The third night of the Democratic National Convention featured several party stars and heavy hitters, most notably former President Barack Obama, who issued his most scathing and brutally honest critique of Donald Trump so far. President Trump, clearly rankled by Obama’s criticism, anger-tweeted several times in capital letters during the speech. Obama’s Secretary of State and the winner of the popular vote in the 2016 Presidential race, Hillary Clinton also addressed the virtual gathering warning Americans of the importance of voting. California Senator Kamala Harris made history in becoming the first Black, first Asian of any major party to accept the Vice Presidential nomination, and the second woman (after Geraldine Ferraro) to accept the Vice Presidential nomination for the Democratic Party. Here is part of her speech. On Thursday, the fourth and final night of the convention, Joe Biden will accept the Presidential nomination. Hoping to upstage Biden, Trump announced a plan to speak at an event in Pennsylvania outlining his rival’s failings. 

Trump’s former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been arrested on charges of fraud along with three other men. New York federal prosecutors charged the group with misusing millions of dollars raised from a private crowdfunding campaign to finance the President’s pet project of a border wall with Mexico. Although all four claimed their group “We Build the Wall” would be run by volunteers, Bannon and his colleagues spent significant portions of the money on their own personal use, using shell companies and fake invoices to try to hide the paper trail. According to the Washington Post, “Bannon…was taken into custody off the coast of Westbrook, Conn., while aboard a 150-foot yacht owned by his friend, Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui — who is wanted by authorities in Beijing on charges of fraud, blackmail and bribery.” Trump has distanced himself from Bannon and the project but just one year ago the President’s son Donald Jr. appeared as a special guest at a speaking event hosted by We Build the Wall and lauded their efforts saying, “What you guys are doing is amazing.” The group also offered autographed copies of Trump Jr.’s books in exchange for donations. 

A federal judge just ruled that Trump must turn over 8 years worth of personal and business tax returns to the New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in a case involving investigation of potential criminal activity by the Trump organization. The president’s lawyers are likely to appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court – the second time the case would go before the nation’s highest court. 

Trump on Wednesday

FEATURING CHUCK COLLINS – As the coronavirus pandemic devastates the nation with more than 170,000 deaths so far and widespread economic collapse, Congress remains deadlocked on providing a lifeline to the tens of millions of unemployed Americans. 

Now, a new report shows that the wealthiest Americans have not just remained immune to the crisis but have thrived during it. The richest 12 billionaires in the nation now have a combined wealth of $1 trillion. 

According to the report’s author Chuck Collins, “This is simply too much economic and political power in the hands of twelve people. From the point of view of a democratic self-governing society, this represents an Oligarchic Dozen.”

Find out more at www.inequality.org and access the new report here.

 

Chuck Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He has written a number of books including 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It, and Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good. He is the author of a new report, “Twelve U.S. Billionaires Have a Combined $1 Trillion

 

FEATURING SHAUN RICHMAN – The coronavirus pandemic brought new attention to the role of low-wage labor in the United States. While most Americans were quick to praise the courage of so-called “essential workers” and call them heroes, few questioned why those working to keep us alive and fed were not earning living wages. Fewer still linked the poor state of labor rights in the US to the waning power of unions. 

Now, a new book has issued a fierce call for workers to understand the limits of organizing under existing models and laws and demands a new way of thinking about union organizing, how to expand unions, and make them more politically powerful. 

Shaun Richman, author of Tell the Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century. Richman spent a decade and a half as a union organizer and representative. He is the Program Director of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies at SUNY Empire State College. His writing has been published in The American Prospect, In These Times, Jacobin, The New York Daily News and the New York Times.

This interview was originally broadcast on 06/23/2020.

Former Vice President Joe Biden was formally nominated for President by the Democratic Party on Tuesday evening on the second day of a virtual convention. The nomination process began with a virtual roll call that toured around the nation with individuals, some well-known and some not so well known offering their support of the presumptive nominee and culminated in Mr. Biden and his wife Jill thanking the party and its members. Mr. Biden will formally accept the Democratic Party nomination for President on Thursday.

Among the DNC’s Day-2 speakers was the popular congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who, in a taped addressed, seconded the nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders as per the standard convention process. Mr. Sanders had earned enough delegates (1,073) during his presidential campaign to be formally nominated. Ocasio-Cortez’s highly anticipated and brief speech lauded the social movement that she represents and that is energizing the party. Later she slammed the NBC network for its late night tweet implying she had snubbed Biden with her nomination of Sanders when in fact she was simply carrying out the standard convention nominating process at the DNC’s request. NBC had posted a tweet that it later deleted saying, “In one of the shortest speeches of the DNC, Rep Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden.” According to AOC, as she is known, NBC caused an, “incredible amount of damage and misinformation.” She has indeed endorsed Biden.

Other DNC speakers included Single Payer activist Ady Barkan who made the case for electing Biden as a path toward healthcare for all. Also speaking was former State Secretary, General Colin Powell, a Republican who served under the George W. Bush administration and who endorsed Biden as a tough “commander-in-chief”—in contrast with Trump who he did not name. PLAY VIDEO. That’s former State Secretary Colin Powell, one of several anti-Trump Republicans invited to speak at the DNC. Also among the speakers was former President Bill Clinton, who has spoken at every party convention since 1980. Many commentators felt that in the wake of the #MeToo movement that has made it less acceptable to tolerate sexual abusers, Clinton’s presence at the DNC was unnecessary and harmful. Clinton stands accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick and has more recently been linked to convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. On Wednesday evening, Day 3 of the DNC, speakers include former State Secretary and Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as well as former

FEATURING: LATOSHA BROWN – As the first night of the Democratic National Convention wrapped up, former First Lady Michelle Obama’s closing speech of the night was the highlight. Judging from the angry string of tweets that President Donald Trump unleashed against Ms. Obama the following day, it appears she struck a chord when she said, “he cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”  

The DNC also embraced the Black Lives Matter movement in featuring Philonese Floyd, the brother of George Floyd killed at the hands of Minneapolis police. But did the party go too far in inviting Republican politician John Kasich to speak, who promised that the presumptive nominee Joe Biden would not veer left? 

 

Find out more at www.blackvotersmatterfund.org. 

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter

 

FEATURING DR. AMY COHEN – The issue of immigrant family separation gained widespread attention in 2018 and is seen as one of the cruelest hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidency. Thousands of Americans marched and protested angry over the stories of young children ripped away from their parents. Lawsuits were filed, legal decisions were made, policy changes were announced. 

And yet, there are still stories of brutal treatment of immigrant children under Trump. Not only is the government continuing to detain unaccompanied children and deport them back to the dangerous conditions they fled from, some remain separated from their parents. The Covid-19 pandemic in particular has provided cover for the on-going abuses. 

Find out more at www.EveryLastOne.org

Dr. Amy Cohen, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Every Last One. She is also a child and family psychiatrist who has spent much of her career addressing the psychological trauma issues of vulnerable populations of children and families and focuses on asylum-seeking children

The first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening was widely viewed and featured most prominently the former First Lady Michelle Obama in an 18-minute taped address. While President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning denounced Ms. Obama’s speech as “divisive,” most observers gave her high marks. Obama spoke on Monday evening on the first night of the nearly all-virtual Democratic National Convention which is expected to formally nominate Joe Biden for President with his running mate Kamala Harris on Thursday. Also speaking on the DNC’s first night was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders whose Presidential candidacy in 2016 and 2020 came closer to garnering the nomination than any candidate second to the actual nominee. 

Republican politician John Kasich also spoke, garnering praise from those who see winning over anti-Trump Republicans as essential, and criticism from others who saw his presence as alienating. Kasich’s speech was four times the length that the hugely popular New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been alloted. Earlier on Monday Buzzfeed News published an interview with Kasich in which he criticized Ocasio-Cortez saying, “People on the extreme, whether they’re on the left or on the right, they get outsized publicity that tends to define their party. …because AOC gets outsized publicity doesn’t mean she represents the Democratic Party.” Ocasio-Cortez called out Kasich’s anti-abortion policies saying, “something tells me a Republican who fights against women’s rights doesn’t get to say who is or isn’t representative of the Dem party.” She is scheduled to speak on Tuesday evening, the second night of the DNC. Also speaking on Monday night were family members of George Floyd, the slain African American man in Minneapolis whose killing at the hands of police sparked the latest uprising against racist police brutality. 

On the same day the former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor who served under Trump for 2 and a half years was featured in a prominent ad by the group Republican Voters Against Trump announcing his support for Joe Biden. Taylor also published an accompanying op-ed on the same topic in the Washington Post expanding on how Trump “tried to turn DHS…into a tool used for his political benefit.”

In other news, the US Senate after 3 years has finally released the results of its probe into Russian interference in the 2016...

FEATURING PAUL SONG – The Democratic National Convention has begun and now through Thursday will feature a stellar cast of politicians and popular Democratic-Party supporting figures. It will even feature registered Republicans like former Ohio Governor John Kasich.

But, unlike previous party conventions this one will be held almost entirely online—because we are in the midst of a historic pandemic that has claimed more than 160,000 American lives and resulted in the loss of employer-based insurance for tens of millions of people. Expanding the federal government’s Medicare program to cover all Americans has long been a popular idea and still—in the middle of a devastating pandemic, the Democratic Party refuses to endorse the idea as part of its platform.

 

Paul Song, a board-certified radiation oncologist. He is co-chair of the Campaign for a Healthy California, and is on the board of Physicians for a National Health Program. Paul is also the Healthcare Correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali

FEATURING NICOLE MOORE – This past weekend rideshare app users received a text on their phones saying, “Lyft here: Rideshare is at risk of shutting down next week in California. Learn more,” and it pointed to a website created by Lyft that claimed to give riders, “the facts on Prop 22.” That rideshare corporations like Lyft and Uber are directly lobbying their customers to influence a ballot measure is an indication of the desperation they feel. After the state legislature passed a bill last year requiring that drivers working for these wealthy corporations ought to be treated as employees and not contract workers, the industry has fought tooth and nail against it. Proposition 22 on this November’s ballot seeks to overturn the state law. 

Find out more at www.drivers-united.org

 

Nicole Moore, Part time Lyft Driver and Member of the Leadership Organizing Committee of Rideshare Drivers United

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has summoned lawmakers back to Capitol Hill cutting short their summer break in order to discuss President Donald Trump’s attacks on the US Postal Service and its ability to carry out universal vote-by-mail for the November 3rd election. In explaining her logic, Pelosi wrote a letter to her colleagues on Sunday saying, “In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central… Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said Trump’s actions amounted to, “a crisis for American democracy.” Trump claimed on Fox News that, “I want to make the post office great again,” in defending the changes that his Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy—a staunch Trump loyalist—has been making. Appearing to break with the president Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We’re going to make sure that the ability to function going into the election is not adversely affected…And I don’t share the president’s concerns.” Democrats announced that they have requested top Postal Service appointees including DeJoy to address their concerns next week at an August 24th hearing in front of the House Oversight Committee. 

The Washington Post summarized DeJoy’s changes saying that he, “banned postal workers from making extra trips to ensure on-time mail delivery and cracked down on overtime hours. Localities across the country have struggled with USPS backlogs of up to a week, hamstringing local businesses and delaying the arrival of crucial mail items, including prescription medications, Social Security checks and bills.” Additionally, the Postal Service is removing hundreds of high-capacity mail sorting machines, as well as removing public collection boxes from states such as California, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Montana. Later USPS said it would stop the removals until after the election. Angry about these changes, protesters picketed outside Mr. DeJoy’s house in Washington DC early on Saturday morning using noise-makers in the early hours of the morning.

Meanwhile voters in North Carolina bizarrely received absentee ballot request forms with Trump’s face on them, paid for by the Trump reelection campaign. One registered Republican voter who plans to not vote for Trump told CNN, “”The irony is very thick and definitely not lost on me…Trump has been saying mail-in ballots will bring fraud to the election but absentee ballots are legit. Which is it? It can’t be both ways.”

In other news, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration was using a private security and transportation company called MVM Inc. to transport and hold undocumented children at major hotel chains befor...