It’s Friday, January 27, 2017. I am Kevin Mahoney, editor and founder of Raging Chicken Press and Raging Chicken Media. Each week I talk to our Capitol muckraker-in-chief, Sean Kitchen, about the good, the bad, and the ugly in state and national politics.
Week two since the Trump Organization took control of the White House and the firehose is still on full blast. This week we saw an explosion of international instability as Trump threatened to invade Mexico, hung up on the Austrailian Prime Minister, and tapes of Bannon discussing the inevitability of war with China make the rounds. The State Dept is now fused with Big Oil with the confirmation of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. And we’re on our way to confirming a white supremacist to run the Justice Department; a mortgage fraudster to run the Dept of the Treasury; and an anti-EPA warrior to run the EPA. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface. And...Alt.Facts rule the day. Didn’t you hear about the massacre at Bowling Green?
But the past week has also been dominated by non-stop protests. Following Trump’s executive order banning Muslims from seven countries. Airports and town squares around the country were occupied by thousands of protesters who came out against Trumps order and to stand in solidarity with Muslim refugees, immigrants, and travellers. We’ll talk about some of the actions here in Pennsylvania - from growing Tuesday with Toomey protests to mass rallies from Philadelphia to Lancaster. Senator Toomey’s phone lines crash (or are shut off) due to a flood of calls urging him to vote against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. Toomey, in turn, blows off his constituents.
It doesn’t stop there. While news cycles are buried by the unyeilding assaults from the White House, here in PA the state legislature is moving closer to approving extreme anti-abortion legislation. The PA State System of Higher Education sets the stage for dismantling or gutting the 14 state-owned university system. And right in my own back yard, faculty at Kutztown University demonstrate the value of “pissing in your own backyard” in their fight for safe and healthy working conditions. All that and so much more on today’s show.
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