Political Misfits

What's in a Number; Farmers Fight Eviction in Brazil; Trump Wants to Defund Cities

How does the US Labor Department calculate unemployment numbers, and who does it benefit?
Sputnik

Steve Grumbine, founder and CEO of Real Progressives and Real Progress in Action and host of the podcast Macro n Cheese, explains how the Labor Department has changed up the way it calculates unemployment, introducing a seasonal adjustment mechanism.

Dandara Araujo, member of the State Board of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, talks about a letter calling for support and attention to a series of evictions of farming families from the MST Quilombo Campo Grande that began on August 12. The eviction process has seen incredible violence and aggression by police. What's going on here?

Eugene Puryear, host at Breakthrough News and author of "Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America," talks about the Trump administration’s efforts to penalize cities that do things it doesn’t like, including reining in their police forces. We'll also get into a report of a counter-terrorism paramilitary unit in Kenya that the US and the UK have been funding and training; courts ruling the National Security Agency's phone snooping illegal; and protests in Washington, DC.

Marcus McAllister, international trainer, implementation specialist and Cure Violence Global program coordinator, discusses the number of homicides in Chicago, Illinois; Washington, DC; and other large cities. We'll also explain what community organizations are doing to help decrease the numbers and uplift their communities.

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