Time is running out to save the life of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was abducted by Israel’s military and has been held for over 18 months in Israeli detention without charge. Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyers report that he has suffered extreme torture and medical neglect and that his life is in mortal danger, but Israel has repeatedly ignored international calls to free him. We speak about the current condition of Dr. Abu Safiya and international efforts to free him with Dr. Nidal Jboor and Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, cofounders of Doctors Against Genocide.

Additional links/info:

• Doctors Against Genocide website and Instagram
• Amnesty International: “Emergency Leahy Appeal: Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s Life at Imminent Risk in Israeli Detention”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production / Post-Production: David Hebden

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Disinformation is impacting our lives. Much of it is being pushed by unregulated Silicon Valley tech companies and their billionaires owners. But people in Europe are pushing back.

In this episode, co-host Michael Fox goes to Spain, to look at how members of the Spanish far right have been inspired by Charlie Kirk. Then we look at grassroots organizing against Big Tech in Ireland, media education initiatives in Finland, and European measures regulating Big Tech. 

“This has now been a topic of discussion very much in Europe,” says Finish educator Saara Salomaa, “Should we actually trust any U.S. tech companies or should we try to get rid of U.S. tech companies as soon as possible?”

Michael is joined in the episode by Laura Flanders. She is the host of Laura Flanders and Friends — on public television — formerly known as the Laura Flanders show.

The Battle for Free Speech Podcast is a production of The Real News Network. 

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara. Research by Ben Schweiger. 

Guests: 

• Sergio Villanueva
• Jude Farrell
• Saara Salomaa
• Iva Nenadic

Many thanks, also to Ilona Taimela, for also taking the time to speak with me about media education in Finland.

Resources: 
Here is a link to TikTok about the Puchaina Avocado videos

• Follow The Battle For Free Speech on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
• Support Michael Fox's reporting at patreon.com/mfox. Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at therealnews.com.
• The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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In so-called “red states” and “blue states” around the US, from rural areas to urban centers, the explosion of new data center projects is impacting residents in poor, working-class, and middle-class communities alike. In this episode of Working People, we speak with a diverse panel of residents fighting new and proposed data center projects in Texas and Maryland about what it means for you and your community when one of these loud, polluting, energy- and water-guzzling behemoths comes to your town—and how to fight back.

Panelists include: Cheryl Shadden, a registered nurse anesthetist who lives right next to the site of a Marathon bitcoin mine in Granbury, Texas; Karen Pearson, a licensed professional counselor and a resident of Granbury who also lives right next to the Marathon bitcoin mine; Dr. Shannon Wolf, Precinct Chair in Hood County, who lives three miles from the Marathon bitcoin mine; Craig Jackson, a resident of Granbury who lives 300 feet from the site of a new proposed data center, and who is also a plaintiff in a current lawsuit residents have filed against the city of Granbury; Micaiah Lloyd, a grassroots organizer and resident of Charles County, Maryland, who lives near the site of a proposed data center; Hillary Gonzalez, an eco-poet, author, founder of Sacred Parks & Waterways, and a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, who lives right next to the site of Johns Hopkins University’s future Data Science and Artificial Intelligence complex.

Additional links/info:

• Protect Hood County website and Facebook page
• Sacred Parks & Waterways website and Instagram
• Viral MS Now clip featuring Cheryl Shadden of Granbury, Texas
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “A bitcoin mine in Texas is ‘killing us slowly,’ local residents say”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “‘Like being tortured’: Texas residents living next to bitcoin mine are getting sick and being ignored”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Toxic Avengers: America’s poisoned and abandoned communities must stand together or die”
• Christine Condon, Maryland Matters, “Data center frustrations cause upheaval in county primary elections”
• Emmanuel Rivas Valenzuela, KERA News, “Granbury residents sue city over data center plan, allege Texas Open Meetings Act violations”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Follow us on:
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While calls to "abolish ICE" have exploded during the second Trump presidency, critics have been calling out the threats the agency poses to immigrants, US citizens, and democracy itself since it was created just over 20 years ago. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with author and immigrant justice organizer Harsha Walia about the origins of ICE and what it will take to abolish it and the new American police state.

Guests:

• Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism and Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. She has been involved in community-based grassroots migrant justice, feminist, anti-racist, abolitionist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements for over two decades, including No One Is Illegal, Defenders of the Land, and the DTES Women’s Memorial March Committee.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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This is really a tale of two countries: The United States and Brazil. In both countries, far-right presidents come to power — Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. In both those countries, the presidents spent several years unraveling democratic institutions and public policy. Both presidents then ran for reelection. Both presidents lied about their country's voting systems in order to undermine the elections and whip up their base. 

Both those president lost their reelections — Trump in 2020. Bolsonaro in 2022. They both claimed fraud and tried to carry out a coup to stay in power. 

But that is where these two paths diverged. In the United States, president Donald Trump continued to peddle his lies about the elections. He created his own social media platform and he used it to push his agenda. He was reelected in 2024 and returned to power. In Brazil, however, the country’s Supreme Electoral Court blocked former president Jair Bolsonaro from running for office for 8 years, because of the lies he told about the country’s electoral system.

It wasn't censorship… it was a different interpretation of free speech. One that said the right to free expression must be balanced with the other rights in the country and the country’s democratic system. The United States doesn’t agree. And the Trump administration has been pushing to bend Brazil toward its definition of "free speech."

In this episode, co-host Michael Fox journeys to Brazil to understand the lengths that this country has gone to fight disinformation. 

Michael is joined in the episode by Maximillian Alvarez, editor-in-chief and co-executive director of The Real News and the host of the Working People Podcast.

The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner
Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound
Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank
Editorial support by Kayla Rivara
Research by Ben Schweiger

Guests: 

• Fabio de Sa e Silva
• Artur Romeu
• Fernando Paulino
• Brian Mier 

Resources: 
Follow The Battle For Free Speech on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Support Michael Fox's reporting at patreon.com/mfox.
Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at therealnews.com


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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Establishment Democrats have racked up disastrous electoral losses over the past decade—so why are they furious when their own party actually wins? Taya Graham and Stephen Janis break down the meltdown of Democratic "centrist" operatives and pundits after recent socialist victories in New York and Colorado, from James Carville calling for a party "schism" to Rep. Josh Gottheimer's panicking about the future of the party on CNN. Plus: we revisit our interviews with actual Mamdani voters—the people the mainstream media refuses to talk to.

Credits:

• Production / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino, Stephen Janis

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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10 years before the catastrophic train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, one of the deadliest rail disasters in North American history took place in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

On July 6, 2013, an unattended freight train that had been parked on the tracks overnight began to roll downhill and gather alarming speed as it careened towards the city center of Lac-Mégantic. The train, which was operated by Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic Railway and carrying over 2 million gallons of crude oil, derailed around 1:15 AM. The resulting explosions and fire killed 47 people and destroyed over 40 buildings, obliterating a large portion of the downtown area and prompting mass evacuations.

In this special episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of survivors of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Canada and the East Palestine rail disaster in the USA.

Panelists include: Robert Bellefleur, a resident of Lac-Mégantic and spokesperson for the Lac-Mégantic Citizens' Coalition for Railroad Safety; Gilbert Carette, a resident of Lac-Mégantic and a member of the Lac-Mégantic Citizens' Coalition for Railroad Safety; Gilles Fluet, a resident of Lac-Mégantic who narrowly escaped the 2013 train crash and witnessed the derailment firsthand; Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny, award-winning writer, videographer, social and environmental justice activist, and author of Mégantic: A Deadly Mix of Oil, Rail, and Avarice; Jami Wallace, a displaced resident of East Palestine, Ohio, and founder of the Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition; Christina Siceloff, a Creek Ranger and resident of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, affected by the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster.

If you or members of your community are interested in attending or participating in TRNN’s 2026 No More Sacrifice Zones conference, please contact us by emailing contact[at]therealnews[dot]com.
 
Additional links/info:

• Lac-Mégantic Citizens' Coalition for Railroad Safety website and Facebook page
• Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition (CICC) Facebook page
• Railroad Workers United website, Facebook page, and X page
• Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny, Talonbooks, Mégantic: A Deadly Mix of Oil, Rail, and Avarice
• Dimitri Lascaris, TRNN, “‘Bomb Train': Oil Execs Try to Blame Workers for Tragic Accident”
• Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “America’s toxic future looks like East Palestine, Ohio, today”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Toxic Avengers: America’s poisoned and abandoned communities must stand together or die”

Credits:

• Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Dr. Nicole Fabricant, Fritz Edler
• Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
• French-English Interpretation: Anne Lagacé Dowson
• Voice Acting: Ethan Cox, Daniel Lemieux
• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor, Alina Nehlich
• Music: Jules Taylor 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Follow us on:
Bluesky: @therealnews.com
Facebook: The Real News Network
Twitter: @TheRealNews
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On this episode of Rattling the Bars, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the history of the Panthers and their unique approach to, and practice of, communal socialism.

This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Watch Part 1 here.

Guests:

• Dr. Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of numerous books, including: In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love; Resisting State Violence; and Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. Creator of the digital Harriet Tubman Literary Circle at UT Austin, James is also editor of The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings; Imprisoned Intellectuals; Warfare in the American Homeland; The Angela Y. Davis Reader; and co-editor of the Black Feminist Reader.
• Dr. K. Kim Holder is an assistant professor of educational foundations and Africana studies at Rowan University. Dr. Holder earned his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Multicultural Education and African American Studies, his masters in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College of Education, and B.A. in History from Hampshire College.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Follow us on:
Bluesky: @therealnews.com
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On the eve of the United States' 250th birthday, Michael Fox sits down with Mansa Musa — longtime activist, former Black Panther, host of TRNN’s Rattling the Bars, and a man who spent nearly 49 years in prison — to ask a deceptively simple question: what does free speech actually mean?

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to Quito, Ecuador, to Frederick Douglass's 1852 address "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," this episode unravels the gap between the promise of the First Amendment and the reality of who gets to speak in America — and who pays a price for it.

"There's a kind of narcotic effect of those words — free speech," says legal scholar Mary Anne Franks (Fearless Speech). "It's because we think we know it so well that we don't know anything about it."

Historian Fara Dabhoiwala traces how the US broke from the rest of the world's balanced approach to free expression during the Cold War, and a forgotten 1986 Ursula K. Le Guin speech offers a radically different vision: speech as dialogue, not domination.

Follow The Battle For Free Speech on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Support Michael Fox's reporting at patreon.com/mfox. Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at therealnews.com.

The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network. 

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner.
Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein, and Daniel Nuñez. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
Production and sound design: Michael Fox and Stephen Frank.
Editorial support: Kayla Rivara. Research: Ben Schweiger.
Many thanks to Sylvia Gross for providing her incredible voice acting skills in this episode.

Guests

• Mary Anne Franks, author of Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment
• Katherine Jacobsen, Committee to Protect Journalists
• Fara Dabhoiwala, author of What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea

Resources

• Ursula K. Le Guin, "We Are Volcanoes" — Bryn Mawr commencement, 1986
• Danny Glover reads Frederick Douglass — Voices of a People's History

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Follow us on:
Bluesky: @therealnews.com
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From the explosion of AI data centers to the increasing number of toxic spills, explosions, and industrial disasters happening across the country, corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant “sacrifice zone.” In “red” states and “blue” states, in rural areas and urban areas, poor and working people are suffering the toxic effects of a crisis that has resulted from decades of deregulation, corporate-capture of government, and the protection of private profits over the lives and health of the public.

No one is coming to save us, and nothing is going to change unless residents of different sacrifice zones and poisoned communities, workers and unions on the frontlines of the industries poisoning us, environmental justice groups, community and faith organizations, scientists, journalists, and all others who have a stake in this fight start coming together, working together, and fighting back together. In this special panel discussion, recorded at the 2026 Railroad Workers United convention in Chicago, Illinois, we speak with a panel of guests who are part of a new coalition that is doing just that.

Panelists include: Jeff Kurtz, a retired locomotive engineer, union officer, and Railroad Workers United member who also served as a state representative in the Iowa House of Representatives; Jami Wallace, a displaced resident of East Palestine, Ohio, and founder of the Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition (CICC); Dr. Nicole Fabricant, a professor of anthropology at Towson University and scholar-activist who has been working with chemically impacted communities in South Baltimore, Maryland, for 15 years; Scott Smith, independent testing expert and founder of the Blue Shirt Justice League; and Lesley Pacey, Senior Environmental Officer at the Government Accountability Project.

Additional links/info:

• Railroad Workers United website, Facebook page, and X page
• Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition (CICC) Facebook page
• Blue Shirt Justice League website and Facebook page
• Government Accountability Project website, Facebook page, X page, Bluesky page, and Instagram
• Coal-Free Curtis Bay Facebook page and Instagram
• South Baltimore Community Land Trust website, X page, Facebook page, and Instagram
• Nicole Fabricant, University of California Press, Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore
• Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “America’s toxic future looks like East Palestine, Ohio, today”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “‘Let’s unite!’: Poisoned residents of America’s sacrifice zones are banding together”
• Maximilian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant ‘sacrifice zone’”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Follow us on:
Bluesky: @therealnews.com
Facebook: The Real News Network
Twitter: @TheRealNews
YouTube: @therealnews
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Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!