FEATURING PAWAN DHINGRA – The Covid-19 pandemic has changed so many things about American life. One of the most striking differences for parents is to have to oversee their children’s education and digital connection to schooling. For those parents and children who have felt a growing pressure to succeed, to obtain perfect grades, to maximize ones chances of entering exclusive colleges and universities, the pandemic may be even more difficult. 

But my guest points out in a new book that “Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough” and that the intense world of high-achievement education is not helpful. 

Pawan Dhingra, Professor of American Studies at Amherst College, award winning author of numerous books include Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream. His new book is called Hyper Education: Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough.

The death toll from the coronavirus in the US has officially passed the grim milestone of 100,000. In comparison to the seasonal flu, which kills about 25,000 to 60,000 Americans over the course of a year, the Covid-19 virus has, even with stringent quarantine measures, killed more than 100,000 over just 4 months. The fatalities disproportionately impact communities of color, especially African Americans. Using the District of Columbia as an example, the Washington Post pointed out, “46 percent of residents are black, [and] 76 percent of those who have died of covid-19 were black. In contrast, although the city’s population is 37 percent white, whites account for only 11 percent of deaths.” President Donald Trump, who just months ago claimed the virus would “miraculously” be gone by April made a brief mention of the “very sad milestone” of 100,000 deaths on his Twitter feed. His son Eric Trump instead chose to celebrate the latest stock market bump, tweeting, “GREAT DAY for the DOW.”

In spite of the younger Trump’s excitement, new data show that the US economy is expected to shrink between 5-6% this year and that 2020 will be the worst year for the stock market in a decade. The latest Labor Department data show that an additional 2.1 million Americans filed for jobless benefits last week, bringing the 10-week total unemployed to more than 40 million. On the same day American Airlines announced it would be cutting 30% of its management and administrative staff. Reuters analyzed the CEO pay of several major companies that have furloughed or laid off workers and found that they continued to lavish their executives with massive compensation packages. The companies included Sonic, Build-a-Bear, Red Robin, and Signet Jewelers. Refusing to acknowledge the grim state of the economy, the Trump White House is breaking with decades of precedent in forgoing its traditional economic forecast for the year. The “mid-session review,” as it is called is a document that the White House has produced every year since the 1970s. According to anonymous White House officials Trump will simply not release the projections this year, likely because it will reflect poorly on his reelection. One of the officials speaking to the Washington Post justified the move saying, “we remain in complete accordance with the law as there is no statutory requirement to release this information, just precedent.”

Upset that Twitter dared to fact check his wildly false claims on voting-by-mail President

FEATURING RICHARD WOLFF – Randall Lane, Business writer for Forbes magazine has just published a lengthy article entitled “Greater Capitalism: How the Pandemic is Permanently Reshaping Our Economic System for the Better.” In it Lane laments the fact that too many Americans worry the economy is rigged to benefit the rich but points out that during the pandemic some glimmers of hope in salvaging capitalism lie in the fact that several publicly traded companies were shamed into returning their taxpayer backed loans. He also lauds the philanthropic efforts of billionaires and claimed that “The Invisible Hand is operating on itself with dispatch.” 

What exactly does pandemic-era capitalism in the US look like? 

Read Richard Wolff’s article ‘Capitalism vs. Safety, Health: An Old Story Again,’ HERE.

Richard Wolff, visiting professor at the New School University, New York and professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, author of a number of books including ‘Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism’, ‘Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism’, ‘Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA’, more. He is the host of the nationally syndicated program Economic Update.

FEATURING DAVID ENRICH – One of the world’s largest and most successful banks, Deutsche Bank, has a history that is as sordid as one can imagine. The same bank that has loaned the Trump Organization billions of dollars has bene implicated in aiding terrorist regimes and defrauding investors. Now, that story is told in a remarkable new book.

David Enrich is the Finance Editor at the New York Times. He previously was the Financial Enterprise Editor of the Wall Street Journal, heading a team of investigative reporters. His new book is Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction.

**This segment was originally broadcast on March 13, 2020.

Thousands of people gathered in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Tuesday to protest the brutal videotaped killing of a black man named George Floyd by several police officers. Mr. Floyd was seen pleading on the video recording of the last moment of his life, saying he could not breathe while a white police officer who knelt with his body weight on Floyd’s neck refused to budge for more than 5 minutes. Floyd was pronounced dead at the hospital hours later. Protesters filled the streets of Minneapolis marching for several hours chanting, “No justice, no peace, prosecute the police.”  Police responded to the protests with force firing rubber bullets and stun grenades, and using tear gas as people ran. Many people on social media commented that the violent police response to protests stood in stark contrast to the restraint that police officers in places like Michigan displayed against white pro-Trump, anti-lock down protests over the last several weeks. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey announced ahead of the protests that the four officers involved in the killing had been swiftly fired. Minneapolis police say they will conduct their own internal investigation but the FBI has also apparently begun a probe. George Floyd’s sister Bridgett Floyd spoke out about her brother’s killing in an interview demanding that the officers be charged with murder.

News of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis came on the same day that video of a white woman named Amy Cooper emerged threatening to make a false claim of violence against a black man to New York police in Central Park. Now, a new video of police violence has emerged showing Michigan sherriff’s deputies violently attacking a black woman and her husband, and repeatedly punching her to the ground. Police are justifying the assault that took place in Ypsilanti saying the woman, Sha’Teina Grady El refused to leave the scene of a recent shooting. The officers in question have now been placed on administrative leave and a County investigation has been launched. 

In other news, as the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic continues, child hunger in the US is soaring in spite of a Congressional appropriation to ensure low income children receive free meals. So far of the 30 million children eligible to receive free meals, the needs of only about 15% have been met. According to an analysis by the New York Times most states have not met their targets because of administrative and technological hurdles. Utah turned the money down saying it did not have the financial capacity to distribute the food. The Times remarked, “a country of vast wealth still struggles to feed its young.” Meanwhile renters across the country are expecting to face a wave of evictions as rent comes due even as t...

FEATURING REMINGTON A. GREGG – As US coronavirus deaths edge closer to 100,000, President Trump spent the weekend golfing. The federal government released its strategic national plan on how to tackle the pandemic – a secret document that was more of a report on what states were already doing rather than an actual plan. And, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett in an interview on CNN referred to workers as “human capital stock.” 

All indications from the Trump Administration to American workers is that there is little concern over their welfare as many are forced to return to work with few assurances for their health and safety. It is no wonder that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has received nearly 15,000 coronavirus-related complaints from workers around the country.

Remington A. Gregg, Counsel for Civil Justice and Consumer Rights at Public Citizen.

FEATURING HANNAH BRENNER JOHNSON – In the entire history of the US Supreme Court there have been only four women who have served as justices, three of who, are serving now. Aside from Sandra Day O’Connor, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan, no other women have ever served on this most important of government institutions.

Now a new book explores the lives and careers of those women who had been shortlisted to serve on the court and asks what sort of judiciary and country we would now have had some of these women actually been nominated and confirmed. 

Hannah Brenner Johnson, Vice Dean for Academic and Student Affairs and an Associate Professor of Law at California Western School of Law in San Diego, co-author with Renee Knake Jefferson of the new book Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court.

Christi Grimm, the Principal Deputy Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services testified at a virtual Congressional hearing with the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday Grimm had come under fire from President Donald Trump earlier this year for her report criticizing HHS’s shortages of medical equipment for hospitals as the coronavirus pandemic had begun to spread around the US. Trump had moved to replace Grimm from her position soon after she issued the report – part of a troubling pattern from the Trump administration to oust federal government watchdog officials. House Oversight Committee chair, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) opened the hearing saying, “it is our responsibility to protect inspectors general from political interference.” USA Today explained that, “The Committee’s top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, criticized Democrats for holding a virtual briefing and defended the administration’s handling of Grimm’s report, saying any allegation Grimm was fired for retaliation was ‘incorrect.’”

The Trump administration has turned in a report to Congress about its plan for strategic national testing. The report, which Congress demanded, was turned in on the day of the deadline – this past Sunday. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the 81-page report which is meant to outline the federal government’s plan on tackling the pandemic through systematic testing, tracking, and treatment ahead of states reopening businesses. Lawmakers and state authorities have been demanding the plan for months but the Trump administration refused to release it to the public and instead followed the letter of the law in submitting it to four Congressional committees. The document, according to the Washington Post, “lists the testing targets each state reported to federal officials for May, totaling 12.9 million tests nationwide, rather than laying out goals the federal government is calling on each state to meet.” The plan also states that the federal government is planning on purchasing 100 million swab tests to distribute to states but has given itself until the end of the year to do so.

On Memorial Day weekend, as the New York Times memorialized some of the victims of Covid-19 in its pages, President Trump instead went golfing – and without a mask. He also retweeted a Fox News host’s criticism of his rival Joe Biden over the presidential candidate’s decision to wear a mask during a Memorial Day event with his wife. Trump continued his Twitter tirade attacking numerous female politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and Stacey Abrams and also former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough. And, he threatened to pull the Republican National Convention from its planned location of Charlotte, North Carolina saying that the Democratic Governor Ryan Cooper was in a, “shut down mood.

FEATURING IMANI GANDY – A new documentary by filmmaker Nick Sweeney is causing a massive ruckus in the debate around abortion. The film profiles Norma McCorvey, the woman known as Jane Roe in the seminal Supreme Court case, Roe Vs. Wade that legalized abortion in the United States. Years after the court decision, McCorvey had a very public conversion as a born-again Christian and became an icon of the religious right and anti-abortion movements. 

But in the documentary titled AKA Jane Roe, McCorvey says on camera in the last years of her life, that it was all a lie. She had been financially compensated for switching sides to the anti-abortion side of the debate and was making what she called her “death bed confession” about it. 

Imani Gandy, senior legal analyst for Rewire.News, where she covers law and courts and co-hosts Rewire.News’ podcast Boom! Lawyered.

FEATURING JADE BEGAY – The Navajo Nation currently has the highest rate of per capita cases of Covid-19 infections in the US. The pandemic has hit Indian country hard as it struggles with a lack of resources and staff. A young Navajo teenager went viral recently with his clear and devastating description of how the coronavirus was ravaging his nation within the framework of the history of colonization.   

Jade Begay places the current pandemic plaguing Indian country within the framework of colonization and European germ warfare that devastated tribal nations historically.

Read her article ‘What Indian Country Remembers About Survival – The community care at the heart of Indigenous response,’ HERE.

Jade Begay, Diné and Tesuque Pueblo of New Mexico. She is creative director of the NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power.