Out D'coup Podcast

This week I welcome Karen Feridun back to the show. Karen is the founder of Berks Gas Truth and co-founder of Better Path Coalition. The Better Path Coalition are the organizers for the PA Climate Convergence this coming fall. We'll be talking about a summer filled with record-breaking heat, flooding, and climate catastophie. We've seen ocean temperatures that have surprised scientists, heat that broke records by a significant margin, and flooding that has devastated communities around the world. All of this is shocking. And all of this is precisely what climate scientists have been warning us about for decades. And all of this is what world leaders - including our own government - have failed to act on in any significant way. So, today we'll talk the summer that UN Secretary General has termed the beginning of the "era of global boiling." But we'll also focus on upcoming actions this week, later this summer, and in the fall that will demand decisive, immediate climate action. It's time to make plans to be i

New indictments against Trump announced. The ditch keeps getting deeper.  UPS Teamsters announced a “historic” contract win a week before what could have been one of the largest strikes in American history. The details of the contract will be the proof to that claim. Since the announcement some UPS Teamsters are saying the unions 180,000 part-time workers may not get as good of a deal as suggested.  In what could prove to be a sign that higher education faculty are willing to step up and fight to a greater degree, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) voted to affiliate with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The alliance will be the largest union of higher education faculty - about 300,000 strong.  Following new scientific data from the World Meteorological Organization on this summer’s record heat, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, proclaimed that the era of global warming has ended and the “era of global boiling has arrived.”  It’s been so hot in Arizona that the state’s fam

Welcome to this week's Out d'Coup LIVE. This week I welcome Alexandra Bradbury to the show. Al is the editor of Labor Notes, the media and organizing project amplifying the work of union activists putting the movement back in the labor movement. We'll be talking about her new article, "UPS Teamsters 'Just Practicing," co-written with Luis Feliz Leon, about the impending UPS strike and the decades of organizing work by union activists to change the leadership of the Teamsters and bring the fight back to their union.  Al Bradbury joined the staff of Labor Notes in 2012, after working with hospital workers as a researcher and organizer for Service Employees Local 49 in Oregon. Al edits Labor Notes and covers postal workers and Teamsters. She's also an occasional singer-songwriter. She is based in Seattle.  LINKS:  Alexandra Bradbury and Luis Feliz Leon, "UPS Teamsters 'Just Practicing," Labor Notes, 7/19/23 | https://labornotes.org/2023/07/ups-teamsters-just-practicing Follow Al on Twitter@al_bradbury | https://

SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) continue their strikes as Hollywood and streaming services face a reckoning.  Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin just introduced new legislation to attack the National Education Association’s charter in order to gut teacher union power.  Chad Connelly, a Christian nationalist operative and former “faith outreach director” for the Republican National Committee, runs a voter mobilization organization called Faith Wins. Connelly has organized dozens of secret meetings between top Republican presidential candidates and right-wing pastors, giving pastors the opportunity to grill the candidates on political issues and pray over them. A train derailed in Whitemarsh Township in Montgomery County on Monday. We all got lucky. Turns out most of the cars were carrying Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) and toxic chemicals. A bomb train that luckily did not go off.   And are you ready for the launch of a nationwide effo

This week I welcome Alyssa Bowen back to the show. Alyssa is a Senior Researcher and Managing Editor for the progressive watchdog group, True North Research. Tonight we'll be talking about her recent article in TruthOut, "A Jan. 6 “Moms” Group Funded by Big Lie Donors Is Stoking Voter Suppression." And, we'll give you the spoiler right up front: It's NOT Moms for Liberty we'll be talking about. The right-wing extremist group “Moms for America” has been flying under the radar as it works to undermine our rights.  Alyssa received her PhD in History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2021 with an interest in fascism and antifascism, solidarity and social movements, immigration/exile and transnational history. She has bylines in the Nation and in Truthout, where she is a regular contributor. More of her public writing can be found on True North Research’s website and Substack.  LINKS:  Alyssa Bowen: "A Jan. 6 “Moms” Group Funded by Big Lie Donors Is Stoking Voter Suppression," TruthOut | https:

Raging Chicken's Friday Politics Roundup for July 14, 2023. We're here to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics. You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Don’t Let Paul Martino, Moms for Liberty, and their oligarch friends buy our schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/  

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, we're back from vacation! And wholly crap did a lot happy while were were gone! Would love to hear from you! You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Don’t let Paul Martino, Moms for Liberty, & their oligarch friends buy our schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/. 

Raging Chicken's Friday Politics Roundup for June 30, 2023. We're here to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics. You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Don’t Let Paul Martino, Moms for Liberty, and their oligarch friends buy our schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.  

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome Chris Ullery to the show. Chris covers extremism and social justice for the USA Today network of PA and Bucks County Courier Times. We'll be talking about his new investigative piece, "Emails show how religious liberties law firm has influenced Bucks and York schools." This article is part of an on-going investigation by Chris and investigative journalist Bethany Rodgers from the USA Today Network's PA capitol bureau. Their investigations have helped expose how a deep-pocketed, religious law firm is working with right-wing school boards across Pennsylvania to change policies and sow division.  Chris Ullery has been a reporter with the Bucks County Courier Times since 2015, covering municipal government, infrastructure and the Central Bucks School District. His mostly self-taught skills in the Python computer programming language have helped him flesh out and analyze years of voter registration data, track COVID-19 cases at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and bu

A county in Oregon is suing some major fossil fuel companies and industry groups for their role in climate change. According to a report in DeSmog blog, the lawsuit “seeks to hold fossil fuel companies and their ‘misinformation agents’ accountable for the unprecedented 2021 heat dome that saw temperatures in the county reach 116 degrees Fahrenheit.” This lawsuit is of special interest because it also implicates the global consulting firm, McKinsey & Company for their role in spreading misinformation.  And while the national media was urgently reporting on the fate of 5 people on a shoddy submarine seeking to tour the Titanic wreck, North Atlantic ocean temperatures went off the map. The unexpected heating of the Atlantic is, in the words of Bill McKibben, “truly terrifying news.”  In addition, an unprecedented “heat dome” over Mexico and Texas is producing deadly storms and heat. The jet stream maps are wild.  A meteorologist in Iowa resigned from his local TV news job due to ongoing threats from climate

Raging Chicken's Friday Politics Roundup for June 16, 2023. We're here to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics. You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Don’t Let Paul Martino, Moms for Liberty, and their oligarch friends buy our schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/.

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, Aly is a Pittsburgh-based research analyst working on the state power mapping program at the grassroots watchdog group, LittleSis (you know, the opposite of Big Brother?). We'll be talking about her new report, "The American Petroleum Institute Love Pennsylvania, As Its Lobbying Shows." In 2022, the API spent at least $1.8 million on lobbying Pennsylvania politicians - that's more than any other state. Why is Big Oil going all in on PA? We'll get into the details.  Aly previously spent 8 years as an environmental justice organizer at Pittsburgh UNITED and labor organizer at UFCW Local 1776. Over the years she has led campaigns to prevent the privatization of Pittsburgh’s water system, to make drinking water safer and more affordable, and organized grocery store workers to win higher wages and safer working conditions during the COVID 19 pandemic. She received her BA in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and her Master’s in Public Administration from Carnegi

You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Donald Trump has officially been indicted (again) in Federal court on seven criminal counts. Let the circus begin (again).  Smoke from wildfires across Canada blanketed much of the East Coast. The Air Quality Index showed hazardous amounts of particulate matter in the air and the skies turned orange and yellow like a scene out of Bladerunner 2049. In a surprise decision, the US Supreme Court upheld the a provision of the Voting Rights Act in a case involving racial gerrymandering in Alabama.  160,000 SAG-AFTRA members voted to authorize strike ahead of negotiations. 97.9% of members voting approved the authorization. This comes in the midst of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike which began on May 2. The WGA strike is the largest job action in the television and film industry since COVID.  A new scientific study finds that the summers in the Arctic ocean may be ice-free by 2030. That’s about a

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome Eleanor Goldfield to the show. We'll be talking about her latest article in TruthOut, "If the Police Can Decide Who Qualifies as a Journalist, There is No Free Press." In that piece she spotlights the arrests of two journalists arrested while covering the eviction of unhoused people from a public park in Asheville, NC. The case has received limited national coverage, but it marks another moment in the withering away of Constitutional protections for the press.  Eleanor Goldfield is a creative radical, journalist, and filmmaker. Mutual aid and community organizing are cornerstones of her work and personal life, informing both her journalistic and artistic projects. Her written and photo journalism has appeared in independent publications across the U.S. and internationally. She is one of the 2020 recipients of the “Women and Media Award” presented by The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. She is currently a board member of the Media Freedom Foundation. Rec

Debt limit deal passed in the Senate now awaits Biden’s signature. Another DC drama fest comes to a close. Losers in the deal are the poor, student debt holders, the IRS, and our planet. Winners include the uber-rich, Big Oil, and business-as-usual.  Part of the debt limit deal ensures students will start paying their loans again at the end of the summer. And, Manchin will get his pipeline.  In a separate attack on student debt holders, the U.S. Senate voted to block Biden’s student loan relief package. Biden says he’ll veto.  The U.S. economy adds 339,000 jobs in May, way beyond economists’ expectations.  Hundreds of Gannet newspaper journalists are set to walk off the job in protest of the company’s leadership and deep job cuts.  A new report shows that the world’s wheat supply may be vulnerable to crisis due to climate change.  Demonstrating once again that our justice system is built for the rich, the Sacklers will not face any personal liability for the billions they made fanning the flames of the opioid

As the U.S. inches closer to defaulting on its debts, reporting suggests the Biden administration and House Republicans are closer to a deal. The Biden people seem to be looking for ways to soften the blow of their cave. Ron DeSantis officially announced that he’s running for president on Twitter. Well, sort of. The planned announcement through a Twitter live audio broadcast went horribly awry as Elon Musk once again demonstrated how he’s wreaked havoc on the platform. But, maybe it’s just par for the course for DeSantis. Bring in the autocratic clowns.  Indiana medical board reprimands the doctor who spoke publicly about providing abortion services to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio. The case was one of the first such stories to emerge in wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ohio banned abortion after a heartbeat could be detected. That’s about 6 week.  Steward Rhodes, founder of the right-wing extremist group the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in jail for his role or

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, we'll be talking a bit about the last Pennridge School Board meeting, last week's PA primary, and what's at stake in this year's election. The Bucks County GOP is offering up more extremism, but the community is organizing to kick out the clowns and send the circus packing. ​ Don’t Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We’re putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/. Join our Discord to continue the conversation all week long: https://discord.gg/BnjRNz3u

A right-wing takeover of a Colorado school board is a case study for what’s happening nationwide.  The Woodland Park school board was taken over by conservatives in 2021. They moved quickly to radically transform the district, learning from the tactics of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, and bolstered by big-money fueling Christian nationalists curricular changes.  These “American Birthright” curricular standards passed by the Woodland Park school board are similar to the Hillsdale College K-12 curriculum, but target State Standards as well as District ones.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill that dramatically limits transgender medical treatments, restricts pronoun use in schools, and forces people to use bathrooms corresponding to their birth sex.  New York City is sinking due to the massive weight of its skyscrapers. Studies are showing that will only exacerbate the effects of climate change. Cherelle Parker wins the hotly contested and closely watched race for Philly's next mayor. One of Parker’s

On tonight’s episode, I welcome Kathryn Joyce to the program. We'll be talking about her recent article in Church and State, "Mad Moms: A New Christian Nationalist Front Group Claims to Champion Parental Involvement in Public Education. Critics Say There's a More Nefarious Agenda Afoot." "Mad Moms" takes a deep dive into Moms for Liberty, their deep pockets, and their growing extremism.  Kathryn Joyce is an investigative editor at In These Times, a freelance investigative reporter and the author of two books: The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption and Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Formerly a reporter with Type Investigations and Salon, a contributing editor at The New Republic and a contributing writer at Highline. Her work has also appeared in numerous publications including Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Marshall Project, Longreads, The New York Times Magazine, Vox, The American Prospect, The Intercept, The Nation, Cosmopolitan, Adirondack Life, The At

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, I welcome Kristina Marusic back to the show. We'll be talking about her new book, "A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention." While we've been waging a "war" on cancer for more than fifty years, but it's not a war we're winning. Yes, treatments are better than ever, but cancer still claims the lives of one in five men and one in six women in the US. The astonishing news is that up to two-thirds of all cancer cases are linked to preventable environmental causes. If we can stop cancer before it begins, why don’t we? In "A New War on Cancer," Kristina Marusic does a deep dive into the remarkable doctors, scientists, and advocates who are upending our understanding of cancer and how to fight it. They recognize that we will never reduce cancer rates without ridding our lives of the chemicals that increasingly trigger this deadly disease. Kristina Marusic is an award-winning journalist who covers environmental health and justice for Environmental Heal