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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.