Month: October 2024

Background Briefing: October 6, 2024

The Democrats Have to Win Big Because Chris Jankowski, Leonard Leo and John Roberts Have Stacked the Deck Against Them

We begin with MAGA Republicans who would rather cheat than compete and the extent to which a playing field rigged against Democrats has been laid over multiple decades by two Republican operatives Chris Jankowski and Leonard Leo with a big assist from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Joining us to discuss how the Democrats will need to win big on November 5th since the deck is stacked against them is David Daley, a senior fellow for FairVote and the author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, which helped spark a drive to reform gerrymandering. Dave’s second book, Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy, chronicles the victories and defeats in state efforts to reform elections and uphold voting rights. A digital media fellow at the Wilson Center for the Humanities and the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia, he is the former editor-in-chief of Salon.com, and his latest book is Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections. We discuss his article at The Guardian, “Two men have re-engineered the US electoral system in favor of Republicans.”

 

The Many October Surprises and a Guide to the Cases Against Trump

Then we examine the possibilities of various October surprises as well as look into the status of the many legal cases against Trump and speak with David Graham, a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers political and global news. He previously reported for Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The National. We discuss his latest articles at the Atlantic, “The Cases Against Trump: A Guide” and “There’s No Such Thing as an October Surprise: Jack Smith’s new filing shows why January 6 should hurt Trump. But don’t expect a major public reaction.”

 

The Flow of US Weapons Continues Unabated as Civilian Deaths Mount in Gaza and Lebanon

Then finally, with the flow of US weapons to Israel continuing unabated as civilian deaths mount in both Gaza and Lebanon, we speak with Brett Murphy, a reporter for ProPublica where his coverage has won a George Polk Award as well as the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service. He was previously an investigative reporter at USA Today where he covered labor, criminal justice and the federal government and his stories on widespread labor abuses in California spurred a raft of reforms. We discuss his latest article at ProPublica, “Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel.”