Links to today’s show transcripts:
#MeToo Founder Tarana Burke, Alicia Garza of Black Lives Matter on Wave of Sexual Harassment Reports
Over the last two months, the political, media and entertainment worlds have been rocked as thousands of women come forward to share their stories of sexual harassment and abuse. The catalyst was the historic disgracing of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who is being criminally investigated after dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein of rape, assault and sexual harassment. Following the investigations by The New York Times and The New Yorker, women across the country and the world are now coming forward with their own stories, involving many different men, under the hashtag #MeToo.
Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on “Indefensible” Whitefish Contract to Restore Electricity to Puerto Rico
Thousands of people recently rallied on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., calling for justice for Puerto Rico, two months after Hurricane Maria made landfall. The protesters called on FEMA to act quickly to restore services and for the cancellation of Puerto Rico’s debt. Half of the island remains without power, and hundreds of thousands of residents still have no access to clean drinking water. This comes as the head of the Puerto Rico public power company, PREPA, resigned, after facing widespread outrage and controversy for signing a $300 million contract with the tiny Montana-based company Whitefish, named after the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Democracy Now! was in Puerto Rico a month ago, and just a few days before the cancellation of the contract was announced, we went to the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, where the San Juan mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, and her vice mayor, Rafael Jaume, had just gotten their hands on the contracts and were analyzing the details of the $300 million deal with Whitefish and another $200 million contract between the power company and Cobra, which is an Oklahoma-based company.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on Trump, Shock Doctrine & “Disaster Capitalism” in Puerto Rico
Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz takes part in an extended interview about how Hurricane Maria had changed Puerto Rico since it struck the island on September 20, Trump’s attacks and her vision for the future. Democracy Now! interviewed Cruz when we visited Puerto Rico last month. She spoke in the city’s Roberto Clemente Coliseum, where her entire mayoral staff was living after Hurricane Maria devastated the island on September 20.
Will Houston’s Post-Harvey Recovery Exacerbate Inequities or Build a More Just City?
Hurricane Maria shattered all past U.S. rainfall records, forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in the fourth-largest city in the United States, known as the “Petro Metro” because Houston is home to the country’s largest refining and petrochemical complex. The storm also caused massive environmental and public health impacts.
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