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What does the right to free press protect? What’s the difference between illegal and unethical attacking of the press? Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer of the leading human rights and free expression organization, PEN America joins us to discuss the threats to free press and the importance of defending speech rights.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Why is this president different from past presidents, and how is democracy under threat due to this presidency? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and investigative journalist, David Cay Johnston, joins us to discuss the issues of the Trump presidency.    www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Join us every week leading up to November 3rd for a deep dive into all of the seriously political moments from the past four years. Scholars and organizations from across the country share what they've been tracking about the current administration and what you need know about the upcoming election.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

What role does race play in capital punishment in the United States? Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, Robert Dunham, joins us to sort through the facts of the death penalty in the U.S. Robert has served as a leading capital appellate lawyer in Pennsylvania, and shared how race, innocence, and geography are all culprits in a flawed criminal punishment system.    www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

How is Wall Street involved in police brutality settlements? Maurice B.P. Weeks, Co-Executive Director of the Action Center on Race and Economy, joins us to explain how taxpayers foot the bill for police misconduct and how big banks accumulate millions of dollars in interest for issuing police brutality bonds.  www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Why do we have monuments celebrating the people who rebelled against their own country? It’s been estimated that over half of the confederate statues erected in courthouse squares were erected between 1902 and 1912, well after the Civil  War. Dr. Eric Foner, a notable professor, and historian joins us this week as we explain how, why, and when confederate statues and symbols have come to populate the American landscape.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Merrick Rosenberg has discovered a pattern that demonstrates the power of personality in presidential campaigns. This pattern is so consistent, it has held strong for 22 consecutive elections going all the way back to 1932. Using this original model, Merrick can predict how the Democratic candidate will perform against Donald Trump in November. Merrick and Quay talk through our most recent Presidential elections to uncover what we can expect in the fall.    His book, Personality Wins: Who Will Take the White House and How We Know will be available everywhere on July 7th.    www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

How are black Americans targeted in drug sentencing? How has American policing and sentencing excluded Black people from the cannabis industry? Chris Miller, Global Activism Manager at Ben and Jerry’s joins us this week to explain why new cannabis legislation is essential not only to answer those questions but for creating a more just and equitable cannabis world in the future.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

In this Seriously America MiniCast, we join our fellow #PodcastersForJustice. These abbreviated episodes provide you with information to create immediate, actionable change in our society. Host Quay Garrett Emmons walks you through casting a timely, informed, and necessary vote.  Join us in supporting the movement by donating to Black Lives Matter. www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

In this Seriously America MiniCast, we join our fellow #PodcastersForJustice. These abbreviated episodes provide you with information to create immediate, actionable change. In this episode, host Taylor Carnes offers tangible action items to locate, examine, and contest important city budgets. Join us in supporting the movement by donating to Black Lives Matter. www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

We speak with Dr. Briana DeCuir, one of the co-founders of Shared Harvest Fund and myCOVIDMD. myCovidMD safely connects residents to resources in real-time, by real people. They help under-resourced communities get free testing and access to telehealth services during the Coronavirus Public Health crisis. www.seriouslyamericashow.com Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

What are Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and how do they mislead expecting people? How are black and brown communities especially at risk of being targeted by these centers? This week, Candace O’Brien from YellowHammer Fund in Alabama joins us to talk about how CPCs target vulnerable populations with false advertising of reproductive care.    www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Why are black mothers more likely to experience maternal mortality in the United States? Dr. Declerq, Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health has investigated the challenges associated with defining the American mortality rate as well as America’s outlier status as a poor provider of maternal protection. He joins us this week in part two of our reproductive justice series to talk about how healthcare missteps and systemic failures leave American mothers with grim birth outcomes, and how we could attempt to reverse the trend.    www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

How has the government-sanctioned forced reproductive sterilization? Since the 1930s, over thirty state eugenics boards approved the coerced sterilization of over sixty thousand Americans. This week, author of “Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare”  and Rutgers associate department chair and professor, Johanna Schoen, joined us to explain how state governments forcibly took reproductive rights from our most vulnerable citizens.  www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Why does environmentally triggered illness disproportionately affect black and brown people? This week we look into a plastics company’s plan to introduce nearly 800 tons of air pollution a year near a historically black community. A team of lawyers at Earthjustice join us from the front lines of the Formosa Plastics fight.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

How does the winner of the popular vote lose elections? How did segregationists team up with an unlikely ally to prevent us from abolishing the electoral college in the 1970s? Jesse Wegman is a member of The New York Times editorial board, where he has written about the Supreme Court and legal affairs since 2013. He joins us in this special bonus episode to talk about his new book, Let the People Pick the President, The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College. We discuss the shortcomings of the electoral college.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

The black homeownership rate is lower today than it was in the 1950s. In this week’s episode, we explore the source of the Black and White wealth gap. Ken Chilton, Professor of Public Administration at Tennessee State University and Sarah Miktarian, Senior Economist at Zillow Research, discuss income inequality, changing real estate markets, and the government’s role in legally blocking Black homeownership.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

In a developed nation with massive food export operations, one in seven households with children were affected by food insecurity in 2018. Food deserts, high costs, and systematic food waste make it difficult for families to access nutritious and secure food sources. Pearson King of Food Forward and Riya Rahman of No Kid Hungry joins us to explain how these problems came to be, and what we can do to correct them. We wrap up with a touching story about the lasting effects of food insecurity from author and former educator, Nikki Kay.    www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Childcare costs can be more than seven times the recommended average for families in the United States. Lea Austin, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Childcare Employment at UC Berkeley, explains how childcare can cost nearly $25,000 a year for some parents. Mandy Kimble, Director of Public Policy at Children at Risk, shares why those of us without children should be more concerned. According to their report, Building Brains & Economies, the lack of affordable child care forces many families to reduce hours or drop out of the workforce, which results in an estimated $8.3 billion annually in lost wages.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Why does the average nonwhite school district receive $2,226 less per student than a white school district? Join us this week as we figure out how nearly 600 billion dollars didn’t make it to America’s promise of public education. Hear from Rebecca Sibilia, founder, and CEO of EdBuild, Leigh Dingerson, freelance author and part of the research team on Confronting the Education Debt and the President of the Baltimore Teachers Union, Diamonte Brown.   www.seriouslyamericashow.com About this episode, and transcript.  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.