FEATURING JODY ARMOUR – The US’s system of mass incarceration and racialized poverty go hand in hand. Black Americans are disproportionately criminalized and fill the prison system. While many on the left-liberal part of the political spectrum chalk this up to a racist justice system, not enough link it to the prevalence of poverty in non-white communities. My guest Jody Armour has written a new book with an explosive title where he makes those links and calls for a rethinking of race, language, justice, and the law. 

Jody Armour, the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America. He is also a Soros Justice Senior Fellow of The Open Society Institute’s Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, and he is the Race and Criminal Justice Correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali. His newest book is called N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law.

The Republican National Convention kicked off in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday in a manner that was starkly different from the Democratic National Convention the week before featuring President Donald Trump on the first day. Trump will apparently address the convention on all of the four days of the convention. Also speaking were Trump’s son Donald Jr., Representative Matt Gaetz, Senator Tim Scott, former UN Ambassador Nikki Hayley and others. The New York Times described the RNC Day 1 saying, “President Trump and his party engaged in sweeping revisionism about his management of the coronavirus, his record on race relations and much else.” The Washington Post called it, “a fire hose of false or misleading claims, mostly drawn from President Trump’s arsenal of falsehoods.” Trump spoke early in the day and repeatedly asked his followers to “be very careful,” claiming falsely that Democrats were engaged in nefarious activity for wanting to use vote-by-mail in a pandemic-era election. He also repeated the demonstrably false claim that the Obama administration had spied on his campaign. 

Among the RNC’s speakers was Kimberley Guilfoyle, whom the Post described as a, “prosecutor-turned-Fox News host-turned Trump surrogate.” Guilfoyle’s speech, which was delivered in the style of a high-energy rally even though she was in an empty room, drew widespread ridicule on social media. She also drew criticism for referring to herself as a first-generation immigrant even though her mother is from Puerto Rico—a U.S. colony, not another nation. And, she painted a bleak and dystopian picture of how the U.S. could turn into California under a Biden-Harris administration. She trashed the state of California where she once lived as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former wife. Also warning against a “socialist utopia” under Biden-Harris was Senator Tim Scott, the GOP’s only black lawmaker in the United States Senate perhaps meaning to say “dystopia” instead. 

The RNC also featured former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, the daughter of immigrants who flat out rejected the existence of racism in the US. Haley also slammed the member nations of the United Nations as a den of “dictators, murderers, and thieves.”  Haley said these words without a hint of irony considering that Trump’s closest allies, Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and others fit her description. Trump’s son Donald Jr. also spoke claiming among other things that Americans could have a perfect life with Trump as president.  Trump Jr. also referred to Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden as, “the Loch Ness Monster of the swamp.” He has claimed over and over again that Biden’s family has benefitted off his political career, even though the Trump family has done precisely t...

FEATURING ANTONIA JUHASZ – The Democratic National Committee ahead of its convention puzzlingly dropped its goal to end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry even as the party has claimed it acknowledges the seriousness of climate change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has supported Representative Joe Kennedy in his bid to unseat Democratic Senator Ed Markey, the co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, in another indication that establishment Democrats seem to be paying only lip service to climate justice. Meanwhile the Republican National Committee has refused to even draft or vote on a party platform, preferring instead to throw its weight behind Trump’s so-called “America First” policies that include artificially propping up the fossil fuel industry. 

Antonia Juhasz is an energy analyst, investigative journalist, and author specializing in oil politics. She is currently a Bertha Fellow in Investigative Journalism working with a global team of journalists on fossil fuels and the climate crisis. She has written for Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, The New York Times, and Pacific Standard and is the author of three books, most recently, Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.

FEATURING KATHERINE STEWART – As the nation hurtles toward arguably the most important Presidential election of our lifetime, the influence and power of the religious right in American politics appears to be coming to a head. President Donald Trump is an unlikely messiah for Christian fundamentalists who seek a roll back of abortion rights, gay rights, women’s rights, secularism and more. 

But perhaps it ought not to surprise us. In her new book that she spent more than a decade researching my guest Katherine Stewart writes, “the religious right has become more focused and powerful even as it is arguably less representative. It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power.”

Katherine Stewart, has been reporting at the intersection of religion, politics, policy, and education for over a decade. She has contributed to The New York Times, American Prospect, Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Advocate, the Guardian, and Religion Dispatches. Her earlier book was The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children and her new book is called The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. 

Louis DeJoy, the US Postmaster General testified to the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday morning in a hearing that focused on changes he has made to the US Postal Service. Democrats accused DeJoy of politicizing mail delivery ahead of a high-stakes election that may be conducted largely by mail, prompting the GOP donor and Trump loyalist to react angrily. Representative Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts in a caustic back-and-forth with DeJoy during a contentious House hearing on Monday where he refused to replace high-volume mail sorting machines back after he had ordered them to be uninstalled. The House on Saturday passed a bill postponing all changes to the Postal Service until after the election. Hundreds of demonstrations took place across the US on Saturday demanding that the postal service be preserved and strengthened. On Monday the Washington Post published an analysis that further complicates the issue of voting by mail, showing that in the 2018 midterm elections, more than half a million mail-in ballots across 23 states were rejected due to, “missed delivery deadlines, inadvertent mistakes and uneven enforcement of the rules.” Such a large number of spoiled votes could, according to the paper, “make a difference in the fall if the White House contest is decided by a close margin.”

The Republican National Convention began on Monday, the week after the Democratic National Convention ended and promises to be a very different affair. Speeding through the bureaucratic processes, RNC leaders re-nominated Mike Pence for Vice President and Donald Trump for President early on Monday. The location of the RNC is Charlotte, North Carolina where hundreds of delegates gathered in person using a high-tech system of testing and contact tracing of the kind that the party has deemed too dangerous for the general public. More than a hundred protesters gathered outside the convention hall on Sunday night and faced pepper spray and arrests by police. In a stark indication of how much Trump has remade the party, Republicans decided to forego drafting up and voting on a party platform and instead resolved to, “enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” Among the RNC speakers are multiple members of the Trump family and a large number of rightwing extremist social media influencers. 

A number of reports of police violence broke over the weekend including a graphic video of a black man in Keno...

FEATURING ANITA WILLS – This year saw a massive burst of popular anger at the racist police violence facing Black Americans. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police, videotaped for the world to see, hundreds of thousands of Americans marched and protested and are still doing so in some cities. The slogan Black Lives Matter became mainstream. Just months ahead of the most important election of our lifetimes, the Movement for Black Lives is launching a Black National Convention a week after the Democratic National Convention wrapped up. 

 Anita Wills, Member of the Electoral Justice Project Roundtable with the Movement for Black Lives. 

FEATURING MARK GEVISSER – It has been only about a decade that same sex marriage in the US has been something we have been able to take for granted. Even though LGBTQ Americans are legally and openly able to serve in the US military there are constant attacks from the right against the modest measures of equality that the community has achieved. 

Worldwide the situation is similar where swift progress on equal rights has gone hand-in-hand with a harsh backlash. My next guest describes this divide as a “pink line,” which he says is, “a human rights frontier that divided and described the world in an entirely new way in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.”

Mark Gevisser, author of A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream, Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir, and Portraits of Power: Profiles in a Changing South Africa. He is also the coeditor of the pathbreaking anthology Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. His journalism and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. His new book is called The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers.

After decades of running for the nation’s highest office, former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden finally accepted the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination. Speaking on Thursday, the fourth and final day of the 2020 Democratic National Convention Biden gave his address from his home state of Delaware and promised to offer a stark contrast from President Donald Trump. While Biden’s speech was lauded by most Democrats, conservatives were also impressed. Long-time Republican pollster Frank Luntz gave Biden high marks for his speech and said, “I do believe that Joe Biden is ahead, and I do believe the challenges for Donald Trump are significant.” Fox News host Chris Wallace said the address was, “enormously effective.” 

Also speaking on the fourth night of the convention were Andrew Yang and Corey Booker both of whom ran unsuccessful bids for the nomination.  Another highlight of the final night of the DNC was Senator Tammy Duckworth who slammed Trump as the nation’s “coward-in-chief.” 

The New York Times analyzed the speaking times for those who got prime spots during the 4-day virtual event and concluded that, “All four nights were dominated by familiar political figures, many of whom have known and worked for years with Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the party’s nominee — and share his center-left ideology.” And, progressive figures like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, “were vastly outnumbered by more establishment-friendly figures.” 

Meanwhile President Trump, seeking to eclipse Biden, spoke at an event in Old Forge, Pennsylvania on Thursday bringing together a few thousand of his supporters and flouting social distancing guidelines. CNN described his speech as, “a blizzard of false claims,” that included assertions that President Obama spied on the Trump campaign, that he opposed the Iraq War, that the Covid-19 pandemic was slowing down, and that he passed the Veterans Choice bill. None of those claims were true. Speaking on Fox News on the same evening, Trump also announced he would be protecting the election’s integrity by sending law enforcement to polls. He said, “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals.” Trump does not have the authority to deploy police to polls. 

In other news, the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faced a Senate hearing on Friday during which lawmakers aggressively questioned him about some of the drastic policy changes he oversaw which are leading to slower mail delivery times and which could delay voting by mail in November. Mr. DeJoy, who is a staunch Trump loyalist, GOP donor, and who has business conflicts of interest with the US Postal Service, assured Senator that, “the Postal Service is fully capable of delivering the nation’s election mail securely and on time.” However,

FEATURING MATT GERTZ – Sean Hannity, the popular Fox News host said on his program in the wake of the Senate report on Russia’s interference in our elections, that just like he’s been saying for years, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Except that exactly the opposite is true. After 3 years Republican and Democratic Senators released a nearly 1,000 page report that not only confirms the findings of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, but goes much further in confirming high-levels of contact between Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives. In fact the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on Thursday attempted to reinstate the indictment of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort based on the damning findings of the report. 

Read his latest article ‘Fox News really doesn’t care about voluminous evidence of Trump-Russia malfeasance,’ HERE.

Matt Gertz, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America and his latest article is called Fox News really doesn’t care about voluminous evidence of Trump-Russia malfeasance. 

FEATURING ZEPHYR TEACHOUT – One of the most jarring trends during the coronavirus pandemic is that Wall Street is booming while Americans are desperately struggling. The wealth of billionaires like Jeff Bezos have dramatically multiplied even as tens of millions of Americans have lost jobs. Companies like Amazon have an outsized power on our society and economy and writing about the massive monopolies that have emerged today is the well-known progressive figure Zephyr Teachout. 

Zephyr Teachout, attorney, political activist, and anti-trust and corruption expert. In 2018 she ran for New York Attorney General and was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. She was part of the team of lawyers that sued Donald Trump for allegedly violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Teachout sits on the board of directors of the Open Markets Institute, and teaches law at Fordham University. She lives in New York City. Her new book is called BREAK ‘EM UP: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money.