California Recall and COVID; Canadian Federal Election; Delivery Workers Exploited

Californians vote in recall election. What this means for politics in the state beyond Governor Newsom’s future.

Dr. Bill Honigman, retired emergency physician and California state coordinator and healthcare issue team coordinator for the Progressive Democrats of America, joins us to talk about recall election that could replace Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, what it is like on the ground there today for the final push in the recall, the leading opponents of Newsom, the presence of Biden there and whether it could help or hurt Newsom, and the recall process itself. We also talk about Covid and the GOP saying that Biden’s mandates are only hardening people’s position on not getting vaccinated, school reopenings in California amid the pandemic, and the effects that the wildfires have had on public health.

Elizabeth Rowley, leader of the Communist Party of Canada, writer, and political activist, talks to us about the political climate in Canada leading into next week’s parliamentary election, media coverage of other political parties and how they are generally shunned by the establishment. We also talk about how the Communist Party of Canada is running 26 candidates in major cities across Canada on a platform of peace, climate justice, and a people’s recovery, what this means for the political sphere in the country, the public response to the end of the Afghan war, and the intersection of politics and environmental action.

Mónica Cruz, producer, host and labor beat reporter for BreakThrough News, joins host Bob Schlehuber to talk about the political debate over AOC’s dress at the Met Gala, and whether it bears the significance to which it is being attributed. We also talk about bike delivery drivers in New York City and how they are constantly exploited by an unregulated labor market, the lack of protections put in place by the gig economy, how workers cope with these conditions, why the media should pay more attention to these issues, and ways of organizing to achieve labor justice.

In our Politics of Art segment, we talk about the new show “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” which deals with the Lewinsky/Clinton scandal, and whether it merits the use of your time.

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