The Leslie Marshall Show

Honoring Gold Star Families for Veterans Day

Leslie is joined by George Lutz, Founder and Executive Director of 'Honor and Remember Inc.', a non-profit organization dedicated to perpetually recognizing our fallen Military heroes and their families.  Through the creation of the 'Honor and Remember Flag,' the organization's mission is to establish a public national symbol that recognizes with gratitude and respect the men and women who died in military service to America.  Further goals include broad national awareness and education of the flag’s meaning and importance, and to present personalized Honor and Remember Flags to the immediate families of all our nation's fallen.

 

Leslie and George first discuss how and why George created the 'Honor and Remember Flag.'

George's son Tony was on patrol in Iraq when he was killed by a sniper’s bullet in 2005. As George and his family came to grips with the shock and emotional agony of this overwhelming loss, he began to reach out to other families of fallen soldiers (Gold Star Families). He found that more than anything, the families didn’t want their loved ones and sacrifice to be forgotten.

In 2008 he started 'Honor and Remember' to leave a legacy in the form of a national symbol: the Honor and Remember flag, the only symbol that publicly recognizes America's Fallen Heroes and their Families for their sacrifice. The Honor and Remember Flag is a tangible, iconic way to send a message to Gold Star Families that speaks words louder than thunder.

George is on a mission to have the Honor and Remember flag flown on every flagpole in America. 26 states have adopted the flag as their state symbol of honor and remembrance, and there are bills before the House and Senate for national adoption of the flag. To date, Honor and Remember has presented almost 4,000 handmade, personalized flags to families, and has a long waiting list.

Honor and Remember is a top rated charity, and as Americans are planning their upcoming Holiday get togethers, it’s important to remember the families whose loved ones will never be at the table again. Especially those for whom this is the first holiday season since their loss.

 

To finish the interview, Leslie reads from a new blog that George wrote for this year's Veterans Day.

 

Please consider donating to this great cause at www.honorandremember.org/donation.

What is Medicaid?

Today's guest hosts are Brent J. Cohen, Executive Director of Generation Progress, and Edwith Theogene, Organizing Director for Generation Progress.

They discuss all things Medicaid, the government program that provides health coverage to low-income people in the U.S.

Medicaid is one of the largest payers for health care in this country—as of July 2019, over 65 million people in the U.S. were enrolled in the program.

 

To break down exactly what Medicaid is, who the program helps, and the threats the program is facing, they’re joined today by Fabiola Carrión, the Senior Attorney at the National Health Law Program, and Jamille Fields Allsbrook, Director of the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

 

The website for "Generation Progress" is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress.  Brent J. Cohen's Twitter handle is @BrentJCohen and  Edwith Theogene's handle is @WhoIsEdwith.

How China and Their Policies Are Negatively Transforming the United States

Leslie is rejoined by Scott Paul, President of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a partnership established by some of America’s leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union.

For over a decade, Mr. Paul and AAM have worked to make American manufacturing a top-of-mind issue for voters and our national leaders through effective advocacy, innovative research, and a savvy public relations strategy.

The two discuss how, while America thought it would be transforming China, China and its policies have been transforming the United States.  Unfortunately for Americans, many of those transformations have not gone well for the U.S. 

 

One of the most recent examples is how the stifling of free speech has crossed the Pacific Ocean from the People's Republic to our own backyard.  This has been apparent in the case of many U.S. companies cow-towing to China's demands to not give voice to Hong Kong and its pro-democracy protests.  One very public example has been the backlash to a pro Hong-Kong tweet by the owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey.

 

Leslie and Scott also discuss a massive series of thefts of biomedical secrets being stolen from some of the most prestigious medical schools in the U.S. and sent back to China.

 

Additionally, they analyze a new plan by Senator Marco Rubio that would block U.S. federal pensions from investing in China.

 

Finally, Scott helps to explain a new W.T.O. decision that will allow China to impose trade sanctions on U.S. goods.

 

The website for AAM is AmericanManufacturing.org and their Twitter handle is @KeepItMadeInUSA. Scott's Twitter handle is @ScottPaulAAM.

Medicare For All, and How to Pay For It

The guest host for today's show is Brad Bannon. Brad runs Bannon Communications Research, a polling, message development and media firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns. His new show, 'Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon,' airs every Monday from 3-4pm ET.

Brad is first joined by Wendell Potter, President of 'Business for Medicare for All.'  He is also the founder of the journalism nonprofit Tarbell.org and author of the New York Times bestseller 'Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans' and 'Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It.'

Wendell previously served as an executive for two of the country’s largest health insurers, Humana and Cigna. In 2008, he left his job as head of corporate communications at Cigna after what he has described as a crisis of conscience. He went on to become a leading advocate of health care reform and a critic of the U.S. health insurance industry. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures numerous times over the past decade and has been a frequent guest on TV and radio news programs.

 

Wendell's website is BusinessForMedicareForAll.com and his Twitter handle is @WendellPotter.

Wendell and Brad analyze how 'Medicare for All' compares with our current healthcare system in the U.S., as well as the viability of it passing through Congress if Senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders become our next President.  The two also discuss Senator Warren's recently announced 'Medicare for All' plan, including how it would be financed.

During the second half of the show, Brad leads a political round-table with two guests who continue the 'Medicare for All' discussion, and also discuss some recent 2020 battleground state polling.

The two round table guests are Tim Zenk and Mark Grimaldi.  Tim is a Principle at 'Molecule,' a business and public affairs company, a former Democratic staffer, and a well known renewable energy expert. His Twitter handle is @greencrude.

 

Mark Grimaldi, or 'Marky Mark' as Leslie Marshall calls him, is the Executive Producer of this show and a Democratic Activist. His Twitter handle is @MarkJGrimaldi.

Brad writes a column every Sunday on the 2020 Presidential race for 'The Hill.' He's on the National Journal's panel of political insiders and is a national political analyst for WGN TV and Radio in Chicago.
You can read Brad's columns at www.MuckRack.com/Brad-Bannon. His Twitter handle is @BradBannon.

Home is Here: SCOTUS to Hear DACA Case

Today's guest hosts are Charlotte Hancock, Communications Director for Generation Progress, and Emily Leach, Senior Press Associate for Generation Progress.

 

In less than two weeks, on November 12th, the Supreme Court will hear a case on the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which allowed people who came to the U.S. as young children to stay and work in the only country they’ve ever really known. And as this episode is being recorded, a group of DACA recipients, also known as “Dreamers,” Temporary Protected Status holders, and allies are traveling 230 miles on foot from New York City to Washington, D.C as part of the 'Home is Here March.'  The march is being led by the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, to draw attention to the case and to the need to protect the rights of undocumented people in this country.

To talk to Charlotte and Emily about the 'Home is Here' campaign, and the upcoming Supreme Court case, they're joined by Juan Manuel Guzman, the Advocacy and Policy Manager from 'United We Dream,' and Claudia Flores, the Immigration Campaign Manager at the Center for American Progress.

 

The website for 'United We Dream' is www.UnitedWeDream.org and their Twitter handle is @UnitedWeDream.  Juan Manuel Guzman's handle is @_jmguzman.  You can find CAP's Immigration team on Twitter with the handle @CAPImmigration and Claudia Flores with the handle @claudsDC.

The website for Generation Progress is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress.  Charlotte Hancock's handle is @CharlatAnne and Emily Leach's handle is @EmilyFLeach.

The Fight to Secure U.S. Elections; Latest on Impeachment

The guest host for today's show is Brad Bannon. Brad runs Bannon Communications Research, a polling, message development and media firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns. His new show, 'Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon,' airs every Monday from 3-4pm ET.

Brad is first joined by Aquene Freechild, Co-Director of Public Citizen's Democracy Is For People Campaign.  She also leads Public Citizen’s advocacy work on election security and holding voting system vendors accountable for ensuring machines are safe from hackers. She co-founded the Secure Our Vote coalition, which works on the state and local level to encourage election officials to secure the vote and allow for recovery should a computer error or hack occur.

The two discuss the latest on the efforts to secure American elections ahead of the federal, state, and local contests taking place in 2020.  This includes two election security bills that have passed the House of Representatives, and have then been blocked by Senate Republicans, as well as threatened with a veto by President Trump. 

 

The two bills are the “Securing America’s Federal Elections Act” (SAFE Act) and the "Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy Act" (SHIELD Act).  The SAFE Act would, among other things, require voting systems to use backup paper ballots, mandate tech safeguards, and provide resources to states to improve their election-security measures.  The SHIELD Act would require that candidates and political committees notify the FBI and other authorities if a foreign power offers campaign help. It also tightens restrictions on campaign spending by foreign nationals and requires more transparency in political ads on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.  It would also explicitly prohibit campaigns from exchanging campaign-related information with foreign governments and their agents. The latter provision was aimed at reports that officials in Trump’s 2016 campaign shared polling data with a person associated with Russian intelligence.

 

Public Citizen is calling on Americans to take action on Nov 13th, a week before the Congressional funding deadline. Folks can find an action near them, or host one, at www.SecureOurVote.us.  Their Twitter handle is @SecureourVotes.

During the second half of the show, Brad leads a political round-table with two guests who discuss the impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives, including the rapidly growing support to have President Trump impeached and removed from office.

The two round-table guests are Anisha Singh and Mark Grimaldi.  Anisha is Director of Judicial Nominations at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.  She is an Attorney turned Organizer and Democratic Strategist who brings with her more than a decade of experience in public interest and social justice work, with a strong grassroots organizing and legal background.  Her Twitter handle is @Anisha_S113.

 

Mark Grimaldi, or 'Marky Mark' as Leslie Marshall calls him, is the Executive Producer of this show and a Progressive Activist.  His Twitter handle is @MarkJGrimaldi.

Brad writes a column every Monday on the 2020 Presidential race for 'The Hill.'  He's on the National Journal's panel of political insiders and is a national political analyst for WGN TV and Radio in Chicago.
You can read Brad's writing at www.MuckRack.com/Brad-Bannon. His Twitter handle is @BradBannon.

The Impeachment Inquiry: What's Going On?

Today's guest hosts are Brent Cohen, Executive Director of Generation Progress, and Charlotte Hancock, Communications Director for Generation Progress.

 

They discuss the House of Representatives' formal impeachment inquiry to investigate the conduct of President Trump. The decision to do so was based on a revelation that on a phone call in July, President Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate one of his political rivals for his own benefit—and according to an anonymous whistleblower and text messages from State Department officials, President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to coerce them into opening that investigation.

To break down exactly how we’ve gotten here and talk about what’s still to come, Brent and Charlotte are joined by two experts from the Center for American Progress’s Moscow Project: Max Bergmann, Co-founder and Director of The Moscow Project and James Lamond, Managing Director for The Moscow Project.

The website for the Moscow Project is www.theMoscowProject.org and their Twitter handle is @Moscow_Project.  Max Bergmann's handle is @MaxBergmann and he has his own podcast called, 'The Asset,' which is a deep dive into Trump's history with Russia.  You can listen to it at www.TheAssetPodcast.org.  You can find James Lamond on Twitter with the handle @jdlamond.

The website for "Generation Progress" is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress.  Brent Cohen's Twitter handle is @BrentJCohen and Charlotte Hancock's handle is @CharlatAnne.

Protecting the Right to Organize with the PRO Act

Leslie is joined by United Steelworkers (USW) President, Tom Conway.

The two discuss Protecting the Right to Organize, via the PRO Act (P.R.O. = Protect the Right to Organize).

Here are some important points that Tom and Leslie brought up when analyzing the need for the PRO Act, and how it would help.

The PRO Act, which received its final markup by the House Committee on Education and Labor last month, is a pathway to power for workers:

- It helps tip the balance of power away from CEOs by strengthening labor laws

- The defects of the current law can be clearly seen inthe case of Kumho Tire,a Korean company that has operations in Macon, Ga. as workers there tried to organize

- Workers trying to join the USW were subjected to anti-union videos put on repeat in the break rooms and threats of plant closure

- Kumho then fired the lead organizer and suspended pregnant worker, Victoria Whipple

- Kumho spend $500,000 on an anti-union campaign

- Kumho also racked up more than 30 'unfair labor practice' charges

The PRO Act would:

- Establish stronger and swifter remedies to stop employers from breaking the law

- Make companies recognize contractors as part of the collective bargaining process so they can no longer continue to whittle down Union membership by subcontracting

- Force an employer to reach a first contract in a timely manner with a newly organized group of workers. (No more dragging out first contracts!)

- Reverse so-called 'Right to Work,' regardless of state laws(!)

- Prohibit employers from forcing employees to attend anti-union meetings

There’s no dispute, workers in unions fare better than their non-union counterparts:

- Average union weekly earnings are significantly higher than non-union earnings

- On average, union members also have better benefits and more retirement security than their non-union counterparts

- Strengthening workers’ rights is essential to reducing economic inequality

The website for the USW is www.USW.org. Their handle on both Twitter and Instagram is @steelworkers.
The USW urges passage of the PRO Act. To help promote passage of the Pro Act, please post about it on social media using the hashtag #ProActNow.

Tom Conway was elected by the International Executive Board to succeed retiring International President Leo W. Gerard as leader of the United Steelworkers (USW), the largest industrial union in North America, effective July 15, 2019.

Previously, Conway served as International Vice President, a position he held since March 1, 2005, and was re-elected to four separate times.

During his 14-year tenure as International Vice President, Conway became the union’s most experienced contract negotiator in steel, aluminum, oil and other major industries where USW members work, often directing bargaining during crises.

You can read Tom's weekly blog at www.usw.org/blog.

Bernie's AOC Endorsement, Warren's Medicare for All Plan, Mayor Pete's Surge

The guest host for today's show is Brad Bannon. Brad runs Bannon Communications Research, a polling, message development and media firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns. His new show, 'Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon,' airs every Monday from 3-4pm ET.

Brad is first joined by Amie Parnes, National Political Correspondent for 'The Hill' and co-author of 'Shattered,' the number one New York Times' best selling book on the 2016 presidential election. Amie's Twitter handle is @AmieParnes.

The two discuss what effect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders will have on his 2020 bid for the White House.They also analyze how heavily Senator Elizabeth Warren's evasiveness on how to pay for her 'Medicare for All' plan is weighing on her presidential campaign.
To close the interview, Amie gives her take on how Hunter Biden's business interests in Ukraine have affected Vice President Joe Biden's 2020 run.

During the second half of the show, Brad leads a political round-table with two guests who discuss whether Bernie Sanders can make a resurgence toward the top of the 2020 Democratic field for President.  The panel also analyzes Mayor Pete Buttigieg's surge in the polls following his recent strong debate performance.

The two round table guests are Kimberly Scott and Mark Grimaldi. Kimberly is the Founder and Publisher of DemList, LLC, a free national daily political column, calendar and resource site for Democrats and allies - a unique, central source that connects people to the who, what and where of Democratic events, issues and activism.

You can find out more about them at DemList.com and follow them on Twitter @TheDemList.

Mark Grimaldi, or 'Marky Mark' as Leslie Marshall calls him, is the Executive Producer of this show and a Democratic Activist. His Twitter handle is @MarkJGrimaldi.

Brad writes a column every Sunday on the 2020 Presidential race for 'The Hill.' He's on the National Journal's panel of political insiders and is a national political analyst for WGN TV and Radio in Chicago.
You can read Brad's columns at MuckRack.com/Brad-Bannon. His Twitter handle is @BradBannon.

Reproductive Justice is a Human Right

Today's guest host is Edwith Theogene, Organizing Director for Generation Progress.  She's joined by a trio of special guests to discuss why reproductive justice is a human right.

At a high level, Reproductive Justice is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. It is a movement and a framework that was coined by visionary Black women activists in 1994 to recognize people who felt marginalized or sidelined by the existing women’s rights movement, which centered the experiences of white women and primarily focused on abortion, often without discussing non-legal barriers to abortion access, including cost, travel time, and lack of childcare.

Reproductive justice is an issue that Edwith is very passionate about—as she previously managed the 'Act for Women Campaign' at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is a national campaign to support the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA)—federal legislation that ensures that pregnant people can have a safe and accessible abortion no matter where they live.

To dive deeper into this subject, Edwith is joined today by three experts in the reproductive justice field: Margie Del Castillo, the Director of Field and Advocacy for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (www.latinainstitute.org), Jessica Pinckney, the Vice President of Government Affairs at In Our Own Voice (www.blackrj.com), and Jaclyn Dean, the Public Policy Manager for the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (www.napawf.org).

The website for "Generation Progress" is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress.  Edwith Theogene's Twitter handle is @WhoIsEdwith, Margie Del Castillo's handle is @margieinthedmv, Jessica Pinckney's handle is @jnpinckney, and Jaclyn Dean's handle is @jacryndean.