The Real News Podcast

If you enjoyed our sweet, charming let’s-recommend-art-we-love episode of Art for the End Times, then you’ll love this hatin’-ass episode where we swing wildly in the other direction. Recorded on May 18—when, for a brief moment, there was some good news in the world, before everything went back to being terrible—Lyta convened a special all-TRNN panel of haters to blow off some steam and talk about people and things we hate. We let the world know what we really think about Dr. Oz and open up a can of whoop-ass on Baltimore’s least favorite purveyor of Black pain for public consumption (hint: his name begins with a “D” and ends with an “-imon”).Panelists include: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis, and Julianne Simitz.Read the transcript of this podcast: Pre-Production/Studio: Maximillian AlvarezPost-Production: Brent TomchikHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

If you were following the strikes and labor actions that happened last year, then you may have noticed that a certain face kept popping up in photos and reports from picket lines all over the country, from the Kelloggs’, Nabisco, and John Deere strikes, to the Warrior Met Coal miners caravan, to New York City. Who is this mysterious member of the Transport Workers Union making his way to states all around the US to show solidarity with workers in their different struggles? Well, it turns out that that guy is Tevita 'Uhatafe, a first-generation Tongan American, family man, rank-and-file member of the Transport Workers Union Local 513 in Dallas-Fort Worth, and vice president of the Tarrant County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council. In this episode of Working People, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez talks with 'Uhatafe about his life, about why family has always been so important to him, about working in the airline industry, coming to the organized labor movement, and about how doing the vital solidarity work he does is such a fundamental part of who he is as a person.For more information and to read the transcript of this interview, visit: https://therealnews.com/meet-the-tongan-american-unionist-on-a-pilgrimage-to-support-striking-workers-around-the-usPre-Production/Studio: Maximillian AlvarezPost-Production: Jules TaylorHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 country waits with bated breath for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, it is becoming clearer by the day that this impending decision is part of a broader, reactionary push to undo decades of social progress and solidify the US as a hyper-unequal, theocratic, undemocratic fortress state. “All that we have fought for, from voting rights to reproductive rights, has been whittled away since the right began organizing its counterattack 50 years ago. We are entering dangerous and perilous waters, my friends...” So begins this special installment of The Marc Steiner Show, in which Marc speaks with Dani McClain and Susan Simensky Bietila about the right-wing war on women, bodily autonomy, and civil rights, the failure of the Democratic establishment to protect us, and what lessons we can draw from the pre-Roe days of abortion activism that can help us navigate a post-Roe world.Dani McClain is an award-winning reporter whose writing focuses on race, reproductive health, and political organizing. She is a contributing writer at The Nation, a fellow with Type Media Center, and her writing has been featured in a wide range of outlets, including The New York Times, TIME, The Atlantic, Slate, Colorlines, EBONY.com, and The Rumpus. She is the author of We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood. Susan Simensky-Bietila is a renowned activist, artist, and curator who has been producing radical artwork—including barrier-breaking illustrations for leftist newspapers like RAT and The Guardian—for over half a century. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and makes artwork in collaboration with movements for social justice advancing the causes of healthcare as a human right, public education, immigrant rights, Indigenous-led movements to protect water from mines, pipelines, and oil trains, and more. She has been a registered nurse for 49 years and worked for many years in OB/GYN care.Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Monday on TRNN, and subscribe to the TRNN YouTube channel for video versions of The Marc Steiner Show podcast.Pre-Production/Studio: Adam ColeyPost-Production: Stephen FrankHelp us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer:Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-mssSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-stGet The Marc Steiner Show updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-stLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 March 18, dancers working at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood, California, presented a petition to the owners of the club “demanding an end to retaliatory firings and bad club policies that put their safety at risk.” The next day, dancers were locked out of their jobs and told they could only meet with management individually, not as a group. In response, the workers have turned the lockout into a picket and a unionization drive that could have major implications for workers in strip clubs around the country. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Reagan, one of the dancers at Star Garden who was unjustly fired and who is fighting alongside her coworkers to unionize with Strippers United.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/twerking-class-heroes-la-strippers-are-fighting-for-a-unionPre-Production/Studio: Maximillian AlvarezPost-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

“Prison food in the United States is a public health and human rights crisis,” the Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project states on their website. “By weaponizing the experience of eating, the state transforms one of our most basic needs into an everyday form of violence. The short- and long-term effects of poor food conditions on incarcerated individuals' health also constitutes a form of ‘premature death’—oftentimes damaging a person’s physical and mental health and well-being for the rest of their life.” In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa, who spent nearly 50 years eating prison food himself, speaks with Kanav Kathuria, co-founder of The Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project, about the institutionalized cruelty of the system that keeps incarcerated people malnourished and fed barely enough to stay alive.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/i-wouldnt-even-feed-this-to-my-dog-the-inhumane-reality-of-prison-foodPre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-rtbSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-rtbGet Rattling the Bars updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-rtbLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

Indigenous people have long stressed the unspeakable horrors of residential (boarding) schools in North America. Last year, those horrors were made inescapably real for many when mass graves were unearthed at multiple school locations in Canada. Since then, the fight to confront the colonial and genocidal function of these schools has ramped up, and that fight reached a new height when a delegation of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis leaders met with Pope Francis at the Vatican—a meeting that was followed by a formal apology for the Catholic Church’s role in driving the residential school system. In this installment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc welcomes back journalist Brandi Morin, who was at the Vatican for last month’s historic meeting, to discuss the ways that the colonial violence embodied in residential schools lives on today.Brandi Morin is an award-winning French/Cree/Iroquois journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, Canada. Her work has appeared in numerous outlets, including Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, The National Observer, The New York Times, Vice Canada, and CBC Indigenous. Read Morin’s latest reporting here: https://muckrack.com/brandi-morin/articles. Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Monday on TRNN, and subscribe to the TRNN YouTube channel for video versions of The Marc Steiner Show podcast.Pre-Production/Studio: Adam ColeyPost-Production: Stephen FrankRead the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/the-residential-school-era-did-not-end-for-indigenous-peoplePre-Production/Studio: Adam ColeyPost-Production: Stephen FrankHelp us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer:Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-mssSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-stGet The Marc Steiner Show updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-stLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 is the final podcast installment of our special series of conversations with teachers, organizers, scholars, and activists in Wisconsin that TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino (TRNN), and Hannah Faris (In These Times) recorded in the summer of 2021 as part of a special collaboration between The Real News Network and In These Times magazine for “The Wisconsin Idea.” To round out the series, we drive straight into the heart of darkness with an in-depth discussion with veteran educators and organizers Frank Emspak and Adrienne Pagac about the passage of Act 10 in Wisconsin under Republican Governor Scott Walker, the statewide protests against it, and the devastation that it has left in Wisconsin for the past 11 years. Frank Emspak is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers and a labor activist based in Madison, Wisconsin. He is a regular contributor to WORT Labor Radio, Progressive Magazine, and a range of other media outlets. Adrienne Pagac is a scholar, organizer, and former co-president of the Teaching Assistants Association. The statewide protests against Act 10, known as the Wisconsin Uprising, comprised one of the largest sustained collective actions in the history of the United States, and anyone who was there in 2011 will attest to the collective spirit of resistance and solidarity that the uprising embodied, and the lasting impact it left on all who participated. But the protests were ultimately unsuccessful in beating back Act 10, and the short- and long-term effects of its passage have been a disaster for working people and organized labor. How did this coordinated assault on labor come to pass in Wisconsin? And what lessons can the rest of us around the country learn from the 50-year war on workers that has changed the state of Wisconsin for generations?Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Hannah Faris, Alice Herman, Cameron Granadino, Eleni Schirmer (research consultant), John Fleissner (research consultant), John Yaggi (research consultant), Harvey J. Kaye (research consultant), Jon Shelton (research consultant), Adam Mertz (research consultant)Studio: Cameron GranadinoPost-Production: Cameron Granadino, Stephen Frank, Kayla Rivara, Jules Taylor, Maximillian AlvarezThe Wisconsin Idea is an independent reporting project of People’s Action Institute, Citizen Action of Wisconsin and In These Times.Read the full description (including additional links/info) and the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/how-50-years-of-class-war-changed-the-state-of-wisconsinFeatured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org):Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song"Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer:Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 relentless war, militarism, and apartheid around the globe to climate catastrophe and reactionary attacks on civil rights and basic freedoms, the world is a scary place right now, and it is perfectly reasonable to feel despondent about it. It’s at times like this that we need art the most—not as some utilitarian salve for the pain we’re feeling, but because art connects us to the most joyful, beautiful, and human aspects of being alive. In this special all-recommendations episode of Art for the End Times, Lyta and a raucous panel of guests share their top recommendations for art that will make you happy and remind you why life is worth living.Panelists include: Allegra Silcox, Adrian Rennix, Kate Gauthreaux, Stephen Frank, and Maximillian Alvarez.Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/everything-is-terrible-so-here-are-some-art-recommendations-that-will-make-you-happyPre-Production/Studio: Maximillian Alvarez, Stephen FrankPost-Production: Brent TomchikHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 Sept. 7, 2021, after a majority of employees had formally expressed interest in unionizing, workers at G&D Integrated LLC—a transportation, logistics, warehousing, and supply chain services company in Central Illinois—marched on their boss together to demand recognition of the union. Their demands were not met. Then workers filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board and voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionizing with the Ironworkers Union in October. Almost immediately, workers at G&D Integrated reported retaliation from the company, including surveillance, interrogation, discrimination, and direct threats of termination for organizing activity. Then, on March 1, 2022, G&D laid off the vast majority of workers at the Morton, Illinois, facility in a suspected act of retaliation. In this interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with John Hogsett, Vince Di Donato, and Ben Scroggins about the situation at G&D Integrated, what can be done about it, and why the Ironworkers believe this case clearly demonstrates the need for the National Labor Relations Board to revive what’s known as the “Joy Silk doctrine.”John Hogsett is an ironworker and one of the former G&D employees who was laid off in a suspected act of retaliation by the company after workers voted to unionize. Vince Di Donato is a District Representative for the Ironworkers International Organizing Department. Ben Scroggins is the Ironworkers District Council Organizer for Chicago and the surrounding vicinity.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/they-fcked-us-illinois-ironworkers-laid-off-after-unionizingPre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 this special investigative livestream, Police Accountability Report hosts Stephen Janis and Taya Graham discuss some of their findings from their ongoing investigation into the town of Milton, West Virginia.Milton first came to our attention with the arrest of Cody Cecil, a Michigan man whose trailer was raided by Milton police while parked in a private campground. But a series of successive investigative reports have produced mounting evidence of overzealous ticket writing and exorbitant court fees that raised even more questions about the town. In this special livestream episode, Graham and Janis report on some of their latest findings about the city, its police department, and a questionable deal to build a luxury hotel with the help of taxpayers.Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/police-accountability-report-how-a-small-town-police-department-in-wv-is-fleecing-its-citizensPre-Production/Studio: Cameron Granadino, Adam ColeyHelp us continue producing Police Accountability Report by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-parSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-parGet Police Accountability Report updates: https://therealnews.com/pod-up-parLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!