Laura Flanders and Friends: Positive Independent Journalism for a Just World

3.5 million Americans in Puerto Rico are in dire crisis. The island territory is mired in debt and facing imminent default. Media coverage has blamed the last twenty years - when tax breaks were rolled back and loans extended. But this week’s guests say the root of Puerto Rico's problems go deeper than that - to US colonial rule. If colonialism's at least in part the culprit here, it's pretty ironic that the solutions on offer from Congress seem so colonial as well. This week, journalist Ed Morales and activist Charles Khan talk about the roots of the problem, and how a colonial approach to a colonial problem just might not do it. Later in the show, we visit with the Urban Bush Women at their Summer Leadership Institute, a training program for artists and organizers held every year in New Orleans. Founded in 1984 by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women seeks to bring the untold and under-told histories and stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance. All that and a few words from Laura on Yale University’s outrageous aversion to paying taxes. Charles Khan is the Organizing Director at the Strong Economy For All Coalition, a Coalition of Labor Unions and Community groups fighting for economic equality, equal funding of public schools, and corporate accountability in New York State. He is also a leader of the HedgeClippers - an activist group taking on the Hedge Funds. Ed Morales is a journalist who has investigated New York City electoral politics, police brutality, street gangs, grassroots activists, and the Latino arts and music scene. He is also the author of "Living in Spanglish and The Latin Beat: From Rumba to Rock." He also co-directed a documentary called "Whose Barrio?" and is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

One hundred years after the Easter Rising of 1916, the question of Irish sovereignty still looms large. New challenges face the Irish in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and slashes to public spending in the North have ignited fresh waves of resistance. In this special report, Laura Flanders returns to Ireland, 30 years after first reporting on the so-called "Troubles". With photographer Paula Allen she takes a fresh look at Irish nationalism through the stories of socialists, anti-imperialists, anti-austerity activists and several generations of republicans.  With Fintan O'Toole of The Irish Times, Sinn Fein TD Eoin O'Broin, Clare Daly TD,  and more. Made possible by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting #pulitzercenter.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill talks about the secrets he’s learned about our government’s assassination programs, and how our military policies are leading to more oppression at home as well. Then, Laura visits Ireland for the anniversary of a one hundred year old rising against empire, and her commentary looks at the undeserved power of hedge fund managers. Jeremy Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist and a founding editor of The Intercept. He is the author Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, and a producer of the film Dirty Wars, which was nominated for an academy award for best documentary. His newest book, co-written with the staff of The Intercept, is The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

A bank founded by a garment workers union, and a global ice cream company founded by a couple of hippies from Brooklyn. Keith Mestrich, President & CEO of Amalgamated Bank, talks about running a big bank with a social justice mission. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream talk about Bernie Sanders and progressive business principles - do they exist? Later in the show, Laura comments on the rise of automation - is it the end of human connection?  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Can the wealthy save the rest of us from themselves? Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer tells us what’s wrong with rich people, and former Goldman Sachs Vice President Raphaele Chappe tells us about her work to even the playing field between the 1% and the 99% with the Robin Hood Hedge Fund.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

On this special Mother’s day episode, guest host Alexis Pauline Gumbs explores revolutionary mothering with a panel of guests including China Martens, Mai’a Williams, Victoria Law, and Cynthia Dewi Oka. Self-described Queer Black troublemaker and Black feminist love evangelist Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of Spill: Fugitive Scenes, coming later this year from Duke University press. China Martens is the author of, among many other works, The Future Generation: The Zine-book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others, and co-editor of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities. Mai’a Williams is a former journalist for teleSUR English and author of two books of poetry. Victoria Law is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women. Cynthia Dewi Oka works at Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and her book of poems, Nomad of Salt and Hard Water, was a 2015 Pushcart Prize Nominee.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Author and professor Peter Linebaugh discusses his new book, The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day. Later in the show filmmaker Avi Lewis discusses worker-owned factories in Argentina, and Laura focuses on the intersectional feminism of 19th Century Anarchist Lucy Parsons. Peter Linebaugh is professor emeritus at the University of Toledo, and the author of many books, including the Magna Carta Manifesto; Stop Thief, The Commons, Enclosures and Resistance, and his newest, The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day. Avi Lewis is a filmmaker known for The Take, co-directed by Naomi Klein, and This Changes Everything, a documentary on climate change and resistance, released in 2015.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

This Week: Making sense of the election season with a historian. From Confederate monuments to election politics to utopian communities, Eric Foner discusses today’s politics through the legacy of the past, and Laura takes a new look at a hundred-year-old proclamation. Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is one of this country's most prominent historians, and the foremost expert and the civil war and reconstruction.  He is the author of more than 20 books, including many classics, such as Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War; Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy; and Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. His most recent book is Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

The Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina is building a powerful, grassroots, struggle against the right wing. Laura talks with Reverend Dr. William J Barber II, the architect of that movement about Moral Mondays, Reconstruction, #BlackLivesMatter and morality and LGBT rights. Later in the show, we visit protesting workers from a Trump Casino in Las Vegas and Laura discusses bullies on TV, politics, and power.  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is the progressive Chicago politician who forced conservative Democrat Rahm Emanuel into the first run-off in that city’s history. Dan Cantor is the cofounder and national director of the Working Families Party. Before co-launching the WFP, he was a union organizer in New Orleans and Detroit; a community organizer in Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri; and Labor Coordinator for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1998 presidential campaign. The two talk with Laura about how they see a path for progressives to change the Democratic Party, and national politics. Later in the show, Steve Phillips discusses the importance of cultural competence in electoral politics. Phillips is a civil rights lawyer, co-founder of PowerPAC.org and the author of th new book Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority  Laura Flanders and Friends Crew:  Laura Flanders-Executive Producer, Writer;  Sabrina Artel-Supervising Producer; Jeremiah Cothren-Senior Producer; Veronica Delgado-Video Editor, Janet Hernandez-Communications Director; Jeannie Hopper-Audio Director, Podcast & Radio Producer, Editor, Writer, Sound Design; Sarah Miller-Development Director, Nat Needham-Editor, Graphic Design emeritus; David Neuman-Senior Video Editor, and Rory O’Conner-Senior Consulting Producer. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky:  https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon:   https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel