Retail Politics Podcast

Hispanic voters: America’s political future April 10, 2022 – Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the American population and could steer its political future, picking those who control the U.S. House, Senate, and presidency.     “As long as we have this black-white dichotomy between the parties the real battleground is going to be over Hispanics,” says M.V. “Trey” Hood, a political scientist with the University of Georgia.    

                       The Politics of Ketanji First Black Female Court Nominee on the ‘Defensive’ March 20, 2022 – First Black female U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will face criticism this week from Senate Republicans for serving as a public defender.   “You’ve got a few guys up there running for president in 2024,” USA Today Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze says. “They care about firing up the Trump base of the party.”

Rom Com to Rebellion, Irish Film Part of America March 6, 2022 – Decades of Irish movies focus on the theme of the island’s violent struggle to free itself from British rule.   “Happiness is not really a prevailing characteristic of the Irish,” says Irish Studies Professor Socky O’Sullivan. “We tend to actually celebrate our troubles.”

The Politics of the U.S. Intelligence Radical Break from Past Strategies Stumps Russians   March 6, 2022 – Twenty years after colossal blunders claiming Iraq weapons of mass destruction and failing to intercept the 911 hijackers, U.S. Intelligence agencies are being praised for exposing Russian plans to invade the Ukraine.   “Someone decided to make a pretty radical break from what has been the practice for decades,” former New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane said. “What they did at each stage is they put the intelligence out.”    

The Politics of the Putin Could His Ukraine Bullying Backfire? February 27, 2022 – Russia may capture the Ukraine capital, but the well-armed opponent could become Vladimir Putin’s Afghanistan.   “He’s asking for trouble,” former longtime Russian correspondent Will Englund says. “You’ll have a guerilla war.”  

The Politics of the Robert T. Lincoln Lincoln Son Close to Three Presidential Assassinations   February 20, 2022 – Our President’s Day edition focuses on how Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert T., detested politics after his father’s assassination.   “The Republican Party tried five times to run him for president,” Robert T.’s biographer Jason Emerson says. “He said ‘To me the presidency is nothing but a gilded prison.’”

The Politics of the Ukraine Russian President’s Threats ‘Cold War Ghosts’   February 13, 2022 – Communist Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to invade Ukraine to prevent it from aligning with the Democratic west hearkens back to the east-west battle of a half-century ago.   “A lot of Cold War ghosts have been resurrected and scattered about,” Los Angeles Times Foreign Editor Jeffrey Fleishman said. “Is he willing to breach war to collect what the past has already taken from him?”

The Politics of Bashing Biden Liberal Opinion Writers are Turning on their President   February 6, 2022 – America’s liberal media is starting to criticize President Joe Biden’s handling of national and international affairs. Is it wiping out his chances for reelection in 2024?   “Some of it is deserved,” said Bill Straub, a former White House correspondent. “The withdrawal from Afghanistan was just a bloody mess.”

The Politics of Killing Police 55 Shooting Deaths are Highest in 26 Years   January 29, 2022 – An increasing number of American police officers are being gunned down in a wave not seen in a quarter of a century.   “There’s a variety of reasons and most of them most of them can be laid at the feet of our elected officials and police leaders,” said a former Baltimore police union leader.  They have emboldened criminals in this country by the de-policing.”

The Politics of Bob Dole The Man Once Called the Darth Vader of Congress Had a Soft Spot January 23, 2022 – Bob Dole died last month at 98 and left a legacy of a tough, grim Congressional curmudgeon who failed to achieve the presidency three times but quietly helped the poor, including creating a key economic lifeline: food stamps. “He had a very tough outside,” said author and Dole researcher Mark Zwonitzer. “He has a really soft core inside.”

The Politics of Racial Reckoning Are Companies Capitalizing Financially on Latest Civil Rights Struggle? January 17, 2022 – In the wake of the George Floyd killing, American companies are engaging in a racial reckoning not seen since the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s. But is the inclusion of more Black Americans in news stories, TV ads and hiring sincere? “I think there are some companies that have leadership that realizes there has to be a change and are making a best effort,” said Phyllis Alexander of the National Coalition Building Institute. “The majority of our corporations are in the business of making money...not to do social justice.”

The Politics of Christmas Songs From the Political to the Bizarre   December 26, 2021 – From war to nuclear holocaust, Christmas  attracts songs with a purpose, in addition to those you wish remained a silent night.   “There is a billion of hours of recorded Christmas music in the world that most people do not hear,” says technical producer, Brad Maybe, organizer of The Eggnog Playlist.

Homeless a Persecuted Class   December 20, 2021 – As the number of billionaires in America has risen to 614 so has the population of our nation’s most unfortunate residents: the homeless. Many communities are enforcing public nuisance laws to rid them from their streets.   “Being homeless is not protected under our anti-discrimination laws and therefore many forms of what is blatant discrimination against unhoused people are very difficult for us to challenge using legal advocacy,” said Eve Garrow of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The Politics of Build Back Better President Biden’s Signature Legislation Perilously Dangles   December 13, 2021 – President Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better legislation that he says will make historic improvements to affordable housing, childcare, education, and tax equity faces derailment in the Senate.   “Any one member can unilaterally impose their will,” said Kevin Fogarty, former chief of staff for Republican Congressman Peter King. “When you’re dealing with such a narrow majority, it hard to get some of these things done. It’s like herding cats.”  

Longstanding Kosher Rules in Israel Being Challenged   December 6, 2021 – Israel’s new governing coalition does not include ultra-Orthodox parties for the first time in a half century, causing a push to loosen longstanding food certification, religious and social policies.   “In America, you have no guidelines on who says what is kosher,” said Rabbi Josh Yuter, considered the world’s largest Jewish influence. “In Israel it’s completely different, in order for you to claim your establishment was kosher, you had to have the official Rabbinut body certify you.”  

America’s Most Dangerous Criminals? Fire Setters   November 28, 2021 – Footage of heartbreaking California wildfires consuming gorgeous homes seems to be a regular segment on the nightly news. But one in 10 of those devastating blazes are intentionally set, destroying communities, forests, and lives.   “The wildland arsonist, in particular, is the most dangerous criminal that there is,” says the nation’s leading arson investigator, Edward Nordskog. “They can burn a town or a county down with just a match.”  

Nation’s First Inhabitants Continue to Struggle   November 21, 2021 – Native Americans lead the nation among ethnic groups in COVID outbreaks and death, while also ranking first in methamphetamine drug abuse.   “There are decades of Native people not being heard,” said Kerry Hawk Lessard, executive director of Native American LifeLines, a Baltimore health center. “The identities of Native American people are so often asserted through stereotypes.”

Paper Shortage May Stall Santa’s Holiday Book Delivery   November 14, 2021 – A paper shortage threatens to disrupt holiday book sales and independent bookstores gain a small COVID  victory over the nation’s book selling king, Amazon.   “During the pandemic, people have started to shop more consciously, looking at their local and retail businesses,” said book industry analyst Jane Friedman. “They want them to survive.”  

The Politics of the Veterans Administration Veterans Care Healthy With Customer Contact Improvement Needs   November 7, 2021 – Health care provided to 9.1 million American veterans is exceptional though improvements are needed in areas of patient access, ranging from answering the phones to providing adequate parking.   “In a word, I would say the care we provide is outstanding,” said Tim Kelly, a recently retired Customer Care Coordinator with the agency. “But if I call, and nobody answers the phone, I’m not going to remember the care, I’m going to remember that someone didn’t answer the phone.”

The Politics of Boston After Two Centuries of White Men Mayors, Women of Color    October 31, 2021 – White men have served as Boston mayors since its founding but on Tuesday voters will elect one of two women of color in a city scarred with a national reputation for vehemently fighting busing and housing integration.     “That’s a reputation Boston maintains but it’s definitely one that the city wants to move away from,” said Dr. Erin O’Brien of the University of Massachusetts Boston political science department.

Committee Backs Media Rebuking Oppressive World Leaders   October 24, 17, 2021 – For only the third time in its 126-year history, the Norwegian Prize Committee gave the world’s most coveted award to journalists, hailing their efforts to beat back the rise in rogue world leaders jailing, killing, and exiling the media.   “Given that we’re in the modern age, it’s 2021, the fact that we’re seeing a slide away from democratic behaviors from leaders around the world is pretty scary,” said Alex Mahadevan, program manager for Poynter Institute’s Media Wise.

National Parks Turn into Human Zoos   October 17, 2021 – Are Americans loving their National Parks to death? Tourism has hit a historic peak, wearing on our national treasures through crushing traffic, mounds of litter and damage to nature.   “Of course, during COVID, parks are hugely popular because people can’t travel outside of the country,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of the National Parks Conservation Association. “Everyone is visiting these wonderful places.”

Supreme Court This Term? Lots of Drama October 10 – The U.S. Supreme Court has embarked on its most watched term in two decades, facing low approval ratings and handling volatile cases from gun rights to abortion, making it the Greatest Show on Earth.   “This term, everybody’s paying attention,” USA Today Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze says. “People are fired up.”  

Is Florida Governor Trump Heir Apparent?   October 3 – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is being held up as the leading Republican candidate for president should Donald Trump not run in 2024. And DeSantis is pushing all the right policy buttons to sway Trump supporters.   “Would DeSantis be the best guess today?” said veteran political prognosticator Charlie Cook. “Absolutely.”  

With A 50-50 U.S. Senate Split, One Man Stands Out   September 26, 2021 – West Virginia Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin serves a state that former Republican President Donald Trump won by 39 percent. That puts the former governor’s political life at risk when voting on every piece of legislation.   “He’s described as a centrist or conservative Democrat, “ The Washington Post’s Paul Kane said. “He can be best described as a Joe Manchin Democrat.”

U.S: 5 Percent of World Population, 25 Percent of Prisoners   September 19, 2021 – Why does the United States have five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its prisoners, with two out of three returning to jail after being released?   “It’s complicated,” veteran national Corrections Administrator Gary Maynard said. “We are a second amendment nation and a prosperous nation and that attracts drugs and organized crime.”

The Politics of Infrastructure Spends a Little on a Lot, Not a Lot on Much   September 12, 2021 – The U.S. Congress is ready to spend $1 trillion on American highways, bridges, railways, wastewater treatment plants, and the national electric grid. Is it enough?   “This is something presidents have wanted to do for some time,” CQ Roll Call Reporter Jessica Wehrman said. “But the needs are really, really vast...There are wastewater systems that date to the 1800s.”  

Unions Struggle Despite Popularity   September 5, 2021 – A new survey shows six in 10 Americans prefer labor unions. So why is the movement still struggling to survive?   “I think people are very hopeful this Labor Day,” said Steven Greenhouse, former New York Times labor reporter. “But also very frustrated,”  

House Democrats Fight Instead of Unite     August 29, 2021 – Despite a perilous two-vote margin, U.S. House Democrats are squabbling as the chamber loss to Republicans seems inevitable.   “I think a lot of Democrats are looking at this moment and saying we have to get everything we can right now,” said Chief New York Times Washington Correspondent Carl Hulse.      

Afghanistan, Afghanist-gone August 22, 2021 – The Taliban’s swift Afghanistan conquer showed the tenuous American hold on the nation despite 20 years of war.   “It was ultimately going to happen because the American mission failed,” Los Angeles Times Foreign Editor Jeffrey Fleishman said. “They don’t call Afghanistan the Graveyard of Empires for nothing.”  

Now, the “not so Secret Service”   August 15, 2021 -- In her new book, “Zero Fail,” Washington Post Pulitzer prize-winning report Carol Leonnig exposes failures of America’s elite agency.    “It was a culture, the service had partied hard for decades,” Leonnig said. “They had worked hard and partied hard.”   Join us, listen, learn, and share.

Cuba in Turmoil -- Again   August 8, 2021 –Recent Protests in Cuba continue a history of turmoil from Columbus to Castro. And once again eyes are on the United States to respond.   “The Cuban economy is in free fall,” said Dr. James Lopez, co-director of the Center for Jose Marti Studies at the University of Tampa. “There is great economic hardship, food shortages, the collapse of the medical system, COVID cases are on the rise.”   Join us, listen, learn, and share.

Save the Postal Service Now   August 1, 2021 –The nation’s foremost postal service expert believes Congress has an opportunity to right the financially struggling agency established in 1775 by adopting a business model that separates its tasks.   “You’ve got something that is expected to do things that are service oriented but not necessarily profitable, while at the same time keeping yourself reasonably balanced financially,” Leo Raymond said. “You’re going to end up in a self-conflicting situation.”     Join us, listen, learn, and share.

Who was the Best --- and Worst?   July 18, 2021 –Howard University history professor, Dr. Edna Greene Medford, discusses the best and worst presidents in American history. Trump detractors thought finish last in the C-SPAN poll. Guess again.   “When we’re looking at them, we are looking at more than just what is happening in the four years or eight years that they’re leading the country,” Greene says. “We’re also looking at what they did when they got into the presidency and certainly what they do when they leave.”   Join us, listen, learn, and share.

American Voting System Upended through New Laws, Courts   July 18, 2021 –New voting rights laws in several conservative states combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding them have thrown the American voting system into disarray, a Florida Supervisor of Elections said.   “The irony is that the 2020 election was the highest turnout in our country,” said Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles. “As an elections administrator who is trying to figure out how to run the election in 2022, we’re trying to figure out what the norm is going to be.”   Join us, listen, and share.

The Politics of the Supreme Court                    Highest Court in the Land Didn’t Steer Right   July 11, 2021 –Despite the hue and cry over Donald Trump creating a 6-3 conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority, the justices ruled more moderate than detractors and supporters anticipated.   “For the vast majority of the term, that’s right,” said USA Today Supreme Court reporter, John Fritze. “That definitely didn’t happen.”    

The Politics of George            Former President, Commander, Also Skilled Politician   July 4, 2021 –Though George Washington was America’s first president and Commander, he also stands out as one of the greatest political figures in the nation’s history, winning four key elections without having a single vote cast against him.   “The man was incredibly successful politically, and that’s not how we think of him,” said biographer David O. Stewart, author of the new book: George Washington: The Politic Rise of America’s Founding Father.   “We think of him as the soldier, a farmer, as an all-around upright guy,” Stewart said. “But we don’t think of him as a political actor, and he really was for much of his life.”  

The Politics of Violent Crime Murders Spike in America Post George Floyd Protests June 27, 2021 –Murders across the nation have reached their highest in a half-century, and many blame the demoralization of American policing in the wake of the George Floyd killing a year ago. “They’re doing the job that elected officials and some communities want them to do,” Gary McLhinney, former president of the Baltimore Fraternal of Police, told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “They don’t want them engaging with criminals,” McLhinney said.

The Politics of Ransomware U.S. Ill-Prepared for Cyber Hijackers June 20, 2021 –A U.S. Defense Secretary once ranked the United States a three out of 10 in its ability to stop computer hacker cyber-attacks. That number hasn’t changed much in a decade; an NBC News reporter told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields on Sunday Computer hijackers are extorting tens of millions of dollars from American businesses handcuffed by the seizure of their technical operations. “There really seems to be no solution,” Jon Allen said. “Our government has not figured them out, our corporations have not figured them out, and other organizations have not figured out how to stop this from happening,” Allen, an award-winning former congressional reporter and author of the new book, Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, discusses how the president is faring and the road potholes ahead.

The Politics of Ethics Past Committee Chairman: House Ethics Not Contradictory Terms June 13, 2021 – The former Republican chairman of the U.S. House Ethics Committee found most members honest but recalls the greatest hit list of our generation’s most ridiculous congressional scandals. Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania also admonished House Trump supporters for blocking the establishment of a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government. “I thought Congress should have enacted an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the events of Jan. 6 that led up it, the day of the event, including the actions of the president,” Dent said. “I think it was a mistake that one was not established.”

The True House Speaker Prayer Before Congress Older than Bill of Rights June 5, 2021 – As C-SPAN spokesman Howard Mortman watched a lot of congressional footage before one daily tradition caught his eye: the prayer before each session. Mortman has written the definitive history of congressional prayers with his book When Rabbis Bless Congress. “The very first thing that Congress does, both chambers, is open with a prayer,” Mortman tells the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “It’s like nothing else that happens during the day. There’s no acrimony; there’s no hatred, there’s no debate, there are no votes.” Mortman describes how prayer even preceded the formation of the Republic and the Bill of Rights. Listen and learn.

Remembering Those Who Died – And Those Who Survived       Many Silently Carry Physical and Psychological War Wounds   May 30, 2021 – Though Memorial Day honors those lost in the war, the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields took time to remember and reflect on the wounded who survived.   “It isn’t just the 378,000 Americans who died in wars over the last 80 years,” Shields said. “But, also, the one million wounded, many who came home crippled without limbs carrying emotional and psychological scars.” And what is your most memorable war movie? We discuss.

The Monopoly on American Reading Big Five Publishers Dominate While More Books Published Than Ever Before May 23, 2021 – Despite more books published in the 5,000-year history of the printed word, America’s five largest publishing companies continue to dominate the market, an industry expert told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “These big New York houses account for a large majority of what gets published in the U.S.,” said Jane Friedman, publisher of The Hot Sheet newsletter, an essential guide to the publishing industry. “It’s also what you see mostly stocked in bookstores,” she said. “Big publishers have the money and resources to really push these books into the hands of influencers, that includes reviewers.” Book reading exploded during the pandemic as people were confined to their homes, Friedman said. Children’s books, mostly the young adult genre, led the way, she said. Readers also resorted to purchasing “backlisted” books, classics providing a guaranteed good read, Friedman said.

California Scheming         A Bear, Porn Queen and Transgender Run for Governor   May 16, 2021 – What does a bear, porn star and transgender celebrity have in common? They’re all seeking to be California’s next governor.   Los Angeles Times Columnist Steve Lopez discusses the bizarre election to recall and replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom. One candidate is touring the state with a bear, calling himself the “beast” who will rein in California spending.   “I’m not embarrassed to say, I was rooting for the bear to break free and turn on him and maybe take a bite out of his rear end,” Lopez said.

Biden: Shows Ability Needs Agility Mid-term Loss of the House in 18 Months Could Sink Presidency May 8, 2021 – President Joe Biden is off to a fast start, remaining focused on vaccinating the country and restoring the economy, but faces monumental challenges in working with Congress on issues such as immigration and guns, the former editor of Congressional Quarterly Weekly magazine told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. David Hawkings said the possible loss of Democrat control in the U.S. House of Representatives 18 months now could puncture Biden’s momentum. “He has not allowed himself to get distracted by things that other people want to talk about,” Hawkings said. “That was not the book on Joe Biden...whatever caught his fancy; he would talk about. In contrast, he’s stayed pretty focused.” And, should Donald Trump get more credit for his handling of the pandemic? Listen and learn. Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at: http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

Kennedy: Treat Mental Illness Like Cancer     American Mental Health, Addiction Treatment “discrimination”   April 25, 2021 – Former U.S. Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy kicks off national Mental Health Awareness Month on the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields stating that America’s failure to adequately treat mental illness and addiction is driving overdose deaths and mass shootings.   The son of former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy discusses his own mental illness and addiction to deadly opiates, leaving Congress to start the Kennedy Forum, advocating for better mental health and addiction treatment.   Kennedy lauded the nation’s commitment to fighting cancer, but notes we have spent trillions – with a T – on that battle.   “We’ve spent a fraction of that on mental health,” he said.           Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at: http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.  

The Persecution of Asian Americans has a Hidden, Horrible U.S. History. April 25, 2021 – Americans should enroll in racial sensitivity training and financially support anti-hate groups to combat the alarming rise of attacks on Asian Americans. A former journalist and Asian history scholar told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. Linda Chong, a former China correspondent, blamed the 3,800 reported incidents of assaults and harassment reported since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic on unproven claims that the deadly virus started in China. “The tensions have been simmering,” Chong said. “Suspicions of the Asian population in the U.S. is kind of something that unfortunately has gone hand in hand with American history...it seemed easier to scapegoat Asians.” Unlike more well-known persecutions of Blacks and Native Americans, the terrorizing of Asians in the United States has mostly gone unreported due to fears of repercussions, Chong said. Like Blacks, Asians have been the subject of massacres, lynchings, and U.S. Supreme Court rulings undermining their citizenship, Chong said. Chong has not told her 86-year-old parents of the recent violent spike against Asian Americans, she said. “They’re very patriotic and very proud of being Americans, and this would devastate them,” Chong said. “They disavowed their Chinese citizenship in the 70s to become Americans; my father was so proud of it. I’m not sure he would feel the same way.” # # # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

A House Divided Americans Being Cheated by Stymied U.S. House Undermined by Political Selfishness, Renegade Posturing, and the Disappearance of Bipartisanship April 18, 2021 – The U.S. House of Representatives is paralyzed by growing political factions wielding disruptive power and the lack of bipartisanship that once made the American legislature respected, a longtime Republican House staffer told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “The idea of reaching across the aisle is seen as a weakness now,” said Kevin Fogarty, a longtime chief of staff and legislative director for recently retired U.S. Rep. Peter King of Long Island. “Unfortunately, a lot of that is leading to things not getting done,” Fogarty said. Renegades in both political parties are putting their personal political careers over making the house function; Fogarty said: “You’re seeing the ‘not what you are for’ but ‘what you are against,’” Fogarty said. Fogarty dishes on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, AOC, and Republican upstart Marjorie Greene of Georgia. Listen – and learn. # # # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

American Police in Polar Peril Capitol Police Officer Death, George Floyd Officer Trial Puts Police Back in the News April 4, 2021 – The testimony of eight Minneapolis police officers against colleague Derek Chauvin will likely doom the officer accused of murdering George Floyd, a veteran police analyst told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “If I put myself in the seats of the jurors, I think it’s pretty damning,” said Gary McLhinney, former president of the Fraternal Order of Police union in Baltimore. “You judge police officers’ actions by what their peers would do in a similar situation. I think the testimony so far has been that the average police officer, in that situation, would not have done what that particular police officer did.” McLhinney, also a former Maryland police chief, said the recent death of U.S. Capitol police officer Billy Evans should sound the alarm that the force is understaffed and in rising danger since the Jan. 6 attack on the building. “That job in particular now is very difficult because you’re trying to balance access with security, and those don’t go together very easily,” McLhinney said. # # # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

Jesus Was a Political Rebel             Christian Faith Requires Challenging Oppressive Authority April 4, 2021 – Being a true Christian requires challenging injustice and actively going out of your comfort zone to assist the poor, a former Washington journalist and men’s Christian minister told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields.  As part of a special Easter episode, former Newsday congressional correspondent J. Jioni Palmer, now a men’s minister at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church down the street from the White House, said the Biblical figure Jesus was lynched for challenging government authority.  “If your religion ain’t a revolution, then you’re just getting high,” Palmer said. “I think Jesus was...definitely a political hero. Crucifixion was used to execute political prisoners.”  Jesus would welcome much of the past year’s political turmoil in America because it aligns with his teachings to heal the sick, feed and house the poor, and challenge oppressive authority, Palmer said.                                                              #    #   # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.  

The Volatile Blend of Worship and Politics                    When Politicians Use God to Justify their Positions   March 28, 2021 – The Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields goes international for the first time, interviewing one of the world’s top Jewish influencers, Rabbi Josh Yuter in Jerusalem, who cautions against the use of God to support political positions.   “I do think, and this is something that bothers me from both the left and right, that when politics and religion get confused and overlap in that it’s hard to find the difference between the two...it is easy to corrupt that.”   Yuter discusses killings by various faiths carried out in the name of God and the impact of the coronavirus on the Jewish faith.   Join us.                                                              #    #   # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.  

The Slaughter of the Americans Over 500,000 Drug Overdose Deaths Equal to COVID Losses March 3, 2021 – Despite 500,000 Americans dying from opioid painkiller overdoses in the last 25 years, prescriptions continue being written aggressively while the federal government fails to regulate it, a leading medical expert on the issue told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields Sunday. Dr. Andrew Kolodny, medical director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, said the chief contributor to the crisis is the federal Food and Drug Administration, who approved the drugs and continues to fail to regulate them. “Opioid makers and distributors, in their greed, lead to massive losses of life,” Kolodny said. “Had the FDA been doing its job from the beginning, we would not have an opioid crisis today.” Kolodny and families of overdose victims are calling for President Joe Biden to not appoint interim FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock as the permanent director. Woodcock’s division failed to police opioid makers and approved the powerful painkillers to be more easily used, Kolodny said. # # # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

March 13, 2021 – Twenty years after a Northern Ireland peace agreement ended a three-decade civil war between Catholics wanting to join the southern Republic and Protest unionists with loyalty to Great Britain, a new battle has emerged on the economic front.               Great Britain has severed ties with the Economic Union in Europe – known as Brexit – whose impact is washing ashore on the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland, threatening to undermine economic gains that blossomed from the peace, said Colm O’Comartun, former director of the Irish Institute at Boston College.               “It exposed in many ways... how little the British government thinks about Northern Ireland,” O’Comartun told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “They entered into the Brexit process without acknowledging or understanding constitutional and international agreements.”   O’Comartun, who attained an undergraduate and graduate degree in political science from University College Dublin, also reflects on Irish history and the best movies to watch for St. Patrick’s Day.                                                    #  #  # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard at: retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify.  

Cuomo's Choose Fear Over Love Bullying New York Governor and CNN Anchor Brother Damage Dad’s Legacy March 6, 2021 – The current political troubles of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo – now accused of sexual harassment and fudging COVID nursing home death numbers -- stem back to the year 1512, said Daniel DiSalvo. “The great Italian philosopher, Machiavelli’s phrase, was ‘choose to be loved or feared,’” the chair of the City College of New York’s political science department told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields on Sunday. “Cuomo has mostly chosen fear,” he said. Machiavelli is most known for writing the book, The Prince. Andrew and his CNN anchor brother, Chris, are the sons and princes of the former legendary Democratic New York Governor Maria Cuomo, beloved for his intelligence, wit, and public service to the poor. Chris Cuomo has gotten into angry scrapes with people off camera, launching into a profanity-laced tirade after a heckler called him Fredo, a reference to the weak brother in the classic Italian mob movie, The Godfather. He later accosted a Long Island bicyclist who admonished him for failing to wear a mask and quarantine after contracting COVID while appearing on his show telling Americans to follow COVID protocols. # # # The Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard at retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify. Shields is a former congressional correspondent and author of the new book: The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump, now available on Amazon.com.

All-Encompassing Texas Disaster Affected Everyone     Ice Storm Bordered on “cataclysmic” Catastrophe Levels, Writer Says February 28, 2021 – The Texas legislature is holding marathon sessions to adopt standards that would protect its citizens from deadly electric service outages that happened in a recent snow and ice storm. Millions of Texans lost service in an unexpected blizzard that killed over 80 people and resulted in electric bills of over $10,000. “It was the most snow in Austin since 1949,” Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, Ken Herman of the Austin American-Statesman, told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields on Sunday. “This impacted everyone in Texas in some way...It was an all-encompassing disaster you couldn’t escape.” Herman discussed how the Texas decision in 1999 operated on its own independent grid – unconnected to regional or national grids – doomed Texas consumers. Herman said the state’s decision to deregulate the industry also caused lax oversight required in other states. Herman also discussed Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s decision to run to a vacation spot in Cancun, Mexico, while his constituents suffered, noting that Cruz’s many detractors are pummeling him. Herman remembered a Cruz description from former Minnesota U.S. Senator Al Franken. “I like Ted Cruz more than my fellow Senators like him,” Franken said. “And I hate him.”                                                                         # # # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

Pillaging Papers, Donald’s Demolition, Losing Limbaugh News Industry Chastened by Hedge Fund Purchase of the Chicago Tribune.   February 21, 2021 – The newspaper industry staggered again last week when the storied Chicago Tribune, which owns several major metropolitan papers across the country, agreed to sell the company to a financial services firm, furthering fears about the future of America’s print media.   Award-winning newspaper columnist, Martin DeAngelis, formerly of The Atlantic City Press, told the Retail Politics Podcast on Sunday that the purchase by Aldan Global Capital will likely result in staff and salary cuts to journalists already reeling from a drastic drop in newspaper circulations and the elimination of 50 percent of the print reporting workforce over the last 15 years.     DeAngelis worked at the Atlantic City paper when Berkshire Hathaway, the financial giant run by legendary investor Warren Buffett, purchased the paper seven years ago, promising to maintain its journalism integrity.   “They came in saying no salary cuts and no staff cuts,” said DeAngelis, who worked at the paper for 32 years. “Four years later, I was a staff cut.”   DeAngelis also dishes on covering former President Donald Trump during his casino days in Atlantic City and reflects on the death and impact of legendary conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.   Join us...                                                             #  #  # The Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard at retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify. Shields is a former congressional correspondent and author of the new book: The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump now available on Amazon.com.

February 14, 2021 – A special President’s Day edition of the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields celebrated the works of the nation’s 45 First Ladies, dubbing Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as the gold standard. “She was an amazing lady because she was like the First Lady to be a dual president,” said host Gerry Shields. “If anybody was to say did we ever have a female president, she would probably come closest.” Shields recommended the new book, Eleanor by David Michaelis, yet stepped back in time to discuss First Ladies going all the way back to Dolley Madison, who served from 1809 to 1817 and was the first to invite both parties to the White House, an action that eventually resulted in the word: bipartisanship. # # # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard at retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify.

American Democrats’ Thrill Over Taking Senate Premature      Chamber Filibuster Rule Will Make Passing Biden Agenda Difficult February 7, 2021 – American Democrats’ rejoice over a Georgia Senator’s win last month, giving them control of the Senate, is being tempered by a chamber filibuster rule that leaves them ten votes short shy of passing President Biden’s legislative agenda.               Veteran Washington Post congressional correspondent Paul Kane explained the rule on the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields.               Under Senate rules, any member can filibuster legislation, which requires 60 members to end debate and vote. Democrats have 50, leaving them significantly shy of pushing their agenda, Kane said.               “Legislation is still protected, or hindered depending on where you’re coming from, by this 60-vote hurdle,” Kane said.                                                                         # # # Listen to the Paul Kane Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields interview on Apple, Spotify, and retailpoliticspodcast.com

American Economic Inequality at Record Levels    Fairer Tax System, Better Health Care Can Restore the Middle Class January 31, 2021 – The gap between the rich and poor in America is at levels not seen in more than a century as the nation wrestles -- both politically and economically -- over the question of public welfare versus private gain, a legendary investigative reporter said Sunday.   James B. Steele told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields that tax breaks to the rich over the last 40 years have cut their individual contributions to the federal government in half while corporate tax rates have fallen 30 percent.   Those rates must be restored if the gap between the haves and have nots is to be closed, said Steele, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who along with his reporting partner, Don Barlett, wrote the seminal book, America, What Went Wrong?   “What makes America great is certainly capitalism but also the fact that we have the kind of economy that could eventually benefit everybody,” Steele said.   The shift from a factory driven economy to the retail sector has caused wages for the middle class to plummet, Steele said, with the minimum wage not being raised since 2009. The American economy has shifted to being driven by business and the markets away from government direction to ensure all Americans benefit, he said.   A giant crippler to the economy is the cost of health care with 20 million Americans still without the ability to affordably pay for their illnesses, much of which was once paid by employers, Steele said. Four in 10 Americans, if required due to a health emergency, could not raise $400, he said.                                                                                      # # # Listen to the Jim Steele Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields interview on Apple, Spotify, and retailpoliticspodcast.com

American Billionaires: 744 Homeless: 567,715  Lack of U.S Government Support Leaves One in Three on the Streets   January 23, 2021 – In a nation where billionaires earn more than some small country economies, over 200,000 Americans remain living on the streets in conditions called “unfit for human habitation.”   And the problem is getting worse.   Dennis Culhane, the foremost expert on American homelessness, told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields that the number of street homeless has spiked 75 percent in the last six years.               “The biggest crisis that we’re experiencing right now is this huge growth in what we call unsheltered homeless, people who are living outside on the streets or in encampments,” said Culhane, a professor and social science researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.               American Homelessness exploded in the 1980s due to high unemployment, factory shutdowns, housing price increases, a rise in substance abuse, cutbacks to government housing programs and the federal closure of mental institutions.               The lack of affordable housing along with the absence of enough mental illness and substance abuse treatment centers continues to plague the nation, Culhane said. Homelessness among veterans has dropped 50 percent due to a commitment of funding from the federal government.               Yet the government has not shown the same political will to extend similar funds for the rest of the homeless population, Culhane said. About 40 percent of funding for homeless assistance in the nation comes through private donations, he said.                                                                                      # # # Listen to the Dennis Culhane Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields interview on Apple, Spotify and retailpoliticspodcast.com

Almost 60 Years After King’s Iconic Speech, Black America Remains Disenfranchised January 17, 2021 – Rev. Martin Luther King delivered his legendary Lincoln Memorial “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, but many in Black America have forgotten his call for equality, a leading Civil Rights Movement music expert said. September Penn, the musical director for Dr. Clayborne Carson, who was commissioned by King’s wife, Coretta, to edit her husband’s papers, said on the weekly Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields, the dream remains unfulfilled for too many. “There was a bit of a façade, even in Black America,” Penn said. “It was if we made some strides, we attained voting rights, now there is affirmative action in place, and we were able to lift ourselves up a little more.” “People got comfortable; it was a good 20 years,” Penn said. “Too many people got comfortable, so no, his dream was never completely realized.” Penn has written Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement: The Power of Song, aimed at sparking racist conversations and promoting racial healing. Many in Black America have failed to pass the dream onto their children, she said. “There was a generation of adults who wanted to save their children from the pain, so they stopped talking about it,” she said. # # # Listen to the September Penn’s Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields interview on Apple, Spotify, and retailpoliticspodcast.com

The Politics of Fury       Did Live Footage of U.S. Capitol Raid Threaten Our Democracy?   January 10, 2021 – Showing marauders rampaging through the U.S. Capitol last week had the potential to spark further political violence throughout the nation, a former longtime Washington correspondent who spent years reporting from the U.S. Capitol said Sunday.             “You think about, in terms of the TV impact, it’s like a 9/11 level impact,” Pete Leffler, who also served as political editor for The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pa. told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “For earlier generations, it’s a Kennedy assassination, a Dr. Martin Luther King assassination. Fortunately, those weren’t shown live on TV like this was.”               Leffler accurately predicted in September that Pennsylvania, which gave Trump the 20 electoral votes needed to win in 2016, and Biden the same in November, would play a crucial role in the election. In addition, he stated at the time that Trump followers would claim the election was stolen and that there would be “blood on the streets.”   And though the Capitol violence may have temporarily doused Trump supporter fury, Leffler is not convinced the nation’s Hatfield-McCoy electorate division is near being over.               “I hope so but having been a journalist for 40 years, it pains me that two sets of facts have become the norm,” Leffler said. “If 70 million people believe one thing and the rest of us believe something else, how do you unite that? That’s my concern. Trump is gone, but that remains.”                                                                                      # # #   Listen to the Pete Leffler Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields interview on Apple, Spotify, and retailpoliticspodcast.com    

January 3, 2021 – When Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas signed the 1964 Civil Rights Law, he scrawled away Democratic Southern support that turned Republican. But Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, making a serious bid to flip Texas in November, and Georgia doing so for the first time in more than 25 years, signals: Bubba, this ain’t your south anymore. Ken Herman, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the Austin American-Statesman told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields on Sunday that Texas changing back to Democratic blue is inevitable. The influx of Hispanic voters and California Democrats guarantees the flip, Herman said. “It’s a state of great diversity,” Herman said. “Eventually, this will become a blue state.” Control of the U.S. Senate dangles in the South Tuesday in Georgia’s runoff election. The chamber currently holds 48 Democrats and 50 Republicans. If Democrat Senate candidates follow Biden in winning the state, the chamber will be tied at 50 with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. The race has attracted more than half a billion dollars in campaign spending from across the country, support that should be banned, Herman said. “I should not be allowed to give money to impact who represents the state of Montana in the U.S. Senate,” he said. “It just seems wrong.”  Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at: http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

The Retail Politics Podcast will be back Sunday, January 3rd, 2021.

December 20, 2020 – Congress should approve the proposed $50,000 in student loan forgiveness per borrower to stimulate the sagging U.S. economy, a veteran home loan processor said Sunday. Graduates carrying huge student debt are unable to qualify to buy homes, leaving them boxed out of participating in a major segment of the national economy, said Ray “The Loan Whisperer” Rau on the weekly Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. “Every time someone buys a house, seven people go to work,” Rau said. “You’ve got carpenters, electricians, you have all the people through the processing of the loans. So, it’s good for the economy to get this very untapped potential.” President-elect Joe Biden is supporting a U.S. Senate proposal that would wipe out $50,000 in loans per borrower. Senate Republicans want to cap any loan cancellation at $10,000. The average borrower with student loan has $38,000 in debt. Rau sees an average of two to three inquiries a month from millennials, who fail to qualify for homes because they cannot meet the student Debt to Income threshold, he said. Rau blames many schools and universities for the student debt crisis because they failed to counsel students about what their financial responsibilities would be once they graduated.   “There needs to be a lot more accountability,” Rau said. “There’s no oversight in a lot of these areas of lending. These schools, they targeted a market and in this case, it was the millennials.”                                                                         #     #    # Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at: http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.

December 13, 2020 – A Washington, D.C. small business owner said Sunday that the delay of Congress to a second COVID economic relief bill will result in additional business bankruptcies. Mary Ganganna, the owner of DTS Transportation chauffeur services, told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields that she faces financial ruin during political bickering. “They put us on the back burner,” Ganganna said. “Four months of delay, that could be bread on somebody’s table.” Ganganna expressed gratitude for the first round of federal government relief, helping her business survive in a climate where few are using chauffeur services. Ganganna is operating at 12 percent of her annual business and is pleading with Congress to give business grants instead of loans. “All we’re doing is accumulating loans for the future,” Ganganna said. “We’re not even sure how we’re going to pay it back.” Ganganna had to lay off 75 employees, directing them to a food bank, where she volunteers. “You know employees on a personal level, including their children,” she said. Like many Americans, Ganganna is trying to use the COVID time to reinvent herself, taking a course to get her insurance agent’s license. “This is a mental game going on too,” she said. “It’s definitely working on people’s minds.” The Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard on Apple and Spotify in addition to retailpoliticspodcast.com

Communication Training Key to Reducing Black Deaths at Police Hands    Defunding Police Wrong Way to Go, Law Enforcement Veteran Says   December 6, 2020 – The former president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore -- one of America’s most violent cities -- called for more and better police training to reduce the number of deaths of unarmed African Americans. Gary McLhinney, who also served as a Maryland police chief, told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields broadcasting Sunday that academy racial sensitivity instruction is inadequate and needs to be enhanced. Officers receive two to 8 hours of racial sensitivity training over a four-month academy, he said.             “A lot of racial sensitivity training I see is really kind of off the shelf stuff; it’s not meaningful,” McLhinney said. “Any training needs to be reinforced; it needs to be continual,” McLhinney added. “We do that with the training of firearms, intense introductory firearms training is always part of a police academy, and then it’s followed up, sometimes every six months, sometimes every year, that’s how you become proficient in something.” Current calls to reduce police budgets will backfire, he said. McLhinney commented on the 2015 death of Baltimore African American Freddie Gray, who broke his neck while traveling in a police wagon after being shackled yet not secured with a seat belt. Six officers were charged in the death and exonerated. As a result, police stopped arresting people, and murders in poor Black neighborhoods spiked. “The call to defund the police is, in my mind, the exact opposite of what those people who want police reform should be calling for,” he said. “They should be calling for more funding for police. They should be calling for better training, better equipment, and increased pay to higher quality police officers.”

John McCain’s Ghost Helps Chase Donald Trump     Trump’s Ridicule of the Late Senator’s Prisoner of War Status Cost Him   November 29, 2020 – President Donald Trump’s disparaging of the late Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona helped flip the Republican state - who hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential in 24 years - to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, McCain’s longtime confidant said Sunday.             Mark Salter, who worked for McCain for 18 years, stated on the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields that Biden’s win of Arizona by only about 10,000 votes was aided by former McCain backers angered at Trump.             “It was a factor,” said Salter, whose wrote a new book, The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain. “On the margins probably, but in a race decided by less than 11,000 votes, you win it on the margins.”            In June 2015, Trump stated: “I like people who weren’t captured,” referring to McCain’s five and a half years in a North Vietnamese Prisoner of War camp where he suffered savage beatings that left his right arm immobilized.           Salter also noted that 18,000 more Arizona Native Americans voted for Biden. McCain had good relationships with the tribes because he supported reservation casino gambling, which Trump opposed, he said.           But Salter projected that if Republicans win a January runoff Senate election in Georgia and gain control of the chamber, Biden, a former longtime U.S. Senator from Delaware, will have difficulty working with current Senators because some Republicans will adopt Trump’s “insult politics.”          “It’s a little more dysfunctional than when Biden was serving,” Salter said. “It’s a trickier environment, and you have half the Republican caucus running for president in 2024.”                                                                     #  #  # The Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard at: retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify. Shields is a former congressional correspondent and author of the new book: The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump now available on Amazon.com.

Black Lives Matter Helps Native American Movement     Horrors of Slavery Likened to the long “American Holocaust” of Indians   November 1, 2020 – The Black Lives Matter movement protesting the police killings of unarmed Black men has help amplify long smothered Native American voices, an expert said Sunday.  On a special Thanksgiving edition of the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields reviewing the current state of Native America, Kerry Hawk Lessard said African Americans are inspiring the American Indian.               “On one hand, it’s sad that our voices have not been enough,” said Lessard, executive director of Native American Lifelines, an inner-city Indian health care agency. “We’ve been talking about these issues for decades but that kind of gave the push needed to get our issues before people.”               More Indians are being elected to Congress and state office, Lessard said. Native Americans voting for Joe Biden in the recent presidential election helped him win Arizona, once a Republican stronghold, political analysts state.               “There are a lot of get out the vote efforts to really mobilize the native vote and why it’s important to vote and what we’re voting for,” Lessard said. “There is this certain momentum in this country right now that feels really good and it feels a little bit more sustainable in that it builds off what happened in the 1970s with the Native American movement that kind of fizzled out.”                         Lessard noted that Native Americans were not given citizenship until 1924 in their own homeland. Since explorers settled America in 1697, an estimated 12 million Native Americans have been killed, which Kerry described as “America’s Holocaust.” Two times more Indians were killed than the estimated 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Germans in World War II.               “I referred to the genocide of our people as that and there were some folks that were Jewish that really pushed back on using that word,” Lessard said. ”That word was the term that was just used for what happened to them.”             Contrary to public opinion, Lessard said, 70 percent of Native Americans now live in cities, not reservations as many believe. The urban landscape called Indians in the 1950s to fill growing manufacturing jobs. “Part of that is obscured by the way Native people have been presented in film and art and literature that we are a people that existed in the past and that we don’t exist in a contemporary way,” Lessard, a Baltimore native said. “We’ve been very reduced to kind of the plains Indian with the bonnet. That really overlooks the great diversity of how we existed historically and how we exist now. People don’t see us as real human beings.” Almost 300 years after the first Thanksgiving, the horrific treatment of Native Americans is finally being acknowledged, Lessard said. “I think there is such push back now in talking about or contending with slavery because you have to admit that this isn’t a perfect country,” Lessard said. “There are some who still struggle with that. I think you would have to acknowledge that the land you sit on belongs to a people that you completely decimated to build your country and people don’t want to deal with that.”                                                             #  #  # The Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields can be heard at: retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify. Shields is a former congressional correspondent and author of the new book: The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump now available on Amazon.com.

November 15, 2020 – U.S. states must adopt uniform election laws on when to count ballots to avoid the mayhem of the recent presidential election, a veteran elections supervisor said Sunday.               Bill Cowles, supervisor of elections for Orange County, Florida, and a former member of the Federal Elections Commission Board of Advisors, said Florida is now the model for tabulating elections due to changes made after the historic Bush-Gore presidential election debacle of 2000.               Florida now requires paper ballots be collected for recounts, avoiding the state’s hanging chad punch card ballot embarrassment of the 2000 race, Cowles said on the weekly Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields.               Florida now allows election supervisors to count ballots 26 days before the election to accelerate the tabulation process. Pennsylvania, where workers did not finish counting ballots until four days after the election, prohibits counting all ballots until election day. Arizona did not finish their count until nine days after the election. Nevada and Georgia also took a week to finish tabulating the votes.   “We are a country where the election process is decentralized,” said Cowles, who has served over 30 years.   The Florida changes also resolved problems with error ballots. Election workers had time to send affidavits rectifying unsigned ballots or other voter confusion before election day, making sure every vote counted. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to end a month-long Florida recount, handing the presidency to George W. Bush.   “Maybe the legislatures in Nevada and Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia will take a look at our procedures and rules and they’ll start consulting with Florida on how to make changes,” Cowles said.     Florida also adopted early voting, allowing voters to cast their ballots at the polls weeks in advance, taking the pressure to count all ballots on election day off election supervisors.   Cowles dismissed fraud claims, defending the accuracy and integrity of the American election system, noting that prior races resulted in only .0024 percent of American elections resulting in fraud charges and prosecutions.   “Fraud has become a campaign tool,” Cowles said. “People throw fraud around as a way to campaign and we’re seeing that in this post-election period.”   The recent presidential election vote counting debacle will start new debate over necessary changes as Bush-Gore did in 2000, Cowles said.   “You’re only as good as your last election,” he said. “We’ve already started working on the next one.”                                                                           #   #  #   Gerry Shields is author of the new book, The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump, available on Amazon.com. The podcast can be heard at: retailpoliticspodcast.com, Spotify or subscribe on Apple.

November 8, 2020 – The federal government should spend more on mental health treatment for returning veterans than bombs, an advocate working to reduce veteran suicides said Sunday.   Veterans Administration figures show that 17 U.S. veterans commit suicide daily, about 7,300 a year, more than the number of soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.   Troy Yocum, founder and president of the Kentucky non-profit, Active Heroes, stated on the weekly Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields that the suicide number has climbed to 20 per day since COVID.   Soldiers returning from battle should decompress being sent home, said Yocum an Iraq War veteran. Returning veterans are asked whether they need therapy upon their return, he said.               “I know if I check mark that box yes, I’m going to be on that base three more weeks,” Yocum said. “If I check mark that box no, I’m on my way home tomorrow.”               Yocum’s World War II grandfather committed suicide, he said. His family attended a retreat to deal with the death, he said. Yocum realized that military families cannot bear the costs of participating in such retreats so he built his own near Louisville, Ky.               The organization trains peer mentors to talk to veterans who may be struggling war horrors. Many veterans – stretching from World War II to Iraq – don’t share their battle experiences, Yocum said.               Yocum encouraged all Americans, particularly fellow veterans, to connect with sufferers through email, text or just inviting them out for coffee to help them unburden themselves. Yocum’s uncle served in Vietnam.                         “He didn’t speak much about it until I came home from Iraq,” Yocum said. “It was almost like I passed a test.”               The leading causes of veteran suicides include depression, survivor’s guild, substance abuse and war head injuries, Yocum said. The Veterans Administration has prioritized the issue by including allowing veterans thinking of killing themselves to press a number when they call, directing them to a crisis center.               Veterans Administration hospital services now match the quality of private hospitals but getting into the system remains a hurdle, Yocum said. Frustrated, Yocum purchased private health insurance.               “I waited seven months of filing paperwork to get into the VA system,” Yocum said. “There is always going to be more spent on bombs than healthcare.”               Yocum drove an Army truck through Iraq roads littered with hidden explosives, resulting in endless anxiety, he said.               “It’s not like something happens every minute that you’re there,” Yocum said. “But there is always the fear.”                                                                           # # #   Gerry Shields is author of the new book The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump. The podcast can be heard at: retailpoliticspodcast.com, Spotify or Apple.

“When my partner Jim Schaefer and I were writing stories about Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and people were reluctant to come forward, we would tell them we’re selling A1 insurance,” Elrick said. “And they would say, ‘what’s that?’” he continued. “You say what you have to say on A1 of the Detroit Free Press and somebody comes after you, we’re going to write that story too... that was pretty persuasive to a lot of folks who came forward, including some of the mayor’s bodyguards.” Elrick made the comments on the Sunday weekly Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields. Elrick discussed the impact Michigan will have on Tuesday’s presidential election. Trump won the state in 2016 by 11,000 votes, his slimmest margin in the nation.

White Dominance: “Domestic Terrorism” Institute Board Member Calls on Americans to Examine Oppressive History October 24, 2020 – A leader with a national agency aimed at reducing racism called on educators to become more honest about teaching students how white dominance has “inculcated” American culture, fostering black hatred. “People who identify themselves as white need to hear the truth of what white dominance has done to this country,” said Phyllis Alexander, a board member with the National Coalition Building Institute near Washington, D.C. “And find their heart and find their soul and find their humanity,” Alexander continued. “And while you’re finding your humanity, begin to see my humanity.” Alexander made the comments on the weekly Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields, which aired Sunday. Alexander served as the director of the Bureau of Human Relations & Equal Opportunity in Allentown, Pa. where Shields served as a reporter. Shields requested Alexander to bring racial sensitivity training to the newsroom. Alexander asked reporters and editors to list minority groups across the top of the page, such as African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and Indian Americans, while writing social institutions such as work, school, family and church down the side. Participants were asked to rank – on a scale of 1 to 10 – their interaction with the cultural groups. Shields stated he scored no higher than a three in any category with Alexander instructing him and the others to raise their racial and cultural awareness numbers by consciously making an effort to read the literature, listen to the music, eat the food and interact with the people of other races and cultures. “We are set up to be in isolation from one another,” Alexander said. “We live separate lives within the same country.” Alexander called for the American school system to ensure that minority communities in the country receive the same quality education, schools, books, and technologies as more affluent white schools. “Children want to learn,” Alexander said. “When they stop wanting to learn, it has been pulled out of them in some way, because we are inherently interested in learning.” Alexander blamed the recent killings of unarmed black men by white police officers and the overwhelming proportion of black men in prison on the way African Americans are portrayed in American society as lesser citizens. In responding to why black officers are not involved in the killings of unarmed whites, Alexander said: “Black officers are going to be trained in the way society trains us and gives white people the benefit of the doubt in a way they are not trained to give black people the benefit of the doubt. We receive the same mis-training that everybody else does on what it means to be white and what it means to be black.” Shields noted that while working in the Maryland prison system, he noticed that almost all inmates – white or black – were poor. More African Americans are in prison because they come from poor communities that are not served as well as white ones, Alexander said. “There is no black person when they are growing up and are asked by someone ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ saying I want to be poor,” Alexander said. “Something is interrupting their potential and I believe it is white dominance and racism.” “What people need to do is learn the truth about our U.S. history because that history tells you right to your face that this is a country that has been practicing domestic terrorism,” Alexander said. “I’m not trying to get people to feel guilty, ashamed or embarrassed, but if you don’t face your history, you repeat it.” # # # Retail Politics Podcast can be heard at: retailpoliticspodcast.com, on Apple and Spotify. Gerry Shields is the former Washington correspondent for the New York Post and Baton Rouge Advocate and author of the new book, The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump.” For more information, contact: 917-721-8562 or [email protected]

October 18, 2020 –Don’t expect hanging chads and magnifying glasses to decide the upcoming Florida presidential election outcome as it did 20 years ago because the state now operates a uniform system ready to systematically process any recount. “Because of 2000 and because of the hiccups we’ve had since I will tell you Florida has probably the safest most secure election system in the country,” said Mike Griffin, former chief political correspondent for The Orlando Sentinel who covered the historic 2000 ballot recount debacle, appearing on Sunday’s weekly Retail Politics Podcast with host Gerry Shields.

October 11, 2020 – With the presidential election less than a month away, the director of the News Literacy Institute warned voters on Sunday to be more vigilant in researching the accuracy of the information they consume. Appearing on the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields, Howard Schneider of Stonybrook University in Long Island, NY, urged readers to thoroughly question the accuracy of the information they receive. “Much of what is spread is not spread by Russian trolls or malevolent people,” Schneider said. “It’s you and me...we basically need to slow down.” “We are the solution to this problem, not the technology and not the journalists,” said Schneider, the former editor for the Newsday newspaper, added. “We have to learn how to do this.” Schneider discussed two egregious misinformation examples from the 2016 election when word falsely spread that Pope Francis endorsed President Donald Trump in the election. The claim went to over 800,000 people on social media before being refuted with only 30,000 people receiving the denial. Lies also spread that Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton was running a child pedophilia ring from a Washington, D.C. pizzeria that resulted in a man going to the shop with an assault rifle and firing it in a closet. Readers need to check such information with legitimate news sources, Schneider said. “This is a life skill for the 21st century,” Schneider said. “How are we going to have a discussion about the future of this country if we don’t have informed citizenship?” Schneider has petitioned the New York Board of Regents to make News Literary a mandatory class for high school graduates. Schneider stated that 69 percent of 12-year-olds now have smartphones, where they can get their news. Trump has tried to undermine the American press since being elected, creating the term “fake news” whenever he dislikes news accounts, critics say. Trump, however, only capitalized on a growing decline of trust in the American media, Schneider said, which dropped from 54 percent in 2003 to 32 percent during the election four years ago, the rising lack of media confidence driven mostly by Republicans. “He really exploited what was already going on,” Schneider said. “He really accelerated that.” Stonybrook is offering a free News Literary course online for those seeking to learn how to discern the truth about what they read. The website is centerfornewsliteracy.org. Retail Politics Podcast can be heard at retailpoliticspodcast.com and on Apple and Spotify. Gerry Shields is the former Washington correspondent for the New York Post and Baton Rouge Advocate and author of the new book, The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump.”

Pete Leffler, the former longtime political editor for the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pa., who will give us a drone's eye view of the Keystone State's current political landscape going into this monumental Nov. 3 presidential election.