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The Real News Podcast is undeniably one of the best independent news shows available today. With a focus on providing insightful and accurate coverage of news that is often overlooked by mainstream media, this podcast truly delves into the heart of important global events. Aaron Mate, the host, stands out as a young intellectual who fearlessly challenges his guests to defend their perspectives and brings a refreshing level of intellectual rigor to the discussions.
One of the standout aspects of The Real News Podcast is its commitment to informed analysis and commentary. The show consistently invites top-notch scholars, investigative journalists, activists, and other experts to provide their insights on the most pressing news stories. This dedication ensures that listeners are provided with in-depth and well-rounded perspectives on complex issues.
Furthermore, The Real News Network's refusal to accept any commercial funding sets it apart from other news sources. This independence allows the network to prioritize truth over profit and maintain a high level of integrity in its reporting. The staff members working for The Real News Network are some of the best and brightest reporters in the industry, further adding to the podcast's credibility.
However, despite its many strengths, there are some downsides to The Real News Podcast that should be acknowledged. One common complaint is its segmented style of interviews. Some listeners would prefer to have interviews presented in one uninterrupted chunk rather than split across multiple episodes. While this may not detract from the quality or substance of each interview individually, it can disrupt the flow for those who prefer a continuous listening experience.
In conclusion, The Real News Podcast stands as an invaluable source for anyone seeking informed analysis and commentary on important global events. It brings together leading experts and provides thoughtful insights into complex topics in an intelligent manner. While there are minor flaws such as segmented interviews, these do not overshadow the overall value that this podcast offers. For those looking for a deeper understanding beyond what is covered by mainstream media outlets, The Real News Podcast is a must-listen.
Photojournalist Nick Stern still has nightmares from the night an officer fired a flashbang into his leg as he covered the LA immigration protests. He's one of dozens of journalists assaulted, arrested, or deported in Trump's second term — a year that pushed the US to 64th on the World Press Freedom Index, its lowest ranking ever.In this episode of The Battle for Free Speech, Michael Fox is joined by Real News investigative journalist and Capitol Hill correspondent Taya Graham to map the assault on the American press: the rubber bullets and broken bones, the billion-dollar lawsuits, the FBI raids on reporters' homes, the jailing of journalists like Georgia Fort and Don Lemon, and the deportation of immigrant reporters Mario Guevara and Estephanie Rodriguez. Featuring voices from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Press Photographers Association, they trace how violence, intimidation, media consolidation, and the gutting of access all serve a single goal: self-censorship — the silencing of the press in the name of free speech.The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.Guests: Nick Stern, photojournalistMickey Osterreicher, National Press Photographers Association Katherine Jacobson, Committee to Protect Journalists Benjamin Grazda, Reporters Without BordersResources: World Press Freedom IndexU.S. Press Freedom Tracker Georgia FortMario GuevaraEstefany RodríguezVideo of the Shooting of Nick SternThe war on our sightThe Trump administration arrested this journalist. She says the censorship is ongoing.Global Press Freedom Hits Record Low, U.S. Drops to 64th in the World: Reporters Without BordersBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Beyond the Wire, a new, thought-provoking documentary by filmmaker and researcher Dr. S. Rasheem, offers an indespensible representation of "The Greatest City in America" and a powerful counternarrative to the popular crime series The Wire. In this exclusive interview for Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Rasheem about how her background in community organizing compelled her to tell a different story of Baltimore—one focused on boots-on-the-ground activism that defies the narrative of a hopeless, crime-ridden city in need of over-policing.Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
On June 10, early in the morning, FBI agents raided the homes of individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism at the University of Michigan. As Yarden Katz and Stephen M. Ward report in Mondoweiss, “with help from local and state police departments, including the University of Michigan Police, the raids unfolded simultaneously in Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin…The case is now known as the Michigan Eight. The Justice Department indicted the eight defendants—five of whom are current or former students at the University of Michigan, and one of whom was a University employee—on multiple counts of severe charges, including “Conspiracy to Transmit Threats in Interstate and Foreign Commerce.” The defendants, all in their twenties, now potentially face decades in prison.” In this installment of our ongoing series “Police State University,” we speak with Kevin Zheng, a member-organizer and secretary of the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Michigan, and Grace Viscito, a restaurant worker and former graduate student at the University of Michigan.Additional links/info: Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) website, Instagram, Facebook page, and X pageLegal Fund of Michigan Students for PalestineYarden Katz & Stephen M. Ward, Mondoweiss, “Inside the case against the ‘Michigan 8': Palestine activism recast as antisemitic terror”Alexa Cheaney, The Michigan Daily, “The Daily breaks down the indictment against eight pro-Palestine activists”Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Campus life is unrecognizable in the Trump era: ‘There's so many cops everywhere'”Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘The raids happened Wednesday, finals started Thursday': FBI agents raid homes of pro-Palestine students at University of Michigan”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
We sit down with Dr. Steven Thrasher to talk about his new book, The Overseer Class; how our police state today evolved from yesterday's slave plantations; and why Dr. Thrasher has been blacklisted from academia after defending his students at Northwestern University during the Palestine encampment movement in 2024. Guests:Steven W. Thrasher, PhD, is the author of The Overseer Class: A Manifesto and the award-winning book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, which was a New York Times's Paperback Row Editors' Pick, named one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 by Kirkus Reviews, was longlisted for both the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Literature, and won the 2023 POZ Award for Best in Literature. He is also the inaugural Daniel Renberg Chair for Social Justice in Reporting at the Medill School of Journalism and a faculty member of Northwestern University's Institute of Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. An internationally renowned scholar on race, gender, and infectious disease, Dr. Thrasher's writing has been published by the Guardian, Atlantic, New York Times, Scientific American, Literary Hub, and in many academic journals.Credits:Studio Production / Post-Production: David HebdenBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
TRNN reporter Stephen Janis speaks with US Rep. Jamie Raskin about the unprecedented power of ICE in light of the $70 billion in additional funding just approved by Congress, his opposition to the proposed "anti-weaponization fund," and why the Epstein scandal needs further scrutiny. Editor's note: This interview was recorded at the 2026 Netroots Nation conference on June 6.Studio Production: Taya Graham, Maximillian AlvarezPost-Production: Stephen Janis, David HebdenBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
The world as we know it is facing unprecedented crises today that are all converging at once, from “end-times fascism” and full-blown oligarchy to “artificial intelligence,” endless wars, and genocide. The formal institutions of American democracy and organized labor have shown that they cannot stop the ruling-class onslaught on working people's lives, livelihoods, and futures, so it's up to rank-and-file workers everywhere to stand up and fight back. In this special Working People live show, hosted by In These Times magazine in Chicago, Illinois, we speak with veteran labor reporters Kim Kelly, Alex Press, and Hamilton Nolan about the crises breaking our world today—and how to stop them. Additional links/info: Support In These Times magazine! Kim Kelly website, X/Twitter page, TikTok, Bluesky page, and InstagramAlex Press Substack, X/Twitter page, and InstagramHamilton Nolan Substack, X/Twitter page, Facebook page, Bluesky pageFeatured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
On the day of Donald Trump's inauguration—January 20, 2025—the heads of many of Silicon Valley's most powerful tech firms sat in the rows just behind Trump. It was a sign of Trump's deep ties to the industry and to these powerful individuals who are transforming how we communicate, and not for the better. In this episode, Michael Fox visits Silicon Valley to try to understand the stranglehold that tech has over our media and our airwaves. Hosts Michael Fox and Marc Steiner dig into the ways media consolidation, social media, and AI are strangling our free speech, even as they claim to be liberating it—and us—with incredible insight from professors Todd Wolfson, Mary Anne Franks, Fara Dabhoiwala, Ramesh Srinivasan, and Jeff Cohen, the founder of the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR.The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.Guests: Todd WolfsonMary Anne FranksFara DabhoiwalaJeff CohenRamesh SrinivasanResources: Mary Anne Franks' book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First AmendmentFara Dabhoiwala's book, What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous IdeaTodd Wolfson's Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left Marc Steiner's Interview with Jeff Cohen, "How Democrats set the stage for Trump's assault on free speech”You can hear Ramesh Srinivasan's Utopias Podcast here, or wherever you get your podcastsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
As a writer, podcaster, and columnist for TRNN, Adam Johnson has been one of the fiercest, sharpest, and most consistent critics of legacy and Western media's roles in laundering, obscuring, justifying, and manufacturing consent for crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza genocide by Israel and with the full support of the United States. But critique is not enough anymore; to ensure that these horrific crimes don't continue, we need accountability for the political actors and media organizations that made it happen, or helped. At a live event hosted by Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Baltimore, Maryland, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Johnson about his new book, How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, and about how to hold media organizations accountable for their roles in manufacturing the conditions for genocide.Guests:Adam Johnson is a writer, media critic, co-host of the podcast Citations Needed, and a columnist for TRNN. He is the author of the book How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza.Credits:Audio Post-Production: Alina NehlichBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Free speech in America was never given — it was fought for, bled for, and died for. In this episode, hosts Marc Steiner and Michael Fox dive into the history of the movements that built and defended the right to speak out: the abolitionists who continued to speak — even as mobs attacked the building where they gathered — Ida B. Wells, who exposed the truth about lynching in Jim Crow Memphis, and the students at UC Berkeley who launched the Free Speech Movement of 1964.Michael takes us to Sproul Plaza, ground zero of the Berkeley free speech movement, and Marc shares his own story of carrying that fight from the civil rights movement to campuses on the East Coast. Together they trace a brutal pattern that runs from Elijah Lovejoy — the abolitionist editor murdered by a mob in 1837 — to the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, to today's crackdowns on student protest and the firing of professors for their political views.Featuring law professor Mary Anne Franks, author of Fearless Speech, on the crucial difference between fearless speech and reckless speech — and why America has so often protected the wrong one. Plus UC Berkeley historian David Hollinger on why universities are "the hill to die on," and Princeton historian Fara Dabhoiwala on why free speech has always been a battle over power.This is the second episode of The Battle for Free Speech. In this podcast series, in the lead-up to the country's 250th anniversary, journalists Michael Fox and Marc Steiner look at the battle for our free speech rights today, and the attacks on people speaking out in the United States.The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.Guests: David HollingerMary Anne FranksFara DabhoiwalaResources: Mary Anne Franks' book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First AmendmentFara Dabhoiwala's book, What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous IdeaDavid Hollinger's book, Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular The full KPFA documentary about the Free Speech movement: Voices of Independence – The Free Speech Movement: Sounds & Songs of DemonstrationsSupport KPFA here: https://support.kpfa.org/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Israeli military forces captured the latest convoy of humanitarian aid ships sailing to Gaza with the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSM) between late April and mid-May. Activists who were imprisoned by Israel for days and eventually deported have reported harrowing treatment by their captors, including targeted torture, abuse, broken bones, unauthorized injections of undisclosed substances, and sexual violence by Israeli soldiers. We speak with a panel of freed GSM participants—Thiago Ávila, Catríona Graham, and Ariadne Telles—about what they saw and endured, and about the successes, defeats, and future of the movement to break Israel's siege on Gaza.Studio Production / Post Production: David HebdenBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Imprisoned by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1926, the prison writings of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci remain essential 100 years later for understanding how fascism, policing, and incarceration function to suppress political dissent and preserve unequal systems of power. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, former Black Panther and political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with renowned scholar Alberto Toscano about the importance and terrifying relevance of Gramsci today.Guests:Alberto Toscano is a renowned Italian cultural critic, social theorist, philosopher, translator, and adjunct professor at the Simon Fraser University School of Communication. Toscano is a columnist at In These Times and the (co-)author of numerous books, including: Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis; and Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
At a live event hosted at Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Baltimore, MD, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez got to sit down for a deep and wide-ranging conversation with Chris Smalls, co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Alvarez and Smalls discuss Smalls' new book, When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class; they recount the incredible story of the formation of the Amazon Labor Union and the unionization of the first Amazon warehouse in the US; and they talk about Smalls' journey from warehouse worker and labor organizer to becoming an internationally recognized public figure and a human rights activist who has sailed with humanitarian flotilla missions to Gaza and Cuba. Additional links/info: Chris Smalls X page and InstagramChris Smalls, Penguin Random House, When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working ClassMaximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Chris Smalls: Sabotage attempts and death threats won't stop Gaza Freedom Flotilla”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Are President Trump and MAGA Republicans publicly signaling that they plan to interfere in—and potentially rig—the 2026 midterm elections? If so, why is the media not taking the threat seriously? In this episode of Inequality Watch, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis investigate the connections between wealth inequality, political power, ICE funding, the influence of Super PACs on elections, and growing concerns about democratic accountability in Trump's America.Credits: Pre-Production: Taya Graham, Stephen JanisStudio Production / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino, Stephen JanisBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Mahmoud Khalil was detained and arrested at his Manhattan apartment. The video is chilling. Plainclothes agents are there. They refuse to give their names. He's handcuffed and shoved into the back of a car. His wife — eight months pregnant — watches and tries to understand what's happening.This is not a scene from some dark chapter of a distant past filled with black-and-white photos of bygone dictatorships. This happened here, in the United States of America, in 2025.In this podcast series, in the lead-up to the country's 250th anniversary, journalists Michael Fox and Marc Steiner look at the battle for our free speech rights today, and attacks on people speaking out in the United States.Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein, and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by: Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.Guests: Lisa Femia, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier FoundationCorinna Mullin, CUNY professorDavid Rubin, Staff Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and ExpressionAllen Chaney, Legal Director, ACLU - South CarolinaResources: The Charlie Kirk purge: How 600 Americans were punished in a pro-Trump crackdown Clemson Settles With Professor Fired for Kirk CommentsRetired police officer jailed over Charlie Kirk post settles lawsuit for more than $800K The war on our sightBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
We sit down for an hour-long discussion with legendary independent journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin to discuss her new blockbuster documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy, and the existential threat that US empire in general—and the US military specifically—poses to humanity and to our planet. Editor's Note: This conversation was recorded on Jan. 29, 2026, before the beginning of the illegal US-Israeli War in Iran. Guests:Abby Martin is an Izzy-Award-winning independent journalist, filmmaker, and host of The Empire Files. She is the director of the 2019 documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom and the 2026 documentary Earth's Greatest Enemy.Additional links/info:Watch Earth's Greatest Enemy on The Empire Files YouTube channel. Credits:Studio Production / Post-Production: David HebdenBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
On the morning of April 30, the Spanish website Diario Red and the television channel Canal Red began to release a series of leaked audio recordings between powerful right-wing figures in the Americas. They called it HondurasGate.By May 6, the outlets had released a total of 37 WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram messages. What they reveal is a shocking network pushing undermine leftist leaders in the region.It's one of the biggest political scandals in the Americas in years… and it implicates the Trump administration, Israel, Argentina's libertarian president, a load of right-wing Honduran officials in underhanded activities to take down political opponents… with thousands of dollars funneled into a right-wing propaganda outlet, allegedly located in the United States.The messages have been independently verified twice, confirming that they are not AI-generated.And you have likely heard little, if nothing, about them.Today, host Michael Fox walks you through the leaks. What they are, what they mean, and the repercussions for the region.This is Episode 11 of Under the Shadow, Season 2.Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump administration's onslaught on Latin America.Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.It is supported, in part, by Global Exchange.Theme music by Michael Fox's band, Monte Perdido. Monte Perdido's 2024 album Ofrenda is available on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.Script editing by Heather Gies. Hosted, written, produced, mixed, and edited by Michael Fox.Guests: Arturo DominguezAlberto MarescaResources: You can check out Michael Fox's Patreon.Here is Arturo Dominguez's latest piece on this, “How Far Will Trump Go to Destabilize Latin America"Alberto Maresca's latest article is, "‘Hondurasgate' and the tragedy of automatic alignment in Latin AmericaYou can check out hondurasgate.ch for all the background and more information about the leaks.You can listen to the links at youtube.com/@hondurasgateYou can check out Valeria Duarte's reporting on HondurasGate. She is the journalist at Diario Red who broke the story.This is the YouTube site for Canal Red Latinoamerica, the television news outlet that broke HondurasGate.Under the Shadow, Season 1:You can check out the first season of Under the Shadow by clicking hereThe Beginning: Monroe and migration | Under the Shadow, Episode 1Panama. US Invasion. | Under the Shadow, Episode 13The legacy of Monroe | Under the Shadow, Bonus Episode 4 Support Under the ShadowPlease consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox's reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Nearly a year after workers voted to authorize a strike, non-union city and commercially contracted security officers in Baltimore, MD, walked off the job on April 9 on an Unfair Labor Practice strike against their employers, Abacus Corporation, Metropolitan Protective Services, and Urban Development Solutions. Now, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) say that workers have been retaliated against by Metropolitan Protective Services (MPS), alleging that the city contractor “fired and harassed workers following [the] lawful strike.” MPS denies these allegations and claims “that no employees have been terminated due to union involvement.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with Victoria Cox, a former MPS employee who worked to reach the rank of sergeant, and Daril Riley, a former MPS employee who reached the rank of corporal. Both Cox and Riley have had their shifts taken off the schedule—and, essentially, their jobs taken away—and both have been put under investigation by MPS since the strike in April.Additional links/info: Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Underpaid, uninsured, held at gunpoint: Baltimore security guards strike for a union”SEIU Local 32BJ website, Facebook page, and InstagramKatherine Wilson, Baltimore Sun, “Baltimore contract security officers at city properties prepare to strike”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorStatement from Derrick Parks, CEO and President of Metropolitan Protective Services (5/26/26): Metropolitan Protective Services, Inc. (MPSI) maintains that no employees have been terminated due to union involvement. We fully support our employees' right to choose whether or not to join a union.The individuals recently removed from the schedule were terminated for failing to maintain the current Maryland guard license required by the Maryland State Police. Regarding Sergeant Cox, she was removed from the schedule at the specific request of the client following multiple advisements regarding violations of client policy and insubordination.Of our 175 employees, only six have been removed from the schedule or terminated, all due to licensing issues or performance concerns. We find these allegations to be without merit and believe they are being used by the union to exert pressure on the company.Furthermore, we have received reports of union representatives harassing employees who chose not to join, including unauthorized site visits and the use of derogatory language. MPSI is currently considering filing a cease and desist order and a harassment lawsuit to protect the rights of our staff. Our priority remains protecting all employees, regardless of their union status.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
In 2026, fascism in the US is rising while “the left” descends further into powerlessness, goofiness, and irrelevance—but, author William C. Anderson argues, it doesn't have to stay that way. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Anderson returns to the show for an unflinching conversation with former political prisoner and host Mansa Musa about the state of the political left today and the lessons organizers and everyday people can learn from the Black Liberation Movement and figures like the late Russell Maroon Shoatz. Editor's Note: This conversation was recorded on May 1, 2026.Guests:William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, AL. His work has appeared in outlets ranging from The Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, to Pitchfork. He is the author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, and co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. He's also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast.Additional links/info: William C. Anderson, Prism / TRNN, “Another Way Out: We need a mosaic movement, not fragmented ‘leftism'”Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
In her new book, The Complicit Lens, media scholar Robin Anderson reveals how legacy media in the US presented Israel's genocidal violence in Gaza as defensive and justified, casting doubt on IDF bombings, employing passive language to deflect blame for atrocities, and repeating Israeli talking points, often word-for-word. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Anderson about the ways US media has systematically run interference for Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, aligning its coverage with Israeli military narratives while downplaying—and even condoning—the wholesale massacre of Palestinians. Guests:Robin Andersen is professor emerita of media studies at Fordham University and an award-winning author of a dozen single- and co-authored books. Her work examines film, television, and media coverage of war, the environment, politics, and elections. Anderson edits the Routledge Focus Book Series on Media and Humanitarian Action, serves as a Project Censored Judge, and contributes to the annual State of the Free Press. Andersen is on the Board of Directors of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), where she also writes regularly, and is an Izzy Award Judge for the Park Center for Independent Media. Her writing has appeared in a range of outlets, including CounterPunch, LA Progressive, The Progressive, Salon, Common Dreams, and ScheerPost.Additional links/info: Robin Anderson, OR Books, The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in GazaCredits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Since the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump and his acolytes, rightwing media, and coal industry barons and lobbyists have obsessively painted the picture of Trump as a friend to coal miners and the so-called “undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal.” But as labor journalist Kim Kelly reports at In These Times, “the simpering 'Trump digs coal' image the administration seeks to project is vastly at odds with the actions it's taken to limit miner protections, endanger their health, and exacerbate the black lung crisis consuming Central Appalachia.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with Kelly about the Trump administration's latest betrayal of coal miners and their families and its underreported attack on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission and abrupt, unprecedented firing of FMSHRC Commissioner Moshe Z. Marvit. Additional links/info: Kim Kelly website, X/Twitter page, TikTok, Bluesky page, and InstagramKim Kelly, In These Times, “Trump's latest target: Coal miners' safety”Jordan Barab, Confined Space, “Friday night massacre at Mine Safety Review Commission”Kim Kelly, In These Times, “The Trump administration ramps up its war on coal miners”Kim Kelly, In These Times, “Trump to coal miners: Drop dead”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has shattered long-held hopes for Palestinian-Israeli coexistence and exposed the global systems sustaining the decades-long destruction of Palestine and the dispossession of Palestinians. In this special edition of the The Marc Steiner Show, commemorating the solemn anniversary of the Nakba, Marc speaks with world-renowned author and physician Ghada Karmi about the destruction of Gaza, the collapse of faith in a political solution, and the deepening despair felt by many Palestinians and Israelis alike today. Guests:Ghada Karmi was born in Jerusalem. Forced from her home during the Nakba, she later trained as a Doctor of Medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. She is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling memoir In Search of Fatima and One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel.Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: Cameron GranadinoAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
While the world's focus has shifted to the war in Iran, Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has continued, and Israeli settlers are rapidly and violently expanding illegal land seizures across the occupied West Bank, with the full backing of the Israeli government, military, and police. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with award-winning Israeli journalist, political commentator, and photographer Oren Ziv about how settler violence, land seizures, and the dismantling of the Oslo Accords-era boundaries are accelerating Israel's efforts to permanently confine Palestinians and erase the possibility of a Palestinian state.Guests:Oren Ziv is an award-winning Israeli journalist, political commentator, photographer, and reporter for Local Call and +972 Magazine. Ziv the co-founder of The Activestills Collective. Additional links/info: Oren Ziv & Ariel Caine, +972 Magazine, “‘Erasing the lines': How settler outposts are seizing new regions of the West Bank”Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
After 14 months of fruitless contract negotiations with the Harvard University administration, over 4,000 workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) walked off the job on an indefinite strike on April 21. According to the union, “Graduate student workers will suspend teaching and research labor until Harvard's bargaining team takes substantive action in addressing the union's key issues: pay that keeps pace with the rising cost of living, recourse for harassment and discrimination, support for non-citizen students, protections for academic freedom, and ‘fair share fees' to equitably distribute the expenses of union representation, among others.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with three striking graduate student workers about the issues at the center of this strike, and about what it's like to live, work, and strike at the country's richest university amid political attacks from the federal government, scandals connecting high-ranking Harvard officials to Jeffrey Epstein, and a nationwide cost-of-living crisis. Panelists include: Sara Speller, a fifth-year PhD student in the Music Department at Harvard and president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union; Zoë Feder, a seventh-year PhD student in the program in Biological & Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School and a research assistant in the Microbiology Department; and Jacob Wolf, a third-year PhD student and Teaching Fellow in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Additional links/info: Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) website, Facebook page, X/Twitter page, TikTok, and InstagramHarvard Graduate Students Union Strike Update/FAQ ZineLydialyle Gibson, Harvard Magazine, “Harvard graduate student workers strike”Noah A. Ferris, The Harvard Crimson, “Grad students rally outside Garber's home as strike enters third week”Hugo C. Chiasson & Elise A. Spenner, The Harvard Crimson, “Harvard promised a ‘full' review of its Epstein ties. Its own files reveal what it left out”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Israel's genocidal destruction of Gaza is the culmination of a violent settler-colonial project that goes all the way back to the Nakba (“Catastrophe”) of 1948. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, former political prisoner and Black Panther Mansa Musa speaks with award-winning Palestinian author and former political prisoner Basem Khandakji about the decades-long destruction of Palestinian society and mass displacement of Palestinians from their homeland, as well as the perseverance of Palestinian prisoners under the totalitarian conditions of Israeli prisons.Guests:Basem Khandakji, born in 1983 in Nablus, is a Palestinian novelist, poet, and journalist. Arrested in 2004 at the age of twenty-one for his political activities, he continued to write from prison, producing a body of work that has earned wide recognition across the Arab world. Khandakji was released from Israeli prison in 2025, one year after his novel A Mask the Color of the Sky won the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
After members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh won their strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in late 2025, which had lasted for over 3 years, they were notified in January that the paper's wealthy owners, the Block family and Block Communications Inc., were shutting down operations. Then, in a stunning turn of events, the Post-Gazette was purchased in April by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which also owns The Banner in Baltimore, MD. While Post-Gazette workers were cautiously optimistic about the news, the union learned last week that the Venetoulis Institute is cutting at least 40 percent of its staff, including 80 percent of the union workers who participated in the recently ended strike. In this episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of union members and former Post-Gazette employees about what will happen to them and their coworkers, to the Post-Gazette itself, and to journalism in the Steel City. Panelists include: Andrew Goldstein, a now-former Post-Gazette education reporter and still-acting president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh; Helen Fallon, a longtime copyeditor for the Post-Gazette and professor emerita at Point Park University in Pittsburgh; and Erin Hebert, a now-former copyeditor and designer for the Post-Gazette and First Vice President of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh.Additional links/info: Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting (PAPER) websiteNewspaper Guild of Pittsburgh website, Facebook page, and InstagramNewspaper Guild of Pittsburgh: “Incoming Post-Gazette ownership slashes staff, purges former strikers”Riddhi Setty, Columbia Journalism Review, “The Venetoulis Institute goes to Pittsburgh”Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “They won their strike fair and square. Now their rich bosses are closing up shop”Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “The longest-running strike in the US is over—and the workers won”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Amid Israel's ongoing destruction of Gaza, its illegal annexation of land in the Occupied West Bank, and belligerent warmaking in Iran and Lebanon, antisemitism around the globe is rising—but so is an international chorus of anti-Zionist Jews speaking out against Israel's crimes. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with renowned author and commentator Peter Beinart about his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, and about the “civil war” within the Jewish world over Israel.Guests:Peter Beinart is a renowned author, professor, and analyst whose commentary regularly appears in The New York Times and MSNBC. Beinart is a professor of journalism and political science at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and he is the editor at large of Jewish Currents. Beinart is the author of numerous books, including his most recent work, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. He lives with his family in New York City and writes regularly for his Substack, The Beinart Notebook.Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
From the dawn of the digital age to the current era of “artificial intelligence,” the future of literacy, reading, and book publishing is facing an existential threat. But Paul Coates—legendary activist, publisher, former Baltimore Black Panther Party member, and founder of Black Classic Press—has some critical wisdom to share in these perilous times about the revolutionary necessity of books. At a live event organized by Tubman House and Eddie's Front Porch and recorded at the TRNN studio in Baltimore, MD, on March 6, 2026, community organizer and creator of Healing Justices Erica Woodland sits down with Coates for a wide-ranging discussion about propaganda, publishing, Black literary production, and the past and present of revolutionary politics.Guests:W. Paul Coates is the founder of Black Classic Press and BCP Digital Printing. Black Classic Press, established in 1978, specializes in republishing obscure and significant works by and about people of African descent. A former member of the Black Panther Party, Coates led the effort to establish the Black Panther Archives at Howard University.Credits:Producer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoVideographer: Phil GlaserBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
After decades of decline, the organized labor movement in the US has seen a resurgence in rank-and-file militancy over the last decade, with increased strike actions and union drives in industries across the economy. And in the story of this recent revival of labor in America, the movement led by predominantly young baristas to unionize coffee giant Starbucks has played a pivotal role. The new documentary Baristas vs. Billionaires takes viewers on a journey through the last five years of the epic, ongoing struggle to unionize Starbucks, told by some of the workers and organizers at the center of that struggle. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with director of Baristas vs. Billionaires and Academy Award nominee Mark Mori, and with legendary actor and Academy award nominee Alec Baldwin, who is a producer on the film. Additional links/info: Baristas vs. Billionaires websiteMaximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “‘Starbucks is the largest labor violator in modern history': Starbucks workers prepare for indefinite national strike” Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “How union organizing can change your life and the world: A conversation with Jaz Brisack”Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Want to unionize your workplace? These worker-organizers have some advice”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits:Studio Production / Post-Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Inspired by January's mass strike against ICE terror in Minnesota, a vast coalition of labor unions, democratic organizations, and community groups are organizing a nationwide economic blackout on Friday, May 1, International Workers Day. “May Day Strong events are being planned across the US,” Michael Sainato reports at The Guardian, “with organizers calling for ‘no school, no work, no shopping,' in protest of government policies they say put billionaires' needs above those of workers.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of guests who are all involved in organizing May Day events this week from Philadelphia to Chicago to Iowa. Panelists include: Jana Korn, who currently serves as the chief of staff for the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, and also serves on the board of Philadelphia Jobs with Justice; Jeff Kurtz, a retired locomotive engineer and union officer who also served as a state representative in the Iowa House of Representatives; and John Emiliano, a healthcare worker and organizer in Chicago with the Tahanan Center and Tanggol Migrante, a grassroots Filipino migrant defense network.Additional links/info: May Day Strong coalition websiteWorkers Over Billionaires 2026 - Philadelphia LinktreeWorkers Over Billionaires 2026 - Chicago details Lee County (Iowa) Labor Chapter Facebook page and May Day 2026 detailsTahanan Filipino Center InstagramTanggol Migrante websiteLatino Union of Chicago website Michael Sainato, The Guardian, “US activists plan May Day economic blackout: ‘No school, no work, no shopping'”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Award-winning journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous has reported from war zones and disaster areas across the world—from Egypt, Syria, and Libya, to Iraq, Algeria, Haiti, and the United States—but nothing compares to what he's seen in Gaza. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Abdel Kouddous about the impossible task of documenting the full scale of devastation Israel has wrought on Gaza and, increasingly, on Lebanon. Guests:Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a journalist and editor for DropSite News based in New York and Cairo. He has reported from across the Arab world, including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, and Algeria as well from across the United States and internationally. He received a George Polk Award for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, an Emmy award for his coverage of the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban, and an Izzy Award for his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Additional links/info: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, DropSite author pageKavitha Chekuru & Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Fault Lines, “The Night Won't End: Biden's War on Gaza”Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: Cameron GranadinoAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the American Revolutionary War. While the national mythology behind the “America at 250” celebrations focuses on the 18th-century battle between Patriot and Loyalist elites, what does the story of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States look like through the eyes of enslaved people? In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Professor Justene Hill Edwards, author of Unfree Markets: The Slaves' Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina.Guests:Justene Hill Edwards is an associate professor of History in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. Her research explores the intersection of African American history, the history of slavery, and the history of American capitalism. She is the author of Unfree Markets: The Slaves' Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina and Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Former political prisoner Mahmoud al-Arda was first arrested by Israeli occupation forces in 1992 due to his involvement in the First Intifada and his membership in Islamic Jihad. Since then, for the past three decades, al-Arda has been incarcerated in different Israeli prisons, and he made international headlines in 2021 after leading a daring, successful, but short-lived escape from the maximum-security Gilboa Prison. In this blockbuster episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa—a former Black Panther and political prisoner in the US—speaks with al-Arda after he and 2,000 other Palestinian prisoners were finally released from incarceration in Israel in 2025.Additional Links/InfoB'Tselem, Statistics on Palestinians in Israeli CustodyB'Tselem, “Welcome to Hell”: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps (Report)Mansa Musa, TRNN, “Inside Israel's Prison Regime”Ruwaida Amer, Electronic Intifada, “Freedom is the eternal dream”Aseel Mousa, Middle East Eye, “Jailbreak, freedom, exile: Life of Mahmoud al-Arda, architect of daring Israeli prison escape”Credits Videography: Ruwaida Amer, Cameron GranadinoProducer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoVoiceover: Danny Bou-MarounBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Just decades from now, millions of people all over the world will be forced to move because of climate change. In his new book, Shelter from the Storm: How Climate Change Is Creating a New Era of Migration, acclaimed journalist and migration researcher Julian Hattem reports from the front lines of the environmental apocalypse, taking readers on a journey from the South Pacific to the Indian subcontinent, to the Mediterranean. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Hattem about his new book and about the massive human displacement that is already being caused by climate change today.This podcast was recorded on April 4, 2026, at “End Papers: A mini-book fest on capitalism and the climate crisis,”hosted by Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Baltimore, Maryland.GuestsJulian Hattem is the editor of Migration Information Source, the online magazine of the Migration Policy Institute, and founder and host of the podcast Changing Climate, Changing Migration. He has been on staff with the Associated Press and The Hill, and written for outlets including the Washington Post, The Guardian, NPR, and The Atlantic. The author of Shelter from the Storm: How Climate Change Is Creating a New Era of Migration (The New Press), he lives in Washington, DC.CreditsAudio Post-Production: Alina NehlichBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
On Aug. 22, 2025, the small-town lives of residents living near the Smitty's Supply facility in Roseland, Louisiana, changed forever when an explosion occurred at the automotive lubricant plant. The explosion and ensuing fire, which burned for days, triggered evacuations across the area, blanketing homes and businesses with smoke, soot, and oily residue, while spilling petroleum products from the plant into area waterways, including several adjacent ponds and the Tangipahoa River. While the Environmental Protection Agency claims that the area is safe, according to the agency's own chemical monitoring, residents say they've been left behind and kept in the dark as they develop negative health symptoms and their homes remain covered in toxic substances. In this episode, we speak with Arlene Bankston, a farmer and resident of Roseland, and Allie Ponvelle, who lives one town over in Amite, about the slow-moving nightmare they've been living in ever since the massive explosion and chemical fire at Smitty's Supply.Additional links/info: Alene Bankston's Facebook pageAllie Ponvelle's Facebook pagePetition to Close Roseland Montessori School Due to Toxic ContaminationChemically Impacted Communities Coalition (CICC) websiteWesley Muller, Louisiana Illuminator, “Smitty's Supply neighbors still wary of fire fallout despite assurances from Landry, EPA”Whitney Miller, WWL Louisiana, “What was in the air and water after the Smitty's Supply fire? Testing under new scrutiny””Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “America's toxic future looks like East Palestine, Ohio, today”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Hours after a temporary ceasefire deal between the US and Iran was announced last week, Israel unleashed a massive, deadly bombing campaign on Lebanon. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with award-winning Iranian-Canadian journalist Samira Mohyeddin about the reality that Israel is a rogue state intent on pursuing more war, not diplomacy or peace, and that the US-Israeli war on Iran was never about nuclear threats but about weakening Iran's economic and regional power—at devastating costs to civilians.Guests:Samira Mohyeddin is an award winning producer and broadcaster based in Toronto. For nearly a decade, she was a producer and host at Canada's National Broadcaster, CBC Radio. Mohyeddin is the founder of On The Line Mediaand she was the 2024 - 2025 journalism fellow at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of TorontoAdditional links/info:Qassam Muaddi, Mondoweiss / TRNN, “As U.S. and Iran agree to a temporary ceasefire, Israel launches ‘massacre' in Lebanon, threatening entire deal”Jake Johnson, Common Dreams / TRNN, “Iran's top diplomat says Trump team sabotaged talks with deal ‘inches away'”Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: Cameron GranadinoAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
While international attention has decreased in recent months, the horrors Israel continues to systematically unleash on Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank have not. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa—a former Black Panther and political prisoner—speaks with renowned scholar-activist Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi about Israel's apartheid system of incarceration and the urgent fight to free Palestinian political prisoners detained by Israel.Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
In the small town of Williamsport, MD, about an hour and a half from Baltimore, the Department of Homeland Security purchased a massive shipping warehouse for $102 million with plans to turn it into an ICE detention center. But local efforts to expose, delay, and shut down the Trump administration's heinous plans for this makeshift concentration camp are growing. A broad coalition of local officials, faith leaders, and civil rights organizations have filed an amicus curiae brief in the State of Maryland v. Noem lawsuit, urging the US District Court for the District of Maryland to halt DHS's rushed plan to convert the massive Williamsport warehouse into a large-scale immigration detention center. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Sonia Kumar, a senior staff attorney at ACLU of Maryland, who is part of the team of legal representatives who filed the brief.Additional links/info: ACLU of Maryland website, Facebook page, X page, and InstagramACLU of Maryland, “Community leaders, elected officials, and civil rights organizations challenge DHS's secret, rushed plan to convert Hagerstown warehouse into mass immigration detention center”Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “‘A black site concentration camp': Residents fight ICE detention warehouse in rural Maryland”Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “The chilling truth behind ICE's detention warehouses”Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Meet the data analysts exposing ICE's plansCredits:Studio Production / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
The U.S. has funneled billions into allies in the region under the guise of fighting the drug traffickers. It has ripped apart countries. And the violence has only gotten worse. Decades of fighting, with little to show for it except human rights abuses, displacement, and tens of thousands of dead and disappeared.In the last episode, host Michael Fox took you to Mexico City to walk through Mexico's Museum of Interventions and witness, first hand, the long history of foreign and, in particular, U.S. intervention in the country. Today, he brings listeners up to the present…. Diving headfirst into the U.S.-backed drug war in Mexico, which has overtaken the country in recent decades and fueled an epidemic of violence that has disappeared more than a hundred thousand people over the last 20 years. We'll look at Trump's threats, the repercussions they are having in the country. And we'll also hear the voices of Mexicans who are standing up.This is Episode 10 of Under the Shadow, Season 2.Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump administration's onslaught on Latin America.Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.Theme music by Michael Fox's band, Monte Perdido. Monte Perdido's 2024 album Ofrenda is available on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.Script editing by Heather Gies. Hosted, written, produced, mixed, and edited by Michael Fox.Guests: Christy Thornton, Associate Professor of History at NYUJohn Lindsay-PolandPlease check out the Global Exchange campaign… Stop US Arms to MexicoMany thanks to the Mexico-based journalists Clayton Conn and Tamara Pearson for their reporting in this episode. You can find their work at… Clayton Conn: https://www.instagram.com/clayton.conn/Tamara Pearson: Resistancewords.comResources: Here is the link to Mexico's National Museum of Interventions.You can check out Michael Fox's Patreon to see exclusive pictures of the museum and the wall out front, and hear the backstory about this museum and his visit there.Here is the episode of Michael Fox's podcast Stories of Resistance about the St. Patrick's Brigade. This is Christy Thornton's book, Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy John Lindsay-Poland's book, Plan Colombia: U.S. Ally Atrocities and Community ActivismUnder the Shadow, Season 1:You can check out the first season of Under the Shadow by clicking hereThe Beginning: Monroe and migration | Under the Shadow, Episode 1Panama. US Invasion. | Under the Shadow, Episode 13The legacy of Monroe | Under the Shadow, Bonus Episode 4 Support Under the ShadowPlease consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox's reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Nearly a year after workers voted to authorize a strike, non-union city and commercially contracted security officers in Baltimore, MD, will walk off the job on April 9 in an Unfair Labor Practice strike against their employer, Abacus Corporation. In their yearslong effort to unionize and secure more job security, better pay, accessible healthcare, and safer working conditions, workers at Abacus have reported rampant union busting and violations of their labor rights. In this episode, we speak with Laura Dixon, a veteran security officer and Abacus employee, and Jaimie Contreras, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, Local 32BJ. Additional links/info: SEIU Local 32BJ website, Facebook page, and Instagram Katherine Wilson, Baltimore Sun, “Baltimore contract security officers at city properties prepare to strike”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules TaylorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
From the Trump administration's lies and flip-flops to social media feeds filled with AI slop and misinformation, it is infuriatingly difficult to get accurate and honest information about what is actually happening in the US-Israeli war on Iran. But award-winning journalist, lawyer, and former TRNN Board member Dimitri Lascaris has been reporting on the ground in Iran for the last two weeks, from the Strait of Hormuz to the Minab elementary school where US tomahawk cruise missiles killed 168 students and teachers on February 28. We speak with Lascaris about what he's seen in Iran, and the sides of war people in the West are not seeing…Host / Producer: Maximillian AlvarezStudio Production / Post Production: Cameron GranadinoWatch Dimitri Lascaris's reporting from Iran: https://www.youtube.com/@reason2resistBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
When state violence and systemic denial of full citizenship by the state makes true belonging impossible for Black people, Black anarchists have envisioned and fought for a free life beyond the state. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, author William C. Anderson explores the rich, radical tradition of Black anarchism and its connection to prison abolitionist movements.Guests:William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, AL. His work has appeared in outlets ranging from The Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, to Pitchfork. He is the author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, and co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. He's also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
While facing decades-long political efforts to throttle and privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS), and while US Postmaster General David Steiner ominously warns that the USPS will “run out of money” within a year, postal workers continue to deliver the mail and serve communities across the country. But that job has gotten harder, more dangerous, and more complicated in recent years. From increases in targeted violence against letter carriers to the Trump administration's attacks on mail-in voting, to ICE and Border Patrol agents invading communities on their mail routes, USPS workers are confronting many daily hazards on the job that the public doesn't see. In this episode, we speak with Connor Mauche, a letter carrier in New York and a shop steward for Branch 3 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, about what it's like to be a postal worker in America in 2026. Additional links/info: National Association of Letter Carriers - Branch 3 websiteAnn DeStefano Sutherland, The Revolt of the Good Guys (a documentary about the Great Postal Strike of 1970) Derek Dolbeare, Labor Notes, “Dispatch: Letter carriers are gearing up for another contract fight”Sara Braun, The Guardian, “Nearly blind refugee abandoned by US border patrol found dead in Buffalo”Monique Morrissey, Economic Policy Institute, “Why is President Trump attacking the Postal Service?”Susan Haigh, AP, “US Postal Service expects to run out of cash in a year without help from Congress, postmaster says”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Earth's Greatest Enemy, the new blockbuster documentary by independent journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin, is an expansive and terrifying investigation into the existential threat that US empire in general—and the US military specifically—poses to humanity and to our planet. In this panel discussion, recorded after a live screening of Earth's Greatest Enemy on Jan. 29 at the TRNN studio in Baltimore, Maryland, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for The Guardian, speak with Abby Martin about how US militarism and imperialism are destroying the planet—and what can be done to stop them.GuestsAbby Martin is an independent journalist, filmmaker, and host of The Empire Files. She is the director of the 2019 documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom and the 2026 documentary Earth's Greatest Enemy.Dharna Noor is a fossil fuels and climate reporter at The Guardian.CreditsStudio Production: David Hebden, Cameron GranadinoPost-Production: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Increasingly, Trump has his sights set on Mexico—promising to send in US troops in the name of fighting cartels and advancing a so-called drug war policy. But Trump's actions harken back to an era of US empire much, much older.See, Mexico has withstood a long history of foreign intervention by the Spanish, French, and multiple times by the United States.In 1848, Mexico lost more than half its territory to the United States. The US states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and more used to be part of Mexico. Today, host Michael Fox visits Mexico's National Museum of Interventions in Mexico City, and we look back at the devastating history of foreign intervention in Mexico amid Trump's threats against Mexico and elsewhere in the region today.This is Episode 9 of Under the Shadow, Season 2. Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump administration's onslaught on Latin America.Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.Theme music by Michael Fox's band, Monte Perdido. Monte Perdido's 2024 album Ofrenda is available on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.Script editing by Heather Gies. Hosted, written, produced, mixed, and edited by Michael Fox.GuestsChristy Thornton, Associate Professor of History at NYUResourcesHere is the link to Mexico's National Museum of Interventions.You can check out Michael Fox's Patreon to see exclusive pictures of the museum and the wall out front.Here is the episode of Michael Fox's podcast Stories of Resistance about the St. Patrick's Brigade.This is Christy Thornton's book, Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy.Under the Shadow, Season 1You can check out the first season of Under the Shadow by clicking hereThe Beginning: Monroe and migration | Under the Shadow, Episode 1Panama. US Invasion. | Under the Shadow, Episode 13The legacy of Monroe | Under the Shadow, Bonus Episode 4 Support Under the ShadowPlease consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox's reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
3,800 workers and Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 members at the massive JBS beef processing plant in Greeley, Colorado, walked off the job on an unfair labor practice strike on March 16. This is the first strike ever at the Greeley plant—one of the largest in the country—and it's the biggest meatpacking strike in the US since the 1985-86 strike at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota. As Caitlyn Clark and Lisa Xu report in Labor Notes, “Strikers say JBS has been increasing the speed of the production line while cutting work hours from 40 a week to 35, squeezing out more work for less money… Workers are also demanding that the company stop charging them out-of-pocket costs for personal protective equipment like mesh vests and arm guards—essential because they work with knives, saws, and other sharp, dangerous equipment.” In this episode, we speak with Clark and Xu, who report from the JBS picket line and break down why this strike is so significant and what it will take for workers to win this fight against the largest beef processor in the US. Guests Caitlyn Clark is a national organizer at Essential Workers for Democracy, an organization dedicated to rank-and-file member education and empowerment for UFCW members in grocery, meatpacking, and retail.Lisa Xu is a staff writer and organizer at Labor Notes. Additional links/info Caitlyn Clark & Lisa Xu, Labor Notes, “In 57 languages, meatpackers strike for the first time in 40 Years” Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song Credits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
The Democratic Party has lost to Donald Trump and MAGA twice, and is continuing to lose working-class voters by clinging to corporate power, militarism, and a leadership class increasingly disconnected from its base. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Norman Solomon about his new book, The Blue Road to Trump Hell, and the reality that the right can only be stopped by both confronting Democratic failures and rebuilding a grassroots politics rooted in class, peace, and social movements.GuestsNorman Solomon is the cofounder of RootsAction.org, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and the author of numerous books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death; War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of the Military Machine; and The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy.CreditsProducer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
This week, March 24th, is the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Argentine coup that sunk the country into a brutal U.S.-backed military dictatorship. The regime would unleash terror across Argentina, disappearing 30,000 people in just seven years. Thousands detained. Tortured. Murdered.But people would resist, like the family members of the disappeared — the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. They have marched for five decades to demand justice and the return of their children and grandchildren, alive.In Argentina, March 24 is known as the National Day for Memory and Truth and Justice. It honors the victims of the military regime. Each year, big marches and demonstrations are held in Buenos Aires to mark the date. This year, they are expected to be particularly huge….In honor of this 50th anniversary, we are bringing you this bonus episode of resistance from Argentina. We produced these stories in this podcast last year. Three vignettes (here, here and here) about resistance to the evil of the military regime, the violence it unleashed, and the people standing up then and now… Still fighting for truth, justice, and memory, today.Stories of Resistance is a podcast produced by The Real News. Here is the link to listen to Season 1: https://therealnews.com/stories-of-resistance. We are currently developing Season 2.If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review.You can also follow and support Michael's reporting, and see some pictures of these stories at www.patreon.com/mfoxor in the following links:Students March to Honor the Victims of Argentina's Dictatorship & the ‘Night of the Pencils' — In PicturesThe Crisis of Milei's Argentina - Panamerican Dispatch Episode #5Written and produced by Michael Fox.Michael is currently working on the next season of his podcast Under the Shadow, about Plan Condor and the U.S.-backed South American dictatorships of the 1960s and 70s. It's expected to be released in 2027. You can listen to the current season about Trump's onslaught in the region here.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
With the public outraged over the US-Israeli war with Iran, the Epstein Files coverup, and a cost-of-living crisis, even President Trump's base of supporters is fracturing, and Republicans are fixing to get slammed in the upcoming midterm elections. Perhaps that explains why Trump and MAGA Republicans are obsessively focused on attacking voting rights, taking federal control over the electoral system, and preemptively casting doubt on the midterm election results before the elections even happen. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, about MAGA Republicans' effort to rig the midterms—and what can be done to stop it. Guest: Ari Berman is Mother Jones' national voting rights correspondent. He's the author of the new book Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It, as well as Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.Additional links/info: Ari Berman, Mother Jones, “The world is on fire. Gas prices are rising. Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote”Ari Berman, Mother Jones, “The GOP's “show us your papers” bill is the latest effort to help Trump take over elections”Credits:Studio Production / Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
Diane Wilson is a fourth-generation fisherwoman and a lifelong resident of Seadrift, Texas. Wilson has become a global folk hero over the course of her epic, decades-long journey from shrimp boat captain and mother of five to social and ecological justice warrior who took on a multibillion dollar corporation polluting the bays along her beloved Texas Gulf Coast. But the fight to save her home from industrial pollution is far from over. On March 2, Wilson began a hunger strike outside the Dow Chemical Company / Union Carbide plant in Seadrift. “I have a tent and am camping out 24 hours, 7 days a week,” Wilson wrote in a letter to Dow CEO Jim Fitterling, “to impress upon Dow/Union Carbide our intense dislike and frustration of decades of plastic pollution being discharged into our bays and waterways.” In this episode of Working People, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Wilson as her hunger strike enters its third week. Guest: Diane Wilson is a fourth-generation shrimper, boat captain, mother of five, author, and an environmental, peace, and social justice advocate. During the last 30 years, she has launched legislative campaigns, demonstrations, hunger strikes, sunk boats, and even climbed chemical towers in her fight to protect her Gulf Coast bay. She is a co-founder of CODEPINK, the women's anti-war group based in Washington, DC, and co-founder of the Texas Jail Project, which advocates for inmates' rights in Texas county jails. Since 2012, Wilson has been executive director and waterkeeper of San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper (SABEW) on the Texas Gulf Coast. Wilson is the author of numerous books, including: An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas; and Diary of an Eco-Outlaw: An Unreasonable Woman Breaks the Law for Mother Earth.Additional links/info: Follow updates on Diane's hunger strike hereDiane Wilson website Diane Wilson, “Letter to DOW CEO Jim Fitterling”San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper (SAWBE) website, Facebook page, TikTok, and InstagramPlastic Pollution Coalition, “Diane Wilson launches hunger strike after Dow requests legalization of microplastics discharge in Texas”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
With Cuba's electric grid collapsing this week, the inhumane results of the Trump administration's oil blockade continue to pile up and strangle Cuba and its people. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with American activist and co-founder of CODEPINK Medea Benjamin about her latest trip to Cuba, the extent of the devastation caused by the US-imposed blockade, and the twisted motivations behind it. Medea Benjamin will be sailing to bring humanitarian aid to Cuba with the Nuestra América Flotilla on March 21, 2026. Guests:Medea Benjamin is co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She is the author or co-author of numerous books, including: War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict; Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Additional links/info: Democracy Now!, “Report from Havana as Trump threatens to “take” Cuba & pushes for ouster of Cuban leader”Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN, “Trump's war on Cuba: Crisis made in the USA | Under the Shadow S2E7”Marc Steiner, The Marc Steiner Show / TRNN, “SOS: The US is manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba”Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
At least 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are on board with Trump's new military alliance. They are calling it the America's Counter Cartel Coalition. Latin America's top right-wing leaders are involved, including El Salvador's Nayib Bukele and Argentina's Javier Milei. They met in Florida for the event on March 7th.The United States has promised to use lethal force to destroy cartels and narco-traffickers in those nations. Kristi Noem, the former head of Homeland Security, is the new special envoy for the coalition.This is a new phase of Trump's plan for Latin America. Trump's Donroe Doctrine — Monroe 2.0. The first was the offensive against his enemies in the region. Now, Trump is shoring up his allies and building a coalition where the US military can continue to take action in collaboration with countries allied with Trump. We've already begun to see this unfold in Ecuador. This is Episode 8 of Under the Shadow, Season 2.Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump administration's onslaught on Latin America.Follow Under the Shadow on Spotify and Apple PodcastsHosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.Many thanks to Belly of the Beast for the interview with Liz Oliva Fernandez and the use of the sound from several of their videos.This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.Theme music by Michael Fox's band, Monte Perdido. Monte Perdido's 2024 album Ofrenda is available on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.Other music from Blue Dot Sessions.Guests:Alexander Main from the Center for Economic and Policy ResearchAlexis Ponce Script editing by Heather Gies. Hosted, written, produced, mixed and edited by Michael Fox.Resources: You can read Alex's excellent analysis of the Shield of the Americas summit, here.Please also check out CEPR's Americas Live Update Blog, with all of the latest from the region.You can check out the first season of Under the Shadow by clicking hereThe Beginning: Monroe and migration | Under the Shadow, Episode 1Panama. US Invasion. | Under the Shadow, Episode 13The legacy of Monroe | Under the Shadow, Bonus Episode 4 Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox's reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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