At The Kitchen Table

Caroline & Debra weigh in on the Eric Swalwell fallout with heavy hearts, but firm in their values. Hear their conversation prior to welcoming a first-time Congressional candidate in the headline-grabbing state of Virginia.Meet Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs, a military veteran, mother, grassroots activist and now candidate for Virginia's 8th Congressional district.

Danielle Melfi, new RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association CEO, joined Caroline & Debra to discuss the shockwaves Alabama's IVF ruling sent across the country and what it says about the vulnerability of fertility care rights, and what’s at stake right now, still.Melfi is charting a course for that organization's navigation through a critical period in America's chapter on family-building rights. She has successfully advanced policy changes at both the state and federal levels, including overseeing historic bipartisan increases in family-focused budgets in Wisconsin and national reduction of health care costs. As a skilled fundraiser and leader, Danielle raised tens of millions of dollars as Executive Director of the nonprofit Building Back Together and oversaw large-scale teams in her roles as Chief People Officer at the White House and Chief Program Officer at AmeriCorps. Most recently, Danielle served as a consultant for companies at the forefront of media and health care innovation, including women’s health start-up Allara Health. Danielle began her career as an organizer with deep experience centering lived experience and personal storytelling in her work, and she is committed to continuing RESOLVE’s community-focused legacy.Danielle joined Caroline and Debra to provide an update on where family planning rights are in the aftermath of the shocking Alabama Supreme Court 2024 decision imperiling in vitro fertilization.

Hosts Caroline and Debra are no strangers to "getting off the sidelines" and choosing to dive into politics. For Caroline it was swiping right on a dating app just to get an "in" with a presidential campaign she wound up interning and working for. For Debra, it was the 'Dobbs' decision from the US Supreme Court that spurred her into action, inevitably running for office. Their guest this week founded just the left-wing organization that aims to spark that sort of activism from everyday Americans to ... well, "Run For Something." Or to at least get involved. Hear Caroline and Debra catch up with Amanda Litman, author of "Run For Something" and co-founder of the organization by the same name and see if you, too, become inspired to involve yourself more.

Dr. Jasmine A. McDonald is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, where she also serves as Associate Co-Director of the Cancer Research office at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Trained in epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, she also PhD is in Biological Sciences in Public Health with a concentration in Immunology and Infectious Diseases. Her research examines how environmental and biological factors — including endocrine-disrupting chemicals in personal care products — shape breast cancer risk, with a particular focus on Black women, young women, and those with genetic predispositions. Her recent appearance on "The Plastic Detox," a new Netflix documentary exploring how chemical exposure from everyday plastics may be affecting fertility and health, caught our eye, too.Dr. McDonald joined Caroline and Debra for an in-depth conversation on what women can do - right now - in their homes to reduce health risks and what gives her hope for progress and programs she's currently working on that excite for a better, healthier future for women.

He's a retired brigadier general and now a northwest Georgia cattle rancher. Just the kind of guest you'd expect hanging "at the kitchen table" with the ladies, right?Oh, did we mention he's running to fill Marjorie Taylor Greene's vacated seat in Congress? Hello, "Kitchen Table issues!"Meet Shawn Harris, who's simultaneously in a run-off to complete MTG's term in Congress while also on the general election ballot to win the seat outright for a full term, too. Listen as he discusses his take on a bevy of those "kitchen table issues" affecting not just northwest Georgia, but all Georgians and Americans and how he aims to win and serve those of us who sit at our proverbial kitchen tables grappling with issues of affordability, education and healthcare costs and more.

Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, came to the kitchen table to discuss her role in combatting partisan gerrymandering and the impact redistricting has on everyday voters and voter participation.Hear how gerrymandering turned a 1% net win into a 47-seat bloodbath for Democrats not long ago in the U.S. House and how the mid-decade race to gerrymander is undoing years of work to bring better representation to Washington for voters.

In this episode, you'll meet Kitty Mayo, mother, founder of Georgia Protective Parents and a tireless child safety advocate & legislative drafter. It's her personal experience with Georgia's family court system that transformed her into one of the state's most determined champions for child safety reform. After witnessing, first-hand, the consequences of an unaccountable Guardian Ad Litem system, Mayo founded Georgia Protective Parents and began drafting legislation to fix the gaps she saw.Working without a formal lobbying background, Mayo spent hours standing outside the Georgia Senate chamber — waiting for lawmakers between votes — to hand-deliver her proposed bills. Her tenacity paid off: her GAL reform legislation is now carried by a bipartisan group of Senate and House sponsors. She and her organization is also a driving force behind HB 253 (Ethan's Law), which would ban forced family reunification programs, and has been involved in developing several other child protections measures this session. In our kitchen table conversation, for example, you'll hear the spine-tingling horrors of "reunification camps" - banned in many states but not in Georgia.Mayo's advocacy is rooted not in politics, but in the stories of Georgia families who have experienced harm in a system designed to protect children. She speaks candidly about the gap between what Georgia law promises and what families actually experience in courtrooms across the state.

A younger Debra Shigley wrote a fan letter to Soledad O'Brien, and from that early interaction sprung a mentorship. Now the Emmy Award-winning journalist & documentarian (now Oscar-nominated) filmmaker joined Debra and co-host Caroline Wells for an episode "At The Kitchen Table" to discuss O'Brien's most recent documentary - an Oscar-nominated piece her production team filmed in Atlanta.O'Brien's latest doc, "The Devil Is Busy," follows the trials and tribulations of an Atlanta abortion clinic besieged by protests. Further conversation dug into American media platforming disinformation on equal footing with expertise, which is central to much of the divide in the political conversation around reproductive choice.

Former state Senator Jason Esteves is a husband, father, former schoolteacher, former school board member, former state senator and small business owner. Oh, and now he's running to be Georgia's next governor. Sounds like a man with a lot on his plate and with a lot of practical experience needed to shape who will be the state's next chief executive. He recently unveiled a new childcare program that caught our eye, so let's listen in as he comes to our virtual kitchen table!

Dana Barrett's path to where she is now - serving on the Fulton County Commission and aiming to be Georgia's first woman Secretary of State - came with twists and turns. That's life. The life of a single working mother, small business owner, tech executive and breast cancer survivor has tested her, but "iron sharpens iron," right?Dana joined Debrea and Carolina "at the kitchen table" to relive the FBI raid for Fulton County Elections ballots, the never-ending fight to defend her county against flimsy charges of voter fraud, and how election integrity compelled her to run for the commission to start with and motivated her to aim higher: for Secretary of State.

Caroline and Debra welcome Liuba Grechen Shirley, the Founder and CEO of Vote Mama Foundation and Vote Mama PAC, organizations dedicated to electing mothers to office and breaking down the barriers that keep them out of politics. In 2018, she made history as the first candidate ever to receive FEC approval to use campaign funds for childcare—a victory that opened doors for thousands of candidates nationwide. Liuba has been recognized as one of Long Island's Most Powerful People and featured in The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, CNN, and MSNBC. She joined the ATK ladies 'at the kitchen table' to discuss the SAVE Act and it's disparate implications for women voters, how current guidelines to run for office disproportionately create obstacles for women and working moms, and how the US trails other first-world countries in representation of this key demographic.

Dominique Browning, founder of Moms' Clean Air Force, joined Caroline and Debra to show the connection between clean environmental policy pushes and maternal / familial health concerns. The ladies share an enlightening conversation that shows how mothers and women leaders are uniquely positioned to drive climate action and protect children's health at the local, state and federal level.

Hosts Caroline Welles and Debra Shigley welcome State Senator (and father of two) Rashaun Kemp to their virtual kitchen table for a conversation on a topic on most parents' minds: phones, tablets .. SCREEN TIME. Hear how the Georgia legislature and school officials are combatting devices to win the attention and minds of 'The Anxious Generation.'

Welcome to our virtual "kitchen table," where hostsCaroline Welles and Debra Shigley will sit down to have conversations impacting conversations you're having at your kitchen table. Get to know a little about Caroline & Debra, then get to know Georgia Representative Shea Roberts. She caught up with the kitchen table duo just before General Assembly to discuss she and her party's legislative priorities and explain the obstacles Democrats have to maneuver around as the minority party.