Links to today’s show transcripts:
Strike! Barbara Ehrenreich Calls on TSA Workers to Walk Off Job in Protest of Government Shutdown
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is now on Day 27. As 800,000 workers continue to go without pay, federal employees around the country are rising up to demand an end to the shutdown, which has run public institutions ragged and left hundreds of thousands financially strapped. Barbara Ehrenreich is interviewed who is the author of the best-seller “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” She is calling for TSA workers around the country to strike.
Shutdown with Medicine Shortages & Suspended Food Programs
The widespread impact of the government shutdown has affected Native American communities, as the Indian Health Service goes understaffed and a federally funded food delivery program to Indian reservations has been halted. Democratic members of Congress held a hearing Tuesday on the effects of the shutdown on health, education and employment in Native communities. We speak with Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today and member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.
The Fox in Charge of the Henhouse: Activists Decry Trump’s EPA Pick, Coal Lobbyist Andrew Wheeler
Senate confirmation hearings began Wednesday for former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, whom President Trump has nominated to become administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Wheeler has been the acting head of the EPA since Scott Pruitt resigned in July amid an onslaught of financial and ethics scandals. Heather McTeer Toney is interviewed who is the national field director for Moms Clean Air Force and former Southeast regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration. Mary Anne Hitt is the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
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 — audio now available for instant access. See more information here. If you’re looking for individual signs, order here.
My first thought in reading this post’s title was, “What? They can’t do that! It would cause chaos and…” But that immediately followed by, “Oh, right: few things get American citizens’ outraged more than not being able to go on vacation the way they want to.”
I do with that basic civil rights infringements and the cruelty of the shutdown would be enough, but let’s face it: when it comes to the upper-middle class, I fear it’s the restrictions of and complications in being able to “play” as desired that really gets attention. Immobilizing airports via a massive TSA staff walkout might finally get things moving. The question is, though: are they unionized, and would their jobs be even remotely safe?