Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Los Angeles Tenants Union co-founders Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis to discuss their new book Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can Solve the Housing Crisis, which documents their experiences on the front lines of the resurgent tenant movement in California and the lessons that organizers everywhere can draw from the movement’s early successes.  Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can Solve the Housing Crisis is out now from Haymarket Books. Follow Leonardo on Twitter @VilchisLeonardo and  Tracy @tracyrosenthal_. 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 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 is once again reporting from Lebanon. She and Kumars discuss Israel's latest wave of attacks across Lebanon, including its targeting of communications devices. Roqayah also described witnessing two incidents, one of which she discusses in her latest article for Splinter, as well as the aftermath of the latest attack on the Dahye, which resulted in the deaths of at least 40 people across two residential buildings. Roqayah and Kumars also discuss Hezbollah’s retaliation, the unlikely emergence of Lebanese unity, and how the Axis of Resistance will respond. 

This week, Roqayah is back and reporting from Lebanon. She and Kumars discuss Hezbollah’s latest military response to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah's Senior Commander Sayyed Fouad Ali Shokr in Beirut's southern suburbs, and her latest article for Splinter on the Israeli attack on Haret Hreik. They also discuss Israel's response—its biggest since the 2006 July War—the potential impact on the region, which many speculate is building towards a larger confrontation with the Lebanese resistance, as well as the role of the axis of resistance. 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 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 is back and reporting from Lebanon. She and Kumars discuss Hezbollah’s military capabilities, the strategic depth of the Axis of Resistance and more of the latest developments as Israel ramps up airstrikes on civilians across its northern border.  As mentioned, you can follow Ahmed Hassan @ahmed_hassan_za.  

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by geopolitical analyst, editor and activist Rune Agerhus. Rune, founder of the new publishing house Hamra Books and a member of the International Commission for Solidarity with Yemen whose work has appeared on Al Mayadeen, takes us on a deep dive into the contemporary Ansarullah movement and the legacy of Yemeni resistance to imperialism, including developments since Oct. 7.  Follow Rune and Hamra Books on Twitter @AlDanmarki and @hamrabooks. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined by an all-star team of football fans to review the club soccer season that was and preview this summer’s Euro and Copa America tournaments. Veterans of Delete Your Account soccer coverage Sam Knight and Sam Sacks, founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op, return alongside the hosts of the We Made It podcast on YouTube, sophomore slugger Bam and our #1 draft pick Caesar Souza.  Hijinks ensue as Bam, Ceez, Sams Knight and Sacks, and Kumars all predict different winners for the Euros before the guests go head-to-head in an all-new football trivia game.  Follow Bam on Twitter at @WeMadeItPodcast, Ceez at @WeMadeItCeez and Sam Sacks @SamSacks. Watch and subscribe to Means Morning News on Means TV and the We Made It podcast on YouTube! 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 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 on After Hours, Roqayah and Kumars discuss personal news, a brief update on the current situation in Gaza and how you can help, the latest ICC court ruling and the resulting political shockwaves it’s caused, along with the tragic event surrounding the death of Iranian President Raisi and its implications for Iran. As mentioned during the episode, for ways to support fundraising campaigns in Gaza please follow @GazaFunds.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by professor and academic, Mohamed Abdou, for a discussion of decolonial theory and a reflection on how the framework of decolonization benefits pro-Palestine solidarity and organizing. Mohamed, one of three faculty members targeted and smeared during congressional testimony by House Republicans and the president of Columbia University, discusses the explosion of student encampments around the United States in support of Gaza, and the lessons we can learn not only about the farce of academic freedom but the impressive tenacity of students and what they are sacrificing.  We also learn more about the smeared campaign facing Mohamed, as well as the significance of Columbia University's connection to Israel which makes it a legitimate target of BDS. Follow Mohamed on Twitter @minuetinGmajor and Instagram @slightlydrifting, and sign the petition in support of Mohamed here. 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 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.  Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined by two of the biggest and brightest Star Wars fans we know, artist and Delete Your Account debutante @hayleyglyphs along with president of the Campaign Workers Guild and returning guest Marvin Gonzalez. Hayley, Marvin and Kumars discuss the highs and lows of the prequels, the sequels and (almost) everything in between, from Ben Shapiro’s definitive ranking of the movies to who the best funny little guy is, before ending by playing an all-new Star Wars trivia game. Follow Hayley on Twitter @hayleyglyphs and Instagram, also @hayleyglyphs. Follow Marvin @sulliedsubjects. You can also keep up with Marvin’s organizing with the Campaign Workers Guild @CWG_Workers as well as his work around Puerto Rico by following his organization Repatriotas @repatriotasPR.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by two Boston-based student organizers for an update on the Palestine solidarity movement on US college campuses. Lea Kayali is a law student and activist with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine, and Mohamed Mohamed is a graduate student and activist with the Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Lea and Mohamed discuss their personal paths to organizing, the repression they’ve faced on their campuses since Oct. 7th from their university administrations and beyond, and how Palestine solidarity became the defining political issue for a generation of student activists. Follow Lea on Twitter @huriya_lea as well as orgs like @MIT_CAA and the undergraduate Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (HarvardPSC) to keep up with the latest campaigns and actions on their campuses.  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!!!  

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Bam and Dan, cohosts of The Power Report on Twitch and YouTube. Bam also cohosts the soccer podcast We Made It, and Dan reviews music on Audioface.  Bam and Dan share their thoughts on the 2024 presidential election, Dan’s experience working at The Young Turks, why left media figures turn to cultural conservatism, and who will win the English Premier League.  Follow Bam on Twitter @WeMadeItPodcast and Dan @danfromtheweb, and stream The Power Report every Thursday 9 ET to midnight on YouTube and Twitch. 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 share their thoughts on Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza, including escalating violence and displacement of its population.  They also discuss the Northern front, i.e. Lebanon, where since October 8th Hezballah and Israel have been engaging in a mounting offensive that has achieved a number of objectives for the Lebanese resistance faction while also directing Israel away from engaging to the fullest of its military capabilities in Gaza. They also highlight the shared history between South Lebanon and Palestine, and why there remains a fervent and unshakeable bond between the two peoples until today. 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 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.  Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by renowned cartoonist and returning guest Mattie Lubchansky to discuss their 2023 graphic novel Boys Weekend. Follow Mattie on Twitter @lubchansky, pick up a copy of the book from Penguin Random House and get awesome rewards from Mattie and other creators when you donate to the Cartoonists’ Collective E-SIMs for Gaza drive.   

In tribute to Palestinian poet, activist, academic, and co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, Refaat Alareer, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by his colleague at the Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman, to discuss Israel's deliberate assassination of Refaat, and his legacy.  Nora discusses the impact of Refaat's targeted execution by Israel, and the impressions he left upon thousands of students who he helped mentor during his life. The crew also weighs the significance of the written word, its role in resisting occupation in Palestine, and Israel's historic fear of the Palestinian pen. Follow Nora on Twitter @norabf and find all of her reporting at electronicintifada.net.  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 welcome back returning guests Rawan Masri and Fathi Nemer, cofounders of the outstanding resource hub and archive decolonizepalestine.com. Rawan is a writer and translator working at the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, and Fathi is currently Palestine Policy Fellow at Al Shabaka, the only independent, transnational Palestinian thinktank.  After sharing their thoughts on some of the ways Palestine advocates in the US have relied on their website as an important resource in this moment, Rawan and Fathi discuss Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza as well as the intensifying situation for themselves and their families across the West Bank, including the growing resistance to escalating soldier and settler violence. The gang also break down what has changed since October 7th, from perceptions of the IDF’s military capacity to the broader regional war already underway. Follow Rawan on @RiverToSea48, and Fathi @AManInTheSun. You can find Rawan’s article on Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and decolonization on Mondoweiss, and for your go-to resource on all things Palestine, make sure to visit decolonizepalestine.com. 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, in a preview of our upcoming series of interviews with Palestinian activists and journalists, Roqayah and Kumars discuss the ongoing situation in Palestine, including the events of October 7th, current conditions in Gaza, the impact of BDS, and what’s different this time. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!  

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 follow up their After Hours episode on the best and worst cop shows with a rundown of the most celebrated cop movies of all time, tracing the evolution of the genre from Orson Welles’s film noir “Touch of Evil” and the tragically influential “Dirty Harry” to “Heat” and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” touching on ‘80s classics like “Die Hard” and “RoboCop” along the way.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Nick Estes and former guest host Shanti Singh for a deep dive into the past, present and future of extraterrestrial visitation.  Nick is a member of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate nation, Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, a cofounder of The Red Nation, and cohost of TRN’s flagship podcast. He is also lead editor at Red Media, the author of Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, and coauthor of Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation. Shanti is an organizer with the San Francisco chapter of Democratic Socialists of America and previously served as deputy data director for the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign in California. She is currently the Legislative and Communications Director for Tenants Together, the first and only statewide tenant advocacy organization in California. After catching listeners up on some of their recent adventures, Nick and Shanti share their takes on Posadism, going to Mars, Blink-182, Stonehenge, Alien vs. Predator, Scully vs. Mulder, as well as the gold standard of problematic UFO lore, History Channel’s Ancient Aliens.  The gang also discuss well-known UFO reports pre- and post-Roswell, the US national security state’s history of manipulating alien conspiracy theories to cover up its own black operations, and whether this explains the revelations since 2017 of the military’s close encounters. Follow Nick on that one website @nickwestes and Shanti @uhshanti.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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 from the top of the hour by longtime friend of the show Bryan Quinby.   Bryan, Roqayah and Kumars discuss no-contact delivery, the politics of serial killing, working at restaurants, bourbon guys, Yelp guys, types of country guys, working class music, why Morgan Wallen is even famous, Candace Owens’s theory of “countryface”, Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” Luke Combs’s Tracy Chapman cover, Toby Keith’s beef with the Dixie Chicks, and more. Finally, Bryan tries his hand at a special Ohio edition of our new quiz game.   Follow Bryan on Twitter @murderxbryan and listen to Guys, Bryan’s new show about types of guys with cohost Chris James, wherever pods are cast.

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest and editor of Workday Magazine Sarah Lazare to discuss her latest reporting for Workday and In These Times.  After introducing listeners to Workday Magazine and its long history in Minnesota and beyond, Sarah shares the story of Amazon warehouse worker Roger Kieca, whose tragic death due to brutal working conditions was dismissed as “not work-related” by both Amazon and OSHA before the revelation of new, incontrovertible evidence obtained by Workday and In These Times. Follow Sarah on Twitter or X or whatever @SarahLazare, and keep up with her reporting at In These Times and Workday Magazine (you can also still order Testimony from Strong Arm Press!). If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the show by independent journalist Bryce Covert to discuss her latest for In These Times about the impact of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization one year after the Supreme Court’s decision overturned the limited constitutional protections for abortion in the United States. Bryce is a reporter in residence at the Omidyar Network and a contributing writer at The Nation. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, Wired, the New Republic, Slate and many other outlets.  After briefly sharing her own political origin story, Bryce relates the ongoing struggles of Lationna Halbert and her family after Mississippi’s trigger abortion ban forced her to carry her pregnancy to term. Bryce and Kumars discuss the legal and economic barriers Lationna and people in her position face when seeking abortions in the even more repressive landscape of reproductive care post-Dobbs, as well as the failure of states like Mississippi to address the increased financial and infrastructure needs of parents and families robbed of their reproductive autonomy. Make sure to read Bryce’s full report at In These Times. You can also follow Bryce on Twitter @brycecovert and find more of her work at her website, brycecovert.com. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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 returns to try her hand at the new sensation sweeping the nation and play our game “Overrated or Overhated”.  Over the course of one hour she must share her hottest takes on dinosaurs, Mark Ruffalo, country music, New York City, pickleball, “Heat” (Michael Mann, 1995) and eating Doritos with cream cheese. What happens next may shock you!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the show by the DSA International Committee’s Marvin Gonzalez, Mirah and Jorge Rocha. Marvin Gonzalez is president of the Campaign Workers Guild, founder of Repatriotas and a member of the National Political Committee of DSA, as well as the NPC’s liaison to the IC. Mirah is co-chair of the IC’s Middle East & Africa Subcommittee. Jorge sits on the Steering Committee for DSA’s International Committee and is currently on NYC-DSA’s Citywide Leadership Committee. He is also the cohost, along with friends of the show Jamie Peck and Aaron Thorpe, of the podcast Everybody Loves Communism. After welcoming Marvin and Mirah to the Delete Your Account family, the gang discusses the IC’s organizing and role within DSA. Marvin, Mirah and Jorge clarify their positions on some of the most complex and divisive questions facing the left today, including the war in Ukraine, China’s global influence, “anti -war” conservatives, and what socialist internationalism means today.   Follow Marvin on Twitter @Sulliedsubjects, Mirah @snackvampire and Jorge @LineGoesDown (you can also follow the Everybody Loves Communism show account @ELCPod). Learn how you can support Marvin’s organizing around Puerto Rico here and follow his new organization Repatriotas @repatriotasPR. And most importantly, if you are a DSA member, get involved with the IC from wherever you are by visiting international.dsausa.org and find out more about the IC’s Cuba Solidarity campaign here.  If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the show by fan favorite clinical psychologist Megan the Meme Witch and first-time guest Sam, also known as @Mardirooster on Twitter.  After Sam introduces himself to the Delete Your Account family, the gang talks about some of their favorite movies of 2022, then spends more time than you ever expected dissecting their favorite episodes, characters, and character deaths from the NBC television adaptation of Hannibal, debating key questions such as whether Mads Mikkelsen is the definitive Hannibal Lecter and whether Hannibal Lecter could benefit from a class analysis.  Follow Megan on Twitter @MemeVVitch and Sam @mardirooster. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Chicago-based journalist and author Kari Lydersen to discuss the cover story of the March edition of In These Times, her article on “The Case for Nationalizing the Railroads”.  Kari and Kumars begin by touching on her earlier work, including her run-in with Rahm Emanuel after making him the subject of her first book. Kari then takes us through the case for nationalizing railroads in the United States with reference to the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment as well as last year’s “averted” rail strike, exploring also the lesser-known history of the US government nationalizing rail and other key industries in the early 20th century.  You can follow Kari on Twitter @KariLydersen1 and find more of her work at www.karilydersen.net. And don’t forget to check out Kari’s article over at In These Times. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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.  Roqayah is off this week, but Kumars is joined for a very special After Hours interview with director, cinematographer, teacher and activist Steven De Castro, whose new film Revolution Selfie: The Red Battalion is now streaming on Means TV.  Steven and Kumars touch on Steven’s early career including his debut feature Fred Ho’s Last Year, a documentary about his personal friend, the experimental jazz musician Fred Ho, before laying out the historical context of US colonial rule in the Philippines and Filipino resistance to empire both at home and in the United States. Steven and Kumars then discuss Revolution Selfie, an experimental documentary for which Steven embedded with the New People’s Army, the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.  Follow Steven on Twitter @acquit97, visit his website credibilitymedia.com to find out more about his work, and stream Revolution Selfie: The Red Battalion with your Means TV subscription.

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Audrey Brehm and Donovan Eyre, cohosts of the lefty relationship advice podcast Radio Free Tote Bag, for a very intimate Valentine’s Day special. The gang trade embarrassing dating stories and discuss gender, mental health, neoliberalism, Nashville, polyamory, Digimon (Pokemon), Digimon (Digimon), Ron Paul, and what leftist relationship advice means to them. Finally, Audrey and Dono play our new and improved game, “Overrated or Overhated”. Follow Audrey on Twitter @RFTBAudrey, Dono @RFTBDono, and the show account @RFTBPod. You can hear Radio Free Tote Bag wherever you listen to podcasts, and make sure to visit their question box at rftb.me to send in your questions! If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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.  Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined for a very special AFTER HOURS episode by Famous Horse, host of The Horse Show on Twitch. Kumars and Horse talk communism and culture war on Twitch and beyond, including everything you ever wanted to know about Slavoj Žižek, Lyndon LaRouche, and MAGA Communism. Follow, subscribe, and support your local horse on Twitch at twitch.tv/famoushorse, on YouTube at youtube.com/@famoushorse and on Twitter @WellKnownEquine.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by two advocates with the campaign to free Melvin Ortiz, Victoria Blanco and Ismary Guardarrama. Victoria Blanco has worked with the criminal legal reform group It Could Happen To You, which brings attention to Pennsylvania's hornet's nest of wrongful convictions. Ismary is a recent graduate from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.  Victoria, Melvin’s fiancee, and Ismary, who helped revive the push to exonerate Melvin as an undergraduate, share the story of his ordeal, sentenced to life in prison as a teenager for a crime everyone in Reading, PA knew he did not commit. Victoria and Ismary explain how the conspiracy to frame Melvin goes from the racism of a small town in the 1990s right to the top of corrupt state and local politics.  To learn more about Melvin Ortiz and the Free Melvin Ortiz team visit freemelvinortiz.org. You can also follow the campaign on Twitter at @freemelvinortiz, Ismary at @ismarygp and Victoria at @victoriasinPA. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by friends of the show Sam Knight and Sam Sacks for another World Cup preview. The Sams are founders of the District Sentinel news co-op and together cohost the podcast District Sentinel Radio. Sam Knight is a reporter and editor for Truthout.org and a writer on Means TV’s Means Morning News, anchored by Sam Sacks.  The boys kick things off with a discussion of Sam Knight’s latest for Truthout on the revelations of investment fraud at bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the most recent leg down in the crash of cryptocurrency markets, and the potential implications for working people if the contagion spreads to the broader economy.  They discuss the major stories in and around the men’s World Cup of soccer in Qatar, including the massive human rights abuses that made it possible, that one group with the US and Iran in it, and how much Cristiano Ronaldo sucks. The Sams round out the hour by sharing some predictions for the upcoming tournament. Follow the Sams on Twitter @SamSacks and @TheDCSentinel. Subscribe to Means TV to watch Means Morning News every weekday and to hear full episodes of District Socceroos Radio, subscribe on Patreon at patreon.com/districtsentinel. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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 celebrate Halloween on the After Hours feed with friends of the show Bryan Quinby, Donald Borenstein and Mattie Lubchansky. Bryan is the host of Street Fight Radio. Donald is a freelance journalist and filmmaker whose work has appeared on Means TV. Mattie Lubchansky is a cartoonist and associate editor of The Nib, and the author of the Antifa Super Soldier Cookbook as well as the upcoming graphic novel Boys Weekend. Following up on the yearly tradition of weighing up Halloween candy, the crew discusses the season's most controversial aspect: pumpkin spice and how far the industry gone in its attempt to pumpkin spiceify our Halloween favorites. The gang also debates whether or not good Halloween music truly exists, we also introduce listeners to DYA's One Star Movie Reviews, featuring some horror classics, and get spooky with Father Kumars' Story Corner, plus so much more!  Follow Donald on Twitter @Boringstein, Mattie @Lubchansky and Bryan @murderxbryan.

*Sorry for the audio issue with this one folks, it should be fixed if you download again or reopen the app. Thanks for bearing with us!  This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Danielle Espiritu and Mikey. Danielle is a Kanaka Maoli educator and activist from Kāneʻohe, O'ahu and Mikey is a filmmaker and activist also born and raised on O'ahu who also organizes with Shut Down Red Hill Mutual Aid.  Dani and Mikey describe their fight against the United States military's poisoning of Hawaii's water supply, and the (originally) secret Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, directly above the Southern Oʻahu Basal Aquifer, which is operated by the United States Navy.  Dani and Mikey explain the significance of the Red Hill Facility and the decades of poisoning that has resulted not only in jet-fuel tainted water but the displacement of nearly 95,000 O'ahu residents. We discuss the warning signs, local pushback, and the military cover up that is still having an effect on locals and Hawaii's native ecology. We also examine the wider impact of colonialism on native organizing on the island, and the struggles facing local activists who are fighting further military encroachment and a tourism industry that often intersects—denying them access to not only their water resources but their land as well. You can follow the Oahu Water Protectors @OahuWP on Twitter, and find them on Instagram @OahuWaterProtectors. Find Mikey on Twitter @karaokecomputer, and make sure to follow @ShutDownRedHillMutualAid as well. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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.  In this week’s bonus episode, Roqayah and Kumars spend a solid two hours breaking down an array of historic television police procedurals and the efforts of these programs—hand in hand with law enforcement—to produce favourable media PR for policing, with specific focus on furthering the myth of the Good Cop. From neo-noir television shows like Into The Net to quirky and seemingly harmless comedy programs like Brooklyn 99, we often find there exists illicit collaboration between media and police. You can find more information referenced in this episode by reading Noah Tsika's book "Screening The Police".

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined from the top of the hour by Aaron Thorpe, Jamie Peck and Jorge Rocha, hosts of the podcast Everybody Loves Communism. Aaron is a cohost of the Trillbilly Workers Party podcast and organizes with the Democratic Socialists of America in Atlanta, Jamie is a veteran of The Majority Report and the Antifada and organizes with North Brooklyn DSA, and Jorge is a NYC-based organizer with DSA and serves on the International Committee.  Aaron, Jamie and Jorge open the proceedings by sharing stories of how they were radicalized before elaborating on some of the highlights from their regular discussions of Marxist theory and socialist history. The gang touches on two classical texts from Marx as well as the socialist feminism of Alexandra Kollontai, exploring the defining features of capitalism and how communists have broken with liberal conceptions of equality, including the relationship between socialism and liberation for women and queer folks.  You can follow Aaron on Twitter @borgposting, Jamie @Jamie_Elizabeth and Jorge @LineGoesDown, and the show account @ELCPod, and you can find Everybody Loves Communism on Patreon and wherever you get your podcasts.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by housing justice and tenant advocates Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal and returning guest Shanti Singh. Tracy, making their Delete Your Account debut, is a writer and cofounder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union whose book Abolish Rent is forthcoming from Verso Books. Shanti, formerly deputy data director of for the Bernie Sanders campaign in California, serves as Legislative and Communications Coordinator for Tenants Together as well as on the board of the San Francisco Community Land Trust.  The gang discusses the flood of evictions underway in California, how today’s capitalism needs mass homelessness to function, what a YIMBY is, the success of tenant organizing in LA, the facts behind the recall of San Francisco’s reform-minded District Attorney Chesa Boudin, how the LA mayoral race will impact the city’s unhoused population, and more.  Follow Tracy on Twitter @two_evils and Shanti @uhshanti. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, find out how to get involved with the LA Tenants Union at latenantsunion.org, and if you’re elsewhere in California, check out Tenants Together at tenantstogether.org. And make sure to read Tracy’s article published for The New Republic titled “Inside LA’s Homeless Industrial Complex”.  As mentioned in the introduction, a list of abortion funds most urgently in need of financial support can be found here.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Paris Marx, author of Road Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation out July 5th from Verso Books and host of the hit podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, where they cover the intersections of labor, tech and finance. Paris and Kumars discuss the significance of the union drive currently gaining momentum at Apple stores across the US, the recent victory of the nation’s first major US video game union at Activision Blizzard’s Raven Software, the limits of the current push by governments and corporations to produce electric vehicles for mass consumption, what could cause the crypto bubble to pop for good, and why Elon Musk can’t stop committing fraud. Keep up with Paris’s work by following them on Twitter @ParisMarx and listening to Tech Won’t Save Us, and pre-order your copy of Road to Nowhere here. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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.  Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined once again by Sam Knight and Sam Sacks, founders of the District Sentinel news co-op and hosts of the podcast District Sentinel Radio. Sam Knight is a reporter and editor for Truthout.org and a writer on Means TV’s Means Morning News, anchored by Sam Sacks.  The guys spend the hour breaking down recent labor, finance and economic headlines, from the unionization campaigns at Amazon, Starbucks and beyond to the baby formula shortage, the recent collapse of the cryptocurrency market and the possibility of a recession.   Follow the Sams on Twitter @SamSacks and @TheDCSentinel. Subscribe to Means TV to watch Means Morning News every weekday and to hear full episodes of District Sentinel Radio, subscribe on Patreon at patreon.com/districtsentinel.

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined for the hour by Tamika Turner, a reproductive rights advocate and former Associate Director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and returning guest Christine O’Donovan-Zavada, a reproductive rights organizer in northeastern Pennsylvania.  Tamika, Christine and Kumars discuss the limits of the status quo under Roe v. Wade, the practical implications of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion overturning it, how it will affect the most vulnerable people in both Republican and Democratic-controlled states, and what the Democrats’ fucking problem is. Tamika and Christine round out the hour by sharing where they find inspiration for the future of the fight for abortion rights and how you can help on every front. Follow Tamika on Twitter @prettycritical and Christine @queenozymandias. You can donate to Christine’s fundraiser for the Western PA Fund for Choice here and find a local abortion fund in your state here. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Tamara K. Nopper, who is a writer, editor, and professor of sociology whose research focuses on the intersection of economic, racial, and gender inequality, with emphasis on globalization, and urban development, among other areas. Tamara helps us understand the power of data literacy, especially when examining racialized violence, and why excessive dependence on crime data has reinforced racial inequality. Tamara also discusses the risk of deploying crime data in feeding into carceral frameworks, even when they appear to confirm abolitionist arguments. We also learn more about the history of data analysis, and the importance of examining the work of W.E.B Du Bois and Ida B. Wells, both of whom pioneered their own respective methods of sociological data analysis that we still benefit from today. Keep up with Tamara’s work by following her on Twitter @TamaraNopper. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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 welcome back independent writer and media critic Adam Johnson for a rundown of the most pernicious tropes in US media coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamJohnsonNYC, listen to Citations Needed and subscribe to The Column at thecolumn.substack.com.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by first-time guest Shireen Al-Adeimi and returning guest Ken Klippenstein for an in-depth discussion of the ongoing war in Yemen.   Shireen is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University who has advocated for an end to the humanitarian catastrophe facing the country of her birth on Al Jazeera and in the pages of Current Affairs Magazine, Al Bawaba, and In These Times, and she has a new piece out on Business Insider called “Biden has merely rebranded the brutal war against Yemen”. Ken is a DC-based investigative reporter who has covered government misdeeds and corporate malfeasance for a wide array of publications and is now with The Intercept, where his latest scoop details the Biden administration’s internal debate on reinstating Trump’s terror designation for Ansarallah, more commonly known as the Houthis.   Shireen and Ken recap the history of how US and Saudi intervention in the Yemeni civil war created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, how Trump made the war his own, how Biden is following Trump’s lead, the often overlooked role of the United Arab Emirates, and the way to end it.   Follow Shireen on Twitter @shireen818 and Ken @kenklippenstein.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Nick Estes, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and Melanie Yazzie, members of the Red Nation’s Bordertown Violence working group and coauthors of Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation. Nick is an indigenous author, and member of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate nation. Nick is also an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a cofounder of The Red Nation, a revolutionary Native-led community organization and cohosts the podcast of the same name. Nick is also the author of Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, and writer at The Red Nation. Jennifer Nez Denetdale is a professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, and she was the first Diné, or Navajo, scholar ever to get a PhD in History. Jennifer chairs the Navajo Human Rights Commission. She is the author of Reclaiming Dine History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita. Melanie Yazzie is Diné and a professor of American Studies as well as Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Melanie organizes with The Red Nation, cohosts the Red Power Hour podcast, and she is also the lead editor of the journal Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society.  We discuss the collective process that went into developing Red Nation Rising, and what makes it an important source for those wishing to understand Native communities and the intersections between issues like gender, class, and resistance to bordertown violence.  Melanie, Jennifer, and Nick describe the failures of academic institutions when it comes to addressing Native issues, and the importance of not just centering Native voices but going beyond simple tokenization. We learn of the violence facing indigenous organizers, including a lynch mob that targeted Jennifer, threatening her multiple times and publishing her home address. We also examine the issue of bordertown violence, and how the United States continues to attack Native territories, and how bordertowns are "key front lines in the long struggle for Native liberation from US colonial control." 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 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 labor and tech reporter extraordinaire Edward Ongweso Jr., a staff writer at Vice’s Motherboard and cohost of This Machine Kills, a podcast about the political economy of tech. Ed starts off talking about his union’s landmark victory in contract negotiations with Vice Media and picks up where his previous appearance left off, sharing his thoughts on Uber’s alleged profitability as well as the future of laws like Prop 22. The gang talks about recent revelations of congressional insider trading before going all the way down the tech rabbithole to discuss NFTs, the metaverse, Elon Musk being named Time’s Person of the Year, why cryptocurrency might cause the next global economic crisis, the billionaire space race, and the concept of techno-feudalism.  You can hear more of Ed on podcast This Machine Kills. You can follow Ed on Twitter @bigblackjacobin and follow his coverage of all things tech, labor, finance over at Vice’s Motherboard. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi. Lara us Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the George Washington University, and the secretary and president-elect of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology. She is also co-editor of Studies in Gender & Sexuality and of Counterspace in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Lara also serves on the advisory board to the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network and Psychoanalysis for Pride. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies and Director of the Decolonizing Humanities Project at William & Mary, where he is also Professor of Arabic Studies in the Asian and Middle East Studies Program, Arabic Program, and Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies Program. Stephen is also the author of Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine (with Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar), Arab Imago: A Social History of Portrait Photography, 1860-1910, and Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims and Foundations of Modern Arab Identity. Lara and Stephen describe how their work has changed since the pandemic, and unpack the frequently overlooked pitfalls of face-to-face communication and the sanitisation of our daily human experiences.  We discuss the framework guiding their research into and documentation of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation—threaded with insight from Palestinian clinicians while centering the stories of non-clinical Palestinians. Lara and Stephen help clarify the origins of not only colonial psychology, but the revolutionary work of psychiatrist and Marxist Frantz Fanon, arguably the architect of what is now called liberation psychology. We also go over cases of colonial psychological warfare as well as the methods used by Israel's settler colonial state to disrupt and destroy Palestinian life. You can follow Lara on Twitter @blackflaghag and buy the Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine from Routledge, and wherever fine books are sold. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Sarah Lazare, reporter and web editor for In These Times and the coauthor, with her late father Peter Lazare, of the new novel Testimony, a political thriller out now from Strong Arm Press. Sarah introduces listeners to her formative experiences in organizing and independent media, including her father’s legacy of socialist union organizing as well as her own history in the so-called “anti-globalization” and antiwar movements. The gang then dives into a (spoiler free!) preview of Testimony, discussing its main themes and sources of inspiration, why leftists are natural detectives, and the importance of international solidarity to radical politics in the imperial core.  Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahLazare, keep up with her reporting at In These Times and order Testimony via Strong Arm Press.  If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

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 celebrate Halloween on the After Hours feed with friends of the show Bryan Quinby, Donald Borenstein and Mattie Lubchansky. Bryan is the co-host of Street Fight Radio, alongside Brett Payne, and the cocreator and costar of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV. Donald is a freelance journalist and filmmaker whose work has appeared on Means TV. Mattie Lubchansky is the associate editor of The Nib and the author of the Antifa Super Soldier Cookbook as well as the upcoming graphic novel Boys Weekend. The gang discusses Halloween traditions from candy to costumes before sharing their favorite scary movies and formative horror viewing experiences. Bryan, Donald and Mattie play a spine-tingling new game, and ring in the holiday with some spooky stories. Follow Donald on Twitter @Boringstein, Mattie @Lubchansky and Bryan @murderxbryan.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Kooper Caraway, president of the South Dakota Federation of Labor, he’s also the former statewide representative for AFSCME Council 65, which represents workers in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. Previously, Kooper worked with the American Federation of Teachers and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Kooper joins us to discuss the wave of strikes sweeping across the United States: over 10,000 John Deere workers, 1,400 Kellogg’s cereal factory workers, over 24,000 nurses and healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente, and many more. We discuss the tactics being deployed by employers—like attempting to hire non-union workers—and why it's imperative that workers hold the line and continue to fight back. Kooper explains the optimism present among workers, and how this has driven a new generation of union members and organizers.  Follow Kooper on Twitter @KooperCaraway. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by immigration attorney and returning guest Sophia Gurulé, policy counsel and staff attorney with the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project at the Bronx Defenders, a public defender nonprofit in New York City. Sophia was also involved in the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project in Dilley, Texas where she helped provide legal services to asylum-seeking women and children and advocated for an end to family detention. Sophia sheds light on the Biden administration’s mass deportation of Haitian refugees and how right-wing judges anointed by the Federalist Society are keeping the most draconian Trump policies in place. The gang also picks up where Sophia’s last interview left off, discussing Biden’s immigration plan and its shortcomings, Bill Clinton’s immigration legacy and the history of the prison-to-deportation pipeline, and why movements for climate justice, workers’ rights and prison-industrial complex abolition can’t shy away from the demand to abolish borders. You can follow Sophia on Twitter @s_phia_ and find out more about the work of organizations like Haitian Bridge Alliance, Grassroots Leadership and Black Alliance for Just Immigration. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This is a free clip of our Patreon-only episode with Brett and Bryan of Street Fight Radio. Subscribe at Patreon to hear the rest! On this episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by the hosts of Street Fight Radio, Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby.  Brett and Bryan update us on their latest post-pandemic lifestyle choices—from Bryan's weight loss to Brett's flashy new paint job—and what types of hedonistic misadventures they've been up to.  The gang also gets into the spooky season a little early by talking aliens, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and Brett and Bryan try their luck at another game of Ohio or Nohio. Finally, we learn why Bryan thinks "wrestling is back" thanks to the AEW, and how the WWE has failed audiences and wrestlers, paving the wave for a more exciting and creative world of wrestling. Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain and Bryan @murderxbryan. You can also follow the official Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by socialist congressional candidate and political organizer Imani Oakley, formerly legislative director for New Jersey Working Families, deputy chief of staff in the New Jersey State Assembly, and constituent advocate in the US Senate. She is also the first Dean of Movement Building at the Movement School and recently declared her candidacy in New Jersey’s 10th congressional district, challenging four-term incumbent Donald Payne Jr. in the June 2022 Democratic primary.  Imani describes the experiences that galvanized her to get involved in policy making at the highest levels of government while pushing her further and further to the left, from witnessing police brutality in her neighborhood to working in the district office of Senator Cory Booker. Imani also talks about her work at Working Families, where she took on New Jersey’s wildly corrupt ballot design, protesting the Biden administration’s eviction inaction with Cori Bush on the Capitol steps, her vision for housing policy, her opponent’s warm relations with ICE, and how she’s taking on the notoriously entrenched New Jersey political machine.  You can follow Imani on Twitter @ImaniOakleyNJ10 and donate or find out more about how to get involved in her campaign at oakleyforcongress.com. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Shanti Singh and René Christian Moya. Shanti is the Legislative and Communications Director for the statewide tenants rights organization Tenants Together. René is an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union and campaign coordinator for ACCE, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.Shanti and René join us to discuss the consequences of evictions in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, and how the eviction moratorium has played out for renters. We examine the impact of the moratorium, the lack of tenancy protections, and the displacement of the homelessness in California. The crew also discusses the nefarious ties between members of the real estate industry and property owners and their efforts to further criminalize the unhoused communities in California.Follow René on Twitter @rcmoya84 and you can also visit the LA Tenants Union’s website at join.latenentsunion.org to become a member. You can follow Shanti on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support their work at tenantstogether.org. A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by labor and tech reporter extraordinaire Edward Ongweso Jr., a staff writer at Vice’s Motherboard and cohost of This Machine Kills, a podcast about the political economy of tech.  Ed shares a bit about his own history as an organizer, which saw him involved in the successful campaign to pass the country's first ride-hail vehicle license cap for drivers in New York City, before expanding on his reporting about the nationwide strike of Uber and Lyft drivers on July 21. The gang discusses the package of antitrust legislation targeting the tech sector currently waiting for a floor vote in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the PRO Act reportedly included in Democrats’ Senate infrastructure bill and how they would impact labor struggles in the gig economy. Ed explains why Uber’s business model is not what it seems and that it is unprofitable by design, situating the company’s practices in the context of the possibility of a tech bubble in the stock market and its implications for the broader economy. The gang rounds out the conversation by zooming in on US-based tech entrepreneurs’ predatory and increasingly devastating push for the adoption of cryptocurrencies by vulnerable populations worldwide.  You can follow Ed on Twitter @bigblackjacobin and keep up with his staggeringly prolific reporting at Motherboard as well as his podcast, This Machine Kills.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by grassroots organizer and abolitionist Mariame Kaba, known best as @prisonculture on Twitter. Mariame, whose work focuses primarily on dismantling the prison industrial complex, is also the founder of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration, and co-founded a number of other organizations including the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women. Mariame describes the impact that mutual aid has had during the pandemic, and how mutual aid functions as an act of solidarity, especially during times of crisis when communities are left without resources. We also discuss her new, New York Times bestselling book "We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing And Transforming Justice" and the abolitionist principles that help guide her work. The crew also examines the emotional satisfaction and fallout behind high profile cases like those of Bill Cosby and Derek Chauvin, and why retribution and revenge are not the same as justice. You can follow Mariame on Twitter @prisonculture. For more details on the mutual aid toolkit make sure to visit The Big Door Brigade. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Enjoy this free teaser of our interview with Sarah Jaffe. Subscribe at Patreon to hear the whole thing!   This week Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest and labor journalist extraordinaire Sarah Jaffe, cohost of Dissent Magazine’s Belabored podcast and the author of two books: Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, and a new book out this year from Hurst and Bold Type Books, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone.   The gang starts off with the latest on the Palestinian general strike and takes stock of how the BDS movement has shifted US political discourse on Israeli apartheid before moving across the pond as Sarah explains the role of anti-Palestinian propaganda in the UK Labour Party. Sarah debunks business owners’ claims of a “labor shortage” in the US and takes a sober look at the state of the labor movement today before ending on a sporting note.   Follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahljaffe, keep up with her work on her personal website sarahljaffe.com and workwontloveyouback.org, check out the Belabored podcast, and don’t forget to pick up a copy of Work Won’t Love You Back.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined—from Ramallah, Palestine—by Rawan Eid and Fathi Nimer, creators of the resource hub Decolonize Palestine. Previously, Rawan organized for Students for Justice in Palestine and the Democratic Socialists of America. After moving to Palestine, she began working for a feminist organization in Ramallah and attending meetings at a local youth group dedicated to sharing Palestinians’ stories and providing a space for discussion. Fathi Nimer is a political scientist, activist, and a former teaching fellow at the Democracy and Human Rights program at Birzeit University. Rawan and Fathi describe the lessons they've drawn from their personal lives in creating Decolonize Palestine, and how the long arm of Israeli apartheid has impacted and dictated their day to day experiences—from accessing identification cards, the difficulties they face in traveling to Jerusalem from their home in Ramallah, and even something as simple as having a pet. We examine how far the discourse on Palestine has shifted in the last few years, and recent weeks after the recent massacre in Gaza, and what this means for efforts to confront the occupation both on the ground in occupied Palestine and elsewhere in the world. Fathi describes how academic work has been stymied by the occupation, including calculated efforts by Israel to prevent countless students from leaving the blockaded Gaza Strip in order to study abroad. We also discuss Israel's historical media censorship inside occupied Palestine and the state's violent attacks on journalists and those engaging in political activity. Rawan and Fathi highlight the recent wave of lynchings of Palestinians and the IDF's mass arrests in Lydd, named "Operation Law and Order" and how this is meant to send a message to Palestinians across occupied Palestine that should they rise up in protest that the state will respond with force. Finally, the crew talks about ways you can get involved and resources you can access to get better informed about the situation on the ground as well as the historical context that brought us here today. Follow Rawan on @RiverToSea48, and Fathi @AManInTheSun. For your go-to resource on all things Palestine make sure to visit decolonizepalestine.com and support their work at patreon.com/decolonizepalestine List of Palestine-related donation causes: Palestine Children’s Relief Fund Palestine Red Crescent Society  BuildPalestine Middle East Children’s Alliance Medical Aid for Palestinians Al Makassed Hospital/Jerusalem Hospitals United Palestinian Appeal  Taawon Political resources: Palestine Youth Movement National Students for Justice in Palestine  US Campaign for Palestinian rights  Adalah Legal Center  Al Haq BDS Adalah-NY campaign for boycott of Israel 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!!!

Kumars and Roqayah are joined this week by India Walton, a registered nurse, community organizer and candidate for mayor of Buffalo, New York. She is a founder and former executive director of Fruit Belt community land trust, an historic grassroots housing justice organization, and also former lead community organizer for Open Buffalo’s Opportunity and Justice coalition. She’s already picked up endorsements from the Democratic Socialists of America and New York’s Working Families Party. They call her the unofficial Mayor of Buffalo, she’s just looking to make it super official. We talk to India about her ideas for transforming the city of Buffalo, including her ideas around policing and public safety, housing, food access, COVID response and more. If you want to support India's campaign, you can volunteer or donate. 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 returning guest Sydney Ghazarian and first timer Ashik Siddique, both climate organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America’s Ecosocialist Working Group and coordinators for DSA’s Green New Deal and PRO Act campaigns. Syd is the Los Angeles-based founder of the Ecosocialist Working Group and previously came on the show to tackle everything from racism in the environmentalist movement to what we can learn from indigenous-led pipeline blockades, as well as her article in In These Times outlining an agenda for escalating climate organizing through labor tactics. Ashik serves on the steering committee of the Ecosocialist Working Group and is a research analyst with the National Priorities Project, an initiative of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.  After Ashik shares a bit about his personal path to organizing and the left, the gang jumps into the history of US labor law and breaks down how the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House of Representatives in 2020 and again on March 9, 2021, would fundamentally alter it, from legalizing secondary strikes to extending labor protections to undocumented immigrants. Syd and Ashik discuss the emerging coalition between unions and the socialist left, as well as the concrete ways the PRO Act would have impacted the unionization efforts of Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama. Visit proact.dsausa.org to sign up for phone banking in states whose senators do not yet support the bill.  Follow Ashik on Twitter @ahSHEEK and Syd @SydneyAzari. You can also follow the DSA Ecosocialist Working Group @DSAecosocialism and find out more about how to get involved in this campaign as well as their future efforts here.  To keep up with what is happening in Palestine and to learn more about ways you can help, visit the Electronic Intifada and Decolonize Palestine. 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 from the top of the hour by Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby, hosts of Street Fight Radio and the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV, in their first appearance on the show since November. The gang catches up, discussing Biden banning blunts and recent innovations in the field of getting high. Brett and Bryan talk about the community response in Columbus to the police murder of Ma’Khia Bryant before tackling electoral politics, identity politics, and the banality of J.D. Vance.  Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan at @murderxbryan, and the Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS, and as always you can hear Street Fight Radio wherever pods are cast. 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 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. 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 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. 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!!!

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!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston and his chief of staff Jen Snyder to discuss just how the pandemic is impacting homelessness, housing, and evictions across California.  Dean, founder of Tenants Together, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on housing, and how his administration worked to permanently ban evictions in San Francisco for those unable to pay their rent due to COVID-19. Jen, a housing rights activist and former campaign manager for Proposition F, a San Francisco ballot measure that guaranteed tenants a lawyer if they’re being evicted or otherwise forced out by their landlords, breaks down the failures of San Francisco Mayor London Breed and what it will take to bring about real change for homeless communities in California.   Finally, we examine the role of California governor Gavin Newsom and why his moratorium on evictions has not stopped police from violently throwing families out onto the streets, even in the midst of a 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, just in time for the inevitable arguments at Zoom Thanksgiving, Roqayah and Kumars go guest-less, spreading holiday cheer with a look at Trump’s foreign policy in review. They analyze the common conception of Trump as an anti-interventionist, taking stock of his legacy in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East before touching on some of what we can expect from the incoming Democratic administration.   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!!!

For Roqayah’s triumphant return, she and Kumars are joined from the top of the hour by friends of the show Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby for the 4-year reunion of their classic election night 2016 episode. Brett and Bryan are the hosts of Street Fight Radio as well as the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV.  The gang begins by catching up at the tail end of the weirdest year in American history before diving into some ballot proposition election results across the country, including big wins for drugs. They then proceed to hash out the thorniest issues surrounding the ongoing election and possible futures for the left under a Biden administration, and a wonderful time is had by all.  Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan at @murderxbryan, and the Street Fight show account @StreetFightWCRS, and as always you can hear Street Fight Radio wherever pods are cast. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Shanti Singh along with René Christian Moya, California-based housing rights activists extraordinaire, for a deep dive into Proposition 21, the statewide rent control expansion up for popular referendum in next week’s elections. Shanti, who is based in San Francisco, is a leader in DSA SF’s Housing Committee, the former deputy data director for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign in California, and currently serves as the legislation and communications coordinator for the statewide renters' rights group Tenants Together. René is based out of Los Angeles, formerly of the LA Tenants Union and is the Campaign Director for the Yes on 21 campaign. René, Shanti, and Kumars begin by outlining the looming eviction crisis which has already begun thanks in part to the Trump administration’s so-called moratorium at the federal level. René, who was last on the show discussing Prop 10, the previous iteration of Prop 21, explains how the new ballot measure differs in terms of specifics, and why the political situation is more favorable than in the 2018 midterms. The gang talks about the real estate industry’s $70 million, Republican-aligned campaign to defeat the proposal as well as Prop 21’s biggest backer, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. They round out the conversation on a positive note, discussing Shanti’s work with the elderly residents of SF’s Midtown Park Apartments, who just concluded the longest rent strike in the city’s history.  Follow René on Twitter @rcmoya84 and find out more or get involved in the final push, visit yeson21ca.org. You can follow Shanti on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support their work at tenantstogether.org. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Nora Barrows-Friedman, associate editor at the Electronic Intifada and cohost of the Electronic Intifada Podcast as well as The Brief, along with Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Estee Chandler, founder of that group’s Los Angeles chapter, producer of Middle East in Focus and Middle East Minute+ on KPFK, and host of the upcoming podcast called The Breakout Room with Estee Chandler. After sharing her personal path to Palestine solidarity activism, including her career in Hollywood as an actor and visual effects artist, Estee introduces listeners to the saga surrounding The Lobby – USA, a four-part Al Jazeera documentary exposing Israel’s covert influence operations in the United States that remains largely unseen almost three years after its completion due to a successful pressure campaign from the Israel lobby to get the government of Qatar to censor the film, later obtained and released by the Electronic Intifada. The gang discusses the context of the surge in repression of the Palestine solidarity movement after 2014, when an initial wave of victories for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns were followed by a critical mass of activists explicitly linking white supremacy in the US and Israel-Palestine at the protests sparked by the police killing of Michael Brown. Estee explains what the documentary reveals about the strategy and methods of Israel lobby organizations as well as the close relationships between them and the Israeli government.  To RSVP for the special screening of the 1 hour supercut (plus a Q&A to follow) this Thursday October 15, go to jvp.org/LobbyCampusCut.  You can follow Estee on Twitter at @caliactivist and keep up with her organizing with JVP Los Angeles @JVP_LA. You can follow Nora @norabf, and check out the Electronic Intifada podcast at electronicintifada.net as well as The Brief at thebriefpodcast.com and wherever pods are cast.  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!!!

As a special treat, we've unlocked our recent sporting edition of Delete Your Account AFTER HOURS. Kumars was joined once again by Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op, who host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their weekly collaboration with Means TV.  The Sams give listeners a rundown of newsworthy events in the worlds of sports and politics, including the hijacked NBA players’ strike over the killings of James Blake and other black victims of police and vigilante violence, a campaign to organize the first tennis players’ union that leaves much to be desired, and the Big Ten buckling to pressure from conservatives to proceed with the college football season in the face of rising COVID-19 numbers at universities. The gang rounds out the hour nerding out about soccer, dissecting their memories of World Cups past, their favorite players, and their varying degrees of hatred for the USMNT.  You can follow Sam Sacks on Twitter @SamSacks and the official District Sentinel account tweets @TheDCSentinel. Subscribe to Means TV to keep up with their antics every week, but Means Morning News is also available to nonmembers, in audio-only form, wherever pods are cast. 

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two veterans of arguably the first successful video game worker strike in history, writer Krissy Perez and returning guest Emma Kinema. Krissy is the most senior writer for Lovestruck, a mobile visual romance novel game distributed by the US subsidiary of Japanese developer Voltage Inc. and played by millions worldwide, and a member of Voltage Organized Workers (VOW). Emma Kinema is a former game developer, one of the founders of Game Workers Unite, and currently serves as Campaign Lead for the CODE-CWA, the Communications Workers of America's initiative to organize unions in the North American tech industry.  Krissy gives listeners a lay of the land at Voltage USA, explaining how the Lovestruck writers’ famously prolific output has come at the cost of brutally tight deadlines and industry-low pay. The gang walks through a timeline of the VOW strike, which lasted 3 weeks and ended in a decisive win, securing the workers substantial pay raises among other concessions. Krissy and Emma reflect on the Voltage workers’ messaging making it clear that they are all members of marginalized genders and/or sexualities, and what worker power means to Lovestruck’s heavily female and queer fanbase.  You can follow Krissy on Twitter @kepmakingwords, Emma @EmmaKinema, CODE @CODE_CWA and the Lovestruck writers @VOW_Together. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two organizers with the Southwest Louisiana chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America: Phil Peterson, an activist, organizer, and educator based in Lake Charles Louisiana, and Megan Romer, also an organizer, writer, and educator based in the neighboring city of Lafayette, Louisiana. After introducing listeners to their communities and their personal paths to organizing, Phil and Megan describe the devastation on the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Laura as DSA SWLA and allied groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief continue their recovery efforts despite a lack of interest from national media.  Phil discusses his experience of being displaced by the storm and the significance of Louisiana activists as innovators at the vanguard of climate struggle, and Megan explains the key lessons we can learn from DSA SWLA about organizing during a pandemic, along with the convoluted local politics behind the city of Lafayette’s refusal to accept refugees from Lake Charles in the aftermath of the police killing of 31-year-old Trayford Pellegrin on August 21. The gang highlights the willful abdication of responsibility by Louisiana’s Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards and the dire implications of local authorities’ decision to lift mandatory evacuation orders for the majority-black, heavily working class people of Lake Charles and the surrounding area, over 10,000 of whom are now forced by FEMA to pay out of pocket to subsidize New Orleans’s otherwise failing hotels.  You can follow Phil on Twitter @Sadsackjacobin and Megan @meganromer. To keep abreast of Southwest Louisiana DSA’s activities and to check for updates on how you can help, follow them on Twitter as well @DSASWLA, and donate to their GoFundMe here. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Kimberly Galindo, lead organizer for Southern California’s High Desert region with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, an alliance of over 40 civil society organizations providing support to immigrant communities. Kimberly starts off by describing about her own political development growing up undocumented and later becoming a DACA recipient. She gives listeners an introduction to ICIJ’s various aid projects and advocacy campaigns since the start of the pandemic, recounting their spectacular direct action at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento California, where 14 undocumented organizers and immigration attorneys were arrested after chaining themselves to Gavin Newsom’s front gate demanding an end to ICE transfers and the release of those behind bars as coronavirus runs roughshod through the US prison system.  Kimberly talks about her work acting as a liaison with detainees at the privately-owned Adelanto Detention Facility, detailing what she’s seen and heard of the conditions there. Kimberly and Kumars discuss a number of recent news items that throw the Trump administration’s genocidal immigration agenda into sharp relief, including reports of mass, nonconsensual hysterectomies performed in a Georgia ICE facility, and Kimberly shares her perspective on the flaws of DACA, Barack Obama’s legacy in immigrant communities, and the resonance of immigrant struggles in a moment of unprecedented visibility for the politics of prison-industrial complex abolition.  You can follow ICIJ on Twitter @IC4IJ and learn more about their work at ic4ij.org, and you can donate to their Adelanto bond fund here. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Madeline Peltz, senior researcher at Media Matters for America and the world’s foremost expert on Tucker Carlson. Madeline is best known for combing through the Fox News host’s weekly guest spots on the talk radio program of C-list shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, exposing a history of openly bigoted statements that put Carlson’s seeming descent into white nationalism in its proper context. Madeline breaks down several of her recent articles for Media Matters on the revolving door between the Trump administration and conservative media personalities as well as how One America News Network and Fox News are covering the QAnon movement and the rise of white nationalism generally. Madeline begins by discussing her explosive report on former OANN correspondent Emily Miller, who was appointed FDA spokesperson by Trump and fired 11 days later, shortly after Madeline’s reporting. Madeline and Kumars review the responses of Carlson and other Fox hosts to the Kenosha shooting, including Sean Hannity, whose lawyer is involved in Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal defense. Madeline and Kumars investigate whether Trump really has ditched Fox for OANN, round out the conversation by updating listeners on the campaign urging corporate advertisers to boycott “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” taking stock of the efficacy and limits of boycotts targeting far-right media. You can follow Madeline on Twitter @peltzmadeline and keep up with her work at mediamatters.org.  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 is only part of our interview with Eoin Higgins. If you want to get the whole interview, support the show, and receive access to tons of other bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!  Roqayah is still off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by onetime guest host and freelance journalist Eoin Higgins, who has written for The Intercept, Common Dreams, FAIR.org, Vice, and the Washington Post. After sharing a bit of his personal background and political trajectory, Eoin breaks down his most recent reporting for The Intercept on the ongoing scandal surrounding Massachusetts Democratic Party efforts to torpedo the primary challenge of progressive House candidate Alex Morse, mayor of the Western Massachusetts town of Holyoke, who is running to unseat entrenched incumbent Rep. Richard Neal in MA’s 1st congressional district on Sept. 1.  Eoin walks listeners through the initial coverage by his colleagues Ryan Grim and Daniel Boguslaw, which revealed that members of College Democrats at the University of Massachusetts Amherst had been plotting to entrap Morse for over a year by engineering a situation in which they could frame him as a predator, before detailing the most recent developments, which suggest that the state Democratic Party actively coordinated with College Democrats to amplify the smear that has now blown up in their faces.  Subscribe on Patreon to hear the full version of this interview, including Eoin’s predictions for another Massachusetts Democratic primary battle he’s been covering — the Senate race between Green New Deal sponsor Ed Markey and his conservative challenger, Rep. Joe Kennedy III — and his assessment of the eclectic coalitions assembled on either side You can follow Eoin on Twitter @EoinHiggins_ to stay abreast of his future work for other outlets as well as his personal blog at eoinhiggins.com. 

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by the hosts of the Left POCket Project Podcast, returning guest Wendi Muse and Richard, who makes his Delete Your Account debut. Wendi is the creator of the Left POCket Project and a PhD Candidate in History at New York University, where her dissertation analyzes the impact of anticolonial struggles in Portuguese Africa on the Brazilian left during the Cold War. Richard is a gig worker and cohost the now defunct Progressive Army’s The Discourse podcast.  After sharing a bit about his political origin story, Richard talks about what he learned from participating in the uprisings in Washington state this summer, and Wendi updates listeners on what’s been new in her life since her previous appearance. Wendi and Richard react to this week’s Democratic National Convention and the selection of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. They discuss Democrats’ appropriation of identity politics and pro-worker rhetoric, corporate attempts to co-opt Black Lives Matter, the discourse around “cancel culture,” and how socialists should think about the relationship between capitalism and white supremacy.  Follow Wendi on Twitter @MuseWendi and Richard at @Road2Revolution. The Left Pocket Project podcast is on Twitter @LeftPOC, and available to listen and download whenever pods are cast, but you can find every episode for free as well as support their work at https://www.patreon.com/leftpoc. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Food Not Bombs cofounder and veteran organizer Keith McHenry. Keith has been active with various chapters of the network of mutual aid collectives known as Food Not Bombs for four decades and is the author of several books including Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community, which is the original handbook for the group’s model of movement building through vegan food distribution.  Keith shares moments from an eventful life, like the mentorship of Howard Zinn and facing massive repression and criminalization from the highest levels of government, including staring down 25 to life under California’s “three strikes” law. Keith talks about the stories of organizers from Myanmar to Iceland who have engaged in direct action under the banner of Food Not Bombs, and Keith and Kumars reflect on the legacy of the movement, including the role of anarchism and punk culture in sustaining and how mutual aid projects inspired by Food Not Bombs are responding to the current moment. You can find the current Food Not Bombs handbook in addition to every other imaginable resource for finding a chapter near you or starting your own at foodnotbombs.net. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Olivia Katbi Smith and first-timer Albert Lee, both members of Portland DSA who have been in the streets of Portland since the uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing began. Olivia is the co-chair of Portland DSA and a board member of CAIR Oregon. Albert Lee is a Portland-based activist, a member of Portland DSA and former Our Revolution-endorsed congressional candidate who earlier this year ran as an open socialist in an unprecedented primary challenge to incumbent Democrat Earl Blumenauer in Oregon’s 3rd.  Olivia and Albert share their experiences of the ongoing federal occupation of Portland by DHS and paramilitary forces from other agencies as well as their insights into the way imperial tactics and far-right ideology have become more glaringly apparent in policing practices from local cops to the now nationwide wave of federal repression. The gang closes out by discussing the latest out of Portland, including the conflicting reports of DHS troop withdrawal and new evidence regarding the effects of the tear gas being used on protesters, as well as the newsworthy reinforcements and the ongoing mutual aid projects helping to sustain the movement.  And you dear listener can follow Albert on Twitter @AlbertLee2020 and Olivia at @livkittykat. 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, Kumars and returning guest host and policy analyst with Open the Government Freddy Martinez are joined by The Intercept’s Micah Lee, a journalist, activist, and prolific open-source software developer involved in the publication and analysis of recent leak, dubbed Blue Leaks, of about 270 gigabytes of police data from more than 200 police departments and fusion centers and some 700,000 cops.  Freddy and Micah are both members of the advisory board of the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which acquired and released the data before being banned from Twitter and raided by the German government. The gang runs through the different components and major takeaways from the vast trove, delving into Micah’s analysis for The Intercept and Freddy's report on fusion centers for Open the Government, including how fusion centers massively oversold the threat of left-wing protesters to local police departments while downplaying the threat of far-right violence and what the leaked police data can illuminate about the massive federal repression currently underway in US cities. You can follow Micah on Twitter @micahflee and keep up with the work of DDoSecrets at ddosecrets.com. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Albuquerque-based community organizer Selinda Guerrero, founder of the Albuquerque Mutual Aid Coalition and National Action Coordinator for Save the Kids, an all-volunteer organization working to end the school-to-prison pipeline. Selinda also organizes with Building Power for Black New Mexico, Forward Together, and the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), and heads the New Mexico chapter of the prison-industrial complex abolitionist group Millions for Prisoners.  After sharing a bit about her background as an organizer and the genesis of the mutual aid project she helped kick-start earlier in the pandemic, Selinda fills listeners in on the plight of her husband and fellow Black Lives Matter activist Clifton White, who helped organize BLM protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and was arrested on June 1 by Albuquerque police under extremely dubious circumstances. Selinda and Kumars discuss the conditions Clifton and other incarcerated people are facing from California to Louisiana as coronavirus continues to ravage the US prison system. Selinda relays testimonials from those behind bars, highlights their organizing in the face of government depravity, and reflects on what it means to be a political prisoner.  Please call Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham at (505) 476-2200 and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller at (505) 768-2200 and demand the immediate release of Clifton White (DOC #60458). You can find a complete list of numbers to call and a sample script here. You can also follow the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee at @IWW_IWOC and IWOC New Mexico at @IwocNew. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Vincent Bevins, an award winning journalist who has covered Southeast Asia and Latin America extensively for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and the author of a must-read history of US regime change operations during the Cold War, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World. Vincent begins by reacting to the breaking news that the far-right Brazilian government claims president Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for coronavirus. As is customary, Vincent shares a bit about his political evolution and background as a journalist before sketching the basics of his argument in the book, which moves beyond its primary focus on the US-backed military coup in Indonesia to tell the story of the Cold War as colonialism by other means. Vincent outlines the peculiar ideological landscape of postwar Indonesia, including the blend of nationalist, communist and Islamist forces that rallied under the anti-imperialist banner of the country’s founding father Sukarno. Vincent charts the evolution of the CIA’s strategy from the early coups in Iran and Guatemala to the model, perfected in Indonesia and named after its capital, that would be exported around the world.  You can follow Vincent on Twitter @Vinncent and find the latest on where you can buy the book at thejakartamethod.com. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by longtime guest host and prison-industrial complex abolitionist extraordinaire Mariame Kaba, pseudonymously known as @prisonculture. Mariame is the founder and director of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration, and has co-founded a number of other organizations including Survived & Punished and the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women.  Mariame shares her insight into the current momentum behind abolitionist demands in the wake of the protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, which she recently wrote about in a New York Times op-ed. Mariame and Kumars take stock of what the latest wave of Black Lives Matter protests have achieved thus far as well as state and corporate attempts at co-optation, assessing the sea change in discourse on policing in the United States and the criteria by which we should judge the various police reforms being proposed at all levels of government. Mariame rounds out the discussion with a reminder of the need for organizers not to lose focus on pandemic relief and other community support work, touching on her own involvement in getting Mutual Aid Projects 4 Youth off the ground.  Follow Mariame on Twitter @prisonculture, and learn how you can support young organizers or apply for a grant yourself at map4youth.com. 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 returning guest Shanti Singh, communications coordinator with the California statewide renters' rights group Tenants Together. Shanti discusses the challenges of navigating the landscape of housings advocacy, and how a pandemic and unprecedented unemployment numbers have turned already challenging campaigns for housing rights into minefields for renters and activists alike. Shanti also helps us tackle the intersection of class disparity and police repression, and how the police further housing insecurity in order to protect the property owning class while homelessness surges and Black communities face increased racial segregation. You can follow Shanti Singh on Twitter @uhshanti and Tenants Together @tenantstogether and learn more about how you can support at tenantstogether.org 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 have a rare one-on-one debrief on the wave of protests that have erupted in every US state in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. After recapping the basics of Floyd’s case, they give listeners a rundown of the spread of the protests across the country and the ensuing media narratives about looting and outside agitators. Roqayah and Kumars also touch on the brutal police repression of both protesters and journalists in mostly Democrat-run cities and states, as well as the growing calls for greater carnage from Trump and the right.  The Delete Your Account duo rounds out the hour with some helpful resources if you want to support the mutual aid efforts of People’s Breakfast Oakland and jailed protesters nationwide via the National Bail Fund Network. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by legal advocate, grassroots organizer, and congressional candidate Shahid Buttar about his campaign to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as he runs for California's 12th Congressional district.  Buttar, a lifelong activist, describes the lessons he's drawn from the Bernie Sanders campaign in developing his own progressive coalition and campaign, as well as what drew him out from the world of grassroots organizing and into the political arena. Buttar also discusses the failures of not only Nancy Pelosi and how his concerns with the speaker of the house transcend her office and lay at the feet of the Democratic Party itself. You can follow Shahid on Twitter @ShahidForChange, and visit shahidforchange.us to learn more about how you can support his campaign. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by journalist and editor at The Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman. We are also joined by Ali Abunimah, co-founder and editor of The Electronic Intifada. Ali is also the author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine and One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. We discuss Israel's response to the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip, which has included an end to the bare minimum testing of Gaza's besieged population. Ali and Nora tackle the issue of Palestinian life under lockdown, how it collides with and dissects and from the usual, draconian measures applied by the Israeli government. They also discuss the implications of the systemic attacks on necessary infrastructure by the Israeli government, which has included medical facilities, building supplies, and even tents. We also cover the impact of the Trump administration's position on the annexation of the West Bank, and why so-called bipartisan peace plans have resulted in further settlement expansion and the violent targeting of Palestinians. Follow Nora on Twitter @norabf, and Ali at @aliabunimah. You can also follow The Electronic Intifada @intifada. 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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two friends of the show, Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op. Together they host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their new weekly collaboration with Means TV. The Sams talk about the challenges of getting a TV news show off the ground amid the pandemic and how they see the DC Sentinel’s role in the budding left mediascape. The gang then discusses the mercenary raid on Venezuela, Bill Gates’s sinister designs for New York, how both parties workers are being sacrificed to the stock market, and why media narratives about left- and right-wing populism are anything but anti-establishment.  You can follow Sam Sacks on Twitter @SamSacks and the official District Sentinel account @TheDCSentinel. To watch their tomfoolery every week, subscribe to Means TV, but Means Morning News is now also available to nonmembers, in audio-only form, wherever pods are cast.  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 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 were joined once again by Matt Lubchansky, cartoonist and associate editor of the left-wing comics emporium The Nib. Matt is 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, and Brooklyn Magazine, among untold others. This time the gang takes a deep dive into the documentary miniseries Tiger King, plus obligatory updates on Matt’s social media shenanigans, quarantine cuisine, and aliens.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Sydney Ghazarian, a Los Angeles-based climate organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America, the founder of that organization’s Ecosocialist Working Group, and an advisory board member for the climate justice magazine The Trouble. After filling Roqayah and Kumars in on her own political background and evolution, as well as her recent involvement in DSA’s coronavirus response, Sydney talks about her work as a member both of the DSA’s Environmental Steering Committee and Green New Deal campaign committee.  The gang discusses Sydney’s article for In These Times outlining an agenda for escalating climate organizing based on tried-and-true labor tactics. Sydney shares her insight into major issues facing climate activists and others on the left, running the gamut from the racial politics of the environmental movement and what we can learn from indigenous-led pipeline blockades, to the socialist answer to the deepening oil price crash. Follow Sydney on Twitter @SydneyAzari. You can also follow the DSA Ecosocialist Working Group @DSA_Enviro and find out more about how to get involved here.  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!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined by farmer and organizer Nate Kleinman, cofounder of the nonprofit cooperative Experimental Farm Network (EFN) and project organizer of the EFN’s Cooperative Gardens Commission, a campaign to help millions of people carve out some measure of food sovereignty in the face of COVID-19. Nate begins by giving listeners a glimpse into his storied history of organizing, from Democratic political campaigns and labor union work to leading the charge on Occupy Sandy hurricane relief and running for Congress twice himself as a challenger to conservative Democratic incumbents, initially as “the first Occupy candidate” and then against Trump Democrat turned Republican Jeff van Drew.  Nate and Kumars then tackle the ins and outs of the EFN’s operation, including their free open-source platform for participatory plant breeding and developing new crops and infrastructure capable of providing for people in the face of economic crisis and climate catastrophe. Nate rounds out the hour with a rundown of EFN’s frontline efforts during the coronavirus pandemic and the necessity of building parallel infrastructure to help those most threatened by escalating instability to weather what’s coming.  You can follow the Experimental Farm Network on Facebook, find out more about the Cooperative Gardens Commission at coopgardens.org, and follow up on all the EFN’s other wonderful goods and services at their main site, experimentalfarmnetwork.org.  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 investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein, current DC correspondent for The Nation whose explosive work has appeared in The Daily Beast, and The Young Turks, among others.  We take a look at Ken's latest exclusive which shows evidence that the Pentagon was specifically aware of the likelihood of a pandemic, according to an internal document composed in 2017 and obtained by The Nation. Ken guides us through some of the eerily prescient 103-page document, which warns of the likelihood of hospital bed shortages, a lack of mechanical ventilators, and inadequate pharmaceutical treatment, all of which would come to "define how a country will emerge post-pandemic". We also discuss how the US is fairing compared to other nations, as well as the impact of the Trump administration's delayed response and what this poses for our future. You can follow Ken and keep up with his work on Twitter @kenklippenstein and at The Nation. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This is a special unlocked episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, normally only available on Patreon. Subscribe there for $5 for more like this! On this herculean episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, friends of the show Nima Shirazi, Brett Payne and Bryan Quimby tag-team to give Kumars a primer on pro wrestling. Nima is a NYC-based political analyst who cohosts the podcast Citations Needed, Brett and Bryan are the hosts of Street Fight Radio, and together they share their wrestling fandom, breaking down their favorite personalities, labor issues in the industry, and the intersections between wrestling and conservative politics, including Trump’s history with the WWE.  Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain, Bryan @MurderBryan and Street Fight Radio @StreetFightWCRS. Nima is also @WideAsleepNima, and you can keep up with his latest work on his website and as well as Citations Needed. 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by insurgent Congressional candidate Arati Kreibich, an activist, a neuroscientist, a borough councilmember in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and the primary challenger to conservative Democrat Josh Gottheimer, the current House representative for NJ’s 5th district.  After filling listeners in on her personal path to left-wing politics, including her family history of resistance to British colonialism and emigration to the United States, Arati describes the galvanizing effect of the 2016 election, and details the subsequent experience of disappointment after working to elect Gottheimer, ending almost a century of GOP representation for NJ-5. The gang examines Gottheimer’s record of voting with Republicans as co-chair of the right-wing “Problem Solvers Caucus,” and his reputation for personal unpleasantness. Arati, Roqayah and Kumars round out the hour with a policy discussion, covering the government’s coronavirus response and the urgency of radical climate action. Follow Arati on Twitter @Arati4Congress, and visit her campaign website to learn more about her platform and how you can help!  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 Detroit-based filmmakers Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, cofounders of Means Media and co-creators of the new digital streaming service Means TV, a workers’ cooperative and a left-wing alternative to soul-crushing corporate behemoths like Netflix.  Naomi and Nick share how they came to left politics and made a name for themselves producing the defining campaign videos for AOC and other insurgent congressional candidates in the run-up to the 2018 midterm election. They explain why the business magazine Fast Company named them one of the world’s most innovative companies, and give listeners a rundown of their diverse slate of content, including feature films, documentaries, animation and gaming content. The gang discusses their shared love for Street Fight Radio and the value of building our own independent cultural institutions in the face of increasing attempts by establishment media to co-opt the creative energy of the rising American left.  Follow Naomi on Twitter @NaomiABurton and Nick @nickhayesfilm. You can subscribe to Means TV and browse their content on their website, means.tv. 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 Amanda, also known as @CatContentOnly on Twitter, an independent researcher based in NYC whose work focuses on cultural impressions around health and illnesses. Amanda, a medical anthropology graduate from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, discusses the one thing on everyone's mind this week: COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus. We take a deep look into what the Coronavirus is and the long term implications for those with compromised immune systems and other pre-existing medical conditions as well as homeless communities, who already face brutal restrictions and state sanctioned abuse. Amanda helps us understand the ongoing failures of the US government in responding to what the World Health Organization has classified as a "pandemic". The crew also examines the xenophobic hysteria that has resulted in attacks on Asian communities and heightened stigmatization which includes the description of this virus as "foreign" and "Chinese".  Finally, we examine the impact that unilateral US sanctions are having on Iran during this pandemic and how China is attempting to assist Iran during this outbreak. 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!!!

Today we’re joined by writer and journalist Leslie Lee III, host of the left-wing arts and culture podcast Struggle Session, to take stock of the Bernie Sanders campaign thus far and the state of the Democratic primary race after another night of favorable results for Joe Biden.  After filling listeners in on his own origin story and the birth of Struggle Session, Leslie breaks down the media narratives around overwhelming black support for Biden and the various premature postmortems on Bernie’s 2020 bid. The gang discusses the importance of taking heart from how far we’ve come since 2016, keeping up the momentum around Bernie’s agenda to the convention, and expanding the base for a socialist movement by organizing around specific issues, regardless of electoral outcomes. Finally, the crew rounds out the hour with an obligatory Star Wars segment.  You can follow Leslie on Twitter @leslieleeiii and check out Struggle Session wherever pods are cast.  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 Kate Willett, comedian, writer, and co-host of the left-wing feminist podcast Reply Guys. Kate has also appeared in Netflix's “Comedy Lineup” and recently made her network debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Kate dives into how she broke out in comedy and what has helped define her left-wing bona fides, including the tragic passing of her boyfriend, comedian Raghav Mehta.  We discuss her powerful essay for ELLE Magazine which explains just how Kate went from a Hillary Clinton fan to a quintessential Bernie Bro, and how canvassing for the Sanders campaign has helped her deal with the aftermath of losing Raghav. 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 from Jackson, Mississippi by veteran community organizers Pauline and Frederick Rogers. Pauline is President of the RECH Foundation or Reaching and Educating for Community Hope, and cofounder of that organization along with her husband Fred. Pauline and Frederick were both formerly incarcerated at Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm. Together they founded RECH as a prison and reentry ministry whose projects include the Wendy Hatcher Transitional Home and the Mississippi Freedom Letters Campaign in collaboration with historian and activist Garrett Felber, assistant professor of history the University of Mississippi and author of the book Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State, out now from University of North Carolina Press.  After Pauline and Fred share a bit of how their lives have been impacted by the prison system, they outline the broad range of services and advocacy they are able to engage in through the RECH Foundation. Pauline, Fred and Garrett discuss the deepening prison crisis in Mississippi, where 19 inmates have died in state prisons since the end of last year, most of them in the notorious Parchman facility. They explain why the Mississippi prison system and especially Parchman have a particular reputation for brutality, detailing both the history of the institution and the current conditions inmates endure. The crew ends by giving their assessment of state and federal government responses to the crisis as well as the double-edged sword of celebrity-driven media attention that has recently brought Parchman into the national spotlight.  You can follow Pauline on Twitter @rechpauline, Garrett at @garrett_felber and learn more about everyone’s work at the RECH Foundation on their website.  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 Briahna Joy Gray, National Press Secretary for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and co-host of the Hear The Bern podcast. After shedding light on her formative years before joining the Sanders campaign, Brie breaks down one of the most covered media narratives that has plagued the movement: the Bernie Bro myth. Brie unpacks the implications of this smear and explains just how diverse the Sanders coalition truly is.  The gang then discusses the weaponization of identity politics by members of the liberal pundit class, and breaks down how Bernie Sanders' policy positions stack up with the other candidates still left on the field. We also get into the unique outreach tactics employed by Sanders canvassers who knocked on over 500,000 doors in the lead up to the Iowa caucus, and who appealed to the most disenfranchised communities in places like Ottumwa where Donald Trump had swept in 2016. We also weigh up Mike Bloomberg's infiltration into the Democratic primary and what the Sanders campaign is focusing on to continue their winning streak through Super Tuesday. You can follow Brie on Twitter @briebriejoy, listen to the campaign's official podcast on Hear The Bern, and keep up to date with the Sanders movement at berniesanders.com. 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 Lana Polansky, a Montreal-based video game critic, designer and journalist whose writing has appeared on Vice, Paste, and Kill Screen, among other outlets. After charting her personal journey to the intersection of gaming and left-wing politics, Lana explains the experimental impulses behind the category of indie games, with the help of a series of essays for the digital arts and culture outlet Rhizome detailing how the concept of empathy has become a buzzword in the industry.  Lana then gives listeners a lay of the land with respect to labor conditions for game workers and their efforts to organize, including her retrospective on Gamergate and the function of far-right cultural politics as worker suppression in a completely neoliberal industry, the new campaign by the Communications Workers of America in collaboration with Game Workers Unite to help unionize workers at game companies, and her own work with Game Curious Montreal, the “radical book club for games” bringing gaming enthusiasts together with local social justice organizers.  You can follow Lana on Twitter @mechapoetic, tune in to her weekly Twitch streams at twitch.tv/mechapoetic, keep up with her independent work on her personal website sufficientlyhuman.com and her other other independent work at patreon.com/Lana Polansky.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

In a momentous edition of Delete Your Account After Hours, Roqayah and Kumars welcome back our resident film and TV critic Sean T. Collins for our annual Oscar season roundup of the year’s best and worst movies and television, with an end of the decade twist. Sean writes for Rolling Stone and the New York Times among other outlets, and when last we heard from him, he was writing an essay every day of 2019 about Road House. This time, the gang discusses Sean’s new essay for The Outline on the character of Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars, the nominees for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Sean’s top 5 TV shows of the decade, why no one is talking about Game of Thrones, and why horror is the undisputed top genre of 2010's entertainment. You can follow Sean on Twitter @theseantcollins, and find more of his writing on cinema and television at seantcollins.com.

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Freddy Martinez, and Nathan "Nash" Sheard. Freddy is currently a policy analyst with the nonpartisan government accountability coalition Open The Government. Nash is an associate director of community organizing at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Freddy and Nash bring us up to speed on the explosive investigative report from the New York Times on the elusive facial recognition vendor, Clearview AI, which has scraped some three billion images for its database from social media platforms and sold them to law enforcement agencies for just $2,000 a month. We also explore the ways in which our personal information is being commodified and then sold back to as a part of wider surveillance capitalism; everything from the hottest security technology, like Ring, to software like Photoshop and everyday phone applications. With help from Nash and Freddy, we unpack the feasibility of privacy legislation and how law enforcement organizations, like ICE, still manage to find legal ways to mine databases and use facial recognition technology with help from the world's leading tech giants including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Finally, we learn about active campaigns like the ACLU's "Press Pause" initiative that intend to help control the surge of facial recognition software and why an outright ban on this technology may be the safest way to protect our privacy. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Nima Shirazi is a NYC-based media critic and political analyst who edits the English-language Middle East news outlet Muftah and cohosts the podcast Citations Needed with friend of the show Adam Johnson. After sharing some choice tidbits about his formative years and political trajectory, Nima unpacks the ongoing saga surrounding the Iranian government’s accidental downing of a Ukrainian airliner during its military operation in retaliation for the Trump administration’s Jan. 3 killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani. The gang then discusses the fallout from Soleimani’s assassination, including the latest push for regime change and a rundown of the reactions from leading Democratic presidential candidates. Nima runs the gamut from growing up growing up as an Iranian American and rooting for the Iron Sheik, to the media’s demonization of Soleimani and branding of the Islamic Republic as a terrorist state, to a fresh wave of repression here at home, like the detention of Iranians (including US citizens) at the border as well as Facebook removing pro-Soleimani posts from Instagram under the pretense that they violate US sanctions. You can follow Nima on Twitter @WideAsleepNima, keep up with his latest work on his website and over at Citations Needed. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson. Nathan is also a PhD student at Harvard University, a columnist for the Guardian, and author of the new book Why You Should Be a Socialist. After filling listeners in on what he’s been up to since his first appearance on the show, Nathan lays out his pitch in the book and a recent article for NBC News to readers who might be socialists, but don’t know it yet.  Then the gang takes a deep dive into the political phenomenon of Pete Buttigieg, revisiting Nathan’s magnum opus on Buttigieg from early in his candidacy and expanding on it to cover his tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, his consulting work for McKinsey & Company, his military service in Afghanistan, and his catastrophic record on racial issues. Finally, Nathan takes stock of the Buttigieg campaign’s momentum going forward and shares his take on the state of play in the Democratic primary.  You can follow Nathan on Twitter @NathanJRobinson, read his work over on the Current Affairs website and pick up Why You Should Be a Socialist wherever books are still sold. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined by Madeline Peltz, a research coordinator at Media Matters for America where she covers the rise of the far right in conservative media and has emerged as the world’s foremost expert on Tucker Carlson.  Madeline famously combed through the Fox News host’s weekly guest appearances from 2006 to 2011 on the talk radio program of C-list shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, exposing a history of openly bigoted statements that put Carlson’s lingering prestige in media circles and the confusion surrounding his descent into fascism in their proper context. After catching listeners up on the history and mission of Media Matters, Madeline and Kumars dive deep into the utility of boycotting Fox News, the weirdest Fox commercials, how the network’s ideological project has evolved in the Trump era, and what makes “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” of all its offerings, uniquely dangerous.  You can follow Madeline Peltz on Twitter @peltzmadeline and keep up with her work on the Media Matters website.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined once again by activist extraordinaire Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the antiwar organization CODEPINK, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the author of many books. Medea also just returned from Bolivia, where she witnessed the state’s brutal repression of dissent in the aftermath of the Nov. 10 ouster of President Evo Morales by the military and police. Medea begins by laying out the basics of the situation in Bolivia, refuting the far-right opposition’s charges of election fraud and clarifying the role of the US-dominated regional multilateral body Organization of American States (OAS) as a vehicle for legitimizing regime change in Latin America.  Medea and Kumars then touch on the history of foreign intervention in Bolivia, Morales’s record and his now scuffled plan to nationalize the country’s lithium reserves. Medea breaks down the dynamics of the counterrevolution, including interim president Jeanine Añez, explaining how an unpopular Christian nationalist minority was able to stoke the traditional elite’s racist resentment of Bolivia’s indigenous majority and leverage a violent intimidation campaign against socialist leaders to shut Morales’s party out of government—tactics now codified in the coup government’s decree granting security forces legal immunity to crack down on dissent. Medea goes on to share her eyewitness account of the military junta’s Nov. 19 massacre of at least 9 protesters in the indigenous city of El Alto.  You can follow Medea on Twitter at @medeabenjamin and CODEPINK @codepink. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are once again joined live in Delete Your Account HQ by friends of the show Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby, hosts of the anarcho-comedy podcast Street Fight Radio. Brett and Bryan share the latest on some upcoming projects, including Teen Fight Radio which will feature Bryan's teen daughter Gwen and a different woman every week having a conversation about growing up, relationships, and what it means to be cool.   The crew also discusses the holidays and the intense tableside confrontation that they bring. Bryan shares his own sordid holiday tales and how he's learned to deal with political in-law drama. We also play a round of everyone's favorite game they've never heard of: Ohio or Nohio! Can you guess if these eerie tales are a dead giveaway for the Buckeye state?   The crew also gives listeners an introduction to the latest Silicon Valley trend known as "dopamine fasting", and we take a quick peek into Bill Gates' brain.   Follow Brett on Twitter @BrettPain and Bryan @MurderBryan. You can also follow Street Fight Radio @StreetFightWCRS.   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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah is off this week, and Kumars is joined for a discussion of New York City’s recently approved jail expansion by three organizers with the prison abolitionist campaign No New Jails NYC, Pilar Maschi, Samantha Johnson and Nabil Hassein. Pilar, who was formerly incarcerated in the notorious Rikers Island facility, also organizes with Critical Resistance NYC. Samantha is a Community Board member on Community Board 2 in Brooklyn, which voted against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $10 million plan, and Nabil is an educator and technologist who has previously organized with the Shut Down Rikers campaign among others. After sharing a bit of their personal paths towards organizing, Nabil, Pilar and Samantha give listeners a gloss of the horrific conditions at Rikers, separating fact from fiction with regard to the facility’s violent reputation. The crew then walks us through the details of the legislation, detailing why they opposed the plan to ostensibly close Rikers within the next 10 years and replace it with 4 new borough-based jails. They explain how, despite the media’s overwhelming sympathy with de Blasio’s framing, NNJ NYC organizers were nonetheless able to mount a serious challenge to City Hall’s narrative, putting pressure on the city government through escalating direct actions and bringing unprecedented visibility to abolitionist principles including the critique of liberal rhetoric around “safer” and more “humane” incarceration.  According to a report from the New York Times and Associated Press, between 2011 to 2013 alone there were over 1,000 documented injuries against inmates, with many more likely unreported Follow Nabil on Twitter @NabilHassein, Pilar @pilar_maschi and Samantha @1samanthajoh, as well as No New Jails NYC @nonewjails_nyc. You can also find all the resources referenced in the episode and more at nonewjails.nyc. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by open source human rights investigator Liza Mamedov-Turchinsky who is the founder and lead organizer of the Bay Area chapter of the Coalition to Close the Concentration Camps (CCCC), a local network of migrant rights and activist groups, as well as founder and lead organizer of the UC Berkeley student group Cal Bears Against ICE.  Liza describes the challenges facing student organizers, and how this has informed her work supporting migrant and undocumented communities. We learn about the collective action by the coalition and their allies to support immigrant rights and put an end to migrant incarceration and abuse, which has included targeted protests and nationwide vigils. We also talk about the complicity of leading tech companies in supporting the Trump administration's barbaric immigration policy, including Microsoft's GitHub and elusive data company Palantir, and the significance of motivating employees at these companies to demand accountability and make a stand by withholding their labor. Liza also updates us on momentous victories in the fight against these tech giants, and what this means for the future of immigration justice. You can follow Liza on Twitter @lizardnizami to keep up with her work, and follow The CCCC Bay Area @CloseTheCampsBA. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Musa Gwebani, a South African activist who serves as head of advocacy and organizing for the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), a radical civil society organization based in Cape Town. After sharing her personal path to organizing, Musa introduces listeners to the SJC and its mission to fighting for the rights of marginalized people, especially those living in what in so-called informal settlements.  She then helps Roqayah and Kumars put the current flareup in xenophobic violence across South Africa in its proper context, peeling back the layers to consider the roots of the crisis in the legacy of apartheid, internalized antiblack racism, the usefulness of scapegoating migrants for economic injustice, and the complicity of government officials like Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, whom Musa recently took to task in a televised debate forum for his rhetoric of incitement against foreign nationals. The gang rounds out the discussion by touching on the causes of migration in sub-Saharan Africa, South African exceptionalism, the dream of de-balkanizing the continent for the benefit of all, and how it might yet be salvaged.  You can follow Musa on Twitter @musa_gwebani and learn more about the Social Justice Coalition’s work at http://sjc.org.za/.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by media analyst Adam Johnson, host of The Appeal podcast and co-host of Citations Needed. After bringing us up to speed on felicitous goings-on in his personal life, Adam helps Roqayah and Kumars ring in episode 150 with a fan mail special. Moving into more serious waters, Adam goes in-depth explains the ideological basis and policy consequences of the dehumanizing and exterminationist rhetoric targeting homeless people pushed by local reporters all the way up to Fox News.  Adam then unpacks the toxic positivity of “feel good” news stories about the charity of corporations or pulling yourself by your bootstraps, before giving us his read on the media’s premature coronation of Elizabeth Warren and the real difference between Bernie and Liz. The gang rounds out the conversation by debating the relevance of the concept of electability for the left, and whether the supposed media suppression of Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang is going far enough. You can follow Adam on Twitter @AdamJohnsonNYC, and to hear more check out both Citations Needed and The Appeal wherever you get your podcasts. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by the show's resident organizer, Mariame Kaba, and first-time-guest Dean Spade, Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law. Mariame, known best as @prisonculture on Twitter, is an abolitionist whose work focuses primarily on dismantling the prison industrial complex. She's the founder of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration. She's also co-founded a number of other organizations including the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women. Dean not only teaches law but founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective. Mariame and Dean guide listeners through the world of mutual aid: from what this organizing theory means to how mutual aid projects are being applied in everyday life in order to disrupt violent, carceral institutions and inspire community building. Mariame explains what differentiates mutual aid from charity work, and why helping to lift one another up through struggle is a powerful act of solidarity and self-determination. Dean, who helped develop the mutual aid toolbox, gives us examples of how this project gives organizers a guide on forming community support projects that touch on issues like legal aid, childcare collectives, mental health support, cop watches, and so much more. The crew also discusses the organizing framework on abolitionist principles released this week, designed to lessen the scope and power of the prosecuting office and change the ways in which our communities respond to criminality and crisis. You can follow Mariame on Twitter @prisonculture and Dean @deanspade. For more details on the mutual aid toolkit make sure to visit The Big Door Brigade. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Today Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Dean Preston, a democratic socialist candidate for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and founder of the housing rights organization Tenant's Together, the only statewide renters’ organization in California. Dean recounts his vibrant activist record, and how he went from working as a housing justice attorney representing low-income tenants fighting Ellis Act evictions to organizing one of the nation's leading tenant advocacy groups. Dean, who also wrote Prop F, which gives city-funded legal representation to renters facing eviction, talks us through the legislative hurdles facing tenants and why displacement and homelessness will continue to rise without housing access. We also get into housing discrimination and its impact on the formerly incarcerated, who are nearly 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public. Also, in light of the Trump administration's proposed crackdown on homeless encampments in California, Dean offers up what he would be willing to do so as to protect San Francisco’s homeless from such attacks. You can follow Dean on Twitter @DeanPreston, and for more details about his campaign and how to get involved visit votedean.com 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by two members of the Socialist Rifle Association’s Central Committee for an in-depth discussion of gun rights, gun control, and community self-defense. Faye Ecklar is Vice President of the SRA, a main organizer of the Los Angeles chapter, and cohost of the official Socialist Rifle Association podcast. Brad is the founder of the North Georgia chapter and serves as the SRA’s Director of Local Organizing.  After giving listeners an introduction to their personal paths to left politics and gun rights advocacy, Faye and Brad lay out the basic mission of the SRA to serve as an educational institution for the working class and explain the young organization’s rapid growth by highlighting their commitment to mutual aid projects like hurricane relief. Faye and Brad also outline the SRA’s efforts to function as an alternative to right-wing gun culture in the US, including the influence of the National Rifle Association.  The gang then gets into the nitty-gritty of the socialist case for gun ownership. Faye, Brad, and our hosts address common arguments for and against gun rights in liberal discourse as well as in left-wing organizing spaces. They consider the implications of red flag laws, an assault weapons ban and other gun control legislation currently under debate, finally ending on the question of how to responsibly approach the need for armed community defense as political tensions and the violent far-right continue to rise.  You can follow Faye on Twitter @FayeEcklar, Brad @GeorgiaMarxist and the official SRA account @SocialistRA. You can find even more info and sign up for membership on their website https://socialistra.org.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Today Roqayah and Kumars are joined by indigenous author Nick Estes, a member of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate nation. Nick is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a group of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota writers. Nick is also the author of Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, and writer at The Red Nation. Nick spoke to us about the long tradition of indigenous resistance against colonialism and capitalism, and emphasized the anti-indigenous origins of the US settler colonial project. We discuss "A Red Deal", his provocative essay for Jacobin Magazine which criticises aspects of the Green New Deal as not going far enough, and highlights indigenous demands for the restoration of land, air, and water as well as an end to capitalism. We also get into the meaning of decolonization, the liberation from colonial rule, and what role this process plays in advancing the class struggle. Finally we discuss the issues surrounding presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, from her false Native ancestry claims to her platform promises concerning indigenous issues. You can follow Nick on Twitter at @nick_w_estes and read more of his work at The Red Nation. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by the show's resident artist Matt Lubchansky. Matt is a cartoonist and illustrator with a long running webcomic Please Listen To Me. You can find their work in VICE, Eater, The Intercept, Mad Magazine, Gothamist, and Brooklyn Magazine, among others. We learn about what Matt has been up to since their previous appearance, especially in light of The Nib losing its primary source of funding from its parent company First Look Media after three and a half years. Matt shares how they've been coping, and why The Nib decided to go independent so they can keep pumping out high quality left-wing comic content.  We also get into the weeds and examine the role of satire in political cartooning, and how Matt provides social commentary in their comics without punching down. We talk about Matt's artistic portrayal of a dystopian future, and "hell world" that features sci-fi and horror tropes. And this, of course, means we get to talk about aliens and how we would react to a potential alien invasion. You can follow Matt on Twitter at @Lubchansky and support The Nib by becoming a member of the Inkwell. 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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are rejoined by Megan Clapp, PhD candidate in clinical psychology at Suffolk University and one of the hosts of the Naughty By Nurture podcast. Longtime listeners will remember her previous interviews discussing shame, trauma and burnout on the left, as well as her appearance modeling a therapy session on a special After Hours episode. This time around Megan outlines what organizers can learn from the lessons of clinical psychological practices about how people change their minds and break their toxic patterns of behavior.  With the help of the crew, Megan introduces and models one framework she finds useful for organizers constantly confronted with apathy and conservatism: motivational interviewing (MI), which is particularly effective in treating people with deeply entrenched beliefs. Motivational interviewing emphasizes sitting with feelings of ambivalence and letting people come to their own conclusions. Megan, Roqayah, and Kumars end by debating the wisdom of meeting people where they are in the context of genuine bigotry and ideological opposition.  You follow Megan on Twitter @MemeVVitch and you can check out the abundance of resources referenced in the episode on her old blog.  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 iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!