Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Ralph welcomes Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics to talk about our addictions to screens and how to break out of them. Plus, our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, opens the program with everything you need to know about the latest Trump indictment.Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law.  Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.I think it’s important for the audience to recognize that 100% of the incriminating evidence was supplied by Trump appointees or supporters. No Democrat made a cameo appearance. There was no incriminating evidence from any opponent of Donald Trump. It’s all his own people. And therefore, when you think about the indictment, the idea that it’s a witch hunt by Trump’s political enemies is facially lunatic.Bruce FeinThese expressions by Trump were not good-faith belief that there may have been a few blunders someplace or other. And [they demonstrate] that the whole goal was to defraud the American people out of the right to have a peaceful transition of power based upon a free and fair count of the electoral votes.Bruce FeinSherry Turkle is Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Professor Turkle is a sociologist, a licensed clinical psychologist, and she is an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics. She is the author of several books, including Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, and The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir.That’s really what you’re fighting— this ethos that says, “When technology makes a problem, technology will solve that problem. In a friction-free manner. It will not involve changing capitalism, changing the structures of power, or saying that science and engineering need to be dethroned as the moral and cultural arbiters for the society we live in.” So, I think that the resistance movement has to come from politics and really has to come from political organization.Sherry Turkle[If I were king in this domain,] you absolutely have legislation that treats generative AI as though it were nuclear energy. In other words, do not say, “Well, there’s kind of an analogy. Maybe there’s an analogy because it’s very powerful.” But to really say, “This is going to disrupt us, it’s a national security threat, and it’s certainly a threat to our elections…” So, it can wreak havoc— unless you’re extremely vigilant and the thing is controlled— with every aspect of our democracy.Sherry TurkleThere’s always a big-time gap between the damage of new technology and accountability catching up with it, or public awareness.Ralph NaderHi everybody, Steve Skrovan here. This is halfway between a shameless plug and some useful information. As some of you may know, I have my own Substack page called Bits & Pieces. It’s mainly funny stories and essays. I wanted to alert you specifically to the last piece I wrote concerning the Writers’ Guild Strike. It’s funny but also packed with a lot of information for those of you who are interested. Some of you may think writers and actors striking is not a big deal, but our strike is emblematic of what is going on across many industries where the corporations are trying to turn us all into gig workers. On the RNRH, we have talked a lot about AI for instance, especially on the program you just heard. The writers and the actors have a chance to be the first entities to address regulating AI in a meaningful way. We are on the cutting edge of what people are calling the Hot Labor Summer. So, check it out at steveskrovan.substack.com. That’s s-t-e-v-e-s-k-r-o-v-a-n dot substack dot com. We’ll link to it on the RNRH page also. Feel free to subscribe. It's free! Thanks.In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Bobby Scott announced that they have introduced a new bill to raise the minimum wage. To account for the rising cost of living, this new bill would raise the wage not to $15 per hour, but $17. Sanders and Scott note that “If the minimum wage had increased with productivity over the last 50 years, it would be $23 an hour today. If it had increased at the same rate that Wall Street…bonuses have increased, it would be more than $42 an hour.”2. USA Today reports that the Houston Independent School District in Texas has decided to “eliminate 28 school libraries,” and use at least some of those spaces as “discipline centers.”  This article further notes that “The Houston Independent School District is the largest district in Texas and serves more than 189,000 students at its 274 campuses…[and that] The once- independent district was recently taken over by the Texas Education Agency.”3. The Intercept reports that, amid the strikes roiling Hollywood, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has introduced the Food Secure Strikers Act of 2023. This bill would “repeal a restriction on striking workers receiving SNAP benefits, protect food stamp eligibility for public-sector workers fired for striking, and clarify that any income-eligible household can receive SNAP benefits even if a member of that household is on strike.” This bill would provide a crucial lifeline to striking workers, particularly as the Hollywood bosses have made clear that they are willing to see workers lose their homes before coming back to the negotiating table.4. A new report in Reuters alleges that employees at Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors “had been instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service.” The company even went so far as to create a “Diversion Team” with orders to “cancel as many range-related [service] appointments as possible,” in order to stifle consumer complaints that the automobiles range on a single charge was far below advertised. According to the report “some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks.”5. Bloomberg reports that the Abraham Accords –  Trump’s middle east peace plan which rested on inducing Arab states to recognize Israel by offering them money, weapons, or whatever else they desired – seem to be coming apart at the seams. The numbers are stark. While the agreements never enjoyed majority support in any Arab state, support has declined considerably – from 47% initially in the UAE, to just 27%, from 45% to 20% in Bahrain, and 40% to 20% in Saudi Arabia. This last drop is most significant, as the underlying purpose of the agreements were to align Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran. The Saudis now plan to extract further concessions from the United States.6. Listeners may recall a story from North Carolina about Tricia Cotham, a Democratic state legislator from a safe blue seat who switched parties, giving Republicans a super-majority in the state House – and cast the deciding vote to override the Democratic Governor’s veto and impose a 12-week abortion ban. Now, a New York Times report sheds light on why she made the switch: “Lacey Williams, a former advocacy director at the Charlotte-based Latin American Coalition who considered Ms. Cotham a friend for years, said Ms. Cotham “felt she did not get the gratitude or spotlight that she felt she deserved,” and added, “she was jealous that other Democrats were getting…adulation from the party.” This report also suggests that she was working hand-in-glove with Republican leadership prior to her election, suggesting that perhaps this was her plan all along.7. In Julian Assange’s native Australia, political officials are calling on the U.S. to drop their efforts to extradite the publisher to the United States to stand trial under the espionage act. These officials include Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Democracy Now! reports that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has rejected this demand, claiming that the WikiLeaks disclosures “risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named human sources at grave risk.” Australian lawmaker Andrew Wilkie,  co-chair of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group, called this “patent nonsense,” and told The Guardian, “Mr. Blinken would be well aware of the inquiries in both the U.S. and Australia which found that the relevant WikiLeaks disclosures did not result in harm to anyone.”8. Finally, former President Donald Trump has been indicted for the third time, this time on four counts related to trying to overturn the 2020 election. Yet, what is most striking about this indictment is that Trump is being charged under the Enforcement Act of 1870, originally intended to prevent Ku Klux Klan terror to deprive Black voters of their 13th, 14th and 15th amendment rights. Section 241 of this law deems criminal any attempt to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” exercising a right protected by the Constitution or federal law,” per the Washington Post. Charging Trump under the Klan act may seem a bit on the nose, but hey, if the hood fits. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph spends the whole hour with Jennifer Vanderbes, author of “Wonder Drug: The Secret History Of Thalidomide In America And Its Hidden Victims.” Thalidomide was never “commercially available” in the U.S., but American doctors handed out samples to patients even though no one could prove the drug was safe. Or could definitively say what the drug did. And by the time thalidomide landed at the FDA for approval, whistleblowers, journalists, doctors, and patients in Germany, Australia, and the UK were sounding the alarm about its shocking side effects.Jennifer Vanderbes is an award-winning novelist, journalist and screenwriter. Her latest book is Wonder Drug: The Secret History Of Thalidomide In America And Its Hidden Victims.It did not shock me researching this story that the pharmaceutical firms operated with a focus on profit, and that allowed for cutting corners. What really did shock me in my research was realizing that the doctors uniformly gaslit these patients. And it was stunning to me that you didn’t have any of these physicians who had given the drug to pregnant women who realized.Jennifer VanderbesI was very surprised to be looking through materials that were so at odds with what had been reported. And in many ways this became, to me, a story about what can happen when the media accepts at face value a certain spin on the story. The FDA was very dependent initially on what the drug firms were telling it, and then the press was depending on what the FDA was telling it, and then everybody sort of moved on. It was also a happy story that people wanted to believe: “we were the one wonderful country that had stopped this drug.“Jennifer VanderbesTheir number one tactic is to just not even argue the merits of [thalidomide cases], but get them dismissed on the basis that, “All these people should have known.” And I would say six years of my life—and this book— is really an examination of how incredibly reasonable and understandable it is that these individuals did not know. They were not given the information, and the government was quite complicit.Jennifer VanderbesThe best investigative reporters in America didn’t uncover this story, until [Jennifer Vanderbes] put it together in a book. Because it took unbelievable energy, curiosity, travel, interviewing the survivors, going to their homes, and the most recent development— which was really incredible that it didn’t get national TV and radio coverage— was the gathering, for the first time, of thalidomide victims in San Diego.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. On July 25th, The Teamsters reported that UPS caved to their demands, narrowly avoiding a massive strike. The wins in the new contract include higher wages, more jobs, ending the two-tier wage system, air conditioning in UPS trucks, part-time Rewards, and drivers getting Martin Luther King Day off. The union has triumphantly declared “We’ve Changed the Game” If these negotiations had fallen through, 340,000 UPS Teamsters would have gone on strike. Other employers, such as the Hollywood AMPTP, should take notes.2. The Intercept reports that the Sanders-led Senate HELP Committee has passed an amendment to the  Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act allocating $3 million to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to explore new options to pay for developing pharmaceuticals, specifically through public funding or “innovation prizes.” These drugs would then enter the public domain so they could be sold as generic medications. Sanders has made the cost of prescription drugs a high priority during his chairmanship on the committee, and hopefully this effort will bear fruit.3. Following months of protest, CNN reports that Israel has rammed through their controversial judicial reform legislation. This law will limit the independence of the Israeli judiciary, which has been a bulwark against the most extreme Right-wing factions in the country. This measure has sparked a new round of scrutiny regarding the $3.8 billion in military aid the US provides to Israel annually.4. Progressive Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has requested $15 million for a plan to help decarbonize 200 to 350 homes by modernizing heating and insulation for low-income Chicagoans, Gregory Pratt of the Tribune reports. One hopes to see more progressives pushing for these localized and tailored climate change plans.5. Anchor Brewing, a San Francisco institution, has been on a roller-coaster for several years. The workers organized the plant, then it was sold to Sapporo, and now Sapporo is attempting to sell the company for parts. In response, the union is attempting to raise funds to purchase Anchor Brewing and run it as a worker-owned cooperative. More information is available at Vinepair.com.6. In other alcohol related news, the American Prospect reports that Total Wine, the company founded by Rep. David Trone of Maryland – who is currently seeking the open Senate seat in that state – is fighting an FTC antitrust investigation. The agency is investigating the chain for “price discrimination and exclusive dealing arrangements in alcohol markets as part of a broader crackdown that’s also charging Pepsi and Coke for similar anti-competitive conduct.” Total Wine has reportedly sought to impede this investigation at every turn, and have succeeded in slowing it down even as the Biden administration seeks to crack down on anti-competitive behavior. It remains to be seen whether this will become an issue in the Senate campaign.7. Following Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s boycott of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to Congress, Jewish Insider reports that  AIPAC – among the most powerful Washington lobbies – is pushing for Westchester County executive George Latimer to run a primary challenge against Bowman. Historically, AIPAC has been instrumental in keeping progressive voices, and their criticism of Israel, out of the halls of Congress.8. The German news service DW reports that Ukraine has imposed a “ban on Russian-language culture…such as books, music, plays and concerts.” Whatever one’s opinions are on the war in Ukraine, this ban approaches dangerous territory of limiting expression for minority groups in the country and could presage more militarized crackdowns on the Russian minority in Ukraine similar to Japanese-Americans during WWII. All parties must come to the table to negotiate an immediate ceasefire and engage in high-level diplomacy; only that can prevent this war spinning into graver and graver circumstances.9. Finally, on July 20th a super-majority of workers at Grindr, the LGBTQ dating app, voted to unionize with the Communications Workers of America, per Kim Kelly. This came as a response, in part, to revelations showing Grindr’s new CEO had previously voiced support for anti-LGBTQ politicians on Twitter and via political donations. Bring on “Hot Labor Summer.” Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph and our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, discuss how they compiled letters they sent to various government officials and representatives that have gone unanswered into a book titled “The Incommunicados” and how this unresponsiveness violates our First Amendment right to petition our government for redress of grievances. Then Washington Post opinion columnist, Helaine Olen, highlights the corporate equivalent, how hard it is to reach a human being for customer service and how all of this plays into the free-floating anger and general unrest of an American population that feels unheard.Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law.  Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.Today, I couldn’t have gotten through to members of the Senate or House on the auto safety issue. We couldn’t have gotten through for them to even consider (much less pass) the auto safety legislation that they did in 1966. Because I could get on the line and even if I couldn’t get a member, I could call and get the chief of staff or get the legislative director in order to have access. I could go down to Capitol Hill and get the hearings, get the media attention, and get the law to save millions of lives. So, this is serious. It isn’t just a matter of literary courtesy here.Ralph NaderWhat we have in the right to petition for the redress of grievances is an effort to prevent a repeat of the deaf ear that King George was turning to the grievances of the colonists. And the right to petition implies a corollary obligation to respond… That’s the heart of what democratic discourse is about. Part of what holding government officials accountable is about— requiring them to explain their decisions. They don’t have to agree with us, but they can’t just ignore us and treat us as though we’re not human beings.Bruce FeinHelaine Olen is an expert on money and society, and an award-winning columnist for the Washington Post. Her work has appeared in Slate, the Nation, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and many other publications, and she serves on the advisory board of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She is co-author of The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated and the author of Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry.This is part of why Americans are so angry. Is our lives as consumers. In the United States we often confuse our consumer lives with being a citizen. We think if the phone line isn’t working if the airline isn’t working, if we can’t get through to the doctor’s office, there’s something wrong with the state of the country. And every time one of these interactions deteriorates, there’s this sense of ‘things don’t work,’ which I think is pervasive in the United States… and I think it translates into this free-floating anger that then gets turned around and leveled at random people at the government, fill in the blank.”Helaine OlenThere’s this dominant narrative out there right now that American consumers are becoming greedy and grasping and they’re abusing the help— which happens, I don’t want to say every consumer is a perfect citizen by a long shot— but I think it is partly a response to the fact that people are often treated very very badly. And there’s really no one to complain to that will actually do anything about this.Helaine OlenIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. The Screen Actors Guild, SAG-AFTRA, has joined the Writers Guild in going on strike following the collapse of negotiations with the studios. This new strike covers 160,000 actors and coming as it does amid the writers strike, will effectively shut down Hollywood production for the foreseeable future. In a widely shared video, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher decried the studios for "plead[ing] poverty…[while] giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs."2. The Intercept reports that AOC has authored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act requiring “the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department to declassify information related to the U.S. government’s role in the Chilean coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power.” Much of what the public knows about the Chilean coup came out through the legendary Church Committee hearings, and it is encouraging that someone in Congress is interested in taking up that mantle.3. In Florida, a joint investigation by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald uncovered the disturbing reality underlying Governor DeSantis’ revamped Florida State Guard. While recruits were initially told they would be trained for a nonmilitary mission – to “help Floridians in times of need or disaster” – they were instead taught how to “rappel with ropes, navigate through the woods and respond to incidents under military command.” Major General John D. Haas, charged with overseeing the program, is quoted saying the State Guard is a “military organization” that will be used not just for emergencies but for “aiding law enforcement with riots and illegal immigration.”4. Longtime civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate Reverend Jesse Jackson has announced that he is retiring from his role as president of the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, per The Hill. He had led the group for over 50 years, even after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017. President Biden said of Jackson, “I’ve seen him as history will remember him: a man of God and of the people; determined, strategic, and unafraid of the work to redeem the soul of our nation.”5. Uruguay, the small South American nation sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil, is experiencing its worst drought in 74 years. The situation has become so dire that authorities are mixing salt water into the public drinking water. Now, the Guardian reports that Uruguayans are protesting a planned Google data center that would consume two million gallons of water per day. In response to this crisis, a new group has cropped up – the Commission to Defend Water and Life, backed by the country’s trade unions – and their slogan has become ubiquitous: “This is not drought, it’s pillage.”6. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Progressive Caucus, got herself into trouble this week by calling Israel a “racist state,” in a speech to the progressive summit Netroots Nation, per CNN. While clumsily worded, Jayapal’s statement actually vastly understates the issue. According to mainstream groups like Amnesty International, Israel is in fact an “apartheid” state.7. More on Israel, the New York Times reports that “At least 180 senior fighter pilots, elite commandos and cyber-intelligence specialists in the Israeli military reserve have informed their commanders that they will no longer report for volunteer duty if the government proceeds with a plan to limit judicial influence by the end of the month.” While media coverage of the protests against this judicial overhaul has slowed, the protests themselves are very much ongoing and these resignations prove there is significant discontent among secular Israelis. It remains to be seen whether the opposition by mainstream Israeli society to authoritarian creep will substantively address any of the underlying issues, such as the occupation of Palestine.8. In an update to the Guatemala story from last week, Al Jazeera reports that in a statement, “the public prosecutor’s office denied accusations that its actions were aimed at derailing the [anti-corruption] Seed Movement’s prospects as it competes in the final round of voting.” This prosecutor, Rafael Curruchiche, has “previously targeted anti-corruption campaigners and has been placed on the US Department of State’s Engel List for ‘corrupt and undemocratic actors’.” The decision to ban the party has already been reversed by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, the highest court in that country. The party’s leader, Bernardo Arevalo, has stated “We are in the electoral race, we are moving forward and we will not be stopped by this corrupt group.”9. The Houston Chronicle reports that “Officers working for [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push children into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to migrants” These abuses were revealed in an email from a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”10. Finally, Universal Studios appears to have unlawfully trimmed trees on the public sidewalk outside of their building in Los Angeles, a transparent attempt to discourage picketers by denying them shade during the ongoing heatwave. City Controller Kenneth Mejia has announced that his office is launching an investigation. Ironically, this shows Hollywood executives are perfectly capable of cuts at the top. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes Maxim Thorne director of the non-partisan Civic Influencers, an organization that trains young people to inspire their peers to vote and therefore swing elections toward issues they care about and also fights “generational gerrymandering,” efforts by certain states to make it harder for 18 to 29-year-olds to vote. Plus, Ralph gives his take on some recent news items, answers your questions, and comments on your recent feedback.Maxim Thorne is a lawyer, activist, philanthropist, and a Lecturer at Yale. He has worked with the NAACP, Human Rights Campaign, New Jersey Head Start Association, GLAAD, the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School, and the Yale Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He currently serves as Chief Executive of Civic Influencers, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to inspiring young people to make their voices heard—and their votes count.When we think about how important young people are to saving our democracy, and voting on pro-democracy candidates, and voting on issues like climate change and abortion rights and LGBTQ rights— what are we giving them? If you are not moving to relieve their student debt, and you are not moving to allow them to organize so they get better paid jobs that allow them to lead a decent life, you’re not giving that most important part of our electorate what they need and what they’re demanding.Maxim ThorneWe can show [young people] the power of their vote— that’s the marching band, the glee club, the gospel choir, the football team, the cheerleaders alone could swing that election. One dorm could swing that election. That is power.Maxim ThorneIt’s really amazing how, after the civil rights battles and the civil rights laws in the 1960s and ‘70s, most people thought, “That battle is over, it’s up to you to vote, and no one’s going to obstruct you.” And along come some of these rightwing corporate lawyers for the GOP. And they say, “Hey, we can develop all kinds of ways to harass, delay, expunge, purge, and not count votes!” And that’s what a lot of Republican governors are doing from Florida to Texas.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. For the first time in 20 years, Israel has attacked the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp, the New York Times reports. Less than two weeks earlier, far-right Israeli defense minister Itamar Ben Gvir went on record saying “We have to settle the land of Israel and at the same time need to launch a military campaign, blow up buildings, assassinate terrorists. Not one, or two, but dozens, hundreds, or if needed, thousands.” This brutal attack has reignited international outcry against Israeli apartheid, including from the United Nations, but few expect the Biden administration to impose serious penalties in response.2. A group of congressional progressives is speaking out in response to the White House’s decision to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine. In a statement, this group wrote “Cluster munitions have been banned by nearly 125 countries…because of the indiscriminate harm they cause, including mass civilian injury and death.” This statement also notes that the administration is circumventing clear directives from Congress restricting the transfer of these weapons. This statement was signed by Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, and Ilhan Omar, among other progressives.3. Per Ryan Grim of the Intercept, on the other side of the aisle, Matt Gaetz – the dissident House Republican – has committed to cosponsoring the amendment to bar the transfer of cluster munitions. One hopes this Left-Right coalition can expand and stop this move.4. The Verge reports that Microsoft has won the first round of its legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the tech giant’s acquisition of the video game conglomerate Activision Blizzard. The ruling follows “five days of grueling testimony.” Despite their victory, Microsoft still faces an antitrust lawsuit.5. In Guatemala, an electoral crisis is unfolding. Shocking results in the June 25th elections put Bernardo Arevalo – a progressive anti-corruption candidate and son of former left-wing president Juan Jose Arevalo – into the second round, defeating the daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt and setting up a showdown with the former first lady Sandra Torres. However, a coalition of nine right wing parties have filed a lawsuit to suspend the results, citing far-fetched allegations of fraud. The Organization of American States is urging the Guatemalan authorities to reject the lawsuit because "The Mission verified that no serious irregularities were revealed and that no significant changes were registered with respect to the preliminary results of Sunday, June 25." This from Reuters.6. The sports pages of both the LA Times and New York Times took major hits this week. According to the Sporting Tribune, the LA Times “will no longer have box scores, standings, game stories, TV listings or a daily sports calendar.” These changes were reportedly made to accommodate new 3 p.m. deadlines following the sale of the paper’s printing press. At the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Grey Lady is planning to close its sports desk entirely, and instead rely on The Athletic for their daily sports coverage. This is "part of an effort to further integrate the publication it bought for $550 million last year."7. A wild story in Variety alleges that Warner Brothers-Discovery CEO David Zaslav made a crooked bargain with GQ’s editor-in-chief Will Welch. The terms? In exchange for burying a GQ story critical of Zaslav, Welch got a plum position as a producer on a WB film. If so, Welch likely violated the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics which states reporters and editors should “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived [and] disclose unavoidable conflicts.”8. Common Dreams reports that President Biden has nominated Elliott Abrams to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Abrams, a lifelong neoconservative war hawk, has admitted to covering up information in the Iran-Contra scandal and ignored reports of the massacres in El Salvador in the 1980s. Abrams later called US policy in El Salvador a “fabulous achievement.” Listeners may remember a heated confrontation between Abrams and Rep. Ilhan Omar when he was nominated as a diplomat to Iran and Venezuela under President Trump in 2019.9. According to the Financial Times, “Elon Musk’s Tesla has joined Chinese automakers in pledging to enhance “core socialist values” and compete fairly in the country’s car market after Beijing directed the industry to rein in a months-long price war.” While Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, clearly does not hew to ‘core socialist values’ it is a marked turn from his previous comments on the topic, including tweeting that “Karl Marx was a capitalist.” We recommend he take a break from Twitter, and maybe read a book? Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes Abigail Disney, to discuss her work trying to get her namesake’s company to pay their workers a fair, livable wage as told in her documentary, “The American Dream: And Other Fairy Tales.” Plus, Erica Payne cofounder of The Patriotic Millionaires and co-author of “Tax The Rich!” returns to update us on their latest work educating ordinary Americans about how they can advocate for a fairer tax system.Abigail Disney is a social activist, philanthropist, and an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker. She is also Chair and Co-Founder of Level Forward, an ecosystem of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social change-makers dedicated to balancing artistic vision, social impact, and stakeholder return. She also created the nonprofit Peace is Loud, which uses storytelling to advance social movements, and the Daphne Foundation, which supports organizations working for a more equitable, fair, and peaceful New York City. She is Co-Founder of Fork Films, a nonfiction media production company, which produces original documentaries and the podcast All Ears. Her latest film, which she co-directed with Kathleen Hughes, is The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.Heirs and heiresses have gotten into a lot of trouble down the years trying to impose their will on the world. I think that my job, if I have one, is to impose the will of the world on wealthy people instead of the other way around.Abigail DisneyWe need to reinvigorate the IRS, we need to reinvigorate OSHA, we need to reinvigorate the NLRB and the other referees that have been made anemic by the constant assault of budget cuts.Abigail DisneyIt is amazing to me that, as this far rightwing guy, [Roy Disney] would never have treated his workers in a million years the way that the CEO at the time—Bob Iger, who was toying with running for president as a Democrat—was treating them on the regular. And that was the total capture of the entire American political spectrum by an idea about work and working that was the inverse—in a relatively short period of time— of what my grandfather was doing as a matter of course.Abigail DisneyErica Payne is the founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of high-net-worth individuals that aims to restructure America’s political economy to suit the needs of all Americans. Their work includes advocating for a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens. She is the co-author, with Morris Pearl, of Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer.As far as I can tell, the billionaire class bought up the entire Republican Party and a sufficient number of Democrats that they got a stranglehold on this economy. What they basically created is a system that guarantees we become more unequal more quickly over time, they destabilize the entire country, they threaten democratic capitalism around the world…Mathematically, there’s absolutely no direction this country can go in other than more unequal. And we’re looking at a game of economic Jenga, where we’re basically pulling money out of the bottom and the middle and putting it on the top and the whole thing’s in the process of collapsing.Erica PayneIf they are talking to you about something other than money, they are stealing your money. So the next time someone is talking to you about abortion, or transgender rights, or critical race theory, or any of these other things, you can rest assured that these politicians on the back end are stealing your money.Erica PayneI’m glad you mentioned Reagan, because I think liberals and progressives underestimate the gigantic impact this cruel man with a smile had on the culture with his market fundamentalism.Ralph NaderThe book giveaway for "Tax the Rich!: How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer" by Erica Payne and Morris Pearl is now closed. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all those who showed interest and participated in this event. In Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeStantis1. As the reinvigorated Teamsters union engages in a massive contract renegotiation with UPS, the labor group has announced they scored a major victory – elimination of 22.4, the “two-tier” system, meaning “all drivers currently classified under the 22.4 system would be reclassified immediately to Regular Package Car Drivers, placed in seniority, and have their pay adjusted to the appropriate RPCD rate.” The two-tier system has been a central issue for organized labor in recent years, and a catalyst for the proliferation of a more militant labor movement.2. For the past six years, the Department of Energy has been attempting to clean up a “highly radioactive” spill near the Columbia River in Washington State. Now, the Tri-City Herald reports that the spill is “both deeper and broader than anticipated.” The Energy Department is already quoted saying “the soil beneath the 324 Building is so radioactively hot that it would be lethal to a worker on direct contact within two minutes.”3. Amid a slew of reactionary decisions, the Supreme Court somehow made the right call in a major case. In a 5-4 decision, led by Gorsuch, the Court ruled in Mallory v. Norfolk that “Pennsylvania's law establishing personal jurisdiction over a corporation through mandatory registration does NOT violate due process,” Mark Joseph Stern reports. The full opinion is available here.4. The membership of the Screen Actors Guild have already voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, yet union president Fran Drescher seems to be merely using that vote as leverage to demand concessions from the studios. In response, Rolling Stone reports that over 300 actors – including household names like Meryl Streep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Quinta Brunson – sent a public letter urging against compromise with the studios in the face of major threats like AI. The letter ends by saying “For our union and its future, this is our moment. We hope that, on our behalf, you will meet that moment and not miss it.”5. A major new report by Good Jobs First found that major corporate polluters in Michigan have been exploiting an anti-pollution subsidy in the state for decades. Just since 2010, corporations like GM, Ford, and Stellantis have cheated the Michigan treasury of $2.2 billion. As the group notes, the first step to addressing this corporate welfare crisis is “A proper accounting of which communities are losing how much money.”6. The New York Times reports that, as a result of corrupt dealings within the Department of Education, New York City schoolchildren were fed chicken tenders containing pieces of metal and plastic. This serves as a sobering reminder of the real-world impacts of corporate capture and corruption.7. In Korea, embattled extreme Right-wing president Yoon Suk Yeol – who, among other dangerous proposals has sought to resurrect the country’s nuclear weapons program – is seeking to crackdown on the country’s unions. In response, the Korea Herald reports that the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions will hold two weeks of sustained strikes intended to drive Yoon from office. Between 400,000 and half a million workers are expected to participate.8. The “Greedflation” theory – which contends the recent spate of inflation is due to corporate profit seeking rather than a tight labor market – has won a major backer: the International Monetary Fund, or IMF. A new report on inflation in Europe published by the international finance agency found that profits account for no less than 45% of price rises since 2022. Import costs accounted for another 40%. This is a stunning finding for a group that typically does everything in its power to aid multinational capital.9. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has announced some major wins from the recent state legislative sessions, including defending Washington State’s capital gains tax and blocking a regressive package of tax cuts in Kansas. If he were dead, Grover Norquist would be rolling in his grave. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes journalist and executive director for intellectual capital at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Hal Weitzman, to discuss his book “What’s The Matter With Delaware? How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal—and How It Costs Us All.”Hal Weitzman is Executive Director for Intellectual Capital at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and editor-in-chief of Chicago Booth Review. A former Financial Times editor and foreign correspondent, he is the author of Latin Lessons: How South America Stopped Listening to the United States and Started Prospering and What’s the Matter with Delaware?: How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal—and How It Costs Us All.We know that lawyers and investors in corporations hate political uncertainty because it might affect their profit-making process. And in Delaware they’ve perfected that system. They have completely bypassed any political uncertainty, and therefore also bypassed any oversight or regulation.Hal WeitzmanThe state of Delaware, the major law firms, the legislature, and the State Secretary of State over the years have created a very powerful embrace to make sure that Delaware stays #1 in terms of being a haven for these kinds of corporations, and in terms of making sure that the federal government interferes the least.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. The Lever reports that in Delaware, The Company State, in a little town called Seaford, corporations may soon have the right to vote. The town has proposed an amendment to their charter granting LLCs, corporations, trusts or partnerships suffrage in municipal elections. Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of Common Cause Delaware called this a "shocking...attempt to [give] artificial entities… voting rights," and characterized it as the “flipside [of voter suppression]." This proposal would require the blessing of both houses of the Delaware legislature, and while unlikely to pass, the corporate control of the First State is so powerful that passage cannot be entirely counted out either.2. Senate HELP Committee Chair Bernie Sanders has launched an investigation into safety at Amazon. Chairman Sanders wrote on Twitter “If Amazon can afford to spend $6 billion on stock buybacks last year, it can afford to make sure its warehouses are safe. If Amazon can afford to pay its CEO $289 million over the past 2 years, it can afford to treat all of its workers with dignity and respect, not contempt.” To further this investigation, the HELP committee has launched an online portal allowing “current or former workers, supervisors, medical staff, or anyone else in Amazon's warehouses,” to submit their stories of mistreatment.3. A troubling new report from the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) highlights the rise in pedestrian fatalities in recent years. According to the data, over 8,000 pedestrians were killed on US roadways in 2022, more than double the number who were killed in 2010 and higher than any year since 1980. Regulators must take pedestrian safety as seriously as that of automobile drivers.4. Last Thursday, Indian Prime Minister and Right-wing extremist Narendra Modi addressed Congress, following his meeting with President Biden. A number of progressive Democrats boycotted the event, including Reps. Summer Lee, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Rashida Tlaib, and AOC. In a joint statement issued by Bush and Bowman, the members wrote “by bestowing Prime Minister Modi…the rare honor of a joint address, Congress undermines its ability to be a credible advocate for the rights of religious minorities and journalists around the world.” This from the Hill.5. People’s Dispatch reports that the New York City Council has passed a resolution calling for the United States to end the blockade on Cuba. New York City now joins Washington, D.C. and Chicago in passing such resolutions. This resolution notes “Every year since 1992, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has adopted a resolution declaring the embargo a violation of both the Charter of the United Nations and international law”.6. In the recent Virginia primaries, reform prosecutors swept their respective elections, per Bolts Magazine. Steve Descano, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, and Buta Biberaj, prosecutors in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Arlington each fended off primary challenges from the right, two of whom were endorsed by police unions and a third who was backed by none other than the local Republican Party. The reform prosecutors trounced these regressive opponents by margins of 10 to 13 points. Deghani-Tafti told the magazine “If this election was a referendum on reform, our voters emphatically responded that they will not go backward.”7. The Reykjavik Grapevine reports that no whaling will occur in Iceland this Summer, following months of protest. Interestingly, the article notes that “Whaling is not a traditional practice in Iceland. Not only is Hvalur hf. the one and only company in Iceland engaging in commercial whaling…it does so at a loss.”8. Martin Austermuhle of WAMU reports that Republicans in the House are once again seeking to meddle in the sovereign affairs of Washington, DC. Riders in a draft spending bill promulgated by the GOP include banning reproductive rights legislation, reversing the legalization of marijuana, and other conservative priorities that would never get off the ground in the district. The major concern here is that spineless Congressional Democrats will serve up DC on a silver platter in exchange for other Republican concessions. Just another reason DC statehood must be a top priority.9. A group of House Democrats sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen calling on her to ease the sanctions regime imposed on Venezuela, NBC reports. The authors include Reps. Joaquin Castro and Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, along with progressives like Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Barbara Lee of California. The letter described how sanctions "have often been found to be ineffective in achieving their objectives," and "to purposefully continue contributing to economic hardship experienced by an entire population is immoral and unworthy of the United States.” Hopefully Secretary Yellen will heed these words.10. Finally, how much does a trashcan cost? A new report in Responsible Statecraft highlights price gouging at the Pentagon, including a trashcan sold to the Defense Department for $52,000. Must be one hell of a bin! Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph spends the entire hour with co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon, to discuss his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” which examines how our “military-industrial-media-intelligence complex” conspires to suppress the truth about war.Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and his newest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.The tacit motto of huge media outlets like the New York Times is: Being pro-war means never having to say you’re sorry. If a journalist or a media outlet is in favor of the US engaging in war, that is couched as “objective.” If a journalist (such as Phil Donahue on MSNBC) in the leadup to the war even raises questions, serious questions critical of an impending invasion or ongoing US war then that's considered “biased.”Norman SolomonThese wars are treated as though they aren’t wars. That they don’t exist. That “there’s nothing to see here, folks!” Because we say so. We have our own criteria. And part of that is the jingoism and the nationalism and the racism that says if the people at the other end of US firepower don’t look like us, are not in a country aligned with us, then we don’t think there’s really a reason to consider it a major problem. It’s only a problem when Americans are dying.Norman SolomonThis was a real sociocide—thousands and thousands of bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq. And here’s the New York Times, being fed by one of their reporters Judith Miller total lies about Saddam importing uranium from Niger and Africa and other falsehoods that made page one in the New York Times. What is clearly probably its darkest journalistic chapter… There doesn’t seem to be anything learned today. They could just as well do it today against another country.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard1. On Wednesday, The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the online retailer “tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions [for Amazon Prime] without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” according to FTC Chair Lina Khan. Khan added “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike.” According to internal documents “Amazon named [the cancellation] process ‘Iliad,’…refer[ing] to Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.” More about this lawsuit is available at the Washington Post.2. As the Teamsters continue to negotiate for a better deal with UPS, the membership has voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike. This vote – which passed with 97 percent support – gives the union “maximum leverage to win demands at the bargaining table,” according to the union’s statement. The statement goes on to note that the Teamsters represent more than 340,000 UPS package delivery drivers and warehouse logistics workers nationwide. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien added “The strongest leverage our members have is their labor and they are prepared to withhold it to ensure UPS acts accordingly.”3. For the fist time since 2019, the Democratic-controlled Senate Banking committee will hold a “mark-up” session on a bill – a key step toward enacting any legislation. This bill – sponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown, who chairs the committee, and Tim Scott of South Carolina – seeks to claw back excessive compensation from executives at failed banks and penalize them for misconduct. This legislation was almost certainly drafted in response to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. The draft text of this bill is available at Punchbowl News.4. The American Prospect reports that, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” or FSD has led to at least 736 crashes – causing 17 fatalities – since 2021. Mile for mile, Tesla’s FSD system is “likely…ten times more dangerous at driving than humans.”5. Leaving aside self-driving, a CBS News report sheds light on new dangers associated with electric vehicles. “Their batteries make the vehicles heavier, offering better protection to the passengers inside, but that extra weight — hundreds to even thousands of pounds — has traffic safety advocates concerned about the potential risk to other drivers.” To give some perspective on how heavy these vehicles are, “GMC's Hummer EV weighs more than 9,000 pounds…more than 3,000 pounds heavier than the GMC's full-size pickup. The Hummer EV's battery alone weighs about the same as a Toyota Corolla.”6. The Washington Post reports that the strike at Insider magazine, the “longest ever [strike] in digital media,” has ended. The new deal raises the minimum salary for Insider staff and prevents any further layoffs this year, along with an immediate 3.5 percent raise upon ratification of the contract. The strikers got a boost in public support when the editor-in-chief was filmed “tearing down fliers bearing his face with the phrase, “Have you seen this millionaire?”’ Insider, formerly Business Insider, was acquired by German media conglomerate Axel-Springer in 2015; Axel-Springer’s later acquisition of POLITICO was covered in the first edition of the Capitol Hill Citizen.7. Yahoo Finance reports that, in a major reversal, Shell plans to “[pivot] back to oil to win over investors.” The company will forego its goal to reduce oil outputs by 1-2% each year, and its CEO Wael Sawan emphasized that “shift[ing] to low-carbon businesses cannot come at the expense of profits.” No word yet on whether life on planet Earth can come at the expense of corporate profits.8. This month, American troops will begin arriving in Peru, where they will be stationed until the end of the year. These troops, invited by the wildly unpopular Peruvian Congress and unelected president Dina Boluarte, are charged with “preparing Peru’s intelligence command for “joint special operations.” The timing of this arrival is notable; while protests against the antidemocratic Peruvian government peaked in February, resulting in 70 deaths, a new rash of protests are planned for July. This from CounterPunch.9. The Catholic News Agency reports that a restaurant in Sacramento, California “had an individual impersonate a priest to encourage employees to confess their “sins” against their employer,” – the catch? He wasn’t a priest at all. The Department of Labor called this “among the most shameless” of employee intimidation methods they’d ever seen. In addition to the priest fiasco, investigators said the restaurant “denied overtime pay to employees and illegally paid managers from the employee tip pool….[and] threatened employees with retaliation and immigration-related consequences for cooperating with investigators.” The employer has agreed to pay $70,000 in back wages and $70,000 in damages to 35 employees, as well as $5,000 in civil penalties to the Department of Labor.10. Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower who exposed the lies being fed to the American people regarding the Vietnam War via the Pentagon Papers, has passed away. He was 92. Ellsberg, who had been in hospice following a diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer, wrote a final note in March. This note mostly focused on the nuclear peril posed by the war in Ukraine, but the last few lines should be repeated here:“I’m happy to know that millions of people–including all those friends and comrades to whom I address this message!–have the wisdom, the dedication and the moral courage to carry on with these causes, and to work unceasingly for the survival of our planet and its creatures.I’m enormously grateful to have had the privilege of knowing and working with such people, past and present. That’s among the most treasured aspects of my very privileged and very lucky life. I want to thank you all for the love and support you have given me in so many ways. Your dedication, courage, and determination to act have inspired and sustained my own efforts.My wish for you is that at the end of your days you will feel as much joy and gratitude as I do now.Love, Dan” Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

This week we welcome back Professor Randall Kennedy to help us pay tribute to three principled, uncompromising African American activists, Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report, human rights champion, Randall Robinson, and legendary actor, singer, and activist, Harry Belafonte.Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He is the author of several books, including Contracts: Happiness and Heartbreak, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, and Say It Loud! On Race, Law, History, and Culture.You’ve chosen three very interesting people [Randall Robinson, Harry Belafonte, and Glen Ford]. And I think that one thing that the listeners should keep in mind is that the three that you’ve chosen are all progressive; they are very different… Because the tent of progressivism should be a large tent— not everybody’s going to think the same, and indeed there’s going to be some friction between various tendencies among progressives.Randall KennedyI don’t think that progressives pay enough attention to the people who have been in their camp. We don’t pay enough attention to people who have passed away. We don’t pay enough attention to recalling people who have been heroic in our midst. And, again, I say this as a person who is sometimes extremely critical of some of the people that you’ve mentioned.Randall KennedyWe need people like Glen Ford to pull in one direction uncompromisingly—because the corporate interests always pull in the other direction uncompromisingly—and then we need people who are in between and sometimes have to face the hard realities you’ve pointed out.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard1. The Wall Street Journal and the Corporate Crime Reporter have announced that, following decades of citizen pressure, and action last year by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, the Department of Justice has finally created a Corporate Crime Database. Under President Biden, the Justice Department has taken a tougher rhetorical stance on corporate crime, but as Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco notes, the department “cannot ignore the data showing overall decline in corporate criminal prosecutions over the last decade...We need to do more and move faster.” Among civic groups, The Center for Study of Responsive Law and Public Citizen lead the charge to create these corporate rap sheets and are already working to expand and strengthen this new resource for corporate crime data.2. If you live on the East Coast, you have likely experienced dangerous levels of air pollution in the last week due to smoke moving South from Canadian wildfires. Yet, the Lever reports that under current air quality rules, fossil fuel producers will not have to curb their emissions to offset this spike in air pollution because they have successfully lobbied for a loophole protecting themselves in the case of “exceptional events” outside their control. Environmental regulators are currently mulling a new rule to clamp down on this type of air pollution, but face stiff opposition from industry groups.3. The Washington Post reports that, in an exercise of his leverage in the tightly divided Senate, Bernie Sanders has vowed to oppose all Biden health nominees until the administration produces a “comprehensive” plan to lower prescription drug prices. Sanders’ role as Chair of the Health Education Labor and Pensions committee means these nominees cannot advance without his blessing. This notably includes Biden’s nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. Sanders said “Politicians for years have talked about the high cost of prescription drugs, relatively little has been done, and it’s time that we act decisively.”4. The Progressive International has issued a statement decrying the “soft coup” underway against left-wing President Gustavo Petro in Colombia. Their statement reads “Ever since the election of the country’s first progressive government...Colombia’s traditional powers have been organizing to restore an order marked by extreme inequality, environmental destruction, and state-sponsored violence.” The statement goes on to excoriate officials who have sought to undermine the Petro administration and “former generals, colonels, and members of the Colombian military [who] have not only proclaimed their opposition to President...Petro — but even marched outside Congress to call for a coup d’état against his government.” Signatories to this letter include over 400 political and industrial leaders, including Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Corbyn, Jean Luc Mélenchon, and Former Leftist President of Ecuador Rafael Correa.5. The City, a news site covering New York, reports that food delivery drivers in NYC have won a substantial wage increase. This victory caps off a 3-year long campaign by Los Deliveristas Unidos, and makes New York the “first major U.S. city to establish and implement pay requirements for delivery workers.” These workers currently take home about $11 per hour; this will go up to $17.96 an hour starting July 12th, and will increase to $19.96 per hour by 2025.6. In a surprise decision last week, the Supreme Court voted five-four in favor of Black voters in Alabama who argued the state had unlawfully diluted their voting power, POLITICO reports. Over a quarter of Alabama residents are Black, but the state crammed most Black Alabamians into a single congressional district following the 2020 census, running afoul of the Voting Rights Act. Many expected the ultra-conservative court to reject the challenge and further hollow out the VRA; instead, this ruling could significantly augment the chances of Democrats retaking the House in 2024.7. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has instituted a “highly successful” ban on opium. To cite one example, “In Helmand, by far Afghanistan’s largest opium-producing province, the area of poppy cultivation was cut from over 129,000 hectares in 2022 to only 740 as of April 2023.” However, some in the West – including the US Institute for Peace – believe this could have disastrous implications for the Afghan economy. It remains to be seen whether the new government can find a viable economic alternative fast enough to offset these losses. The Taliban had previously banned opium cultivation when they held power in 2000 and 2001, and achieved a 90% reduction at that time.8. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is again licking her wounds after her nominee for the New York Power Authority was blocked by the State Senate, in a similar fashion as her nominee for the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. Justin Driscoll, whom Hochul had appointed on an interim basis and was seeking to appoint permanently, raised red flags with New York Senate Democrats due to his ingratiation in conservative politics – Driscoll is a registered Republican who has ties to figures like Chris Christie and John Cornyn. Driscoll also opposed the Build Public Renewables Act and has been embroiled in accusations of racial discrimination during his time as general counsel for the Power Authority. On June 9th, POLITICO reported that Senate Democrats will not schedule a vote for Driscoll.9. Projectionists at an Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in New York City have filed an NLRB petition to unionize. However, instead of coming to the negotiating table, the theater chain sent out an internal email “notifying staff of the company's intention to do away with the projectionist position and replace it with a more expansive ‘technical engineer’ role.” This reflects how the struggle for labor rights in entertainment goes far beyond Hollywood writers and actors. This from 1010 Wins.10. Last week, Henry Kissinger – President Nixon’s controversial National Security Advisor and alleged war criminal – celebrated his 100th birthday. The Real News Network reports that this centennial bash was attended by some of the most prominent diplomatic figures in the country, including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and head of the international development agency USAID, Samantha Power. Jonathan Guyer of VOX, documented many other attendees as well, including Larry Summers, Robert Kraft, General David Petreaus, CIA Director Bill Burns, and Michael Bloomberg. The gang’s all here! Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes New York Times reporter, Binyamin Applebaum, author of “The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society” about how Chicago School economists of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s “who believed in the power and the glory of markets… transformed the business of government, the conduct of business, and, as a result, the patterns of everyday life.”Binyamin Appelbaum is the lead business and economics writer on the Editorial Board of the New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. He previously worked for the Charlotte Observer, where his reporting on subprime lending won a George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society.The central attraction of neoliberalism—of market fundamentalism— is that it tells rich and powerful people that they are right and good. It underscores for them, it affirms them, it tells them that their priorities—their interests— are the right ones. And if society just does what it can to enrich them and empower them, then everyone will be better off. That’s an enormously attractive message.Binyamin ApplebaumIn area after area, we saw economists reaching broad conclusions about theories, about long-term truths, about how the world works on the basis of very limited data. Broad data. Data that aggregated everyone and treated them as if they were a single individual, rather than acknowledging the important differences among actors in the economy. Data that took very brief periods of history and extrapolated out to the unforeseeable future. And on that basis, economists reached conclusions that have proven to be empirically wrong as we’ve learned more about it.Binyamin ApplebaumEconomic analysis tends to exclude things that don’t fit neatly into its formulas— that can’t be easily counted or tabulated, that don’t count as data in the view of the economists… We can have very good real-world experience of the effects of drug regulation regimes or of corporate behavior and monopolistic contexts, and if it doesn’t tally on the data sheet it gets excluded from the analysis. It doesn’t become part of our policy-making conversation.Binyamin ApplebaumWe have a huge societal problem with our conception of spending on corporations as investment and spending on people as spending. When we talk about education, it’s an expense. When we talk about semiconductors, it’s an investment into the future. That’s insane. Spending on education is the most productive investment that we can make.Binyamin ApplebaumWhat the market fundamentalist economists fail to take into account is greed and power, connected to one another, are infinite. There’s no discernible boundary. And that leads to a regulation by corporations of the competitive free market. So, monopolies distort markets. Subsidies and bailouts by the government distort market discipline. Political influence of big business over small business distorts market discipline. And consumer fraud, corporate consumer crimes, deceptive advertising distorts market discipline.Ralph Nader Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

A “license to loot” is what our guest, economist William Lazonick, calls stock buybacks. Until the Reagan Revolution, stock buybacks were considered market manipulation and at the very least are an unproductive use of profits used only to pump up the stock price and enrich upper management, while neglecting workers’ wages, capital expansion, and innovation. Ralph and Professor Lazonick break it all down for you.William Lazonick is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His recent work includes Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored,  and the forthcoming book Investing in Innovation: Confronting Predatory Value Extraction in the U.S. Corporation.The ideology that enables buybacks, that makes a lot of people including economists say, “Oh, they’re just fine. The money’s just going to the economy,” is what I call the myth of the market economy—the way in which we get capital formation in the economy is just by money zipping around. But it doesn’t work that way. The money has to stop somewhere.William LazonickIt’s not because the United States does not have the capability to do these things— the capability is in the wrong hands. And it’s being wasted and destroyed. So it’s not simply the amount of money that’s making people rich. But those people who are getting rich are actually getting rich by helping to destroy the industrial base of the United States, including the middle class.William LazonickThese giant companies— these US companies that grew in the USA on the back of their workers, went to Washington for subsidies or bailouts when they were greedy or in trouble, and had the US Marines defend them around the world— are not only disinvesting on a massive scale in the necessities for a productive economy. But they are engaging in the ironic trend that can be called the corporate destruction of capitalism, whose base, in essence, is investment.Ralph NaderWhile these corporate bosses insist on massive domination of our political economy—from Washington to Wall Street— they’re not delivering. For the economy, for the workers, for the people who are trying to make it through every day and protect their families and their descendants. In behaving this way, they have reached a historic level of conflict of interest with their own companies.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven’t Heard1. The automotive news website Jalopnik reports that a whistleblower has turned over 100 gigabtyes of “Tesla Secrets” to German media. These files contain “more than 2,400 self-acceleration complaints and more than 1,500 braking function problems, including 139 cases of unintentional emergency braking and 383 reported phantom stops resulting from false collision warnings. The number of crashes is more than 1000.”2. While national Democrats dither and cave to outrageous Republican demands on the debt ceiling, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has delivered on an expansive progressive agenda. In the current session, with only a single-vote majority in the upper house, Common Dreams reports that they have passed bills to mandate 20 weeks of paid family and medical leave, legalized recreational cannabis, and made school meals free for public and charter students. They also passed a bill codifying Roe v. Wade, established legal protections for transgender youth, set a livable minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, and approved Right to Repair legislation. While not all of these will be signed into law, it is clear that Minnesota is setting the bar for Democratic-controlled state legislatures throughout the country, and putting Congress to shame.3. A new piece in the Lever covers “The $20 Billion Scam At The Heart Of Medicare Advantage.” The article details how insurers are manipulating the medicare privatization scheme and “milking massive profits from systematic overbilling and kneecapping modest Biden proposals to stop the scheme.” Rep. Ro Khanna, responding to this article, advocated for his “Save Medicare Act,” cosponsored by Reps. Mark Pocan and Jan Schakowsky, to ban private insurers from “profiting off the Medicare brand.”4. NPR reports that The White House has unveiled its plan to combat rising antisemitism in the United States, and in a major victory for Left-wing anti-zionists, they did not adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which would gag criticism of Israel. In response, Palestine Legal tweeted “After months of Israel advocacy groups calling on the White House to adopt the distorted IHRA definition of antisemitism, today even the staunchly pro-Israel Biden administration declined to do so. Why? Because IHRA is wrong, useless, and clearly unconstitutional.”5. A leaked document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, published in the Intercept, expresses frustration that the budget of populist Left-wing Mexican President Lopez Obrador – commonly known as AMLO – prioritizes social spending for the poor in Mexico above US interests in our southern neighbor. The document reads “President Lopez Obrador’s federal budget for 2023 gives priority to social spending and signature infrastructure projects, rather than the investments needed to address bilateral issues with the US such as migration, security, and trade.” In other words, the Military Industrial Complex is not content with monopolizing the budget of this country, and feel that they are more entitled to the tax money of other countries than their own citizens.6. 60 Minutes reports that Raytheon, a major military contractor, has been scamming the Defense Department via “inflated prices for planes, submarines, [and] missiles.” Shay Assad, a negotiator who has been on both sides of these procurement debates, drew attention to an oil pressure switch that cost $328, but was purchased by the Pentagon for over $10,000. When asked “what accounts for that huge difference,” Assad answered, “Gouging…what else can account for it?”7. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “A judge dismissed all charges...against a former city police officer [named Darren Kardos] accused of participating in the beating of a 28-year-old mother [Rickia Young]” during the 2020 protests. A key reason why this case was dismissed hinged on the fact that a witness, another police officer, did not appear in court despite being subpoenad – making it “impossible” to try Kardos. Prosecutors “immediately vowed to re-file the case and bring it back to court.”8. Two high-profile former Democrat representatives have joined the Global Advisory Council at the cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase. These are: Tim Ryan, the former Congressman who was defeated by J.D. Vance in his 2022 bid for US Senate in Ohio, and Sean Patrick Maloney, another former Democratic Congressman and head of the DCCC, whom many hold responsible for the Democrats’ slim loss of the House in that election cycle. Coinbase has previously run afoul of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is likely banking on the political clout of these former members to navigate a possible crackdown on crypto. The revolving door just keeps spinning.9. In a small but meaningful win for workers, LaborNotes reports that the Biden NLRB has restored “the rights of union representatives to use heated language, including occasional profanity, during arguments with management.” Union officials were barred from using such language by a Trump-era NLRB decision. The article breaks down the three major implications of this ruling: (1) “employers can no longer claim that the law allows them to discipline representatives for ‘lack of civility,’” (2) “Vigorous debate and ‘salty’ language must be tolerated, including allegations that managers are not telling the truth,” and (3) “Picket line rhetoric does not put strikers at risk.” And to that we say, F**K YEAH! 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