FEATURING MARCY WINOGRAD – Three centrist Democratic candidates for President dropped out of the race for their party’s nomination over three consecutive days. Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar announced their withdrawals on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday respectively after poor showings in the first four primary races of the year. 

So far Klobuchar and Buttigieg have announced they will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden who won his first primary on Saturday in South Carolina. But Biden’s win there was his first primary victory over multiple runs for the Presidency. Despite his single win, polls show that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is likely to win several states on Super Tuesday.

Now there is evidence that Democratic Party insiders are planning for a so-called “brokered convention” this summer at the DNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dozens of superdelegates have already said in interviews they will not support Sanders. Sanders’ backers vow major protests. 

Marcy Winograd, co-founder of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, blogger LA Progressive, former congressional peace candidate.

FEATURING MATTHEW HOH – The US has just signed a deal with the Afghan Taliban in Doha, Qatar, culminating years of peace talks in the first step toward drawing down the longest official war the US has ever fought. Last year just as a deal was about to be signed, President Donald Trump backed out at the last minute saying that the Taliban needed to draw down the violence before being entrusted with a US deal. 

On Saturday, when US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad signed the deal with a Taliban leader, it was after an agreed-upon 1 week of lower levels of violence. 

The deal is supposed to lead to a withdrawal of US troops form the country within 14 months. But will it really lead to an end of the war? Or for that matter peace? 

Matthew Hoh, member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace, and World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the war there by the Obama administration. 

The Democratic field of candidates continued to narrow with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar on Monday announcing the end of her candidacy and endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden. She plans to attend a rally alongside Biden on Monday night. Klobuchar on Sunday was forced to cancel her rally in St. Louis Park in her home state after activists protested her prosecution of Myon Burrell when he was only 16 years old. Chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Free Myon” they claimed that Burrell was unjustly sentenced to life in prison for the fatal shooting of an 11-year old girl. PLAY VIDEO. 

Klobuchar’s exit comes on the heels of former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg withdrawing on Sunday after coming in fourth in the South Carolina primary race. A day earlier, billionaire Tom Steyer dropped out of the race  after a disappointing third place finish in South Carolina. Former Vice President Joe Biden won that race as was widely expected, with 48.4% of the vote. Following him, Senator Bernie Sanders won 19.9%.  Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren drew even fewer votes than Mr. Steyer and Mr. Buttigieg, coming in fifth place with only 7.1% of the vote. But that didn’t stop her from giving a fiery speech on Saturday night. Despite her fourth consecutive loss she appeared determined to stay in the race and even swiped at her colleague and her ideologically closest ally Senator Sanders. PLAY VIDEO. That’s Senator Elizabeth Warren attempting to distinguish herself from Senator Sanders after losing her fourth primary race. 

Meanwhile billionaire and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg also faced protests at the historic Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama when about 9 people stood up during his address and silently turned their backs to him. The act was apparently in response to Bloomberg’s legacy as Mayor in pushing for the racist police profiling practice called Stop and Frisk. Just days ahead of Super Tuesday the Senator from Vermont appears to be staying strong with two back to back events in San Jose and Los Angeles, California that drew a combined total of 25,000 people. Bernie Sanders’ Los Angeles event on Sunday night was a joint appearance with the legendary rap group Public Enemy. Sanders polling higher in California than any other candidate and has the potential to walk away with all 415 delegates unless one of his rivals can break the requisite 15% of votes. Sanders’s campaign announced that it raised $46.5 million in donations in February alone – a record high for any of the 2020 candidates. Senator Warren also had a decent haul in February, coming in second with $10.4 million.

In other news, the coronavirus scare continues around the world – and here in the US as well – with deaths surpassing

FEATURING BRENDAN QUINN – The role of money in our electoral system is well-symbolized by the fact that we have a billionaire in the White House and two billionaires vying to run against him. 

The two moneyed Democrats Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, have both funded their own races themselves, because why not? They do not need to rely on voter support because they have a nearly limitless supply of campaign cash at their disposal. 

Add to that how billionaires are funding so-called Super-PACs, and we see a significant skewing of the electoral process. 

Brendan Quinn, Outreach and Social Media Manager with the Center for Responsive Politics.

FEATURING ONNESHA ROYCHOUDHURI – The battle for the Democratic nomination for President is officially approaching its peak as candidates scramble to win over the hearts, minds, and ballot preferences of liberal voters. People of color in particular, who tend to vote for Democrats, are a powerful force during their party’s primary races and as the American electorate becomes less white, their position in the general election is also critical. Even President Donald Trump is enthusiastically campaigning for black votes. 

Onnesha Roychoudhuri, writer, editor and educator. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, Boston Review, The Nation, American Prospect, Salon, and Mother Jones. She is the co-founder of Speech/Act, an organization working at the intersection of storytelling and social justice. Her latest book is called The Marginalized Majority: Claiming Our Power in a Post-Truth America.

The World Health Organization has raised its threat level over the new coronavirus strain spreading across the world from “high” to “very high.” WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday at a press conference explained his reasoning. The virus has now been detected in 60 countries, with more than 83,000 infected and 2,800 deaths. Outside China and South Korea, Iran appears to be most impacted with high level government officials being diagnosed including Iran’s deputy health minister. According to AP, “a visibly pale official sat only meters (feet) away from President Hassan Rouhani and other top leaders before she too reportedly came down with the virus.” There have been 34 deaths so far and 389 confirmed infections. In Italy, there have been 650 infections with 17 reported deaths. Germany reports nearly 60 cases of infection, Mexico has now confirmed its first two cases, and so has Nigeria – the first reported case to be found in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Here in the US, a senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking whistleblower status after revealing that HHS workers greeted evacuated Americans from Wuhan, China, without proper training or protective clothing and gear. Wuhan is the epicenter of the Covid-19 virus. According to the Washington Post which first reported the story, “The whistleblower is seeking federal protection, alleging she was unfairly and improperly reassigned after raising concerns about the safety of these workers to HHS officials, including those within the office of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.” The whistleblower is a high-level official who has been recognized for her work at Health and Human Services with numerous awards. Concerns are growing that Donald Trump’s administration is ill-equipped to deal with a global pandemic like this one. Referring to himself in the third person, the President tweeted on Friday that the infection is spreading, “very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY.” He claimed that Democrats were unfairly blaming him. However in the state of California alone, Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed that there are now 33 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the US’s most populous state. There are reports that US schools are being prepared for the virus with school administrations canceling trips and reconsidering perfect attendance awards. 

Ahead of South Carolina’s primary race on Saturday a new poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden still ahead of his rival Presidential candidates but his lead has once more narrowed. After two polls earlier this week showed him leading by double digits,

FEATURING STEPHEN ZUNES – As fear mounts among establishment Democratic Party leaders of a potential Bernie Sanders nomination for President, the idea persists that only a centrist who can appeal to right wing voters can win. To illustrate that idea pundits often invoke the Democratic Party’s 1972 nomination of the progressive candidate George McGovern who lost to incumbent Richard Nixon. 

In fact the Wall Street Journal recently asked if “history is in the process of repeating itself, as many center-left Democrats fear, with Sen. Bernie Sanders assuming the mantle of Sen. George McGovern, the furthest-left presidential nominee in modern history. The parallels between McGovern’s policies and political game plan and those of Mr. Sanders are striking.”

Read Dr. Zunes’ article in Truthout ‘Sanders Is Not Another McGovern. I Know – I Worked on McGovern’s Campaign,’ HERE.

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He also serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also an associate editor of Peace Review. His latest article in Truthout is entitled Sanders Is Not Another McGovern. I Know – I Worked on McGovern’s Campaign.

FEATURING LAWRENCE LESSIG – As the Presidential election looms large the many flaws in the US’s system of democracy come up in conversation as they do every few years. Primary elections are often flawed and patchwork. The general election’s electoral college system effectively undermines the votes of certain state residents. Partisan gerrymandering and attacks on our voting rights again undercuts democratic power. Campaign finance rules are deeply skewed to allow undue influence from moneyed interests. 

And still there are pathways to reclaiming our democracy as outlined in a recent book by Lawrence Lessig called They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy. 

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, host of the podcast Another Way, founder of equalcitizens.us, and co-founder of Creative Commons. He has written many books including his latest They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy.

**This segment was originally broadcast on January 28, 2020.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening addressed reporters at the White House briefing room – only the second time he has done so as President – and announced that Vice President Mike Pence would be in charge of the nation’s response to the coronavirus scare. Trump also claimed that financial markets were volatile, not entirely because of the disruption by the Covid-19 virus but also by the Democratic candidates debating one another on stage on Tuesday. It is notable that the market first fell precipitously on Monday – 24 hours before the debate. The stock market continues to fall and rise through Thursday morning. Meanwhile a special adviser to the director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, said in an interview that Trump’s remarks on the White House response to the coronavirus were, “a little incoherent.” Dr. Emanuel added, “You know, [Trump’s] a guy that admitted that he’s surprised that 25,000 to 69,000 people each year die of the flu. That just tells you how little he actually knows about public health and about the health of the American public…He just revealed how ignorant he is about the situation. We don’t know how similar or dissimilar this is to the flu.”

Mr. Pence during the White House press briefing on Wednesday touted his leadership as Indiana governor. But critics expressed skepticism and fear at Trump’s decision to put Pence in charge. The Washington Post explored how Pence dealt with a serious public health crisis that he oversaw as Governor of Indiana: “The worst HIV outbreak in the state’s history happened on his watch in 2015, which critics blamed on Pence’s belated response and his opposition to authorizing a needle-exchange program.” And, “As cases spiked, Pence reportedly turned to prayer.” Congressional Representative of New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “Mike Pence literally does not believe in science. It is utterly irresponsible to put him in charge of US coronavirus response as the world sits on the cusp of a pandemic. This decision could cost people their lives. Pence’s past decisions already have.” Meanwhile a new case in Sacramento County, California has emerged of a patient contracting the infection with no known contact with another infected person. It is possible the person may have come into contact without their knowledge with someone recently returning from overseas who was infected. The patient was reportedly not tested for several days even after showing symptoms because. Alex Azar, Health and Human Services head, told Congress on Thursday morning that any vaccine developed to tackle the coronavirus would be accessible to the public. A day earlier he had maintained that he could not guarantee all Americans would afford it.

FEATURING DR. PAUL SONG – Donald Trump’s Administration has remained immune from legal challenges, an impeachment trial, and even public opinion. But the spread of the new coronavirus strain has reportedly sent the President into a fit of panic – not as much over the disease’s impact on people but on the stock market. Trump’s continuous claim that his Presidency has ushered in a new and unprecedented era of prosperity is at stake.

But the virus has continued to spread and led to a dire warning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here in the US. At Tuesday night’s debate Democratic candidates were asked how they would combat the disease. Separately moderators asked Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders about the cost of his Medicare for All plan – a question that is repeated in every single debate – but no one connected the coronavirus to the need for universal healthcare.

Dr. 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.