A Public Affair

On today’s show, host Allen Ruff speaks with Nancy J. Altman about the status of Social Security under the Trump administration. As the program enters its 90th year, Altman reflects on how it was created during the Great Depression but was meant to provide basic economic security (not dependent on wages) even in times of prosperity. Now, the program serves over 70 million people.  

Altman has written about how Elon Musk and DOGE are trying to undermine the program by appealing to an old playbook of lies and misinformation. Contrary to false claims that the program is riddled with fraud and inefficiency, Altman describes how over 99% of the program’s revenue is turned over to beneficiaries and how 99.7% of benefits are paid accurately and on time. But DOGE is creating the conditions for waste, fraud, and abuse as they cut staff and close field offices across the country. 

Altman says the American people aren’t polarized over Social Security. If anything, people agree that benefits should be expanded. Yet a small group of very wealthy people despise the system and they’re donating to politicians who are choosing the interests of their donors over the concerns of their constituents. Meanwhile, immigrants are paying into Social Security, and some will never be able to receive benefits. 

Nancy J. Altman has a fifty-year background in the areas of Social Security, Medicare, private pensions, and related programs. She is president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition.

Featured image: a Social Security card via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0).

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Good luck trying to find an affordable apartment or buy a home in Madison these days. As the city keeps growing, so does the cost of housing. To talk about the situation we’re in and what local and state governments can do about it, host Ali Muldrow is joined by Senator Kelda Roys. 

They discuss the Ella Apartments and programs like the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA), zoning and accessory dwelling units, the very narrow pathways to home ownership, how hard it is for people to downsize and stay in their community, and whether Madison will go down the gentrification path. Senator Roys says that in the long term if we can’t solve housing, our communities are going to lose their vibrancy. “We’ve go to live together if we’re going to thrive,” she says.

While the average price of a home has soared to nearly half a million dollars, the number of kids experiencing homelessness in the city is also growing. The city can’t build new homes or apartments fast enough, and the cost and availability of building supplies is up in the air under Trump’s tariffs. So who will get to live here and how well? Senator Roys says these issues are tied to whether we advocate for a pluralistic society or a puritanical and authoritarian one. In the long run, Muldrow says it’s cheaper to help people rather than hurt them. 

State Senator Kelda Roys is a member of the Joint Committee on Finance. A leading voice in the state capitol for abortion rights, investment in child care, and full funding of our public schools so that everyone has the opportunity to build a better life and thrive. Kelda lives in Madison with her husband and three children and began her second term in the 26th State Senate District in January 2025.

Featured image: photo of Senator Kelda Roys.

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On today’s show, Alder Isadore Knox Jr. hosts a roundtable discussion on Black political leadership in Madison. He says that this is a unique time for this conversation given the reduction of Black elected officials on the Madison City Council, from 9 alders to 5 in the current term. He’s joined by Richard V. Brown Sr., Sheri Carter, and Amani Latimer Burris. They talk about their reasons for running for political office as well as their civic accomplishments.

Latimer Burris says that she’s proud of asking tough questions at Council meetings and she’s learned from the formative work of her parents. Carter says that she ran for office in order to change the perspective on South Madison. She’s proud of initiating the Commercial Ownership Assistance Program and renovating Penn Park. Brown says that for a time there weren’t many other Black leaders on the Common Council, and he’s proud of helping support other Black leaders get elected. 

They also talk about what the future holds, as Madison’s population grows and housing becomes even more unaffordable. As housing becomes increasingly more expensive, so does the cost of running a local political campaign, something that gives today’s guests pause for what it means to have everyday people in elected office. Carter says that without more Black members on the council, the city will suffer from less diversity of thought. Latimer Burris reminds listeners that a Black woman hadn’t been elected to the Common Council until 2015.

Ricard V. Brown Sr. is a former Dane County Board Supervisor and Personnel and Finance Chair as well as a mayoral candidate and County Treasurer candidate.

Sheri Carter is a former four-term alder and Council President as well as the first Black woman elected to the Common Council.

Amani Latimer Burris is a former Madison District 12 alder. 

Featured image: photo of today’s guest host, Isadore Knox Jr.

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Today’s show is rebroadcast of a show from April 28.

On April 17, a record breaking number of child care advocates marched on the Wisconsin state capital and sent a message to legislators that the state needs to invest $480 million in childcare. According to the Institute for Research on Poverty, without this investment, 1 in 4 childcare providers in the state could shut down.

To shed light on these changes, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Corrine Hendrickson and Ruth Schmidt, two child care professionals and advocates. Schmidt says that Wisconsin is one of six states that doesn’t put state money into childcare, the only support comes from federal block grants. To address this, advocates are asking for Governor Evers to make an investment in child care in the upcoming budget.

Schmidt says that free market principles don’t apply to childcare. And there’s a double standard when it comes to how industries are treated: manufacturers in Wisconsin are given a tax break and the state invests $2.5 billion annually in its prison system. But child care workers are underpaid and overworked. Hendrickson says that it’s possible to treat childcare workers this way because feminized labor is devalued in our society.

Unlike K-12 schools or higher education, child care isn’t run like a system. In many respects, it’s good that childcare isn’t run like a system because it allows childcare programs to be community and culturally responsive. But without a concerted investment, Hendrickson says she’ll have to raise her rates.

You can learn more about child care issues from Raising Wisconsin and A Day Without Childcare on May 12.

Corrine Hendrickson is a childcare provider in New Glarus. She is a co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed, or WECAN, a grassroots advocacy organization aimed at increasing public investment in early childhood.

Ruth Schmidt is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.

Featured image of kids at daycare via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

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“We need Greenland for national security and even international security,” President Trump said during his first State of the Union of his second term. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

That bold claim set off a new wave of awkward diplomacy, including surprise visits from Donald Trump Jr., and Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha.

Acquiring Greenland is not a new obsession.  Trump floated the idea in his first term. Numerous presidential administrations have floated the idea, at least privately. Even Truman made a secret offer to buy it after World War II, compelled by the island’s  geographical and strategic potential.

With Trump back in office and his allies pushing a revival of Manifest Destiny-style expansionism, the idea is back — and louder.  House Republicans have introduced the Make Greenland Great Again Act, aiming to authorize negotiations to purchase the island.

So what’s really going on here? Why Greenland?

Journalist Adam Federman has reported on the President’s call to buy (or take) the island.  He joins host Esty Dinur to help unpack the long and tangled relationship between the U.S. and Greenland — from Cold War military operations to today’s resource politics — to Greenland’s growing moves toward self-determination.

About the guest: 

Adam Federman is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations. He’s written widely on environmental policy, public lands, and corporate and police spying on environmental activists.  His first book, Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017), was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Biography.  Read more at his website, adamfederman.com, or on X.

Photo: Remixed image of a satellite composite image of Greenland, from the NASA Ames Research Center, under public domain license.

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On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by David McNally to reflect on Donald Trump’s first 100-ish days in office. They try to make sense of Trumpists’ multi-pronged offensive on immigrants, trade, DEI, and so much more. McNally says that Trump relies on shock, awe, and fear, but even within this climate, there are cracks that can be exploited. 

While some are claiming that neoliberalism is over, McNally says that Trumpism is a natural outgrowth of neoliberalism that includes a weakening of organized labor and social movements and a celebration of big business. That’s on top of the Trump administration’s assault on the administrative and regulatory state. 

They also discuss the Right’s attacks on universities, the erosion of safety net programs, the demonology of Marxists and immigrants, and the philosophies of W.E.B. Du Bois.

David McNally is a radical socialist activist and award-winning scholar. Authoring over 60 research manuscripts, seven books, and countless public lectures and articles, he currently holds the Cullen Distinguished Professorship of History & Business at the University of Houston, having recently moved from Toronto, where he taught and organized at York University for over thirty years.

Featured image of David McNally via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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It’s a common refrain to hear that getting an education opens doors, even in a community like Madison with its huge achievement gap. But today on the show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Dr. Eve L. Ewing, who argues that instead of creating equal opportunities, the American education system perpetuates inequality. Ewing is the author of Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children, in which she demonstrates how schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority.

Ewing asks a deceptively simple question, what are schools for? Though schools purport to create opportunities, they also serve an important ideological function: teaching students what it means to be a person, how to relate to others, and understand social roles. She says that you can’t understand the education system in this country without understanding what it means to Black and Native people. From segregation and achievement gaps to the phenomenon of land grab universities, our educational system is deeply inequitable. 

In describing the painful process of writing this book, Ewing says that “every time I hit the bottom, there was more.” Yet she challenges listeners to question what a “good” school is, to be wary of “opportunity hoarding,” and to research the Land Back Movement. 

Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author, most recently, of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, as well as the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has written several projects for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series and Black Panther, and is currently writing Exceptional X-Men. Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago.

Featured image: the cover of Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children. 

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On today’s show, host Sara Gabler speaks with author, scholar, and prominent TikToker Dan McClellan about his new book, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues. They discuss how Christians derive their notions of sexuality, gender, and authority by going straight to the source, the Bible itself. 

McClellan uses an approach that he calls “data over dogma” in which he strives to put aside any of his own beliefs and assumptions in order to assess what the historical record and the texts themselves say. Instead of using the Bible to uphold preexisting beliefs, he asks, why were these texts written and what was their purpose? With this approach we find that the Bible has many contradictions, and sometimes it upholds ideas that are incompatible with modern life, like slavery and child sacrifice. 

They also discuss what the Bible has to say about sex and what it doesn’t have to say about sexuality, how white Christian nationalists use the Bible to maintain their power, and what McClellan has learned from his time as a public scholar. He says that rather than a jigsaw puzzle that we try to wrangle together, it’s more appropriate to view the Bible as a box full of Lego pieces that may never quite fit.

Dan McClellan is an award-winning public scholar of the Bible. He has over one million followers on social media, and tens of thousands more tune in to his online classes and his Data Over Dogma Podcast. Dan received his PhD from the University of Exeter. He previously worked as an adjunct instructor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and as a scripture translation supervisor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Featured image: the cover of The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues.

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The Kickapoo River Valley is one of Wisconsin’s most beloved landscapes. On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes speaks with author Tamara Dean about this magical region and the miraculous, disastrous, and difficult changes she observed while living on the land. Her new book, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, is a collection of essays about what she learned from moving to this area in the early 2000s.

When she and her partner purchased a farm in the Driftless, she had many goals: of becoming an organic farmer, creating a pollinator habitat, and building a plastic-free home. Along the way, she was met with many surprises, from the tornadoes that destroyed 40 acres of the nearby forest to the floods that ravaged the region. Dean joined in the work of cleanup and collaborated on the Stories from the Flood oral history project that helped the community process that traumatic experience. 

Dean shares what it was like to uncover the history of people who were buried on her land. She devotes one essay to the story of Nancy Ann Harris who died from an abortion at a time before abortion care was banned in the state. She also discusses the significance of groundnuts, a staple of food for the Ho Chunk people, which she found in abundance in the area. 

Tamara Dean has been camping, fishing, hiking, and gathering wild foods from an early age, led and inspired by her parents. Her essays and stories have been published in The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, and The Progressive, and she is author of The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles over Motors. She teaches writing independently and through writing centers across the nation.

Featured image: cover of Shelter and Storm.

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On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with a peace activist and a scholar about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It has been two months since Israel began a full blockade of all aid to Gaza. In response, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, made up of volunteers from over 21 countries, attempted to open a sea-based relief route. Last night, their vessel was attacked by drones, and the vessel was substantially damaged. Cassandra Dixon joined us today from Malta to describe the attack.

We’re also joined by Jennifer Loewenstein who discusses the healthcare situation in Gaza and how the West Bank is now being attacked at the level of what’s happened in Gaza. She says that there’s been an unofficial blackout of news coming out of Palestine. On so many issues the mainstream media is silent as the US continues to contribute to the ongoing genocide.

Cassandra Dixon is a peace activist from Wisconsin. She is also a founder of Palestine Partners.

Jennifer Loewenstein is former associate director of Middle Eastern Studies and senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has lived in and reported extensively on the Middle East.

Featured image of Ship to Gaza Norway vessel from 2018 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 1.0).

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