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Pete Buttigieg’s “The Deciding Decade” Covers All The Bases

“The 20-episode podcast tackles today’s most important political issues and looks at how the next 10 years will confront our country’s greatest challenges.”

Ryan Hedrick

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A former U.S. Attorney is speaking out against the Trump administration and sharing his experiences as an immigrant who became a powerful Federal prosecutor.

In 2017, Preet Bharara was fired by Trump via Twitter after he refused to resign his office. Bharara was one of 46 United States attorneys hired by President Barack Obama who was asked to resign that year.

“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” he Tweeted immediately after his firing. 

Bharara was a guest on “The Deciding Decade” a new podcast from iHeartMedia hosted by former Democratic nominee in the 2020 United States presidential election, Pete Buttigieg. 

The wide-ranging discussion started with Buttigieg talking to Bharara about his upbringing and about his parent’s decision to uproot the family from India to New Jersey.

“My dad left the place of his birth and took me from the place of my birth for the same reason that millions and millions of people have done so over generations,” Bharara said. “That’s because of the promise of a better life, a promise of opportunity, which he thought he could get only in the United States.” 

Bharara used the opening portion of the interview to question some of the immigration policies enacted by the Trump administration and to draw parallels to the way things were when his parents first came to the United States. 

“It is so disconcerting and distressing to see certain policies being enacted, to see certain rhetoric being used, where people like my mom and my dad wonder a little bit if the country is as open and welcoming as it was back in the early 1970s when they came to America,” he said. 

Bharara, who attended Harvard, started working as a criminal defense attorney specializing in white collar crime. 

“I knew that I wanted to be a prosecutor. Even more specifically than that, to be an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York when I was in law school and I took a class on trial practice,” he said. 

Bharara admitted to skipping classes while he was in law school, saying he wasn’t as motivated as he should have been. 

“The one class I prepared really hard, week in and week out, was trial practice,” he said. “One week we could do an opening statement, another week we could do a cross examination, another week we could do a directive, redirect, et cetera. Boy, that was heaven for me, because the craft of it was really fascinating.” 

He said what he enjoyed most about working at the U.S. Attorney’s Office was representing people’s civil rights. 

“It occurred to me that it was the ideal place for someone like me to work, because you don’t represent one individual’s interest because it helps a particular person, and that’s noble.” 

Buttigieg used Bharara’s legal experience to gain some type of perspective  to compare past functions of the U.S. Attorney’s office to what’s going on in the White House right now.  

“I’m thinking now to this moment we’re in, where we have everything from the intervention in the sentencing and prosecution of Alex Jones to the politically motivated removal of US attorneys,” Buttigieg stated. “Even just the way during the Republican National Convention that we saw federal property and federal processes pardoning and immigration swearing in. These things that are supposed to have absolutely nothing to do with politics being just mixed in.” 

Buttigieg asked Bharara about the consequences of political interference and what direction he thinks the Justice Department will take from here. 

“I used to joke when I was in office. The way you should think about this, there are really three political parties, the Democrats, Republicans, and federal prosecutors,” said Bharara. “There’s no Democratic or Republican way of prosecuting a robbery case, a homicide case, or a corruption case.”

The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is something that Bharara feels President Trump hurt by inserting his personal feelings into the conversation when he should have been relying on expert opinions to guide the conversation. 

“Expertise doesn’t mean perfection. But if you weaponize the imperfection of experts, then you’re going to get more and more distrust and lack of faith in that expertise,” said Bharara. “You have, in Trump, the leading proponent of weaponizing… So an expert can be right 99 times out of 100, and that expert is wrong one time out of a hundred, you got a guy with the biggest megaphone in the world who’s going to talk about that one error over and over and over and over again and people listen. Repetition matters.”
“Part of the reason I mentioned the president so much is because he’s to blame for a lot of this, but also he’s disproportionate power. He has the largest microphone on earth and he uses it a lot.”

Buttigieg plans to feature different guests on upcoming episodes of “The Deciding Decade”. The original 20-episode podcast tackles today’s most important political issues and looks at how the next 10 years will confront our country’s greatest challenges.  

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Sports Talkers Podcast: Danny Parkins, 670 The Score

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Danny Parkins opens up to Stephen Strom about why he is so passionate about defending Chicago. He also gives his best career advice and explains why a best friend is more important sometimes than an agent.

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PODCAST REVIEW: Millennial Money with Shannah Compton Game

Game spotlights rental evictions and how those evictions are impacting the economy. To discuss this issue Game talks to Shabana Baksh, Real Estate Attorney at K&L Gates LLP, and Tendayi Kapfidze, Chief Economist at LendingTree.

Ryan Hedrick

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No one could have predicted what the COVID-19 pandemic was going to do to the economy. Some of the unintended consequences from the spread of last year’s virus include millions of people getting behind in either rent or mortgage payments. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about 10 million people were behind in their rent payments at the beginning of the month.

Recently, President Joe Biden extended the federal eviction moratorium through the end of the month. The Millennial Money podcast withShannah Compton Game spotlights rental evictions and how those evictions are impacting the economy. To discuss this issue Game talks to Shabana Baksh, Real Estate Attorney at K&L Gates LLP, and Tendayi Kapfidze, Chief Economist at LendingTree.

“This temporary moratorium extends some of these vital protections to millions of renters that are at risk of eviction,” said Baksh. “They are also state and local moratoriums that remain in effect who may not qualify for assistance under the federal guidelines.”

Landlords across the country have been put in a tough situation with continuing moratoriums at the federal, state, and local levels. The typical delinquent renter owes nearly $6,000, according to a report published from Moody’s Analytics. The $900 billion relief package passed in December provided $25 billion for both landlords and renters.

“What we have seen happening since the economic crisis related to the coronavirus is that a lot of people who have been affected in terms of the industries that have been adversely affected such as travel, tourism, restaurants, and places where people have to engage directly, a lot of those people happen to be renters,” Kapfidze said,  “So obviously if you are not getting paid and not getting income it is a challenge to pay for your rent.”

To qualify for the funds, which are being disbursed by states and can be used for past and present rent, a renter must show that they suffered financial hardship due to the pandemic, have incomes below 80 percent of their median income and are at risk of becoming homeless.

“Right now, renters and owners find themselves in a significant cash crunch,” said Baksh. “We are entering into the second year of this pandemic and many renters are just accruing late fees and debt and so we are seeing a large buildup of these late payments. With that said, there are policies in place to protect renters and homeowners from being evicted and provide them with rental relief.”

Landlords still must pay mortgages on these properties that are not collecting rent. Lenders started the foreclosure process on 5,999 U.S. properties in February 2021, up 15 percent from last month but down 78 percent from a year ago. The highest foreclosure rates in Utah, Delaware, and Florida.

Lenders repossessed 1,545 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures in February 2021, up 8 percent from last month but still down 85 from last year. 

“Renters should alert their landlords of their inability to pay their rent,” said Baksh. “Have an honest and open conversation with them about your situation. Try to seek a solution, landlords may be willing to negotiate during this tough time and agree to payment arrangements.”

 The one thing that renters should know about eviction moratoriums is that they do not dissolve you of the responsibility of paying your landlord.

“The devil is in the details,” said Kapfidze. “Eviction moratorium, it means that if you are the renters you are accumulating debt, you are still under contract if you are renting, and you still have an obligation to pay your bill. “In terms of the rental relief funds there are different structures of plans, but the money is not always easy to access.”

To learn more about the Millennial Money podcast with Shannah Compton Game click here

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PODCAST REVIEW: Consider This from NPR

Consider This podcast from NPR hosted by Mary Louis Kelly, hosted a conversation with several people from the Asian American community and organizations about steps that are being taken to protect people from becoming victims of senseless violence.

Ryan Hedrick

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There is a movement to raise awareness about the threat of violence against Asian Americans living in the United States. Last week, a 21-year-old white man murdered six women of Asian descent and two other people at Atlanta area massage businesses. Robert Aaron Long told police that his killing spree was not motivate by race by rather by his sex addiction.

The incident has motivated discussions and rallies over the past several days. Consider This podcast from NPR hosted by Mary Louise Kelly, hosted a conversation with several people from the Asian American community and organizations about steps that are being taken to protect people from becoming victims of senseless violence.

The podcast documents several incidents that did not make national news headlines. In San Francisco, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee was out for a morning walk when out of nowhere, a man shoved him violently to the ground. He died two days later. It was not the only attack like that in the region.

A local resident who is sick and tired of seeing violence carried out against his community is getting involved.  JoJo Au launched a fundraiser to hire armed private security guards to patrol her own neighborhood, Oakland’s Chinatown. She has raised almost a hundred thousand dollars.

“Honestly, I didn’t know that it was going to spread like wildfire,” said JoJo Au. “And so many people were so concerned about it and wanted to do something, but they didn’t know what. You know, the merchants, they even say they feel safer. Some of the shoppers here, they feel safer. So, you know, I’m glad that I did this.”

Kelly said the pattern is clear – Asian American communities are being terrorized by harassment and violence. “Consider this – all those crimes you just heard about happened this year before a man in Georgia shot and killed eight people, most of whom were women of Asian descent.”

A group called Stop AAPI Hate tracks violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Since the start of the pandemic, they have received reports of nearly 4,000 hate incidents across the United States. 

Connie Chung Joe is CEO of a legal aid group, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles.

“Almost half of them are coming from California,” Chung said. “Another thing is that women are targeted more than twice as often as men. And then we are seeing a spate of hate and violence targeted at our seniors.

Chung said the Asian American that she knows are advising their parents and grandparents to stay in the house. “Even for things like daily walks or trips to the grocery store. So, folks are really worried about this. And there’s also a lot of outrage about why this is still allowed to happen in our society?”

Ben Nguyen is a Georgia state representative. Her district covers part of Atlanta and DeKalb County. She believes that Robert Long killed the women because of hate and nothing else.

“We know that these are three businesses that are Asian-owned,” Nguyen said. “We know that most people who work there are Asian. And I think for anyone who lives in Atlanta and you hear the word massage parlor, that there is an understanding that perhaps there are other sex worker-related things that take place in these massage parlors. And it’s largely accepted.”

Federally, there is an effort to address violence against Asian American communities. One of the leaders of that effort is Congresswoman Grace Meng, Democrat from New York. She’s introduced legislation on the issue. Her district covers parts of New York City and Queens. We spoke this week before the shootings in Georgia.

“People are scared. People are literally telling their elderly parents and grandparents, “do not go out,” said Meng.  “You know, we’ll buy groceries for you. I had a mom – that night when I heard about that incident, she had seen it on the news, and she texted me. She said, that’s it; I’m not letting my kids play outside anymore.” 

The U.S. Department of Justice could choose to bring federal hate crime charges against Long if they uncover any evidence to prove Long targeted the victims specifically because of their race.

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