

The Real News Podcast
The Real News Network
Daily Reports, specials, and podcasts by The Real News Network (TRNN). TRNN makes media connecting you to the movements, people, and perspectives that are advancing the cause of a more just, equal, and livable planet. TRNN is a nonprofit media organization. We do not accept advertising revenue or corporate sponsorship.Sign up for our newsletter at therealnews.comText us at (410) 431-0868Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 17, 2022 • 25min
The US military is poisoning the water in O'ahu
As Director for the Sierra Club of Hawai’i Wayne Tanaka recently wrote in The Guardian, the US Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility is “a massive underground ‘farm’ of 18 million-liter fuel tanks and pipes just 100 feet above metropolitan O’ahu. Its construction began before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Since then, it has leaked over 180,000 gallons of petroleum into the groundwater aquifer that provides drinking water for over 400,000 residents and visitors from Hālawa to Hawaiʻi Kai.”Regardless of the major threat the facility poses to the local water system and demands from Native Hawaiians and supporters to address the crisis and hold the US military accountable, it wasn’t until hundreds of military families living near Pearl Harbor reported symptoms of petroleum poisoning that Red Hill’s operations were paused in late November. But the root causes of the environmental and public health crisis remain untouched, and the fight to shut down Red Hill is still very much ongoing.In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks about that fight with Mikey Inouye, an independent filmmaker born and raised in Hawai‘i, community organizer, and member of O‘ahu Water Protectors. The O‘ahu Water Protectors is an organization that formed out of a coalition of Kānaka Maoli organizers, Sierra Club members and supporters, Hawai‘i Peace and Justice, and other groups working toward sovereignty, decolonization, and demilitarization.Read the transcript of this interview: Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Monday and Thursday on TRNN.Pre-Production/Studio: Dwayne GladdenPost 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!

Jan 17, 2022 • 18min
The missing evidence that makes Baltimore detective Sean Suiter’s death even more mysterious
A recent HBO documentary entitled The Slow Hustle has brought renewed attention to the mysterious death of Baltimore homicide detective Sean Suiter in 2017. Police initially claimed Suiter was the victim of a lone assailant after his body was found in a West Baltimore alley with a gunshot wound to the head. But as details began to emerge regarding Suiter's involvement with some of Baltimore's most corrupt cops, the case took a turn that raised serious questions about what actually happened and if his death was part of a broader cover-up.Shortly after Suiter died, Police Accountability Report hosts Taya Graham and Stephen Janis produced a podcast series that looked behind the scenes and examined how Suiter's death told a more complex story about police corruption in Baltimore. In Part 2 of this podcast series, Graham and Janis take a closer look at the Baltimore Police Department’s own investigation into Suiter’s death and explain why the facts don’t add up.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/the-missing-evidence-that-makes-baltimore-detective-sean-suiters-death-even-more-mysteriousHelp 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!

Jan 14, 2022 • 27min
A cop tried to arrest him for wearing a hoodie, but that's not where the harassment ended
Aaron Reinas was just blocks from his home when a San Bernardino, California, sheriff accosted and accused him of burglarizing cars. What happened next reveals the dangers of unchecked police power and the dire consequences individual citizens can face for standing up for their rights. PAR investigates Reinas's questionable arrest and why police often ignore the law in pursuit of phantom crimes.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/a-cop-tried-to-arrest-him-for-wearing-a-hoodie-but-thats-not-where-the-harassment-endedHelp 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!

Jan 11, 2022 • 1h 37min
A dangerous myth: The US has never been a 'nation of immigrants'
In her latest book, Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion, world-renowned scholar and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “The United States has never been ‘a nation of immigrants.’ It has always been a settler state with a core of descendents from the original colonial settlers, that is, primarily Anglo-Saxons, Scots Irish, and German. The vortex of settler colonialism sucked immigrants through a kind of seasoning process of Americanization, not as rigid and organized as the ‘seasoning’ of Africans, which rendered them into human commodities, but effective nonetheless.”The mythology of the United States as “a nation of immigrants” has a complex political history. And studying the history of how and why this mythology emerged can actually tell us a lot more about America than the myth itself. In this extensive and wide-ranging conversation, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Dunbar-Ortiz trace the history of this particular national mythology and the political functions it serves in the larger project of US settler colonialism, economic domination, and military imperialism.Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than 4 decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. She is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, and she has authored and edited many books, including An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, which won the 2015 American Book Award, and Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/a-dangerous-myth-the-us-has-never-been-a-nation-of-immigrantsPre-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!

Jan 11, 2022 • 1h 50min
Art for the End Times: Who gets to come of age in America?
We were all kids once, and time forces all of us to grow up sooner or later, but not all coming-of-age stories are the same. In this episode of Art for the End Times, Lyta sits down with superstar writer Bertrand Cooper to discuss coming-of-age films, class, the politics of pop culture representation, and whose stories get told—and who gets to tell them—on the silver screen.Bertrand Cooper is a writer whose work focuses on the intersection of poverty, Black America, education, and popular culture. Read Bertrand’s seminal essay, published in 2021 in Current Affairs, “Who Actually Gets to Create Black Pop Culture?”Read the transcript of this podcast: Pre-Production/Studio/Post Production: Dwayne GladdenHelp 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!

Jan 10, 2022 • 50min
You can’t revive American democracy without reviving local journalism
The societal ramifications of the death of local journalism in the United States are as widespread as they are depressingly predictable. As Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols recently wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, “It is not simply that functional self-government is impossible without credible journalism with all that forebodes; it is that local newspapers have provided the social glue that brought communities to life, as places where people see themselves as participating in a joint enterprise with people they know and understand and care about. That is disintegrating.”In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with McChesney and Nichols about how the slow death of America’s journalism ecosystem in the digital age has corresponded with the disintegration of the social fabric of the American republic. They also discuss McChesney and Nichols’s proposal of a Local Journalism Initiative and how it could improve life for communities around the country. Robert W. McChesney is Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. John Nichols writes for The Nation and the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin. Along with cofounding Free Press with Josh Silver and Kimberly Longey in 2003, McChesney and Nichols have written several books on media and politics together, including most recently The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/you-cant-revive-american-democracy-without-reviving-local-journalismTune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Monday and Thursday on TRNN.Pre-Production/Studio: Cameron GranadinoPost 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!

Jan 10, 2022 • 22min
How Maryland prisoners took on the governor
Walter Lomax was wrongfully imprisoned in the state of Maryland for 39 years until he eventually had his conviction vacated by a judge in 2006. While he was incarcerated and fighting for his freedom, Lomax worked with other inmates on the long process of lobbying for a bill in the state legislature that would end Maryland’s designation as one of only three states—along with California and Oklahoma—that granted the governor the power to veto parole recommendations made by the parole commission. In December of 2021, that fight finally ended and the Maryland legislature stripped the governor’s power to overturn parole decisions for inmates serving life sentences.In this episode of Rattling the Bars, TRNN Executive Producer Eddie Conway and cohost-in-training Charles Hopkins, better known as Mansa Musa, speak with Walter Lomax about his incarceration and the long fight to change Maryland’s parole system. After being fully exonerated in 2014, Walter Lomax became the face of the effort to fix the state’s compensation system for wrongfully convicted and imprisoned Marylanders, culminating in the passage of “The Walter Lomax Act” in 2021. He is also the founder and executive director of the Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative, a non-profit organization that advocates for humane and sensible criminal justice and sentencing policies for those incarcerated long term in Maryland prisons.Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/how-maryland-prisoners-took-on-the-governorPre-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!

Jan 10, 2022 • 26min
The mysterious death of detective Sean Suiter: How deep does the corruption go?
A recent HBO documentary entitled The Slow Hustle has brought renewed attention to the mysterious death of Baltimore homicide detective Sean Suiter in 2017. Police initially claimed Suiter was the victim of a lone assailant after his body was found in a West Baltimore alley with a gunshot wound to the head. But as details began to emerge regarding Suiter's involvement with some of Baltimore's most corrupt cops, the case took a turn that raised serious questions about what actually happened and if his death was part of a broader cover-up.Shortly after Suiter died, Police Accountability Report hosts Taya Graham and Stephen Janis produced a podcast series that looked behind the scenes and examined how Suiter's death told a more complex story about police corruption in Baltimore. In Part 1 of this podcast series, Graham and Janis examine the initial discovery of Suiter’s body, the police-led manhunt that ensued, and the moment when the official explanation of Suiter’s death began to unravel.Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/the-mysterious-death-of-detective-sean-suiter-how-deep-does-the-corruption-goHelp 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!

Jan 7, 2022 • 1h 15min
Teachers fighting for school safety are not the enemy
With the omicron variant spreading like wildfire, COVID-19 cases around the country have shattered previous highs. The federal government has essentially given up on trying to fight the virus and a familiar ghoulish chorus of media pundits and wealthy business executives are berating working people to suck it up and put themselves in harm's way for the sake of the economy. What's worse, workers who stand up for themselves are being viciously vilified and scapegoated for the systemic failures that have put us in this mess.Perhaps no group is facing more backlash right now than educators. Earlier this week, nearly 3/4 of the membership of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted to return to virtual work until a deal to implement necessary safety measures is reached with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) or until the city's positivity rate falls below 10%. In response, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the CPS administration have locked educators out of their virtual classrooms, replaying their actions from last year when COVID cases were surging and teachers were locked out of their employee accounts, and had their pay docked if they refused to return from teaching remotely. In this urgent, unscheduled episode of Working People, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez talks about the lockout with Ana, a CPS teacher and CTU member, and Quetzalli Castro, a CPS teacher and a delegate and organizer within the CTU.Additional links/info below...Chicago Teachers Union website, Facebook page, and Twitter page:https://www.ctulocal1.org/https://www.facebook.com/ctulocal1https://twitter.com/CTULocal1Working People, "Mini-cast: #SafeReturnOrNoReturn (w/ Paula Ladin & Mariana Ruiz)": https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93b3JraW5ncGVvcGxlLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz/episode/MGZiZWQ2MjQtZTYyMC00NjhiLWI1ZjgtYWJiMTU5Y2ZjY2Q5?ep=14Quinn Meyer, Block Club Chicago, "Chicago Teachers Say They Want To Return To Classrooms, But They Need Better COVID-19 Safety Measures": https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/01/05/chicago-teachers-say-they-want-to-return-to-classrooms-but-they-need-better-covid-safety-measures/Monica Eng, Axios Chicago, "Chicago Public Schools Cancel Thursday Classes": https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2022/01/06/chicago-public-schools-cancel-thursday-classes?fbclid=IwAR2gfx0eWCmYPJnuGs1QqfCTXvUxOMPSpK24T2U363I8NS5Yh-lmca-tRdwFeatured 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!

Jan 6, 2022 • 36min
‘This is not an aberration’: Jan. 6 and America’s heart of darkness
The insurrectionary violence at the US Capitol that Donald Trump instigated on Jan. 6, 2021, marked another dark page in American history. But while many saw the events of Jan. 6 as an aberration that did not represent who or what America is supposed to be, the fact of the matter is that anti-democratic conservative minorities resorting to violence to maintain power is as American as apple pie. Confronting this fact is essential for understanding how the antecedents to today’s right wing have shaped our society—and how we can fight back today.In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, published one year after the attack on the Capitol, we discuss the long road to Jan. 6, the failures of corporate media and a feckless Democratic party to address the serious threats posed by the right, and what everyday people can do to stop the rising authoritarian tide. This is the first installment of “Rise of the Right,” a new, ongoing series on The Marc Steiner Show co-hosted by Marc and Bill Fletcher Jr. that critically and fearlessly examines the roots of today’s right-wing movement—where it came from, the existential threats it poses, and how to combat it.In this conversation, Marc and Fletcher Jr. are joined by world-renowned journalist and historian of the American right Rick Perlstein. Perlstein’s most recent book, the fourth in an award-winning series investigating the history of modern American conservatism, is Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976–1980. Bill Fletcher Jr. has been an activist since his teen years and previously served as a senior staff person in the national AFL-CIO; he is the former president of TransAfrica Forum, a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, and the author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, including ‘They’re Bankrupting Us!’ And 20 Other Myths about Unions and The Man Who Fell from the Sky.Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Monday and Thursday on TRNN.Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/this-is-not-an-aberration-jan-6-and-americas-heart-of-darknessPre-Production/Studio: Dwayne GladdenPost 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!


