The Awful Truth: Trafficking of LGBT Youth in the US is a reality

25 April 2016 – Rachel Hutchison of Irreverent Testimony joined me as a guest host because Arliss is on vacation.

Today we started with a tiny bit of coverage on the Scottish elections. Our UK listeners will note that I didn’t talk much about Nicola and that’s because I’m saving a full segment for her next week when I talk about the Scottish elections on May 5th. Only when those are over and done with will I give Brexit my full attention.

Then Rachel and I followed with a discussion of LGBT strategy when it comes to elections as well as a discussion about how we take state governments back.

Our interview was with social worker Molly Judson, who’s been on the front lines for just over two decades. Because of the subject matter, LGBT children and teens who’ve been enslaved right here in the US, this was one of the hardest interviews I’ve ever done. Molly deals with these issues directly. Looking at the ways that LGBT teens are being enslaved is extremely bleak – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Especially if we’re all vigilant and become involved. Even the smallest effort at this point will be better than the wall of silence we face. Call your senator or congressman’s office, and ask them why the trafficking of LGBT youth isn’t a priority. Silence is deadly but you can be a part of the change we need.

The following resources were provided to us by Molly and we hope they’ll be useful in combating the scourges of bigotry, trafficking and modern slavery in the United States.

National Runaway Hotline (www.1800runaway.org):
1-800-RUNAWAY
Resources and support for runaway youth and their families

Trevor Project (www.thetrevorproject.org) – LGBTQ Crisis Line – Counselors trained in areas of support specific to LGBTQ issues
1-866-488-7368 – Hotline
1-202-304-1200 – Textline

Human Trafficking Resource Center (https:traffickingresourcecenter.org)
Hotline – if you are a victim of trafficking or suspect someone is being trafficked, please call the hotline:
1-888-373-7888 – National Human Trafficking Hotline

Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking (www.combathumantrafficking.org) – lots of research and ways to get involved in anti-human trafficking efforts. Based in Colorado, the Laboratory is one of the most well-respected research organizations.

They also help run the Human Trafficking Hotline for Colorado – 1-866-455-5075 (if you or someone you know is or is suspected of being trafficked in Colorado, there are many resources available)

Trans Lifeline – translifeline.org – suicide and crisis line for trans*-identified individuals
1-877-565-8860 – US
1-877-330-6366 – Canada

True Colors Fund – 40toNone Day is April 27, 2016 – go to the website (truecolorsfund.org) to sign up for advocacy efforts.

–Will

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Podcasters Roundtable with Tom, Rachel and Travis

18 April 2016 – Arliss is on vacation for two weeks but we’ve decided to go ahead with the show. For a little fun Tom Cheevers of the Coffee Cast joined us, along with Tom and Rachel Hutchison of Irreverent Testimony.

Our frenetic roundtable conversation ran the fullest possible gamut from religion, to the chaos of the GOP primary, to terrorism and then to feminism. Great fun was had by all as we fought through some of the tougher issues we’re dealing with in the modern world.

Next week Rachel will be back for a regular format program including an interview with a very special guest. We’ll be covering LGBT issues in depth so tune in, you won’t want to miss it. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you all next week.

–Will

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@DeRay McKesson For Mayor!

11 April 2016 – Every time I hear DeRay McKesson speak or read an article he has written I am again convinced that we need someone like this running every major city in America. Our interview with the Baltimore Mayoral candidate, civil rights activist and educator reveals him to be a holistic thinker, a realist and a revolutionary all at the same time. If you don’t already, you must follow him on Twitter at @deray. Will has referred to DeRay’s platform on past shows and, if you have not already done so, go and read a plan for an American city that is grounded in what works and the mechanisms for scaling already tested, functional programs.

At the top of the show I talk about the realities of presidential campaign financing which Bernie consistently avoids. I have to admit, I see him differently after his utter failure at the interview in New York and his, frankly, unforgivable (from my perspective) remark about Hillary. I don’t know if he realizes how very differently women heard him. For me, Bernie has crossed a rubicon and we are never, ever, ever getting back together.

I suspect you are thinking I will talk about the Panama Papers and I do…in a way. I spend my time (and Will’s) talking about the mechanisms of tax havens, why they are usually bad but not always and some of the unexpected questions about privacy.

I talk a lot this week but, fear not, I am about to be away for two weeks and Will will be running the show. I know you will all have a spectacular time. I’ll be back in May for our interview with…wait for it…the Chief Economist of the AFL-CIO, William Sprigs! Later in the month we have the editor of the “Intelligence Report” from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok. All of that and root vegetables too. – Carrots! Arliss

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Apologies all, for some reason this Blog entry never posted like it was intended to. New Episode tomorrow.

–Will

Dodd-Frank with Alexis Goldstein

21 March 2016 – This week we take a deep dive into Dodd-Frank. As I have been promising for the past several weeks, I start out with a fast but fairly detailed backgrounder on the legislation itself. Then, our guest, Alexis Goldstein updates us on where we are today with the implementation process. Alexis is a Senior Policy Analyst at Americans for Financial Reform and has been in the thick of the Dodd-Frank battle from back in her days with Occupy the SEC when she co-authored a 325-page Comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging them to write rules for a strong version of the Volker Rule. Seriously, that’s my kind of banking wonk. During our conversation Alexis referred to a link at Bloomberg and that is here for your easy reference.

Will begins the show talking about Bernie’s Town Hall on the Navajo reservation, while correcting the record. President Russell Begaye had a “very good” discussion with Bernie, where he talked with the Senator about the need for a cabinet-level position for Native Americans, which could cut across various federal agencies, asked that Native Governments be respected as sovereign entities, and asked that the government honor its treaty obligations. While President Begaye spoke in glowing terms about the Senator’s visit, he has not endorsed any presidential candidate in the 2016 election, contrary to claims being made online.

Will also made some noise about the deafening silence in the aftermath of the execution-style murder of three young black Muslims in Fort Wayne, Indiana in late February.

Here the daffodils are up in the front yard and the tulips are coming on right behind them. I hope it is equally beautiful wherever you may be. – Carrots! Arliss

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WOW! Frances Coppola on Brexit

14 March 2016 – I follow many media sources on economics but none more closely than I do Frances Coppola. Frances’ insight on banking fraud, regulation and on the Greek crisis has contributed significantly to my thinking on these subjects. Having her on the show to talk about Brexit is especially exciting for me and I know you will be bowled over by her as well. Her blog, Coppola Comment and other writings, at The Guardian, the Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes and her appearances on the BBC provide an accessible clarity rare among financial industry wonks.

Will is breaking news today on the Agent Orange crisis on the San Carlos Apache reservation lands in Arizona. The Environmental Protection Agency is apparently stepping up to finally (thirty years after the fact) mitigate extreme adverse impact. At the top of the show Will talks about working to focus on the big issues, the real issues in the campaign and not getting lost in the weeds of a single comment.

I finish my financial instrument backgrounders by talking about mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. Whew! I also update on the Finnish economy which, sadly, is not being held aloft by Angry Birds. Is the Finnish economy “Finnished?”

Once again, our interstitial music is by the wonderful Irish American band, Bua. Buy their album. You won’t be sorry. – Carrots! Arliss

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Jim Crow Never Died

11 January 2016 – Ever since the Black Lives Matter hashtag rose to prominence I have found myself on a steep learning curve. Our guest for this show is Dr. Lawrence Brown an Assistant Professor at Baltimore’s Morgan State University School of Community Health and Policy. Dr. Brown is a rising national voice spreading the word that Jim Crow never died and the kind of hyper-segregation seen in Black communities, like that in Baltimore, has shocking and far reaching public health and societal consequences far more pervasive than are initially apparent. Dr. Brown clearly conveys the implications of policies, both historical and current, which have been imposed on Black communities.

In doing my pre-show research I read many of Dr. Brown’s articles but the one that really knocked me back is one I recommend that you read as well. Down to the Wire: Displacement and Disinvestment in Baltimore City encapsulates many of Dr. Brown’s points and should be required reading for everyone seeking greater understanding of the underlying causes behind the current racial crisis. Really. Read it. This is what you will be talking about for a long time after you make the investment.

We open the show with Will talking about polls in the Democratic race and I try to put the precipitous drop in the Chinese stock market (and ours) into perspective. Then Will goes on to talk about policing as it relates to terrorism and I get deeper into the way money flows through the US economy.

It’s good to be back! Carrots! – Arliss

On another note, three polls were published AFTER we recorded this, putting Bernie neck-and-neck with Hillary in Iowa. So my analysis in the first five needs amendment. All polls in Iowa now put Clinton and Sanders within the margin of error of each other, so it’s anyone’s guess. It just goes to show you how fast things can change. I’m excited to see what happens next, and I’m looking forward to the general election. – Will

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Roundtable of Podcasters

14 December 2015 – We were so fortunate this week. Instead of our usual show, we decided to invite some other lefty podcasters to join us and we just opened it cup for a free-range discussion. JM Bell, of The LEFT Show, was with us from Utah along with Travis Rosen and Rachel Hutcheson, from Irreverent Testimony. The LEFT Show and Irreverent Testimony are both podcasts I never miss and are wildly different from one another. Please check them out as they are examples of smart, well-informed and funny people doing good work.

Many Hoppy Carrots of the Season! – Arliss

Modern Policing, Climate Change & More on Taxes

7 December 2015 – We are back with an all new show including a first-rate interview with Police Chief David Hewitt. For eleven years Chief Hewitt has been running a small town, Midwest department which is known for its considered approach to law enforcement. His thinking on social justice, the militarization of policing, use of force and the pressures being placed on law enforcement to fill gaps which are not being met at the source are all well worth hearing. Listen to him saying “You can’t arrest your way to” a solution. If he could tell all departments across the nation one thing he said, “You can’t take that bullet back.” Every department is not Chicago or Ferguson. It’s important to hear from a Chief who thinks deeply about the challenges and solutions in modern policing.

Will reassures us that Turkey and Russia are very unlikely to go to war no matter what all the various talking heads are saying. These are nations which do not now and have not ever had an alignment of purpose but it is not in their interest to battle one another at this time. In his longer segment Will tries to make climate change more real to us all be describing what is happening in Florida already.

I continue on the subject of taxes. Though I usually pull from many sources while I cover a topic, this time I lifted virtually my entire presentation from one given by Dr. Stephanie Kelton (now the Chief Economist for the Minority, Senate Budget Committee). If you have time you can view her entire presentation here. I promise that it is an hour well spent. At the beginning of the show I briefly update the decision by the International Monetary Fund to include the Chinese renminbi as part of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency basket. Since that will be entirely unintelligible to most people (and with good reason) I refer you back to a segment I did on The After Show on 6 August 2015. (My segment begins about half way through the show.) There I explain SDR, the basket and China’s desire for inclusion.

To all those who have been communicating with us via a variety of channels, we LOVE hearing from you. You push us and for that we are grateful. An extra big helping of thanks goes out to Peter who always listens so closely and asks wonderful questions. It will take me a few weeks to get through them all but I’m on it!

Carrots! – Arliss

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Comcast Data Caps, What is Money?, and Hawaiian Independence

9 November 2015 – Today on Hopping Mad, Arliss was unavailable to record the intro, but was still able to cover her usual financial beat, explaining the power of a fiat currency. Will covered Comcast’s Data Caps, and our guest was Professor Francis Boyle, Human Rights Lawyer and International Law Expert. He explained that the Hawaiian situation is unique, as the laws which apply to Native Americans apparently do not apply to Native Hawaiians. Unfortunately, his time was limited, so there is no Extra Mad section this week. But the good news is that we’re now on both Stitcher and iTunes! For those of you who prefer the direct RSS feed it is https://www.buzzsprout.com/50892.rss.

Thanks for listening, Everyone. I promise I’ll write a bio portion for my part of the site soon.

-Will

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Parliament, the House and Games, Games, Games – Margaret Pless Goes Meta

19 October 2015 – We started out simply this week with a big tip of the carrot to Whole Foods in thanks for their decision to no longer sell bunny in their freezer section. Rabbit Americans everywhere join me in collective relief. Will and I are both reading unusually good books this week. I’m reading the magical, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights Nights by Salman Rushdie. I’ll be the first to admit that I never managed to struggle to the end of The Satanic Verses but Rushdie’s new book is in the style of 1001 Nights and is truly a book that has transported me. Will is reading The Discovery of Middle Earth, by Graham Robb. Robb traces the history of the Celts using the results of recent archeology and research. He brings a potentially new slant to the history of a tribe with much greater reach than most realize.

After the break Will told us about some of the more recent revelations by Edward Snowden and the realization by British MPs that they too are the subject of surveillance despite the repeated statements by the government to the contrary. You will be pleased to know that a court ruled that the statements by the government were “political” and not really intended to be factual so everything is all okay. Or not.

I’ve been thinking about the lack of a Speaker and the so-called debt ceiling crisis upon which Republicans continue to insist despite the fact that it is a useless anachronism dating back to the gold standard. Is this the time for platinum coin seigniorage, aka “the trillion dollar coin?” Probably not but PCS sure would solve a lot of problems. I explain what it is and a bit about why it works. Later this week I will post, under our “Other Podcasts” tab an MMT podcast I did for The After Show during which I also covered PCS. There is a bit more detail in that podcast and I will include my notes as well in case you would like more information.

Our interview this week was with citizen journalist and blogger, Margaret Pless. While Margaret has been involved in covering Gamergate, we didn’t bother to dive down into the weeds of who said what, when or to whom. Personally, with rare, rare exceptions (The Room, for instance) I don’t play games and I’m not really interested in them. What DOES interest me are some of the more meta issues of which Gamergate is only one example. We talked to Margret about women in science and tech, about games in the larger context of society and in our extended “Extra Mad” segment Margaret got in to more detail about how to protect yourself on-line. Margaret is a terrific young talent and we think you will be as engaged by her as we were. – Carrots! Arliss

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