FEATURING ELIE MYSTAL – The Democratic National Convention begins on Monday, delayed by weeks because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and switched from an in-person gala in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to a nearly all-virtual event.

 A politically tumultuous year has led up to a convention for a party that has been roiled with internal conflicts over ideology. While the Democrats’ old guard clings to a neo-liberal capitalist, hawkish platform for whom ‘diversity’ is a pretty buzzword, a new generation of energized Americans led by staunchly progressive people of color has attempted to break through. 

 Perhaps nothing symbolizes this internal rift than the DNC’s speakers list which features the hugely popular Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with only a 1-minute pre-recorded speech compared to South Bend, Indiana mayor and failed Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, scoring a prime live-speaking spot. 

Read Elie Mystal’s article “The Democratic Convention Is Shaping Up to Be a Centrist Hoedown,” HERE.  

Elie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent—covering the courts, the criminal justice system, and politics—and the force behind the magazine’s monthly column “Objection!” He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. His latest article in The Nation is called, “The Democratic Convention Is Shaping Up to Be a Centrist Hoedown.”

FEATURING LARRY TYE – Many of us have heard the word “McCarthyism.” But do we know where it came from? Knowing the history of how a junior Senator from Wisconsin led one of the most traumatic political witch hunts in modern American history is a critical lesson for the Presidency of Donald Trump. 

Telling the story of Senator Joe McCarthy and his crusade against “communists” at the height of The Cold War is best-selling author Larry Tye.  

Larry Tye, best selling author of Bobby Kennedy and Satchel, as well as Super-man, The Father of Spin, Home Lands, and Rising from the Rails. He was an award winning reporter at the Boston Globe and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. His new book is called Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy.

**This interview was originally broadcast on July 14, 2020.

President Donald Trump on Friday was found to have requested a mail-in ballot in order to be able to vote remotely in primary elections next week in his new home state of Florida. The Palm Beach County elections department reportedly received the request for mail-in ballots for Donald and Melania Trump signaling that the President’s vociferous railing against universal vote-by-mail was aimed at everyone else but him. A federal judge in Pennsylvania has demanded that Trump offer proof of his claims of voter fraud from voting-by-mail. Former President Obama chimed in saying that Trump is trying to “actively kneecap” and “starve” the postal service. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy broke with Trump and asserted that the GOP would ensure that the Postal Service had the funding it needed saying, “We want to make sure we have an accurate election.” But McCarthy too was openly partisan about his agenda adding, “I think any Republican that gets their ballot in the mail should vote and make sure their vote is counted.”

The President of the Postal Workers Union slammed the actions to hinder USPS’s work as “shameful.” The Postal Service employs about 100,000 military veterans and hundreds of thousands more rely on receiving medication by mail. In addition to withholding the funding that the postal service requires to carry out universal vote-by-mail during the pandemic, Trump’s new appointee as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has disturbingly ordered the removal of hundreds of high-volume mail-sorting machines which contribute to quicker deliveries. Already mail delivery is being delayed with the Department of Veterans Affairs and hundreds of vets reporting that their medications delivered by mail have been seriously affected. Thirty one US Senators wrote a letter to the Postmaster General DeJoy demanding action to ensure prompt delivery of medications to vets. 

As Senators leave for their summer break until September without coming to agreement on a new Covid-relief bill, new indicators show that without another stimulus the economy would continue to sputter. Retail sales slowed in July and are expected to fall even more in August. Reuters explained that, “Economists attributed the increase in retail sales over the past three months to a $600 weekly unemployment benefits supplement from the government, which amounted to almost $75 billion in July. The supplement ended on July 31, leaving economists to expect a decline in retail sales in August.” Meanwhile the stock market is booming, leading some to conclude that, “

FEATURING ROSA CLEMENTE – It’s official—after an excruciatingly long wait the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has chosen his running mate and it’s California Senator Kamala Harris. Harris was one of dozens of women being carefully vetted by the Biden campaign and emerged early on as a strong candidate. She ran for president just months ago when she made one of the strongest challenges to Biden on the debate stage over his positions on racial justice. 

The Oakland born Senator who was once Attorney General of California, had an Indian mother and Jamaican father who were strongly progressive. But Harris has been largely on the center left of most issues. Her appointment as Biden’s running mate has been met with either enthusiastic excitement or extreme derision from liberal and progressive circles. 

 If Biden beats Trump in November Harris will become the nation’s first female, first Black, and first South Asian/Indian origin Vice President.

Rosa Clemente, Journalist, Producer, Political Commentator, Scholar-Activist. Rosa identifies as a Black Puerto Rican woman born and raised in the Bronx, NY. For the last three years she has served as a historical consultant to the forthcoming Ryan Coogler, MACRO and Warner Brothers film,Judas and The Messiah a movie inspired by the life of Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party who was assassinated in 1969. Rosa is also the executive director of the Black Latin@ Organizing project and is currently completing her PH. D at the W.E.B. DuBois Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Rosa was the first ever Black Puerto Rican woman to run for Vice-President of the United States in 2008 on the Green Party ticket. She and her running mate, Cynthia McKinney, were to this date the only women of color ticket in American history. She is also a news correspondent for Rising Up with Sonali.

FEATURING ADAM RUTHERFORD – Most of us living in Trump’s America have that one relative, friend, or neighbor who just can’t help but be a racist. They may be overt in their racism or couch their views in friendlier terms. They may resort to fake news to make their point, or dubious “science.” Given that race is a social construct on the basis of which the dominant skin toned group systematically discriminates against the rest of us based on irrational hatred, fear, or ignorance, how does one argue with a racist?

Adam Rutherford, geneticist, science writer, and broadcaster. He writes for the science pages of the ​Guardian​, and has written and presented many award-winning series and programs for the BBC. He is also the author of ​Humanimal and ​A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. His new book is called How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don’t) Say About Human Difference. 

A New York Times analysis of mortality statistics has concluded that the US has been undercounting deaths due to the coronavirus and that more than 200,000 people have already died from the disease. The analysis was based on a comparison of this year’s death rate compared to last year’s and a calculation to arrive at “excess deaths,” that are most likely attributed to Covid-19. The study comes at the same time as the US had its worst single-day death toll of the summer on Wednesday with more than 1,500 people dying from the virus. In contrast the entire European Union recorded 115 deaths on the same day. To add to the bad news, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Thursday published a study concluding that in the first 2 months of the pandemic New York City lost more lives to Covid-19 than were lost in the same city in the first two months of the 1918 flu pandemic. That disease eventually killed 675,000 people in the US alone and 50 million worldwide.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a dire warning about this fall. In an interview with WebMD Redfield said, “For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against Covid, I’m asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds.” Without following these steps Redfield warned that the US could have, “the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we’ve ever had.” The CDC also issued a new warning over face masks that are outfitted with valves or vents for easier breathing. Such masks do not stop the transmission of respiratory droplets being inhaled or exhaled and as such are not effective. 

Meanwhile as hospitals are overloaded with patients in various Covid-19 hotspots reports are emerging that health workers are being required to work even if they have symptoms of the virus. A survey found that, “roughly a third of those who said they had gotten sick reported returning to work with symptoms.” Nearly a thousand health workers have already died from Covid-19 and it is possible some of those lives were lost because of inadequate Personal Protective Equipment.

The latest Labor Department figures on unemployment show that the number of people seeking jobless benefits last week finally fell below 1 million, after 20 straight weeks at more than a million. The drop was small though, at 963,000 more Americans filing for unemployment even as the CARES Act weekly benefits have dried up in the face of Republican opposition. Vice President Mike Pence boasted on Fox News that,

FEATURING ZACHARY NEUMANN – President Trump’s executive order that was meant to extend a federal eviction moratorium due to the Covid-19 pandemic, actually does very little. While Trump claimed it would, “solve that problem largely, hopefully completely,” others have said it will do nothing to help the tens of millions of Americans who are on the precipice of homelessness. 

Unemployment is widespread and with relief payments expiring and rent payments due the US appears to be on the brink of a massive and housing crisis unprecedented in the modern era.

Zach Neumann, Founder of the Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project, , lawyer whose practice focuses on landlord-tenant, debt collection, and wage dispute cases. He is also a public policy lecturer at CU Denver’s School of Public Affairs and writes about jobs and economic issues at the Aspen Institute.

FEATURING JEFF SCHLEGELMILCH – Months into a global pandemic of staggering proportions we are living in what could be viewed as not just a disaster but a “mega-disaster,” one that we as a society were ill-prepared for in terms of infrastructure and economy. Disasters such as devastating earthquakes, terrorist attacks, industrial accidents, or nuclear war are so terrifying that our human psyche may be ill equipped to imagine the scale of the resulting crisis. But in order to be resilient we must prepare. 

Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He previously worked for the Yale New Haven Health System Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response and the Boston Public Health Commission. Author of the new book Rethinking Readiness: A Brief Guide to Twenty-First-Century Megadisasters. 

Democratic Presidential candidate and presumptive nominee Joe Biden has finally announced his Vice Presidential selection and it is California Senator Kamala Harris. Biden had taken an extraordinarily long time to make a decision with dozens of candidates and a very detailed vetting process. He had made clear he wanted to pick a female running mate and faced pressure from advocacy groups demanding that he choose a black female VP. His choice of Harris—the daughter of an Indian woman and Jamaican father—appeared to satisfy several demands for racial and gender representation while protecting him from Republican accusations of being anti-police, anti-Wall Street, or anti-Israel. Harris, the former California Attorney General faces accusations from the left of being too easy on abusive police, and on big banks and mortgage lenders while she held that role. She has also faced criticism of being too pro-Israel as a Senator. Harris, who was also a presidential candidate alongside Biden had initially endorsed Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All plan which Biden vehemently opposes but is largely favored by the public. She had quickly backtracked and then offered a watered-down version of the bill. Still, others on the left, such as academic and historian Manisha Sinha, author of “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition,” lauded Biden’s choice of Harris in a New York Times op-ed. Dr. Sinha compared Harris to Barack Obama saying they both, “represent the cosmopolitan, interracial democracy that a majority of Americans aspire to live in today.” Fox News host Chris Wallace proclaimed that Harris “doesn’t do any harm” to Biden’s chances in the November election. Biden and Harris planned a joint speaking event in Delaware on Wednesday, after raising a record number of small donations in the wake of his VP announcement. 

In other election news, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar just won her first primary challenge 2 years after becoming one of the two first Muslim American women in Congress. Omar, a Somali American former refugee, has faced attacks from Republicans as well as the center right of the Democratic Party. She handily defeated a well-funded Democratic opponent named Antone Melton-Meaux. Omar is considered one of the “squad” of 4 freshmen progressive and outspoken congresswomen of color elected in 2018. All four, including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib beat back primary challengers this year. 

FEATURING STUART APPELBAUM – Two employees of a Trader Joes grocery store in Manhattan were attacked by shoppers in late July after they were asked to wear a mask as per store policy. One shopper ripped the worker’s mask off while the other pulled a worker’s hair and threw baskets at them. According to the Washington Post, “Using a wooden paddle, typically meant to help direct the flow of traffic at cash registers, they began pummeling another employee over the head,” so much so that the worker had to be hospitalized. 

In an era where essential workers are already underpaid but expected to risk their lives to provide us service, they are also now expected to face the wrath and violence of mask refusers. 

Stuart Appelbaum, Executive Vice President of UFCW and President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).