Pacifica Radio's WE DECIDE: AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS with Jenna Flanagan 3-17-25
On Friday, the Trump/Musk junta continued to consolidate power by unilaterally laying off federal civil servants in its ongoing attempt to shutdown Congressionally created agencies it deems unnecessary or antithetical to the Trump/Musk agenda.
Trump put 1,300 workers from the United States Agency for Global Media on administrative leave. The agency is the umbrella for outlets like the Voice of America, Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA).
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the Trump executive order saying the move would effectively end operations, and access to independent news for millions of people around the world, much to the delight of authoritarian regimes around the world.
The United States Agency for Global Media, is an independent agency chartered and funded by Congress. Its networks reach an estimated 427 million people.
The Committee to Protect Journalists research shows that journalists for US-Agency for Global Media networks often put themselves at risk by reporting in highly censored countries and frequently face retribution for their reporting.
On Friday, promised opposition by U.S. Senate Democrats to Speaker Mike Johnson’s stopgap continuing resolution bill to keep the government open collapsed when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer led nine members of his party to vote for the bill. The GOP measure largely maintains spending levels at Biden era levels but adds $6 billion in military spending while cutting one billion dollars over the next six months from the municipal operations budget for Washington D.C.
However, the Senate recently approved legislation that would allow the District of Columbia to keep its budget intact.
President Trump also said on Friday that if locally elected officials from the District of Columbia didn’t do the job he wanted them to do, the federal government would take over the running of the overwhelmingly Democratic voting city.
In a concession to President Trump, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has had the city paint over a “Black Lives Matter” mural that was painted on one of the streets that led to the White House in the aftermath of the protests of the police murder of George Floyd.
In our A Block we will check in with our reporter roundtable with Washington D.C. based investigative journalist Dave Levinthal, who writes for Rolling Stone and multiple other outlets. He will be joined by New York City based Laura Jedeed, who covers the MAGA movement for multiple outlets including the Nation and the New Republic.
In the B Block we will share an interview Bob Hennelly, our labor reporter recorded with Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. Nelson reacts to the Trump administration decision to tear up the collective bargaining contract between the TSA and tens of thousands of airport security screene.
Bob also reports on the Saturday massive labor march in lower Manhattan that drew several thousand union members and supporters to protest the draconian cuts to Medicaid and Medicare planned by the Trump/Musk junta to pay for tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest families and corporations.
That's followed by a dispatch from Ursula Rutenberg, with our Pacifica affiliates. She sat down for a conversation with a Vermont based activist with the pro-democracy group Indivisible that made national headlines when Vice President Vance came to her community for a ski-holiday getaway.
In the C Block we will check in with Randy Weintgarten,the President of the American Federation of Teachers which represents 1.8 million members from more than 3,000 locals. We will ask her about the impact so far on the nation’s public schools from Trump 2.0 and the lingering challenge of dealing with America's post-COVID learning deficit.
We close out with a very illuminating exchange with Brooke Harrington professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College. Her new book. "Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism" throws a spotlight on the shadowy world of off-shore tax havens used by a growing class of billionaires. Harrington, who became a certified global wealth manager to do her research, describes how the amassing of stealth wealth undermines democracy as oligarchs avoid taxation shifting the burden of paying or civil society and the common defense on to everyone else.
