This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by political cartoonists extraordinaire Eli Valley and our resident artist Matt Lubchansky to talk all things comics, from Matt’s new book and Eli’s ode to Andrew Cuomo to Roqayah’s Panel Pulp project on Twitter and the cultural politics of superheroes. 

Matt is associate editor of the left-wing comics emporium The Nib as well as the writer and illustrator of the long-running webcomic Please Listen To Me, and you can find their work in VICE, Eater, The Intercept, Mad Magazine, Gothamist, Brooklyn Magazine, and many more. Eli is a writer and artist, he’s the author of Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel and his work has been published in The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Nation, and The Nib, among other outlets. The gang also checks in on Andrew Yang’s mayoral campaign, Star Wars, the Godzilla-Kong Monsterverse, and aliens. 

You can follow Eli on twitter @elivalley, pick up Diaspora Boy via OR Books and find more of his work at elivalley.com. Find Matt on Twitter at Lubchansky, find their work on The Nib and you can pick up The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook at your local comic shop or direct from Silver Sprocket. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined today by Mark Maher, a staff attorney with Reprieve US. Mark currently works as counsel to six men detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and works on Reprieve US’ death penalty casework. 

During this episode Mark goes in-depth discussing the history behind the horrific abuse and internment of some 800 men and boys in the notorious Guantánamo Bay detention camp and how this grave injustice has impacted not only his clients but their families by stripping away their humanity—from reducing them to a number, to keeping them locked away from the outside world for decades without the ability to touch or hold their loved ones.

We also discuss the case of Ahmed Rabbani, endearingly referred to as Badr by those close to him, who has been on hunger strike since 2013 and Mark's role in his case as well as how Reprieve works to fight for Rabbani and other men still locked away inside Guantánamo Bay.

You can follow Mark on Twitter @mahermark123. You can also follow Reprieve @ReprieveUS and keep updated on their cases by visiting their website.

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This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined from the top of the show by Amanda Yee, an independent analyst and writer in New York City with a specialty in medical anthropology, and Ian Goodrum, a Beijing-based commentator and senior digital editor for China’s premier English language newspaper China Daily. In Amanda’s first appearance on the show in March 2020, she talked about the rising tide of anti-Asian racism and the demonization of China in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 

This time, she and Ian go in-depth discussing the implications of anti-China policy and rhetoric in the context of China’s increasingly formidable role as a global anti-imperialist leader. The gang examines the spike in racist violence against people of Asian descent in the US over the past year and hammers out some of the kinks in the discourse around white supremacy in the wake of the Atlanta massage parlor shootings. 

You can follow Amanda on Twitter @catcontentonly and Ian @isgoodrum. You can also follow Ian’s work over at China Daily.

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Kumars and Roqayah are joined today by Danielle Salinas, a certified medical assistant in Oregon and a member of AFSCME Local 328. Danielle recounts visiting Cuba as a public health student and discusses what makes the Cuban health care system unique befores sharing her more a bit of her more recent experience being thrown into the front lines during the pandemic. The gang talks all things vaccines, from vaccine envy and the success of the US rollout to vaccine hesitancy and the merits of comparing the different brands. Danielle offers her perspective on the top stories of the pandemic so far, including the high-risk labor conditions faced by health care workers, liberals being obnoxious, and how to prepare for the next pandemic. 

You can follow Danielle on Twitter @veryspooky_.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by Ken Klippenstein, a DC-based investigative reporter with The Intercept whose explosive work has appeared in The Daily Beast, The Young Turks and many other outlets. In his previous appearances, Ken has discussed his exclusive reporting on the Trump administration’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in revealing government misdeeds and corporate malfeasance. 

This time Ken walks us through the implications of the recent Supreme Court decision severely weakening FOIA as well as the effect of the pandemic on transparency and his latest reporting on the FBI spying on Congress in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The gang ends with a retrospective on Trump’s civil legacy on civil liberties, including his expansion of DHS and record number of whistleblower crackdowns, and takes stock of where the intelligence apparatus is headed under Biden.  

You can follow Ken and keep up with his work on Twitter @kenklippenstein and at The Intercept.

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by independent labor journalist Sarah Jaffe, reporting fellow at Type Media Center, cohost of Dissent Magazine’s Belabored podcast, and the author of two books: Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, and a new book out now from Hurst and Bold Type Books, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone. In her new book, Sarah examines the expectation in the neoliberal era that we should love our work, and documents the resistance of workers who fight back against the “labor of love” myth by organizing. 

Sarah and Kumars discuss the main themes and historical background of the book, highlighting the commonalities between workers in sectors as disparate as social work and professional sports, as well as the roots of their contemporary struggles in the development of capitalism. They round out their discussion by reflecting on the obstacles to and possibilities of working-class politics in the 21st century, including the idea of the “professional-managerial class” (PMC) and the relevance of Marxism today.

Follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahljaffe, keep up with her work on her personal website sarahljaffe.com and workwontloveyouback.org, hear her on the Belabored podcast, and don’t forget to pick up a copy off Work Won’t Love You Back.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Dr. Abigail Cartus, PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh; Justin Feldman, epidemiologist and Health and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights; and Jay O'Neal, West Virginia teacher and organizer who co-founded the West Virginia United Caucus within the WVEA. After getting to know our guests, including Jay’s experience leading the West Virginia teachers wildcat strike in 2018 that kicked off a wave of teacher strikes nationwide, Abby, Justin, and Jay help us better understand the impact of the pandemic on the United States' educational institutions and how the pressure to open schools is failing our teachers and students, leaving them at greater risk despite little to no support from state officials. 

Abby and Justin explain the myths and realities behind many of the studies being shared on social media, and Jay argues why it's necessary that public health advocacy on behalf of school re-openings involves a thorough understanding of what community transmission means and its implications both inside and outside the classroom. Jay also gives us a clearer picture of how dire things are for teachers, many of whom are risking their lives after being pressured to go back to in-person teaching.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) organizer Lillian House, one of 6 leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Denver area to be arrested on September 17, 2020. After sharing a bit about her own path to organizing, Lillian shares her insight into the strength and endurance of BLM organizing in Colorado around the cause of 23-year-old Elijah McClain, slain in 2019 when Aurora, CO police put him into a chokehold and injected with a sedative. Lillian describes how she and her comrades were held illegally for 8 days before seeing a judge and now face decades in prison on trumped-up federal charges, as well as how the local community and labor organizations around the world have shown up to support them while continuing to demand justice for McClain.

You can find more info and ways to help at the National Committee for Justice in Denver website as well as the PSL website, where you can donate to the legal support fund, sign and share this petition demanding that all charges be dropped, and sign and share this statement of solidarity for your organization. 

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Cliff Willmeng, a registered nurse of 13 years, an activist in rank and file labor and environmental struggles, and a front line healthcare worker unjustly dismissed for bringing attention to safety violations which includes the reusing of hospital scrubs and the lack of basic supplies.

Cliff, who once ran for Boulder County Commissioner as a independent socialist and worker’s candidate, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on nurses, and how hospital administrators have been retaliating against workers such as himself who have been bringing attention to the lack of PPE, despite the obvious risks this poses to both nurses, their families, and patients alike. 

Finally, we discuss how capitalism has devastated US hospitals and why the fight to win healthcare for all necessitates a united front against administrations and health industry CEOs who are profiting off of a global pandemic.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars go solo and answer a listener question about their own origin stories, and how the show came to be. If you want to hear the rest, subscribe at patreon.com/deleteyouraccount for $5 a month! We can't do the show without your support!