Out D'coup Podcast

CNN doubles down on cashing in on Trump, holding a “town hall” that allowed the disgraced president and convicted sexual assaulter to spew lies and deceit before a cheering audience.  Republican fraudster representative from New York was arrested and accused of 13 crimes ranging from money-laundering, to fraud, to lying about his finances on congressional disclosure forms. Santos, of course, pleaded not-guilty and has pledged to not resign.  Elon Musk gives Tucker Carlson a platform a new show on Twitter. When is BlueSky launching again? Anyone got an invite they can sent my way for the Beta? The Writers’ Guild Strike strike is going strong and the billion-dollar industry’s refusal to negotiate in good faith for a fair contract is going to hit your binge watching.  Pennridge School Board meeting goes off the rails again and Board members shut down public comments and threaten community members with forceful removal. That paved the way for passing the far-right board’s discriminatory bathroom policy. The Board

Four Proud Boys, including their leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.  The corruption doesn’t stop when it comes to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. New reporting in the Washington Post this week exposed that Leonard Leo the architect of the right-wing legal juggernaut, the Federalist Society, instructed Kellyanne Conway to use her nonprofit organization to pay Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, tens of thousands of dollars. Leo told Conway to make sure to leave Ginni Thomas’s name off all the paperwork.  That reporting comes on the heels of revelations by ProPublica that billionaire Harlan Crow paid the private school tuition for Thomas’s great-nephew, who Thomas was raising “as a son.” Thomas did not disclose the tuition payments as part of his legal obligations to do so.  North Carolina becomes the latest state to try to further restrict abortion. The Republican majority in passed a new 12 week abortion ba

On this episode of Out d'Coup LIVE, we'll be digging into the Pennridge School Board's decision last week to hire the far-right Vermillion Education to rewrite the district's social studies curriculum. The contract to hire Vermillion was posted to the agenda 24 hours before the meeting and at least four members of the board had no idea it was coming. Tonight, we'll get into the school board meeting, Vermilion's background, and increasing moves by Pennridge to turn the school district into a Christian Nationalist haven. Vermillion Education is a four-month old company founded by former Hillsdale College teacher, Jordan Adams. Adams is a graduate of the private, conservative Christian Hillsdale College and served as the Associate Director for Instructional Resources in the Barney Charter School Initiative at Hillsdale College. The Barney Charter Initiative seeks to establish a national network of charter schools using Hillsdale's K-12 curriculum. LINKS: "Pennridge School Board wants to hire company with ties to

Raging Chicken's Friday Politics Roundup for April 14, 2023. We're here to break down the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics. A lot happened this week and we're running on empty. 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 & 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 François Furstenburg to the show. François is a Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. We'll be talking about his latest article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "Higher Ed's Grim, Soulless, Ed-Techified Future: Temple's Jason Wingard Championed "Skillification." He's Out, but His Vision Lives On."  NOTE: we ran into a little issue with François's mic around 19m 15s. It only lasts about a minute, then we get it fixed.  In the wake of unabashed anti-union tactics during the recent Temple University graduate university workers’ strike and an overwhelming vote of no-confidence by the faculty union, Temple University president Jason Wingard resigned. However, as we'll talk about today, Wingard's ideas for higher education will, in the words of François Furstenburg, “continue marching across the landscape of higher education like zombies, transforming the content and purpose of curricula in the image of our post-industrial, financialized moment," unless

GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy announced his party’s demands in the latest round of public hostage-taking around the nation’s debt ceiling. McCarthy and House republicans are calling for massive cuts to social programs, the elimination of the student-loan debt forgiveness plan, new work requirements for welfare recipients, cuts funds for improving the IRS, repeals green energy programs and incentives, and takes back any unspent COVID funds.  It seems that flooding our communities with guns and stoking fear, hate, and misinformation on conservative media is producing a new form of gun violence. This week, several young people were shot - and some killed - as they accidentally knocked on the wrong door or mistakenly got into the wrong car. This is the culture of vigilantism that conservatives funded by the NRA and the gun industry have been grooming us for.  In Liberty, MO, Ralph Yarl, a 16 year old African American kid, who was going to pick up his sister, but knocked on the wrong door. He was nearly killed.

This week I welcome Chris Ullery to the show. Chris covers extremism and social justice for the Bucks County Courier Times's PA State Team. We'll be talking about his new investigative piece, "Libraries to locker rooms: How a religious law firm is changing PA school policies." Co-written with Bethany Rodgers, USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania capital bureau investigative journalist, Chris exposes 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 build a 10-year database of 911 call logs in Bucks County. In addition to using his programming experience to tra

Florida passed and Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a 6-week abortion ban, thanks to a legislature dominated by Republicans. Florida’s current 15 week ban is held up in court, but if that ban is upheld, the 6-week ban will automatically go into effect.  A Federal appeals court refused to suspend the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, but upheld a ban on patients being able to sent the pills by mail. That pretty much guarantees the case will be headed to the right-wing dominated US Supreme Court.  A 21-year-old Air National Guardsman was arrested for his role in leaking on Discord classified documents related to the war in Ukraine. According to the New York Times, Jack Teixeira led a group of “20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, as they bonded over guns, racist memes, video games and international politics.” Marjorie Taylor Green does the only thing she’s consistent on - inject reactionary bile into the public discourse. This time she comes out in support of the National Guardsman to le

A new report from ProPublica exposed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s secret luxury trips from megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas never disclosed the gifts as required by law. Republican media is crying about it wondering why people are being so mean to billionaires and their minions.  Tennessee House Republicans expelled two black representatives for protesting guns.  It doesn’t get any better for the Catholic Church. A new report on the Baltimore Diocese released last week shows more than 150 priests sexually abused more than 600 children over the past 80 years. The Church knew and covered it up. NOT just a couple bad apples.  New court rulings look to ban the abortion medication Mifepristone as two cases are likely headed the Supreme Court.  Jean Kwok, author of Central Bucks newly banned - sorry, “challenged” - book, Girl in Translation is heading to the school board to contest the board’s move.  Perkiomen Valley students stage a walkout to protest new moves to ban books at their schools.   Kutztown Uni

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 who organize the PA Climate Convergence. We'll be talking about a renewed push for hydrogen to power a green economy coupled with initiatives for carbon capture and storage. Sounds great, right? We'll get to the truth of the matter.  This October the PA Climate Convergence will bring advocates, activists, and concerned residents to Harrisburg to tell Gov. Shapiro, lawmakers, and regulators that they are having the wrong conversation on climate and need to change their stance. We’ll talk about why lawmakers are keeping PA from being part of the solution to the climate crisis and what all of us can do to change that.  LINKS: Berks Gas Truth: https://gastruth.org/ PA Climate Convergence: https://www.pennsylvaniaclimateconvergence.org/ Better Path Coalition: https://www.betterpathcoalition.org/    

Donald Trump was indicted yesterday for misuse of campaign funds to pay hush money to porn star Stromy Daniels. He is the first former U.S. president to ever be charged with a crime.  Trump’s indictment comes less than a week after he launched his presidential campaign with a large rally and speech in Waco, TX. Waco was the site of the 1993 raid of the militant Branch Davidian religious compound that led to the deaths of nearly 80 people. Waco has been a rallying cry for white supremacists and the extreme right ever since.  38 migrants were killed and 27 seriously injured in a fire at a Mexican detention center in Ciudad Juarez. The continued unjust and cruel immigration policies in the U.S. - the “Remain in Mexico” policy, for example - helped create the conditions for the deaths. Will Bunch was dead on:  "I wonder how much of the American downplaying of this nightmare in Ciudad Juárez is willful ignorance on our part — a refusal to confront our own shameful role in this episode. That’s because the reason th

This week I welcome Cyril Mychalejko back to the show. Cyril is the editor-in-chief of the Bucks County Beacon and host of their bimonthly podcast, "The Signal." On today's show, we'll be digging into the latest with the creeping extremism on Bucks County school boards and the people working to take back public schools from right-wing ideologues. We'll also get the latest updates from the Beacon and their current fundraising drive to support and expand hard-hitting, independent media in Bucks County. LINKS: Bucks County Beacon: https://buckscountybeacon.com/ Support the Beacon: https://buckscountybeacon.com/support-the-beacon/ 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 & 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 tox

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most comprehensive and alarming report to date about the “closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” While this report and previous ones made it clear that the world needs to rapidly reduce and then eliminate using fossil fuels, a new fossil fuel emissions record was set in 2022. The Guardian noted that the report foregrounded three signposts: 1) the climate crisis is fundamentally a crisis of injustice; 2) any new fossil fuel developments are incompatible with hitting a net zero emissions goal; and, 3) there are key technology and finance needs.  On March 13, Biden green lighted the Willow Project - massive new oil-drilling operation on federal lands in Alaska. The project is projected to produce around 600 million barrels of oil at a time when the UN’s IPCC is warning us that all new fossil fuel extraction must be prevented if we have any hope of preventing catastrophic impacts of climate change. Lots

This week I welcome Alan Gratz to the show. We'll be talking about his latest #1 New York Times bestselling young adult novel, Two Degrees and the controversy over the Kutztown Area School District's canceling their "One Book, Once School" middle school program that was set to read Two Degrees. Why did they cancel reading his book? It's a familiar story of right-wing extremism infecting our schools. Right-wing members on the school board and in the community objected to reading a book that accepted the reality and the threats posed by climate change.  On April 15th, Gratz will be one of the Featured Speakers at the 25th Annual Kutztown University Children's Literature Conference. In the wake of the decision by the Kutztown Area School District to cancel their "One School, One Book" program, he made extra time to meet with the community while in town. He will be doing two events at Firefly Bookstore in Kutztown on April 15th as well. At the evening event, he will be interviewed by Joslyn Diffenbaugh, founder o

The Supreme Court seems poised to strike down Biden’s student loan forgiveness program not for Constitutional reasons, but because the right-wing members of the court don’t like it.  Biden’s pick to serve as an FCC commissioner, Gigi Sohn, withdrew her name after 16 months of targeted pressure and harassment by communication’s industry lobbyist groups. Sohn has a long history as a public interest advocate and would have been the first openly gay FCC commissioner. Weirdness in Congress in the House Oversight hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and the so-called controversy over the Twitter files. Matt Taibii may be a clown, but what exactly is the Democrat’s game plan? NPR profiles far-right group in Florida - National Socialist Florida. The story reveals the group’s organizing tactics and savvy use of social media to spread hate and expand recruiting.  Pennridge School District is now facing a lawsuit after playing games with the Right-to-Know law and playing hide-and-seek with books the sc

This week I welcome Rohan Montgomery to the show. We'll be talking about his recent articles in In These Times about revolt against corporate greed in the tabletop role-playing gaming community - specifically Dungeons & Dragons - and labor organizing by anime voice actors.  Rohan's piece, "Slaying the Gold-Hungry Dragon" reports on the Dungeons & Dragons community epic victory against corporate greed. In "Anime Voice Actors Speak Out: It's Not Kawaii When We Aren't Paid," he dives into organizing fights by anime voice-actors for fair pay and better working conditions.  Rohan Montgomery is a journalist and fact-checker. His work has appeared in the BBC, The New Republic, and In These Times.  LINKS: Rohan Montgomery, "Slaying the Gold-Hungry Dragon," In These Times | https://bit.ly/3kTyebQ Rohan Montgomery, "Anime Actors Speak Out: It's Not Kawaii When We Aren't Paid," In These Times | https://bit.ly/41MPCQc Follow Rohan on Twitter @RohanMontroro | https://twitter.com/RohanMontroro You can support thi

This week I welcome Dr. Patricia Roberts-Miller to the show. We'll be talking about her book, Demagoguery and Democracy and her work on the continued threat a culture of demagoguery poses to democracy, equity, and justice. In Demagoguery and Democracy she writes, "Demagoguery isn't about what politicians do; it's about how we, as citizens, argue, reason, and vote. Therefore, reducing how much our culture relies on demagoguery is our problem, and up to us to solve." Patricia Roberts-Miller, formerly Director of the University Writing Center and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, is a scholar of train wrecks in public deliberation—that is, times that communities made decisions they later regretted, although they had all the information they needed to make better ones. In addition to Demagoguery and Democracy, she is the author of Speaking of Race: Constructive Conversations About an Explosive Topic (2021), Rhetoric and Demagoguery (2019; finalist

Welcome to this week's Out d'Coup LIVE. This week I welcome Robyn Underwood to the show. Robyn leads KOFEE - Kutztown Organized for Educational Excellence which formed to push back against rising extremism on the Kutztown Area School District. The KASD middle school was planning on reading Alan Gratz's book, Two Degrees as part of their "One Book, One School" program. Two Degrees centers around the lives of four middle-school students struggling to survive disasters brought on by climate change. Right-wing members of the school board and the community didn't want students to read about climate change, so the superintendent canceled the program. We'll talk about the impact of extremism on Kutztown's middle-school and the work of KOFEE to take back their schools. Robyn Undersood has a BSc and PhD in entomology (study of insects) and specialize in honey bee research. She is the Mom of two kids who have been in the district their whole lives and are now in the high school. Robyn hesitantly began acting as an act

According to a new survey from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, more than half of Republicans either adhere to or sympathize with Christian nationalism. The survey also found that half of those who believe in Christian nationalism and 40 percent of those who sympathize with it “support the idea of an authoritarian leader in order to keep Christian values in society.”  In Oklahoma, a judge stripped a lesbian mom’s parental rights to her son and handed them over to her sperm donor. Legal experts are concerned that this case will only exacerbate attacks on marriage equality.  Kentucky Supreme Court ruled to keep a near-total ban on abortion in place while a lower court deliberates on the constitutionality of the law. The current Kentucky law only allows abortion to save the life of a pregnant person.  Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of the United State is hearing two cases that have challenged Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Writing in Vox, Ian Milhiser mak

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, "The Right has Expanded Its Dark Money Strategy for Dominating School Boards." If we thought we'd get a break from extremism in our school board elections, we were VERY wrong.  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.  Follow Alyssa on Twitter @AlyssaAnnBowen LINKS: Alyssa Bowen, "The Right Has Expanded Its Dark Money Strategy for Dominating School Boards," TruthOut | https://bit.ly/3HG4ab1 Lisa Graves & Alyssa Bowen, "Tax Docs Link Right-Wing 'Pare