Indypendent News Hour on WBAI // 15 June 2021

Published: June 16, 2021, 6:29 p.m.

The Indy's John Tarleton and Julia Thomas intervew:\n\u2014Alexa Avil\xe9s, a democratic socialist running for city council seat in District 38. A mother of two teen-age daughters and a member of her local community board, she has been slammed by her detractors as a \u201cdanger\u201d to her community for supporting cuts to the NYPD\u2019s $6 billion annual budget. Some of New York\u2019s wealthiest men are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into races where the left is running strong candidates, like Avil\xe9s's.\n\u2014Ross Barkan, author and political columnist who has emerged one of the leading political commentators on state and local politics in New York. Ross gives his latest hot takes on the mayoral race, and his new book, 'The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, The Coronavirus, And The Fall Of New York.'\n\u2014Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, who was recently in Peru to observe the elections. the daughter of a former dictator is still trying to reverse her apparent defeat in the country\u2019s June 6 presidential run-off election. Keiko Fujimori is alleging fraud and trying to annul 500,000 votes in her contest against leftist Pedro Castillo, who appears to have won by a narrow margin. A victory for Castillo, a union leader and former school teacher who is the son of peasant farmers, would mark a significant shift to the left for Peru, which has long been a stronghold of neoliberalism.