What A Day - May The Task Force Be With You

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

Arizona’s governor pushed back the start of the school year from early-August to mid-August since his state has the worst Covid-19 numbers in the nation. Teachers unions don’t think that a two-week delay is enough to keep students, staff, and faculty safe. The Biden-Sanders joint task force put out policy recommendations last week, and left-leaning members seem happy with the direction things are moving. The next step is getting these recommendations into the official Democratic party platform next month. And in headlines: Dov Charney’s Los Angeles Apparel factory sees deadly coronavirus breakout, a new way to calculate dog years, and Tucker Carlson’s racist writer resigns.

It's Monday, July 13th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, where we are still having nightmares about that reopening Disney World video. Yeah, for me, it's just I'm trapped on Tower of Terror because all of the park is terror, and people are not screaming inside their hearts. They're just spewing all those droplets at me. For me, I'm on rock and roller coaster, and every song that Steven Tyler is singing is just spraying COVID. Oh, God. Worst case. On today's show, a check-in on the 2020 presidential race,

then some headlines. But first, the latest. I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right, and he also doesn't necessarily, and he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind. He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view. That was Coronavirus Task Force member Admiral Brett Giroir on Meet the Press yesterday taking a question about whether the administration is listening to recommendations from public health officials. Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested new shutdowns may be in order in particular states. Giroir and others in the White House disagree, which, you know, par for the course. We'll get more into what Fauci has been saying and how his message is being received on tomorrow's show. That's right. But for now, let's get into where things stand

with the U.S. outbreak. It is still very much not good. Yesterday, Florida recorded over 15,000 new cases, and that marks the most cases of any state in a single day over the course of the pandemic, which is saying something. It's higher than New York's peak of 12,000, which was back in April when testing was scarce there. Also over the weekend, several states, including Florida, Arizona, Texas, Alabama, and North Carolina recorded record deaths from COVID-19. And there are indications that cases are spiking again in Louisiana, and the governor there just mandated that masks be worn in public throughout the state.

There was one bright spot, at least, though. On Sunday, New York City reported zero deaths in its initial data from coronavirus for the first time since March 11th. That is obviously a very, very positive sign. But as outbreaks continue to grow elsewhere, so does the conversation about school reopenings, both on the national and local level. So let's start with what's happening in Arizona, where on a per capita basis, the outbreak is the worst in the entire country. Yes. So the Republican governor in Arizona just pushed back the start of the school year by a whole two weeks from early August to mid-August. And we'll be assessing that date as the coronavirus outbreak continues. And this is happening in other states, too. Like in West Virginia, Republican Governor Jim Justice is also

postponing the start date. And so two things are really important to note here. These are states that are seeing spikes in cases where Republican governors were reluctant to ever mandate masks or social distancing guidance. Only last week was there a mask mandate inside businesses in West Virginia. And in Arizona, there still isn't one. The mayor of Phoenix is reportedly begging the governor to institute any mask requirement or just close the businesses. Yeah, it's the absolute least they could do. And what's the second thing to note then? Okay, so the second thing to realize is teachers unions don't think that a couple of weeks is enough time to rectify what is an all-out public

health disaster. And obviously they're right. School board members across the state of Arizona want to delay in-person classes until October. In Phoenix, they're already. School board members across the state of Arizona want to delay in-person classes until October. In Phoenix, they're already saying that there will not be in-person classes at the start of the school year, whenever that actually is. Here's Phoenix Union Superintendent Chad Gueston on CNN over the weekend. So when you hear Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis saying that if you can do Home Depot, if you can do Walmart, then you can do schools. What's your reaction? Well, not many people are going to Home Depot for eight hours a day, five straight days a week. And when we talk about open air, it's going to be 120 degrees here in Arizona pretty soon. And so we don't have many spaces here where we're going to be able to

accommodate many of our students. And we have to remember that there are schools across our nation here in Arizona that have 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 students. And again, it's not just about students. We have staff members, and those staff members have families. And we need to be able to protect our entire community. Yeah, that's right. It's a lot harder than opening a Home Depot. It's also interesting because, Gideon, I'm pretty sure you said verbatim that you don't spend eight hours in Home Depot last week on our show. So great minds. But nationwide, teachers unions are saying that it's just not safe to go back so

quickly. In Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, the top four largest school districts in the country, teachers unions are continuing to push for distance learning until their respective cities are in later phases of safe reopening, as well as specific safety measures and protective equipment. The pandemic is also, of course, the primary topic of the presidential election, which is shockingly now less than four months away. Can you believe it? Last week, the Biden-Sanders Joint Task Force has put out their policy recommendations. So let's just refresh first on what these groups are all about. Yeah, so they were basically what you're saying.

They're working groups put together by Biden and Sanders to come up with policy recommendations on a number of issues, kind of bringing together folks that Sanders appointed and Biden supported. So the idea is progressive ideas and more moderate ideas mixing and a compromise between the two. They covered six major areas, health care, the economy, criminal justice, climate change, education, and immigration. And we actually went behind the scenes on the Climate Task Force back on May 29th with Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement. Definitely go back and check out that interview. But now these official recommendations from these groups are kind of meant to be a blueprint agenda of sorts for a potential Biden

administration, one that his team has said it's going to review in the coming days and weeks. And on the unity note, these groups may help on that front. The dynamics between these candidates in the primary was different than 2016 too, but also the pandemic and Trump's obvious and utter failure to respond to it in any kind of way is certainly bringing Democrats together to get him out of office as soon as possible. That is absolutely correct. That's the big picture encompassing all of it. But with these groups, if the goal for Sanders and progressives was to push Biden to the left, do they actually feel like they've achieved it? Yeah, in some senses, for sure. In broad strokes, the more left-leaning members of the groups, people like Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seem pretty happy with the direction things were moving and at least

happy that things were discussed among these groups in good faith, even though the recommendations don't fully embrace progressive positions on a number of key issues. So, for instance, on healthcare, the recommendations don't call for Medicare for All. That's a policy Sanders and other members of these groups backed in the primary and one that Biden has opposed. Instead, the task force essentially stuck with Biden's public option idea. But they added details to this plan backed by progressives like no out-of-pocket expenses for certain prescription drugs, ensuring that Medicare and not private insurance administers the public option plan, and a provision that the government pay for COBRA insurance coverage for people who have lost their jobs during the pandemic.

Another example, on climate change, the task force does not advocate for a Green New Deal and no national ban on fracking. However, there is a commitment to get to net zero emissions for all new buildings by 2030 and net zero greenhouse gas emissions overall by 2050. Prakash characterized the climate work in a positive light, but said more work needs to be done. Yeah. One of the other groups was working on criminal justice. So what were some of the highlights there? Yeah.

So that's obviously a major issue given gestures at everything in the world. And it's another where there was some happiness from progressives with how things turned out, as well as a feeling of more to be done as well. So the task force recommends eliminating private prisons, mandatory minimum sentences and ending cash bail, big things and major deviations from where Biden was in 1994 with the crime bill. But one point where the gap wasn't quite closed was on marijuana. So the task force only called for decriminalization, not legalization of recreational marijuana. And they want to legalize at the federal level for medicinal use, but then let individual states decide on legalization for recreational use. There are a bunch of other recommendations as well from other groups within these task forces, a plan for universal pre-K, a ban on for-profit charter

schools, extending ACA protections to DACA recipients. It's over 100 pages, so there is a lot to get into at a later date. All right. So now that this is all out there, what are we expecting to happen next? So basically, the next step, we think, is to get it into the official party platform, which gets adopted at the DNC in Milwaukee slash Zoom meeting next month. But as Vox reports, the part after that, according to a number of the progressives who were involved, is to kind of keep working with and pushing the Biden campaign on issues and eventual personnel if he's in the White House. Here's how Sanders said he viewed the result last week. And these folks needless to say, people who represented the progressive movement had a

different perspective on things than did Biden's people. But there was serious discussion and I think a real honest effort to come up with a compromise. And I think the compromise that they came up with, if implemented, will make Biden the most progressive president since FDR. It did not have, needless to say, everything that I wanted, did not have everything that Biden wanted. But there is no question that on some of the major issues facing this country, if that agenda is implemented, life will improve for tens and tens of millions of working people. It'll improve for our environment and for climate change, criminal justice, and for the needs of low-income people. Yeah, so a lot more to come on this and other things 2020, but that's the latest we have for now. It's Monday WOD Squad, and for today's temp check, we are discussing an important national holiday from over the weekend,

July 11th, or 7-11, a day when you can normally get Slurpees for free at 7-11. The event was canceled this year for obvious reasons. You know, a crowded slushy machine is a bad place to hang out during a pandemic. But the pandemic can't take away our memories. So Giddy, do you normally celebrate 7-11? And if so, how? Definitely in college, I was doing the free slurpy situation. You know, when you're short on cash,

like you don't have laundry money, a free drink is, you know, goes quite a long way. And also like, Evanston didn't have tons of like late night option type things. So there was like this one weird like grilled cheese place that opened late at some point that was like kind of major news campus wide, but like always gave me a stomachache. That's like a side note. So 7-Eleven was definitely like the one place where it was like, oh, you want Chex Mix or

you want like Slushy? You want like something that's after like 10pm when all of like the old folks in the neighborhood have gone to sleep like hit it up so yeah definitely got the free stuff and the not for free stuff at 7-Eleven well I don't know if there are

7-Elevens in Kentucky like I'm sure there's some somewhere but in my college town we definitely didn't have one I can't think of one um we we'd had um what's it called uh sonic so we that was our late night grilled cheese spot you know if we needed to do that but yeah i i do at least relate to your sidebar on the grilled cheese yes grilled cheese is is like great territory you know but it can also be like not so great territory if they're like starting stuff it with all kinds of different shit that's going on when they want to make some new...

Right, don't be fancy. Yeah, yeah. Just give me the goods. But do you... So you're going to Sonic. You're getting grilled cheese. What's happening on 7-Eleven for you? Are you celebrating?

Okay, so that's the thing. I wasn't celebrating in college, but when I moved to New York, I was like the queen of 7-Eleven. It was my favorite holiday. I remember I worked at a social media agency in like 2013, and no one else knew about 7-Eleven Day. And I got everyone to leave and go get it. And like everybody was reluctant. You know how office people can be. And then by the time we all had our slushies walking back, they're like, this is a great idea.

This is so fun. Thanks, Akilah. And then I'm pretty sure it maybe was that year. No, it was 2014, I think, is when Beyonce put out the song 7-Eleven, which I think is just, you know, the official theme song forever. And so even though I didn't get a Slurpee this year, I did, in fact, listen to 7-Eleven. Seven twice, man, seven twice. Yeah, I, you know, the thing now is to have a slurpee and say smack smack smack it in the air I love that for you uh and just like that we've checked our temps they're cool but not like icy cool like a slurpee unfortunately anyway stay safe and we will check in with you all again tomorrow let's wrap up with some headlines headlines

a clothing manufacturer in los angeles was shut down after four employees died and over 300 employees tested positive for COVID-19. Los Angeles Apparel, a brand owned by former American Apparel CEO and accused sexual harasser Dove Charney, violated several public health orders before being forced to stop operations over the weekend. The company was already asked to shut down late last month when county health officials found several violations that involved social distancing requirements and using cardboard as a barrier between workers. Ten days after that, the company reopened, hiring new employees and violating health orders again. The factory shut down once again, but Charney hinted at yet another reopening, saying the company would plan to test all of its workers every week. This case is just one example of COVID-19 outbreaks among garment workers across the world. Workers' rights activists say the pandemic is exacerbating garment industry issues like low pay and poor working conditions in the U.S. and abroad. Yeah, I would love a cardboard barrier between me and any news about Dove.

All right. Trump got some good press from people with basement level standards this weekend for wearing a mask for like two seconds. So here's a quick flash to two other things he did recently. First, last Friday, he commuted the sentence of his friend and advisor Roger Stone. That led to a Washington Post op-ed from Robert Mueller, who said that Stone is still a felon despite his commuted sentence and went on to list all of the crimes Stone committed to help Trump. This story's a little older, but also terrifying. It's recently been reported that Russia might have paid Taliban fighters bounty incentives for killing U.S. soldiers. European intelligence officials reported that similar incentives led to deaths on their front.

While U.S. officials like Secretary of Defense Mark Esper have confirmed they were briefed on Russian payments to the Taliban, they stopped short of confirming a link between those payments and troop casualties. For his part, Trump says he was never briefed on the situation and has called reported intelligence, quote, phony. Maybe we can get him a mask that stops him from ever talking. Or tweeting for that matter. In The Matrix, there's a scene where Morpheus gives Neo a pill and then totally reframes everything he knows about the universe. So that same thing is about to happen to you, only it's about a more accurate way to calculate a dog's age. According to a new article in the journal Cell Systems, our old 1-7 method for dog-to-human years conversion is just way off.

Since dogs age fast as pups and more slowly in maturity, a better conversion would require you to multiply the natural logarithm of the dog's age by 16, then add 31. That means if you want to impress everybody at PetSmart, you'll need to bring your TI-89 and also be a math teacher. The study was done by lining up the methylation states of humans and dogs at different ages. So as animals grow up, chemical tags called methyl groups are added to their DNA, which can help determine and compare biological age. These findings have a ton of applications, like figuring out when it's okay to sell a dog cigarettes. Oh no, don't do that to them. All right. Tucker Carlson's top writer was forced to resign on Friday after he was revealed to be the author of several years worth of racist, sexist, and obscene forum posts. This is like a weightlifter getting disqualified for going to the gym. Blake Neff made posts targeting just about every minority group and provoked online harassment of a female Facebook friend.

Some of Carlson's lines from when Neff wrote for him closely mirrored Neff's post. Because what is Tucker Carlson but a white supremacist forum that came to life and robbed an L.L. Bean? Fox News denounced Neff's post and Carlson is supposed to address them on his show tonight. In a better world, it'd be a full-blown Scooby-Doo reveal where he says he would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids. We're the meddling kids too. Scooby-Doo ass villain. Mm-hmm. And those are the headlines.

That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe you subscribe leave a review send us your dog's true age and tell your friends to listen and if you're into reading and not just good reviews of duck boots on llbean.com like me what a day is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at cricket.com subscribe i'm akilah hughes i'm gideon Resnick. And we'll see you on 7-Eleven 2021. Cannot wait. About to get that blue raspberry all up in the dome. I hope there's still blue raspberry and still 7-Eleven next year. 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 Kshaka.