2334 - EPA Scandal, GOP's Attempt To Screw with Votes w/ Sharon Lerner, Ari Berman

It’s Hump Day! Sam speaks with Sharon Lerner, writer covering health and the environment for ProPublica, to discuss her recent piece entitled “EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms From Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against.” Then, they speak with Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones, author of Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It, to discuss the recent attempts by Republican legislatures and voting commissions to change rules ahead of the 2024 election. First, Sam runs through updates on Israel’s offensive on Lebanon, ProPublica’s report on Blinken’s coverup of Israeli war crimes in front of Congress, Harris’ polling, Senate races, the execution of Marcellus Williams, a Haitian non-profit’s case against Trump and Vance, Florida’s education bans, corruption in Eric Adams’ administration, the InfoWars auction, and the FBI report on dropping violent crime everywhere except anti-LGBTQ hate, before parsing a little deeper through Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s active coverup in front of Congress, and John Kirby’s poor attempt to address it. Sharon Lerner then joins, first stepping back to reassess her year-long coverage, beginning in 2022, of the system of management intimidation and pressure set up by the Trump Administration EPA’s “New Chemicals” department, pushing scientists tasked with assessing the impact of new chemicals on human health and the environment to overlook issues, avoid deeper investigation, and even remove notes on them from any official reports, all serving to expedite corporations’ ability to get these chemicals to market regardless of safety concerns. Lerner and Sam then look to the structure of the EPA as a whole, tracing how this active pressure trickled down from executives to lawmakers to management before looking to the recently released report from the Inspector General, outlining in broad strokes the system of intimidation and retaliation, as they unpack the slow-walking of any major change to the administration under Biden’s presidency, and how that can change. Ari Berman then sets his targets on Georgia as he walks Sam through the state GOP’s overwhelming effort to pre-emptively rig every step of the electoral system in the lead-up to the 2024 elections, with a particular focus on replacing the election boards with election-denying cronies to changes in mail-in ballot eligibility. After briefly touching on the role of RFK’s ongoing ballot shenanigans in further threatening mail-in-enfranchisement – particularly in Wisconsin and North Carolina – Berman and Sam tackle an ongoing legal case out of Mississippi that has the potential to risk mail-in ballots nationwide if it makes it to to the Supreme Court before November, wrapping up the interview with a conversation on the need for Dems to emphasize communicating voting rights, encouraging voting, and challenging this effort head-on.

And in the Fun Half: Sam first unpacks yesterday’s state-backed killing of Marcellus Williams, walking through the myriad issues ignored by the Missouri government and Supreme Court in his case, the overwhelming push to stay the case, and his son’s reflections on the day of his death. Bernie Moreno takes on abortion and accidentally alienates 50% of his base, Dan Osborn absolutely kills the PR push ahead of his election, and JD Vance walks into a supermarket… ouch. Vivek, Taibbi, and Anna Khachiyan wax poetic about Great Replacement theory, Alvaro from Waco unpacks the Dem’s push in Texas and the ongoing death row case of Robert Robertson, Stephen in Dublin and West in North Carolina (respectfully) unpack some absurdities in recent left coverage, Bob from Indiana has a movie recommendation (Matewan!) and a question for the Harris campaign, plus, your calls and IMs!

Follow Sharon on Twitter here: https://x.com/fastlerner

Check out Sharon’s work at ProPublica here: https://www.propublica.org/people/sharon-lerner

Follow Ari on Twitter here: https://x.com/AriBerman

Check out Ari’s work at Mother Jones here: https://www.motherjones.com/author/ari-berman/

Check out “Minority Rule” here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374600211/minorityrule

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