The Drive with Steve Jaxon spent this week in Philadelphia covering the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Stephanie Miller and Will Durst visit with Steve Jaxon on Radio Row on Day 3 of the DNC. She mentions that she will be doing a live Sexy Liberal show at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco on Aug. 6. She will also do a show on Monday November 7, the night before the Presidential election, which will go out live via satellite into movie theaters around the country. She describes the convention as “summer camp for politcal nerds.”

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters America joined Steve Jaxon on Day 3 of the DNC, which only feels like Day 7 to Steve. He recaps the story of Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog that monitors and reports on right wing media. He breaks down the questions about Donald Trump’s taxes, his suspicious Russian ties and whether he will agree to debate with Hillary Clinton. They discuss whether Trump is really in it to win and whether he intends to serve at all if elected.

Steve Jaxon visits with Krystal Ball, former MSNBC commentator and now a senior fellow at The New Leaders Council. She describes their 5-month intensive leadership training for young activists, office holders and candidates, who work to find concrete solutions and the best policy ideas. Find more info at http://www.newleaderscouncil.org.

The cover of Personal Foul by TIm Donaghy

Tim Donaghy visted The Drive with Steve Jaxon yesterday, the day after Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals. The former NBA referee lost his career when he was discovered to be involved with gambling on basketball games. He talked frankly about basketball refereeing and the current series.

Steve asked Tim Donaghy to summarize his downfall, for listeners not familiar with his story. He began, “It was a situation where I was in over my head and started gambling. Because of my obsession with it I started gambling on the NBA and on NBA games where I officiated. [I was] passing along inside information to people associated with the Gambino crime family. Because of a wiretap it was overheard and the FBI started an investigation. It basically began my downfall. Basically I did some time in a Federal prison because of wire fraud and gambling.”

Steve noted that he is doing better now, and Tim agreed: “Basically I got a second chance in life with the website refpicks.com. It wasn’t my first choice of professions but it’s a profession that took off for me. Basically I’ve got about ten sports handicappers who work for me. I give advice to people who are gambling legally. Knock on wood it’s been very successful for me. I’ve got about ten guys, some specialize in different areas, and I of course handle the NBA.”

Steve mentioned that Tim had picked the Warriors to win in Game 5 the previous night, the same as Steve and most of his friends. Tim confirmed, “Even though the NBA’s best interests was to get to that Game 6, I thought that they struggled a lot on the road. They shot poorly on the road throughout the playoffs and were going to play poorly. We all know that didn’t happen. But I’m lucky because I also had the over, so it kind of evened out for me.”

Steve mentioned the article in Sports Illustrated that was headlined NBA Suspended Dramond Green to Prolong the Finals, saying that he and his friends we were wondering about that. He asked, “This seemed a little, I don’t know, fishy to us, that they suspended him for this game in the NBA finals. So you’re saying that for financial reasons among others, the NBA really wanted this to go to six or even seven games?”

Tim replied with an opinion that drew a lot of comments from sports commentators nationwide. “Well definitely, look at the history of Green and what he did and how he kicked Adams. It was more overt. What he did with Le Bron, (who basically walked over him and taunted him) you have to allow him as a man and as an NBA basketball player to jump up and react to that. I thought it was an accident. The contact that he made with him and the contact that he had with Adams was definitely unnecessary and excessive. I felt he should have been suspended for that one and he wasn’t; this one, you’ve got to let him react as a man and as an NBA player… but if you look at the scenarios, they’re up 3 games to 1 when they suspend him so it adds another game… kind of a fishy situation to say the least.”

Steve later asked more about officiating, noting that Tim Donaghy has written about whether the NBA officials and the league may try to make a series run longer. He confirmed his opinion, stating, “No doubt about it, I wrote about this at length in my book, Personal Foul. When a team is up 3 games to 1 in a series, when somebody has a big advantage, the league comes in. It shows the officials plays in the previous games and shows some things that they want them to concentrate on in that night. And it always puts that team that’s down in the series at an advantage…”

Steve said, “That is shocking in many ways, in some ways it’s not…” Tim confirmed, “Trust me, when I went through this whole scenario in meetings with FBI agents, their jaws dropped and hit the ground. But after a thorough three or four month investigation, they came back and told me that I had told the truth at every turn. And that’s why Phil Scala who is the supervisory special agent who arrested me, wrote the forward to my book. This gave me a lot of credibility in the whole situation.”

Steve read a passage from Donaghy’s book about the league favoring teams that are down in a series and he then gave this example. “I’ll never forget. Maybe 10, 12 years ago, I was the alternate official in a series between Dallas and Houston. We moved to Houston for the series and Houston was up 2 games to none. We were going to Houston’s home court where you would think they would have the advantage. The league comes in. The tape session tells us to concentrate on Yao Ming setting illegal screens and travelling with the ball when he has it in the post. We left that meeting laughing, knowing basically that Dallas was going to get the benefit of most of the calls and Dallas goes on to win the series in 7 games and goes to the NBA Finals that year.”

When Steve asked, “How come this hasn’t been investigated by Congress or somebody?” Donaghy replied, “The way the FBI explained it to me is the NBA markets itself as NBA entertainment so it’s similar to pro wrestling in a way, the way the rules and legalities are set up, but for the most part people think it’s like college or high school basketball where everybody’s on a level playing field. But really the referees are refereeing the names on the front and back of jerseys rather than the violations that occur based on the rules.”

Steve remarked, “I have Warriors fans, thousands and thousands of them, in the Bay Area right now, about to drive off the road or something.” Tim Donaghy replied, “Well they shouldn’t be, because I think they’re going to get their second championship. They may have a little bit of a hard time in Cleveland. But they’re certainly going to be able to take care of business on their home floor in a game 7.” *

Then Steve mentioned talking to San Jose Mercury News sports guy Mark Purdie earlier. He asked if he wanted it to end in 6 in Cleveland or end in 7. “The only reason I want it to go to 7 is I want the Warriors to do it here at home and watch that arena explode.”

Tim Donaghy pointed out, “The only problem with that is, you have to be careful of that because you never know when somebody’s going to go off, and players are going to have a game above what they usually have, like they did in game 5. You have to be careful because some guys can really go off like Irving or Le Bron did and it can cause some problems for you.”

* UPDATE: A few days later, the Warriors did lose Game 7 at home and the Cavaliers won the championship.

For more about Tim Donaghy:

Visit his website https://www.refpicks.com/

John Fugelsang

John Fugelsang came back on The Drive with Steve Jaxon last week, to discuss the state of the Presidential election, now that the primaries are concluded and the parties are preparing for their nominating conventions later this summer. Jaxon and John Fugelsang began by sharing their plans to attend and to cover the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia. Fugelsang noted, “I’ll be around. I’m touring with Stephanie Miller. We’re doing the Sexy Liberal Tour, we’ve brought that back… Fortunately, politics has decided to be very funny this year.”

Steve asked John about his personal preference in the primary season and John said, “I’m a Sanders guy, yes, but I’m also on the side of anybody who realizes that Sanders and Clinton are kind of on the same side. The magic number in this election is 147, that is Ruth Bader Ginzburg’s age. And everyone has to remember that we are voting for a Supreme Court this time and if you want to be a “Bernie or Bust,” I understand that as a Bernie fan, but just know the Bust means Dennis Rodman on the Supreme Court.”

Steve invited John to share his thoughts about Donald Trump’s comments about the judge overseeing the civil suit for fraud brought against him and Trump University and he said, “Well, it is remarkable. It’s nice to see what it takes to get a lot of our right wing friends upset about racism for the very first time in their lives.

“Newt Gingrich of course very bravely came out and said that it was inexcusable and then went on to excuse it ’cause he’s still voting for him. I kind of want Donald Trump to know that when Newt Gingrich thinks you’re racist, that’s kind of like Keith Richards hosting your intervention, you know?” (…)

“Fortunately, politics has decided to be very funny this year.”

“As well as Paul Ryan, I mean, he said these horrible things. You know, Paul Ryan really proves that Trump supporters are not all racists. Millions of them are just good decent non-racists who don’t mind racism. So, it’s good to know. More or less they’re saying he’s a racist who should be President. This is not the party of Lincoln anymore. This is not even the party of Quayle anymore. You know, Trump said it and he doesn’t understand that it’s racism. Because the thing about ignorant racists, they tend to be ignorant about the fact that they’re racists. And the best part of all is this is it’s got people talking about ‘Trump University’ even more, because that was a scam he used to defraud the kind of people who would vote for Donald Trump until they look into what Donald Trump does.”

When Steve suggested the comparison between Trump and Hillary Clinton, John offered, “If you go by resume alone, I think John Quincy Adams is the last former Secretary of State to then become President. It’s quite impressive. And obviously she’s staging her campaign events in such a way to make herself look way more presidential. Watching Trump’s little speech the other night after the California primary, it was like the perfect storm of Teleprompter and Vicodin. Hillary looked very presidential and she had a great multi-cultural cast of Americans behind her waving flags. Just the presentations show that she’s more on her game. But Donald Trump has got a problem with this judge because he doesn’t think the judge should be allowed to rule on his fraud case because he said so many racist things against Mexicans and his own racism might prejudice the judge against him. And the problem with that is, if they ever were to replace that judge, Trump would also have to make sure that everyone understood that a woman, a gay, a Muslim, a disabled, an immigrant judge, an African-American judge, a Democrat-appointed judge or a former prisoner of war judge would be unfairly biased against him too. So let’s hope Gary Busey is on the bench.”

Steve concluded by inviting John Fugelsang to tell about his show on Sirius XM radio: “We do a show called ‘Tell Me Everything’ on the Insight Channel. That’s sort of like NPR with penis jokes, because we are in an election where the comedians are fighting for social justice and the candidates are telling penis jokes. Our channel is 121 on Sirius XM. We have a mixture of musicians and rock-and-roll stars and actors and directors, authors, historians, comedians, and a lot of politics. My sidekick is Frank Conniff from Mystery Science Theater 3000. The next time you’re in New York, you’ve got to let me know and we’ll get you on the air with us.”

Steve replied by also extending an invitation: “Right on, man. I wish we could have done it last time but again, we’ll probably be there after the convention and we’ll see you in Philadelphia one way or the other. If you’re going to be in the building you’ve got to come by, because we’re going to be broadcasting live the whole week.”

For more about John Fugelsang:

Follow John Fugelsang on Twitter at https://twitter.com/johnfugelsang

Robert Lipsyte

Robert Lipsyte, sportswriter, journalist, author and former ombudsman for ESPN, started covering Muhammad Ali in the 1960s. In this extensive and personal interview, recorded a few days before Ali’s funeral, Steve Jaxon began by noting that it had been a very busy week for his guest, who had a lot to say about Ali.

“It’s been a very busy week, and kind of a bittersweet week. As you know, I covered Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali, for 52 years and his death was not unexpected. In many ways, on the one hand, he really kind of died a few years back when this most mobile and garrulous person on the planet is suddenly struck mute and immobile by the gods. And yet on the other hand, I guess he will never die for so many of us because he was important in so many symbolic ways and his picture will live forever.”

Steve said, “As you said, it wasn’t unexpected, and he made it to 74, which is not bad, considering,” and Robert Lipsyte agreed, “I’m really so glad you said that, Steve. When I met him he was 22 and I was 25 or 26, and he was one of those kind of explosive novas, shining stars, you know, I thought that he would never make it to 30. The idea that he would live to 74 and in those final years be such a beatified – one writer described him as America’s teddy bear – you know, such a beatified secular saint was almost amazing.”

Steve mentioned that Robert Lipsyte was writing for the New York Times in 1964 and they sent him to cover Muhammad Ali fighting Sonny Liston and that made the memories come pouring out.

“It’s crazy because, I think that was the fight of the century and of course the moment of the century. That was when the ’60s really began. As we talked about it, what happened was that, Cassius Clay, this nobody who was kind of famous for his poetry and stuff, but he had not made his bones as a fighter, but they needed a box office for Sonny Liston and so he got the fight. The New York Times regular boxing writer did not think it was worth his time to go down for this one-round knockout. So it was suggested that the kid go down from night rewrite. You know, he was not doing anything important. So they sent me down and my instructions were so basic. As soon as I got to Miami Beach, rent a car, drive back and forth between the arena where the fight was going to be held, and the nearest hospital, so that I would waste no time following Cassius Clay into intensive care. God help me, I did that!

“OK, so then I get there, in my rental car, I drive to the 5th street gym, which is in a kind of decrepit building in this slummy part of Miami Beach, which is now the very trendy and glamorous South Beach. And I walk into this gym and I’m told that Cassius Clay has not arrived yet and there’s this hubbub behind me, and there are these four little guys around my own age, they’re wearing these matching white terrycloth cabana jackets, and they had these bad haircuts and British accents. I asked at the door, who are those guys? Oh, they’re some British band is in New York and they’ve come to Miami. And they just went to have a photo op with the champion, Sonny Liston, who took one look at them and said, “I ain’t posin’ with them sissies.

“So they got stuffed back into the limo and, second best, they were sent down here to have a picture with Clay. So Clay is not there and these four little guys are screaming and ranting. You know, they’re trying to get out, so they’re pushed up into an abandoned dressing room. If I had any smarts at all, if I had known who they were or if I had been a teenage girl I would have been much shyer. But you know, what the hell who are these four little jerks? So I kind of pushed my way into the room with them. The door is locked. So these are the 15 minutes, Steve, where I am the fifth Beatle. And I said to them, ‘Hello, I’m Robert Lipsyte from the New York Times, I’m very important.’ And John said, ‘Hello, I’m Ringo.’ This I figured out later. And Ringo said, ‘Hello, I’m George.”

And I said, ‘Who do you think is going to win?’ ‘Oh, Liston’s going to knock that little wanker out.’ And they they started really cursing and banging the walls. They were really kind of tough, nasty little guys. And then, bang! The door opens up and there is the most beautiful creature any of us had ever seen. And he said, ‘C’mon Beatles, let’s make some money.’

“And so he led them out into the ring and if I hadn’t known better I thought it would be choreographed. The Beatles lined up in a row, he tapped the first one on the head, I think it was George… and they all go down like dominoes. And then they kind of create little pyramid with probably Ringo on top, trying to hit his jaw. It’s amazingly hilarious. And they caper around for 5 or 10 minutes then the photo op is over and the Beatles go off to their destiny and Clay works out.

“And then, after he works out, he comes back to the dressing room and I’m in there, waiting to interview him. We hadn’t met yet and he beckons me over to him. ‘You were with those guys?’ I said, yeah. He said, ‘so who were those little sissies?’ So he was as clueless as I was. That was February 18, 1964, and I think that’s the moment when the 1960s actually began.”

Steve Jaxon, awestruck, commented, “Wow, what a story!” and Robert Lipsyte continued, “Talk about dumb luck! That was my start. The next 52 years, we’ve talked about it, it’s been an amazing ride. Right now I’m kind of high, as people often are after a tragedy or a death. It’s interesting that most of the email that I’ve got (I’ve got a lot of email) has either been offering consolation for my grief, as if he were a close family friend, which he was not, or recounting their own moment. And you know, anybody who’s had a moment with Muhammad Ali really remembers it vividly because he had such a kind of humanitarian glow about him. Even if he was across the room, it seemed like he could hug you.”

Steve asked when was the last time he ever saw Ali in person and we heard, “The last time I saw him I was sitting at ringside with Ali and Will Smith, who played him in the movie. And this was in the same arena where he had beaten Liston in Miami Beach. And a high-level bookseller named Taschen had just put out a $10,000 volume of pictures and prose about his life. This was at Art Basel, the big art show in Miami Beach. I remember watching Ali and Will Smith (who did, in a terrible movie which I hated, but did a very credible job of being him) watching the two of them kind of capering like children and I had this amazing thought. Maybe great celebrity athletes and movie stars are basically children and they have to be children.

“The reason I thought it was a terrible movie not just because there was a character in it named Lipsyte. And my kids were thrilled because the actor who played the character named Lipsyte was so cute and they thought he was so much better looking than their dad was, they were just thrilled. But he said all kinds of things I never said. What I really hated about the movie was that it gave the impression that Cassius Clay who became Muhammad Ali, kind of emerged as some sort of American and world hero with these principles and these senses of what was right and proper social justice, when the truth was, it was an evolution. When I met him back then with the Beatles in 1964 he was a callow, not very educated, rather ignorant boy who since he was 12 years old had kind of been focused through a tunnel of boxing and really didn’t know too much about the world itself. He kind of evolved. And some of the really most important things that he said he didn’t really come to understand until many years after he actually said it. When he said, ‘I’ve got nothing against them Viet Cong,’ which sounded like a powerful anti-war statement, it was really in exasperation for having been classified as 1-A. That same day when he found out that he could be drafted, his first response, Steve, was, ‘Why me? I’m heavyweight champ. All my taxes buy all of those tanks and helmets and rifles for soldiers. Why don’t they spend time and draft poor boys who don’t give taxes?’ So I mean, that’s not principled. That did not evolve until later. But he got there. And maybe that’s the powerful and important story about how Muhammad Ali and America all kind of changed and evolved through the 60s, 70s and 80s into a higher level of consciousness, rather than this kind of present iconography.

I’m glad you invited me to kind of rant on your show. What really made me so crazy was these obits where he was described as this important Civil Rights leader. He was not a Civil Rights leader. He was against Civil Rights when he first came out. He belonged to this segregationist sect that was making deals with the KKK and wanted to carve a piece of Mississippi where the sect could live until the seven-foot black men in space ships came down and saved the righteous. So I hope that story is not lost as we make him this hero. As Bill Clinton will speak at the funeral and there will be a couple of days of this sort of orgasmic celebration, I hope we don’t really lose the idea that this was an interesting man who kind of became something else in the crucible of America.”

In closing, Robert Lipsyte told Steve how much he liked the new documentary “OJ: Made in America” and added, “The reason why OJ was so promoted is that he was the counter-revolutionary black athlete, in many ways, the counterpoint to Muhammad Ali, to Jim Brown and to Carlos and Smith who raised their fists at the ’68 Olympics,” and they agreed that may be the subject of his next appearance on the show.

For more about Robert Lipsyte:

Search Google Images for “Cassius Clay Beatles” to see the pictures he describes from 1964.

For more from Robert Lipsyte, visit his website, www.robertlipsyte.com.

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, was in Cloverdale last Friday and took the time to speak with us just for a few minutes before his big speech at the Cloverdale Airport, in front of over four thousand people. Steve Jaxon began by asking about the race for the Democratic nomination and whether voter turnout would be the key factor for him.

Senator Sanders replied, “Yes, you got it, in one word. Here’s the story. If there is a large voter turnout, if the people of California understand that it is time to take on establishment politics and establishment economics, and create a government that works for all of us and not just the one percent, and if that turnout is high, we’re going to win and I think we’ll win big. If the turnout is low, we’ll probably lose. So I hope that as many people as possible come out to vote.”

With so many new voters attracted to the Bernie Sanders campaign, Steve asked how they plan to make sure that new voters actually follow through and turn out to vote on Election Day.

Senator Sanders offered, “…we have thousands of volunteers working on that as we speak. They’re on the telephone. They’re knocking on doors. We’re using social media. We’re doing everything that we can to make sure that not only young people but everybody, come out to vote. I think, again, if there’s a large voter turnout from working people, from young people, we’re going to win and win big.”

Asked whether he could have imagined how the campaign would have turned out, back when he started it a year ago, Senator Sanders replied, “The short answer is no. We have come a long way in the last year. I’ll just give you an example. When we began our campaign, we were 50 points down behind Secretary Clinton here in California, in the polls. Yesterday we had a poll that had us one point up. So I think we’ve made some progress in the last year.”

Steve then read a question submitted by a listener on Facebook: “Agriculture is such an important part of Sonoma County and Northern California, in many ways, both economically and environmentally, especially with the recent drought. What role does the small family farm play in growing the economy, in your opinion?”

The candidate’s answer covered some issues that fill in the bigger picture related to agriculture: “To me – I come from a small agricultural state, it’s mostly dairy and smaller family farms – agriculture obviously is essential to the future of this country. We need to make sure that we have a workforce that is legal and that is why among other things I believe in comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship. I also understand that here in California and increasingly in other parts of the country, a drought is a major concern. And that is why as President, I will be more aggressive than any President ever has been in taking on climate change, transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Climate change is one of the great planetary crises that we face. One of the differences between Secretary Clinton and myself, I believe in a tax on carbon.”

With less than a minute left, Steve asked Bernie Sanders about how the final stretch of the campaign has felt to him and he shared his personal satisfaction, saying, “It’s been an extraordinary experience. By the time we’re finished on Monday night, I think we will have broken some kind of California record. We will have had well over 30 rallies and will have spoken to over 250,000 Californians. I love that type of campaigning. That’s grass roots campaigning, going out among the people, face-to-face, talking to folks. That’s what I believe in and that’s what we’re doing here and that’s why I think we’re going to win.”

For more information about the Bernie Sanders campaign:

Get complete information about the Sanders campaign at the official website, www.berniesanders.com.