Hosted by Gerry Shields
Gerry is a former longtime Washington correspondent and political writer for The New York Post, Baltimore Sun, and Philadelphia Inquirer and author of the new book: The Front Row: My Jagged Journey Recording American History from Reagan to Trump.
Episodes
Welcome to the Retail Politics Podcast. Without enough hand sanitizer for candidates to shake hands, let alone kiss voter babies, we redefine Retail Politics for the digital world, reaching you one download at a time. We’ll speak weekly for 30 minutes to politicians, academics, and reporters on the front lines of American political issues to help you choose best how your government should function.
S01E35 Howard Mortman, Politics of Congressional Prayer
As C-SPAN spokesman, Howard Mortman watched much 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.”
S01E34 Essay by Gerry Shields, Politics of Sacrifice
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.
S01E33 Jane Friedman, Politics of Publishing
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.
S01E32 Steve Lopez, Politics of California
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.
S01E31 David Hawkings, Can Biden’s Focus Be Sustained?
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.”
S01E30 Patrick J. Kennedy, Politics of Mental Health
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 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.
S01E29 Linda Chong, Vaccinating Against Hate
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.”
S01E28 Kevin Fogarty, Politics of the U.S. House
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.
S01E27 Gary McLhinney, American Police in Polar Peril
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.”
S01E26 J. Jioni Palmer, the Politics of Christian Faith
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.”
S01E25 Rabbi Josh Yuter, Politics of Religious Faith
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.”
S01E24 Dr. Andrew Kolodny, Politics of the Opioid Crisis
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.
S01E23 Colm O’Comartun, Politics of Ireland
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.”
S01E22 Daniel DiSalvo, Politics of Bullying
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.
S01E21 Ken Herman, Politics of a Texas Size Storm
“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.”
S01E20 Martin DeAngelis, Politics of 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.
S01E19 Gerry and Brad Celebrate President’s Day By Talking First Ladies
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, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's wife, as the gold standard.
S01E18 Paul Kane, Politics of the U.S. Senate
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.
S01E17 Jim Steele, Politics of the U.S. Economy
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.
S01E16 Dennis Culhane, Politics of Homelessness
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.