Kent Wong on LA Teachers Strike, Rebecca Vallas on the Threat to Medicaid

This week on CounterSpin: Corporate media have been declaring organized labor moribund—sometimes abetting efforts to kill it—for many years now. But more than 30,000 public school teachers in Los Angeles, on strike with overwhelming community support, would suggest you ought not believe everything you read. We’ll hear about the LA teachers strike, and competing visions for public education, from Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center and vice president of the California Federation of Teachers.

Also on the show: The Trump White House is trying to bring that whole “breaking with democratic norms” thing to the issue of Medicaid: Congress disapproved of plans to shrink the program that helps millions of children, elderly, and people with disabilities and serious health conditions. So the Trump administration reportedly wants to push through cuts by executive action. Whether or not that can happen, it’s a clear sign that Medicaid remains a target, and we’ll talk about what that means with Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, and host of the podcast Off-Kilter.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at coverage of attorney general nominee William Barr.

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