What A Day - Bleakfast At Tiffany's

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Last night’s Republican National Convention brought more speeches from Trump’s employees and family members, including First Lady Melania Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The topic of “school choice” has been referenced often during the RNC—that’s part of a major push from Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to privatize education. In Portsmouth, Virginia, Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke has been charged with a misdemeanor for calling for the resignation of the city’s police chief. She’s not alone. We discuss how the legal system in Virginia and elsewhere is being used against activists and elected officials, who are mostly Black, to suppress political speech. Mass Defense Fund: www.nlg.org/massdefenseprogram/ And in headlines: updates on Jacob Blake, California farmworkers face grueling work conditions made worse by extreme weather, and the Whitney Museum does fake activism.

It's Wednesday, August 26th. I'm Keila Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What The Day, where we have now hit our yearly max for speeches from Trump's children. Yeah. And I think actually it's like the Olympics. I actually only have to hear them every four years. So that was a new update. Yeah, I agree. I think it's almost like a once in a lifetime event. It's more than enough. On today's show, punitive action against protesters across the country, then some headlines.

But first, the latest. I am Bob Paduchick, son of Anthony and Judy Paduchick, and I cast Ohio's 82 votes for Donald John president. Wow. Well, good luck to that man, whoever that is. That is all right. Night two of the Republican National Convention brought us more speeches from Trump's family members, including First Lady Melania Trump speaking from the Rose Garden at the White House. So here's a clip. I like to call on the citizens of this country to take a moment, pause and look at things from all perspectives. I urge people to come together in a civil manner so we can work and live up to our standard American ideals. I also ask people to stop the violence and looting being done in the name of justice and never make assumptions based on the color of a person's skin. All right. So that was a bunch of sort of non sequiturs from Melania Trump.

The night's other keynote speaker was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who spoke from Jerusalem in a prerecorded segment, becoming the first Secretary of State to speak at a party convention in at least 75 years. And he's now under investigation by a House subcommittee for partaking in political activities during a diplomatic trip, so good for him. If you're not under investigation in this White House,

you are not doing your job. Melania's speech also was interesting because it actually referenced the people who have gotten sick and died from COVID. So that was different from the rest of what we've seen in these past two days. And of course, the fact that that is notable is notable in and of itself. Like, for example, Larry Kudlow, the director of the U.S. National Economic Council, who spoke earlier in the night, he talked about the pandemic as being something in the past tense that had been overcome. Meanwhile, just yesterday, over a thousand people died in the U.S. from COVID. And the night also included some of these kind of PR moments, like the president presiding over a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, also taking place at the White House, even as the

administration has created new barriers for legal immigration and made it more expensive. I think a lot of that stuff is kind of put out there to well, actually, the media while only telling a little sliver of the entire story. And speaking of that, of course, there was the typical media bashing from many of the speakers, including Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump, who talked about how the media is leaving Americans, quote, mentally enslaved. Oh, man. No comment. But we also got an attack line that the Bidens would use the office of the presidency to enrich themselves and their family,

which was interesting given, you know, everything we've seen in the past four years. And that last night was like a Trump nepotism show with Tiffany and Eric both speaking. But Gideon, something else that was brought up on night one and repeated again last night by Vice President Mike Pence and Melania during her speech is the phrase school choice. The GOP keeps flashing to it. So let's talk about what it really means.

Yeah, it was definitely very prominent on night one. And Donald Trump Jr. even wrote an op ed about it this week. And so Republicans have been trying to portray Democrats and teachers unions as impediments to good education, particularly in this moment. So here's what it's actually meant in terms of policy. For quite some time, the major education policy push in the Trump administration led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is to move towards privatizing education more. DeVos favors options like charter schools. And it's definitely a fraught issue when it comes to individual families deciding their particular options. But the way it is playing out right now during the pandemic has drawn even more heat to DeVos. So a little backstory.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Washington state temporarily blocked a rule DeVos had put into place that would have given private schools a bigger share of coronavirus relief money. So the money, which comes from the CARES Act, was meant to go out to public and private schools based on how many underserved children are enrolled. The shift came when DeVos said that she wanted the money distributed to private schools based instead on the total number of students. And that got pushed back for its impact on public schools and was revised when the rule ultimately went into effect. But per the Washington Post, that new rule ended up allowing public schools to only use the money for underserved students,

while private schools were eligible to get loans that public schools could not from the federal government. So that is what ultimately got blocked this week. Yeah, and the schools and parents struggle with the big questions of how to return to school safely. That too has been turned into a political football by this administration's push to have everyone go in person. Right, and that has led in part to evidence of a divide between the parties on how school should be conducted, despite the fact that there are incredibly difficult nuances to all of this. For instance, in a recent New York Times poll, Democrats said that they were more reluctant to send their kids back to school in person than Republicans are. Republicans were also more

likely to say that teachers should work in person. And so it's just a sample of over a thousand parents. But it's an interesting window into how this conversation has moved and how the Republican Party largely moves with Trump on many issues. But when you get down to the granular level, things are infinitely more complicated. And one fairly clear example of that is New York, where consistently low COVID transmission rates have cleared the way for a hybrid reopening that is set to begin on September 10th. But now, with just days until that date, there are still pretty significant changes in plans. Just this week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that principals will be given the option of holding certain classes outside

due to concerns about proper ventilation in schools. Again, another issue that goes back to public school funding. And this comes as groups like the Council of School Supervisors and administrators say that class should begin remotely at first in order to facilitate more time for things like fixing ventilation systems and getting enough nurses, among some other issues. Meanwhile, the United Federation of Teachers have threatened to strike if a number of safety concerns aren't met, even though that could potentially risk jail time. So even for a city that for the moment has COVID largely under

control, the conversation about how to actually have school safely is so divorced from the Republican presentation of the issue. We'll keep tracking that story and the political shifts on education, but let's shift gears to a story out of Virginia. All right. So with nationwide protests against police violence and racial inequality comes legal action against protesters, NAACP representatives, and elected officials who are speaking out. In Portsmouth, Virginia, Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke has been charged with a misdemeanor crime for calling for the resignation of the city's police chief. Yeah. Tommy Dubois, a white man who on the record says that people play the race card too much and belongs to an anti-Lucas

Facebook group, filed a criminal case alleging that calling for the police chief's firing violates the city charter. The vice mayor will now have to appear in court to respond to the allegations. Okay, and this is just the latest in legal retaliation against Black politicians and NAACP leaders in Virginia, right? Yes. So State Senator Louise Lucas, who is the mother of the vice mayor in Portsmouth and the highest ranking elected Black woman in Virginia, also had charges filed against her last week because she spoke at a protest that resulted in the removal of a Confederate statue. But she wasn't the only person charged. They also charged the local NAACP's president and vice president and a school board member with felony injury to a monument and conspiracy. A public defender and

three others were also charged with felony injury to a monument, which is an insane charge, but okay. The head of the Democratic caucus in Virginia State Senate called the charges, quote, thinly veiled attempt to intimidate and silence the most powerful black woman in the Virginia legislature. And this is troubling for several reasons. Most of these charges are against people who are black. The legal system is being used against protesters in a major affront to First Amendment rights. And for a party that spent the greater part of their national convention railing against cancel culture, threatening black people who speak out against racism with incarceration is just a little too on the nose. Maybe we'll do a two part episode. Yeah. And this all follows an increase in bogus charges and law changes across the country.

We mentioned on our show recently that Tennessee has moved to criminalize protests that take place on state property. Yeah. And in places like Louisville, Kentucky, where daily protests to arrest the police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor continue, legal retaliation is becoming the norm. Some protesters in the summer's uprisings may face life in prison for vandalism. And that's also the case in Salt Lake City, Utah, where splashing red paint on a building resulted in felony charges for protesters. If you want to help, we put a link in our show notes to legal defense funds working on behalf of protesters. We'll keep tracking this story, but that's the latest for now. It's Wednesday WOD Squad, and for today's Temp Check, we're talking about the original music app, Napster, which was bought this week by a company called Melody VR, which puts on virtual reality live performances. Napster, it turns out,

still has 3 million users and a large streaming music library. And Melody VR hopes to translate all that into the world of virtual reality. So Giddy, the year is 2002. What are you using Napster to download? At this point, I'm not using Napster. There's no way's no way I, this is, I'm, I'm nine or 10 in 2002. So I wish that I was in 2002. I wish that I was right. Does that, is that accurate? Anyway, I don't know how old you are. Yeah, I can't, I can't do math. Uh, I'm around that age. And so, but like 2002 is, is, is like speaker box love below era, it's like sort of a little earlier like i think that that's more 2003 2004 okay okay so at this so at this point the answer is i'm not using napster i haven't been introduced to music either besides um you know i don't know but one of my early memories

of like a physical cd that was purchased and i knew that this had happened because this was when I had to make sure that I wasn't buying the explicit versions was speaker box love below. So that would have been around that time. So same question for you, Akilah. Are you like, what are you using? It's the year 2002. What are you downloading? So I wasn't ever an app store person. It was a little too named brand. So I was really into a company called LimeWire. Yes. And I was really into downloading like theme songs from TV shows. Like I think my nostalgia was like starting to peak because the internet was finally getting to a point where you could like look stuff up from your childhood. Right. So I think just a lot of like Rescue Rangers theme song and like whatever

else. And most of the time when you try to download that stuff, it's just not, it's not the real thing. It's just like a loud noise or something. So I was downloading a lot of stuff that never ended up coming to fruition. That's really brutal. I do remember LimeWire at some point.

And I, that is like a really familiar feeling of, you know, like finding the good file. Like I feel like sometimes there'd be like reviews maybe of like this, this uploader is good. And that was always like finding the good file. Like I feel like sometimes there'd be like reviews maybe of like this, this uploader is good. And that was always like a very stressful process. Cause like, yeah, you would get it and it would be just, you know, screaming or something.

Yeah. God bless like regular streaming platforms where I'm just like, fine, I can either pay $10 a month or I could listen to commercials. Cause that was a stressful time. I always thought the FBI was going to kick my door in. Well, just like that, we have checked our temps. Everybody stay safe and we will check in with you all again tomorrow. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Headlines. There was an update from Wisconsin yesterday on Jacob Blake, Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. critics pointed out a history of fatal police shootings in the city. Five years ago, police shot an unarmed man after chasing him into a garage. The district attorney at the time decided the shooting was justified. In 2004, an officer shot an unarmed man in his own driveway while he was being detained by other officers. That shooting led to a state law in 2014, the first of its kind in the nation that requires outside investigations into police killings. That law has led Kenosha's police department to call on the state justice department to investigate Blake's case and is supposed to ensure objectivity, but we'll have to see how that progresses. Farm workers in California are facing grueling work conditions as the state deals with an extreme wildfire crisis. Having to work outside in the fields, workers are forced to deal with poor air quality from the fires and record-breaking

temps from a heat wave, all while being severely underpaid and not receiving necessary protective gear. Even before the fires, working conditions and PPE shortages made agricultural workers susceptible to COVID-19. San Joaquin Valley, where many of them work, has one of the highest infection rates in the state. Over 300,000 people in the state work as essential frontline farm workers, many of whom are Latinx and or undocumented. Union leaders say today's agricultural labor is exploitative and point to cheap produce and climate change as contributing to the state of the industry. Trump announced his intention yesterday to make things official with his acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, by formally nominating him to be just Secretary of the DHS. This comes almost 10 months after Wolf

started running the department on an interim basis, but just nine days after Congress's government accountability office found his appointment had violated the order of succession and was illegal. In his three years in the DHS, Wolf helped design Trump's family separation policy, and as acting secretary, he oversaw the deployment of federal agents to U.S. cities to violently police protesters. He helped run last night's RNC naturalization ceremony. He fights with journalists via text and post. And he once described Steve Bannon's $25 million wall building grift as a, quote, game changer. He would need a Senate confirmation hearing to secure his appointment, and that could be difficult to schedule before the election. Or he could just embrace being a guy named Chad Wolf and quit politics to be a bad guy

rollerblader from a Disney Channel original movie. I can't wait for it to come out. The Whitney Museum took home the prize for fake activism this week after announcing an exhibition of art inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, much of which was acquired at a deep discount and would be displayed without consent from or compensation for their Black, Indigenous, and POC creators. Kendall Jenner's

Pepsi commercial wishes it could be this tone deaf. An artist collective called See in Black sold the works to benefit Black communities. One artist whose prints were included said she let them be sold for less so they could go to someone who couldn't normally afford them. The Whitney Museum, by the way, has an endowment of over $300 million. The Whitney's exhibit was denounced by C in Black, met with widespread outrage, and canceled within a day of its announcement. Actually canceled, not like in the Republican way. Maybe a new art practice they can take up is drawing and specifically drawing their

signature on huge checks to good charities. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe leave a review rollerblade for good not evil and tell your friends to listen and if you're into reading and not just frantic apologies from the whitney museum like me what a day is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at crooked.com subscribe i'm akilah hughes i'm getting interesting and please don't download this podcast on napster what What would be the point? Yeah,

there really isn't much of a point there. It's way harder. Yeah, you have to rely on a good uploader. Just don't. What a Day is a Crooked Media production. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. than Quibi. Quibi is a brand new streaming platform that offers new episodes of original shows every single day, like Emmy-nominated Free Raishan, a gut-wrenching series about a wrongfully accused war veteran trying to clear his name. Produced by Academy Award-winning director Antoine Fuqua, this show is packed to the brim with action, featuring a high-stakes showdown between the New Orleans SWAT team and Raishan, who's just trying to get home to his family. Starring Stephen James,

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