The Real News Podcast

“In Texas, a socialist professor is now in the fight of his life against MAGA’s New McCarthyism,” scholar and author Bill V. Mullen writes in Jacobin. “Tom Alter, a labor historian and tenured professor of history at Texas State University, was fired from his job on September 10 after a far-right troll doctored a videotape of Alter speaking at a virtual Revolutionary Socialism conference. After viewing the video, university president Kelly Damphousse fired Alter on September 10 with what Alter and his supporters say was no due process.” While Alter was provisionally reinstated on Sept. 26, he and his family remain in limbo as they wait for a final decision from Texas State University regarding his firing. In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with Professor Alter himself about the sequence of events that have made his case a flashpoint in the MAGA right’s all-out assault on free speech, higher education, and the people who live, work, and study there.Editor’s Note (10/14/25): On Monday, Oct. 13, Professor Tom Alter was notified by Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse that “his employment at Texas State University is terminated, effective immediately.” “I stand in opposition to Texas State University’s attack on democratic rights that are protected by the Texas and United States Constitutions as well as the academic freedom that was once the hallmark of Texas higher education,” Professor Alter said in a public statement. “To be clear, my termination is part of a broader political attack being carried out by the authoritarian far-right to crush democracy and democratic institutions in the United States in general and Texas in particular. But the charges leveled against me by the Texas State University administration do not stand up to the facts; I have truth on my side and I look forward to my day in court.” Additional links/info: Texas State Employees Union - CWA Local 6186: “Reinstate Dr. Tom Alter | Defend Free Speech”Bill V. Mullen, Jacobin, “MAGA McCarthyism comes to Texas State”Russell Payne, Salon, “Fox News “expert” says Hitler went to heaven”Full video of Professor Alter’s Revolutionary Socialism conference speechEdward Helmore, The Guardian, “US anti-fascism expert leaves country day after being blocked from flying to Spain”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor 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!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!

President Trump repeatedly promised that his mass deportation efforts would target “the worst of the worst” criminals, yet the government’s own data reveals that immigrants with no criminal record are the largest group in US immigration detention today. How can the Trump administration justify its deployment of federal agents, and even the military, to US cities based on the factually disprovable fictions that American cities are crime-ridden “war zones” overrun with criminal “illegal aliens”? To answer that, one must study the long-established precedent in the USA of overpolicing poor communities of color that are painted as inherently violent, chaotic, and crime-ridden. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with TRNN reporters Stephen Janis and Taya Graham about what the history of policing in America can teach us about Trump’s authoritarian deployment of law enforcement agencies today.For full show notes and transcript, click here.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterFollow us on BlueskyLike us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterDonate to support this podcastHelp 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!

It was once called Columbus Day, and it still is in many parts. A day to celebrate the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who supposedly “discovered” America. But America was there long before Columbus came. And so were millions of people up and down the continent. Experts estimate that there were anywhere from 60–90 million people in the Americas at the time. Possibly even more people in the Americas than in Europe at the time. But disease and successive wars by waves of invading Europeans decimated the local Indigenous populations. Over the next century, roughly 90% of Indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere had been wiped out.But they have constantly resisted to this day.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. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen.Written and produced by Michael Fox.Stories of Resistance Indigenous resistance episodes:Episode 4: How Indigenous peoples in Brazil fought COVID-19Episode 8: Celebrating Indigenous roots in Chile’s Arica carnivalEpisode 23: Reforesting the Andes, one tree at a timeEpisode 48: Protecting Q’eswachaka, the last Incan rope bridgeEpisode 50: Inti Raymi returns as an act of resistanceEpisode 54: How Indigenous field hockey is reviving Mapuche cultureEpisode 56: Karipuna resistance: Defending the AmazonBecome a member and join the Stories of Resistance Supporters Club today!Follow Stories of Resistance on Spotify or Apple PodcastsSign up for our newsletterFollow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkHelp 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!

Eric King is a father, poet, activist, and anarchist who was imprisoned in 2014 for acts of solidarity with the Ferguson, MO, uprising in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown. While locked up, King endured years of documented physical and psychological torture, spending the last 18 months of his sentence in the ADX supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with King about how he survived his incarceration “with heart and soul intact,” and about King’s new book, A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon, in which he “opens the doors of America’s most secretive prison and lets the reader step into the cell to experience all the horrors the Federal Bureau of Prisons tries to keep hidden underground.”For full show notes and transcript, click here.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterFollow us on BlueskyLike us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterDonate to support this podcastHelp 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!

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, October 10, 2025.TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.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!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!

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, October 9, 2025.TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.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!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!

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, October 8, 2025.TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.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!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!

Intent to destroy all or part of a group is required to meet the criteria of genocide, and Israeli officials have made their intentions towards the people of Gaza explicitly clear, says Phyllis Bennis. In this discussion of her new book, Understanding Palestine & Israel, she explains how other recognized genocides have been defined, the influence of the Holocaust and its aftermath on Zionism and Jewish identity, and why the ceasefire movement indicates a change in the movement for Palestinian rights.Guests:Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, where she also serves as co-director of the New Internationalism Project. She is a founding member of the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation and served for six years on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace. She is the author of numerous books, including Understanding Palestine & Israel.Credits:Studio Production: Cameron GranadinoPost-Production: Stephen FrankFollow The Marc Steiner Show on Spotify Follow The Marc Steiner Show on Apple PodcastsHelp us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterFollow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkHelp 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!

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, October 7, 2025.TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.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!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!

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, October 5, 2025.TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.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!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!