We've seen it increase voter participation, but we also see and we also know that it gives voters

a way to cast their ballot and make sure their voices are heard.

Safely from their homes and it also, it helps keep communities safe as well.

This is Sarah and Beth, your listening to Pant Suit Politics, the home of Grace filled political conversations.

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us on this exciting week in which we are celebrating our 500th episode of Pant Suit Politics.

Please be sure to join us on Friday for a real celebration of the journey from episode 1 to episode 500.

We're going to talk about what we've learned. We're going to review some funny moments along the way.

And it's just going to be a community event. We really want to celebrate all of you because you're what really makes this podcast special.

As we were sharing some of our reflections on Instagram this weekend, I just kept hearing the line from watershed by the Indigo girls every five years.

There's a so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh. And I think that is definitely the spirit of this celebration.

We just want to look back with warm hearts and grateful minds and celebrate with all of you.

Also have a really special episode for you today. In our main segment, we're going to really explore a theme that we've been returning to as we've talked about coronavirus.

And that theme is that as much as coronavirus feels like it's created a lot of new problems, it's actually exposed to some existing ones.

So you're going to hear from experts in elder care and education in the environment elections, even a death expert.

To talk about how COVID-19 has really accelerated the need and opportunity for big changes across our society.

But before that, we'll do some headline news and we'll end as we always do with what's on our minds outside of politics.

The first huge news story to break over the weekend was that sources within United States intelligence agencies have concluded that earlier this year, Russian forces were offering bounties to Taliban backed fighters in Afghanistan to kill American soldiers.

This is in the midst of the peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban. And there's all this reporting where everyone is being so careful to say we have this intel.

It came through the White House, President Trump and the administration have not chosen to respond. And we're just really we don't know the motive. We're not clear on the motive, which I don't understand. Of course we know the motive.

We are basically in a drawn out you can call it conflict. You can call it war with Russia. They meddled on our election. This is a massive escalation of that conflict. And I don't know why we're all being so careful to tiptoe around that reality, which this story clearly reveals.

Yeah, I think it's really important to think about the larger context of this story for multiple reasons. As you said, everything we know about Russia, not just visa V the United States, but think about Russia's aggression toward Ukraine, which we have made all about us in America because of the president, but is not all about us is very much about Ukraine.

You know, what we know about Russia's actions towards Ukraine, it's actions towards us, it's actions in Western Asia, tell a coherent story about Putin's desire to be a territorial and militaristic superpower again.

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