Democrat Ruwa Romman made history in 2022 as the first known Muslim woman elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. The granddaughter of Palestinian refugees, she’s also the first Palestinian-American elected to any office in the state.

I had the opportunity to speak with Rep. Romman about the upcoming election and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

You will hear:

• Ruwa’s unusual story of how she got into office
• How she came to be in Georgia with grandparents who were forced out of their homes in Palestine
• The difference between attempting to interact with the Biden White House regarding the conflict in Palestine/Gaza/Israel versus the access to the Harris Campaign
• How focusing on local campaigns can lead to bigger things as leaders move up
• And more!

Guest Info:

Ruwa is passionate about politics, civic engagement, interfaith dialogue and community service. As an organizer, policy analyst, and public speaker, she works to empower communities and everyday people to become more civically engaged!

Last year she leveraged her platform to inform thousands of Georgians how to get involved in the 2020 elections, and worked as a field organizer for Asian American Advocacy Fund. Ruwa also helped establish the Georgia Volunteer Hub to train the influx of Georgia and national volunteers while connecting them to local Georgia organizations. Ruwa has volunteered in every election cycle since 2014 to help flip Georgia blue. In the past, she also worked as a Field Organizer for the Georgia Muslim Voter Project, as well as served as Communications Director for CAIR Georgia.

Ruwa was born in Jordan and is the granddaughter of Palestinian refugees. Her family moved to Georgia when she was 7 years old. Ruwa graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics from Oglethorpe University in 2015 and a Masters in Public Policy from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University in 2019. Ruwa currently works as a senior consultant for a professional services management company assisting government agencies and other stakeholders by advising, implementing, and developing improved strategies to deal with major public policy issues at the local, state, and federal level.

Through her diverse set of experiences, Ruwa will be ready on day one to tackle the tough challenges facing our state and to provide the leadership that District 97 deserves.

Links:

Rep. Romman's website: https://www.ruwa4georgia.com

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
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Email: ser1840@gmail.com

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(Recorded before President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign on July 21)

Democrats in tough races this year are asking the incumbent president and presumptive nominee Joe Biden to step aside. This is unprecedented, so political analyst Cliston Brown joins me to unpack why the Biden re-election campaign has become the Hindenburg after the explosion. Can the president turn this around and why is he struggling against a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist? Does it really just come down to Biden's age and the price of eggs?

You’ll hear:

• The correlation between presidential candidate votes and votes for Congressional races
• How “strong and wrong” can tend to win out over “weak and right”
• Why the “average” voter might still vote for Trump over Biden, even with all of his faults and poor performance previously
• The problem when Democrats spend more time talking to each other than trying to explain to non-Democrats why their options are better
• The importance of having a strong “bench” of party leadership in the wings, rather than the one and only option
• And more!

Guest Info:

Cliston Brown is a political analyst and communications executive. He writes on U.S. politics at ClistonBrown.com, having previously written for the New York Observer and the California Globe. Additionally, he was a regularly scheduled weekly guest (“Listen to Cliston”) on The Hal Ginsberg Morning Show on Radio Monterey, and also has appeared on “Inside Story” on Al Jazeera English; A News (Istanbul, Turkey) with Andy Boyns, Zaviar Ahmed and Mark Mourad Hammami; India Ahead with Neha Khanna; “Left, Right, Center” with David Webb on the Sirius XM Patriot Channel; “The DeMaio Report” with Carl DeMaio on KOGO-600 AM San Diego; the CY Interview with Chris Yandek and Jay Bildstein; and “Millennial Talk” with Chelsea Krost. He has been mentioned in the Boston Herald, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Huffington Post, in Reason magazine’s “Hit and Run” blog and on Vox.com, among others, and he has spoken before numerous business and trade groups on U.S. elections.

Brown has had particular success in pinpointing key Congressional races and projecting the number of seats won by each of the major political parties every two years starting in 2006.

On average, Brown has projected the final composition of the U.S. House of Representatives within 7.5 seats and the U.S. Senate within 1.222 seats. In the most recent election, he correctly predicted every U.S. Senate race.

In the 2012 election, Brown correctly called 49 of the 50 stat

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: ser1840@gmail.com

Join the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

The showgirl scholar herself, Sailor St. Claire — also known as Stevi Costa, joins me to discuss her work at the Noveltease Theatre in Seattle and the state of theatre during what the government at least considers the post-covid period.

You’ll hear:

• How Noveltease Theatre uses burlesque to drive storytelling forward, harkening back to how burlesque started in the U.S. back in the 1880s
• How the theatre chooses what works to interpret and how to make it more gay, looking into how to create a queer reading or understanding of the story
• Stevi’s background in academics and literature and how it affects her interpretation of stories
• Her experience with the COVID shut down in 2020 and how the company handled the months/years to follow
• The challenges of rebuilding an audience after the shutdown
• The value of participating in a collective experience rather than watching entertainment at home in your robe
• And more!

Guest Info:

Sailor St. Claire (Stevi Costa) (she/her) is the Artistic Director of Noveltease Theatre whose mission is to create community through storytelling by reviving the historical artform of literary burlesque. Sailor has been putting her knowledge of the literary canon to more-than-scholarly uses as a performer, producer, and emcee since 2009. She is entrusted to steer the ship as the host of Emerald City Burlesque Revue and at Burlesque and Cabaret Behind the Pink Door, and has worked her wordsmithery on the grand stages of the Vogue Theatre at the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival and the Orleans Casino Showroom at the Burlesque Hall of Fame’s Movers, Shakers, & Innovators Showcase.

She is proud to have been a part of the production team for Sinner Saint Burlesque from 2013-2018, co-adapting and co-directing the troupe’s much lauded burlesque of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and was also part of the team of nerdy feminist superheroes that brought Bechdel Test Burlesque to the University of Oregon in 2016 at the invitation of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. The Showgirl Scholar holds a PhD in English from the University of Washington, and once did a pin-up shoot atop her actual dissertation.

Although she loves 19th century American realism and naturalism with a fervor that confuses most, her favorite book is and will always be Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love.

Links, info you’d like to share with audience:

Novelties Theatre: https://novelteasetheatre.org/

Sailor’s Bio: https://novelteasetheatre.org/sailor-st-claire

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: ser1840@gmail.com

Join the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson