Black Agenda Radio – 09.05.16

20th Anniversary of Clinton’s War Against the Poor

It’s been 20 years since President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress destroyed “welfare as we knew it” by replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the “workfare” regime called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The result, saidMaureen Taylor, chairperson of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, is growing poverty in the United States. Taylor says TANF should be changed to DANF, standing for “Disappearing Aid for Needy Families.” Residents of Michigan are only eligible for cash assistance for five years in their lifetimes. It’s a shame, said Taylor, how the political class is “turning, not against poverty, but trying to turn the nation against poor folks.”

This Can’t Be Happening – 12.30.15

“This Can’t Be Happening!” Guest Bret Grote, attorney with the Abolition Law Project in Pennsylvania, talks about a federal court hearing in Scranton, PA, where he and another lawyer, Robert Boyle, argued on behalf of their client, prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, for an injunction ordering the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to stop withholding treatment for his active case of Hepatitis-C — a potentially fatal disease that has already damaged his liver and brought on a case of adult diabetes as well as a horrific and debilitating skin disease. A ruling on that injunction is expected in weeks. If it goes in Mumia’s favor and he treatment is ordered, it could have a wide impact, not just on the estimated 10,000 state prisoners known to have the disease, but also nationwide, where Hepatitis-C is epidemic in the nation’s prisons.

This Can’t Be Happening – 12.23.15

Host Dave Lindorff and his guest, Dr. Jess Guh, the newest member of the ThisCantBeHappening.net online news collective, talk about Mumia Abu-Jamal’s court battle in federal court in Scranton to force the state’s prison system to provide him with treatment for his active and potentially fatal case of Hepatitis C. Dr. Guh, a primary car physician from Seattle who has been investigating the shoddy standard of health care in the nation’s prisons, and who has gone over somd 100 pages of Mumia’s medical record, says that what Pennsylvania and many other states are doing to prisoners in their control is nothing short of malpractice and neglece on a massive scale.

Black Agenda Radio – 08.10.15

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, has been confirmed to be suffering from hepatitis C, a serious liver disease that doctors believe played a part in his near-death, earlier this year, from diabetic shock. But, the State of Pennsylvania doesn’t provide adequate treatment for prison inmates with Hepatitus C. Attorney Brete Grote says the state’s inaction has caused Abu Jamal’s legal team to file papers in court.

Despite his medical problems, Mumia continues to write regular essays for Prison Radio. Here’s his latest, entitled, “Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment.”

Black Agenda Radio – 03.09.15

New Yorkers Need Less Law Enforcement

Bill Bratton, New York City’s police commissioner, wants to hire 1,000 more officers. But there are already too many cops busying themselves arresting Black and brown people for minor offenses, said Josmar Trujillo, of New Yorkers Against Bratton, which favors redirecting resources to improving conditions in poor neighborhoods. Police are “harassing and ticketing us, they’re criminalizing us en masse,” said Trujillo, “We don’t want more copse, we want to move away from law enforcement” under the slogan, “Strong Communities Make Police Obsolete.”