Concerns about whether the Biden campaign is doing enough to speak to Latinx voters have grown in recent days following polling that suggests weakness among this group, particularly in Florida. Political consultant and former Bernie Sanders advisor Chuck Rocha joins to discuss. The director of the CDC says that a vaccine for Covid-19 might not be available until the summer or fall of 2021. He also said that wearing a mask could be more important in fighting the spread of the virus. Trump disagre...
Sep 17, 2020•22 min
The city of Louisville, Kentucky has come to a $12 million settlement deal with the family of Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by police officers in her apartment six months ago. The agreement also includes several police reforms. We explain. Over 5 million acres have now been burned across the West. We discuss the poor air quality caused by the smoke, how it's measured, and the effects it can have on our health. And in headlines: the key witness in an ongoing investigation of sexual assa...
Sep 16, 2020•17 min
Extreme weather continues in the US, with over 4.5 million acres burned across the West Coast and a Category 2 hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Scientists say two Antarctic glaciers are breaking off and could contribute to large-scale sea level rise, underscoring the need for aggressive environmental policy in the US and abroad. Oracle is close to taking over TikTok’s US operations following scuttled negotiations between Microsoft and ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. Ora...
Sep 15, 2020•16 min
Wildfires raged on over the weekend in the West, with millions of acres burned, thousands displaced, and dozens of lives lost. Aside from fighting climate change, one of the most effective ways to manage these fires is regular controlled burns, which is something indigenous tribes were doing for centuries. Two meat processing facilities were fined a measly total of $29,000 after government regulators at OSHA determined that the plants didn’t do enough to protect workers. OSHA has gotten almost 1...
Sep 14, 2020•19 min
Viral videos of police brutality against Black people have generated outrage, protest, and sustained national attention this year. We talk to Bijan Stephen, a reporter at The Verge, about his latest project called “Capturing The Police,” which examines the impact these videos have on the people who film them. Another 884,000 people filed for unemployment last week, which is more than economists were expecting. The Republicans failed to pass their “skinny” relief bill in the Senate, and it’s not ...
Sep 11, 2020•21 min
Recorded interviews of Donald Trump by Bob Woodward show he understood the threat of coronavirus in February, while he insisted in public it would “disappear” and was no worse than the seasonal flu. Trump addressed these revelations at a press conference yesterday, confirming that he intentionally downplayed the virus because he’s a "cheerleader" for the country. Wildfires are continuing to burn across the West, leading to mandatory evacuations for tens of thousands of people, and a blanket of s...
Sep 10, 2020•20 min
The Rochester, NY police chief and other high ranking officers all resigned or took demotions yesterday, following protests over the police killing of Daniel Prude. Prude’s case, along with other recent violent incidents, are leading some to propose alternatives to police intervention for mental health emergencies. Republicans in the Senate are back in session with a new coronavirus relief bill, which is itself a pared down version a bill they proposed earlier this summer. For now, Democrats are...
Sep 09, 2020•18 min
College students have returned to campuses, and so has coronavirus. Northeastern University suspended 11 students for partying, and will not refund them tens of thousands of dollars in tuition payments. At University of Kansas, students are striking and demanding that the university shut down the campus and give hazard pay to workers. Extreme weather over the past few weeks has underscored the need for an extensive environmental policy overhaul, the kind that is championed by Massachusetts Senat...
Sep 08, 2020•18 min
Joe Biden will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin later today, where he’ll meet with the family of Jacob Blake. We check in on the continued protests happening there, plus the protests that are continuing in Lafayette, Louisiana, where Trayford Pellerin was killed by police just two days before Blake’s shooting. The Trump administration said it’s not going to take part in a global effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine because the World Health Organization is leading it. The CDC recently told public health ...
Sep 03, 2020•17 min
The CDC and the Health Department are moving to ban evictions through December for people who can’t pay because of the pandemic. New York City caved to pressure from teachers unions who threatened to strike over school reopenings, pushing back the start of in-person to later this month. Legal battles over mail-in voting saw major developments in Texas, Iowa, and Georgia. An audit from the Inspector General of the USPS looked at primary elections over the summer, and found that over a million mai...
Sep 02, 2020•16 min
Joe Biden spoke in Pennsylvania yesterday, where he condemned violence of any kind at recent protests. Trump spoke at the White House yesterday, where he declined to tamp down violence among his supporters and suggested instead that Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old Wisconsin shooter, had acted in self-defense. Coronavirus outbreaks are continuing to pop up at colleges and universities in the US as the fall semester starts. Bars have been ordered closed in Alabama and Iowa after hundreds of stud...
Sep 01, 2020•20 min
One man is now dead after a weekend of violence in Portland, Oregon, in which pro-Trump demonstrators drove through the city’s downtown taunting Black Lives Matter protestors. Jay Bishop was a member of a group called Patriot Prayer, a far-right group with ties to white supremacists. Massachusetts holds its primaries on Tuesday. Alex Morse is a 31-year-old, Justice Democrats-supported mayor of Holyoke, whose campaign against the incumbent Representative was hit with a false, homophobic smear. An...
Aug 31, 2020•20 min
Trump closed out the RNC last night, with a meandering 70-minute long speech that saw him paint a rosy picture of his administration’s handling of COVID-19 and promise a vaccine before the end of the year. Trump also tried to suggest that Biden would usher in chaos, while tending to ignore or misrepresent the chaos that’s happening under his administration. Later today thousands of protestors are expected to gather in Washington, DC, bringing the energy of this year’s many racial justice protest...
Aug 28, 2020•18 min
Police arrested 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse yesterday for killing two protestors and injuring a third at demonstrations in Kenosha, Washington against police brutality. Professional athletes joined in calling for justice for Jacob Blake, with teams from the NBA, WNBA, MLB, and more going on strike. Biden and Trump are averaging a near tie at the moment in North Carolina, which is sort of the site of the RNC this week. North Carolina is also a state where Republicans have repeatedly practiced vo...
Aug 27, 2020•19 min
Last night’s Republican National Convention brought more speeches from Trump’s employees and family members, including First Lady Melania Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The topic of “school choice” has been referenced often during the RNC—that’s part of a major push from Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to privatize education. In Portsmouth, Virginia, Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke has been charged with a misdemeanor for calling for the resignation of the city’s ...
Aug 26, 2020•17 min
Protestors gathered for a second night in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake, who is reportedly still in intensive care. The three cops that participated in Blake’s shooting have been put on administrative leave, and a state investigation is ongoing. Milwaukee Freedom Fund: https://bit.ly/mkefreedomfund The Republican Party officially renominated Trump and Pence on the first day of the RNC. The night’s offerings included speeches given live from the same ...
Aug 25, 2020•18 min
The Republican National Convention begins tonight, predominantly featuring speakers who are Trump’s employees or blood relatives. This weekend, Trump announced that the FDA granted emergency use authorization to a blood plasma treatment for COVID-19… we discuss what that means. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified to the Senate on Friday in his first appearance since the abrupt changes to USPS's operations. On Saturday, the House passed a bill that would give the postal service emergency fun...
Aug 24, 2020•16 min
Last night was the final night of the DNC, featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, former 2020 presidential candidates, and most notably, Joe Biden’s acceptance speech. In a stark contrast to his campaign thus far, Biden barely mentioned Trump by name, talking instead about the enormity of the situation America faces. The state of Michigan announced a $600 million fund to compensate Flint residents who were harmed by lead-tainted drinking water. This fund comes after years of litigation and more than 18 ...
Aug 21, 2020•18 min
Last night was the third night of the Democratic National Convention, featuring marquee speeches from VP pick Senator Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama. Overall, programming was more focused on issues, with segments on immigration, climate change, gun violence, and more. New coronavirus antibody data from nearly a million and a half people in New York City showed an infection rate of 27 percent, ranging significantly depending on neighborhood. And in headlines: a Native American ma...
Aug 20, 2020•20 min
Last night was the second night of the DNC, featuring beautiful shots of delegates across our gorgeous country, as well as speeches from AOC, activist Ady Barkan, and Dr. Jill Biden. We talk to Crooked’s own Jon Favreau about speech writing for the first digital DNC. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said yesterday that he would suspend cost-cutting changes at the USPS, but it’s unclear whether the postal service will reverse changes made this year that are leading to delays. House Democrats still ...
Aug 19, 2020•22 min
This year’s socially-distanced DNC began last night, with speeches from former First Lady Michelle Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, and more. Joe Biden went into the convention with a 7-9 point national lead against Trump, but the next few months are still full of unknowns. Watch the convention along with us every night this week at crooked.com/convention UNC Chapel Hill has decided to pivot to online-only instruction after 130 students test positive for Covid-19. Los Angeles' public schools start...
Aug 18, 2020•21 min
The DNC was set to begin today in Wisconsin, but instead, it’s beginning in Zooms across America. We talked to Wisconsin Democrats Senator Tammy Baldwin and party chair Ben Wikler about the state’s recent electoral history and how Biden can win there this year. The USPS warned that it may not be able to accommodate last minute mail-in ballots. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to call the House back early to counter recent changes at the Postal Service, and is calling for Postmaster General Louis...
Aug 17, 2020•18 min
This was the first week since March that the number of new unemployment claims in the US fell below one million. Tens of millions remain jobless and the start of Congress’s August recess means it’s unlikely we’ll see new relief legislation before September. Trump said the quiet part out loud yesterday, admitting that his refusal to provide emergency funding to the postal service would make universal vote-by-mail impossible. We discuss Republican efforts to make voting-by-mail more difficult in P...
Aug 14, 2020•13 min
The last time we spoke with Monise Seward, a 6th grade special education teacher in Georgia, it was April and schools had just begun to tackle remote learning. It's now the new year, and her class remains completely online. We spoke to her about the challenges of the new normal and her thoughts on in-person classes. Senator Kamala Harris and VP Joe Biden made their first appearance as running mates yesterday. Harris has already begun laying out the case against Trump. And in headlines: anti-gove...
Aug 13, 2020•20 min
Senator Kamala Harris was announced as Biden’s VP pick yesterday, which will make her the first black woman and first Asian American to be a on major party ticket. We discuss her record on the 2020 campaign trail, as an incisive presence in Senate hearings, and as California’s attorney general. The Big 10 and the Pac 12 college conferences announced yesterday that they will postpone their fall sports seasons due to the pandemic. A group of student athletes have formed an informal union, and say ...
Aug 12, 2020•19 min
Five states hold primaries today, including Minnesota, where Rep. Ilhan Omar is running to keep her seat in Congress. The elections come a week after another progressive, Cori Bush, won a major upset in her race against a longterm incumbent in Missouri. We speak to Bush about her path to politics and check in on Justice Democrats, the political group that backed Bush, Omar, and a handful of other progressive Democrats since 2017. Read our full interview with Cori Bush at crooked.com/articles/cor...
Aug 11, 2020•17 min
Trump signed a bunch of executive orders and actions over the weekend that he presented as a fix to our economic problems. But the reality is much less transformative. We explain what his actions do (cut unemployment) and what they don't do (protect renters from eviction). ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, is planning to sue the Trump administration over its ban on US companies doing business with the app. The executive order against TikTok also bans US dealings with WeChat, another ...
Aug 10, 2020•16 min
New York’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association. AG Letitia James alleges that the NRA has engaged in years of corruption. In the absence of a federal testing strategy, seven governors have formed a purchasing agreement in attempts to get faster COVID antigen tests. In California, problems with the state’s data system may be creating inaccurate coronavirus data. And in headlines: Minneapolis won’t vote to dismantle the police department, a...
Aug 07, 2020•16 min
Joe Biden is no longer traveling to Milwaukee for the DNC, and neither are other primetime speakers like President Barack Obama. A sized-down RNC will be held in Charlotte, with Trump planning to deliver his speech from The White House. Six of the seven largest school districts in the country will begin the school year entirely online, with New York City as the only holdout. One Yale student is suing his school for charging full tuition for an online education he considers inferior. And in headl...
Aug 06, 2020•15 min
The Minneapolis City Council voted to disband the Minneapolis Police Department over a month ago, but achieving that goal requires getting a ballot initiative in front of residents. We discuss that effort and more with Oluchi Omeoga, a co-creator of Black Visions Collective. And in headlines: a deadly explosion in Beirut, the census is ending early, and a whole lot of new Miami Marlins. Black Visions Collective: blackvisionsmn.org Reclaim The Block: reclaimtheblock.org...
Aug 05, 2020•24 min
