more of this, folks as the climate crisis grows. 

Republicans are getting high on their own supply of ivermectin.  Joe Rogan has become the right-wing’s go-to source for medical advice.  

Meanwhile, the pandemic news takes a turn for the worse as we are seeing a surprising spike in COVID cases in states with high vaccination levels. That paints a rather concerning picture for this winter. 

Day-time TV host and vaccine skeptic Dr Oz. is looking to make a gubernatorial run in Pennsylvania. 

Conor Lamb went on social media the other night telling everyone that he’s a “normal” brunch-going, Manchin like Democrat and if you don’t like it, well, then he’s “NOT YOUR GUY.”

In the day’s following Lamb’s late-night twitter rant about socialism, Civiqs and the Inquirer released a new poll that showed Lt Gov John Fetterman polling at 52% while Lamb was polling at 12%.  Clearly, not our guy.   

Hundreds of striking Scranton Federation of Teachers members went to the capitol Wednesday calling out the “state-sponsored union busting” happening in Scranton.  The teachers went on strike over a week ago after working without a contract for 4 years.  Speakers included Senator Marty Flynn, Lt Gov John Fetterman and House Rep Malcolm Kenyatta.

Central Bucks School Board meeting goes off the rails as a few members of the community take the mic during the public comment period to spew transphobic and anti-semitic comments. 

MotherJones and WHYY looked into the “successes” fringe school board pac’s had with their local school board races and it turns out the PACs supporting ri