The news that the Trump administration plans to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's offices and the future implications of Trump's energy policies on the environment and climate led to my concern about how it will affect my children and grandchildren and yours. Because I didn't understand what all the implications could be and what we could do about it, I invited David Cain from the Citizens' Climate Lobby to talk with us about the organization, what it does, and how he became active in the CCL. We talked about what the Citizen's Climate Lobby is and its mission, its climate solutions and how to volunteer.Links:Citizens' Climate Lobbyhttps://www.citizensclimatelobby.orgPodcastshttps://www.youtube.com/@CitizensClimateLobbyMonthly Speakershttps://www.citizensclimatelobby.org/monthly-speakersWrite Congress to Protect NOAAhttps://community.citizensclimate.org/tools/protect-noaa#/152/Write Congress to defend the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) climate provisionshttps://citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action/protect-climate-ira/

One cannot turn on the news on TV or read a newspaper without hearing the words - Constitutional crisis. There's so much confusion about whether we are in a Constitutional Crisis or not, Professor Alexandra Keyssar rejoined the podcast to help us understand what a Constitutional crisis is and whether we are in one.Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy. An historian by training, he has specialized in the exploration of historical problems that have contemporary policy implications. His book, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (2000), was named the best book in U.S. history by both the American Historical Association and the Historical Society; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. A significantly revised and updated edition of The Right to Vote was published in 2009. His 1986 book, Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts, was awarded three scholarly prizes. Keyssar is coauthor of The Way of the Ship: America's Maritime History Reenvisioned, 1600-2000 (2008), and of Inventing America, a text integrating the history of technology and science into the mainstream of American history. In addition, he has co-edited a book series on Comparative and International Working-Class History. In 2004/5, Keyssar chaired the Social Science Research Council's National Research Commission on Voting and Elections, and he writes frequently for the popular press about American politics and history. Keyssar's latest book, entitled Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? (2020), is published by Harvard University Press.

WE AT SPECIFICALLY FOR SENIORS WILL CONTINUE TO JOIN AS MANY GROUPS AS POSSIBLE, MONITOR THEIR APPEALS TO THE PUBLIC. AND BRING THEM TO YOU IN WHAT WE LIKE TO CALL SPECIFICALLY FOR SENIORS ACTION CASTS. WE WILL PRESENT THEIR VIDEOS, SUMMARIZE THEIR THOUGHTS AND PROVIDE IDEAS FROM THESE GROUPS AS TO HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE. WHEN POSSIBLE WE WILL PROVIDE LINKS TO WAYS YOU CAN EASILY PARTICIPATE IN THE SHOW NOTES SO BE SURE TO CHECK THERE.WE WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN THESE ACTION CASTS DROP, SO WATCH FOR THE NOTICE ANNOUNCING A SPECIFICALLY FOR SENIORS ACTION CAST. WE WILL PROVIDE LINKS TO WAYS YOU CAN EASILY PARTICIPATE IN THE SHOW NOTES SO BE SURE TO CHECK THERE.TODAY ON ACTION CAST FROM SPECIFICALLY FOR SENIORS A VIDEO FROM C.A.P - THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS, ATAMERICANPROGRESS.ORG - A PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ABD ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION WHIUCH PRESENTS A LIBERAL VIEWPOINT ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES. CAP IS HEADQUARTERED IN WASHINGTON DC. THE ISSUE TODAY IS THE SAVE ACT. MORE INFORMATION IS IN THE SHOW NOTES AND AT CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS https://www.americanprogress.org

SHOW NOTES

THE SAVE ACTFROM https://www.americanprogress.org

“This act would force every single American citizen to prove their citizenship status in person when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. For the vast majority of Americans, this would mean presenting a passport or birth certificate at their local election office. This SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise millions of U.S. citizens: 146 million Americans do not have a passport, and 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name. Working-class and low-income Americans would also be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill became law, as the vast majority of these groups do not possess a passport. The only Americans who stand to benefit from the SAVE Act are out-of-touch politicians who are willing to trade Americans’ right to vote for political points with the media and the administration. These politicians are trying to use claims of election integrity to trick us into making it harder for millions of eligible American citizens to cast their vote. Tell Congress to protect your rights by voting no on the SAVE Act.”

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

https://www.americanprogress.org

From Indivisible.org

"The House and Senate are heading home for recess from March 15-23 -- and they are desperate to avoid you.Why? Because during the last recess, the few Republicans who dared to hold town halls got absolutely wrecked by their own constituents. People showed up. They demanded answers. They called out their Members of Congress for gutting Medicaid, slashing Social Security, and letting President Musk seize control of federal systems with zero oversight. In the days that followed, we saw those same Republicans start to get very nervous about their complicity and their plan to slash very popular programs like Medicaid.Republican leadership took notes. Now they’re telling their members to dodge town halls altogether. They know that if voters see what they’re actually doing -- selling out the country to billionaires while shredding programs that millions rely on -- it will be politically devastating."

ACTION LINKS

• ⁠⁠Call Senate Republicans⁠⁠ -- If they’re gutting Medicaid and Social Security, they should say it to your face.
• ⁠⁠Call House Republicans⁠⁠ -- They’re looting the government for billionaires. Make them explain why.
• ⁠⁠Call Senate Democrats⁠⁠ -- They must hold the line against extreme MAGA cuts and demand real guardrails to protect against the Trump-Musk coup.
• ⁠⁠Call House Democrats⁠⁠ -- They need to hear from us. No deals. No blank checks. No business as usual.

There's an old Joke:

What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?

The answer: I don't know and I don't care.

That pretty much sums up the way many of us feel right now.

This podcast was recorded in mid- February, 2025 about a month after the inauguration of Donald Trump. In the few short weeks of his second term as president, he has fundamentally changed most of which we older adults have long considered the basis of our democracy - freedom of the press, birthright citizenship and three equal branches of government. He is attempting to cut off aid to foreign countries, drastically alter our concerns about climate change, pardon convicted insurgents , more than decimate

the FBI and CIA, change the way we approach public health concerns, annex foreign countries, allow a select group of billionaires to make drastic changes to the way our government works and even wage war on paper straws.

We re frustrated about our seeming lack of ability to do anything about it and to make our voices heard. So I invited Sam Daley-Harris, author of "Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen's Guide to Transformational advocacy" to help us learn how to make a difference.

Throughout the last three years, Specifically for Seniors has attempted to bring conversations of interest, importance and just plain fun to you, our listeners. We have talked with artists, politicians, authors, physicians, historians, journalists, comedians, biologists, retirement experts, political activists and other podcasters.

But in our more than 90 podcasts, we have never become actively involved in attempting to change our world. The current president and his sycophants, however, have forced Specifically for Seniors to change direction. We older adults must make our voices heard to create a better life for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and beyond.

Specifically for Seniors hereby issues call to action, urging older adults to accept our responsibility as advocates to work toward transformational change in our communities, government , our world and in ourselves

Important Links:

⁠Sign Up to Stay in Touch or Learn More⁠

⁠Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen's Guide to Transformational Advocacy⁠

⁠Whitehouse Comment Line⁠

⁠Indivisible⁠

⁠Moms Demand Action⁠ 

⁠Citizen’s Climate Lobby⁠

⁠Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)⁠

⁠RESULTS.org⁠

To be honest I should have titled this podcast -Surviving the Podcast Guests.Tune in and you'll understand why I said this.

We've just been through an historic election and so we asked Bob Levey, a prize winning journalist who has covered the Washington scene since the Johnson administration to talk with us about it.

We talked about Bob's early years at The Washington Post and his currect column on the Senior Beacon Newspapers. Bob and I discussed the recent election, the job that both print and media did in covering the days up to the election, Bezos' refusal to endorse Harris and the problem with print endosements in general, the freedom of the press in the Trump administration and making peace with the election. On a lighter note, Bob talked about the game of bridge, folk singing and his novel, Larry Felder, Candidate.

This podcast was recorded during the part of the year in which the holiest of Jewish holidays takes place. It seemed appropriate to take some time to remember those of us who were lost during the Holocaust, but a part of the Holocaust many of us know little about,

This podcast contains a film by John Pollick:

(From the film's web page - https://www,beyondbabiyarmovie.com)

"Babi Yar, or Babyn Yar, is a ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine. On September 29th and 30th, 1941, Nazis forced 33,771 Jews into it and shot them.

The Nazis continued their campaign of mass shootings of Jews well beyond Babi Yar, extending through Ukraine, Belarus and other parts of Eastern Europe. This is how the Holocaust began. Although Nazis later engaged in industrialized killing, mainly in death and concentration camps in occupied Poland, an estimated 2.4 million, or 40%, of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust died by shooting. They lie in thousands of mass graves across Eastern Europe, most of which, to this day, are unmarked, unprotected and desecrated. 

The mass shootings occurred primarily in Ukraine. In Ukraine alone, it is estimated that 1,500,000 to 2,100,000 Jews were shot at approximately 2,000 execution sites across the country. The majority of these sites are unmarked and neglected, and the names of nearly half of the victims in them are unknown.

John Pollick is a lawyer in Illinois. The families of his maternal grandparents, immigrants from what is now Ukraine, were among the shooting victims. In 2014, after decades of searching for the mass grave in his grandmother's hometown, he learned that an organization called Yahad-In Unum had located it. He also learned that it was one of five sites, among thousands, selected to be protected and memorialized through a project called "Protecting Memory". In 2015, he and his daughter attended the dedication of the memorial there. While there, he learned of the full extent of the mass shootings and the profound neglect of both the execution sites and the shooting victims themselves.

Returning home, Mr. Pollick found that, like himself before "Protecting Memory", Americans were not properly educated about the shooting victims and their neglected graves. In 2019, to address this void, he returned to Ukraine to make a film showing the reality of these forgotten victims and their graves, as well as the changing attitudes of Ukrainians regarding them. These changing attitudes include a growing willingness to remember and honor these marginalized victims, and bury them with dignity. The process of doing so, however, has barely begun. Hundreds, if not thousands, of execution sites across Ukraine and Eastern Europe will be forever forgotten, together with the Jewish victims in them, unless these efforts are greatly and immediately expanded.

The purpose of the film is to educate viewers about these forgotten Holocaust victims and their neglected graves, and inspire action regarding them. After 80 years, it is time to finally address this enormous historical and humanitarian injustice in an open and comprehensive way, and begin to restore to the millions of shooting victims the dignity and respect they have been so long denied."

After the film, John and I talk about John's family's relationship to the killings, his involvement in making the film, and why he felt it was important to make the film. He also questions from members of the audience who viewed the film at Orchard Cove, a senior residence in the Boston area.

According to Senator Bob Casey, the ranking member of the special committee on aging , "The right to vote is one of the fundamental pilars of our democracy, but that right is under attack for millions of older Americans across the nation. Attempts to limit voting locations, the length of early voting periods, inaccessible voting locations, and new, strict voter identification laws threaten the hard won voting rights of older Americans."

So we invited Attorney Joan Bondareff to be our guest on Specifically for Seniors today to explain what can be done to make it easier for older adults to register and vote.

Attorney Bondareff is Special Counsel at Blank Rome Government Relations,LLC. She primarily focuses her practice on marine transportation, and environmental, regulatory and renewable energy legislative issues. Joan served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School and as an adjunct professor at American University/Washington College of Law and is a  member, American Bar Association Center for Excellence in Elder Law and Dementia.

Joan and I discussed the importance of the senior vote, the barriers to voting, specific issues for seniors in nursing facilities, congressional actions and what we can do to help older Americans to vote.

We all get them - those momentary lapses when we can't recall someone's name, why we came into a room or where we left the car keys. We call them senior moments, but are these moments inevitable or limited to seniors?