Ralph welcomes Abigail Disney, to discuss her work trying to get her namesake’s company to pay their workers a fair, livable wage as told in her documentary, “The American Dream: And Other Fairy Tales.” Plus, Erica Payne cofounder of The Patriotic Millionaires and co-author of “Tax The Rich!” returns to update us on their latest work educating ordinary Americans about how they can advocate for a fairer tax system.

Abigail Disney is a social activist, philanthropist, and an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker. She is also Chair and Co-Founder of Level Forward, an ecosystem of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social change-makers dedicated to balancing artistic vision, social impact, and stakeholder return. She also created the nonprofit Peace is Loud, which uses storytelling to advance social movements, and the Daphne Foundation, which supports organizations working for a more equitable, fair, and peaceful New York City. She is Co-Founder of Fork Films, a nonfiction media production company, which produces original documentaries and the podcast All Ears. Her latest film, which she co-directed with Kathleen Hughes, is The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.

Heirs and heiresses have gotten into a lot of trouble down the years trying to impose their will on the world. I think that my job, if I have one, is to impose the will of the world on wealthy people instead of the other way around.

Abigail Disney

We need to reinvigorate the IRS, we need to reinvigorate OSHA, we need to reinvigorate the NLRB and the other referees that have been made anemic by the constant assault of budget cuts.

Abigail Disney

It is amazing to me that, as this far rightwing guy, [Roy Disney] would never have treated his workers in a million years the way that the CEO at the time—Bob Iger, who was toying with running for president as a Democrat—was treating them on the regular. And that was the total capture of the entire American political spectrum by an idea about work and working that was the inverse—in a relatively short period of time— of what my grandfather was doing as a matter of course.

Abigail Disney

Erica Payne is the founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of high-net-worth individuals that aims to restructure America’s political economy to suit the needs of all Americans. Their work includes advocating for a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens. She is the co-author, with Morris Pearl, of Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer.

As far as I can tell, the billionaire class bought up the entire Republican Party and a sufficient number of Democrats that they got a stranglehold on this economy. What they basically created is a system that guarantees we become more unequal more quickly over time, they destabilize the entire country, they threaten democratic capitalism around the world…Mathematically, there’s absolutely no direction this country can go in other than more unequal. And we’re looking at a game of economic Jenga, where we’re basically pulling money out of the bottom and the middle and putting it on the top and the whole thing’s in the process of collapsing.

Erica Payne

If they are talking to you about something other than money, they are stealing your money. So the next time someone is talking to you about abortion, or transgender rights, or critical race theory, or any of these other things, you can rest assured that these politicians on the back end are stealing your money.

Erica Payne

I’m glad you mentioned Reagan, because I think liberals and progressives underestimate the gigantic impact this cruel man with a smile had on the culture with his market fundamentalism.

Ralph Nader

The book giveaway for "Tax the Rich!: How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer" by Erica Payne and Morris Pearl is now closed. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all those who showed interest and participated in this event.

In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeStantis1. As the reinvigorated Teamsters union engages in a massive contract renegotiation with UPS, the labor group has announced they scored a major victory – elimination of 22.4, the “two-tier” system, meaning “all drivers currently classified under the 22.4 system would be reclassified immediately to Regular Package Car Drivers, placed in seniority, and have their pay adjusted to the appropriate RPCD rate.” The two-tier system has been a central issue for organized labor in recent years, and a catalyst for the proliferation of a more militant labor movement.

2. For the past six years, the Department of Energy has been attempting to clean up a “highly radioactive” spill near the Columbia River in Washington State. Now, the Tri-City Herald reports that the spill is “both deeper and broader than anticipated.” The Energy Department is already quoted saying “the soil beneath the 324 Building is so radioactively hot that it would be lethal to a worker on direct contact within two minutes.”

3. Amid a slew of reactionary decisions, the Supreme Court somehow made the right call in a major case. In a 5-4 decision, led by Gorsuch, the Court ruled in Mallory v. Norfolk that “Pennsylvania's law establishing personal jurisdiction over a corporation through mandatory registration does NOT violate due process,” Mark Joseph Stern reports. The full opinion is available here.

4. The membership of the Screen Actors Guild have already voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, yet union president Fran Drescher seems to be merely using that vote as leverage to demand concessions from the studios. In response, Rolling Stone reports that over 300 actors – including household names like Meryl Streep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Quinta Brunson – sent a public letter urging against compromise with the studios in the face of major threats like AI. The letter ends by saying “For our union and its future, this is our moment. We hope that, on our behalf, you will meet that moment and not miss it.”

5. A major new report by Good Jobs First found that major corporate polluters in Michigan have been exploiting an anti-pollution subsidy in the state for decades. Just since 2010, corporations like GM, Ford, and Stellantis have cheated the Michigan treasury of $2.2 billion. As the group notes, the first step to addressing this corporate welfare crisis is “A proper accounting of which communities are losing how much money.”

6. The New York Times reports that, as a result of corrupt dealings within the Department of Education, New York City schoolchildren were fed chicken tenders containing pieces of metal and plastic. This serves as a sobering reminder of the real-world impacts of corporate capture and corruption.

7. In Korea, embattled extreme Right-wing president Yoon Suk Yeol – who, among other dangerous proposals has sought to resurrect the country’s nuclear weapons program – is seeking to crackdown on the country’s unions. In response, the Korea Herald reports that the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions will hold two weeks of sustained strikes intended to drive Yoon from office. Between 400,000 and half a million workers are expected to participate.

8. The “Greedflation” theory – which contends the recent spate of inflation is due to corporate profit seeking rather than a tight labor market – has won a major backer: the International Monetary Fund, or IMF. A new report on inflation in Europe published by the international finance agency found that profits account for no less than 45% of price rises since 2022. Import costs accounted for another 40%. This is a stunning finding for a group that typically does everything in its power to aid multinational capital.

9. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has announced some major wins from the recent state legislative sessions, including defending Washington State’s capital gains tax and blocking a regressive package of tax cuts in Kansas. If he were dead, Grover Norquist would be rolling in his grave.

Ralph welcomes journalist and executive director for intellectual capital at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Hal Weitzman, to discuss his book “What’s The Matter With Delaware? How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal—and How It Costs Us All.”

Hal Weitzman is Executive Director for Intellectual Capital at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and editor-in-chief of Chicago Booth Review. A former Financial Times editor and foreign correspondent, he is the author of Latin Lessons: How South America Stopped Listening to the United States and Started Prospering and What’s the Matter with Delaware?: How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal—and How It Costs Us All.

We know that lawyers and investors in corporations hate political uncertainty because it might affect their profit-making process. And in Delaware they’ve perfected that system. They have completely bypassed any political uncertainty, and therefore also bypassed any oversight or regulation.

Hal Weitzman

The state of Delaware, the major law firms, the legislature, and the State Secretary of State over the years have created a very powerful embrace to make sure that Delaware stays #1 in terms of being a haven for these kinds of corporations, and in terms of making sure that the federal government interferes the least.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis

1. The Lever reports that in Delaware, The Company State, in a little town called Seaford, corporations may soon have the right to vote. The town has proposed an amendment to their charter granting LLCs, corporations, trusts or partnerships suffrage in municipal elections. Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of Common Cause Delaware called this a "shocking...attempt to [give] artificial entities… voting rights," and characterized it as the “flipside [of voter suppression]." This proposal would require the blessing of both houses of the Delaware legislature, and while unlikely to pass, the corporate control of the First State is so powerful that passage cannot be entirely counted out either.

2. Senate HELP Committee Chair Bernie Sanders has launched an investigation into safety at Amazon. Chairman Sanders wrote on Twitter “If Amazon can afford to spend $6 billion on stock buybacks last year, it can afford to make sure its warehouses are safe. If Amazon can afford to pay its CEO $289 million over the past 2 years, it can afford to treat all of its workers with dignity and respect, not contempt.” To further this investigation, the HELP committee has launched an online portal allowing “current or former workers, supervisors, medical staff, or anyone else in Amazon's warehouses,” to submit their stories of mistreatment.

3. A troubling new report from the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) highlights the rise in pedestrian fatalities in recent years. According to the data, over 8,000 pedestrians were killed on US roadways in 2022, more than double the number who were killed in 2010 and higher than any year since 1980. Regulators must take pedestrian safety as seriously as that of automobile drivers.

4. Last Thursday, Indian Prime Minister and Right-wing extremist Narendra Modi addressed Congress, following his meeting with President Biden. A number of progressive Democrats boycotted the event, including Reps. Summer Lee, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Rashida Tlaib, and AOC. In a joint statement issued by Bush and Bowman, the members wrote “by bestowing Prime Minister Modi…the rare honor of a joint address, Congress undermines its ability to be a credible advocate for the rights of religious minorities and journalists around the world.” This from the Hill.

5. People’s Dispatch reports that the New York City Council has passed a resolution calling for the United States to end the blockade on Cuba. New York City now joins Washington, D.C. and Chicago in passing such resolutions. This resolution notes “Every year since 1992, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has adopted a resolution declaring the embargo a violation of both the Charter of the United Nations and international law”.

6. In the recent Virginia primaries, reform prosecutors swept their respective elections, per Bolts Magazine. Steve Descano, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, and Buta Biberaj, prosecutors in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Arlington each fended off primary challenges from the right, two of whom were endorsed by police unions and a third who was backed by none other than the local Republican Party. The reform prosecutors trounced these regressive opponents by margins of 10 to 13 points. Deghani-Tafti told the magazine “If this election was a referendum on reform, our voters emphatically responded that they will not go backward.”

7. The Reykjavik Grapevine reports that no whaling will occur in Iceland this Summer, following months of protest. Interestingly, the article notes that “Whaling is not a traditional practice in Iceland. Not only is Hvalur hf. the one and only company in Iceland engaging in commercial whaling…it does so at a loss.”

8. Martin Austermuhle of WAMU reports that Republicans in the House are once again seeking to meddle in the sovereign affairs of Washington, DC. Riders in a draft spending bill promulgated by the GOP include banning reproductive rights legislation, reversing the legalization of marijuana, and other conservative priorities that would never get off the ground in the district. The major concern here is that spineless Congressional Democrats will serve up DC on a silver platter in exchange for other Republican concessions. Just another reason DC statehood must be a top priority.

9. A group of House Democrats sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen calling on her to ease the sanctions regime imposed on Venezuela, NBC reports. The authors include Reps. Joaquin Castro and Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, along with progressives like Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Barbara Lee of California. The letter described how sanctions "have often been found to be ineffective in achieving their objectives," and "to purposefully continue contributing to economic hardship experienced by an entire population is immoral and unworthy of the United States.” Hopefully Secretary Yellen will heed these words.

10. Finally, how much does a trashcan cost? A new report in Responsible Statecraft highlights price gouging at the Pentagon, including a trashcan sold to the Defense Department for $52,000. Must be one hell of a bin!

Ralph spends the entire hour with co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon, to discuss his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” which examines how our “military-industrial-media-intelligence complex” conspires to suppress the truth about war.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and his newest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.

The tacit motto of huge media outlets like the New York Times is: Being pro-war means never having to say you’re sorry. If a journalist or a media outlet is in favor of the US engaging in war, that is couched as “objective.” If a journalist (such as Phil Donahue on MSNBC) in the leadup to the war even raises questions, serious questions critical of an impending invasion or ongoing US war then that's considered “biased.”

Norman Solomon

These wars are treated as though they aren’t wars. That they don’t exist. That “there’s nothing to see here, folks!” Because we say so. We have our own criteria. And part of that is the jingoism and the nationalism and the racism that says if the people at the other end of US firepower don’t look like us, are not in a country aligned with us, then we don’t think there’s really a reason to consider it a major problem. It’s only a problem when Americans are dying.

Norman Solomon

This was a real sociocide—thousands and thousands of bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq. And here’s the New York Times, being fed by one of their reporters Judith Miller total lies about Saddam importing uranium from Niger and Africa and other falsehoods that made page one in the New York Times. What is clearly probably its darkest journalistic chapter… There doesn’t seem to be anything learned today. They could just as well do it today against another country.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard

1. On Wednesday, The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the online retailer “tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions [for Amazon Prime] without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” according to FTC Chair Lina Khan. Khan added “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike.” According to internal documents “Amazon named [the cancellation] process ‘Iliad,’…refer[ing] to Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.” More about this lawsuit is available at the Washington Post.

2. As the Teamsters continue to negotiate for a better deal with UPS, the membership has voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike. This vote – which passed with 97 percent support – gives the union “maximum leverage to win demands at the bargaining table,” according to the union’s statement. The statement goes on to note that the Teamsters represent more than 340,000 UPS package delivery drivers and warehouse logistics workers nationwide. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien added “The strongest leverage our members have is their labor and they are prepared to withhold it to ensure UPS acts accordingly.”

3. For the fist time since 2019, the Democratic-controlled Senate Banking committee will hold a “mark-up” session on a bill – a key step toward enacting any legislation. This bill – sponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown, who chairs the committee, and Tim Scott of South Carolina – seeks to claw back excessive compensation from executives at failed banks and penalize them for misconduct. This legislation was almost certainly drafted in response to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. The draft text of this bill is available at Punchbowl News.

4. The American Prospect reports that, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” or FSD has led to at least 736 crashes – causing 17 fatalities – since 2021. Mile for mile, Tesla’s FSD system is “likely…ten times more dangerous at driving than humans.”

5. Leaving aside self-driving, a CBS News report sheds light on new dangers associated with electric vehicles. “Their batteries make the vehicles heavier, offering better protection to the passengers inside, but that extra weight — hundreds to even thousands of pounds — has traffic safety advocates concerned about the potential risk to other drivers.” To give some perspective on how heavy these vehicles are, “GMC's Hummer EV weighs more than 9,000 pounds…more than 3,000 pounds heavier than the GMC's full-size pickup. The Hummer EV's battery alone weighs about the same as a Toyota Corolla.”

6. The Washington Post reports that the strike at Insider magazine, the “longest ever [strike] in digital media,” has ended. The new deal raises the minimum salary for Insider staff and prevents any further layoffs this year, along with an immediate 3.5 percent raise upon ratification of the contract. The strikers got a boost in public support when the editor-in-chief was filmed “tearing down fliers bearing his face with the phrase, “Have you seen this millionaire?”’ Insider, formerly Business Insider, was acquired by German media conglomerate Axel-Springer in 2015; Axel-Springer’s later acquisition of POLITICO was covered in the first edition of the Capitol Hill Citizen.

7. Yahoo Finance reports that, in a major reversal, Shell plans to “[pivot] back to oil to win over investors.” The company will forego its goal to reduce oil outputs by 1-2% each year, and its CEO Wael Sawan emphasized that “shift[ing] to low-carbon businesses cannot come at the expense of profits.” No word yet on whether life on planet Earth can come at the expense of corporate profits.

8. This month, American troops will begin arriving in Peru, where they will be stationed until the end of the year. These troops, invited by the wildly unpopular Peruvian Congress and unelected president Dina Boluarte, are charged with “preparing Peru’s intelligence command for “joint special operations.” The timing of this arrival is notable; while protests against the antidemocratic Peruvian government peaked in February, resulting in 70 deaths, a new rash of protests are planned for July. This from CounterPunch.

9. The Catholic News Agency reports that a restaurant in Sacramento, California “had an individual impersonate a priest to encourage employees to confess their “sins” against their employer,” – the catch? He wasn’t a priest at all. The Department of Labor called this “among the most shameless” of employee intimidation methods they’d ever seen. In addition to the priest fiasco, investigators said the restaurant “denied overtime pay to employees and illegally paid managers from the employee tip pool….[and] threatened employees with retaliation and immigration-related consequences for cooperating with investigators.” The employer has agreed to pay $70,000 in back wages and $70,000 in damages to 35 employees, as well as $5,000 in civil penalties to the Department of Labor.

10. Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower who exposed the lies being fed to the American people regarding the Vietnam War via the Pentagon Papers, has passed away. He was 92. Ellsberg, who had been in hospice following a diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer, wrote a final note in March. This note mostly focused on the nuclear peril posed by the war in Ukraine, but the last few lines should be repeated here:

“I’m happy to know that millions of people–including all those friends and comrades to whom I address this message!–have the wisdom, the dedication and the moral courage to carry on with these causes, and to work unceasingly for the survival of our planet and its creatures.

I’m enormously grateful to have had the privilege of knowing and working with such people, past and present. That’s among the most treasured aspects of my very privileged and very lucky life. I want to thank you all for the love and support you have given me in so many ways. Your dedication, courage, and determination to act have inspired and sustained my own efforts.

My wish for you is that at the end of your days you will feel as much joy and gratitude as I do now.

Love, Dan”

This week we welcome back Professor Randall Kennedy to help us pay tribute to three principled, uncompromising African American activists, Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report, human rights champion, Randall Robinson, and legendary actor, singer, and activist, Harry Belafonte.

Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He is the author of several books, including Contracts: Happiness and Heartbreak, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, and Say It Loud! On Race, Law, History, and Culture.

You’ve chosen three very interesting people [Randall Robinson, Harry Belafonte, and Glen Ford]. And I think that one thing that the listeners should keep in mind is that the three that you’ve chosen are all progressive; they are very different… Because the tent of progressivism should be a large tent— not everybody’s going to think the same, and indeed there’s going to be some friction between various tendencies among progressives.

Randall Kennedy

I don’t think that progressives pay enough attention to the people who have been in their camp. We don’t pay enough attention to people who have passed away. We don’t pay enough attention to recalling people who have been heroic in our midst. And, again, I say this as a person who is sometimes extremely critical of some of the people that you’ve mentioned.

Randall Kennedy

We need people like Glen Ford to pull in one direction uncompromisingly—because the corporate interests always pull in the other direction uncompromisingly—and then we need people who are in between and sometimes have to face the hard realities you’ve pointed out.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard

1. The Wall Street Journal and the Corporate Crime Reporter have announced that, following decades of citizen pressure, and action last year by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, the Department of Justice has finally created a Corporate Crime Database. Under President Biden, the Justice Department has taken a tougher rhetorical stance on corporate crime, but as Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco notes, the department “cannot ignore the data showing overall decline in corporate criminal prosecutions over the last decade...We need to do more and move faster.” Among civic groups, The Center for Study of Responsive Law and Public Citizen lead the charge to create these corporate rap sheets and are already working to expand and strengthen this new resource for corporate crime data.

2. If you live on the East Coast, you have likely experienced dangerous levels of air pollution in the last week due to smoke moving South from Canadian wildfires. Yet, the Lever reports that under current air quality rules, fossil fuel producers will not have to curb their emissions to offset this spike in air pollution because they have successfully lobbied for a loophole protecting themselves in the case of “exceptional events” outside their control. Environmental regulators are currently mulling a new rule to clamp down on this type of air pollution, but face stiff opposition from industry groups.

3. The Washington Post reports that, in an exercise of his leverage in the tightly divided Senate, Bernie Sanders has vowed to oppose all Biden health nominees until the administration produces a “comprehensive” plan to lower prescription drug prices. Sanders’ role as Chair of the Health Education Labor and Pensions committee means these nominees cannot advance without his blessing. This notably includes Biden’s nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. Sanders said “Politicians for years have talked about the high cost of prescription drugs, relatively little has been done, and it’s time that we act decisively.”

4. The Progressive International has issued a statement decrying the “soft coup” underway against left-wing President Gustavo Petro in Colombia. Their statement reads “Ever since the election of the country’s first progressive government...Colombia’s traditional powers have been organizing to restore an order marked by extreme inequality, environmental destruction, and state-sponsored violence.” The statement goes on to excoriate officials who have sought to undermine the Petro administration and “former generals, colonels, and members of the Colombian military [who] have not only proclaimed their opposition to President...Petro — but even marched outside Congress to call for a coup d’état against his government.” Signatories to this letter include over 400 political and industrial leaders, including Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Corbyn, Jean Luc Mélenchon, and Former Leftist President of Ecuador Rafael Correa.

5. The City, a news site covering New York, reports that food delivery drivers in NYC have won a substantial wage increase. This victory caps off a 3-year long campaign by Los Deliveristas Unidos, and makes New York the “first major U.S. city to establish and implement pay requirements for delivery workers.” These workers currently take home about $11 per hour; this will go up to $17.96 an hour starting July 12th, and will increase to $19.96 per hour by 2025.

6. In a surprise decision last week, the Supreme Court voted five-four in favor of Black voters in Alabama who argued the state had unlawfully diluted their voting power, POLITICO reports. Over a quarter of Alabama residents are Black, but the state crammed most Black Alabamians into a single congressional district following the 2020 census, running afoul of the Voting Rights Act. Many expected the ultra-conservative court to reject the challenge and further hollow out the VRA; instead, this ruling could significantly augment the chances of Democrats retaking the House in 2024.

7. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has instituted a “highly successful” ban on opium. To cite one example, “In Helmand, by far Afghanistan’s largest opium-producing province, the area of poppy cultivation was cut from over 129,000 hectares in 2022 to only 740 as of April 2023.” However, some in the West – including the US Institute for Peace – believe this could have disastrous implications for the Afghan economy. It remains to be seen whether the new government can find a viable economic alternative fast enough to offset these losses. The Taliban had previously banned opium cultivation when they held power in 2000 and 2001, and achieved a 90% reduction at that time.

8. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is again licking her wounds after her nominee for the New York Power Authority was blocked by the State Senate, in a similar fashion as her nominee for the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. Justin Driscoll, whom Hochul had appointed on an interim basis and was seeking to appoint permanently, raised red flags with New York Senate Democrats due to his ingratiation in conservative politics – Driscoll is a registered Republican who has ties to figures like Chris Christie and John Cornyn. Driscoll also opposed the Build Public Renewables Act and has been embroiled in accusations of racial discrimination during his time as general counsel for the Power Authority. On June 9th, POLITICO reported that Senate Democrats will not schedule a vote for Driscoll.

9. Projectionists at an Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in New York City have filed an NLRB petition to unionize. However, instead of coming to the negotiating table, the theater chain sent out an internal email “notifying staff of the company's intention to do away with the projectionist position and replace it with a more expansive ‘technical engineer’ role.” This reflects how the struggle for labor rights in entertainment goes far beyond Hollywood writers and actors. This from 1010 Wins.

10. Last week, Henry Kissinger – President Nixon’s controversial National Security Advisor and alleged war criminal – celebrated his 100th birthday. The Real News Network reports that this centennial bash was attended by some of the most prominent diplomatic figures in the country, including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and head of the international development agency USAID, Samantha Power. Jonathan Guyer of VOX, documented many other attendees as well, including Larry Summers, Robert Kraft, General David Petreaus, CIA Director Bill Burns, and Michael Bloomberg. The gang’s all here!

Ralph welcomes New York Times reporter, Binyamin Applebaum, author of “The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society” about how Chicago School economists of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s “who believed in the power and the glory of markets… transformed the business of government, the conduct of business, and, as a result, the patterns of everyday life.”

Binyamin Appelbaum is the lead business and economics writer on the Editorial Board of the New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. He previously worked for the Charlotte Observer, where his reporting on subprime lending won a George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society.

The central attraction of neoliberalism—of market fundamentalism— is that it tells rich and powerful people that they are right and good. It underscores for them, it affirms them, it tells them that their priorities—their interests— are the right ones. And if society just does what it can to enrich them and empower them, then everyone will be better off. That’s an enormously attractive message.

Binyamin Applebaum

In area after area, we saw economists reaching broad conclusions about theories, about long-term truths, about how the world works on the basis of very limited data. Broad data. Data that aggregated everyone and treated them as if they were a single individual, rather than acknowledging the important differences among actors in the economy. Data that took very brief periods of history and extrapolated out to the unforeseeable future. And on that basis, economists reached conclusions that have proven to be empirically wrong as we’ve learned more about it.

Binyamin Applebaum

Economic analysis tends to exclude things that don’t fit neatly into its formulas— that can’t be easily counted or tabulated, that don’t count as data in the view of the economists… We can have very good real-world experience of the effects of drug regulation regimes or of corporate behavior and monopolistic contexts, and if it doesn’t tally on the data sheet it gets excluded from the analysis. It doesn’t become part of our policy-making conversation.

Binyamin Applebaum

We have a huge societal problem with our conception of spending on corporations as investment and spending on people as spending. When we talk about education, it’s an expense. When we talk about semiconductors, it’s an investment into the future. That’s insane. Spending on education is the most productive investment that we can make.

Binyamin Applebaum

What the market fundamentalist economists fail to take into account is greed and power, connected to one another, are infinite. There’s no discernible boundary. And that leads to a regulation by corporations of the competitive free market. So, monopolies distort markets. Subsidies and bailouts by the government distort market discipline. Political influence of big business over small business distorts market discipline. And consumer fraud, corporate consumer crimes, deceptive advertising distorts market discipline.

Ralph Nader

A “license to loot” is what our guest, economist William Lazonick, calls stock buybacks. Until the Reagan Revolution, stock buybacks were considered market manipulation and at the very least are an unproductive use of profits used only to pump up the stock price and enrich upper management, while neglecting workers’ wages, capital expansion, and innovation. Ralph and Professor Lazonick break it all down for you.

William Lazonick is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His recent work includes Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored,  and the forthcoming book Investing in Innovation: Confronting Predatory Value Extraction in the U.S. Corporation.

The ideology that enables buybacks, that makes a lot of people including economists say, “Oh, they’re just fine. The money’s just going to the economy,” is what I call the myth of the market economy—the way in which we get capital formation in the economy is just by money zipping around. But it doesn’t work that way. The money has to stop somewhere.

William Lazonick

It’s not because the United States does not have the capability to do these things— the capability is in the wrong hands. And it’s being wasted and destroyed. So it’s not simply the amount of money that’s making people rich. But those people who are getting rich are actually getting rich by helping to destroy the industrial base of the United States, including the middle class.

William Lazonick

These giant companies— these US companies that grew in the USA on the back of their workers, went to Washington for subsidies or bailouts when they were greedy or in trouble, and had the US Marines defend them around the world— are not only disinvesting on a massive scale in the necessities for a productive economy. But they are engaging in the ironic trend that can be called the corporate destruction of capitalism, whose base, in essence, is investment.

Ralph Nader

While these corporate bosses insist on massive domination of our political economy—from Washington to Wall Street— they’re not delivering. For the economy, for the workers, for the people who are trying to make it through every day and protect their families and their descendants. In behaving this way, they have reached a historic level of conflict of interest with their own companies.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard

1. The automotive news website Jalopnik reports that a whistleblower has turned over 100 gigabtyes of “Tesla Secrets” to German media. These files contain “more than 2,400 self-acceleration complaints and more than 1,500 braking function problems, including 139 cases of unintentional emergency braking and 383 reported phantom stops resulting from false collision warnings. The number of crashes is more than 1000.”

2. While national Democrats dither and cave to outrageous Republican demands on the debt ceiling, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has delivered on an expansive progressive agenda. In the current session, with only a single-vote majority in the upper house, Common Dreams reports that they have passed bills to mandate 20 weeks of paid family and medical leave, legalized recreational cannabis, and made school meals free for public and charter students. They also passed a bill codifying Roe v. Wade, established legal protections for transgender youth, set a livable minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, and approved Right to Repair legislation. While not all of these will be signed into law, it is clear that Minnesota is setting the bar for Democratic-controlled state legislatures throughout the country, and putting Congress to shame.

3. A new piece in the Lever covers “The $20 Billion Scam At The Heart Of Medicare Advantage.” The article details how insurers are manipulating the medicare privatization scheme and “milking massive profits from systematic overbilling and kneecapping modest Biden proposals to stop the scheme.” Rep. Ro Khanna, responding to this article, advocated for his “Save Medicare Act,” cosponsored by Reps. Mark Pocan and Jan Schakowsky, to ban private insurers from “profiting off the Medicare brand.”

4. NPR reports that The White House has unveiled its plan to combat rising antisemitism in the United States, and in a major victory for Left-wing anti-zionists, they did not adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which would gag criticism of Israel. In response, Palestine Legal tweeted “After months of Israel advocacy groups calling on the White House to adopt the distorted IHRA definition of antisemitism, today even the staunchly pro-Israel Biden administration declined to do so. Why? Because IHRA is wrong, useless, and clearly unconstitutional.”

5. A leaked document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, published in the Intercept, expresses frustration that the budget of populist Left-wing Mexican President Lopez Obrador – commonly known as AMLO – prioritizes social spending for the poor in Mexico above US interests in our southern neighbor. The document reads “President Lopez Obrador’s federal budget for 2023 gives priority to social spending and signature infrastructure projects, rather than the investments needed to address bilateral issues with the US such as migration, security, and trade.” In other words, the Military Industrial Complex is not content with monopolizing the budget of this country, and feel that they are more entitled to the tax money of other countries than their own citizens.

6. 60 Minutes reports that Raytheon, a major military contractor, has been scamming the Defense Department via “inflated prices for planes, submarines, [and] missiles.” Shay Assad, a negotiator who has been on both sides of these procurement debates, drew attention to an oil pressure switch that cost $328, but was purchased by the Pentagon for over $10,000. When asked “what accounts for that huge difference,” Assad answered, “Gouging…what else can account for it?”

7. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “A judge dismissed all charges...against a former city police officer [named Darren Kardos] accused of participating in the beating of a 28-year-old mother [Rickia Young]” during the 2020 protests. A key reason why this case was dismissed hinged on the fact that a witness, another police officer, did not appear in court despite being subpoenad – making it “impossible” to try Kardos. Prosecutors “immediately vowed to re-file the case and bring it back to court.”

8. Two high-profile former Democrat representatives have joined the Global Advisory Council at the cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase. These are: Tim Ryan, the former Congressman who was defeated by J.D. Vance in his 2022 bid for US Senate in Ohio, and Sean Patrick Maloney, another former Democratic Congressman and head of the DCCC, whom many hold responsible for the Democrats’ slim loss of the House in that election cycle. Coinbase has previously run afoul of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is likely banking on the political clout of these former members to navigate a possible crackdown on crypto. The revolving door just keeps spinning.

9. In a small but meaningful win for workers, LaborNotes reports that the Biden NLRB has restored “the rights of union representatives to use heated language, including occasional profanity, during arguments with management.” Union officials were barred from using such language by a Trump-era NLRB decision. The article breaks down the three major implications of this ruling: (1) “employers can no longer claim that the law allows them to discipline representatives for ‘lack of civility,’” (2) “Vigorous debate and ‘salty’ language must be tolerated, including allegations that managers are not telling the truth,” and (3) “Picket line rhetoric does not put strikers at risk.” And to that we say, F**K YEAH!

Ralph welcomes Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, co-author of “These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs – And Wrecks – America,” where they name names in this “heads we win, tails you lose” system of predatory capitalism.

Gretchen Morgenson is the senior financial reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. A former stockbroker, she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” reporting on Wall Street. Previously at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” she and coauthor Joshua Rosner wrote the bestseller Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon about the mortgage crisis. Their latest book is These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America.

The way corporate criminals get their way is by trying to make things too complex and too abstract for your daily lives. But when Gretchen [Morgenson] talks about these plunderers, and let’s call them “predatory capitalists”, don’t think that you’re not being affected— whether your loved ones are patients in nursing homes, whether you’re workers being laid off, whether you’re consumers being gouged for drug or healthcare prices, whether your community’s going to be hollowed out because the company that was doing okay was taken over by these vultures and closed down after they extracted the wealth.

Ralph Nader

It’s interesting now that David Rubenstein is retired [from the Carlyle Group], he’s a philanthropist. This is what these wealthy people do once they’ve finished their careers and made so much money. They become philanthropists… We’ve all read about David Rubenstein and Steve Schwarzman and Leon Black and Henry Kravis. We read about them constantly. They are always lauded for their brilliance and their billionaire status. What we just don’t hear about are the people on the other side of their transactions.

Gretchen Morgenson, co-author of “These Are The Plunderers.”

The disappointing thing about the Justice Department is that when they bring these cases against the companies that are doing Medicare fraud (like in the Manor Care situation), they don’t move up the corporate ladder to the owner of the company. The Justice Department does the work on the particular company that is owned by private equity, but they don’t go up the ladder. And that has a way of allowing the firms—like Carlyle in the Manor Care case— to escape scrutiny and to escape accountability. So that would be an ideal thing to change.

Gretchen Morgenson co-author of “These Are The Plunderers.”

In Case You Haven’t Heard

1. Amid the debt limit fight, progressives are calling for President Biden to invoke the 14th amendment, which they believe would allow Biden to bypass the Republican House and raise the debt limit without concessions like adding further work requirements to public benefits. In a press conference by the Senate progressives, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said "This is the whole reason why the 14th Amendment exists, & we need to be prepared to use it. And, if our unelected Supreme Court Justices try to block the use of the 14th amendment and blow up our economy, that’s on them.” However, POLITICO reports that the administration is privately telling progressives to stand down. Instead, the White House seems more interested in negotiating with Speaker McCarthy, even if that means caving to outrageous Republican demands.2. As the Writers Guild strike grinds on – at a cost of $30 million per day according to Deadline – the  Screen Actors Guild is now on the verge of their own strike. Last week, SAG-AFTRA’s National Board voted unanimously to ask members for strike authorization, and the Daily Beast reported that SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher urged members to “make three a charm with an emphatic ‘yes’ for a strike authorization vote!” adding that to do so would be “an unprecedented show of solidarity.” An actor’s strike against the studios has not happened since 1980.3. Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Healthy Families Act of 2023, which would guarantee 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. This bill features a companion in the House, led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, and carries the support of 122 members of the House and Senate. Sanders is quoted saying “It is time to end this absurdity...It is time Congress passed this legislation to ensure workers receive the basic dignity and benefits that they deserve.” The introduction of this legislation comes on the heels of the reintroduction of a Medicare for All bill in this Congress.4. A damning new report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that “Jeffrey Epstein discovered that Bill Gates had an affair with a Russian bridge player” and later used this knowledge to attempt to threaten the Microsoft co-founder. The report goes on to say that “at the time, Epstein was trying to set up a multibillion-dollar charitable fund with JPMorgan...[which] hinged on securing support from Gates.” When this money was not forthcoming, Epstein resorted to blackmail. This gives the public our clearest idea yet as to the nuts and bolts of the Epstein criminal enterprise.5. POLITICO is reporting on a rumor concerning Senator Dianne Feinstein, Representative Adam Schiff, and the Pelosi family. The former Speaker herself has endorsed Schiff in the upcoming California Senate primary and has long groomed him as a political protege. He currently holds a $15 million advantage over his nearest opponent. Yet, if Feinstein – who has appeared deeply addled in recent public appearances – were to resign, Governor Newsom would have the opportunity to appoint a Senator to the vacant seat, and has pledged to appoint a Black woman. Rep. Barbara Lee, a progressive Black congresswoman representing the Bay Area, is among the candidates to replace Feinstein, and would therefore have a strong chance of being appointed. Per the report, Nancy Corinne Prowda, Pelosi’s eldest child, is a top aide to Senator Feinstien, and a “Pelosi family confidant” insinuated that she is angling to keep Feinstein in her seat, not for the benefit of Californians, but for the benefit of Adam Schiff.  6. The LA Times reports that “Nearly three dozen deputies have been ordered to come in for questioning, show their tattoos and give up the names of any other deputies similarly sporting ink connecting them to…the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s…deputy gangs.” This demand came in a letter from county Inspector General Max Huntsman to 35 deputies suspected of being members of either the Executioners or the Banditos, two of the most notorious among these police gangs. Huntsman is quoted saying “The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department conducted incomplete internal affairs investigations into the Banditos and Executioners, failing to identify all members…California’s new gang law addresses discrimination based on race and gender and gives inspectors general enhanced authority to collect evidence. We’re using that authority to complete the investigations by directing deputies to show their tattoos and tell us who else has them.”7. The Sierra Club is currently in the midst of a labor battle. The New Republic reports that, in an attempt to resolve their budget shortfall, the group has announced “massive layoffs,” the scale of which still remains unclear.  This announcement set off a “fractious battle” between the top leadership and the Progressive Workers Union, which has two bargaining units representing nearly 400 Sierra Club employees around the country. Thus far union has filed two unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board; the first “accuses the Club of failing to provide necessary information for bargaining,” and another alleging that “management is violating its collective bargaining agreement and is bargaining in bad faith.”8. Democracy Now! reports that conservative, US-backed Ecuadoran president Guillermo Lasso has “dissolved the opposition-led National Assembly in a move widely seen as an effort to block efforts to impeach him.” Lasso dissolved the assembly as it held its first hearing on corruption and embezzlement allegations against Lasso. Lasso invoked a never-before-used constitutional power allowing him to “rule by decree” until new elections are held.9. In an almost unbelievable story, Live Science is reporting that Orcas have “sunk 3 boats in Europe and appear to be teaching others to do the same.” The piece goes on to say that scientists believe the attacks are coordinated, and began following an orca experiencing a "critical moment of agony." Further, they believe “the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning.” This is a stark reminder that we as a species impact our environment and that, sometimes, there are consequences.

Auto safety expert, Byron Bloch, joins us to tell the story of how citizens in conjunction with the Sierra Club defeated a highway widening boondoggle in Maryland. Then we welcome microgrids manager at the Green Justice Coalition, Sari Kayyali, to tell us how microgrids in his community have saved money and the environment. Finally, we catch up with the director of Progressive Democrats of America, Alan Minsky, in Washington DC to talk about high speed rail and the post-Bernie progressive movement.

Byron Bloch is an independent consultant and court-qualified expert in Auto Safety Design and Vehicle Crashworthiness. Over the years, he has fought for safer fuel tanks, stronger seats, the need for airbags, better truck underride guards, and has testified on these safety issues at Congressional Hearings, and to NHTSA. He contributed to the Sierra Club’s successful campaign to strongly oppose and stop the proposed widening of the 1-270 and Capital Beltway and the scheme to also add privatized toll lanes.

What we have to do is refocus and say, “We are a people-oriented nation. Not a vehicle-oriented nation.” And if you look at it in those terms—people-oriented nation— then you say, “Well, what are the economics, what are the health and safety issues that affect people?” But instead, it becomes the almighty vehicle-ization of the nation and that means more lanes, more traffic, more lanes, and then more traffic.

Byron Bloch Activist and auto safety expert

The corporate state arrives in different manifestations— the military industrial complex, the Pentagon, and this is what’s going on at the state level. It doesn’t get many national headlines, but it's the merger of corporations with state government. And there’s a lot of secrecy involved, a lot of phony promises, a lot of misleading rhetoric, and the legislators are compromised by the campaign contributions and the pressure from the governor’s office.

Ralph Nader

Sari Kayyali is a mechanical engineer and the Microgrids Manager at Microgrids Chelsea and Chinatown Power.

The technology around clean electric generation—solar panels and battery storage—are experiencing a revolution. Just in the last decade alone, solar panels have dropped to a third of what they used to cost to manufacture. Battery storage has improved dramatically in terms of energy density, cost, and reliability. And so, a lot of places around the country are looking to these as solutions. Microgrids have been around for a while, they don’t necessarily need to use clean technology but specifically clean microgrids are really catching on all around the country, and around the world.

Sari Kayyali Microgrids Manager at the Green Justice Coalition

Alan Minsky is a lifelong activist, and Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America. Alan has worked as a progressive journalist for the past two decades, he was Program Director at KPFK Los Angeles from 2009-2018, and he has coordinated Pacifica Radio’s national coverage of elections. He is the creator and producer of the political podcasts for The Nation and Jacobin, as well as a contributor to Common Dreams and Truthdig.

There’s a whole bunch of elements that the progressive movement hasn’t been that attentive to. Including things like industrial production and the transformation it requires between business and government to transform American society, so that it’s operating on clean energy, so that its industrial manufacturing doesn’t have breaks in supply chains… So I got involved with a lot of projects that aren’t that common for progressives to be involved in.

Alan Minsky, Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America

In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. CNBC reports that the FTC is mulling a proposal to bar Meta (formerly Facebook) from monetizing the data of minors. This follows the agency’s allegation that the company violated a 2020 privacy order. The FTC quoted an independent assessor who found “several gaps and weaknesses in Facebook’s privacy program” that posed “substantial risks to the public.” Hopefully, this action will put other tech companies on notice regarding monetization of children’s data.

2. Dr. Steve Feldman, a Jewish dermatologist, is being penalized by the state of Arkansas for his refusal to sign a loyalty pledge to the state of Israel, the Arkansas Times reports. After giving a lecture to medical students in Little Rock, he was prompted to check a box agreeing not to boycott Israel, which he refused to do. As a result, the state is withholding his payment for the lecture. The Arkansas Times also refused to sign the pledge. Feldman said “What’s nuts is they’re asking a newspaper to say they won’t boycott Israel, they’re asking Americans who have a conscience, who know Israel is keeping Palestinians from their homes.” The ultra-conservative Supreme Court declined to hear the newspaper’s legal challenge to the state law, and therefore it is still in place.

3. In Rochester, New York, Coca-Cola is building a new facility. The company predicts this development will yield 250 new jobs. However, the Rochester Beacon has broken down the corporate welfare the conglomerate stands to receive in exchange: $41 million in state and local subsidies, or about $164,000 for each job created.

4. A stunning expose in the Guardian shines a light on the beef industry, and specifically, their “messaging machine.” “The beef industry has developed a ‘Digital Command Center” that tracks media outlets and social media for more than 200 beef-related topics” Based in Denver, Colorado, the project which “looks like a military operation” is staffed 24/7 with personnel redundancies to “make sure someone’s always watching.”

5. In another law enforcement bombshell, longtime LAPD SWAT officer, Sgt. Timothy Colomey, has blown the whistle on the reality of the elite unit. According to Sgt. Colomey, LAPD SWAT is controlled by a violent inner circle known as the “SWAT Mafia” which has perpetuated itself using “excessive force...insubordination, sabotage and cover-ups.” Colomey has put his allegations into a detailed new deposition, available at the LA Times.

6. The Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has officially opened an investigation into charges that the George Washington University discriminated against Palestinian students, according to the GW Hatchet. Palestine Legal, which filed the complaint on behalf of three GW students, responded to the news by writing “This is an important step that shows the Office of Civil Rights is taking anti-Palestinian discrimination seriously.” Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal added “Even if pro-Israel groups don’t like it and complain, the law is clear – Palestinian students are entitled to the same educational opportunities and services as other students.”

7. In other Palestine news Rep. Rashida Tlaib held an event commemorating the Nakba – literally the catastrophe – of May 15th, 1948 when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homeland. This event was originally slated to be held at the Capitol Visitors Center, but Speaker McCarthy blocked the ceremony, per CNN. Tlaib responded with a statement, saying, “Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history and erase the existence and truth of the Palestinian people, but he has failed to do so.” Finally, Bernie Sanders stepped in and facilitated the event in the Senate HELP Committee hearing room.

8. AL.com reports that the Democratic Party of Alabama has abolished the DNC-mandated minority caucuses for youth, LGBTQ, and disabled Democrats. Until now, “those caucuses had the power to nominate at-large members to ensure representation proportionate to Alabama Democratic voters.” State party boss Joe Reed had long opposed theses caucuses, which dilute the influence of the state’s Black caucus on the executive committee. Former Senator Doug Jones, the only Democratic Senator in Alabama since 1997, is quoted saying “What the leadership of the Alabama Democratic Party did — was to essentially say that we don’t represent the Democratic electorate in Alabama anymore.”

9. Kimberly Gardner, St. Louis’s elected prosecutor, is being forced to resign from her position under threat from the Missouri state government, per the Missouri Independent. Gardner, a reformist prosecutor, has drawn ire from conservatives and the police union in St. Louis since her tenure began; this came to a head when the Republican legislature threatened a state takeover of her office. In her resignation letter, Gardner wrote “I can neither enable nor allow the outright disenfranchisement of the people of the City of St. Louis.”

10. The International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America announced on Twitter that the Washington DC Council has passed a unanimous resolution urging President Biden to “dismantle the US blockade” and remove Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list.

We welcome former Writers Guild of America (West) president and current co-chair of the negotiating committee, David Goodman, who also happens to be the head writer for many of your favorite TV shows like “The Family Guy” to tell us why TV and movie writers are on strike. Then, grad students Sandra Oseguera and Jesus Gutierrez stop by to update us on their continuing fight to save the anthropology library at UC Berkeley, a battle that has wider implications for how more and more universities across the country are becoming corporatized. Plus, Ralph highlights some trenchant listener feedback.

David A. Goodman has written for over 20 television series. His best-known work is as head writer and executive producer on Family Guy. He was the president of the Writer’s Guild of America West from 2017 to 2021. In that capacity, Mr. Goodman led the Guild in a campaign to force the Hollywood talent agencies into adopting a new Code of Conduct to better serve the needs of their writers.  Today, he serves as co-chair of the WGA negotiating committee in their strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

These companies that we work for are spending billions of dollars, making billions of dollars on the product that we create. And writers currently (many of them) can’t afford to pay their rent. Can’t afford to live in the cities where they’re required to work. Need to take second jobs. Now, that’s a very familiar situation in labor across this country. And what we’re saying is if these companies are profitable… we need to fight.

David Goodman, co-chair of the WGA negotiating committee

The reason that our strike does have power is because America and the world relies on this product that we create. Those stories that we create are a connection, are a way for people to connect. And because of corporatization some people are losing sight of that, and hopefully this strike will bring them back.

David Goodman, co-chair of the WGA negotiating committee

Let our listeners know that a lot of those programs that they watch on TV or listen to on the radio all over the country are written by the people who are on the picket lines and are pretty mercilessly exploited by the corporate titans that rake off the profits.

Ralph Nader

Sandra Oseguera and Jesús Gutiérrez are graduate students in the Anthropology department at the University of California, Berkeley.  Earlier this year, campus administration announced their plan to close the Anthropology Library, one of only three dedicated Anthropology libraries in the US. In response, stakeholders including students and faculty have organized to demand that the Anthropology Library be protected and fully supported by the University.

We truly disagree with the vision that the administration has for this university, and we believe that it can be different. That this can truly be a public university for students, underrepresented minorities, but also for the public. The public can come here—especially to our library— and be curious, collect knowledge, and have a refuge where they can find themselves in the shelves.

Sandra Oseguera

It has been really inspiring to see our occupation space make our Anthropology Library into the space of encounter and transformation that it is supposed to be. The administration— and the press, to some degree initially— portrayed us as passively occupying, just sleeping and reading in the space. But the reality on the ground has been that the library has become an organizing space. Those of us who are occupying also gather, and then from there we fan out and make plans to go talk to our fellow students, make plans to go confront these core decision makers and hold them accountable for what they are doing to our education, what they are doing to these essential public resources.

Jesús Gutiérrez

We are not chasing symbolic wins. We want a fully functional library. That is what matters to us. And the overwhelming desire of the department, faculty, and grad students is to keep our library open.

Sandra Oseguera

Dear Ralph Nader & Radio Hour Staff,I Hope that you and your families are all doing well. I look forward weekly to your Radio Hour via KPFA.org Mondays 11am-12pm.

I was excited at the beginning of the hour that you were addressing the topic of sports in the U.S.A. By the end of the hour, I was extremely disappointed at the coverage. I have never been disappointed in the years listening to your radio show and otherwise.Neither the staff, your guest speaker, nor yourself, mentioned the state of affairs for women in sports, their unfair disadvantages, lack of equity in competing for sports funding from cradle to grave, competing for funding in infrastructure building of training centers, stadiums…, unfair medi coverage, and lastly focusing on the today’s show coverage, girls and women’s injuries, physical, psychological, whether she plays recreationally, professionally, or is not able to reach her potential due to discrimination against her gender, race, ethnic composition, language/cultural barrier, disability visible and non-visible. Shocking that you did not address sexual harassment, abuse, and rape of female athletes at all levels by coaches and male peers! As well as sexual abuse of boys and male athletes by male coaches and peers! Specially in the light of the well documented but short-lived media stories, selective amnesia, about the sexual abuse and rape of many Olympic gymnastics athletes by their team doctor!!!Concussions are very serious injuries in many sports including but not limited to: football, soccer, baseball, martial arts, boxing, gymnastics, skiing, skating, cycling, surfing, even running slipping and falling on ones head. Serious injuries in many sports are not exclusive to boys and men players! They are definitely not only prevalent in boys and men’s football and baseball only! But as usual, girls and women are not mentioned even in one of the most progressive radio shows in the U.S!!! Shocking and infuriating!How many more centuries will it take for all of you to acknowledge, research, interview, respect, fund, divulge girl and women’s issues, reality, financial inequity, needs, demands, and listen to Her-Story??!!I urge you to have an entire show on girl’s and women’s sports addressing the above points I wrote about and much more.FYI. I follow the news all day. I read papers and online, listen to the radio and follow it on TV. When the sports news section is on, I listen to the first couple of seconds. Undoubtedly and unfortunately, coverage always starts, ends and with boys and male sports and hardly ever over girls and women sports as if we don’t exist and/or don’t play sports at the same rate and intensity!!! Infuriating! So after a couple of seconds, I turn the medium off as a protest and because I can’t bear not being represented!

I am 67 years old and have been, until recently due to health challenges, a serious athlete and played a variety of sports since I was very young. I was born and grew up in Lebanon of a Palestinian athletic father who was a refugee in Lebanon, and an Argentinian artistic mother. I competed in swim competition in Beirut at the age of 9 and on. Started practicing Taekwondo-Do at age 12at the YMCA in Beirut. Practiced 7 days a week about 3-5 hours daily until age 19. I am the first Arab woman receiving a Black Belt in Martial Arts. I also taught Taekwondo-Do to men, women, and children At the YMCA and the AUB.

At age 17 in Lebanon, I was SCUBA Certified by the Lebanese Gov’t via the American University of Beirut’s Biology Department and Diving Club.  

At 19 I had to flee Lebanon due to the deadly and long civil war.In the U.S, among other things, I practiced Taekwondo-Do and Judo. Taught Kickboxing. Did skydiving, swimming, backpacking, camping, spinning, cycling, Tango dancing master classes, practiced and performed Dabkeh Palestinian folkloric dancing, and other sports and activities. When my son turned 10 and I turned 53, him and went on a 278 mile ride across California in 6 days, riding through the most spectacular California scenery, coast, high desert of Anza Borrego, sand dunes, pastures…under the hot sun, sand wind, and rain. The ride of a lifetime!I am writing, briefly, about my life and some of my accomplishments, to bring home to you that this herstory is one of billions that needs to be talked about every day, in all industries, and in all aspects of life and living. My story is different but not unique. Every action, gain, and defeat was earned by working more than double than white men in the U.S. and men in general in other parts of the world. I forge ahead against all odds: Ethnic and gender discrimination, gender and general violence, war, trauma, immigration, poverty, housing and food insecurity, divorce, single motherhood, injuries, chronic and degenerative disease.I urge you to pay attention, and not ignore 52% of the world population. We have the same feelings and get injured at the same rate as men. We are your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, relatives, girlfriends, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, doctors, farm workers, nationals including Native Americans, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, prisoners, governors, and hopefully soon president of an equitable and peaceful  U.S.A nationally and internationally.Sincerely,Randa Baramki

Dear Ralph,

I have to take issue with a few things Shanin Spector stated. I'll confine this comment to one: The advice that no lawyer can afford to take a $250,000 medical malpractice case and at least, implicitly, that elderly people are out of luck if they fall victim to medical malpractice (which is probably the largest demographic that are victims).

Lawyers, even well-seasoned ones with profitable practices, can and do take risky malpractice cases for elderly people for a variety of reasons-even in venues where the jurors are instinctively in favor of local doctors. See, E.g., Cooper v. Hanson, 2010 MT 113, 234 P.3d 59. In fact, most trial lawyers--even good ones-- don't have the luxury of Cherry Picking only multi-million dollar cases. We take risks, which is why we are allowed to charge contingency fees.

A medical malpractice case for an elderly person can be done profitably, although the lawyer is not going to get rich. Most jurisdictions have mechanisms to cut costs and streamline some of the proceedings, at least if you have a good judge. Depending on the facts, you could conduct the whole case for less than $100,000 in legal costs and at any rate, costs are the client's obligation if you win and should only be the lawyer's if he or she loses (Although some lawyers regrettably charge either way. Avoid them if that is what they do).

Moreover, a general statement about pain and suffering damage caps on elder cases needs to be qualified for a variety of reasons. Loss of earning capacity may not be the driving generator of damages. It might be the medical costs and rehabilitation costs, which could run into the millions and hence, would generate millions in damages. Moreover, the presence and amount of caps varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Washington, for instance, has no caps.

I will agree that risks have to be considered. One has to make a back of the envelope determination if the firm, given its financial status, can take the risk. An expensive, complicated case of questionable liability probably could not be considered. On the other hand, a relatively straightforward case with relatively clear liability could be.

A big factor is the seriousness the lawyer pays to his or her duty to perform pro bono work. You are supposed to take cases as part of your duty to the community. You don't always take cases--even risky cases-- to make the big bucks. At least, you should not.

There are benefits other than getting paid a lot. An ambitious young lawyer with a limited practice, but good skills, might jump at the opportunity to go to trial (Though sad to say, many who call themselves trial lawyers do everything they can to stay out of the scary courtroom, but there are some serious trial lawyers too.).

One thing, which was not touched upon, is that an elderly person who suffers the injuries of a medical mistake SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY ANYTHING FOR A CONSULTATION WITH A CONTINGENCY FEE LAWYER. THAT SERVICE IS FREE IN ALL CASES. As should be clear from the above, whether or not the lawyer can take the case depends on the facts and circumstances and there is no charge for telling the lawyer the facts.

I know Mr. Spector qualified his advice near the end of the podcase, but judging from some of the listeners' questions, they got the impression that if you are old and injured by medical malpractice, you were out of luck. I think that impression needs refinement.

Thanks for giving me this opportunity to present my little dissertation. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Spector, but I felt as if a more nuanced response would help your listeners.

Erik Thueson

In conjunction with the American Museum of Tort Law, we conduct another live Zoom recording where Ralph welcomes legendary trial lawyer Shanin Spector to discuss the constitutional right of wrongfully injured people to have their day in court and the corporate forces that are trying to limit this most basic of American principles. Then, Ralph and Mr. Spector take questions from our live audience.

Shanin Specter is a founding partner of Kline & Specter, one of the leading catastrophic injury firms in the United States. Beyond winning substantial monetary compensation for his clients, many of Shanin’s cases have prompted beneficial societal changes. He has also taught law for many years and this academic year is teaching tort and trial courses at UC Law SF, Drexel Kline and Stanford Law Schools.

Last week, I found myself in Washington DC at the Federalist Society debating the resolution that America should abolish the right of trial by jury, which is being advocated by an otherwise distinguished professor at George Washington University School of Law, Professor [Renée Lettow] Lerner… You don’t have to scratch the surface of her argument very much to see that it is based upon the statistics of the American Tort Reform Association and the like. It’s essentially a Trojan horse for the Fortune 500.

Shanin Specter

Why don’t you describe this assault on the tort system by lobbyists who don’t want to argue their case in court— that’s too open, too full of cross-examination, too fair in terms of the procedures. They want to lobby lawmakers in states all over the country so the lawmakers, in effect, enact laws that tie the hands of juries and judges— the only people who actually see, hear, and evaluate the cases in the courtroom.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard

1. The FTC has issued a statement regarding the proposed merger between CalPortland & Martin Marietta. Chair Lina Khan tweeted that this deal “would’ve resulted in a single firm owning half of all cement plants serving Southern California, enabling the firm to hike prices.” Following an FTC investigation, the firms have abandoned the deal.

2. AP reports that Colorado has become the first state to pass “Right to Repair” legislation, which “compels manufacturers to provide the necessary manuals, tools, parts and software,” to “ensure farmers can fix their own tractors and combines.” This idea has drawn support from left and right factions including at the national level. In a similar move regarding home repairs, Senator John Fetterman is pushing to expand Pennsylvania’s "Whole Home Repair" program – which “helps Pennsylvanians with needed repairs and eliminate[s] blight” – to the nation.

3. Former U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó has been ejected from Colombia after attempting to “gatecrash” a summit on the future of the Bolivarian republic, the Guardian reports. Guaidó has fallen out of favor among Venezuelan dissidents and, while some western nations still recognize him on paper as Venezuela’s president – despite never winning such an election – many have quietly reengaged with the Maduro government to negotiate for oil. The Guardian added that Mr. Guaidó has now relocated to Miami.

4. Slate reports that automakers are finally beginning to backpedal on digital displays in cars. David Zipper writes “The touch screen pullback is the result of consumer backlash, not the enactment of overdue regulations or an awakening of corporate responsibility. Many drivers want buttons, not screens, and they’ve given carmakers an earful about it. Auto executives have long brushed aside safety concerns about their complex displays—and all signs suggest they would have happily kept doing so. But their customers are revolting, which has forced them to pay attention.” Zipper goes on to pin the blame for the proliferation of these expensive and unpopular displays on one culprit: Elon Musk’s Tesla.

5. From the Tampa Bay Times: State legislators in Florida are leading a crusade to shred local tenants rights laws, which set standards regarding rent increases, applications and evictions. The recently-passed HB 1417 and its companion SB 1586 would strip away these protections. Rep. Tiffany Esposito, of Fort Myers, who sponsored the House bill, is quoted saying “This bill protects tenants, this bill protects property owners and this bill protects capitalism.” Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville responded “This bill is designed to help corporate landlords at the expense of tenants, many of which are already struggling to stay in their homes.”

6. Ben & Jerry’s announced that it has reached an agreement with workers at its flagship store in Burlington, Vermont on rules to ensure a fair union election, after workers announced last week that they are seeking to unionize, per the New York Times. “The agreement is likely to pave the way for the store to become the only unionized Ben & Jerry’s location in the United States. All of the nearly 40 workers eligible to join a union at the store have indicated their support for doing so.”

7. The Hill reports that a War Powers Resolution to pull U.S. troops out of Somalia, introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, has been defeated. The resolution garnered the support of 47 Republicans and 56 Democrats but failed by a margin of 103-321.

8.  Keeping an eye on out of control cops, the LA Times reports that during a "reverse-buy" sting operation, undercover deputies with the Riverside sheriff sold 60 pounds of meth to a narcotics trafficker. According to the author Noah Goldberg, the dealer then got in a car and fled, resulting in 60 additional pounds of meth being introduced into the community. And in West Virginia, WTRF reports that “42 women, including 10 minors, plan to file lawsuits against West Virginia State Police for [installing] hidden cameras in junior troopers locker rooms…[engaging in] rampant sexual misconduct,” and admitting to destroying evidence in criminal investigations.  

9. From Common Dreams: Reps. AOC and Ro Khanna, along with Senator Ed Markey, have reintroduced the Green New Deal. Along with the resolution, which is unlikely to move in the current Congress, the sponsors released “a guide for cities, states, tribes, nonprofits, and individuals about how to help bring the Green New Deal to life."

10. From the Economic Policy Institute: April 28th marked “Workers Memorial Day, the date the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) took effect in 1971. Signed in 1970, the OSH Act has made a tremendous difference, and, after more than 50 years, over 668,000 workers can say their lives have been saved by its passage… [yet] In 2022, 343 workers died each day on average from hazardous working conditions, and last year’s fatality data show especially troubling trends: The rate of death on the job for Black workers rose to its highest number in more than a decade, and fatality rates for Latino workers have increased 13% in the past decade…grim as these…numbers are, the reality is likely far worse. Government Accountability Office…reports show that a majority of employers fail to report workplace injuries due to [OSHA]’s limited resources and procedures. Official statistics also do not include the untold numbers of worker deaths linked to preventable workplace coronavirus exposure. In fact, the pandemic revealed serious limitations of the OSH Act and its enforcement in an era of eroded worker power and vast economic inequality.”