A Public Affair



On today’s show, host Christina Lieffring, news and politics editor at Tone Madison, speaks with Mike German about his new book, Policing White Supremacy. German is a former FBI agent who worked undercover in white supremacist and militia groups, and his book documents the threat that violent far-right groups pose to the public and how the FBI ignores that threat.

White supremacy and white supremacist violence are foundational in the US, German says. Law enforcement agencies are more likely to focus on leftist social movements than white supremacists groups even though white supremacists groups are more violent and more deadly. Even the FBI downplays white supremacy and refuses to see it as a national security issue, despite German’s reporting, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” which shows explicit racism within law enforcement. He says that white supremacists are actually a threat to law enforcement officers, but somehow this is tolerated.

Lieffring and German talk about how white supremacy informs the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, and the January 6 insurrection. Despite the fact that white supremacist groups enact more violence than foreign groups, the FBI uses language that mischaracterizes what’s going on. And no one at the federal level tracks the number of people that white supremacists kill. German says that the pardoning of the January 6 insurrectionists sends a message that they can get away with future violence. And those pardons send a message to the FBI that they do not have an imperative to investigate these groups. 

Mike German is a fellow with the Liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. He has worked at the ACLU and served sixteen years as an FBI special agent. He is the author of Thinking Like a Terrorist as well as Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Our Democracy and Policing White Supremacy (The New Press).

Featured image: remix of the cover of Policing White Supremacy by Sara Gabler/WORT.

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On today’s multi-lingual show, host Douglas Haynes checks in with two representatives from Voces de la Frontera and Voces de la Frontera Action, Wisconsin’s leading immigrants rights organization. Luis Velasquez and Nindik Figueredo discuss the daily realities of immigrants and migrants in Wisconsin. They share their stories of joining Voces and talk about the status of DACA and Assembly Bill 24 which, if passed, would force county sheriffs to work with ICE.

Figueredo says she has been busy with community education projects because it’s more important than ever to inform and organize. She says that it’s inspiring and encouraging to see people so engaged with Voces, even though there is still much fear and uncertainty.

Velasquez says Voces has been expanding their reach to the Wisconsin Dells, Sparta, and beyond. Voces is working “shoulder-to-shoulder” with immigrants to organize and mobilize their voices. Since November 6, they have adopted a strategy of protect and defend via their “Know Your Rights” program.

Voces is organizing a special May day action, A Day Without Immigrants and Workers, across the state on May 1-2. They encourage folks who want to support immigrants to attend a rally or to volunteer on their emergency line.

Nindik Figueredo is the logistic coordinator for Voces de la Frontera & Voces de la Frontera Action.

Luis Velasquez is the statewide coordinator for Voces de la Frontera & Voces de la Frontera Action.

Featured image of a “Know Your Rights” card in Spanish, courtesy of Voces de la Frontera.

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From the high costs of insurance and issues of quality of care, the US’s healthcare system leaves a lot to be desired. Here in Wisconsin, the maternal mortality rate is higher for Black women than white women. And about one third of hospitals in the state are run by Catholic groups who can select which reproductive procedures they’ll provide based on the Catholic Church’s directives. 

But instead of coming to the conclusion that we need more and better healthcare, too many folks seem to be eagerly abandoning evidence-based medicine for the lavender haze of soul astrology and cod liver oil. Social media hucksters, grifters, and cons have a track record of funneling real fears about the world into health conspiracies, some even becoming a gateway to the far-right QAnon realm.

Host Sara Gabler is joined by Julian Walker to talk about the world of conspirituality, where New Age spirituality and QAnon meet. Conspirituality is also the name of Walker’s podcast and book co-hosted and co-authored by Derek Beres and Matthew Remksi. On today’s show, Gabler and Walker discuss the history of yogaworld and its connection to eugenics, the Make America Healthy Again plan, metaphysics verses materialism, and “health libertarianism.”

Julian Walker grew up in Zimbabwe and South Africa and has lived in LA since 1990. He has written extensively on cults and gurus, spiritual bypass and quantum woo in New Age circles, trauma and the body, and neuroscience and somatic psychology informing the practice and teaching of yoga. He teaches yoga and is the ecstatic dance DJ/facilitator for his Dance Tribe events.

Featured image: remix of the cover of Conspirituality by Sara Gabler/WORT.

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On today’s show, host Allen Ruff talks about the state of the US in the world economy with economist Richard D. Wolff. They discuss the sweeping cuts in the federal workforce, how the US is isolating itself through Trump’s tariffs, the value of the dollar, Trump’s threat to Social Security, and the 2017 tax cuts to the rich that lead to the US government’s borrowing from corporations and the wealthy.

Wolff says that we’re seeing the end of the American Empire. From WWII to the early twenty-first century, the US enjoyed global dominance. But all empires fall, though Americans have a bad habit of pretending this isn’t true, says Wolff. Now, China is in ascendance in the Global South, and other countries are rethinking the financial standing of the US. Wolff says that this doesn’t mean the world is coming to an end, but it is a powerful reality that we have to face.

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the New School University, New York City. Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show “Economic Update.” His most recent book is Understanding Capitalism.

Featured image remix of photo of Richard D. Wolff from 2025 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

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In December the Madison community was rocked by a mass shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School. It was just one of 330 school shooting incidents in 2024, as documented by the K-12 School Shooting Database. On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow is joined by two gun violence advocates–Tyler Kelly and Darrell Lofton– to talk about their work to change the narrative about school safety and power. 

Kelly and Lofton work for WAVE Educational Fund, and they’re planning a Day of Action on May 20, and urging folks to speak directly with their representatives about this issue. They encourage everyone to participate in person, but Lofton says folks can email him with their testimonies if they are unable to attend.

Kelly, who is part of the generation of kids who practice active shooter drills at school, says he wants to change how we talk about school safety and students feeling safe at school. Part of the problem is how schools have designed prevention work. Lofton says that not only are active shooter trainings not effective, they’re actually stressing kids out. He says we need to work on empowering young people and teach them that they have political power. 

Tyler Kelly is a Policy and Engagement Associate at the WAVE Educational Fund. After the Parkland high school shooting, Tyler joined the gun violence prevention movement, leading Milwaukee’s chapter of March For Our Lives, and WAVE Educational Fund’s 2020 get out the vote initiatives. 

Darrell Lofton is the youth coordinator for WAVE. He told WORT after the Abundant Life Christian School shooting, that “It is up to us grown folks to stand up for our kids.”

Featured image of a stop gun violence poster via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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On today’s show we travel back in time with Dr. Julia Palacios, a scholar of Mexican music from the 50s and 60s. She joins host Carlos Dȧvalos to talk about the influence of US rock and roll on Mexican culture between 1955-1965.

They talk about the bracero program that sent Mexican workers to the US, a program that started during WWII and continued until 1965. It was this labor program that helped ignite a cultural revolution in Mexican music. As Mexican workers returned to the country, they brought with them rock and roll, clothes, dance styles, and more. At the same time, the affluence of the post-war boom in the US was desirable to Mexicans, and they were eager for American movies, music, and other forms of consumption. 

Palacios describes how commercial television and radio also helped bring rock and roll music in English to Mexican audiences. The big bands at the time mainly played calypso, mambo, cha cha cha and other Caribbean rhythms, but they started incorporating rock and roll rhythms because of the genre’s growing popularity. Many bands simply translated from English directly into Spanish.

We hear several examples of this cultural transformation starting with Little Richard’s hit, “Good Golly Miss Molly” which was translated three years later as “La Plaga” by Los Teen Tops. Palacios explains the music industry’s awareness of rock and roll as a lucrative business, and how rock and roll eventually declined in the late 60s as the student movement came to see it as a symbol of US imperialism.

Listen to the full playlist of Mexican rock and roll alongside each song’s US counterpart. 

Julia Palacios is a sociologist and historian specializing in pop culture and popular music. She was a professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City from 1983 to 2023. She has been a media anchor and producer for national radio and television since 1990. In 2003, she founded Ibero 90.9 (the radio station at the Universidad Iberoamericana) and has been an anchor there since. 

Featured image of the album cover of Los Locos del Ritmo.

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You might have missed the Trump administration’s roll back of climate regulations in the flurry of executive orders and DOGE actions over the past few weeks. To get caught up, today host Douglas Haynes takes a comprehensive look at climate related actions on the federal and state levels. He’s in conversation with Marianne Lavelle of Inside Climate News and Brett Korte of Clean Wisconsin. 

The Biden administration made historic investments in a clean energy transition via the Inflation Reduction Act, but what we’re seeing now is a historic disinvestment, says Lavelle. From cuts to grants and restrictions on data and language, to cuts to staffing at the EPA, NOAA  and beyond, changes are coming from all sides under Trump 2.0. Now, Congress is even considering rescinding tax incentives for wind, solar, and ethanol energy projects. 

Korte says the Trump administration is going after individuals and industries. Not only are tax credits for electric vehicles and energy efficacy home projects on the chopping block, so are large-scale wind and solar developments. Lavelle says that 21 House Republicans have written a letter saying that they want to protect clean energy incentives, particularly ethanol and wind.  

In Wisconsin, big renewable projects are gaining ground to help the state move away from fossil fuels. Because Wisconsin doesn’t have its own oil or gas reserves, we spend $14 billion a year on electric generation. To folks who aren’t convinced of climate change, Korte says that these incentives still bring economic benefits to local municipalities and that wind and solar are the cheapest way to produce energy.

We also hear from callers with questions about WE Energies proposed methane plants and some Wisconsin contractors preemptive backing off of installing heat pumps. Lavelle and Korte also talk about how we all will be hurt if the NOAA budget is cut, how staffing at the EPA is poised to shrink to 1970 levels even though its initiatives come out of public input, and how the Coast Guard was told to remove all language referring to climate change from its training materials. 

Brett Korte is a Staff Attorney at Clean Wisconsin. His work focuses on air, climate, and energy issues impacting Wisconsin’s communities and environment.

Marianne Lavelle is the Washington, DC bureau chief for the award-winning nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization, Inside Climate News. She has covered the environment, science, law, and business in Wasington, DC for more than three decades.

Featured image of the Glacier Hills Wind Energy Center via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

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On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Raz Segal, a professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies. They talk about the history of Zionism and how settler colonialism and white supremacy are linked. Segal describes how the Holocaust is weaponized to justify genocide and ethnic cleansing in his most recent article, “Settler Antisemitism.” 

In the US, Jews who voice support of Palestinians and criticize the Israeli state are increasingly censored and called antisemites. Segal says that this is possible because since 1948, the political discourse has come to conflate Jews with the state of Israel. This conflation informs Project Esther, the section of Project 2025 that claims to reduce antisemitism. But, Segal argues, because the plan is promoted by Christian nationalists and white supremacist it will only produce real antisemitism in the US.

Meanwhile, at colleges and universities, students who demonstrate against genocide face academic discipline. Segal calls these attacks on free speech and academic freedom part of a “genocide generating world of lies.” For Segal, independent media is a tool to protect against these attacks.

Dr. Raz Segal is Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University, where he also serves as the director of the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and founding coordinator of the Refugee Studies Initiative. 

Featured image of a Stop the Genocide demonstration from October 2023 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

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On today’s show, Allen Ruff speaks with John Nichols about the crucial work of independent media. At a time when publications like the Washington Post are being turned into what Nichols calls “a tribune for oligarchy,” it’s more important than ever to support your trusted local media.

Nichols and Ruff catch up about the first six weeks of the Trump presidency, including this week’s 99 minute-long address in which Trump singled out Social Security. They also hone in on the campaign finance system that allows the rich to buy political influence. Elon Musk spent $270 million on Trump’s presidential campaign and he’s been rewarded with a role in the administration. In his new unelected position, Musk is making big changes to federal agencies and lining his own pockets.

Now, people are waking up from the shock and awe of Trump’s executive orders, observes Nichols. All over the country folks are protesting what’s happening in Washington, leaving Nichols hopeful for the election of a democratic Congress in 2026.

John Nichols is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.

Featured image of Trump at CPAC in 2025 via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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Last summer Lisa Graves sounded the alarm about Project 2025, the over 900 page plan written by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation that proposed to remake the US government. Now that Donald Trump is in the White House for a second term, he’s using Project 2025 as the blueprint for sweeping changes to governance and American society.

Lisa Graves joins host Ali Muldrow again to talk about where we stand: firings of national park rangers and other federal employees, locking the doors of USAID, and ripping away of foreign aid to Ukraine. They also discuss the trade war, the undermining of the National Labor Relations Board, and threats to reproductive rights. 

Graves says that though Republicans have championed destructive criminal justice and gun policies, for example, in the past, the Trump administration’s launching of a trade war is one of the worst policy decisions that could be made right now. So far, lower courts have been blocking Trump’s executive orders, but Graves says that Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to back him up in the future. 

Lisa Graves is the executive director of True North Research, a national investigative watchdog group. She is also the board president of the Center for Media and Democracy.

Featured image: remix of the original cover of Project 2025 via Wikipedia.

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