The Lean to the Left Podcast

Today’s topic is higher education and former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio and I are speaking with attorney Steven Weinstein who has extensive experience in both education and government relations. He joined the New Jersey law firm of Connell Foley in April 2021 after serving as general counsel and executive vice president for government relations at Rowan University. Steve built an outstanding t...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVA), who is driving Democrats crazy by blocking their major voter reform bill because he wants it to be more "bipartisan", is exactly the tool Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell need to execute their strategy to regain control of the U.S. Senate. Whether what he is doing is a deliberate attempt to satisfy Trump supporters in his home state and act like a "semi-Republican," or be...

Justin Long never felt comfortable in his own skin. After years of physical and psychological abuse from his parents, he was a self-loathing stranger to love. But at thirty-two, he faced up to the fact that his existence had become a downward spiral of alcoholism and despair. Knowing something had to change, Justin sought help and got sober. But defeating addiction was just the start of his journe...

Today, I’m going to present for you commentary by Not Fake News writer Chris Waldron as he traces the history of racism in America, the influence of Donald Trump, and a word of caution for all of us. Here’s America’s Racist History by Chris Waldron of Not Fake News.biz. Take a listen. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lean-to-the-left-podcast--4719048/support...

Dave Fleischer has now traveled almost 6,000 miles on the Journey of Hope in memory of his daughter, Sarah, who passed away in 2018 from a horrible cancer, cholangiocarcinoma. In this episode, Dave reports in from New England, after crossing the country and visiting several towns called Hope, several cholangiocarcinoma caregivers, patients and families. Altogether, plans call for the trip to inclu...

Donald Trump, a failed president who was twice impeached and could face criminal charges for some of his misdeeds, failed at something else: turning America into a totalitarian society. That's the view of Simon Chadwick, born in South Africa the son of an exiled anti-apartheid activist, who grew up in a totalitarian society that suppressed opposition, oppressed large segments of the population, an...

For more than 20 years, Miko Pickett made her mark in corporate IT, and today, this native of New Jersey is making a big time difference in her mostly African American community in South Carolina, where nearly 25 percent live in poverty. This whirlwind of a woman, who ran for the South Carolina state House of Representatives in 2020 just four years after moving to the Palmetto State, is determined...

I could be wrong, been wrong before, but I’m pretty sure Trump and the Republicans who opposed creating the bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection have shot themselves in the foot. That commission was being established as bipartisan, with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, and it was designed to be politically independent as well. But Trump didn ‘t want to expose...

Dave and Linda Fleischer are well underway on their Journey of Hope in memory of their daughter, Sarah, who passed away in 2018 from a horrible cancer, cholangiocarcinoma. In this episode, Dave reports in from South Dakota, after visiting several western states, three towns called Hope, and several colangiocarcinoma patients and families. All together, plans call for the trip to include stops in 1...

For many parents, watching their child head out to their school's football field, proudly wearing their uniforms with their names emblazoned on their back, is a proud moment. But for many, it also is filled with trepidation. What happens if he gets hurt? What happens if he suffers a concussion? How do I handle this? Traumatic brain injuries, unfortunately, are a part of life -- whether they're suf...

Not Fake News contributing writer Chris Waldron has some pointed comments to make about today’s Republican Party. In this blog from Not Fake News.biz, which I narrate, Waldron puts the GOP’s current decline into the darkness of Trumpism into perspective, noting that cowardice is nothing new for many Republican politicians. He brings back the memories of Richard Nixon and Watergate and Sen. Joe McC...

We’re all living with the Covid 19 pandemic in one way or another, and whether we realize it or not, it’s having an impact on our lives, in addition to just our physical health. Studies show that one in every three survivors of the virus experience mental health conditions, the majority being anxiety and mood disorders. And it’s not just those who actually have experienced the virus directly who e...

Dave and Linda Fleischer are ready to hit the road for a Journey of Hope in memory of their daughter, Sarah, who passed away in 2018 from a horrible cancer, cholangiocarcinoma. Today, they embark on what, for Dave, will be a 15,000 mile road trip across the nation and back to help raise money to support research into this disease and during which they hope to spread awareness and bring hope to pat...

There’s an insurrection taking place in America. It was not just limited to a single day when, on January 6th supporters of the losing candidate, Donald Trump, egged on by social media and roused into a frenzy by a series of speeches, launched an assault against the Capitol, and against Democracy. It began years before and continues to this very day as Republicans continue to attempt to re-write h...

It’s amazing to me how unoriginal Republicans typically are. I guess there’s a reason why most creative people are Democrats – or at least it seems that way. Anyway, what brought that insightful thought to mind is the recent blitz by Trumpsters claiming that President Biden’s administration is simply filled with chaos – that they don’t know what they’re doing and that’s why the gas stations were c...

In this episode of NFN Radio News, former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio and host Bob Gatty speak with Kiki Jamieson, president of The Fund for New Jersey, which supports good public policy decision-making on the issues most important to the people of the state and the region. Increasingly, non-profit organizations across the nation play ever more important roles with respect to the development of...

Looks to me like the Republican right-wing nutcases that targeted Rep. Liz Cheney, a true Conservative, because she refused to shut up about Trump’s Big Lie are going to have some competition going forward. Cheney has Trump in her proverbial gunsights and has no intention of letting up, and now there’s a fledgling movement by some Republicans with some sense that actually could end up in a third p...

The Republicans, led by Donald Trump, keep complaining about cancel culture this and cancel culture that. When pressure is on to remove statues honoring racists from the confederacy, Republican white supremicists cry cancel culture. When QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of her House committee assignments, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said it was all about “cancel culture.” I’m not s...

It seems to me that the Republican Party is determined to send itself into oblivion as it is allowing the defeated and discredited former president, Donald Trump, to call the shots. The latest example is the determination of right wing House Republicans to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as chair of the House Republican Conference, the party’s third most powerful leadership position, and replace her...

As we’ve been stuck at home during this long pandemic, a lot of us have experienced changes in our mental outlook, in our moods – if for no other reason than simply being frustrated and bored.’ There’s a research company called the NPD group that actually has looked at all of this and found that a whole bunch of us have turned to snacking as a way to fill the voids created by sadness, boredom, str...

Why is it that some Republicans insist on denying the reality of racism? Why is it that there are still those who apparently believe slavery wasn’t all that bad? How can that be? Now, there are at least two GOP state legislators who are saying that the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person back in 1787, really was a good thing for Blacks. Really? Sounds like a...

Am I crazy, or do you agree with me? It’s my opinion, that the Republican Party’s continued buy-in to Donald Trump’s claims that he was cheated out of the presidency can only end in their undoing. Yes, his hold on most members of the GOP is unquestioned, despite his defeat, and he is continuing his quest to remain the titular head of the party. But we all know what happens when something is built...

Mark M. Bello is a trial lawyer and prolific author of headline inspired legal thrillers, the most recent of which is Supreme Betrayal, a gripping novel about a Supreme Court nominee who is a sexual predator. He's the latest guest on today's podcast. In our conversation, Bello discusses his books, of course, but also the conflicts of police violence and he need for reform, some of the consequences...

Some of us thought, at least I did, that when America elected its first Black president with Barack Obama that racism in our country was at least beginning to wane. But then came the election of 2016 and Donald J. Trump, who made it seem OK for the millions of Americans who harbored racist attitudes that had actually hardened during the Obama years to come out of the closet, so to speak. Trump, a...

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Republicans have little or nothing to offer, other than obstructionism and self preservation. Their determination to block the House-passed voting rights bill that seeks to ensure that every American is able to cast a ballot, even as Republican-controlled states pass restrictive laws, is an example of that focus on self preservation. They appear to becoming...