by Mansa Musa | Mar 23, 2026 | history, labor, Politics and Movements: US, Rattling the Bars, video
Born into slavery and forged in the fire of the 19th-century labor movement, Lucy Parsons became one of the most dangerous women in America. In this Women’s History Month special, Rattling the Bars host Mansa Musa and guest William C. Anderson honor Parsons, the “Goddess of Anarchy,” and trace her journey from former slave to militant activist on the front lines of the class war.
Guests:
William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, AL. His work has appeared in outlets ranging from The Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, to Pitchfork. He is the author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, and co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. He’s also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast.
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
William C. Anderson:
Yeah. Lucy Parsons is an extremely inspiring figure for me personally. She was a radical anarchist who made waves as a labor organizer and she was also an outspoken militant. She was very much ahead of her time for a person during the era in which she lived. And this is a formerly enslaved Black woman who was speaking with an unfettered, unrestrained radicalism. And she didn’t live with a lot of openness around her race and her personal history, but she had a very interesting life. She married one of the victims of the infamous haymarket affair where there were seven anarchists who were
by Maximillian Alvarez | Mar 23, 2026 | elections, midterms, Politics and Movements: US, Trump, video, Voting Rights
With the public outraged over the US-Israeli war with Iran, the Epstein Files coverup, and a cost-of-living crisis, even President Donald Trump’s base of supporters is fracturing, and Republicans are fixing to get slammed in the upcoming midterm elections. Perhaps that explains why Trump and MAGA Republicans are obsessively focused on attacking voting rights, taking federal control over the electoral system, and preemptively casting doubt on the midterm election results before the elections even happen. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, about MAGA Republicans’ effort to rig the midterms—and what can be done to stop it.
Guest:
Ari Berman is Mother Jones‘ national voting rights correspondent. He’s the author of the new book Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It, as well as Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.
Additional links/info:
Ari Berman, Mother Jones, “The world is on fire. Gas prices are rising. Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote”
Ari Berman, Mother Jones, “The GOP’s “show us your papers” bill is the latest effort to help Trump take over elections”
Credits:
Studio Production / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome everyone to the Real News Network Podcast. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. Between the federal government’s coverup of the Epstein Files, President Trump’s catastrophic decision to plunge the US into a war with Iran, an
by Maximillian Alvarez | Mar 23, 2026 | ICE, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, video
Working together under the name Project Salt Box, a group of data analysts have been combing through bureaucratic records and contracts to expose the government’s terrifying plans for executing President Donald Trump’s mass detention and deportation campaign. At a live event at Red Emma’s Cooperative Bookstore and Cafe in Baltimore, Maryland, on Feb 28, the Project Salt Box team discussed how they uncovered plans to convert a massive warehouse in Western Maryland into an ICE detention center, and how Marylanders can resist the ICE surge that’s expected to come to the state.
Additional links/info:
Project Salt Box Substack, Bluesky page, TikTok, and Instagram
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “The chilling truth behind ICE’s detention warehouses”
Credits:
Videography: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Michael Wriston:
Our newsletter sort of got a lot of subscribers kind of unexpectedly because we were doing a very boring thing, which was going to the Maryland Land Records website, MD Land Rec, and going through the plat book page by page for about three hours until we landed on the deed for a warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland that ICE had bought for $102.4 million on January 16th. Boom. Yeah. That warehouse was built in 2021 for the purpose of holding freight. It used to be on a farm or it is sitting on what used to be a farm in a very lovely plat of Western Maryland. It is now an 823,000 square foot empty shell with minimal air conditioning, minimal insulation. It has four toilets, two water fountains, a shower, and one drain.
by Stephen Prager | Mar 20, 2026 | Article, cuba, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Mar. 20, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
As the Trump administration sows chaos with a crushing fuel blockade of Cuba, a general told Congress that the military will “set up a camp” at Guantánamo Bay to detain those who try to flee the humanitarian crisis inflicted by the United States.
The phrase “humanitarian crisis” was used by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to describe the situation in Cuba during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, as he questioned US Marine Corps Gen. Francis Donovan, the commander of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
Donovan, a 37-year Marine veteran, took command of SOUTHCOM in February after being tapped by President Donald Trump. His predecessor, Adm. Alvin Holsey, abruptly resigned in December reportedly after he’d raised concerns about the Trump administration’s bombings of alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, which have been widely described as illegal under international law.
On Thursday, Cotton asked Donovan, “Are we prepared for any kind of humanitarian crisis in Cuba—the possible flow of refugees, other civil disorder that may threaten our interests, especially if the decrepit, corrupt Castro regime finally falls or flees?”
“Senator, yes we are,” Donovan responded. “SOUTHCOM… We have an [executive] order to be prepared to support [the Department of Homeland Security] (DHS) in a mass migration event. They would take the lead, we would follow.”
Donovan said this would include using the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, “where we would set up a camp to deal with those migrants or any overflow from any situation in Cuba itself.”
As US starves Cuba of energy & food, neocon Cotton wants DOD to be ready for a “humanitarian crisis,” “flow of
by Julia Conley | Mar 19, 2026 | Article, ICE, immigration, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Reprint
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Mar. 19, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The Trump administration’s directive to federal immigration agents on the detention and deportation of parents of minor children is clear: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents must accommodate a parent’s “efforts to make alternative care arrangements for their minor child(ren) prior to detention.”
But a report released Wednesday by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reveals that many parents, including dozens whom the groups interviewed at deportee reception centers in Honduras, have been forced to quickly leave their children in the “informal care” of friends, relatives, or even babysitters—many of whom are also vulnerable to deportation under the Trump administration—leaving them in precarious situations while traumatizing both parents and children.
According to the recently deported parents the group’s researchers interviewed—many of whom reported symptoms associated with psychological trauma, such as an inability to eat or sleep, physical pain, and “acute emotional distress” with “uncontrollable crying and visible panic”—ICE agents frequently did not follow the agency’s own guidelines to ask anyone they arrest whether they have children and to give parents an opportunity to take their children with them.
“They didn’t ask me anything,” said one 22-year-old mother of a two-year-old. “They didn’t talk to me, only to yell at me, to humiliate. They never said: ‘You have a daughter, you can bring her,’ because I would have brought [my daughter], she is very attached to me.”
Some parents told the researchers they had been ignored when they told arresting officers that they had children. One mother had three of her children with her when she was detained outside a hospital
by Sharon Zhang | Mar 18, 2026 | Article, Iran, Israel, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, War
This article was originally published by Truthout on Mar. 17, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Israeli officials are reportedly urging the U.S. to join them in their public urging of Iranians to stage an uprising against their government, even as the Israeli government internally assesses that protesters would be “slaughtered” if they did so, demonstrating Israel’s blasé attitude toward Iranian lives amid its bombardments of the country.
According to reporting by The Washington Post published Tuesday, top Israeli officials relayed the message to U.S. diplomats in a cable that circulated in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on Friday. The cable said that Israeli officials assess that the Iranian government is “not cracking” and will “fight to the end” — despite hopes by U.S. and Israeli officials that they could “decapitate” the government and achieve collapse.
The cable further said that if Iranians were to stage more protests against their government, as they did in demonstrations earlier this year, “the people will get slaughtered,” Israeli officials said. According to UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato, around 5,000 people were killed in the government crackdown on protests as of January, though it has been difficult to assess the precise number of deaths due to biases on all sides.
The cable, which summarized recent meetings by top Israeli officials and U.S. officials, said that nonetheless, Israeli officials are hoping for a revolt and that the U.S. should support such an uprising as well.
Critics have said that the cable demonstrates Israeli officials’ indifference toward whether civilians live or die, after years of Israel wantonly slaughtering civilians in Palestine and countries across the Middle East.
“This should not surprise anyone,” said Trita
