President Donald Trump announced on Monday morning that his administration had negotiated a bi-lateral trade agreement with Mexico as part of efforts to reconfigure NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Agreement. In a move that appeared to snub Canada, the third nation party to NAFTA, Trump made the surprise announcement saying that Canada could join later, “if they’d like to negotiate fairly.” Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland is cutting short a trip to Europe in order to fly into Washington DC on Tuesday. Her spokesperson released a statement saying, “We will only sign a new NAFTA that is good for Canada and good for the middle class,” and that, “Canada’s signature is required.” Many are urging caution as the bi-lateral deal between the US and Mexico still has many uncertainties including over tariffs that Trump imposed on Mexican steel. The US Congress and lawmakers from Mexico and Canada would still have to vote to ratify any deal to formalize it.

As part of his announcement on NAFTA Trump attempted to call Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on the phone in front of reporters. Mexico’s leader has had strained relations with the US since Trump took office over his border wall and inflammatory racist language against Mexican immigrants. But on Monday none of that tension was apparent as Trump gushed over the phone in full view of cameras. Here is part of his conversation with Peña Nieto. The conversation ended on a bizarrely affectionate note. 

On Monday Trump welcomed Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to the White House for an official visit. Mr. Kenyatta’s visit comes as his nation’s highest court invalidated his election after allegations of widespread problems. Here is President Trump welcoming the Kenyan leader. 

The real estate company of Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner has been fined more than $200,000 by the city of New York for filing more than 40 fraudulent construction applications for rental properties that the company ran while Kushner was at the helm. The fine was the result of an investigative report by AP that found, “the false paperwork allowed the Kushners to escape extra scrutiny designed to stop landlords from using construction to make living conditions for low-paying, rent-regulated tenants unbearable and get them to leave.” With low-rent tenants being replaced by higher income renters, the building in question ballooned in value and last year the Kushner Company sold it for nearly twice as much as it paid two years earlier.

The shooter at the online gaming tournament in Jacksonville, Florida has been found to have had a history of mental illness. Twenty four-year old David Katz who killed two people and wounded nine others before killing himself, had apparently been institutionalized and was at the center of a post-divorce battle between his parents about 10 years ago. This is what authorities said on Monday about the incident. 

Investigators in Phoenix, Arizona said on Monday that officers involved in a videotaped beating of a black man should not face charges. Officers with the Mesa Police Department were seen on film repeatedly punching Robert Johnson simply because he did not sit down when ordered to do so.

FEATURING RONI GENA AND MARGARET KATCH – Although one in three American women will have an abortion in their lifetimes, most people in this country think abortions happen far less often than they actually do. Polls also show that most Americans think abortion is a dangerous procedure – more so than childbirth – even though that is not at all true.

A big part of the problem is that abortions are deeply stigmatized in our country thanks to the work of the anti-abortion movement – and Hollywood has largely fueled that stigma through plotlines that repeatedly show women considering abortions and then deciding against them.

Now, a web-based TV series that has gained widespread acclaim and won awards hopes to de-stigmatize abortion – through comedy. Roni Geva and Margaret Katch are the co-creators of the abortion comedy “ctrl alt delete,” and are hoping to successfully crowdfund the second season of their show.

For more information about the show go to www.ctrlaltdeleteshow.com and for information about their crowd funding campaign, visit www.facebook.com/ctrlaltdeleteshow.com.

Roni Geva and Margaret Katch, Co creators of ctrl alt delete.

FEATURING BOBBY LEWIS – President Donald Trump on Saturday once again attacked his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying on Twitter, “Sessions said he wouldn’t allow politics to influence him only because he doesn’t understand what is happening underneath his command position.” He went on to repeat his usual criticisms of the Special Counsel’s investigation into wrongdoing in the 2016 election.

The President appears to be caught in the center of a legal net that is closing in around him after days of bombshell news reports from Robert Mueller’s investigation. The reports include Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker being granted immunity after Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen took a plea deal; and Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort being convicted on 8 counts of fraud.

Now Media Matters for America has analyzed media coverage of the latest in the Mueller probe and found that most of it fuels Trump’s narrative of the investigation being a “witch hunt.”

Read Lewis’s analysis HERE.

Bobby Lewis, researcher at Media Matters.

FEATURING RENÉE PARADIS – The defeat of top Democrat Joe Crowley in New York by a Puerto Rican Latina named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is likely the biggest upset of the primary election season. Although Ocasio-Cortez ran as a Democrat, her membership in the group Democratic Socialists of America has drawn much attention to an organization that seems to be churning out strongly progressive and electable candidates for office.

In fact DSA membership has swelled across the country, especially since the 2016 Presidential candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders who identifies as a democratic socialist.

Rising inequality in the US appears to have transformed the word “socialist” from taboo to acceptable. So today we’ll examine what the DSA is, their current political strategy, and why they are seeing such phenomenal growth.

Renée Paradis, member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and a member of the DSA’s National Electoral Committee, she is also a lawyer who has worked with the Brennan Center for Justice and the ACLU.

**This segment was originally broadcast on June 28, 2018.

FEATURING YALE STROM – The popularity of politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders, and so-to-be Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has underscored the openness of Americans to the S-word. Socialism is no longer a dirty word in the US and more Americans, especially young people who are burdened with debt and struggling in this economy, are eager for a nation that tends more socialist.

Now, a new documentary profiles the Presidential candidate who, more than a century ago, inspired masses of Americans to consider socialism as a preferable alternative. Eugene V. Debs was a democratic socialist and trade unionist, and helped to found the Industrial Workers of the World as well as the American Socialist Party. He ran for President five times starting in 1900 and was arrested for his anti-war views. Many, including Senator Sanders credit Debs for inspiring them today.

For information about the movie visit www.firstrunfeatures.com, www.yalestrom.com, and for Educational Institutions visit www.kanopy.com.

Yale Strom, violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright. His new documentary is called ‘American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs’.

**This segment was originally broadcast on July 9, 2018.

FEATURING PAUL EHRLICH – A routine part of American childhood has become orthodontic care and the possibility of braces. But is orthodontic care a modern phenomenon for which there was no need in earlier generations of humans? A new book called simply Jaws, contends that our industrialized world has changed how children breathe and eat and led to a rapid evolution in oral development. The results are not crooked teeth and the requirement of braces, but epidemic levels of poor sleep, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, and more.

Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 best seller The Population Bomb, Bing Professor of Population Studies Emeritus and President of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. He is co-author with Sandra Kahn of the new book, ‘Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic’.

**This segment was originally broadcast on July 5, 2018.

FEATURING DR. ENRICO GNAULATI – A new study by Blue Cross Blue Shield of America has found that in the period between 2013 and 2016 there was a whopping 33% spike in diagnoses of major depression in the US. The American Psychiatric Association has also found an increase in anxiety levels in the US over the past year.

Despite these dangerous trends there has been a drop in mental health services, specifically in the availability of psychotherapy. Despite the effectiveness and safety of talk therapy, there has been a growing reliance on alternative cures such as chemical anti-depressants and cognitive behavior therapy.

A new book shines a light on this trend and hopes to reverse it.

For more information about his book, visit www.gnaulati.net.

Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, psychotherapist and author of Saving Talk Therapy: How Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Slanted Science are Ruining Good Mental Health Care.

**This segment was originally broadcast on March 21, 2018.

FEATURING MARK HERTSGAARD – The American Cancer Society says on its website that, “Radio frequency waves given off by cell phones don’t have enough energy to damage DNA directly or to heat body tissues. Because of this, it’s not clear how cell phones might be able to cause cancer. Most studies done in the lab have supported the idea that RF waves do not cause DNA damage.”

Indeed the idea that cell phones cause cancer is generally accepted as an assertion of conspiracy theorists. Now, an in-depth investigative report by The Nation magazine has found that since the 1990s cell phone industry representatives have sought to hide the link between certain forms of brain tumors and cell phone use.

Read Mark’s Nation magazine cover story called ‘How Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe: A Special Investigation’, HERE.

Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation’s investigative editor at large, author of seven books that have been translated into sixteen languages, including On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency. His most recent books are Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden and Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth. His Nation magazine cover story is called How Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe: A Special Investigation.

**This segment was originally broadcast on August 2, 0218.

FEATURING REBECCA BURNS – The US long ago outlawed debtor’s prisons through rulings by the Supreme Court and laws by Congress. Yet an ACLU report called A Pound of Flesh: The Criminalization of Private Debt concludes that millions of Americans are threatened with jail over debts they cannot pay, and thousands are actually jailed. The debts can arise from mistakes and bank errors and can be incredibly low amounts.

Through a web of aggressive and poorly regulated debt collection practices and lower courts eager to incarcerate, low-income people of color are disproportionately targeted.

While the federal government is supposed to protect Americans from being imprisoned over the inability to pay off debts, investigative reporting revealed that President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner himself engages in aggressive debt collection from renters of his properties in Baltimore, Maryland.

Read Rebecca’s article ‘How Lenders are Turning Low-Level Courts into Dickensian “Debt Collection Mills,’ at The Intercept HERE, and download the ACLU report ‘A Pound of Flesh: The Criminalization of Private Debt’, HERE.

Rebecca Burns, award-winning investigative reporter and a contributing editor at In These Times. Her work has appeared in outlets including The Baffler, the Chicago Reader and Dissent. Her new article just published in The Intercept is entitled How Lenders are Turning Low-Level Courts into Dickensian “Debt Collection Mills.”

**This segment was originally broadcast on March 1, 2018.

FEATURING HANNAH COMSTOCK – The ACLU of Southern California has filed a class-action lawsuit against Riverside County for a bizarre student disciplinary program called the Youth Accountability Team or YAT.

Founded more than 17 years ago, the YAT is run by the Riverside County Probation Department and was apparently meant to help at-risk youth stay in school. But the program’s punitive measures end up criminalizing children for such things as bad grades and acting out.

The suit was filed on behalf of three young people who have been targeted by the program as well as a youth mentoring program called Sigma Beta Xi which works with youth of color in Riverside. Not surprisingly the Riverside County YAT program disproportionately targets black and brown children.

Many have denounced YAT as facilitating the school-to-prison pipeline. The ACLU goes further calling it “oppressive” and “unconstitutional.”

Hannah Comstock, Attorney with ACLU, Loyola Law School Postgraduate Public Interest Fellow.

**This segment was originally broadcast on July 18, 2018.