The Real News Podcast

Back in May, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez joined a special crossover panel hosted by the Srsly Wrong podcast on the radical history of May Day (International Workers’ Day). In this wide-ranging discussion, the panel also discussed how the US holiday of Labor Day was deliberately established over a century ago as a way to celebrate workers and the accomplishments of the labor movement without invoking the revolutionary spirit of May Day. To celebrate Labor Day this year while honoring the radical roots and the ongoing struggle of the international workers’ movement, we are sharing this conversation on the TRNN podcast feed for listeners.Become 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 the state of Florida, August saw the highest number of COVID-19-related deaths since the very beginning of the pandemic. And yet, Gov. Ron DeSantis is continuing his crusade against mask mandates in schools, appealing a judge’s ruling that his office’s blanket ban on mask mandates is unenforceable. As we have covered previously on The Marc Steiner Show, DeSantis has cruelly demonstrated what it looks like when rightwing culture-war paranoia is translated into state policy. But how are Democrats fighting back? In this installment of The Marc Steiner Show, we talk with Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani about how Democrats can’t just be against the right—they have to stand up for something and do the work to build grassroots support. Eskamani is a member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing the 47th district in Orange County.Tune in for new segments of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Become 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 ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thrown America’s deeply dysfunctional system of caregiving into sharp relief: overcrowded and understaffed nursing homes account for a third of all COVID-19 deaths in the US. ICUs have been stretched to capacity while nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals—already beset by a nursing shortage prior to the pandemic—face high levels of burnout. And, of course, last year’s school and daycare closures put severe strains on many parents, particularly women, who have had to navigate 24/7 childcare while simultaneously trying to work their jobs, either remotely or in-person. Add to this the fact that care work has been the fastest-growing labor sector in the US, and it’s clear that any labor movement that is serious about building working-class power must be committed to organizing and fighting for care workers. But what does such a movement look like in practice? And how can we merge the struggles of care workers today with those of workers in other labor sectors.As part of a special collaboration with Jacobin magazine, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez joined hosts of The Jacobin Show Jen Pan and Paul Prescod for an extended episode examining the past, present, and future of the American labor movement. In this segment from the show, Pan explores the unique and varied struggles care workers face today, the importance of building a labor movement that includes care workers, and the ongoing fights by care workers in places like Worcester, Massachusetts, where 800 nurses at St. Vincent Hospital have been on strike since early March. We are sharing this segment with our TRNN audience with permission from Jacobin.Subscribe to the Jacobin YouTube channel and tune in every week for new episodes of The Jacobin Show.Become 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!

Texas just enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country. Senate Bill 8, which went into effect at midnight on Sept. 1, effectively bans abortions after six weeks into a pregnancy, before most people who can give birth know they’re pregnant. One harrowing feature of the bill is that it deputizes private citizens as vigilante enforcers of the law, enabling them to sue anyone they believe to have “aided or abetted” someone getting an abortion after six weeks.On Wednesday night, just before midnight, the US Supreme Court declined to block the law based on an emergency application for a writ of injunction filed by abortion rights groups, securing a major victory for anti-choice conservatives. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with writer and longtime TRNN contributor Molly Shah about the implications of Senate Bill 8 and how it fits into the larger conservative onslaught on abortion rights.Become 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!

Last month marked the grim anniversary of one of the darkest days in American labor history. Forty years ago, President Ronald Regan crushed a strike by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), fired over 11,000 federal workers, and declared “open season” on the labor movement. In the years that followed, replacing striking workers became a commonplace practice in the private sector, union membership declined to historic lows, the wealth and power of the 1% exploded while real wages for most workers have remained stagnant, despite workers in the US being more productive than ever. The breaking of the PATCO strike was an event that played an outsized role in shaping the world we are living in today—a world in which a once-strong labor movement had its back broken, leaving working people to be systematically stripped of their individual will to exercise their rights in the workplace and their collective ability to protect themselves from being crushed into subservience by the profit-seeking prerogatives of the business class.As part of a special collaboration with Jacobin magazine, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez joined hosts of The Jacobin Show Jen Pan and Paul Prescod for an extended episode examining the past, present, and future of the American labor movement. In this segment from the show, Alvarez breaks down the historical significance and political legacy of Reagan breaking the PATCO strike. We are sharing this segment with our TRNN audience with permission from Jacobin.Subscribe to the Jacobin YouTube channel and tune in every week for new episodes of The Jacobin Show: https://www.youtube.com/c/JacobinMagAnd, of course, become a monthly sustainer of our work at TRNN: https://therealnews.com/donateBecome 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 pharmaceutical industry is pushing back dramatically on a recent move from Congress that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. TRNN examines a controversial ad that features a diabetic senior citizen fearful she will lose access to insulin if the measure is passed, and shows why the misleading video is just a small example of how Big Pharma uses propaganda and money to bend the political system, protecting a price structure that leaves Americans rationing medication.Become 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!

As the 20-year war in Afghanistan officially came to an end, President Joe Biden justified US military withdrawal in an address to the nation on Aug. 31: “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.” While these remarks suggest a potential reckoning with the longstanding US policy of imperialist intervention around the world, increased US sanctions on Cuba demonstrate that such intervention persists in the form of economic warfare. From the dire strain US sanctions have put on the Cuban economy to the corporate media frenzy that exploited protests in Cuba this summer as a justification for interventionist “regime change,” it is clear that efforts by the US to “remake other countries” are not ending anytime soon.TRNN contributor Radhika Desai is joined by Arnold August to discuss the protests in Cuba, the media narratives about the protests, and the prospects that the Biden administration will succeed in exploiting Cuba’s current troubles to achieve its interventionist ends. August is a Montreal-based author, journalist, lecturer, and the author of multiple books on Cuba, including Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion, and Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond.Become 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!

Hy Thurman is one of the founding members of the Young Patriots, a radical group of mostly white working-class Appalachians who, together with the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, formed the first Rainbow Coalition in Chicago. Fifty years later, and 100 years after the Battle of Blair Mountain, how can we revive the revolutionary spirit of radical Appalachia and carry on its legacy today? In this installment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc chats with Thurman about his book Revolutionary Hillbilly: Notes from the Struggle on the Edge of the Rainbow, how the Young Patriots formed, and the enduring lessons of the Rainbow Coalition. Along with being a lifetime community organizer and co-founder of the Young Patriot Organization, Thurman is the founder and president of the North Alabama School for Organizers.Tune in for new segments of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Become 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!

TRNN Executive Producer and former Black Panther Eddie Conway talks to author and activist Dominque Conway about Gloria Richardson, a fierce activist who led a multi-year campaign against segregation in Cambridge, Md. Richardson, who died July 15, 2021, was not as widely known as other civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Fannie Lou Hamer. Nevertheless, she was an important figure in the story of the struggle for civil rights both in the United States and all over the globe.Become 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 Aug. 15, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for a snap election, which is set to take place later next month on Sept. 20. According to Trudeau, the rationale behind this move is to secure a new mandate for his Liberal government's plan to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, but many fear the move is a big political risk that could backfire. And early polls already show that the race is tighter than Trudea and the Liberal party would have liked.This week on the TRNN podcast, Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Dimitri Lascaris break down what's happening, what the possible outcomes are, and what implications this election could have for working people and progressives in Canada. Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist, activist, and he was a candidate in the federal Green Party leadership race in Canada, finishing second with just over 10,000 votes. He is also a longtime contributor and current board member at The Real News.Become 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!