Claim OwnershipWPKN: Politics, Policy, and Planet Podcast
Subscribed: 2Played: 28
Subscribe
© WPKN and hosts
Description
WPKN's leading public affairs coverage concerning politics, policy, planet and so much more.
370 Episodes
Reverse
Interview with Silvia Baldwin, elected bargaining delegate and a strike captain with Starbucks Workers United union, conducted by Melinda Tuhus.Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Silvia Baldwin, a barista who’s worked at a Starbucks store on the university of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia for the past 3 1/2 years. She’s an elected bargaining delegate and a strike captain. Here she explains her decision to work at Starbucks and then to go out on strike — and what the union is demanding.
Interview with Mike Tork, Veterans for Peace treasurer, and Anthony Aguilar, a retired U.S. Special Forces officer, conducted by Scott Harris.Mike Tork and Anthony Aguilar discuss the Veterans For Peace education campaign, including billboards, and reaching out to active-duty U.S. soldiers and National Guard troops, urging them to “follow the law and their conscience” and refuse to obey illegal orders. This veterans campaign comes in the face of Donald Trump’s ordering the U.S. military to attack civilian boats, seize oil tankers in international waters, kidnap Venezuela’s president, threats to occupy Greenland and deploy ICE secret police force to U.S. cities, while warning of a future invocation of the Insurrection Act that could send the US Army or Marines to states across the country.
Interview with Jon B. Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, conducted by Scott Harris.Jon Wolfsthal discusses the Bulletin of the American Scientists’ announcement that their Doomsday Clock was recently set at 85 seconds to midnight, “the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its history, while calling for urgent action to limit nuclear arsenals, create international guidelines on the use of AI and form multilateral agreements to address global biological threats.”
Interview with Steve Descano, Fairfax County Virginia Commonwealth’s attorney and co-founder of the new group, Fight Against Federal Overreach, conducted by Scott Harris.Steve Descano talks about the mission of the Fight Against Federal Overreach (FAFO) national coalition of district attorneys collaborating to ensure federal officials are held accountable when they exceed their lawful authority—violating the U.S. Constitution and ignoring the Bill of Rights, the rule of law and basic human decency. The group’s goal is to hold all federal officials, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents and their commanders accountable for illegal actions.
Interview with Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Minneapolis-based organization Vote Common Good, conducted by Scott Harris.Pastor Doug Pagitt talks about the extraordinary courage and resilience the nation has witnessed among his city’s ordinary citizens standing up to the brutal and cruel ICE secret police force that engages in lethal violence. He discusses what people across the country can learn from the incredible grassroots organizing going on in Minneapolis to meet the current crisis and how Americans can adapt those skills, tactics and logistics to their own local efforts in defense of the rule of law and democracy.
Interview with Eddie Lejuine, a 62-year-old fisherman from Cameron, Louisiana, conducted by Melinda Tuhus.Under the Trump administration’s push for U.S. “energy dominance” — albeit one that excludes renewable sources like wind and solar — there’s a building frenzy along the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast where construction of six liquified natural gas or LNG export terminals are now underway or planned. That’s in addition to six terminals currently operating.Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Eddie Lejuine, a fisherman from Cameron, who talks about all the fossil fuel projects now under development in his community and what fisherfolk and their supporters are doing to fight back.
Interview with Stan Cox, a research scholar in ecosphere studies at the Land Institute, conducted by Scott Harris.Stan Cox, who formerly served as lead scientist at the Land Institute for 20 years, talks about his new book Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth, which indicts our obsession with endless expansion and poses a new model of degrowth to protect the Earth from climate collapse.Stan is the author of eight books including, The Path to a Livable Future, Sick Planet and How the World Breaks.
Interview with Greg Palast, filmmaker, journalist and author of several New York Times bestsellers including "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," conducted by Scott HarrisGreg talks about his recent investigation, “How Venezuela’s New President Will Save Us from Trump’s Crazy: The Radical Pragmatist versus Rubio’s Vulture,” explaining how billionaire and Trump donor Paul Singer is one of the prime beneficiaries of the U.S. military attack and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as Singer is about to take over CITGO, the crown jewel of Venezuela’s oil empire.
Interview with Madison McVan, a reporter with the Minnesota Reformer, an independent, nonprofit news organization where she covers the impact of the Trump administration in her state, conducted by Scott Harris.Madison McVan talks about Minnesota residents’ response to Trump’s deployment of a flood of ICE agents to the state; the federal agent killing of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse; the earlier ICE agent killing of Renee Good and the Jan. 23 statewide general strike. She also discusses Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in potentially thousands of active-duty U.S. military to Minnesota.
Interview with Melvin Goodman, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University and a former CIA analyst, conducted by Scott Harris.Melvin Goodman, whose most recent book is titled, American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump, talks about President Trump’s disastrous foreign policy including his attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president; threats to takeover Greenland and breakup NATO; his irrational imposition of tariffs around the world and the subject of his recent columns, “Donald Trump, Poster Child for Megalomania” and “Nazi Germany 1933 and MAGA America 2025.”
The Monthly Labor Report interviews Faye Guenther, president of United Food and Commercial Workers (Local 3000), who leads over 50,000 members across Washington state, northeast Oregon and northern Idaho. Faye discusses her progressive union's strategies that led to victories in five strikes in the past two years.Special guest: Michael ZweigHost: Richard Hill
Interview with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat serving on the Federal Communications Commission, conducted by Scott Harris.Commissioner Gomez talks about her concerns regarding the concentration of media ownership, FCC censorship and interference in the exercise of First Amendment right to free speech, the future of public media and the expansion of broadband access.
Interview with Tamika Middleton, chief political and strategy officer with Women's March, and Saniyah Yolanda, student leader, conducted by Scott Harris.Tamika talks about the Jan. 20th Free America Walkout protest and other important work Women’s March is prioritizing. Student leader Saniyah Yolanda of the group Get Free, a youth-led progressive activist movement, talks about the work they’re doing organizing students for the Friday, Jan. 23 school walkout protest.
Interview with Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, conducted by Scott Harris.Rabbi Jacobs talks about her group T’ruah’s condemnation of the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, as she and religious leaders call for accountability, justice and an end to ICE brutality nationwide.
Interview with Yint Hmu coordinator of Public Citizen's democracy campaign, conducted by Scott Harris.Yint Hmu discusses the work her group is doing to challenge and resist the Trump authoritarian agenda both at home and abroad, including their many lawsuits and national protest organizing. She talks about the explosive situation in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the ICE shooting death of Renee Good, as Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law.
The Organic Farm Stand presents: Hot Topics with Diane Lauricella Small Farms Report with Steve Munno Nutrient-rich soil and how it produces nutrient-dense food with Monique Bosch Hosts: Richard Hill and Diane Lauricella
Resistance Roundtable interviews: 1. Sandra Levinson, executive director of the Center For Cuban Studies, about Trump's recent threat to crush Cuba in the wake of the invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro (www.centerforcubanstudies.org); 2. Costanza Segovia, director of CT For All (www.connecticutforall.org), an immigrant rights group, discusses the increased threats to Connecticut immigrants with the massive surge in new minimally trained ICE personal.Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill
Interview with Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild, conducted by Scott Harris.Marjorie Cohn discusses her recent commentary, “Trump Will Try to Defend Aggression Toward Venezuela. It’s Still Illegal,” and a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators that advanced a war powers resolution that ultimately failed. She also comments on the legal and accountability issues related to the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
Interview with Victor Pickard, the C. Edwin Baker professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, where he co-directs the Media, Inequality & Change Center. Victor Pickard talks about recent mega-media mergers, spinoffs and the effort by Trump-supporting oligarchs to buy up media properties that could dramatically impact news coverage and cultural content. He touches on his recent co-written piece, “The Political Economy of the US Media System: Excavating the Roots of the Present Crisis.”
Interview with Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Minneapolis-based national organization Vote Common Good, conducted by Scott Harris.Pastor Doug Pagitt talks about this moment of crisis in the aftermath of the ICE shooting death of ICE observer Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of 3. Vote Common Good organizes religious activists to take action against the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States