FEATURING NAOMI BURTON AND NICK HAYES – Television entertainment and media has entered a new hey-day. The advent of digital streaming technology has made it cheaper and easier for content creation and distribution. Now a crowd funding campaign for a new digital video streaming venture has a tantalizing message to set itself apart from its competitors. Means TV wants to be the, “anti-capitalist on-demand digital streaming platform.”

Founders Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes promise that “Means TV will never have advertisers or corporate investors,” and that, “We’ll be funded the old-fashioned way: by viewers like you.”

Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, creators of Means TV, known for their viral ad that helped to catapult the candidacy of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has formally announced his candidacy for President, ending months of speculation. In a 3-minute video posted to social media on Thursday Biden made the case that the 2020 election was about “the battle for the soul of the nation.” He centered his announcement around the neo-Nazi and white supremacist gathering in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, calling out President Trump’s response.  The 76-year old career politician is coming under criticism for taking a leadership role in the Democratic Party in the 1980s and 90s promoting mass incarceration and the “war on drugs.” He has also faced charges being a war hawk in the push to invade Iraq.  And, most recently come under fire from women for inappropriate touching and kissing but had dismissed the accusations and even made light of them.  Just hours after the announcement Biden was expected to attend a big donor fundraiser for his campaign hosted by corporate Wall Street bigwigs including executives from the telecomm giant Comcast and the health insurance company Independence Blue Cross.

The group She The People organized a major Presidential summit on Wednesday in Houston, Texas where 1,700 largely women of color gathered to watch candidates respond to a slew of questions. Accepting invitations to the summit were Senators Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, and Elizabeth Warren, as well as former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke, former San Antonio, Texas mayor Julian Castro. Senator Sanders, who has emerged as a frontrunner faced a challenging question from hosts Joy Ann Reid and Aimee Allison about how he planned to win over black women voters.  Here is Senator Kamala Harris being asked about immigration. 

Amnesty International released a major report on Thursday about US-led massacres of more than 1,600 civilians in Raqqa, Syria from June to October of 2017. The report, entitled, “Rhetoric Versus Reality in the War in Raqqa,” is based on a detailed months-long documentation and analysis of the devastation in an area that the US and its allies bombed indiscriminately in order to oust the Islamic State. The report explained how, “Four months of relentless bombardment reduced homes, businesses and infrastructure to rubble. Civilians were caught in the crossfire in a city that had become a death trap. IS snipers and landmines prevented them from fleeing, while the Coalition’s air bombardments and reckless artillery strikes killed them in their homes.”  Whole families were wiped out and the US has yet to acknowledge its role or the extent of the loss of life.

In other international news Russian Presid...

FEATURING PETER BALAKIAN – Tens of thousands of people marched to the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles on Wednesday April 24th, the day that Armenians commemorated the 104th anniversary of the genocide. The yearly March for Justice is organized by LA’s Armenian community – the largest group of Armenians outside Armenia, and this year, as in the past, marchers are demanding a recognition from Turkey of the genocide and its role.

The Armenian Genocide is the massacre of a million and a half Armenians at the hands of Turkish forces in 1915. The use of the term “genocide” is highly controversial for Turkey, which has denied its role. But naming the mass killings as a genocide has been a deeply emotional issue for the Armenian community both inside Armenia and in the diaspora.

Peter Balakian, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, author of several poetry collections, and the author of the prize winning 2003 book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. He is a Professor in Humanities and Professor of English at Colgate University. In addition to winning a Pulitzer,he has is the recipient of many awards and prizes and civic citations including a Presidential Medal and the Moves Khoranatsi Medal from the Republic of Armenia, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

FEATURING CHERRÍE MORAGA –  The United States today is grappling with becoming a majority minority nation, leading to a growing fear among white supremacists of a loss of power. Our varied pasts, instead of being considered part of the nation’s rich diversity, turn into targets of hate.

We turn next to the famed feminist Cherríe Moraga who has just written a moving memoir of her mother, Elvira, a Mexican American woman who moved across the border and whose story is part of the beautiful and complex fabric of America.  

Cherríe Moraga, Chicana feminist, playwright, poet, essayist, activist, co-editor of the 1981 ground-breaking collection of essays, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. She co-founded Kitchen Table Press with Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith. She was Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University for decades and now teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her new book is called Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir.

President Donald Trump was shielded from plans to counter Russian interference in the 2020 elections, news reports revealed today. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly requested former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to not raise the issue in front of Trump. As head of Homeland Security it was one of Nielsen’s most critical tasks to thwart any foreign interference attempts in US elections. According to the New York Times Mulvaney, “made it clear that Mr. Trump still equated any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory. According to one senior administration official, Mr. Mulvaney said it ‘wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below his level.'” The report was based on testimony from, “three senior Trump administration officials and one former senior administration official.” Meanwhile Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday dismissed the depth of Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election. During a conference in New York this is what he said.  According to the Times, “Facebook estimated that Russia-backed ads and social media posts reached 126 million Americans during the election, only about 10 million fewer than voted in 2016.”

The other major social media company Twitter – the one that Trump relies on most heavily to spread his messages – is also in the news. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and several other Twitter executives are now known to have secretly met with Trump to discuss, “protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections.” The meeting became public only after Trump himself tweeted a photo of it on Tuesday. A leaked internal email from Dorsey to Twitter employees revealed that he believes meeting with the President, “bridges gaps and drives towards solutions.” Twitter has come under intense criticism for enabling Trump to spew hateful messages that violate their own standards. Twitter’s response has been that blocking Trump would not be a good idea because it would, “hide important information people should be able to see and debate.”

The IRS broke a second deadline on Tuesday to hand over President Trump’s tax returns to House Ways and Means Committee chair Richard Neal. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote to Mr. Neal saying he, “cannot act upon your request unless and until it is determined to be consistent with law.” But critics have pointed out that there is a very straightforward section of the federal tax code that Neal’s request is based on, leaving little room for discretion. Still, Mnuchin, who has pledged to protect Trump in the past, said he would make a final decision about the tax returns by May 6th, “after receiving the Justice Department’s legal conclusions.” Democrats accused the Trump administration of “lawlessness,” and may hold Mnuchin in contempt of Congress or issue a subpoena for the tax returns.

On Wednesday Trump, seemingly cornered by Democratic attempts to hold him accountable railed to reporters about the various subpoenas he was facing.  Earlier on Wednesday morning he ranted on Twitte...

FEATURING KELLY PERCIVAL – Hearings began at the Supreme Court on Tuesday over a critical question of whether the government can ask citizenship status of residents as part of the 2020 US Census. So far the conservatives on the court – who hold a majority – appear inclined to include the question.

The Trump administration has made including the citizenship question a central part of its anti-immigrant agenda. Critics have fought back saying it will sow fear in communities and is deliberately designed to undercount undocumented residents. States are appropriated federal funds based on population and those states with high numbers of undocumented residents may lose funding.

Eighteen states, a number of US cities, and immigrant rights organizations have led the legal challenge to the inclusion of the citizenship question in what is being considered the Supreme Court’s highest profile case this term.

Kelly Percival, Counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program. 

The death toll from the suicide bombings on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka has jumped to 321. As the first funerals began to be held at the church where nearly a third of the victims were killed, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks. The terrorist group’s news outlet published the names of seven suicide bombers and called them “Islamic State fighters.” They also said that the bombings were in retaliation for the massacre of 50 people in Christchurch, New Zealand where a white supremacist shooter targeted mosques. ISIS also said it targeted foreign nationals in Sri Lanka hailing from those countries battling the Islamic State in the Middle East. Sri Lanka’s government is also under fire for not acting on information that churches would be targeted.  

Here in the United States the man identified as the leader of the armed militia group United Constitutional Patriots in New Mexico, was apparently planning assassinations of President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros, and that the FBI knew about the plans in 2017. Larry Mitchell Hopkins was arrested over the weekend after news reports emerged that his group was detaining asylum seekers near the border at gunpoint. The details of his assassination plans were revealed when he appeared in federal court on Monday. According to the New York Times, Hopkins,“had so many run-ins with the law that his police record stretched across much of the United States.” The Times also said, “The F.B.I. also did not specify why agents waited to arrest Mr. Hopkins after finding his home awash in guns in 2017.”

Across the border in Mexico, Central American migrants faced a massive raid by Mexican police on Monday that led to the detention of hundreds of people including women and children in the state of Chiapas. Those who escaped spent the night in the woods and remain fearful. According to Associated Press, “Mexican immigration authorities said 367 people were detained Monday in what was the largest single raid so far on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year.” Additionally AP journalists reported seeing “police target isolated groups at the tail end of a caravan of about 3,000 near Pijijiapan, wrestling migrants into police vehicles for transport and presumably deportation as children wailed.” One Honduran man named Javier Núñez who is traveling with his family said, “They were hunting us…Now we are afraid of everyone who looks at us or approaches.”

A Federal appeals court has refused to release former whistleblower Chelsea Manning from jail, rejecting her appeal. Manning has been held in contempt of court since March 8th for refusing to testify against Wikileaks or its founder Julian Assange. According to Shadowproof.com which has closely followed her story, “Judges for the appeals court offered no explanation as to why they believed a lower court committed no error in finding Manning in civil contempt. They also provided no reasons for why it was justified to keep Manning in jail.”

The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn requiring him to turn over documents and give public testimony about President Donald Trump’s conduct as revealed in the Special Counsel’s report.

FEATURING DAVID MARPLES – Ukrainians voted in elections and chose comedian and television star Volodymyr Zelensky as their new President. Zelensky’s landslide win over incumbent Petro Poroshenko is indicative of a mass dissatisfaction in Ukraine. In his concession speech Mr. Poroshenko said, “I personally and my entire team is ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with the president in all his decisions that benefit Ukraine’s national interests.”

Zelensky is known for playing the role of President on television. But the newly elected leader, who has never before held office, will have to contend with a long list of contentious issues including dealing with Russian aggression on its border.

David Marples, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada, specializing in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.

FEATURING AMY WESTERVELT – A terrifying new study about Greenland’s ice sheet has found that the rate of melting is four times greater than it was 16 years ago. If all of Greenland’s ice sheet melts – a clear result of global warming – it will mean a 23 foot rise in sea levels, submerging Florida’s southern tip.

The good news is that a record number of Americans now believe human-caused global warming is a thing. A Yale University poll found that 72% of Americans acknowledge the reality of climate change – a large swing from previous years. Perhaps it is because the evidence is all around us from wildfires in California to deadly hurricanes multiple times a year.

But what if this collective realization has come too late? We have lost precious decades due to inaction fueled by well-funded efforts to deny climate change. Today we’ll examine who has led those efforts and why.

Read Amy Westervelt’s Washington Post’s article HERE.

Amy Westervelt, audio and print reporter covering climate and gender. Her podcast Drilled is about the creation and spread of climate denial and her first book “Forget ‘Having It All'” was published by Seal Press in November 2018.

**This interview was originally broadcast on January 24, 2019.

The city of Los Angeles is home to thousands of oil wells and refineries, many of them found near homes, schools, parks, places of worship and hospitals. They harken back to the 1890s when the city discovered some of the most productive oil fields in history. As its population grew, the borders between oil producing zones and residential neighborhoods disappeared. The wells release toxic emissions causing debilitating health problems especially in front-line communities living closest to them.

A grass-roots coalition called STAND-LA has been fighting for the rights of Angelinos to breathe clean air. Last week, following a city council hearing, the coalition held a rally outside City Hall in downtown LA. Dozens of allies came to support their demands – which include instituting a 2,500-foot health and safety buffer around oil wells, plus a phase-out plan of existing oil and gas operations in those neighborhoods, as well as a just transition toward renewable energy.

Rising Up senior producer Anna Buss attended the rally and produced this report as part of our Earth Day Special programming, and our ongoing series Rising Up In the Streets.