Links to today’s show transcripts:
Rev. Barber: MS Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith Jokes About Hangings, But Her Policies Will Strangle the Poor
Mississippi voters will head to the polls Tuesday in the state’s hotly contested runoff senate election, as incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith faces off against Democrat Mike Espy. In a state that Donald Trump won by 20 percentage points two years ago, Espy is attempting to become Mississippi’s first African-American senator since Reconstruction. His opponent, incumbent Sen. Hyde-Smith, attended and graduated from an all-white segregationist high school and recently posed for photos with a Confederate Army cap and other Confederate artifacts. Earlier this month, a viral video showed Hyde-Smith praising a campaign supporter, saying, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” Mississippi was once considered the lynching capital of the United States. Rev. Dr. William Barber is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach. He recently traveled to Mississippi to get out the vote.
Rev. William Barber: Tear Gassing Central American Migrants is Inhumane, Unconstitutional, Immoral
U.S. border patrol officers fired tear gas into a crowd of desperate Central American asylum-seekers Sunday in Tijuana, Mexico as some tried to push their way through the heavily militarized border with the United States. Mothers and small children were left gagging and screaming as the tear gas spread. The migrants are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and are fleeing widespread violence, poverty and mass unemployment. Rev. Dr. William Barber is interviewed. He is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach.
Trump Admin Tries to Bury 1,656-Page Climate Report Warning of Devastating Health Impacts of Warming
The White House released an alarming climate change report on Black Friday, attempting to bury a 1,656-page government assessment that directly contradicts President Trump’s history of climate change denial. The damning report, known as the National Climate Assessment, says that the consequences of climate change will leave no part of the U.S. untouched and that the warming climate will increase wildfires, crumble infrastructure, worsen air quality, destroy crops and lead to more frequent disease outbreaks. It also finds that global warming could shrink the U.S. economy by as much as 10 percent by the end of the century. The findings are a sharp rebuke to the Trump administration’s insistence that environmental regulations hurt jobs and hinder economic growth. Kristie Ebi is a professor of global health at the University of Washington in Seattle and the lead author of the report’s chapter on the human health impacts of climate change.
Bill McKibben: New Report Reconfirms Climate Change is Shrinking Inhabitable Parts of the Planet
On the heels of yet another alarming climate change report—this time released by a White House that openly denies global warming— 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and public health scholar Kristie Ebi are interviewed about President Trump’s environmental policies, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal and what it will take to fight the growing threat of climate change.
As we go deeper into this most unusual and challenging phase of history, intelligence is the thing we need the most. That is the theme of the 2019-2020 annual edition of Planet Waves, now available for pre-order. See more information here.