The Real News Podcast

As we have been covering at The Real News, coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, represented by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), have been on an unfair labor practices strike against Warrior Met Coal since the beginning of April. Now entering their eight month on strike, workers and their families are facing violence on the picket line, vilification from the company, and even court orders that infringe on their legally protected right to picket. And yet, striking miners and their families continue to hold the line and provide support for one another—and they say they will continue to do so for as long as it takes.In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Braxton and Haeden Wright about the conditions that led to the strike at Warrior Met Coal, what families have endured throughout the strike, and how solidarity from supporters around the world has kept them going. Braxton Wright is one of the UMWA miners on strike in Alabama; he comes from a family of miners and has been working at the mine now owned by Warrior Met Coal for 17 years. Haeden Wright is president of the UMWA Auxiliary Locals #2368 and #2245; she is a high school teacher who also comes from a coal mining family. Braxton and Haeden are married.Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Pre-Production/Studio/Post Production: Stephen FrankRead the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/7-months-into-strike-alabama-coal-miners-keep-the-fire-burningHelp 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!

Did prosecutors silence a progressive activist under the guise of enforcing an obscure law? That’s the issue PAR explores as we look at the case of a pot legalization activist who was charged with two felonies for livestreaming an encounter with a conservative congressman’s aide during a protest.Help 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!

“A colossal battle to save the last temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island, Canada, is under way, as police and forest protectors are engaged in a cat-and-mouse chase through hundreds of kilometres of thick woods,” Brandi Morin wrote earlier this summer for Al Jazeera English. Since then, the battle in British Columbia has only gotten more intense as Indigenous land protectors and non-Indigenous activists put their bodies on the line to defend the ancient rainforest in the Fairy Creek and Central Walbran areas, facing arrest and forced removal by Canadian police.In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Morin about what she’s seen on the ground covering this crucial struggle to preserve unceded First Nations land from the onslaught of settler-colonial violence and the environmentally destructive logging industry. 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.Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Pre-Production/Studio/Post 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!

Calls to “defund the police” reverberated throughout communities across the US in the summer of 2020, when millions took to the streets to protest a brutal, unchecked, and racist system of police violence and control. Then came the backlash. Since the initial push by activists and protestors to get the public to consider alternatives to endlessly increasing police spending, a forceful chorus has pushed in the opposite direction, demanding more funding for more police who should be given more power over our lives. “Defund the police” has been criticized for being not only a “bad slogan” but a political pipe dream that fails to reckon with the messy realities of maintaining “public safety.”However, as Geo Maher argues in his latest book, A World without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete, America’s policing system is a demonstrably terrible way to keep people and communities safe. In fact, Maher writes, police “don’t prevent violence, and they don’t make any measurable contribution to public safety... The police have wormed their way into the very foundations of American society and work every day to make themselves—and their bloated budgets—seem indispensable.” In this special conversation for the TRNN podcast, Police Accountability Report Host Stephen Janis speaks with Maher about his groundbreaking assessment of American policing and the practical necessity of collectively devising better models for communal safety.Pre-Production/Studio: Stephen JanisPost Production: Stephen Janis, Stephen FrankHelp 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!

For decades, climate scientists and activists have been sounding the alarm that, unless the world takes drastic action, humanity is careening toward disaster and the climate crisis is spiraling out of control. And yet, for all the public talk from world leaders about the seriousness of the situation, the world’s worst contributors to climate change have failed to even begin taking the steps necessary to curb runaway climate catastrophe. This is the backdrop for the convening of the 26th United Nations conference on climate change, also known as COP26, which will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12. In this urgent interview, TRNN contributor Radhika Desai speaks with economist Peter Victor about what we should and shouldn’t expect to happen at the COP26, and about the rapidly closing (and possibly already closed) window for humanity to save itself from climate catastrophe. Peter Victor is professor emeritus at York University in Canada and author of Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster; he was the founding president of the Canadian Society of Ecological Economics and is a past-president of the Royal Canadian Institute for Science.Pre-Production: Paul S. GrahamStudio/Post Production: Adam ColeyHelp 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 folkloric figures like Lamia and Grendel who feast on human flesh, to historical monsters like Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Báthory who reveled in human blood and carnage, to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the antecedents to the modern vampire have instilled fear and morbid fascination for centuries. Especially during periods of social devastation, imperial conquest, plague, and mass death, vampires and vampiric figures have featured prominently in popular imagination. In every case, the cultural phenomenon of the vampire reveals much about the time, place, and people from which it emerged—and the persistent relevance and adaptability of the vampire allegory likewise reveals much about the evolution of human society and its timeless struggle to come to terms with death. So, in the age of runaway capitalist destruction and climate catastrophe, what should we make of the popularity of new vampire allegories like Netflix's Midnight Mass and the Provincetown series in the new season of FX's American Horror Story?In this panel discussion, just in time for Halloween, the TRNN team hosts a wide-ranging discussion about the historical significance of the vampire and its enduring allure in the 21st century. Our panel today includes TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez; TRNN Managing Editor Jocelyn Dombroski; Marc Steiner, host of The Marc Steiner Show; and special guest, renowned author and editor Lyta Gold.Pre-Production/Studio/Post Production: Stephen FrankHelp 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!

Grassroots activists worked tirelessly to get voters to the polls in 2020, and their efforts helped Joe Biden win in key swing states like Wisconsin. Now these same activists say they feel deeply disappointed that Democrats have broken their campaign promises by gutting their own economic agenda, which could have brought real change to working people across the country. Reporting from on the ground in Wisconsin, TRNN’s Jaisal Noor sits down with Angela Lang, who launched Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, a year-round community engagement and voter turnout organization that helped Biden win Wisconsin and the White House. As Lang warns, Democrats must deliver meaningful change for voters if they want to avoid getting routed in the 2022 midterms.Pre-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!

The mysterious death of Baltimore filmmaker Rey Rivera continues to prompt more questions than answers. Did Rivera really jump off the roof of Baltimore's Belvedere Hotel, or was he the victim of foul play? Why did the investigation into Rivera’s death come to such a sudden close? And why won’t police reopen the case as a potential homicide? Throughout this special investigation series, TRNN reporters Taya Graham and Stephen Janis have examined one of Baltimore’s most notorious and mysterious cases and detailed the glaring issues with the official police report that deemed Rivera’s death a suicide. In the third and final installment of this series, Graham and Janis discuss a new analysis of Rivera’s injuries by a medical illustrator, which points to an entirely different explanation of why and how a 32-year-old man with a lot to live for ended up dead in an abandoned hotel conference room.This podcast was originally published on Dec. 27, 2020.Help 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!

On Monday, Oct. 25, Sudan’s military seized control of the country, arresting Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and dissolving the transitional council government that was created to oversee the country’s passage to a more democratic system of governance. The coup comes just weeks before the military was expected to hand leadership of the transitional council over to civilians, and General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of the Sudanese military, announced on national TV that he was declaring a state of emergency and that the military would be appointing a technocratic government to run the country until elections are held in July 2023. However, already battered by years of dictatorship, revolution, and economic turmoil, on top of the interlocking crises of COVID-19 and global vaccine apartheid, the people of Sudan have risked their lives to take to the streets and rebel against the coup. In this urgent interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Mubarak Elamin of the Sudan US Policy Network about the unfolding political crisis in Sudan and about the people’s democratic fight against the military coup.Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Adam ColeyHelp 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!

The arrest and incarceration of New Mexico resident Chris Dixon provide yet another stark example of the Kafkaesque nature of contemporary police power. Dixon was arrested after police tired to force him to consent to an illegal search of the business where he worked. But the actions of the officer, coupled with the fallout Dixon faced, show that American law enforcement deliberately wields its arbitrary and heavy-handed power to sow chaos and erode the rights of the people.Help 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!