Progressive Voices

Rick Smith Show - 01-15-2019 by Progressive Voices

Maryanne Dymond Fiorentino is a musician who shares with Melissa the impact of music on the soul and mind, as it helped her battle mental illness. Plus, WHAT did Melissa do that made her feel bullied by her co-workers? And, a women's march in California was recently cancelled ... but the reason may surprise you.

On the #RADIO show this week, we covered the Women's March on January 19th and how you can march; why even businesses love the new Washington Paid Family/Medical Leave law; the powerful win relating to Cyntoia Brown regaining freedom; and get the inside scoop on how a bipartisan bill for universal background checks for gun purchases is moving through the US Congress.

*Special guests include:: Linda Sarsour, Women’s March, @Womensmarch, @lsarsour; Julia Gorton, Washington Hospitality Organization, @WAhospitality; Beatriz Beckford, MomsRising,

@MomsRising; and Chelsea Parsons, Center for American Progress, @amprog

As the government shutdown continues and 800,000 federal workers suffer along with asylum seekers caught by the President's anti-immigrant actions, listen to my interview from last February with ALI NOORANI, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum and author of THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration.

A new wave of anti-immigrant fear-mongering from an administration hell-bent on walls and the will of Fox News pundits. We’ll get a moral response from United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcaño.

Also, Dr. Chris Stroop, a leader in the growing “Ex-vangelical” initiative.

And Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Farah Stockman. We’ll talk about the serious challenges facing the national Women’s March movement, something she has written insightfully about in the pages of The New York Times.

Off-Kilter Episode 92 01-13-2019 by Progressive Voices

Hey guys! The audio is a little echoey on this one because I purchased a new computer and forgot to adjust one of the settings. It'll be back to normal next week. Thanks for your patience! Become a patron and maybe we can actually hire an engineer one day!

The USA is now enduring the longest government shutdown in American history as more evidence comes to light that Trump is a compromised agent of a foreign dictator - and Republicans are doing everything they can to protect him.

We discuss another week of madness.

We discuss another week of Republican immorality, treason and madness.

BECOME A PATRON:

https://www.patreon.com/taradevlin

Richard Fowler 01-12-2019 by Progressive Voices

Rick Smith Show - 01-12-2019 by Progressive Voices

Leslie is joined by Abigail Disney, a member of the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of hundreds of high-net-worth Americans who are committed to making all Americans better off by building a more prosperous, stable, and inclusive nation.

The two discuss the 'For the People Act,' the first resolution of the new Democratic led House of Representatives.

Here are the highlights of what H.R. 1 contains:

Protecting and expanding voting rights and election security:

-Automatic voter registration

-Online voter registration

-Same day voter registration

-Make election day a federal holiday

-Voting rights restoration to people with prior felony convictions

-Expand early voting and simplify absentee voting

-Prohibit voter purges that kick eligible voters off the registration rolls

-Enhance election security with increase support for a paper-based voting system and more oversight over election vendors

-End partisan gerrymandering by established independent redistricting commissions

-Prohibit providing false information about the elections process that discourage voting and other deceptive practices

Reduce the influence of big money in our politics:

-Require secret money organizations that spend money in elections to disclose their donors

-Upgrade online political spending transparency rules to ensure voters know who is paying for the advertisements they see

-Create a small donor-focused public financing matching system so candidates for Congress aren’t just reliant on big money donors to fund their campaigns and set their priorities

-Strengthen oversight rules to ensure those who break our campaign finance laws are held accountable

-Overhaul the Federal Election Commission to enforce campaign finance law

-Prohibit the use of shell companies to funnel foreign money in U.S. elections

Require government contractors to disclose their political spending

Ensure an ethical government accountable to the people:

-Slow the revolving door between government officials and lobbyists

Expand conflict of interest law

-Ban members of Congress from serving on corporate boards

-Require presidents to publicly disclose their tax returns

-Overhaul the Office of Government Ethics to ensure stronger enforcement of ethics rules

-Require members of the U.S. Supreme Court abide by a judicial code of ethics

(Here is a link to the full text of H.R. 1 - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1)

More on our guest today, Abigail Disney, and her incredible background.

Abigail is a filmmaker, philanthropist, activist, and the Emmy-winning director of The Armor of Light. As CEO and president of Fork Films, the documentary production company behind the groundbreaking Pray the Devil Back to Hell and PBS series Women, War & Peace, Abigail is committed to stories that create dialogue across divides and move the needle on social change. She has executive produced and supported over 90 projects through Fork Films’ funding program. Additionally, Abigail is the founder and president of Peace is Loud, a nonprofit that uses media and live events to highlight stories of women stepping up for peace. Recently, Abigail co-founded Level Forward, a new entertainment model and enterprise in which profit and principle go hand in hand. The company, formed in partnership with Killer Content, builds on the legacy of making stories that matter, with a commitment to innovation, inclusion and impact.

You can follow her on Twitter, where her handle is @AbigailDisney. The Twitter handle for the Patriotic Millionaires is @PatrioticMills, and their website is www.PatrioticMillionaires.org.