Claim OwnershipWPKN: Politics, Policy, and Planet Podcast
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WPKN's leading public affairs coverage concerning politics, policy, planet and so much more.
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The Labor Report welcomes with Gene Bruskin, veteran labor organizer, anti-war activist, and play write, known for leading one of the most significant private sector union victories of the 21st century, namely the successful effort to unionize 5,000 workers at the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in North Carolina -- a victory which is documented in the film Union Time. Gene Bruskin shares the story of his long association and collaboration with Rev. Jackson focusing on Jesse's groundbreaking initiatives to forge alliances with the multi-racial working class and organized labor.Hosts: Richard Hill and Michael Zweig
Interview with Ben Linden, Amnesty International’s advocacy director for Europe and Central Asia, conducted by Melinda Tuhus.Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Ben Linden, Amnesty International’s advocacy director for Europe and Central Asia, who assesses the current state of the war and prospects for a lasting peace.
Interview with Lily Mercado, a Connecticut activist with Dare to Struggle Connecticut conducted by Scott Harris.Lily Mercado talks about anti-ICE student protests that took place across the U.S. on Friday, Feb. 13 — and the organizing going on now among national student groups for the ‘Spring Surge to Melt Ice’ campaign.
Interview with Kamolika Das, local policy director with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, conducted by Scott Harris.Kamolika Das talks about a current nationwide effort to raise revenue in states to replace billions of dollars in vital local and state funding for social safety net programs that were lost in last year’s Trump-GOP budget mega-bill that dramatically cut social programs while giving away huge tax cuts for profitable corporations and the rich.
Interview with Andrea Pitzer, journalist and author of the book, One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, conducted by Scott Harris.Andrea Pitzer examines Donald Trump’s current violent mass deportation campaign and the haunting similarities to Germany’s rounding up, brutalizing and imprisoning immigrants, Jews and other minority groups in concentration camps in the 1930s.
Interview with Amanda Hollowell, chief of campaigns with Color of Change, conducted by Scott Harris.Amanda Hollowell talks about her group’s 20 years of critical work advocating for racial justice. She assesses the Trump administration’s aggressive attack on America’s long struggle to achieve a multi-racial democracy and implementation of discriminatory federal policies, underscored by President Trump’s personal racism and bigotry that he regularly publicly displays in his speeches and on social media.
Interview with Josh Ruebner, policy director with the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, conducted by Melinda Tuhus.Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer in Georgetown University’s Program on Justice and Peace. Here he talks about the continuing humanitarian disaster in Gaza and implementation of the deeply flawed second phase of the ceasefire plan.
Interview with Kevin Gosztola, publisher of the Dissenter Newsletter and author of Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange, conducted by Scott Harris.Kevin Gosztola talks about his recent Dissenter article, “FBI Spied on Washington Post Reporter Prior to Raiding Their Home,” the related Trump regime attacks on the First Amendment with the recent arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and the mass layoff of one-third of the Washington Post staff.
Interview with Helena Olea, deputy director, Alianza Americas, conducted by Scott Harris.Helena Olea discusses concerns about the growing humanitarian crisis impacting the Cuban people resulting from Donald Trump’s recent executive order blocking oil shipments to the island, shutting down their energy-generating capacity while threatening secondary sanctions on any nation that provides Cuba oil supplies.
Interview with David Daley, senior fellow in communications at the group FairVote and author of the national best-seller Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count, conducted by Scott Harris.David Daley examines Donald Trump’s recent threats to “nationalize” this November’s midterm elections and Steve Bannon’s recent warning that ICE agents will surround polling places — all driven by MAGA’s false claims of massive voter fraud. He shares his views on what steps could and should be taken now to implement safeguards to protect the nation from these threats and ensure we have a free and fair election.
Interview with Christopher Vials, professor in the English Department at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, conducted by Scott Harris.Professor Vials, who studies the cultural impact of the U.S. far right, is the author of Haunted by Hitler: Liberals, the Left and the Fight against Fascism in the U.S. and co-editor of The U.S. Antifascism Reader. He assesses Donald Trump’s first 12 months back in the White House of his second term and the threat he now clearly poses to the 2026 midterm election, democracy and our republic, touching on some of the issues examined in a recent commentary he co-authored with Bill Mullen, Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement’s Aspirational Fascism.
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.
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