Part One:
We speak with John Nichols, national affairs correspondent with The Nation, about Barack Obama’s endorsement of Joe Biden for president. He praised Biden for being compassionate, competent, and open to listening and learning. Obama said Biden will be the best person to lead our country after the pandemic because of his realistic approach to governing and his understanding of the inner workings of the American political system.
Obama also paid homage to Bernie Sanders, whose consistent adherence to progressive ideals for 40 years has now succeeded in fundamentally moving the Democratic Party forward into a new era. Even before COVID-19, ordinary Americans were suffering under an economic crisis that gave disproportionate benefits to large corporations and the wealthiest 1%. The current pandemic’s health crisis has deepened our misery, making it absolutely necessary – not just possible, but necessary – for Sanders’s progressive policy ideas to be adopted and implemented. His proposals are clearly attainable (not “pie-in-the-sky” impossible). And they are rooted in fundamental American values – fairness, compassion, inclusiveness, caring about our families and our communities, one-person/one-vote. This is not some infidel socialist that Trump and his ilk demonize. This is all of us pulling together, cooperating unselfishly to get through this pandemic, to help put our economy back together, and to build a better country, united. The ultimate American values.
Part Two:
Our guest is Greg Kauffman, a contributing writer for The Nation and the founder of TalkPoverty.org. We discuss the Black Belt Commission, created in 2008 but never funded. If funded, the Commission could have helped avoid some of the worst effects of COVID-19 on African-Americans in southern states, effects which have been grossly disproportionate to the percentage of blacks in those states’ populations.
The Southeast Crescent Regional Commission was created in 2008 to provide economic development assistance—including for healthcare facilities—to Black Belt states. However, it has never received more than $250,000 from Congress in a single year—even while its counterpart covering whiter, richer Northern states has received steady funding, including $25 million in 2019. With Black Belt communities being ravaged by the pandemic, it’s past time to make good on the hundreds of millions of dollars the Commission was authorized to receive over the past 12 years.
Where were all the Republican Senators who represented southern states during those years? Why didn’t they fight to get the federal funding that had already been authorized to help their own constituents?
