May 24, 2017 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 181

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

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Topics: Proposed reforms to US voter registration, early voting and polling locations, election methods, weekend voting, and Congressional redistricting. People: Bill, Rachel and Jonathan Produced: May 22nd, 2017.

Episode 181 (53 min):
AFD 181

Legislation Referenced (115th Congress)
  1. H.R.607 – Voter Access Protection Act of 2017 (Rep. Ellison, Keith [D-MN-5])
  2. S.360/H.R.1044 – Same Day Registration Act (Sen. Klobuchar, Amy [D-MN]/Rep. Ellison, Keith [D-MN-5])
  3. H.R.787 – Streamlined and Improved Methods at Polling Locations and Early (SIMPLE) Voting Act of 2017 (Rep. Cohen, Steve [D-TN-9])
  4. H.R.1907 – Election Infrastructure and Security Promotion Act of 2017 (Rep. Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [D-GA-4])
  5. H.R.946 – Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act of 2017 (Rep. Davis, Susan A. [D-CA-53])
  6. H.R.1094 – Weekend Voting Act (Rep. Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [D-NY-25])
  7. H.R.1102 – Redistricting Reform Act of 2017 (Rep. Lofgren, Zoe [D-CA-19])
Legislation Referenced (114th Congress)

– H.R.2694 – Automatic Voter Registration Act (Rep. Cicilline, David N. [D-RI-1])

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Apr 26, 2017 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 178

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

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Topics: Which environmental safety regulations and climate rules have Republicans attacked so far in 2017? Will climate emergency lead to climate austerity governments? People: Bill and Jonathan Produced: April 24th, 2017.

Episode 178 (55 min, incl. 5 bonus minutes):
AFD 178

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Apr 12, 2017 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 177

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

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Topics: Universal public childcare; Trump’s missile strike on Syria, 2003 deja vu, and Clintonian missile strikes of the 1990s. People: Bill, Rachel, and Nate. Produced: April 10th, 2017.

Episode 177 (53 min):
AFD 177

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Apr 5, 2017 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 176

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

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Topics: Paid maternity leave and federal school lunch programs. People: Bill, Rachel, and Greg. Produced: April 5th, 2017.

Episode 176 (51 min):
AFD 176

It’s Radiothon 2017 at WVUD. Please donate online if you can. We don’t get money from that, but our flagship station does, which keeps us on the air.

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Proposed: A Constitutional Right to Safe Air and Water

In this Arsenal For Democracy mini-series, we propose new, progressive Constitutional rights. Part IV: A right to safe air and water, by Bill.

Protecting the environment is not an abstract concept about saving rainforests or polar bears, although these are important in their own way. Environmentalism is fundamentally about people. Whether or not environmental safety is maintained has a tangible, daily effect on millions of lives. Poisoned air and water is responsible for the premature deaths of tens of thousands of Americans each year. The air we breathe and the water we drink must be free from contaminants. That is an inalienable human right.

Sadly, too often, our society has allowed dangerous pollution to be released into our air and water, with enormous health consequences. Disproportionately, those impacts have fallen on low-income and minority individuals and communities. Justice for these crimes has been intermittent at best.

We need to ensure — swiftly and fairly — the elimination of pollution, meaningful and substantial compensation for those affected, and punishment for those responsible.

Environmental public safety should not be taken lightly or be treated as an afterthought corrected by an occasional minor fine. Just as we have taken seriously the public health threat from smoking, so too must we take seriously the daily public health consequences of poor regulation and poor enforcement of environmental public safety.

According to the American Lung Association, the human and financial costs to our society are clear:

Particle pollution also diminishes lung function, causes greater use of asthma medications and increased rates of school absenteeism, emergency room visits and hospital admissions. Other adverse effects can be coughing, wheezing, cardiac arrhythmias and heart attacks. According to the findings from some of the latest studies, short-term increases in particle pollution have been linked to:

– death from respiratory and cardiovascular causes, including strokes;
– increased mortality in infants and young children;
– increased numbers of heart attacks, especially among the elderly and in people with heart conditions;
– inflammation of lung tissue in young, healthy adults;
– increased hospitalization for cardiovascular disease, including strokes and congestive heart failure;
– increased emergency room visits for patients suffering from acute respiratory ailments;
– increased hospitalization for asthma among children; and
-increased severity of asthma attacks in children.

 
By contrast, taking action pays huge dividends:

– Looking at air quality in 545 counties in the U.S. between 2000 and 2007, researchers found that people had approximately four months added to their life expectancy on average due to cleaner air. Women and people who lived in urban and densely populated counties benefited the most.
– Another long-term study of six U.S. cities tracked from 1974 to 2009 added more evidence of the benefits. Their findings suggest that cleaning up particle pollution had almost immediate health benefits. They estimated that the U.S. could prevent approximately 34,000 premature deaths a year if the nation could lower annual levels of particle pollution by 1 µg/m^3

 
Our federal, state, and local governments must guarantee and secure the people’s right to a habitable world, at present and in future, via enforceable law and regulation. In doing so, particularly by transforming our energy and transportation sectors to cleaner modes, we will ensure safe and clean air and water.

Our nation’s constitution ought to enshrine this common-sense governing principle as an amendment. That might read something like this:

“Every person has the right to safe and clean air and water. Congress and the states shall make such laws as are necessary to secure this right to all residents. The federal executive and judiciary and the governments of the states shall implement and enforce these provisions by appropriate action.”

Proposed: A Constitutional Right to Childcare & School

In this Arsenal For Democracy mini-series, we propose new, progressive Constitutional rights. Part III: A right to free and high-quality childcare and education, by Maria.

Education – and the possibility that it means your children can and will do better than you have been able to do – is what drives nearly all American citizens and citizens-to-be to believe in the dream of America. However, to realize that dream, both quality public education and quality early childcare/pre-K must be considered an unquestioned public right for all Americans. Access to both must be guaranteed to all, regardless of means or geographic location, to secure that right.

A need to act

Childcare and education are often intertwined. In order to spend an 8 hour day working, parents drop off their kids at a Pre-K, Daycare Center, or Day Camp that promises an enriching learning environment. Recently it was reported that childcare costs more than college in 24 states. An impressive and depressing statistic when you consider that college tuition “…has been rising almost six percent above the rate of inflation”.

Study after study shows that children who receive pre-school education do better than their less fortunate peers; progress begets progress for the rest of their lives. Competition for Pre-K programs can be so fierce that many schools operate by lottery.

We shouldn’t have to stage a Hunger Games for tots to decide who gets to learn the numbers and colors. We are failing our children and our own futures by not addressing this burden.

Uneven funding

Adding to this challenge is the inherent inequality in the way schools are funded in the United States, through local property taxes. What you and your community can afford to pay (or how much your local government prioritizes educational investment) will determine what kind of education your child receives over a lifetime.

Some parents are fortunate enough to be able to navigate and afford systems that may require applications for a child even before he or she is born. Others are financially secure enough to be able to move to better school districts. Clearly, not everyone can do this.

Should a child be denied a chance at a better life due the geographic circumstances of their birth? Should the quality of their earliest years of school be determined on their parents’ incomes? A meritocracy cannot emerge from such inequalities. These inequalities rob a certain share of our population’s youngest members of the opportunity for a decent start, for arbitrary reasons.

If the core of the American Dream is believing that your children will do better than you did, every child must be provided with at least a baseline of quality education and childcare. For our society to have any hope of realizing a meritocracy to, neither of these can be beholden to rich or poor, urban or suburban, etc.

The right of the people

State constitutions or the federal constitution should be amended to include a free public childcare and schooling provision along the following lines:

“Every person has the right to access high-quality, free education and early childcare regardless of his or her means or geographic location. The legislature [or Congress] shall make such laws as are necessary to secure this right to all residents.”

Those who wish to supplement public offerings with private options would continue to have that ability, but everyone would have access to a strong starting point before reaching adulthood. The fresh slate promised by the American Dream currently does not exist for a poor child, but it could.

Countries the world over have enshrined the right to a free, high standard of education in their constitutions. If America truly wishes to remain one of the most highly educated countries, we must focus on making education freely accessible to all, while also highlighting quality.

Ensuring free public education and childcare for all children not only increases their chances at fulfilling their parents’ dream of a better future, it would also make sure the future of the parents – and our entire society – is well cared for.

December 2, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 152

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team. End notes written by Kelley.

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Topics: Big Ideas for Reforming American Governance — Criminal Justice and Prison Reform. People: Bill, Kelley, Nate. Produced: November 29th, 2015.

NOTE: Our show is now officially on hiatus until September 2016; details at the end of the episode. Thank you all for listening.

Episode 152 (51 min):
AFD 152

Discussion Points:

– Overburdened courts and public defenders
– Systemic, compounding racial bias in the criminal justice system: Arrest, representation, pleas, juries, sentencing, parole
– Mandatory minimums: What went wrong?
– The purpose of prisons: Inmate storage or rehabilitation?
– The economics of prisons: Let’s build local economies not dependent on prisons
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