How To Plug Into The Green New Deal - Rhiana Gunn-Wright

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Meet the woman who helped develop The Green New Deal--and hear how you personally can make a difference in the climate crisis. Rhiana Gunn-Wright is the former policy director for New Consensus and Abdul El-Sayed’s 2018 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. She warns that without a shift in our policies and systems, we could become a nation of "fortresses" and "sacrifice zones". We’ll hear where she came from and how can the way she thinks about solving problems, can solve the biggest crisis of our time. A 2013 Rhodes Scholar, Gunn-Wright has also worked as the policy analyst for the Detroit Health Department, was a Mariam K. Chamberlain Fellow of Women and Public Policy at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and served on the policy team for former First Lady Michelle Obama. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 2011 with majors in African American studies and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.

Listen to Rhiana’s Toolkit for how you can make the Green New Deal resolution a reality.

Read the Green New Deal.

Take action with the Sunrise Movement.

Paid Leave For All - Katie Bethell is Seizing the Moment to Fight for Radical Policy Change

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America is one of only two countries in the world where you can be fired for taking a day off in order to give birth (let that sink in for a moment). As it stands, paid leave policy varies from company to company, state to state, but on a national level, there is no policy in place, no minimum requirements or baseline standard that applies to everyone.

And it’s not just about moms—this lack of policy also has greater repercussions for how we define a family, in a political sense, and the relationship between the family and the workplace--men included. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand are both bringing attention to these issues, running on platforms of universal childcare, and paid medical and family leave.

Katie Bethell, founder and executive director of Paid Leave for the US (PLUS), joins us this week to give us the alarming stats, talk nerdy government logistics, and offer some extremely practical advice on how we can use this particularly potent moment to push for political change.

Join us this week on Inflection Point for a look at radical change in action, one decision at a time.

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Photo courtesy of Paid Leave for the US

How To Get Even More Women In Office - Kate Black, Chief of Staff for EMILY's List

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More women than ever are raising their hands to run for office. But what does it actually take to to win? And what will be different when they do? Kate Black, now at the FCC, recorded with me in August when she was Chief of Staff for EMILY's List, an organization that helps pro-choice, Democratic women run for office. And she has her own story of awakening to the fact that we need more women in office. 

Kate Black

Vivien Labaton, Ending the "Lady Tax"

We've heard a lot about making things easier for families this election season, but the cost of childcare is still higher than college tuition in some states. Vivien Labaton has founded an advocacy organization called Make it Work to influence policies in support of paid family leave, equal pay and affordable childcare. She shares her personal story of growing up with a single dad, and what she experienced when her own child was born. 

VIVIEN LABATON