Your Call

This week, Brandon Johnson, a progressive, former teacher, and union organizer, defeated former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas to become the next mayor of Chicago.

On this edition of Your Call, we speak with two doctors who treat shooting victims and study the epidemic of gun violence in the US.

Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of public health at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, says the damage from an AR-15's bullet is almost indescribable. It creates gaping holes. It liquefies organs. It is rarely survivable. In the ER, she mostly sees handgun injuries from suicides, domestic violence, and community violence. "Regardless of the gun used, the way a bullet rips through a body is similar to the way gun violence tears apart a community.”

Dr. Bindi J. Naik-Mathuria, chief of pediatric surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch, also treats gun violence victims. For 200 days, she thought her five-year-old patient might die after he was struck by a stray bullet from a gunfight outside of his apartment. He made an incredible recovery. Dr. Naik-Mathuria told the Houston Chronicle that on some days, he is the reason she goes to work.

In 2021, Dr. Naik-Mathuria received a grant from the CDC to study the epidemiology of firearm injuries in Harris County, Texas. She says gun violence is a public health problem that will benefit from a public health approach and solution.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the latest from Tennessee after House Republicans moved to expel three Democrats for joining gun control protests on the House floor. The three Democrats have already been stripped of their committee assignments.

Last week, Justin Kanew, the founder of The Tennessee Holler, an independent media outlet, asked Tennessee Republicans what they are going to do to stop gun violence. Almost everyone ignores him or refuses to answer.

Over the past week, Nashville students, parents, teachers, and community members have taken to the state Capitol to demand gun control after last Monday's Covenant School shooting, which left three nine-year-old children and three adults dead. The 28-year-old shooter fired 152 rounds and gained entry to the school by firing through the building's locked glass doors, according to Nashville police.

Yesterday, school walkouts took place in over 100 cities, according to Students Demand Action.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss last night’s progressive victory in Wisconsin. Wisconsin voters flipped majority control on the state’s Supreme Court from conservative to liberal for the first time since 2008. It was a huge victory for Judge Janet Protasiewicz. The pro-choice judge won by 10 points.

As today’s guest Ari Berman reports, last night’s results will give progressives their best—and perhaps only—chance to roll back the GOP’s decade-plus efforts to undermine democracy in the state, like the heavily gerrymandered maps that have locked in enormous Republican majorities in the legislature and a series of laws that have made it harder to vote.

Later in the show, we’ll look at the makeup of judges across the country. President Biden has appointed 105 federal judges, outpacing Trump, Obama, and Bush, according to ABC.

On this edition of Your Call, we're speaking with the creators of Uncuffed, a show made by people behind bars in California prisons.

Last summer, a team of the show’s formerly incarcerated producers attended the world’s first International Prison Radio Conference in Oslo, Norway, and toured their unique and progressive prison system.

Governor Newsom recently announced that San Quentin State prison will be converted from a maximum-security prison into a rehabilitation and education facility modeled after the Norwegian system.

Newsom plans to turn the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center into the final stop of incarceration before individuals are released by 2025, with a focus on job training for trades, including plumbers, electricians, or truck drivers, the Los Angeles Times reports.

What can California learn from Norway’s example?

The latest IPCC report warns that "deep, rapid and sustained" cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.

Texas Observer, the independent and progressive publication, will remain open after the staff’s GoFundMe campaign raised over $300,000.

It's been one year since the Taliban closed girls' schools in Afghanistan. This week, girls' education activist Matiullah Wesa was arrested in Kabul.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss what we learned from Wednesday morning's US Senate committee hearing called “No company is above the law: The need to end illegal union busting at Starbucks."

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz agreed to testify after the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee threatened to vote on whether to subpoena him. Democrats, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, asked Schultz about his role in illegal union-busting, which was cited by the Committee, his refusal to show up to the bargaining table, and workers’ rights. Republican Senators defended Schultz.

According to the HELP Committee, the National Labor Relations Board has filed over 80 complaints against Starbucks for violating federal labor law and there have been over 500 unfair labor practice charges lodged against this company. These violations include the illegal firing of more than a dozen Starbucks workers for "the crime" of exercising their right to form a union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Nearly 300 Starbucks coffee shops have unionized, despite an aggressive and illegal anti-union campaign waged by Starbucks under the leadership of Howard Schultz.

Schultz denies the allegations. Starbucks declined to join today's

On this edition of Your Call, we continue our series on the US invasion of Iraq, 20 years later.

In a recent piece for the Guardian, Iraqi poet, novelist and scholar Sinan Antoon writes: "I had always hoped to see the end of Saddam’s dictatorship at the hands of the Iraqi people, not courtesy of a neocolonial project that would dismantle what had remained of the Iraqi state and replace it with a regime based on ethno-sectarian dynamics, plunging the country into violent chaos and civil wars."