On this episode, we’re going to say … see ya? Keep on keeping on? Peace out?  We are taking our progressive activism in some new directions and that means that we’ll be putting the podcast on hiatus for a while.  But before we share our personal progressive next steps, let's have one last round of good news. 

In this episode, we talk about this simple idea: We Can Have Nice Things.  The corporate lobbyists and politicians owned by corporate lobbyists – cough Manchin, cough Sinema – want us to think we live in a world of scarcity. What does that mean? Well, in a world of scarcity, if you have a tiny little crumb, that means I don’t have that tiny little crumb, and there’s only one crumb so we have to fight over it. But that’s really the wrong way to look at it. The fact is, if everyone in the country – the richest country in the world, by the way – if everyone just paid their fair share in taxes, we could rebuild the middle class, dramatically reduce poverty, and close the racial wealth gap, not to mention the racial health gap and the racial housing gap.

Last week we talked about the Texas abortion ban, and how it is, among other things, sure to drive up maternal mortality rates, disproportionately affecting women of color in the state. This week, we talk about what the Democrats in Congress are doing to ensure women’s access to the full range of reproductive health services, including abortion and birth control, specifically what they are doing to address the crisis-level maternal mortality rates among Black women and other women of color.

We know that what is happening in Texas is outrageous, literally deadly serious, and infuriating. Today we bring you up to speed on the Texas abortion ban -- what it does, and what you can do to fight back. BUT we also remind our listeners that NOT every state is like Texas, and some states--for example Illinois, New York, and the District of Columbia--have enacted the Reproductive Health Act making abortion not only safe but also more accessible and affordable.

The recent transfer of power from the former Afghan government has caused immense uncertainty across Afghanistan. And as the Kabul airport remains the epicenter of global attention in Afghanistan, we must not forget the urgent needs of Afghan women and girls. Women's rights have a very uncertain future in Afghanistan and the dangers facing them can’t be separated from the legacy of US policy in the region. 

The numbers don't lie. By the first week of August, 15% of all new Covid infections were in children. 96,000 children have been infected with the Delta variant and it's causing record hospitalizations for children. Not surprisingly, most of the children getting sick live in states with low adult vaccination rates. What can we do knowing our children can't be vaccinated yet? First of all, we have to recognize that we are not having a policy debate about vaccines. We are having an identity struggle with those who want white Christian patriarchal families to be at the top of the social pecking order. 

On this episode, we riff on a few topics that have been on our mind: The ideological death of Milton Friedman, the policing of women's bodies happening at the Olympics and, of course, good news.