by Isabela Escalona and Amie Stager | Nov 3, 2026 | ICE, Minneapolis, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Trump, Unions, video
This video report was collaboratively produced and is being co-published by Workday Magazine and The Real News Network
On the morning of June 16, 2026, 15 people were indicted by the federal government for their involvement in community organizing efforts to oppose Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota this past winter. This group of defendants have become known as the “Minnesota 15,” and over half of them are rank-and-file union members or former union members.
In this special report, collaboratively produced by Workday Magazine and The Real News Network, we speak with three of the “Minnesota 15” defendants about the charges against them and the Trump administration’s attacks on dissent and the labor movement today. Interviewees include: Treasure Thoreson (Minneapolis Federation of Educators, Local 59), Alec Stewart (Minnesota Association of Professional Employees), and Emmett Doyle (Northern Midwest Regional Council of Carpenters).
Credits (Workday Magazine):
Reporting and editorial support: Isabela Escalona, Sarah Lazare, Amy Livingston, and Amie Stager
Videography: Isabela Escalona and Amie Stager
Additional photos and videos: Amie Stager and Riley Bruce
Video editing: Isabela Escalona
Credits (TRNN):
Post-production: Maximillian Alvarez, Jocelyn Dombroski, David Hebden, Kayla Rivara
Music:
Emmett Doyle, “1934 Strike/Cooleys Reel/Congress Reel”
Adobe Stock
FineTuneMusic
Special thanks to East Side Freedom Library, Minneapolis Central Library, Hosmer Library, and Minneapolis Federation of Educators.
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Treasure Thoreson:
Tuesday morning, June 16th, I had just woken up. I was in my pajamas. I hear a knock on the door at seven in the morning, and it’s a woman standing there in business clothes with a tactical vest on top that said Homeland Security.
Alec Stewart:
I was in my car backing out of my garage to go to
by Chris Walker | Nov 3, 2026 | Article, health care, Politics and Movements: US, prison reform, Prisons, Prisons and Policing, Reprint, Supreme Court, Trump
This article was originally published by Truthout on Oct. 21, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied an emergency petition from the Trump administration, which sought a stay on a lower court’s injunction on a policy that would have denied gender-affirming care to federally incarcerated transgender people.
That policy was implemented by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 that denied the existence of transgender people. The order also directed federal agencies to take steps that would be consistent with that view, and included specific instructions for the BOP.
“The Attorney General shall ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,” the order reads.
After the BOP conformed to the order, a group of incarcerated trans people who had been receiving gender-affirming care sued the administration. The group is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which argued that their Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment were being infringed upon.
A federal judge agreed, and, in August, ordered the policy to be blocked. The Trump administration challenged that finding, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld it, prompting Solicitor General John Sauer to submit an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
The court has regularly ruled against transgender people, allowing state bans on trans athletes’
by Mansa Musa | Nov 3, 2026 | Black Panthers, DC, Fascism, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Rattling the Bars, Trump, video
October 22nd marks the National Day to Stop Police Brutality. Free DC and Pan-African Community Action (PACA) are two organizations in the nation’s capital engaged in building community and direct action against the various entities that form the policing apparatus in DC: police, FBI, HSI, National Guard, etc.
While Trump boosts their funding—much like giving a steroid to the carceral machine—Free DC and PACA are heightening the contradictions of the Trump administration’s fascist agenda by providing vulnerable communities with the resources that the government withholds and refuses to fund.
Trump’s deployment of the National Guard costs upwards of $3M daily and will total $2.9B by the end of his term. How would you spend $3M a day?
On this episode of Rattling the Bars, former political prisoner and Black Panther Mansa Musa speaks with organizers pushing back against the National Guard occupation of DC on the eve of the Black Panther Party’s 60th Anniversary.
Credits:
Production/Post-production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. The presence of the National Guard in the District of Columbia calls $3 million a day and an estimated $2.9 billion the next presidential election. Recently, I covered two organizations that are pushing back against their present. PACA, Pan-African, Community Action, who primarily organize in the Southeast section or the District of Columbia, Anacostia area, and Free DC. Take a look. We’re at the Black Workers Wellness Center. I’m talking to Alex from the Pan-African Community Action, PACA. And today they’re having political education form because of the anniversary, the 60th
by Michael Fox | Nov 3, 2026 | bolsonaro, brazil, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Trump, Under the Shadow, Under the Shadow Season 2
by Olivia Rosane | Nov 3, 2026 | Article, bolsonaro, brazil, elections, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Trump
by Maximillian Alvarez | Nov 2, 2026 | Article, elections, midterms, Opinion, Politics and Movements: US, Trump
It’s been 4,154 days since Donald Trump came down that golden escalator in 2015 to announce he was running to be president of the United States of America. Looking back, I think it’s safe to say that none of us fully understood then all that was coming our way.
After the 2016 election, we knew that the world as we knew it then was going to change, but I don’t think any of us knew how much. None of us grasped at the time how much of ourselves and our society we would lose over the next decade; if we had, I gotta believe we would have done more to avoid ending up where we’ve ended up now, but I could be wrong.
More than anything—as a journalist and media pundit, as TRNN’s editor-in-chief, but also just as a person in the world—these last 10 years have taught me the hard way to be extremely humble when it comes to making predictions about our political future.
From Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0; from Covid-19 to January 6; from the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza to the invasion of Venezuela; from the techno-fascists and (wannabe) trillionaire oligarchs taking everything over and shoving AI down our throats to the total, gangsterish dismantling of the administrative state and the rule of law in the USA; from ICE’s war of terror on the public to the US-Israeli war on Iran; anyone who tells you they saw all this coming is lying (to you and to themselves). And so is anyone who tells you they know exactly how things are going to shake out with
