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  • The labor movement is divided over how to deal with AI

    The labor movement is divided over how to deal with AI

    Members and supporters of SAG-AFTRA picket in front of Netflix on Sunset Boulevard, as negotiations continue between the actor’s guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) continue in Los Angeles, CA, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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    This article was originally published by Truthout on Aug. 03, 2026. It is shared here under a  Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

    Artificial intelligence (AI) has permeated our workplaces, where many employers have sought to boost productivity, cut labor costs, and eliminate jobs via the technology. A 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 1 in 5 workers now use AI in their jobs.

    Organized labor’s response to the AI has been fraught. Where some see an inevitable shift that simply needs to be regulated and could potentially even create jobs, others see a dangerous trend that will result in further job losses along with a variety of other problems.

    The tension is succinctly summarized by a recent Politico headline: “Voters fear AI. Unions want the jobs.”

    The ongoing debate over data centers encapsulates this tension. Across the country, community members have spearheaded efforts to block their construction over concerns about water depletion, higher utility bills, noise, and air pollution.

    In March, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) introduced the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Center Moratorium Act, which would institute a pause on data center construction until federal safeguards can be established. “We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue,” said Sanders in a statement on the bill. “The time for action is now.”

    The legislative effort is backed by multiple unions including National Nurses United (NNU), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and the Association of Flight Attendants. “The unchecked explosion of AI data centers is a public health crisis, an environmental crisis, and a workers’ rights crisis,” declared NNU co-president Jamie Brown at a press conference announcing the bill.

    However, there are also many unions that oppose any moratorium on data centers, particularly building trade unions that believe such construction can stimulate economic growth for struggling communities and provide members with work.

    “We need the guardrails on AI, we just don’t think that a moratorium is the way to get there,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told Punchbowl News in June.

    The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) is even calling on members to contact their congressional representatives and make social media posts connected to the issue. “I’m a proud IBEW member and I oppose any bans on data center construction since these bans would eliminate good-paying union jobs,” reads suggested text for a social media post.

    In June, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared at the groundbreaking ceremony for Oracle and OpenAI’s planned 1.4-gigawatt data center in the state’s Saline Township. Alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Whitmer told the assembled crowd that the state was setting an example for “the rest of the world” by ensuring the “responsible adoption” of AI.

    The project was opposed by many residents and local lawmakers. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) called it “disgusting” and said she was “disappointed” with Whitmer, while Democratic State Rep. Dylan Wegela of Garden City said it was a “complete betrayal of the working class” and that the governor had sold out “Michigan to big tech billionaires.”

    However, the data center was backed by North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), and its president, Sean McGarvey, was present at the groundbreaking. “America’s ability to lead in the next era of innovation depends, in part, on America’s ability to build, and our members are proud to be helping make that future possible,” he told the crowd.

    Speaking to Politico in June, Senator Sanders’s chief political adviser, Faiz Shakir, said that the data center jobs heralded by certain unions won’t necessarily establish lasting occupations.

    “It’s fine to say that [data centers will] be built with good-paying union jobs now — and I hope that that’s the case — but what we’re also looking for on behalf of the working class of America is long-term sustainability of jobs,” he said. “It doesn’t help a lot in our view if you have a short-term infusion of good, union paying jobs at the cost of the decimation of many, many long-term jobs.”

    Support for AI within organized labor is receiving a boost from AI companies themselves. Last year, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced that it would create an AI training hub in New York City via $23 million from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

    “The industry funding is part of a drive by U.S. tech companies to reshape education with generative A.I. chatbots,” noted The New York Times. “These tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, can produce humanlike essays, research summaries and class quizzes.”

    AFT President Randi Weingarten said the academy was inspired by the work of other unions, like the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, and that the idea for the National Academy for AI Instruction sprang from a partnership established between Microsoft and the AFL-CIO in 2023.

    “AI holds tremendous promise but huge challenges — and it’s our job as educators to make sure AI serves our students and society, not the other way around,” declared Weingarten. “The direct connection between a teacher and their kids can never be replaced by new technologies, but if we learn how to harness it, set commonsense guardrails and put teachers in the driver’s seat, teaching and learning can be enhanced.”

    The way Weingarten is selling the hub is seemingly at odds with that of Roy Bahat, who first proposed the idea. In a LinkedIn post made shortly after the announcement, Bahat, who heads the venture capital firm Bloomberg Beta, essentially admits that the center can serve as a test case for applying AI more broadly — or, as Nolan Higdon put it in Truthdig: “Teachers are guinea pigs in Big Tech’s broader project to reengineer labor, one profession at a time.”

    “If we can figure out how teachers should teach with and about AI, we can affect the lives of millions of educators, and millions and millions of young people,” explains Bahat in the post. “And if we can figure out how to train teachers on using AI, maybe we can figure it out for other occupations.”

    The training hub, and union leadership’s wider connections to AI, have sparked criticism from labor activists and rank-and-file members.

    “Using AI compliments, intensifies, and accelerates privatization of the public sector, and that’s in addition to any harm that it’s doing to work.”

    “Using AI compliments, intensifies, and accelerates privatization of the public sector, and that’s in addition to any harm that it’s doing to work,” author and teacher union activist Lois Weiner told Truthout. “The labor movement should be contesting the idea that the imposition of AI is inevitable. That’s the labor movement’s responsibility.”

    “What makes this so disturbing is that it raises fully the problem of union democracy,” she added. “These decisions were made without informed debate with union members. They have a moral responsibility to community and the kids we serve to have a voice.”

    Trevor Griffey, a labor historian, lecturer at UCLA and UC Irvine, and vice president of legislation for AFT Local 1474, told Truthout that, since the collaboration was established, the AFT national has focused too much on trying to help teachers adapt to AI, and too little on organizing worker power in school districts. He believes unions should go on the offensive and push for deeper reforms, as AI is already having a dramatic impact. He points out that groups like the California Federation of Labor Unions are trying to bring together statewide unions in California to lobby on a range of bills targeting the dangers of Big Tech.

    “The question is less where unions stand on AI or other forms of technology, and more how they organize to resist the unsafe and unethical use of automation at work,” he told Truthout. “Unions need to invest in strategic research and organizing to support workers most likely to be negatively impacted by employers’ adoption of AI-powered technology — both at work, and in building political power sufficient to prevent the unethical and unsafe use of new technology. Beyond just regulating AI, unions should push for full employment and/or universal income policies to mitigate the disruptions to people’s lives that AI-related layoffs are already having.”

    These sentiments were echoed by Vishal Reddy, a union negotiator for nursing home workers and the executive director of WorkFour.

    “Unions at the local, international, and federation levels need to put real money and organizing capacity into figuring out which affirmative AI-related demands — four-day workweek, UBI [universal basic income], AI dividends, and so on — actually resonate with a wide swath of workers,” he told Truthout. “Just like in bargaining, we want to know which affirmative policy would be most deeply and widely felt, so we can prioritize it in the fights ahead, including May Day 2028.”

    “That means cross-union convenings, issue campaigns, commissioned polling and research, and real resourcing behind the bargaining fights where these policies are already surfacing,” Reddy added. “For example, if a fight over a 32-hour workweek is on the table somewhere, that’s exactly where the labor movement should be throwing its weight.”

  • Hunger strikes are spreading in ICE jails amid widespread due process violations, advocates say

    Hunger strikes are spreading in ICE jails amid widespread due process violations, advocates say

    Protestors hold signs outside Delaney Hall Immigration Detention Center, where ICE is housing detained immigrants on June 7, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey. Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images
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    This story originally appeared in Prism on July 27, 2026.

    Hundreds of noncitizens detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have gone on hunger strikes across the country to protest the widespread denial of due process and deteriorating conditions in detention centers during the Trump administration, according to advocates and detainees.

    Conditions in ICE detention facilities have never been good, typically prompting around a dozen hunger strikes a year, said Josefina Mora-Cheung, director of organizing at La Resistencia, a grassroots organization that supports detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWPIC) in Tacoma, Washington. Last year, La Resistencia documented 16 such protests, mostly carried out by single detainees. But this year, the group has already documented 18 hunger strikes involving about 25 individuals at NWPIC, the most recent of which ended July 20. 

    “This year we’ve seen such a skyrocketing of numbers that indicates how much people are willing to put their lives at risk in order to call attention to these conditions that are ultimately life-threatening for people,” Mora-Cheung said. “People are not willing to give up so easily or to have their spirits broken.”

    Hunger strikes in ICE jails have also been reported at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California; North Lake Processing Center in Michigan; Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania; Prairieland Detention Center and Camp East Montana in Texas; Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico; the ICE unit at the Louisiana State Penitentiary or “Angola”; and Delaney Hall in New Jersey. About 500 noncitizens have reportedly joined the strikes.

    Advocates say there have likely been more hunger strikes across the 425 jails administered by ICE and its network of private contractors, but the agency denies they are taking place and, according to the advocates, quickly tries to break them up through threats or coercion. 

    ICE did not respond to a request for comment. 

    Detainees complain about inhumane conditions—including unsanitary food and water, lack of medical care, widespread physical abuse, and retaliation for filing complaints—along with racist abuse and a complete absence of justice and due process.

    Take the case of Rogelio Bolufé Izquierdo, a Cuban national who has gone on multiple hunger strikes, including one that lasted nine days in Torrance. Initially sent to the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, Bolufé was transferred nine times in retaliation for his organizing, according to La Resistencia.

    Bolufé spoke with Prism over the phone from Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he was deported in June despite having an open asylum case and a pending appeal before an immigration court.

    He claimed that detainees are denied access to legal counsel at the Torrance ICE jail and very likely at the other jails where he’d been detained. He also claimed that his legal court documents were taken from him and that facilities do not provide mail service, which is the only way detainees can follow their deportation proceedings or request asylum. 

    “That was one of the main reasons we went on hunger strike,” Bolufé said.

    “The legal proceedings do not follow due process. They are a farce,” he added. “The Fifth Amendment does not exist in U.S. immigration proceedings.”

    Torturous conditions in ICE jails have been well-documented by advocacy groups over the past two decades. These conditions have not only persisted during the current Trump administration but have worsened, according to advocates.

    At least 52 people have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year. According to Human Rights Watch, this mortality rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration and more than two and a half times that of the first Trump administration.

    In the largest documented hunger strike of the year, at Delaney Hall in New Jersey, more than 300 men and women participated in a weekslong labor and hunger strike that ended in June. They denounced degrading conditions and a lack of due process, including arbitrary denials of bond and coercion to sign legal documents that would result in deportation.

    “We see with profound helplessness and frustration that the right to due process & legal counsel were violated, and benefits granted in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution were unacknowledged,” wrote 25 of the Delaney Hall hunger strikers in a public letter. The author, identified as Leonardo Villalba, was summarily transferred to another ICE jail, according to the letter’s postscript.

    ICE could not simply deny that the massive hunger strike at Delaney Hall was happening, so agents resorted to violence, said Jenny García, a campaign coordinator at the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee’s New Jersey Immigrant Rights Program. ICE officers cut off the detainees’ external communication, repeatedly threatened to sabotage their cases, and brutally assaulted and pepper-sprayed them, García said.

    Hunger strikers at Torrance were stripped naked and sent to cold cells, where they were exposed to 24-hour lighting, according to Bolufé, who spent seven months in that prison. Innovation Law Lab, an immigrant and refugee justice organization, has documented these cold chambers at Torrance, calling them torture.

    At some point during his strike, Bolufé said he asked himself, “Why should I go on if it makes no sense? No one will find out. It’s a lawless situation; the law isn’t respected here, no one will know.”

    Despite the odds, strikes have brought individual victories: answers about cases from ICE officials, release from solitary confinement, and release from detention altogether at NWPIC and Delaney Hall, which also secured $12 million in pro bono legal services, said Mora-Cheung.

    “This is strong,” García said about the ability of detainees to organize and encourage one another amid the horrific and inhumane conditions in which they are confined. “What’s happening inside is the best of humanity.”

    Editorial Team:
    Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
    Lara Witt, Top Editor
    Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor

    (more…)

  • Voices for a Second Chance: Returning citizens demand investment in re-entry, not incarceration

    Voices for a Second Chance: Returning citizens demand investment in re-entry, not incarceration

    Chelsea Canterbury of Voices for a Second Chance. Screenshot by TRNN.
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    In part two of our series on conservative attempts to use D.C. as a testing ground for harsh criminal justice policies, Rattling the Bars host Mansa Musa sits down with Chelsea Canterbury and Eric Franklin of Voices for a Second Chance. They discuss the danger of proposed measures—including charging 14-year-olds as adults, increasing mandatory minimums, repealing the Second Look Act, and reinstating cash bail—and explain why doubling down on mass incarceration won’t make the city safer.

    Additional links/info:

    Credits:

    • Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

    Mansa Musa:

    We’re here in Washington DC, Massachusetts Avenue at Voices for a Second Chance. We’re talking about Congresses introducing certain bills to roll back progressive laws that impact District of Columbia residents. One such law is the Second Chance Act. The Second Chance Act has been very instrumental in allowing people to get out of prison after they demonstrate they have changed, but Congress want to change that. You’ll hear different testimonies today about how these things impact everyday citizens, people that want to do right. Stay tuned. Joining me today is Chelsea Canterbury. Chelsea Canterbury, welcome to Rattling the Bars. Hi,

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    Hi. Welcome. Thank you. All

    Mansa Musa:

    Right. So today we are in front of Voices for a Second Chance service organization in the District of Columbia. And full disclosure, I actually work here. Chelsea Canterbury is, and I’ll call her Chelsea from here on out. Chelsea is a case manager here at Voices for a Second Chance.

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    So I do connect one-on-one with clients. We’re client facing. The work we do here, we help individuals that have been involved within the justice system or are recently entering society from incarceration. We actually start connecting with clients prior to their release, and that’s part of our first responder services. So we are going into DOC. We’re connecting with individuals that have been released to the halfway houses from federal prison. So we’re actually connecting prior to release. And we offer wraparound services, making sure individuals have all their vital documentation. As you know, can’t get anything done without those documents. So that’s kind of where it all starts. We offer full case management services, employment services, housing, and any resource that we do not provide in-house, we do connect with our partners within the community.

    Mansa Musa:

    Okay. And I open up by making it known that Congress, they had centrality over the District of Columbia in terms of any bills or laws has passed. Congress has a finalacy on whether they’re going in effect or Congress has the authority to create laws. And recently it came out that they put 27 bills to impact some of the things that’s going on such as cash bail. How do you think changes in the law to make laws harsher in DC will impact the services that Voice for a Second Chance offer?

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    So yeah, definitely with certain bills being passed, it will in turn affect our community and also the resources that are available to individuals. It’s not reducing recidivism. It’s actually rising it. I don’t believe that’s the answer. I believe offering the proper resources for individuals while they’re still incarcerated prior to release and our youth.

    Mansa Musa:

    Our youth. And in terms of the youth, in the District of Columbia, they really got a target on the youth back. You hear a lot of negative reporting about the kids in District of Columbia, mainly in certain areas. What’s your views on, if you had the money and the authority to do something about what’s perceived as juvenile delinquency, what would you do? Well,

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    I definitely think it also starts in the home. So I think providing appropriate resources, I can’t say it enough, but as a community, we have to come together. We have to stand together. So even providing appropriate resources to not only the youth, but also the family. I think that will definitely help our community.

    Mansa Musa:

    And talk about how many people do y’all do Voices for a Circumchange service during the course of a week? What’s the caseload per week?

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    It definitely varies, but I mean, we can see up to 50 clients per week, but it definitely varies.

    Mansa Musa:

    So in terms of the 50 clients, and that’s on an average that you see 50 clients on a week, but in terms of the clients that you see, what are their major needs?

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    Definitely housing is a huge need. Housing employment is very scarce within our community and the district, providing more food resources.

    Mansa Musa:

    Right. And the general attitude about Congress interference in DC’s politics is the general consensus is they’re using the District of Columbia as a test case for how they can go throughout the nation and do these things. If you had the ability or the authority or you was able to talk to Congress about what you think should be done, what would you tell them?

    Chelsea Canterbury:

    I would definitely have a discussion on funding and just allocating that funding appropriately that will actually give back and assist in our community. For instance, we are, as you know, a nonprofit organization and we have seen the results of the services that we have provided to individuals. And if we had additional funding to do so, we could provide more, not only us, just throughout the district alone, more assistance to provide more food resources, shelter resources, employment resources. And in turn, that is what is going to reduce recidivism.

    Mansa Musa:

    I am talking to Lynwell Muse in front of Voice for a Second Chance. Mr. Muse, Congress is trying to pass a series of bills that’s going to have a devastating impact on the citizens of the District of Columbia. One such bill is to remove the second look at. Another one is what they call the Youth Act. And both of these bills they want to get rid of, both these bills lead to people upon being released under conditional term. The only way you can get access to them, you have to have certain behavior and certain attitude towards your change in life. What do you think if you had the authority or the ability to tell Congress, what do you think they should be doing? Well,

    Lemuel Muse:

    I don’t think that is a good idea because the Second Chance Act, people like me need that because I’m 67 years old and I’m just getting out of jail February the 20th.

    Mansa Musa:

    Okay, what wrong?

    Lemuel Muse:

    And I did 35 months and I was placed on the street the next day. So in my situation, I don’t know what they expect me to do. I’m out here, I’m homeless. All the shelters are full. They got hundreds and hundreds of Black men out on the street just homeless. You know what I mean? And I just don’t think that’s a good idea because people like me need the Second Chance Act.

    Mansa Musa:

    The money be best spent on doing what?

    Lemuel Muse:

    The money would be best spent on helping the people, the citizens that live here. I’ve been here all my life. I’ve been here all my life. And the resources that I need, they seem like they cut them and taking them away from us and just leaving us out here with nothing. You know what I mean? Go ahead. Right now I’m going to Voices for a Second Chance to receive some help. And I’ve been to Marca over on Good Hope Road.

    Mansa Musa:

    Mayor’s office on return to.

    Lemuel Muse:

    Right. And all I want is just a little bit of help just to help me because being in jail 35 months and being placed on the street the next day, it’s just difficult. It’s difficult when you don’t have help.

    Mansa Musa:

    So the crime is not really in people committing crime. The crime is in the misappropriation of funds.

    Lemuel Muse:

    I agree with you. I agree with you because I didn’t have a chance to work my way back in the community slow. I’m just back on the street.

    Charlina Mcbride:

    Right. My name is Charlena McBride. I was incarcerated for about a year. I’m a DC citizen.

    Mansa Musa:

    All right. So today we’re talking about Congress trying to roll back some of the progressive laws that the District of Columbia City Council has passed, such as they want to reduce the age of charging kids to making them adults from 16 to 14. They want to roll back mandatory minimum. Mandatory minimum is that they’re taking it out the hands of the judge to give a person a sentence that he think they should get based on whatever crime they committed. It’s a mandatory sentence they got to get. So a judge don’t have no discretion. They try to institute cash bail, making it difficult for people to get out of prison. But more importantly, they try and roll back what they call a Second Chance Act. If you had the authority to tell, or if you was in front of Congress and you wanted to tell them what you should think they should do with this money, what would you tell

    Charlina Mcbride:

    Them? I would tell them that I think they should create an alternative plan for the youth or for people that make mistakes in the society that get locked up because it’s a lot of stressful times out here. The economy is constantly rising. Housing is being unaffordable to people that’s not making enough money. When people get locked up, I think they should have some more facilities where they can be rehabilitated versus getting a lot of time because people can change and I don’t think they should give them more time and take away their choices or their right to be able to get out, being locked up with no bail. And I don’t think the youth should be charged as an adult because they have a mind of a youth.

    Mansa Musa:

    That’s right.

    Charlina Mcbride:

    So they should have more programs or more facilities where they can go to versus going to jail to an adult jail. Having more outreach programs, having more voices for second chance to provide for people, more counselors, more mental health sponsors and mentorship programs so that somebody can help guide the youth into the right direction. Because everybody needs somebody to guide them. And if they’re not getting guided when they step off the porch from at home, then there should be other big brother programs, big sister programs that’s reaching out to the community and the youth so they don’t have to go through taking from somebody else or involved in something that’s going to cause them to go to jail.

    Mansa Musa:

    I’m talking to Jerry Mack, a client at Voices for a Second Chance. Mr. Mack, tell us a little bit about yourself first.

    Jerry Mack:

    Well, born and raised in Washington DC. Been in the city my whole life. There’s a lot of things that’s changed in the city from pretty much my youth to now. And I think that us as pretty much the older generation can pretty much reach out to the adolescents and pretty much try to see what it is that we can do for them to pretty much get back on track and just pretty much enjoy theirself while they’re in the city instead of having Congress and everybody else try to intervene and pretty much take their youth and stuff away from them. All

    Mansa Musa:

    Right. And you formally incarcerated?

    Jerry Mack:

    Yes.

    Mansa Musa:

    How much time did you serve? If you don’t mind me asking.

    Jerry Mack:

    A year and a half.

    Mansa Musa:

    Okay. So you served a year and a half. Where was you at now? DC Jail?

    Jerry Mack:

    I started at DC Jail. They transferred me to Philly. I left Philly and went to New Jersey in Fort Dix.

    Mansa Musa:

    Okay. Now while you was in DC Jail, did you see a lot of young individuals in there?

    Jerry Mack:

    Yeah, it’s a lot. You know what I’m saying? I mean, it’s just basically, it feels like that’s what they trying to do to pretty much the youth. They’re not trying to let them enjoy theirselves, not realizing that they was once kids at

    Charlina Mcbride:

    That

    Jerry Mack:

    Point in time. So it’s just basically kids going to be kids, but they really don’t have too much for them to do nowadays. So it’s just kind of hard for them to actually really enjoy theirselves.

    Mansa Musa:

    So if you was able to tell Congress what your views are on what they should do in terms of helping the city become a more profitable city, a more productive city, a more humane city, what would you tell them?

    Jerry Mack:

    I mean, I would practically tell them that instead of just trying to lock them up and pretty much push them out or put them in prison or jail and stuff like that, sit down and talk to them. Find out what it is that they want and what they need. You know what I’m saying? Because like I said, it’s basically they just kids. They being kids. So basically you could take the money that you’re trying to put into all these other bills and cash bonds or whatever. Have the kids, you know what I’m saying, really not even into some of the foolishness or whatever. But it’s just basically they just out enjoying themselves and they just getting a bad rap.

    Mansa Musa:

    And as Mr. Mack said, invest in them as opposed to try to penalize

    Eric Franklin:

    Them. Yeah. My name is Derek Franklin. I’m the reentry navigator here at Voices for a Second Chance, and I’m a returning citizen and also a IRA recipient.

    Mansa Musa:

    Today we’re talking about Congress introducing a series of bills to roll back some of the progressive laws that the DC City Council passed. And one of the bills that they’ve introduced is they want to roll back the Second Chance Act, which is basically IRA. Talk about, because you’re in that space and dealing with IRA, you’re IRA recipient, as you say. And talk about that and what that means.

    Eric Franklin:

    So yeah, these new laws that’s been introduced by Congress, the rollback IRA and all these other laws that changed in sentences for young people, young adults to get more time at the age of 14 sentences as adults. These things doesn’t work. They’re going back to what mass incarceration, which they did back in the 90s, the 80s and the 90s that didn’t curve the crime. So it’s all about rehabilitating the people, the young people and giving them a second chance. Like me, I was sentenced to 40 years to life. And I mean, I changed my life way before I even knew IRA was in existence. You know what I’m saying? So this shows that the people will change, especially the youth as they do their time. So locking them up and throwing away the key is not the answer. It’s not the answer.

    Mansa Musa:

    And how old were you when you got out there?

    Eric Franklin:

    When I got out there, I was 22 years old. I came out, I was 47 years old. You know what I’m saying? So I spent most of my 20s, all my 30s, most of my 40s in prison. And like I say, I changed my ways and my way of thinking, I want to say probably 15 years ago before I came home. You know what I’m saying? So these things, locking the people up, these young people up and saying, okay, look, what they was calling them, predators or whatever like that. No, the sign says what? The frontal lobes don’t fully develop to the mid – 20s. So the decision making of these teenagers, they don’t fully develop. So give them a chance. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their crimes, but locking them up and not giving them a chance to come out, this is, I want to say, inhumane.

    You know what I’m saying? This is something that you don’t do to people or do to your residence in DC. I said far as the law, especially containing to the youth. More programs for the youth. Giving them something to do as far as education. It goes back to their family, helping their families out with jobs so they won’t be just running the streets and getting to things. You know what I’m saying? This will change. This will help the youth and not to be on the streets like that. And another thing, the law should be changed, not just for a certain age. Take away the age and just give everyone who gets incarcerated another chance to come home. Instead of just locking the people up and having them in prison, which doesn’t help at all. You know what I’m saying? So we got the age where now, before the age of 25, have no age for someone who can have a time reduction.

    This will help and have more programs and housing for the people when they return. You

    (more…)

  • Are copwatchers journalists? Provocateurs? Or something else?

    Are copwatchers journalists? Provocateurs? Or something else?

    Designed image featuring a headshot of Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit) (right), a photo of Reyes speaking into a microphone at a podium (center), and an image of two police offers standing in the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association headquarters (left). All images provided courtesy of Long Island Audit. Design by TRNN.
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    Designed image featuring a headshot of Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit) (right), a photo of Reyes speaking into a microphone at a podium (center), and an image of two police offers standing in the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association headquarters (left). All images provided courtesy of Long Island Audit. Design by TRNN.

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    Police auditors, better known as “copwatchers,” have become both famous and notorious for using cell phone cameras and YouTube channels to monitor police activity, confront cops who are breaking the law, and fight for accountability and reform. But is copwatching a form of citizen journalism, or is it just provocation masquerading as accountability?

    In this special Police Accountability Report livestream, (in)famous copwatcher Sean Paul Reyes, better known as Long Island Audit, joins hosts Taya Graham and Stephen Janis for a lively, candid debate about one of the most popular and controversial forms of police accountability today.

    Credits: 

    • Pre-Production; Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
    • Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham, David Hebden, Ryan Johnson, Maximillian Alvarez
    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

    Taya Graham:

    My name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report livestream, the great American Copwatcher debate edition. Tonight, we are going to be exploring the controversy surrounding a popular Copwatcher, Long Island audit, specifically his encounter with Suffolk County Police Union officials that was the subject of our last episode. Now, a confrontation that started with Sean showing up at union headquarters to ask questions and then escalated when union officials stormed out of the building and put Sean Paul into handcuffs. Let’s just watch a few seconds of the encounter to set the scene.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Have you seen me leaving? I immediately began to leave. Lucivillo, would you like to come on? I am leaving. Would you like to come on the channel? I’m leaving. I am leaving. You seem to leave me? I am leaving. I’m leaving. I’m leaving. Lucivillo, you go on talk, you go, I’m leaving. I am leaving. Immediately begin to leave. That’s how the law works. Yes, I’m leaving. Get off the property. I am leaving. I’m getting off the property. You are trespassing. I am leaving. You will be placed. I am leaving. I am leaving. I’m going to place you under arrest. Do what you need to do. I’m identifying myself as a police officer. So do what you need to do. I am leaving. You need to leave. I am leaving. You’re such a tough guy. Do it then. Do it. Do it. I’m leaving. I’m leaving.

    I’m leaving. Not resisting. I’m not resisting. Have you seen me leaving?

    Taya Graham:

    Okay. Now this video and our discussion with Sean set off a heated debate and it was so, let’s say lively that Steven and I decided that we needed to do a show to respond to your comments and discuss their implications. And luckily we were also able to get the man himself Long Island Audits to participate. But before we get to Sean, I want to give you a sense of the format of the show and how we’re going to handle the debate. And remember, this is very live, so please bear with any technical difficulties we might have. And I’m going to do my best to put on any comments from the live chat on the screen as we go through. So over the past week, Steven and I have been reviewing hundreds of comments on our YouTube channel and on Facebook and selecting what we hope is a representative sample of your thoughts.

    Our goal is to select what best represents the framework of the discussion about Sean Paul’s work. And we’re going to show them on the screen. I’ll read them and then Sean, myself and Steven will discuss. But a big part of that is going to be what you think. And I mean the police accountability report community, in my personal opinion, is one of the most thouhtful and insightful collection of rebels. And yes, rebels I think is the right word on YouTube. Believe me, we feed off your ideas and your insights and tonight we need you to chime in. So Steven, first off, welcome to The Great Indoors.

    Stephen Janis:

    Thank you so much. Oh God, it’s some nice to be inside. Although yeah, it’s good to be back. It’s good to be back in the studio. Yo didn’t even have to coax me. I came in voluntarily.

    Taya Graham:

    Yes. Well, we gave you some coffee and left out some candy and he just followed them in.

    Stephen Janis:

    Free coffee. Though Max said it might come out of my paycheck, but that’s okay. It’s good coffee.

    Taya Graham:

    But look, before we introduce Sean, why don’t you explain a little bit why you felt like this debate needed to continue? What struck you as the critical question at the heart of it? So

    Stephen Janis:

    The critical question for me is the question of dissent, right? Democracy doesn’t function without free, fair dissent. And to me, journalism is the epitome of dissent because it’s saying the oligarchy truth is not the final truth. We can challenge that truth with a different reality. And when I see Sean entering the space of power and being challenged, just to ask a question, I think we have to ask critical questions about how do we preserve dissent and what this is really about. I mean, why would they just storm out at him and not allow him to ask a question? And to me, one of the defining points of this is we cover inequality in another show called the Inequality Watch. And I think as wealth becomes more and more concentrated in this country, I think the fight over the truth is going to become more important and therefore dissent is more important.

    And to me, journalism is quintessential dissent. It’s organized, constructive and thoughtful dissent. And that’s what Sean was doing. I mean, he was just showing up to ask a question. That is our only army. He wasn’t ambushing them or doing anything. He just had a question. He did have a big truck. Yeah, I’ll admit that was kind of cool. We’ll talk about that. But it was just dissent. And to me, that’s what this is about. I mean, if they could take away our ability to show up at a building and ask a simple question about what they are doing with taxpayer money, then we’re done.

    Taya Graham:

    Then

    Stephen Janis:

    The oligarchs have won. So that’s why I though it’d be interesting. And I want to debate the people who somehow think that journalists are a pain in the ass. So hopefully we are. Yes. Anyway, that’s my though.

    Taya Graham:

    Thank you for asking. Technically, journalists are supposed to be a pain. We’re supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Exactly. And honestly, what you mentioned is something that is a classic part of journalism, which is to follow the money. And I believe that’s what Sean Paul was trying to do. He’s just trying to find out where taxpayer money was going. But before I bring him in, let me just first shout out some of the people that I see in the chat. I’m going to look down here. I see Noli D. Thank you so much for being here. Lacey R. Thank you so much for being here. I think Joe Cool’s here, which is amazing. Oh wow. Joe Cool. Amazing copwatcher. And there’s another copwatcher down there. I’m not sure if I should shout him out. Yes, you should. Should I shout out the name?

    Yeah. Eric Brant. Wow. Eric Brant, the man is in the chat. So we definitely have some copwatchers here who I’m sure have a lot of strong and thoughtful and insightful opinions about the nature of cop watching and journalism. Oh, and let me also say hi, Katie Keyne. It’s really great to see you again. Okay. And you too, Prairie745. All right. Now, without further ado, I want to bring in the man himself, Long Island Audit, also known as Sean Paul Reyes. Sean Paul, thank you so much for joining us.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here. Thank you.

    Taya Graham:

    We are so happy to have you. So now first, before we completely dive in, there’s been an update with the arrest that occurred during your encounter with the leadership of the Suffolk County Police Union. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    So the update is that the criminal charge of trespassing in the third degree that I was originally arrested for has been dismissed by the district attorney’s office. That charge required that the property being closed in a manner to exclude intruders, i.e. An offense. It wasn’t the case for that property. So they dropped it down to a trespassing charge, which is a violation, not a crime, which requires unlawfully entering or remaining on a person’s property, on private property. So that’s where it stands. And I mean, we can get into more detail on the order of protection and ex parte hearings, but I’ll defer

    Stephen Janis:

    To you. I mean, I don’t really understand. You were exercising your First Amendment as a journalist. You have some privilege to be able to go to places and knock on doors where you’re not wanted, right?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Right. Yeah. So generally the Supreme Court case, I don’t really remember what it is right now, but there is a Supreme Court case that even with a no trespassing sign, the public and people say, “Well, you don’t get extra rights because you’re a journalist or a YouTuber or whatever they want to call me.” And that’s the topic of today’s discussion. But generally, anyone has a license or privilege to approach someone’s door and do a knock and talk. You can knock and ask questions the same way a law enforcement officer can knock on your door, same way the solar panel, Girl Scout cookies, whatever. People knock on people’s doors and ask them questions. Once that privilege, that license or privilege has been revoked by the private property owner, then you must vacate the property.

    Stephen Janis:

    Which is what you were doing. But anyway, not to digress, Saya, go ahead. Sorry.

    Taya Graham:

    Okay. And let me just give a shout out to HBO Matt. HBO Matt, great to see you there. Another cop watcher. Wow. 1A and 2A auditor who’s in the chat as well right now. We got to shout out all those people out there doing that work. Okay. So Sean, now here’s the tough part. We’re going to start going through the comments. Now we’ve tried to pick a representative sample. And though I will say in general, more people support you than not. Some of your critics are pretty adamant that your work doesn’t benefit the community. So let’s start there. Okay. Let me hit you with comment number one. Okay. A clout chasing provocateur whose approach is ambush journalism. Real journalists make an appointment. People at work don’t just drop everything because this YouTuber shows up. Wow. Okay. So Sean, let me start with you. What do you think?

    Is this a valid critique?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I don’t think it’s. I think anybody’s opinion is valid. Everybody can have their own opinion on what I do and how I go about it. So I’m not going to say that their opinion is invalid, but I would push back on their opinion that it’s ambush journalism. I mean, I’m asking questions. I don’t have to make an appointment. I can just walk up and ask the question. And really, to the person who made that comment, do you think if I would have called and made an appointment, they would have let me in and give me an appointment? Let’s be real here.

    Stephen Janis:

    I’m just laughing. Sory. I’m

    Taya Graham:

    Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

    Stephen Janis:

    But go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Sorry.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Okay. No worries.

    Taya Graham:

    It just seems unlikely. Yes.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. More likely than not. They wouldn’t just, “Hey, yeah, we’ll pency in for 2:30,” right? Especially with the questions that I’m asking. I’m not asking, “How does it feel to save lives every day and put your life on the line, Mr. PBA president?” I’m asking why hundreds of millions of dollars of Suffolk County taxpayer money, hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 15 to 20 years have been put in the pockets of other people who have had their rights violated. So that’s my tax dollars. I’m a lifelong resident of Suffolk County. I’ve been investigating the police union and their power structure, and it comes from their donations to the legislators, to the county executive. There is more to the story than just showing up with my billboard truck. And again, I will say that most journalists don’t have a billboard truck. I do. And if you want to paint me out as it’s advocacy journalism, whatever word you want to put in front of journalism, it’s still objectively journalism, opinionated journalism, advocacy journalism.

    It’s still journalism. Journalism is asking questions, doing investigations and disseminating that of matters of public interest to the public. Maybe it doesn’t interest you, but it interests me and it interests a lot of people out there, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people across my social media platforms. So if you don’t like the topic, you can tune into your favorite journalist that you want. I highly recommend the police accountability report here. Well, thank

    You. But at the end of the day, ambush, whatever adjective you want to describe how I operate, it still doesn’t make what happened to me any less unlawful and any less a violation of my First Amendment rights.

    Taya Graham:

    Steven, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t like the word ambush because I don’t think asking a question. Ambush has militaristic overtones, but if we had to make an appointment with every person that we wanted to ask a question that they didn’t want to answer, we wouldn’t have a job. Now, we cover Capitol Hill, right? Reporters roam all around confronting people who don’t want to answer questions. The entire process is about people showing up when you don’t expect them. That’s the whole way it works. There’s no journalism without the so-called ambush. And so I don’t like that term because that’s not what you were doing. You were asking a question which is about as passive as you can get. But yeah, so that’s just BS because almost our entire work centers on the fact that we can just walk up to someone and put a mic in their face.

    If we can’t do that, we can’t do our jobs.

    Taya Graham:

    Steven, I really do have to agree with you on that. I mean, we show up to all sorts of places without an appointment. I have to say, on occasion when I have asked for an appointment, there was a particular time in Trenton, New Jersey where I made an appointment with their press information officer, told her I was going to be there, and she ghosted me. Just a little TikTok about the fact that I had made the effort to travel there, confirmed everything with her. She wasn’t there. And perhaps she should have been at her desk and she wasn’t. But I can tell you within eight hours, my entire TikTok account was banned and taken down. We’re just posting – Questions are not

    Stephen Janis:

    Ambushed.

    Taya Graham:

    Questions

    Stephen Janis:

    Are.

    Taya Graham:

    So it can be difficult for a traditional journalist to get an appointment. And even just reporting on the fact I didn’t get the appointment, got my TikTok account banned, which I think was a little mean, to be perfectly frank. I agree. But before I go on to the next criticism, I want to shout out Ophelia Moonrose. I thought you had a great comment there. Big G audits, good making case precedent in your state. That’s awesome. So one of the criticisms that we’ve seen of auditors like Sean is that they’re all after clicks and views, but I thought this was an interesting take on that critique. So let’s put up comment number two. Okay.

    And also, I apologize if I mispronounce names, please give me some grace there. I’ll do my best. Gerek Diffelton says, “Clicks and views, spreading awareness and capturing focus for issues you want the public to see is exactly the point of journalism. Sean uses outrageous reality to catch attention and the New York Post uses lies and misinformation.” Now, Sean Paul, I think you said something quite similar, right? And Steven, can a journalism org survive without clicks? No. I mean, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did the tree fall? I mean, if no one sees your journalism, does it even count? Yeah.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. I mean, my response to that is obviously all journalists want clicks and views. All media outlets want clicks and views. And I can give you just a recent story. CNN ran a story on First Amendment auditors just recently, and I’m actually going to do a video of this on my channel. They reached out to me and their question was, “How much money do you make? Can you provide us with your financials?” And I answered them back. Yeah. I answered them back politely and I said, “I would love to discuss with you the financial aspects of what I do in a video format, just like how we’re talking right now in a Zoom or a live stream.” And they said, “Oh, we’re going to move in a different way for our story. No problem.” And then they came out with a story and it was about how First Amendment auditors make money.

    And they found two random individuals who have no idea who they are. They’re a couple. They curse a lot. They scream a lot. The video was just them cursing and screaming at members of the public and law enforcement and getting kicked out of this public building. And they went over and these two, I call them useful idiots, that’s what they were because they didn’t even shout out their channel or anything like that. So I have no idea who these people are. And most probably in our community don’t know who they are either. But they went and they showed them their YouTube studio. Yeah, I made $600 on this video. I made this and the CNN reporter’s there and they followed them around when they did these audits. And it’s crazy because the goal of the CNN story was to portray First Amendment auditors as only wanting clicks and views and being provocative and looking for negative interactions.

    The ironic part of that is that’s exactly what CNN did in their story. They didn’t want me to come on their story and be a part of their story because I would talk about boring things about how I’ve been invited to train police departments, district attorney’s offices. I’ve done ride alongs with law enforcement. I’ve worked side by side with law enforcement. I investigated corrupt mayors. I’ve broken stories on mayors using federal funds for receiving federal funds that they voted on for their construction companies. So again, and I don’t curse or scream in my video, so it wouldn’t be as entertaining for people, but CNN selectively chose these two useful idiots so that way they can get what clicks and views on their video. So again – Right.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah, go ahead. Maybe CNN doesn’t like the competition from you

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    From people. I don’t think so. I think they see it as a threat. I think that’s a good valid point because even Newsday is our local newspaper here on Long Island. News 12 Long Island is the broadcast arm of that. And none of them have covered, the New York Post covered this arrest because Lucavila wanted them to, the police union president. But none of the local outlets have covered this story. And I would argue that it is the quintessential public interest story. Whether you want to hit me out as a YouTuber, a gadfly, an agitator, whatever you want to call me. I’m still a public figure. And Lucavilla was the police union president and there was a confrontation where I was arrested. That seems like news that would be interesting for the residents in Suffolk County or Long Island that they report to, but they choose not to.

    They pick and choose their stories. They pick and choose the themes of their stories. And I do the same thing. And my themes are focusing on police accountability, exposing what’s happening inside our police departments. I’m telling everybody watching now, and I say this on my channel, the police unions, especially here in the Northeast and specifically Suffolk County, they receive. Again, I don’t just go up there with a camera. I was just working before looking up. It’s a 501C. I’m looking up their financials. They have $15 million, the police union in Suffolk County, $15 million in assets. They bring in $5 million a year in annual revenue. They get paid through the contracts, through the contracts from the county. They get paid canine time, canine a pay. They don’t have a canine. I want to make this clear. There is not one canine that works for the PBA, the police union.

    They get canine pay. They get hazard pay. They get a midnight pay. It’s a nine to five

    Stephen Janis:

    Job. One thing, Sean, that you’re touching on, which I think is really important, is how lucrative policing is in terms of their relationship with the government. Because I remember in Baltimore, we had take home cars. All officers had take home cars and they could drive back to Pennsylvania and the city paid for the gas. And it was like $100,000 benefit, but the mainstream media doesn’t want to take it on because they want police officers to feed them crime stories, which is more of their fodder. But what you’re doing is amazing because you’re actually challenging their lack of good reporting, which probably embarrasses them. I mean, to hell with the truck.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    And I completely agree with you when they want the murder scenes, they want the vehicle pile ups, they want to get that call. And if they’re adversarial, which you guys were talking about how a press should be adversarial. And I completely agree. I think that’s the foundation, an adversarial press towards the government. But they want those stories. And then it’s such a big story because they just got an 18% raise. Lucivillo, for example, gets paid $265,000 a year as the police union president. He keeps his full law enforcement officer capabilities, yet he doesn’t patrol, he doesn’t investigate crime. He sits in a desk defending officers who are accused of misconduct all day long and pushing his propaganda out to on. They own radio stations. They have podcasts. They’ve embraced social media in order to brainwash the people.

    Stephen Janis:

    Do you know where the $5 million revenue comes from? I mean, do they get it from donations or do they charge for services or something? Are they doing moonlighting or where’s it come from? Do you know?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. So I just started looking into it before I

    Stephen Janis:

    Came

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    On here. I was just looking at everything, all the documents –

    Stephen Janis:

    I’ll look into too. Yeah.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    501 documents, but their revenue comes from union dues. And again, they’re in violation of election law. In New York State, you can’t force somebody to donate to a candidate. So what they’re doing is they’re collecting union dues. And whether the police officer is a Republican or a Democrat, sometimes that money goes to somebody who the police officer doesn’t want it to go to. And that’s in violation of election law. And a Suffolk County legislator, Rob Trota, a former detective for the Suffolk County Police Department, he blew the whistle on this. So I give him all the credit and the district attorney said, “You know what? I don’t have jurisdiction.” It’s funny how the district attorney didn’t have jurisdiction for a New York state crime, but the district attorney can receive $500,000 in campaign contributions from the PBA. The Suffolk County executive gets a million dollars.

    These legislators think about this. How can anybody be okay with the system where Suffolk County Police Union can funnel money into the pockets of politicians and those same politicians get them elected? They go door to door for them. They mail out, they have mailers, the whole apparatus. And then they get elected and then they in turn vote on these 18% raise increases, hazard pay for police union. 20

    Stephen Janis:

    Year pensions. 20 year pensions. 20 year

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Pensions.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah. I

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Like that. They make these backroom deals where there was an officer that was accused of using the surveillance apparatus for his own personal gain. And he went on to have 14 years. They said, okay, admit to this misconduct. And in 14 years, 14 years, when you get your full funded pension, you have to leave. That’s not accountability.

    Stephen Janis:

    Oh, and we’ve had multiple officers who have been charged, committed, charged, convicted of crimes who are allowed to keep working. I mean, the basic thing is you pointed out, I think, in both your Brian Fahey case, which we’ll get to, is these pensions are golden parachutes. Absolutely. They are multimillion dollar bonuses for these people. So a lot of what happened in Baltimore is that even though you’ve been convicted of a crime, they keep you on the payroll so that you get your pension qualification, which is like that’s when you hit the jackpot of the library. So that’s great work you’re doing there. You want to get to the next one so we don’t –

    Taya Graham:

    Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I have another comment here. I shouldn’t point that way. Give you some fair warning. Here is a proponent of police power urging you to obey a lawful order, which of course has some pretty broad implications. So this is Jim 0417 commenting on the Sean Paul Reyes arrest coverage. I agree there is free speech. However, don’t push your luck. Just leave. Then no problem. No arrests. I am a retired police detective. And if I’m told something by the police, I comply. It’s just that easy. Now, Steven, I think this refers back to some of your thoughts on police power. What do you think?

    Stephen Janis:

    Well, I mean, I think the idea that there is this police control over space that somehow, if they deem a space to be theirs is sort of an extension of some of the worst aspects of this country’s lessening democracy. So I mean, I didn’t say this in the beginning, but I think one thing that Sean Paul exposes by going into police space and pointing a camera at them is their absolute thought of control over space, which I think is a way of showing how latent authoritarianism in America kind of makes its way through policing. Because it’s really weird when you think about it. You show up with a camera, they could have ignored him. They could have just answered his question. They could have done a lot of things, but they decided to confront him with power, with power and command over that space. So I think disobeying orders from police about space is pretty much the most fundamental American kind of descent you can do.

    So I’m all for Sean going and pointing cameras because what amazes me of what you see. I mean, someone points a camera at you and you start ordering around and say you’re going to arrest him. What does that mean? What is that telling you about this country? What is it telling you about authoritarianism? Sean, are you surprised sometimes when people freak out because you show up just by showing up, not even doing anything?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. I’ve been doing this five years now and it still surprises me to this day because it’s so nonsensical. You’re 100% right. The police union president could have. He was upstairs in his penthouse suite. He didn’t have to come down with five other officers from the

    Police union. He could have stayed up there, told the receptionist, “Tell him he needs to leave. He’s not welcome here.” And I would have left and there would have been no incident. There would have been no clicks and views. There would have been no story for that particular video. I just would have left. I was leaving. And these people, like this former officer that commented that, and I see it, especially in my county. I want to use my billboard truck to bring awareness to this and my voice and my platform, especially I’m going to focus on my county moving forward because it’s important to me. When I was protesting, one of the neighbors of the district attorney told me, “You’re a liberal communist.” And they were so violent in calling me a communist. And these people don’t even know the definition of communists, but they just repeat what they hear.

    They have no idea what a communist is, what communism is. They have no idea what these terms mean, but they’ve heard other elected officials call people communists because of they don’t like them. And they say, “Oh, you’re a communist. You want to hold the police accountable? Then you’re a communist.” And it makes no sense. So I still get shocked to this day. Lou should have done that. Lucivilla, the police union president should have just told someone else to tell me, but he was looking for the confrontation. He came out with handcuffs in hand. He was looking for that to happen. Oh, so Sean, he

    Stephen Janis:

    Had his handcuffs. Had his handcuffs in hand?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    He had his hands. Remember, he’s not a real law enforcement officer. He doesn’t do law enforcement activity, yet he gets paid for law enforcement activity, but he doesn’t do law enforcement activity. He actually does the opposite. He shields officers in this county and they introduce legislation. They just introduced a bill into the New York State Senate where you have to be 15 feet away from a law enforcement officer. That came directly from him. He’s the one pulling the strings. And it doesn’t matter, Democrat or Republican, they all take PBA money. They all want to be seen as back the blue, especially in my county. And it’s just sad to me that people like that commenter, I don’t blame him. I think his ignorance comes from his lack of critical thinking skills, his lack of a variety of media consumption. And he just wants to blame somebody, just comply.

    But the most ironic part is I was complying. I mean, how can you watch that video and not see that I was complying? Maybe I wasn’t complying in the way that you wanted me to. Maybe I wasn’t complying in the way Lucid Villa wanted me to, but legally I was complying.

    Stephen Janis:

    What was interesting is it was almost the opposite of when police use the stop resisting to do it. You were saying, “I’m leaving. I’m leaving. I’m leaving.” And basically making it clear that you were retreating and following and obeying the law and their requests. So it was just weird and ironic that they kept confronting you even when you said you were leaving, which I think has to do with this police preoccupation with space and dissent because you are showing them up for what they’re doing to the taxpayers of Suffolk County. And they don’t want that. And it’s interesting that it’s you that’s doing it and not the people, the mainstream media with all their money and power that are doing it. But it’s one guy with a truck and a YouTube channel that is actually doing this, which I think. Well, I mean, I think it’s really telling, right?

    Because I’ve covered this kind of stuff in policing and you get so much pushback when you talk about their pensions or about the fact that they can work. The guys you’re talking about get some sort of dumb desk job where they sit and they file. They don’t do anything. I mean, we had the gun tray task force where they literally went on vacation in the Bahamas and got overtime. So what police are able to do with money and what they’re able to do with the resources of a community is confounding.

    Yeah, they use that money.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Go ahead.

    Taya Graham:

    Oh no, I was just going to say, I think you explained that basically Suffolk County is the home of the million dollar pension, right? Yeah. So I actually did some calculating on how long it would take me to save that type of pension with a little bit of money I put aside each year. I would need to work 200 years to be able to have that be my pension. Yeah, it’s a Ponzi scheme. So that’s something to look forward to. It’s a

    Stephen Janis:

    Ponzi scheme.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    It is a Ponzi. They’re extorting the police officers in Suffolk County through the police union are extorting the taxpayers. And they put out buzzwords like, “Oh, because we protect you. We keep you safe. We do this. We put our lives on the line.” All propaganda, that means nothing. They’re law enforcement officers. Even for body cameras, we had to pay them. We had to pay them more money every single year. I believe they got an extra $2,000 a year each just for them to put on body cameras. In what other profession does your boss tell you, you need to put this on your uniform? And then they’re like, “Well, I’m not going to do it unless you pay me.” It is a racket. It is a racket and the people need to know about it. And a lot of people know and they don’t care. They back the blue regardless of what.

    And that’s why we call them bootlickers.

    Stephen Janis:

    You know what?

    Taya Graham:

    I’d like to go onto the next comment. I think it’s very appropriate because it’s apparently, Sean Paul, you’re just not nice enough to rich people. That’s what this comment’s saying. I thought it was a little odd, but I thought it was worth talking about. So this commenter, Alma Adams, 3631, wrote on a recent episode, “I was on this guy’s side until he brought up Bezos and Musk.” How are they the bad guys again? I mean, did this guy go to Comedy College? I mean, I guess they all are these days. Comedy College. Okay. I’ve seen –

    Stephen Janis:

    Just a public service announcement. So we are very welcoming of a Marxist here and communists at the Real News Network. And

    Taya Graham:

    Libertarians and libertarians. And libertarians. And any

    Stephen Janis:

    Ideological strike

    Taya Graham:

    Really. Okay. We welcome all political viewpoints to have all types of thinkers with all types of ideologies who support democracy and want to have an interesting conversation about it. So communists, come on in and have

    Stephen Janis:

    Conversations. Why would you critique him that way when he’s talking about police pensions? I think that’s an interesting connection, right? Symbolic, Sean?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. I mean, again, there goes the commi thing. These people are, they’re just brainwashed. And it really disheartens me as an American and somebody who loves this country that there’s so many people out there who have been brainwashed by people like Elon Musk. I’ll call them out again, Jeff Bezos. They’re an oligarchy. They’re no different than And the oligarchs in Russia, the only difference is that you love them. The people love

    Taya Graham:

    Them. Exactly.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    You worship

    Taya Graham:

    Them. Well said.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    They’re no different. They’re celebrities here. That’s the only difference. The oligarchs in Russia are just hiding behind their fortresses and that’s going to happen too. Listen, in another life, I would have been a history teacher. I love history. One of my favorite quotes is, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” And you, we are on the track for the oligarch. Thank you. Look at the wealth separation in this country. It doesn’t make any sense. You could call me a communist or whatever you want. I’m telling you, these billionaires don’t have the everyday. You’re sitting here, that person, the sad part is that person is defending the oligarchy and yet they’re living paycheck to paycheck every week. And that’s the sad part to me.

    Stephen Janis:

    And I think that’s the point of police power to project the idea that you’re not worthy of an equal society with an equal sharing of wealth. I think part of the thing is that police make you feel that there’s some sort of chaos outside of this constructed oligarchy. And that if you challenge police, you’re challenging law and order. And then there will be this chaos of, like you said, like commies, like Long Island Olives knocking on your door. And I think that’s part of the point of why policing fuses with Bezos and Musk in that sense.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    They’re meant to protect the oligarchy. That’s the whole point in

    Stephen Janis:

    Case

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Things go south. They’re the defense against the oligarchy. That’s the part. They’re not here to protect you. They’re here to extort you through tickets and everything else. You get pulled over, you’re paying hundreds of dollars for tickets. I don’t understand. Can police officers be heroes individually? Sure they can. Sure, they can engage in heroic activity. And I will admit that, but to call law enforcement officers generally heroes is disgusting. To me, it’s like, it just doesn’t make sense.

    Taya Graham:

    You know what? I just have to jump in here because when I heard you talking about oligarchy, and I think in a past life, you were a history teacher. I have no doubt. But when I think about Jeff Bezos and his net worth, and when I think about Elon Musk, our newest trillionaire on the planet, that kind of money, that kind of money is more than some countries have. That kind of money, it absolutely influences our government. It influences public policy. So to say that we shouldn’t criticize these people, hold them accountable is absurd to me. These people don’t deserve some sort of unique protection because they manage to win out in the lottery of life. These people, if they have the power of a government because of their bank book, they deserve to have questions answered and we deserve transparency.

    Stephen Janis:

    Great.

    Taya Graham:

    So I’m sorry, that just gets me a little heated because we actually have a show called the Inequality Watch, which I think Steven would argue is the oligarchy accountability report. I mean, how would you answer that comment or really?

    Stephen Janis:

    And it’s interesting because the two fews, like Sean has pointed out, Sean Ray has pointed out policing and inequality and oligarchy all kind of come into one big problem for all of us working people in a sense. So you want to do the next one?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. The people are working against their. I’ll just end with this. People need to stop working against their own interests and

    Stephen Janis:

    Fighting

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Against their own interests. I mean, you’re defending a man that has more money than he could ever spend in a million years and you can’t afford to pay your electric bill. It’s bizarre to me. It’s bizarre.

    Taya Graham:

    Yeah. I completely agree. I really don’t understand it. I try to understand the psychology of it, but it does allude me. But let me go to another comment here for you because I want you to see all of them. So this is someone who looks at Sean Paul’s work in kind of a broader context. And I’m wondering what you both think of it in terms of what at stake and whether we’re overlooking some of the broader implications of what auditors and First Amendment activists do. So let me read it and I’ll have Dave put up clip five. Okay. So democracy itself is at stake. Being ruled, terrorized, controlled, manipulated, dominated and lied to is not freedom. Okay. So to me, that’s very heavy, very powerful. So what do you think? Do you believe you’re fighting for democracy, Sean Paul?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I think I’m fighting for accountability and democracy. Anything that gives power back to the people. That’s why I wear my we the people hat everywhere I go. I want the people to have the power and I want people to act in their own interests when it comes to power because the people that are elected in our offices do not have our best interests at heart. It’s because you see the ads. Money controls politics between campaign spending. It all revolves around money. Look how much money Elon Musk put into the election. No one man should have all that power, right? Right. In the words of Kanye. But it’s crazy to me that people, even with flock cameras, the advent implementation of flock cameras, they’re here for your safety. Another favorite quote of mine is by Benjamin Franklin, “Those who give up their essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” And it’s so sad how quickly we’ve forgotten and have handed over all of our rights.

    We’re going to have a surveillance state, police state, and all of these people in power that have all of this resources and money. And no one does anything about it. Most people don’t even go out and vote. Most people don’t make their voices heard because they’re too busy working. They have their own family drama, everything else, and they don’t pay attention or they only watch CNN or they only watch Fox News. They don’t broaden their horizons to try and really critically think and analyze what’s going on in our country. And I think that needs to change. So my platform is to try and bring accountability to those in power. And I can’t. I can’t do it by myself. All I can do is put it out there for people to see. And what they choose to do with it after that, I got to expose it.

    I’m going to expose the police union here.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah. I mean, I think of all institutions, policing is the most anti-democratic. And like we said before, kind of the authoritarian impulses of society kind of course through it. And so your battle with them and the battle over space is pretty much to me the most so pro-democracy thing you can do as a reporter. I mean, in some ways the battle over democracy is incremental. When I worked for a TV station, when we go out to film, we had one space, which was a sidewalk because you couldn’t go on private property and you couldn’t go on the road because then they charge you with obstructing traffic. And yet even though the sidewalk was like the one place we could set up our camera and our tripod, police would still try to kick us off it. We constantly were battling. And it kind of was illuminating to me because here we have this one little space to do our jobs to expose X, Y, and Z, and we can’t even do this.

    And so that’s why I think that sort of sense of taking all space over and sort of forcing people not to confront, not to ask questions, not to have a circulatory system to this democracy. I think that’s why it does make your work sort of pro-democracy because you’re fighting in some sense the most anti-democratic force. This doesn’t mean I’m anti-police or anything like that. I just think the institution itself, as you talked about before, is corrupted by the political economy that sustains it. So yeah, I think democracy is at stake in a sense, along with the broader issues that we covered on Capitol Hill, but this is an important component of it.

    Taya Graham:

    Steven, you were talking about how we’re covering Capitol Hill and it definitely seems like our democracy is under stress. I mean, what do you think about this idea in a broader context?

    Stephen Janis:

    Well, yeah, in the broader context, we just covered the federal government or the Republicans voting for a reconciliation bill that gets $70 billion. Let’s talk about real money. ICE has a hundred billion. Republicans get up and they give the ICE another 70 billion with absolutely no details or explanation of why. The point was just to fund ICE for an infinite length of time to fund ICE to do anything. So we’ve seen how ICE uses law enforcement tactics to disrupt democratic processes like in Minneapolis. And then of course killed two people that didn’t need to die. And so they give him $70 billion. And so I think here’s Sean fighting it on a local or a local level. In the national level, the same thing is going on. I mean, talk about giving unlimited money to law enforcement. I think there’s parallels there. Suffolk County has $5 million a year, 15 million here, extravagant pensions.

    And then on Capitol Hill, $70 billion to an agency that doesn’t need it. They still had a hundred billion in the bank and they’re funded not year over year, but until 2029. So

    Taya Graham:

    The

    Stephen Janis:

    Unleashing of law enforcement through money, which we’ve seen in Suffolk County, we’ve written about this, is now playing out on a national level. And now you have a national federalized police force with unlimited funds.

    Taya Graham:

    You know what? Let me jump to our next comment because I want to make sure to get to as many of them as possible. Absolutely. And we’ve had some great comments that we’ve been putting on the screen from the live chat. I appreciate you. And don’t worry, I will ask about the tiger picture. Not now, but I will ask about the tiger pictures. There’s a person who’s obsessed with your painting, Sean. So before you go, you’re going to have to talk about it. Okay. Okay. Okay.

    Stephen Janis:

    I don’t know what you guys are talking about. Sorry.

    Taya Graham:

    It’s okay. I’ll

    Stephen Janis:

    Tell you. But I sure I’ll find out hopefully.

    Taya Graham:

    Back to police unions, one of our favorite topics. And full disclosure, I am a member of a union. I am a union steward. And I can let you know that the Communication Workers Association does not receive any taxpayer dollars. And I’m not receiving a million dollar pension. Like I said, I would need to work 200 years to earn that pension. Anyway, Sean, you explained on our show that you wanted the police union to answer questions about how they protect members who are accused of brutality and misconduct. One of the viewers weighed in on the power of police unions. Dave, if you don’t mind putting up comment six for me. Okay. Here we have Charles Harmon, 4159 says regarding the police union, “Police unions throughout the nation are the problem. Unlimited power and authority, the unions, qualified immunity, rampant racism and corruption. Nothing will be correct until we check this.” Wow.

    I mean, Sean Paul, from your experience, how is bad policing a consequence of the power police unions?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    So because they shield officers who engage in misconduct and brutality against accountability. They’ll tell you that. That’s what they do. They say buzzwords and things like, “Oh, we’re just making sure they get due process, that they need to have the same rights as everybody else and everything else.” But there is no due process when there’s no accountability at the end of that process. That’s like if people would be happy if they said, “Oh, we’re going to give due process to immigrants and then we’re going to let them stay here.” People would be upset with that. When you bring up ICE, that’s a hot button topic on when I talk about ICE on my channel.

    I completely agree with what you’re talking about. And again, that’s by design, the division. We can’t say that the ICE is receiving too much money without accountability, without body cameras, without having to take off their masks, not violate people’s rights. I went to the location and flew out there to Minneapolis where Alex Pretty was murdered and I was at a eulogy there. And it really hit me that a man was murdered and executed by ICE. And people say, “Well, he kicked a car two weeks ago and broke the taillight.” And it’s like, come on, you need to understand something. That is not. Yes, Alex Pretty engaged in violent behavior two weeks before he was executed. Even if he was executed that same day, kicking a taillight is not a death sentence. We need to understand this. Wanting accountability for ICE is not pro-immigration or pro-illegal immigration.

    These people, they have this in their mind where if you criticize ICE in any way, it’s now you’re pro-illegal immigration, you’re pro this. When I talked about judicial warrants, the differences between judicial warrants and administrative warrants. And I put this on my channel and people, I got so much blow back from my community about, oh, but Sean, you’re just trying to protect illegal immigrants. And no, I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to protect me. I’m trying to protect our country. Because there’s a big difference. You cannot go into someone’s house on an administrative warrant because an administrative warrant is basically like a decree from the king. Then we’d be going back to the decree from the king where he says, oh, that’s the warrant. And then we’re going to go. A judicial warrant is necessary to have a third party look at the facts of the case.

    I’m trying to protect everybody’s rights, including illegal immigrants’ rights because whether you like it or not, they do have rights and it was by design. And you don’t have to like it, but you have to accept reality for what it is. And police unions generally in this country, but specifically in the Northeast, specifically in the Northeast, they are so powerful, so well funded through tax money. And they shield officers from accountability every single day. It happens all the time. And I think police unions should be abolished across the country.

    Stephen Janis:

    Sean, Ray, one time I went to police union headquarters and they actually have a bar in there and they offered me a beer, which is kind of funny. But when I asked Congresswoman Mike Lawler about ICE funding about $70 billion, you know what he said to me? He said, “Do you want to abolish ICE?” That was his answer to my question. Of course. So what you’re talking about, this sort of. Well, it’s part of the culture of policing, right? You are for or against. When someone says you can either be for or against something, you know you’re in really treacherous territory. Tay and I always make this joke, do you have to be for and against the sanitation department

    Taya Graham:

    To

    Stephen Janis:

    Ask us? Well, if you ask a question about why we’re spending so much money on sanitation,

    Taya Graham:

    You’re against

    Stephen Janis:

    Sanitation.

    Taya Graham:

    Right. If you criticize that we don’t get Tuesday and Thursday pickup anymore, we only get Thursday pickup, then you’re anti-sanitation. You hate sanitation workers.

    Stephen Janis:

    And you’re somehow un-American.

    Taya Graham:

    There’s no other organization and agency. That we can’t just criticize.

    Stephen Janis:

    And part of that is the union themselves because as Sean Wright points out, they have five people that are getting paid by the taxpayers sit there and espouse the perspective of the union. And let me tell you something, union officials have great relationships with the media. They didn’t have it with me when I was covering them, but I got a lot of crap because the media was so intertwined with the union officials on police uni officials. They are so much more powerful, even more powerful than union officials for other aspects of government. There’s no comparison to the power of the police union with the power of other public services.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I mean, just as I’m sitting there chained to a desk within hours of my arrest before I’m released, before anything else, the New York Post has an article out. Do you think that the New York Post was just looking at. No, they made a call to somebody at the New York Post and even they got a title change. The New York Post reporter that spoke to me when he went to my court, when it went to my arraignment, I said, “Why did you change the title of your second article? It was very critical of the police union because he was talking about how the video doesn’t seem to. It raises questions.” He said it in a very nice way too. He said, “It raises questions as to what the police union president stated in his original comments to the post. They changed the title of that article to Police Union President Receives Death Threats.” And I said, “Why did you do that?” He said, “Well, my first title, the police union president called my boss and he made a big stink and we had to change the title.” You want law enforcement officers to have that much power – That’s incredible.

    Over the media, over your politicians, over your money, everything. That’s incredible. All because they’re heroes and you want to idolize them.

    Stephen Janis:

    Is he like the editor of the New York Post? I mean, just so people know, when Sean Ray, after the encounter, the New York Post ran very, I would say, inflammatory articles about your encounter with them. Not mentioning the pension or any of the questions you were asking, but simply talking about how once your video aired, people called, which happens with any publication. When I worked for a newspaper and we published a story, people didn’t like. We get tons of calls in hate mail. That’s normal. That’s not like you doing something. They made it seem like you had somehow corralled everyone to call. Yeah.That was something that you had done like, “Hey, everyone, call the police union. No.” And that’s extraordinary though that they have that kind of power.

    Taya Graham:

    It really is. You know what? Let me jump forward to comment eight because there are a few more comments I want to get to. I really want to check in on this one because – Give me some hard ones.Come on Tara. Because I’m going to try. People are going to town about qualified immunity in the comment section in our live chat right now. Favorite topic.

    I think this is a really great time to discuss it. Yes. Okay. I mean, any discussion would be remiss without mentioning qualified immunity. And you know what? Let me just give a little explainer. I think everyone in our live chat, our PAR community knows qualified immunity, but just for anyone who might stumble across us, basically qualified immunity is a legal loophole that makes it extremely difficult to sue the police. So qualified immunity was created as sort of a threshold to give public officials immunity from violating people’s rights. And that was a consequence of a law passed during Reconstruction. I think it’s a 1983 part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was actually passed during Reconstruction to give people the right to sue again for the violation of their rights. But the qualified immunity loophole basically says you can’t sue someone if the right hasn’t been established, which means it has to been put through some sort of adjudication before you can sue someone like a cop.

    And it has to be a case that is incredibly specific to your situation, but if it hasn’t been adjudicated upon, it’s going to be really difficult to sue. And I think Liberty Freak in the comment section and Mr. Brandt know a little something about that. Okay. With all that said, here’s the comment about it. Now this is from American Patriot 3515 on qualified immunity. We the people are getting sick and tired of that document known as the Constitution being used as toilet paper by law enforcement all across this country. We need to ban qualified immunity. That would be a good start. Okay. Sean Paul, to you. How big of a problem is qualified immunity when it comes to holding police accountable?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I think it’s a huge problem. Again, but I don’t want to minimize. I think the number one problem is the police unions. That is the number one problem because as things qualified immunity is horrible, but a lot of people focus on qualified immunity. That’s probably the number one thing that people who want police to be held accountable are saying, abolish qualified immunity, get rid of qualified immunity. But even if you did, the police unions are going to run rampant. It’s not going to change anything. I mean, you might be able to sue them and get some additional funds and everything, but most of the rights have been clearly established. But what judges, some judges will do, not all, but some judges will find a wiggle room. And this is what makes qualified immunity dangerous is that they’ll take, “Oh, well, this fact doesn’t add up right.” Or any layperson would be like, “Well, you can film,” for example.

    I’ll give you an example of probably what a judge could do, is that you were filming the right to record the police on a public sidewalk is clearly established. But if you recorded them from the public parking lot, that’s not clearly established. So therefore right next to the sidewalk, so therefore he’s going to get qualified immunity. So eventually they’re going to run out of little loopholes to try and get people because it is qualified immunity. It’s not what prosecutors have, which is absolute immunity. Judges have absolute immunity.

    So eventually they’ll run out of the little work. And I think qualified with the workarounds, I think qualified immunity is very important, but I want to stress to everybody that the police unions and the way they operate within the political system is far more dangerous when it comes to the lack of accountability and police power.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah.

    Taya Graham:

    Steven, I think there’s a case that talks a lot about qualified immunity. It’s the Eric Brandt and Liberty Freak case in the 10th Circuit. Maybe you want to explain

    Stephen Janis:

    About that? Well yeah, in 2021 or no, I think they actually, it was in 2019 that Eric Brandt and Liberty Freak were filming a police officer. They were filming just a traffic stop. And then a police officer drove up and got in front of them and then her drove his car at Eric. And this is in the 10th circuit. And I think the case was adjudicated in 2021, 2022. The initial district court said that the officer had qualified immunity because the right to film police had not been established. Now they won that case. The ACLU joined in, even the Cato Institute joined in, Electronic Frontier joined in. So they won it, but it can show you, as Sean, as you’re pointing out, that sometimes things slip through the cracks. And at that point in the 10th circuit, the district court judge had said, “Oh, there’s no established right to film police.” And this is in 2021, 2022.

    Now, of course they won, but it just shows you sometimes these things can be a little more complicated. But I do agree with you that police unions are this source and locus of power when it comes to policing. It’s almost impossible to battle police unions.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. I mean, I’m taking it on now and I’m not going to stop. And I don’t see an end. I think this is going to be for the rest of my career because what I’ve seen is just horrible, especially in my own county. And I want to bring awareness to it. But the machine is just, it’s so big that it would take people really waking up and voting out these politicians who can end these contracts, who can make sure there’s accountability. But again, they have a propaganda arm. They have everything. They’re an S corp. They get paid a salary. They have expenses. They do this. It’s just such a machine.

    Stephen Janis:

    And a lot of times they fund. If a police officer gets into trouble, I don’t know what goes on in Suffolk County, but the police unions, like all the officers who were charged with the death of Freddie Gray, which for everyone who doesn’t know, Freddie Gray was a young man who died in police custody in 2015 and set off basically an uprising here in Baltimore. But all the police officers didn’t have to worry about hiring a lawyer because the police union pays for the lawyers for police officers who get in trouble in Maryland. I don’t know how it is in Suffolk County, but they have a lawyer on twenty four seven for them. If anything happens to them, they get free legal services from pretty well-paid law firms. Very well paid

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    First. Yeah. But that’s the secondary, that’s like the safety net. Most times in my experience, police officers get indemnified by the county or municipality. We’re going to get to

    Stephen Janis:

    That. And yes,

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    You are correct. They get taxpayer funded lawyers and they’re not getting the county attorneys, especially in Suffolk County or Nassau County, the neighboring county on Long Island. They hire $2,000 an hour attorneys, private attorneys. And I’m sure if I looked into that, I’m sure those attorneys probably donated those law firms. Oh

    Stephen Janis:

    Absolutely. We had the same thing going on in Baltimore. Absolutely.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    It’s a whole racket. It’s a whole

    Stephen Janis:

    Racket.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    It’s a whole big club and we’re not in it, just so people

    Taya Graham:

    Know. We are not in it.

    Stephen Janis:

    It’s a classic political economy. We had law firms were getting millions of dollars from Baltimore City to handle these lawsuits and basically –

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Instead

    Stephen Janis:

    Of settling,

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    They couldn’t use that money to settle the case.

    Stephen Janis:

    Well, exactly.

    Taya Graham:

    Right. But

    Stephen Janis:

    That’s the

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Thing. Fight it. It’s insane.

    Stephen Janis:

    They would spend millions. We have a municipal cap in Baltimore in Maryland. It’s 500,000 or 900,000. And they would spend more money defending than just, might as well just pay it out. They would spend five, six, seven million dollars just to defend a lawsuit. They’d eventually pay out. But instead of just paying it out, I think they wanted to run up the billable hours, which is to your point. You have the law firms getting involved, making millions and millions of dollars. The politicians getting donations. It’s a pretty nice business. Nice work if you get it. And the amazing thing about it that you point out, I think that people don’t understand, is if you mess up, the more mistakes you make, the more lucrative it is. In our city, after the Justice Department investigated our police department and found the Department of Justice found it practiced unconstitutional and racist policing for like a decade, the police department got $70 million to fix the issues.

    Tons of consultants

    Taya Graham:

    Like you said tons of work. That was the first thing that happened. They were handed millions more dollars.

    Stephen Janis:

    70 million. And it just went to all sorts of extracurricular activities, which eventually ends up in the pockets of the union.

    Taya Graham:

    Yeah, absolutely. You know what? Let me grab comment nine because I think it’s an interesting one because it kind of is a dig at me and Steven. There’s someone who thinks we shouldn’t even be talking to you, Sean Paul. Dave, can you put up comment nine and I’ll read it. Sean Frey, excuse me, 7975 says, “You going to hitch your wagon to that mule. Lost all respect for you.” Wow. Yeah. Steven, I’m not sure exactly where that’s coming from, but I’m sure you have something to say about it. Well,

    Stephen Janis:

    First of all, I want to say I have tremendous respect for Sean Ray and all the work that he does. I don’t even care what they say about that. But also I think we should disabuse ourselves with this notion that interviewing someone means somehow you’re hitched to their wagon. Covering what Long Island does, Long Island Odds does, does not mean we endorse anything he does. It just means that we feel that he is newsworthy and that what he does is worth showing to our audience. That’s all it is. It’s not like we’re saying we’re endorsing everything Sean Ray does or we’re in. Sean Paul, sorry. Sean Paul Ray does. We’re not saying that at all. What we do as journalists, we interview all sorts of people. I mean, should we not interview Republican politicians who disagree with us or should we not interview people who we don’t think are perfectly suitable?

    That’s not what we do. That’s not the kind of judgment we make. We judge things based on their newsworthiness. And Long Island Audits has made a lot of news for a good reason, for accountability reporting, and therefore we will cover him. And I don’t really care what people say about it, but I do have tremendous respect for your work. So

    Taya Graham:

    Either

    Stephen Janis:

    Way.

    Taya Graham:

    Steven, I agree with you. What we do is cover things that are newsworthy. For example, we have covered victims of crime and we have also interviewed people who have gone to prison for crimes. Does that mean I shouldn’t interview someone because they’ve gone to prison? Right. Does that mean I should only interview people that I like and never someone that I might have some fundamental differences in? Half the politicians

    Stephen Janis:

    In Maryland have gone to prison and we’ve interviewed all of them.

    Taya Graham:

    Oh my gosh. And they’re Democrats for the record.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah. So we interview

    Taya Graham:

    People all the time. They actually did go to prison. Our previous mayor did actually, and I had a lovely interview with her. So I should not interview people because they’re problematic. If they’re newsworthy, if interviewing them is going to reveal something important, then I should interview them for the benefit of the public. It’s not about liking people. It’s not about hitching your wagon to a star. It’s about giving the public information that they can find useful. Period. Case closed. Case closed. Now, Sean, I’m not going to force you to react to this unless you want to. I will.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I will. So first of all, to me, this is indicative of the tribalism and the death of nuance. And these people, they want to be closed-minded. They don’t want to have conversations. And this person probably, he says, if you asked him, you do support the First Amendment, do you support the free press? Do you support? And you probably say, yes, yes, yes. I love the Constitution. But the minute that someone engages with somebody that they don’t like or starts talking to them, again, just because I’m on your channel doesn’t mean that I am not. We do not endorse each other for everything that we do. If tomorrow you did something I didn’t like, I have full rights to talk about that as well. I don’t have a blind loyalty to people. I love the work that you guys do and I appreciate it. And I think what you guys do on Capitol Hill is great.

    I watch you guys all the time. And you really speak truth to power. It’s great. I wish I could be up there on Capitol Hill agitating people and provoking people. I wish you could too. I

    Taya Graham:

    Was going to say,

    Stephen Janis:

    You

    Taya Graham:

    Can join

    Stephen Janis:

    Us. Can you bring your truck up to Capitol Hill one time at least once? I

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Would love to bring the truck. Yeah, I

    Stephen Janis:

    Would love to. All right. We’ve got to do the truck one

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Time. I would love to join you guys over there a Capitol Hill.But again –

    Stephen Janis:

    We’re doing that. That’s the date.That’s the date. I love it. I want that truck on Capitol Hill, man. Right on the triangle. It would be

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Great. It’s crazy. And people are like, “Oh, journalists don’t have billboard trucks. That’s true. Most journalists don’t.” I wish we did. Right. I’m sure most journalists wish they did too. It’s a good way to spread your message around. And again, I’m not saying I’m not Caitlin Collins of CNN. I’m not – Neither

    Taya Graham:

    Am I.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Whoever from Fox News, I guess. I’m not those people. I’m Sean Paul Reyes. My platform is my platform. I objectively engage in journalistic activities. I objectively exercise my First Amendment right. And again, if you want to call it advocacy journalism, opinionated journalism, yeah, I have opinions. And I don’t hide that. I talk about things that interest me and interest my audience. And I think that me building platforms that have over two million subscribers and at this point, probably a billion views, 500 million, 600 million on YouTube alone. These are matters of public interest that people want to see. People are very passionate about it. I get death threats. I get people are passionate on the other side too. People threaten to kill me, threaten to kill my family. There’s a lot of things that go into this. And it’s sad to see that people can’t have conversations anymore.

    Even if we were totally different, I would still come on your channel. I invited Lou, when the body camera footage comes out the Sunday on my channel, the Sunday morning at 10:00 AM, I invited him to come on the channel and he accepted. So Lou, if you’re watching this, you’re still welcome to. I think that he is a despicable thug with a badge, but I would bring him on my channel. Absolutely. Great point. So that way I can debate him. Absolutely. But he would never come. He says it on the body cam. “Yeah, I’ll come on your channel. Yeah, let’s do it. “While I’m sitting in handcuffs, while I’m standing there in handcuffs with a pinched nerve in my wrist because he put the handcuffs on so tight, he says,” I’ll come on. “I said,” Come on the channel. “Because I would have anybody on the channel if I thought it brought value to the greater conversation.

    Absolutely. I think him speaking to me on my channel, I think it’s going to show you exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to the police union. They talk just generalities. Oh, they don’t get into any specifics about anything. It’s just you’re an agitator, how? You’re a provocateur, how? You hate the police, how? I’ve had police officers on my channel, I’ve gotten pushback from, if you want to talk about the other side of it, I’ve brought chief of polices, detectives, I’ve had law enforcement on my channel. I’ve done ride alongs, I’ve done trainings, I’ve done command staff meetings, district attorney’s offices, and some of the more anti-police who have just a bad taste in their mouth for police and don’t think that police should exist whatsoever, they’re like, “Why would you bring on a cop?” Because I want to have conversations with people who have different views than me.

    I do so I can understand what it is I need to do and how I need to tackle a problem better. I would

    Taya Graham:

    Bring

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    On anyone. I would.

    Taya Graham:

    You know what? Steven, you know what this sounds like?

    Stephen Janis:

    What?

    Taya Graham:

    This sounds like a journalist.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah. Let me just make one public service announcement. I know, because I know he’s watching our editor, Maximolia Alvarez. We would like a truck. So just put that on our budget because I’m jealous of Sean. I want to show up at Capitol Hill with a truck.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    You can use my truck. We will definitely collaborate

    Stephen Janis:

    And I will. Oh, you were coming out with that truck. Absolutely. We would love that. We have to do a collab. I would love to do

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    It. After how it works and everything. It’s

    Taya Graham:

    Great. And I just want to shout out some of the people in the comments. First off, hi Car Thief News. Thank you. And also, I want to say hello to Wrights Crispy. Hello, another wonderful cop watcher out there. We still have Joe Cool out there, hippie auditor out there. I think I even saw John Felix. I don’t know if I hallucinated it, but I’m almost positive I saw the John Felix out there. And I just

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Want to –

    Taya Graham:

    I

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Like Joe Cool.

    Taya Graham:

    I know. I know. As a matter of fact, Steven, do you have a DVD next to you?

    Stephen Janis:

    Oh yeah.

    Taya Graham:

    You know what? Why don’t you show that DVD?

    Stephen Janis:

    Okay.

    Taya Graham:

    If people are interested in learning a little bit more about Copwatchers, there is something you can watch. It’s called I Am But the Mirror. The

    Stephen Janis:

    Story of American Copwatching.

    Taya Graham:

    Story of American Copwatching. Lacey Arnold D, if you wouldn’t mind dropping the link in the comments. It’s on Fossum. It’s an amazing documentary where we followed Copwatchers and in particular a very controversial one for several years. And we share their story. We share the story of how we learned about Copwatchers, their lives. Just about some of the

    Stephen Janis:

    Topics we talked about tonight too.

    Taya Graham:

    A lot of the things we. No, no, it’s okay. A lot of the things that we touched on tonight, it’s a very personal and intimate look at the lives of Copwatcher and some of the very personal costs that happen when you put everything on the line because you believe in accountability and transparency. So if you’re interested in Copwatching, definitely recommend it. Okay. I just had to throw that out there for people who might be interested in continuing this conversation in another way. Okay. I’m going to go to the comment 10, and I have to admit this as a little bit of a personal peeve for me. Okay. This is the infamous democracy versus republic debate. I know there’s some historians in the comments, so you’re welcome to weigh in on this. This is from Edward Cominar 1493. I stopped watching when you called us a democracy.

    We are not a democracy. And since you believe that, I will not sub to your channel. Bye. Okay. Well, all right. I hate to say it, but this is not an airport. You did not have to announce your departure. It’s okay. I love that. But secondly, I want to put this up because very often when I use the word democracy in the show, someone brings up that it’s formerly a constitutional republic as a point as if I didn’t know this or wasn’t aware. So please let me break it down so maybe I don’t have to go through this again. One is a legal framework or structure of governance, i.e. A constitutional republic. And one is a process for conferring power within that structure. Neither are mutually exclusive. One does not preclude the existence of another. We can live within the structure of a constitutional republic while simultaneously participating in a democracy.

    I mean, Steven, am I wrong here?

    Stephen Janis:

    No, no, no, no, no. The two exist, coexist. I mean, the process itself of voting is democratic. So I just wanted to put that up there because people say this constantly when we have this discussion. And just remember, they’re not mutually exclusive. They really work well together. So when we say one, we’re not precluding the other is the point.

    Taya Graham:

    Right. Just

    Stephen Janis:

    Wanted to make that point quick.

    Taya Graham:

    Yes. Think of the republic is the building in which the democracy is housed. How about that? That sounds good. Okay. So we don’t have to argue about this, you guys. I promise. I promise. Okay. I won’t ask you to. Let’s get to 11 because we’re – Running out of time. We do have some time. Yeah. We do have to watch out for time. Last

    Stephen Janis:

    Comment.

    Taya Graham:

    Okay. Last comment that we saved from earlier from Facebook and YouTube. Okay. Who is footing the bill? Okay. So I think this comment makes a really good point, so we need to highlight it. Dave, thank you so much for putting it up. This is Sean Strauss’s point. Remember, everyone, cops never pay a single cent for lawsuits. Even in a successful lawsuit where qualified immunity is denied, individual LEOs are still literally always indemnified by the municipality. It’s the taxpayers who pay for the lawyer’s fees, court costs settlements, and even judgements issued against them. We the people currently have no meaningful legal recourse to hold our LEOs accountable, neither civilly nor criminally. So either one of you can take this. Well, let’s have Sean do it. Yeah. Is it true that police are indemnified by the taxpayers?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    In most cases, yes. There was actually a case that I brought up. I’d covered this case where this man was walking down the street in New York City and officers hopped out like a gang. Literally a gang hopped out of a patrol vehicle and started going into his pants, checking him, searching him. He was just walking down the street, minding his own business, but apparently he must have looked a certain way or walked a certain way. Who knows what they were thinking? But they hopped out and they started searching him. They ended up grabbing his genitals and doing all types of craziness to him. And he got upset and I raid about it. He ended up filing a lawsuit. I covered this story probably three years ago. And then he had texted me, told me, “Hey, they ended up settling for $100,000.” And I bring this up because out of that $100,000, well, they had to hire their own attorneys, but as Steven indicated earlier, they hired their attorneys through the PBA, through their union.

    They don’t call it a PBA, but their union, they hired them attorneys. And then they had to come out of pocket out of that $95,000 of that $100,000 settlement this gentleman got was taxpayer money. And the other 5,000 had to be split between the two officers who violated his rights. So at the end of the day, cops can be held accountable civilly, but nine times out of 10, 99% of the time they are indemnified by the municipality and the taxpayers end up funding the bill. I completely agree that there’s such a lack of accountability when it comes to government officials and our public servants, whether it’s locally, on the state level, federally. Federally is even worse. Federally, you can’t even. I didn’t know this until recently when I was unlawfully detained by border patrol and they went and cut open my suitcase, searched my vehicle, deleted the video from my phone.

    Thankfully it was my recently deleted, put me in a jail cell.

    You cannot sue the federal government under the 1983 civil rights lawsuit. You can’t. They’re not named as a. It’s for state actors, not federal actors. So you can file what’s called a tort claim, which that’s for actual damages. I could have filed a tort claim for the damage they did to my suitcase. It’s almost impossible to hold the federal government accountable. So it goes all the way. The lack of opportunities we have and the lack of avenues, I should say, that we have to hold state actors or federal actors accountable for their misconduct is basically nothing because they have unlimited money because it’s our money. It’s our money. They have unlimited money. They can just pay out lawsuits because it’s our money. Even if the federal government, they print the money. So they literally have unlimited money. And the state governments, they can’t print money, but they have a lot of it, especially places like New York, Maryland, where there’s high taxes.

    They have a lot of money to be able to spare. They factor this in and they say, “Well, it is what it is.” It goes away. The person gets their money and they move on. And there’s never any accountability. If it came out of the law enforcement officer’s pockets.

    Law enforcement is designed, is supposed to be, right? This is what they tell you to hold people accountable for their criminal actions, is to enforce the law. And the criminal justice system, again, I’m not co-signing their view, but they’re saying the criminal justice system is supposed to stop people from committing crimes. Not only the individual that’s being charged with a crime, but it’s supposed to serve as a deterrent to society as a whole to say, “Hey, you can’t do this because this will happen to you the same way it happened to this guy.” But in law enforcement, when there’s no accountability for the individual officer, that breeds a lack of accountability across the whole department and across the police as a whole. And because they know that, “Hey, I can do this.” Just recently, somebody was charged with a crime for using flock cameras to stalk their girlfriend.

    And the investigator, the IA investigator who investigated him was arrested as well for doing the same thing after he did it. So it’s just the lack of accountability is astounding and it breeds more misconduct and more misconduct. And unfortunately, unless we change up, unless we get the right politicians in there, public servants to legislators, executives in the executive branch to hold them accountable, it’s not going to change.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah. I mean, it’s really interesting. I want to make this point before we wrap things up because one of the first times we started talking to Sean was when his encounter with Sergeant Fahey in Connecticut. Connecticut state trooper that seemed like his overtime was a little excessive for someone who worked at a desk and then retired with a pension. And I’ve been doing some digging on it. And it turns out that the couple thousand retired state troopers cost Connecticut taxpayers $110 million a year to fund their pensions. And we started looking at some of the last couple years, because the last couple years is what defines your salary. So what happens is that they start collecting a lot more overtime and therefore their final average pay goes up and therefore their final average pension becomes larger and more lucrative. And I think the point is in what you’re saying is that you are really attacking the crux of the matter in the sense that this is real dollars.

    I mean, $110 million a year to fund the pensions for a couple thousand people is really an extreme use of resources in a country that purports not to be able to pay for healthcare for average working citizens. This is real money that keeps getting tossed around. When we looked at the budget for Suffolk County, it was like $1,400 a year for each household to fund police. I mean, think about that. So we are talking about hundreds of millions of billions of dollars being funneled into one organization that represents a very small number of people and hundreds of billions of dollars not going to pay for people’s healthcare or for childcare or for whatever, for education, you name it. So this is not a minor, this is a kind of a crux issue. And I think Sean, as you point out, these people are really the warriors on behalf of the oligarchy.

    So yeah, I just want to make that point because that money struck me, $110 million. What could we do with that?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    The Suffolk County Police Department has a billion dollar budget. It’s insane that the amount of money that goes into these six figure pensions for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life, but yet I might not even get my social security one day, but yet they get from. They’re going to get six figures for the rest of their life.

    Stephen Janis:

    For the rest of their lives. Yeah. I mean, it’s extraordinary. And Suffolk County’s like the hotbed of crime that I

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Know of. No, it’s not. You know what they do? You know what they do, Steven? Again, I like the rank and file people of Suffolk County. I do. People, I’ll probably get chewed up for that. I like the rank and file officers because I think they’re pretty cool guys, but it’s the system, the police union, the administration. But what they do is they hide behind firehouses and just sit there all night long and just hang out. That’s what they do.

    Stephen Janis:

    Right. Right. Meanwhile, collecting $100,000 a year. Yeah. 200,

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    300, 400, $500,000 a year, that much.

    Stephen Janis:

    I mean, Suffolk County’s like Stony Brook University and a couple malls. I mean, seriously, a billion dollars, what? What’s going on there?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Keep us safe.

    Taya Graham:

    I wanted to say there have been some really great comments. And unfortunately, I didn’t get to ask some of the questions that were on the screen. So I just want to shout out a few people. I see Garden State Accountability, San Joaquin Valley Transparency. Otto, the watchdog is out there. Hey, Otto. It’s good to see you. How are you? One of our favorites. Leroy Truth. There’s a vigilance committee. Joe Kool is out there holding it down in the comment section. I love it. Big Nick South. Saw Rice Krispy. So I just want to make sure. I’m sorry if I didn’t get to mention everybody, but the comments are kind of flying by. I just want to thank all of you for participating. And I just want to ask, and there’s a great question on the screen of whether or not people. They want to know, do we think that this kind of cop watching, this kind of auditing, this kind of First Amendment activism, do you think it’s making a difference?

    That was a question. It’s a good question. I’m so sorry. The name flew by too fast for. But I want you to know out there whoever’s in live chat, that was a great question. So Sean, I just wanted to ask you, do you think it’s making a difference?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I think it’s making a difference. I don’t think it’s making enough of a difference, but I do believe it’s making a difference. Even in the last five years, there’s a bunch of, you just named a bunch of people. There’s so many people that came before me. I’ve been doing this for five years. These people have been doing this for the last decade, 15 years. And I give them all the respect in the world for starting this. And I think it’s made a huge difference, but not enough of a difference. And I think law enforcement officers, they won’t just grab you and arrest you at a traffic stop anymore. No as much. I’ve noticed that when I walk into a public building now, most people, they’re like, oh, they know what you’re doing and everything else. And they treat you with respect and just the basics that should have been happening from day one.

    But they don’t want to be famous online or infamous, I should say, online. So I think all of us together have really accomplished a lot. And I think my platform is really branching out into actually investigating in particular mayors, particular just like Lee Roy Truth or others out there who are focused then on one person or one organization. Because I feel like over the last five years, I’ve been stretched out and I feel like I’ve failed my county. Again, I’m proud one raised resident, Suffolk County, Long Island. And I feel like I failed my county by not taking this police union head on from the start. I’ve been all over the place from California and Hawaii, Florida and everywhere in between. And I think I need to focus my resources in one area and be able to really affect change, maybe even run for a legislator just to make them, even if it’s just to make them

    Stephen Janis:

    Spend money against me. Wait, wait, wait. So you’re going to run for office?

    Taya Graham:

    I’m

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Thinking about running for legislator in Suffolk County.

    Stephen Janis:

    That’s news. Okay. Can we just break news? We just break news.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I mean, listen, my legislator, I looked it up. He won with 8,000 votes. Oh my

    Stephen Janis:

    God. I’ve got an audience of a million. You got

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    The senate. My district is like 75,000. So 8,000. Get out to vote people. Come on. Whoever supports the police unit support, vote the opposite. I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or a Republican. Whoever the police unit supports, vote for the opposite of that person. Whatever it is.

    Taya Graham:

    That’s solid platform. That’s a solid platform. We

    Stephen Janis:

    Are covering your campaign beginning to end. One thing I want to say –

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Great campaign. I got the billboard truck already. It’s going to be great.

    Taya Graham:

    You’re

    Stephen Janis:

    Already

    Taya Graham:

    Halfway there.

    Stephen Janis:

    Taya’s from Long Island. My family’s from Long Island. Several of our other coworkers, we have a very strong Long Island.

    Taya Graham:

    We’re Long Island strong here at The Real News. So

    Stephen Janis:

    Just so you know, we’re in solidarity with you on Long Island.

    Taya Graham:

    Absolutely. Absolutely. I spent summers in Stony Brook in Suffolk County. And I spent summers in Stoney. I know how quiet it is. Okay. Last question. Last question, you guys, so we can wrap up. I just wanted to ask what you envision for the future of your work and perhaps kind of YouTube auditing in general. Do you think it’s going to evolve? Do you think the police are going to push back harder or where do you think we go from here? Because I think there’s going to be an auditor summit coming up. There are people who still want to get involved, become auditors, become First Amendment activists, become cop watchers, but there are some challenges there. So what do you see as its future?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Yeah. I’m familiar with the 1A auditor summit that’s supposed to be held next year. And I think it’s important. I kind of got into it already. I think it’s evolved to where. One of the things that frustrated me about First Amendment auditing is that there was never any follow up. And I think that’s what I would see somebody whose rights get violated and then I would never know what happened after that. I would never see them file a complaint. I would never see the results of the complaint. We all know that they’re going to investigate themselves and find out what we’re doing, but take that step because it’s important to show that’s part of the story. It’s important to show that you are filing a complaint with Internal Affairs who’s supposed to be an independent part of the police department, which they’re not. And it is important to show that they’re going to unsubstantiate it.

    When your own eyes tell you exactly what happened, they will lie to you straight to your face. And I think it’s important for follow up. And I think more and more, I’m starting to investigate more into an investigative journalism kind of phase where I’m looking at the numbers, I’m looking at the papers. I’m talking to informants sources that are. I just got off the phone with a former law enforcement officer right before I almost was late because I was talking to a former law enforcement officer giving me all this information. And it’s important to evolve what you’re doing and to be passionate about it. And I think that moving forward, I think people like Leroy Truth, there are so many others out there that have really changed when it comes to actually focusing on particular issues and really digging into those issues because recording in public spaces is very important.

    Recording law enforcement on a traffic stop is very important because it shows you what happens when power is challenged in any little way. These people with their ego, when you challenge their ego, I was arrested by Lucavillo because I said, “You’re such a tough guy, then do it. Let’s be real. Not because I broke the law. It’s because I went there asking questions about how his agencies are costing us hundreds of millions of dollars and I challenged his ego.” And he couldn’t control his emotions. Now imagine when you see those people, when you see these videos of these law enforcement officers who can’t control their emotions, if they’re doing it to me, if that man, Lucivillo, the police union president, is willing to do that to me, somebody with over two million subscribers across social media, hundreds of millions of views, what do you think he’s doing to John Smith down the street with no family, no money?

    Stephen Janis:

    Exactly.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    They run them through the system. The process is the punishment. The difference is that what law enforcement hasn’t figured out yet is that the process isn’t the punishment when it comes to people like me because the process, you’re thinking of I’m being punished. I’m not because I have a bunch of supporters that help me out with legal bills. I have a bunch of supporters that will write letters. So the process isn’t the punishment for me, but they’re so ingrained in that kind of way of thinking that this might not hold up in court. It’s probably not going to hold up in court, but he gets to sit in jail for seven hours. He has to pay a lawyer. He’s going to end up taking a deal anyway. And at the end of the day, if it all goes to shit, it’s going to get paid by his money anyway, taxpayer money.

    It’s not going to affect me in any way. I’m not going to be held accountable.

    Taya Graham:

    Steven, let me ask you, what do you see as the future? I mean, you worked on that documentary, I am But the Mirror. You should know a little bit about Copwatching by now.

    Stephen Janis:

    Well, first thing I want to say is my editor-in-chief Max is in my ear and he’s telling me that this truck is on order for our billboard truck. So yes, I’ve been informed. I wanted to break that news that we will have the Tay and Steven billboard truck in operation shortly. But I think Sean injects creativity into journalism. I mean, journalists, we have a little high priestess sort of priest sort of feeling about bureaucratic. We can be a little bureaucratic and a little full of ourselves. And people like Sean come in and say, “Well, I’ve got a whole new way of approaching this, billboard truck included.” And I think that creativity is what flows from copwatchers because they went out – Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. And they’re evolving, right? Sean says, “Yeah, I used to first film cops. Now I’m investigating overtime and going through public records and making record requests and following up.” It’s like we’re watching a whole new sort of journalism emerge.

    And I think what’s great about copwatchers is they challenge the orthodoxy of what we do, which has a lot of orthodoxy in it and a lot of assumptions we make about the aesthetics of it, how it should be done. And Sean says, “No, I’m going to do it this way.” And actually it’s really effective and kind of very similar to what we do, but it kind of gives us a new way of looking at it. I mean, I have learned a tremendous amount from the copwatching auditing community as a journalist myself who came from a very conventional background. I work for a newspaper. If anyone knows what that is, I’m not sure if people are familiar with them, but they used to be delivered in your mailbox. And so I myself have said, wow, that’s a really cool way of approaching this. Or wow, I never thought of that.

    Or just exposing things like now that I’m looking into the Connecticut State Pension System, thanks primarily to Sean and his encounter and what happened with Sergeant Hayes. So I think it’s a great way, a catalyst for journalism to change and evolve and adopt to an audience where audiences are, which is on YouTube and Instagram and places where Sean is quite popular. So yeah, it’s a good thing for all of us. And I’m looking forward to driving that truck

    Taya Graham:

    To Capital. Steven, that’s such a great point. I mean, in a way, you’re kind of making me think that it’s not as much about the future of copwatchers, but are journalists going to become more like cop watchers? Are we going to become more independent, more creative, more untethered from institutions, which can be controlling? We’re very fortunate as independent journalists that work for a nonprofit org to let you know, if we get five views on this or five million views on this, we don’t get a single nickel more. We’re a nonprofit org. We don’t run any ads on our channel. So literally we can report on what we want. So we are so lucky to be independent in that way. And I think copwatchers and the power that they show that basically a regular person who cares, who cares about transparency, excuse me, transparency, accountabilities, got a camera, willing to follow the money and do the work can actually make a difference in their community and help protect people and make change.

    So I think if anything, if journalists are smart, they’re going to become a little bit more like copwatchers.That’s

    Stephen Janis:

    What I’ll say. Maybe should all become copwatchers. I’m an auditor. Sean, do you think I qualify to be an auditor or a copwatcher?

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    I’ve seen the work that you’ve done in Baltimore, both of you, and you guys do great work and I think you’d be perfect copwatcher. Thank you. And listen, I got to say that part of it’s waking up the public. The public is asleep. And sometimes you need a billboard truck, a flashy billboard truck to wake them up. I totally agree what you said, Steven. The institutions of journalism and everything else allegedly. I hate it when journalists say, allegedly, when I just watched the guy get punched in the face and allegedly he was punched in the face. And it’s too cutesy, too wanting. Instead of trying not to take a side because you don’t want to be part of the story and you don’t want to be in journalism. I’m going to tell this objectively. Sometimes there is no two sides to the story. Sometimes the police unions are just corrupt and you got to call them corrupt.

    Stephen Janis:

    Anything we say in journalism is like, it’s either raining or it’s sunny, but it’s not like there’s two sides to that, right? So yeah, good point.

    Taya Graham:

    You know what? I just have to say some of the folks, for example, Liberty Freak says that the police are going to push back harder. And you have a good point. I mean, I was just thinking about how there’s somewhere between 80,000 to 120,000 flop cameras across the country. The surveillance state is increasing. At the same time where there’s laws being made to say, stay further back while you’re recording, stay further back while you’re recording for us regular folks. Sure. Yeah. So it’s going to be interesting. Police like to

    Stephen Janis:

    Turn the cameras on up. As Sean has pointed out, they don’t like to have the cameras turned

    Taya Graham:

    On up. Exactly. Exactly. So Sean, we want to thank you so much for your time. And before you go, people want to know about the tiger painting. I’m sorry. I think

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    We’re going to get to that. So I’ll show it. This is not my portrait. I am in a hotel in Louisiana right now, so I have no idea what this is. And I was interested when I first saw it in my hotel room too. Okay.

    Taya Graham:

    So it’s not a family heirloom. Okay.

    Stephen Janis:

    No. So people are asking about a painting in

    Taya Graham:

    This

    Stephen Janis:

    Hotel

    Taya Graham:

    Room. Well, because Steven can’t see it. So there’s a tiger and this pretty woman wearing a dress with kind of like a boostier and petting a giant tiger. I’ll show you a screenshot of it later. It’s quite a shot. That’s pretty cool. Sean Paul, we have to thank you so much for your time. We took up more of it than we should have. I apologize for that. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you so much, your work, your willingness to speak about it, and your very singular insights into government accountability. And we look forward to speaking to you again soon and going to Washington DC with you.

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Love it. Can’t wait.

    Taya Graham:

    Thank you for

    Sean Paul Reyes (Long Island Audit):

    Having me and keep up the group work. Thank you

    Taya Graham:

    So much. Oh, thank you. You as well. Take care. Thank you. Okay. Steven, how was that for a conversation? I am so amazed about the things we learned from folks about talking about police power. And of course, one of my favorite topics, cop watchers. I got to do it. I got to say it again. Anyone who’s interested in the subject, check out the documentary, I’m But the Mirror. Steven, hold it up. Oh, okay. Sorry. Yeah. The story of American Copwatching and either Lacey R. Noli D. That’s me right there. If one of you put a link in the chat, I would very much appreciate it. And I just want to thankry a goofball. Everyone who was in the comments. And I really do apologize if I didn’t get to everyone’s comments. I tried to, with Max’s help, to put as many comments on the screen as I could.

    And I just want to thank every single one of you that took the time to show up at this live. I appreciate it so much. And I’m going to make a point later on tonight to go through the comments that you guys leave underneath, give out some hearts, give some of my own personal responses. And I’m also going to go back to doing a comment of the week. So your comment might end up being highlighted on our channel if you take the time to make one. So if you can take a moment to leave a comment, maybe give us a little thumbs up, we really do appreciate it so much. So Steven, I’ve got to give you a chance before we sign off. Well, okay. And before I say thank you to all of our patreons, before I sign off, do you have any thoughts about tonight’s

    Stephen Janis:

    Discussion? Yeah, no. I mean, it was really interesting. And I think we’ve created a vicious cycle of comedy on comments, the comment on comments.

    Taya Graham:

    It’s very meta.

    Stephen Janis:

    It’s totally meta, so I’m pretty happy. But this is really cool to have this kind of debate and have the opportunity to hear what people think, because that really informs everything we do. If you don’t give feedback, you don’t think we read comments because sometimes you get like eight or hundred or thousand. I read a big majority of them and this time we really went through them. And what emerged was a really interesting dynamic debate that should be had every day about democracy, about journalism, about what we do, about how we should do it. That’s a great point. About how government kind of hoards resources and then uses them to attack us. And then how people on Long Island Audits are being creative and approaching it in their own way. I wish they had these debates when we go to conferences on journalism. I’d be much more interested to hear what people had to

    Taya Graham:

    Say

    Stephen Janis:

    If they were this vital.

    Taya Graham:

    So all

    Stephen Janis:

    Credits to the people on YouTube and to Long Island Audits for the way they bring out people and to talk about this. You don’t hear people debating democracy other than on CNN with a bunch of highly paid hairstylists. This is great because this is the people talking.

    Taya Graham:

    Yes.

    Stephen Janis:

    And more I hear, the better I feel about democracy.

    Taya Graham:

    Oh, Steven, that’s actually really beautiful. Yeah. It’s really beautiful. And I’m so glad – And the truck. And the truck. And the truck.

    Stephen Janis:

    And

    Taya Graham:

    That’s why I’m really so glad that we had this discussion and this debate to let people know we really do pay attention to your comments. And these spaces on social media, I think in particular YouTube, are places where we can really show that our democracy is so vital, that our First Amendment is still incredibly important. And that there’s real lifeblood in us that wants to have a healthy, equitable society where there’s not government overreach that is harmful. I agree. I agree. Honestly, Steven, our civic life in a lot of ways is becoming more and more precarious. And I think the right to disagree and to dissent is the most important part of it. Agreed. I mean, it’s the mechanism that keeps our democracy healthy. I would say this, this will be my little rant.

    Stephen Janis:

    Okay.

    Taya Graham:

    The right to dissent is a critical ingredient of our democracy, or if you’d like to call it constitutional republic. If you think about it, the right to vote is a form of dissent. It’s a right to express your disagreement with the people in power by voting to remove them. It’s actually the most potent form of communal dissent, actually. Our ability to collectively express dissatisfaction with political leaders and effectuate change is fundamental to who we are. But as Steven pointed out, it’s a facet of our system that can be easily manipulated or eliminated altogether. And it’s fragile and often challenging to preserve. Otherwise, I think copwatchers like Sean Paul wouldn’t continue to be arrested if the right to dissent was not in some sense provisional. So keeping dissent healthy and vibrant requires work. And that work can often lead to uncomfortable truths. So one of those truisms is that dissent, which makes us uncomfortable, is just as important to protect as that which we agree.

    So what do I mean? So let me give a little bit of an analogy to explain. So imagine our collective discourse is a spectrum, a broad range of frequencies and colors intertwined, but separate. And in many ways, a spectrum of light is nature’s representation of the great Variety of colors and frequencies, all separate but equal, just like all of us in our different voices and ideas. And we need all of it because all of it is us. But acknowledging the existence of the spectrum requires acknowledging its full intensity. Let me give you an example. When noted cop watcher Eric Brandt, let’s say some people would say he provoked cops and waves, and please excuse my language, he waved a flag that said F cops. Well, a lot of people were made uncomfortable. And when Sean Paul shows up at a police union spontaneously, some people think his tactics are aggressive or even rude, but dissent does not always conform to our expectations of politeness or comportment.

    It doesn’t always work when it complies with our expectations. Not every disagreement can be settled by a stoic debate or a polite exchange or even nuanced, reasonable discourse, even though sometimes I wish it could. No, I think sometimes these extremes are necessary to help keep the entire concept healthy. Sometimes more vibrant or discordant colors are necessary. Sometimes a more extreme approach is critical to making our entire project of finding ways to hold power accountable through public pushback, relevance. Sometimes dissent is just going to be ugly whether we like it or not. But my point is here that ultimately dissent must be created to survive. It must evolve to exceed the limits, as Steven pointed out, of the authoritarian impulses that exist within every government. It must be something that can accommodate citizen journalists with cell phones just as much as it protects reporters for the New York Times or Washington Post.

    It has to be flexible, adaptable, and sometimes even confrontational. But the key is it’s up to us to define it. That is we, the people. It’s up to us to judge and debate what works and what doesn’t. It’s up to us to decide what we support and what we don’t. And that’s why we had this debate tonight and that’s why we ask for your comments. That’s why we do what we do. It’s an essential part of who we are. Proponents of free speech and protectors of the right of others to criticize our government and even us. Key to preserving it is discussions like this. And cop watchers are part of that recipe and so are you. So please help us fight for it together and argue like true Americans with courage and conviction and freedom to speak the truth even loudly to each other. And in the end, that’s all we have.

    And I hope it’s all we’ll need. Once again –

    Stephen Janis:

    Very well done.

    Taya Graham:

    That’s my rant.

    Stephen Janis:

    It was a great

    Taya Graham:

    Rant. I had to do it.

    Stephen Janis:

    I agree with it entirely.

    Taya Graham:

    Well, Steven, I want to thank you for all the work you did to make this livestream possible today. Thank you so much. It was a very robust conversation. It

    Stephen Janis:

    Was. And we can disagree too. We disagree a lot of times. So just so people know.

    Taya Graham:

    Yeah.

    Stephen Janis:

    It’s not all perfect

    Taya Graham:

    Here. No, we actually agree pretty often. Except when we just disagreed now.

    Stephen Janis:

    Yeah, we just disagreed that we didn’t agree. Oh my God. Irony.

    Taya Graham:

    Okay. And I also want to thank Long Island Auditor’s time today and all the amazing folks that showed up in the live chat. Thank all of you. And I have to give a very special thanks to moderators Noli D and Lacey R for their support. Thank you both. Hi, Noeli D and hi to Ryan. Can I just

    Stephen Janis:

    Say quickly how good

    Taya Graham:

    Long

    Stephen Janis:

    Island Audits is? How good he is and how interesting? You’re

    Taya Graham:

    Going to blow your objective journalism cover here if you do that.

    Stephen Janis:

    Okay.

    Taya Graham:

    Right. I take that back. It’s not supposed to be about interviewing people we like or don’t like. It’s about to do the world. No, I’m just saying that

    Stephen Janis:

    His interview

    Taya Graham:

    Was

    Stephen Janis:

    Really good. He brings up a lot of points that surprise me. And yeah, so go ahead. I’m sorry. I just wanted to say that.

    Taya Graham:

    No, you absolutely have the right to say that. I just don’t want people to think that you were biased. Okay.

    Stephen Janis:

    Good point.

    Taya Graham:

    But you’re right. He was a terrific interview and that is fair to say. But we have to thank our very special helpers who might be unseen. Maxime Alvarez. Oh yes. Thank you, Max. Who’s getting the truck apparently. Jocelyn, Brian and Corey for moral support. And like I said, at the very end, I’m going to thank every individual Patreon. So I’m just letting you know because I love my patrons. I do. And I’ve got to say it, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tipsprivately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Point on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course you can always message me directly at TeasBaltimore on Twitter or Facebook or Tea Graham on Facebook or Instagram.

    And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. I think we proved that we read your comments. And we’re probably going to have a Patreon link pinned in the comments and maybe even the live chat below for accountability reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. You know we don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything could spare is greatly appreciated. And as you see, I do shout out my patreons. My name is Tea Graham. I’m your host of Police Accountability Report. And for all of you, please be safe out there.

    And now we’re my patrons. Real quick, I got to run through. I got to thank these good people. Are you ready, Steven? Hang on. Yes. I’m going to try to do this. Okay. Matter of rights, Tamara Anderson, XXX, Chris Robinson, David Keeley, Ronald Hensley, Gary T, David Bach, BD Gates, Calvin Mack, True Too Blive, Martin G. Nope. Talia B. Louie, Artemis LA, Lacey R. Steven J, John P. Alan J, Kyle R. Keith Bernard, M. Marcia E. Don T. Kipke, Cameron J. Joe Six, Donald, sorry, Daniel W, Frank FK, Mary M. John K. Kurt A, Steven B, John M. Conrad B, Siggy Young, Joel A, Patty Blibbets, Sescal Samian, Jimmy Touchdown, who is my very first patron. Thank you. Bill D, Rhym P. John K. Dean C. Umish H. Graham Graham, B. Joseph P. Durdevil, William T. G. Kemmy, Steven D. Just my two cents, Peter J, Sean Best, Julius Geezer, Linda Orr.

    Hi, Linda Orr. Cindy K. Social Naturalist. Douglas P. Tim R. Laurie. L. D.B.M. Hugo Flores Noli D. Chris M. Shussant. Kimmy Kat P. Janet K. Omar O. Potshot and Ron Fried. Thank you. You guys are great. We appreciate you, and I hope you all have a great night. Take care. Take care. We appreciate you. Say goodbye, Steven.

    Stephen Janis:

    Bye.

    Taya Graham:

    Be safe out there, folks. Be safe.

    (more…)

  • Can the Democratic Party be saved? TRNN’s full, unedited interview with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

    Can the Democratic Party be saved? TRNN’s full, unedited interview with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

    Michigan Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed speaks at The People V. The Powerful rally at the Detroit Opera House on July 18, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan. Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images.
    ” data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IMG_0457-scaled.png?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″>

    Michigan’s Senate race has become one of the most pivotal electoral battlegrounds in the country. With primaries taking place on August 4, all eyes are on the high-stakes competition between progressive candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and establishment candidate Haley Stephens to see who will represent Democrats in the general election.

    In this raw, unedited interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez sits down with El-Sayed in Saginaw, Michigan, to talk about his campaign, the civil war within the Democratic party, and about fighting corporate oligarchy and MAGA fascism at the same time.

    Credits:

    • Videography: Maximillian Alvarez
    • Post-Production: David Hebden
    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

    Maximillian Alvarez: I’m here in the Mexican American Council Building in Saginaw, Michigan, and I’m sitting with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running to represent Michigan in the United States Senate. Brother Abdul, great to see you again, man. Thanks for joining me. I really appreciate it.

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: An honor.

    Maximillian Alvarez: And we first met when you were running for governor here in Michigan in 2018.

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Feels like yesterday. It feels like 15 years ago.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Exactly. Both a day ago and a lifetime ago. And I think the circumstances around each election can sort of trick us into feeling like they’re very similar moments. When you were running in 2018, the question was how are Democrats going to respond to Trump? But also, who’s going to inherit the Bernie Sanders mantle? AOC just won. And so you were part of that progressive cohort. And now we kind of have a similar situation. How are Democrats going to respond to Trump winning again? Zorn Mamdani just won in New York. Who’s going to inherit the progressive movement? But these are two very different moments and you’re a very different person than you were back then. I wanted to ask to start how you would characterize the differences between that campaign and this one.

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Let me break it down two ways. There’s where we are as a country, and then there’s the growth that you do as a person. I think where we are as a country, this is a moment where I think, to be honest, we had failed to learn the central lesson of Trumpism. I think a lot of folks felt like the record had skipped, that there was this mistake. And they didn’t see the fact that Donald Trump was exploiting a foundational pain in people. And I said this thing at the time, I think that was just, it was premature and most folks didn’t see it. Donald Trump himself is not the disease of our politics. He’s just the worst symptom of the disease of our politics. And the disease is the system that allows corporations and billionaires and would be oligarchs to buy and sell politicians to do their bidding.
    You watch as they use their power to suppress our wages for the work that we have to do and to raise our prices for the things we have to buy. And I think this time around, people are recognizing that actually we dealt with the symptom, but we didn’t deal with the disease. And as a doctor, I’ll tell you, if you only deal with the symptom and you don’t deal with the disease, it comes back roaring worse. And that’s exactly what’s happened now. So I think folks are a lot more interested in authentic engagement with the structures of our system. Even now though, you got a lot of corporate folks out there who just want to deal with the symptoms. They’re like, oh, affordability? Okay. I’ll make one thing more affordable for you. It’d be great. And they’re like, no, there’s a structure underneath affordability. There’s a reason why everything accelerates in the wrong direction always.
    And if you don’t deal with the foundational infrastructure, you’re not going to deal with the outcome. I’ve grown up a bit. I was 32, never run for office in my life. I had one and a half years of public service, two years of public service under my belt. Didn’t have any kids, lived in my in-law’s basement. I’m 41 now with two kids and a mortgage. And I’ll tell you, there’s something you learn about yourself when you have kids. And I think more than anything, it puts a patina on your soul in the sense that your kid walks into your bed, they piss your bed, and then you have to clean them and your bed while they’re pitching a tantrum in the middle of the night. Which is, to be fair, really unfair. But you’re like, “Hey, the baby, it’s okay. It’s all right. No worries.
    It’s okay.” And it’s that ability, I think, to just have to metabolize more of life. That I think for me is probably the big difference.
    I also, I think I learned a lot about life is short, but it’s also quite long. And one of the frustrations I think I have with some folks in our movement sometimes is that we want people to agree on the critique. And we always break apart on the critique. It’s not about the critique, it’s about the outcome. And I think the more you could focus on how you want the world to be like and get people to agree to that, even if they come at it with different perspectives, I think the better off we are. And I think that’s probably what I’ve learned over time.

    Maximillian Alvarez: I’m thinking about what you were saying about having kids and the way it changes your worldview. And I wholeheartedly agree. There’s a foundational, existential humbling that comes with having kids and getting your ass beat once in your life. And you can tell the people in politics who have had neither of those

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Things. Well, I’d had the first one.
    Delivered a couple myself, but I’ve had the first one. The second one, right? To be honest, having kids, to your point, that humbling nature of it, because it never ends. There’s always something. I give all the credit to my wife, Sarah. She’s a real MVP. And I’m just in awe of all that she has to do every day because of what I’m doing right now. But there is something about recognizing you’re trying to cherish something vulnerable for what it could be. And isn’t that what we’re trying to do here? And I think it also forces you to contend with pain quite a bit. And for me, I’ve trained as a doctor and that training’s been really useful for me because both doctors and politicians have to be really good at being able to sit with other people’s pain and to speak truth to pain. It’s true truth to power, but also truth to pain.
    And I think having a kid has really brought that’s crystallized that in a certain way because you kind of understand the project. You know what I mean? Taking care of you because I love you. And I also love what you could be, even if I don’t love what you’re being right now. You know what I mean? And I think those are the moments that your kids test you the most. And you get tested like that enough times. You come out in political circumstances and you’re like, at least you’ve been pissed my bed.

    Maximillian Alvarez: I agree with you, but by that definition, my mom would be a great politician because I test her a lot. And let’s talk about how you’ve grown as a person, but also as a politician –

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: I’m waiting for the Mama Alvarez congressional.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Oh man. Yeah. Mama Alvarez would take it, baby. But you’ve grown as a politician as well. Your career in public service and my career in journalism almost started around the same time. And again, you know this because I was the Cub reporter on your gubernatorial campaign bus being like, “What am I doing?” And

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:: Wrote one of my favorite profiles then. So I was really grateful. A good journalist can see the thing beyond or the depth, the structure of the thing. And I appreciated that then.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Thank you, man. I appreciate that. And I wanted to ask, how have you changed in those 10 years, especially let’s focus on the work that you did in Wayne County to prepare you to be qualified for US Senate?

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. There’s a couple pieces there. I had run a health department, but the Wayne County department was just a lot more complex. 550 FTEs across all the programs that you run, the contracts that you oversee, et cetera. And $172 million budget, all kinds of moving parts in a bureaucracy that can be really difficult to negotiate and manage. And you’re working with everything from federally funded programs to state funded programs to county programs. You’re managing constituencies. And more than anything else, you are responsible for a particular thing for a particular group of people. And I think negotiating all of those moving parts for me was really valuable in a space like the county. And also just deepening my relationships with the community in Wayne County. Wayne County is Michigan’s largest, most diverse county, about a fifth of the state’s population. You got all kinds of different communities.
    Downriver community, predominantly working class, black or white. You’ve got Dearborn, you’ve got the city of Detroit, of course. And thinking through the ways that you have to build coalitions around the work that you can do to deliver for everybody. And then there’s the technical part of things. And as a public health director, you’re responsible for a very technical set of things. So to me, the space of public service I’ve always been most excited about is how do you bring the technical, the practical and the political together? And you think about where we are in the Senate right now, you think about what we lack. We lack the political will to actually take on Trump and also to articulate what we’re fighting for and not just what we’re against. We lack a lot of technical skills in terms of understanding some of the leading edge questions of our time, whether it’s AI or rebuilding a public health infrastructure that RFK Jr.
    Is all but ruining right now. You think about what it means to take on the healthcare challenges we have. We’re fighting for subsidies, for health insurance for 25 million people when we should really be having the conversation about whether or not 350 million people should have to worry about premiums at all. But these are technical questions that are political and practical in their nature. And so I think for all of those reasons, going back to public service, being engaged on the ground will make me a better public servant. The last thing I’ll say is this. At the end of the day, these issues, the rubber hits the road in city and county government. We don’t have folks who’ve served in these rules in the Senate all too often where you actually have to look people in the eye and say, “Here’s how you get this thing done.
    And here’s the service we can render to you.” And I hope I can bring that. So whether it’s the technical skill set when it comes to healthcare, we haven’t had a Democratic doctor in the Senate since 1969. Never had a public health official in the US Senate. Whether it is the practical part of it, understanding how is this legislation that we put together going to impact Ms. Sue’s life living in downriver. And then it’s the political work of bringing people together around building and moving, I think is a good preparation all around.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Well, and kind of bringing that back into the climate that we’re in. I’m going to ask you basically a similar version to the same question that I asked Beto O’Rourke when I got the chance to. Because I imagine you would agree, but my sense from the coverage we’ve done is that the 2024 election was less of a referendum on how much people love Donald Trump than it was a referendum on how much people hate the Democrats. And the people’s faith in the Democratic Party is in the basement right now, especially on top of a year of doing what feels like virtually nothing to stop Trump. Caving on the longest government shutdown in our history while people are watching their SNAP benefits, their healthcare disappear before their eyes. So the question there is like, is why run as a Democrat? And how are you going to address that lack of faith and prove that this isn’t just the right message that you’re going to meet people’s needs?

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. I know what I’m about. And Democratic Party hasn’t always met my needs. I think a lot of people out there feel like they’re Democrats by hostage situation. You look at the other guys and you’re like, “That’s crazy.” And then you look at the Democrats and you’re like, “I don’t know what’s worse.” Being cruel and crazy or being feckless in the face of being cruel and crazy. Now, the party is so far away from its voters. The majority of Democrats out there, when I talk to them out at Democratic clubs or indivisible or you name the organization that I’m out, they are so far away from the party elders who hold all the power. And I think we have an opportunity as a party to molt. Out with the old, in with what the people underneath the party really want. And I’ve said this for a very long time.
    The problem with Democrats is too often they’re taking money from the very same people who created the problem. So now you’re in this weird position of trying to articulate a solution to the problem that includes the people who created the problem. That makes sense. I don’t take over money. I never have. I never will. And I understood from the day I started in politics that that wasn’t the big issue. And so when folks look at me, they say, at least I know what he believes because he’s not bought. And I think the party could do the same thing. Say what you will about Donald Trump. He’s got a coherent narrative. You out of a job. Immigrant took your job. Out of a home. Immigrant took your home. Out of healthcare. Immigrant took your healthcare. That’s his narrative. Simple, easy to understand, dead wrong. We could have a narrative too.
    Out of a job, corporation offshored or automated your job. Out of healthcare, corporation squeezed you out of healthcare. Out of a home, corporation speculated that you can’t afford a home. But when you’re taking money from corporations, guess what you’re not going to say? So you come with your little list of 10 point policy plans that’s going to deliver something for maybe somebody 10 years from now. It’s bullshit. So I think the party could be better and I’m running to make it better. So I’m a Democrat with lowercase D, and I hope someday we can win the fight for what the Democratic Party can be. And I’m not willing to let go of all that infrastructure because a few folks who can’t let go of power say that it’s theirs.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Do you feel hopeful about other people running as Democrats that you’ll be among a cohort of people who believe that?

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: I hope so. I hope so. I think there are some folks out there who see the issue, working to try and address it, and we’re going to have to build power. No one US Senator is going to solve all the problems. I mean, one out of 100 senators, 1% of the US Senate, always, that’s all you are. So you better figure out how to build the team. But I also think that we’ve given up on persuasion. Democrats do this thing where Donald Trump’s out there persuading people left, right, center all the time. And we’re out here trying to run a poll and figure out where people are and then speak right to the poll. So what happens is the public’s moving in one direction and we keep speaking to where that is. We can be like, “Well, immigration’s not a popular issue.” I was like, “Are you kidding me?
    Shredding the damn constitution over it.” Popular issue. I don’t give a damn.This is the issue of our time and you don’t want to talk about it, but also talk about it in a way that’s complete. So you get a lot of people who talk about immigration as this esoteric abstract thing that sits on a mantle and we just admire it. I mean, democracy was broken the day corporations started to buy elections. That didn’t just happen. We’re at death’s door now, but we’ve been here. We’ve been sick. And so why don’t you talk about it in ways that are actually fully complete? Hey, every time a corporation comes in and buys off a politician, that kills your democracy a little bit. But most of these folks who want us to talk about democracy now didn’t feel it when that happened. And I think we got to talk about it completely.

    Maximillian Alvarez: I want to talk about what that means for where we are sitting right now in Saginaw, Michigan. And I have a special attachment to this place. My wife grew up here. I have a lot of in-laws who live around here. My wife’s family had generations of men work in the old GM plant up the road. It is a cold, hard, but beautiful place with a lot of families, with a lot of deep roots. A lot of immigrant families going from back to Poland, Germany, Mexican and other Latino immigrants, a lot of black folks who came up during the Great Depression. People don’t give towns like Saginaw credit for how complex and beautiful they actually are. But in many ways, this is the archetypal rust belt

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Town.

    Maximillian Alvarez: I mean, there is a lot of pride. There’s a lot of joy. There’s a lot of family here. There’s also a lot of boarded up windows. There’s a lot of blight. There’s a lot of pain. There’s a lot of poverty and economic devastation. So why is it important for you to come to a place like Saginaw? And again, moving past the sort of democratic messaging, I guess my question is not how do you hope to reach people who live in places like Saginaw, but what can you and other politicians do for places like Saginaw?

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. The simple question, how do you reach? You come. We’re here. You know what I mean? This is not my first time in Saginaw. It’s not going to be my last time in Saginaw. And then I think the way you reach folks is to be vulnerable with them. I can’t solve all the problems, but I can’t tell you why the problems exist. And I can tell you I’m going to try like hell to take it on. And then I think you need to go back to that point that I was making to be a really good listener to people’s pain and to try to forge that pain into purpose. I can’t solve it. Anybody walks in here is like, “I’m going to fix your problems.” No, you’re not. We can solve it. And if I can be a vessel that helps to create something that can organize us and can impose what it is that we’ve been asking for, for a very long time into power, then I think we can solve it.
    We can’t solve it tomorrow, but we can solve it in due time. And I’ll tell you that the analogy here to medicine is clear. Somebody gets a cancer diagnosis. You want to tell them you’re going to be fine. It’s bullshit. If I tell you you’re going to be fine, it’s a lie. But what I can tell you is I’m really sorry that this happened to you. And I can tell you what we know. And I can tell you what we can do. And I can tell you I’m going to sit here and listen for as long as you need me to listen to you. And that I’m going to be your advocate for helping get the best outcome you want.
    In this case, it’s not terminal. Places like Saginaw can heal, but not doing the same shit that we’ve been doing. And so in some respects, there is an honesty that you have to tell people. It’s not just always going to be okay or I’m going to solve all your problems. I’m not. I’m going to do my best to help you, to be honest with you about what the problem is, to sit down and think about what our approach moving forward can be, and to fight like hell for you against people who’ve created this problem. And if we can do that and you can trust me to do that, we can build things over time. But it starts there. And I just think there’s a humility and a vulnerability in that.

    Maximillian Alvarez: And I know I got to let you go in a minute because you’re about to walk into the next room and participate in a round table with members of the Latino community out here. And I kind of wanted to end

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: On – Well as a Latino myself.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Well, that’s why I kind

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Of wanted – I’m not Latino, but I’ve been mistaken one

    Maximillian Alvarez: For

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Enough times that I’m just like, I kind of get it.

    Maximillian Alvarez: I was about to say, it was like you walk into a family party. People would think that you’re, hey, he’s Mexican. I walk into one of yours and be like, “Hey, he’s Egyptian.” Exactly. But that’s kind of where I wanted to go with it. We’re both brown men living in America in 2025. You’re running for office. Your last name is Elsayed. I don’t need to tell you that this is a dangerous exercise. But I wanted to sort of ask for yourself, your family, your children, why is it important to you to run when there are so many forces in America that are trying to keep people like you out of America?

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Yeah. I spent a lot of my childhood summers in Egypt with my grandmother who’s the smartest person I ever met. And she never got to go to school. So I’ve spent a lot of time with really smart people. The smartest of them was the person whose story would never get told. You would never know she lived. People who got to live with her knew she lived. She was immense. And I saw the chasm and opportunity that I had versus my cousins. So I know what America did for me. And I also know what America fails to do for so many other kids. And so in some respects, I’ve gotten to live a really nice life relative to all my cousins. I’m kind of playing with house money. You know what I mean? So to me is when you’re playing with house money, you put it all back in the center of the table and say, “What can I do to create the America that other kids deserve?
    The one that I got.” And at the end of the day, if that’s the value of a life is to create opportunity for other people, that’s the best I can do. And it means so much to me to get to do it because I don’t know what it’s like to be someone whose American identity has a bit of an asterisk on it. And so if my doing this gets to take a little bit more of that asterisk off, gets to erase some of that asterisk, that’s meaningful. More importantly, if there are kids out there who get to manifest and get to live the kind of life that I got to live because of the work that I did, I think that’s the kind of thing that would make my grandmother proud. And that to me is meaningful. How I judge my moral work is like, would my grandmother be proud of this?
    So you can get all the titles and all the accolades and all the everything. And there’s a moral simplicity to being able to speak to the right side of right and wrong for someone whose sense of morals were never clouded by what an institution thought. And so I think it’s just put it all back in.

    Maximillian Alvarez: And are you scared? And what do you say to people on the campaign trail who are very understandably, justifiably scared right now?

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Scared. That’s a complicated sort of thing. I think I am scared for where our country is headed. I’m scared I will not do what is my responsibility to do about it. But there is something about. I don’t believe in the term happiness as much as I believe that happiness is a whole bunch of consolation of different things. There is contentment. Eating ice cream, that’s contentment. There’s fulfillment. I got a good workout in. There’s joy, just the excitement of something that’s happy. And I would choose fulfillment over the others every day. And so I know I’m putting everything I can into trying to create opportunity for people who otherwise don’t have it, and that leaves me fulfilled. So in that respect, I think if all of us tried to chase, I did what I could with what I had where I was, I think we can get through this.
    And the thing that to me frustrates me the most is that we know enough to be scared. There are a lot of folks out there who are so busy just trying to make life work that they can’t actually think about the broader existential questions at play. And I fear for those folks. See what I mean? Because most of the time those folks’ lives have been a function of circumstances they can’t control. And this all feels a lot worse. So I think that’s probably where my fear comes from.

    Maximillian Alvarez: Well, I know we got to get going. All right. Yeah. And what’s, I guess, again, for folks who want to fight back, don’t want to go gently into the night, but are still afraid. They’re afraid of getting abducted by ICE. They’re afraid of getting surveilled online. They’re afraid of not being able to make their house payment. How do we respond to the politics of fear that Trump has risen on? What is the counter message

    Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: To that? Tell you what I do.
    So for a long time I’ve realized that anxiety is, it’s the fear of a future pain. And so what I try to do is just actually think that through. So what would happen? What would that actually feel like? And I process that and I seek to get myself comfortable with the worst possible outcome. And then I think about my life and what I have to lose versus the people I’m trying to fight for. See what I’m saying? And I don’t know. I try to think about what is courage in this moment because that’s what we’re all trying to summon. And I think courage is the ability to be comfortable with your loss of control and to metabolize the pain you might experience.
    And pain comes in a lot of different ways. But you see what’s happened over time is that the people with the most power have folded the fastest. And I never want to be that guy. And so I just think that there’s like soul work you have to do to get comfortable losing it all. You know what I mean? And to be okay with the fact that if you’re willing to incur pain so that other people don’t have to, that I think is virtue. And I think it’s important for all of us to actually think through those things and do that exercise and to live in that moment of saying, okay, if this so-and-so were to happen, what would that mean for me? And also just, I’m a person of faith and I believe that there’s another side of the equal sign. That what happens here is not the end.
    And so I’m comforted by the idea that if you do what is right here, if you are willing to take pain here for others for the right reasons, that in the end, God doesn’t forsake you. So however people think about that in their belief system, I think these are the moments where you actually have to really reflect on it. Do the spiritual work of asking what begets virtue for you? What begets courage for you?
    Because we’re going to need it right now. And that’s the thing is we don’t know really where it’s going to go, but we’re watching the richest and most powerful fold the first. And what that tells you is that we have a certain spiritual failure. You know what I mean? You got the most to lose. What’s the point? I mean, it’s like, what’s the point of having F you money if you can’t say F you? You mean? And in a lot of ways, I’ve been so privileged in this world. All the advantages. What’s the point of having F you privilege if you can’t say F you? You know what I mean? Yeah. At the end of the day. So at some point, you look at Donald Trump and you’re just like, F you. We’re not going to back down.

    Maximillian Alvarez: That was the perfect ending spot. So I will close it there. But brother Abdul al-Sayed, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate you. Appreciate it.

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  • Legal team of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal appeals to the UN for support

    Legal team of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal appeals to the UN for support

    Participants in a multiday protest march for Mumia walk through Pennsylvania from Reading to Shoemakersville on December 4, 2025.
    Photo by Joe Piette.
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    This article was originally published by Truthout on July 28, 2026. It is shared here under a  Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

    World-renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is 72 years old, suffering multiple health problems, and may die in prison, say legal advocates in a new request they filed today that asks the United Nations to support his release. Abu-Jamal’s legal team decided to appeal to the UN after having exhausted nearly every legal avenue for relief available in the United States.

    Abu-Jamal was a Black Panther and journalist when he was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, and he has always maintained his innocence. His death sentence was overturned in 2001, and in 2011, Pennsylvania resentenced him to life without parole. Since then, “each attempt to secure Mr. Abu-Jamal a new and fair trial has been rejected,” argues a submission his lawyer Bret Grote and others made on his behalf to the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. 

    Grote told Truthout the filing, which UN rules limit to 20 pages, attempts to summarize nearly a half-century of the “failures of the criminal legal system” in Abu-Jamal’s case, including an “unfair trial, a biased appellate process, decades of surveillance and censorship, and a death by incarceration sentence that has been recognized by the United Nations as violating international human rights standards.” 

    The UN determination of whether someone faces “arbitrary detention” is interpreted “more broadly” than simply being “against the law.” It also considers “elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability and due process of law.” 

    Abu-Jamal’s lawyers say he was in “continuous solitary confinement” from 1983 to 2011 on Pennsylvania’s death row, before being transferred to the general population in a state prison called SCI Mahanoy, where Abu-Jamal’s advocates say officials have denied him proper medical care. His legal team’s submission to the UN notes he was diagnosed in 2012 with hepatitis C, which caused cirrhosis of the liver, and he later “developed a painful, severe rash covering most of his body, potentially caused or exacerbated” by the disease, and then went into diabetic shock “due to untreated hyperglycemia” caused by steroid treatment for his skin condition. It also cites UN human rights experts who raised concern when Abu-Jamal was shackled to his hospital bed in 2021 while awaiting long-delayed heart surgery.

    Abu-Jamal, a prolific writer who has authored 13 books, now risks losing his eyesight. 

    Abu-Jamal, a prolific writer who has authored 13 books, now risks losing his eyesight. 

    “I have been, for all intents and purposes, unable to read, unable to write, unable to see anything more than the masthead of a newspaper and not even its headlines; blurry television bursts of color,” Abu-Jamal revealed in a 2025 Prison Radio commentary called “Mumia’s Vision: A Message for the Movement.” He explained he had “been reluctant to talk about my eye problems” because “any sign of weakness is to be avoided at all costs” in prison, since it “brings predation.”

    His legal team’s submission to the UN refers to medical records showing how in 2025 Abu-Jamal “began experiencing a common and easily treated complication of cataract surgery” that clouded his vision, and notes he continues to “suffer from multiple complex ophthalmological conditions, including proliferative diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, that pose a significant risk of permanent blindness.” 

    “He is old and he is sick,” Samah Sisay, an international human rights lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Truthout. “This is someone who should not be incarcerated.” 

    The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Abolitionist Law Center, where Abu-Jamal’s lawyer Grote is legal director, have a track record of success in filing submissions before the United Nations. In 2023, they also asked the UN Human Rights Committee to review whether the U.S. was complying with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prompted it to call for “a moratorium on the imposition of sentences to life imprisonment without parole,” which opponents often call “death by incarceration” because of the lack of opportunity for review and release. 

    Political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal is currently incarcerated at a
    state prison called SCI Mahanoy, where advocates say officials have denied him proper medical care.

    Grote acknowledged that the UN body lacks enforcement powers but said, “We are asking for a ruling because we think the truth of what has been done to Mumia in his case needs to be exposed in the light of day.” 

    In 2020, the same UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was asked by the Lowenstein Clinic for International Human Rights at Yale Law School to review the case of Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier, saying he — like Abu-Jamal — faced health problems after nearly 50 years of incarceration. It responded in 2022 by calling on the U.S. government to “immediately” release Peltier after concluding the “cumulative effect of the procedural deficiencies” he “suffered in parole proceedings are overwhelming, rendering his continued detention arbitrary.” In January 2025, President Joe Biden commuted the rest of Peltier’s life sentence to home confinement. 

    Unlike Peltier, whose conviction was in a federal court, Mumia has a state-level conviction, so Sisay says officials like the governor could ask the state for more information to address accusations made in the legal team’s submission to the UN. She notes how “international pressure, regardless of whether the U.S. claims to recognize international law, has always been crucial to movements for social justice.” For example, the U.S. has been slow to change its policies on extreme sentencing, but Sisay says “a lot of the work” that went into abolishing the juvenile death penalty or juvenile life without parole “happened through international advocacy as well as at the domestic state and federal level.” 

    Left to right: Noel Hanrahan, Robert Saleem Holbrook, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Bret Grote, and Lumumba Bandele stand together during a visit at SCI Mahanoy on March 20, 2026.

    Compassionate release for terminally ill prisoners is another path home, but “thankfully Mumia does not have a terminal diagnosis at this point,” Grote told Truthout. 

    In 2021, Pennsylvania granted compassionate release to Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, another former Black Panther Party member who was convicted of killing a police officer and spent decades in solitary confinement. But he lived just 52 days after release before he died from cancer at the age of 78, surrounded by his family. Despite his weakened state, a judge had argued months earlier Shoatz presented “an undue risk of escape or danger to the community.”

    The UN has a chance to recognize how Abu-Jamal’s “continuing incarceration is in violation of international human rights norms.”

    Laura Whitehorn, a former political prisoner who was incarcerated more than 14 years and co-founded the group Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP), told Truthout, “Mumia’s case fits squarely into why I started RAPP with three people who served long sentences and saw the damage, and were outraged at the lack of reasoning behind long sentences for older people.” She contrasted the U.S. approach to a landmark ruling earlier this month by India’s Supreme Court, which gives states three months to create a policy for the early release of more than 5,000 prisoners who are elderly or terminally ill. 

    Pennsylvania is not one of the 25 states that have enacted “second look” policies to allow judges to review a person’s sentence, so Abu-Jamal’s paths to release in the state seem limited to a request for an unlikely commutation given the politicized nature of his case, or an appeal “if new evidence justifies it,” Grote told Truthout, noting Abu Jamal’s case is 44 years old and “even more of a challenge would be finding evidence that courts would treat fairly.” Grote says the UN has a chance to recognize how Abu-Jamal’s “continuing incarceration is in violation of international human rights norms” and “offer a catalyst to the campaign to bring him home to his family and community.” 

    Correction note: This article was edited to clarify that the petition for Leonard Peltier was filed by the Lowenstein Clinic for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, and that the 2023 moratorium on LWOP recommendation came from the UN Human Rights Committee.

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  • Corporate profiteers destroyed journalism. Worker-owned media can save it.

    Corporate profiteers destroyed journalism. Worker-owned media can save it.

    Kitsy Higgins, a striking advertising worker, speaks surrounded by other striking workers and supporters in front of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette building on the North Shore for a news conference, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, after the National Labor Relations Board filed for a temporary injunction that would return strikers to work. Photo credit: Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Union Progress.
    ” data-image-caption=”

    Kitsy Higgins, a striking advertising worker, speaks surrounded by other striking workers and supporters in front of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette building on the North Shore for a news conference, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, after the National Labor Relations Board filed for a temporary injunction that would return strikers to work. Photo credit: Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Union Progress.

    ” data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/10JInjunctionPresser11.webp?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″>

    When workers at the historic Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper hit the picket line in October of 2022, they had no idea that they would be on strike for over three years—or that the strike would end with new owners taking over the paper and most strikers losing their jobs. But now, a new chapter is being written in their epic story. This week, workers and community supporters launched the Pittsburgh Progress, “a cooperative news organization, owned and democratically run by its workers and members… dedicated to looking out for, and telling the stories of, the working-class people who form the heart and soul of our diverse communities.” In this episode of Working People, we discuss the birth of the Pittsburgh Progress, and what it means for working people in and beyond Pittsburgh, with Steve Mellon and Natalie Duleba, both former strikers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and both founding worker-members of the newly launched Pittsburgh Progress. 

    Additional links/info: 

    Featured Music: 

    • Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

    Credits: 

    • Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor
    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    Alright. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Maximillian Alvarez, and today, amidst so much bleak and awful and overwhelming news bombarding us at all times from all over the world, we’re going to do something different and we’re going to talk about some good news for once. Because this week, a new worker-owned cooperative launched in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it’s called the Pittsburgh Progress. Here’s their story, which you can find on their website. “The Pittsburgh Progress is a cooperative news organization owned and democratically run by its workers and members.

    It was formed in the weeks and months after owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced on January 7th, 2026, their intention to close the newspaper. This move by the post-Gazette came just weeks after unionized workers there had won a strike lasting more than three years. Those workers and their community supporters initially formed the organization Pittsburgh Alliance for People Empowered Reporting or Paper, with a mandate to research the creation of a daily news outlet more deserving of Pittsburgh. Paper quickly resolved that any new publication would, unlike the block-owned Post-Gazette, respect its employees and address the concerns of all working class people in the region. The publication would serve as an essential and sustainable source of communication and connection in the Pittsburgh region. Workers and their supporters decided on a publication name, the Pittsburgh Progress, in a nod to the striking Post-Gazette Workers Award-winning strike publication, The Pittsburgh Union Progress.

    Work continues on the Pittsburgh Progress website, marketing strategy, and the building of a newsroom. We continue to raise funds to lift up worker-centered journalism in Western Pennsylvania, and those funds will be used to hire full-time staff and freelance journalists dedicated to looking out for and telling the stories of the working class people who form the heart and soul of our diverse communities.” So to talk about the birth of the Pittsburgh progress and what it means for working people in and beyond Pittsburgh, I am really grateful to be joined once again on the show by some familiar voices. Steve Mellon is a journalist who was on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for more than three years and is now a founding worker member of the Pittsburgh Progress. And Natalie Duleba is a former post-Gazette striker. She serves as local secretary of the newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, and is now also a founding worker member of the Pittsburgh Progress.

    Natalie, Steve, it is so great to see you both and thank you so much for coming back on the show for over three years while you guys were on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. We’ve gotten to know you and your coworkers over the many conversations that we’ve had on this show, on the Real News Network, when I was at Breaking Points. It’s been a long road. Did you ever think that it would lead you here?

    Steve Mellon:

    No, I certainly did not. Our hope, I think Natalie probably feels the same way. I won’t speak for you, man and Natalie, but we were hoping to win the strike and get a contract. That was our goal. And we thought we had accomplished that. We had an incredible community support during the strike. That was a long, hard battle. And Max, you know that. You guys cover the strike more than any other publication, more than any other organization, you know that. But we did win the strike. We won. We went back to work. Things were going pretty well. We had a big rally in front of the Post Gazette. All the community showed up to support us. We went back in. Things were going pretty well. I think we were as acrimonious as the strike was, we were working together. We were resolving conflicts. We were actually producing good journalism.

    That all changed on January 7th when the company announced it was just. Max, this came just about an hour and a half after the Supreme Court had denied the Post-Gazette’s request for a stay on a healthcare issue that was related to the strike. It was think of the last gasp effort of the owners of the Post-Gazette to delay the consequences for their lawbreaking actions. Don’t forget that this strike was a result of a law-breaking action by the owners of the Post-Gazette. So they announced the closure of the paper within, I think, what, Natalie, two hours or so after that announcement came down that the Supreme Court had denied their request for a stay. They announced the closure of the Post-Gazette. And it’s like at that point, I think that among a lot of us, Max, there was a lot of anger and frustration is that we did all this stuff to win, and yet the system still fails you.

    The system’s not going to let workers win. And at that point, I think a lot of us, we were angry, we were frustrated. That very quickly settled into, we have to do something about this. We cannot let this stand. And we had an extraordinary meeting that night. I think January 7th was a Wednesday, Natalie, I believe. And that night we had an extraordinary meeting of our membership and we just decided like, no, we’re not. You learn things about yourself and your community when you strike for three years, about your colleagues. I looked at Natalie and Erin and all the people we’ve been to strike on. I thought we can do whatever we want. We have a community support, we have the skills, we had the talent, we had the determination. And after a series of meetings, we though, let’s form our own publication, one that we can inoculate against corporate abuse, against the influences of money.

    And the result was a worker, community-owned cooperative, a multi-stakeholder. So no, I had no idea I’d be in its position to be like a co-owner with so many other people in the community and my coworkers of a publication. So no, I did not expect to be here, but it feels good.

    Natalie Duleba:

    Yeah. During the strike, our goal was always to get back to work, but also to build a Post-Gazette that ourselves, but also journalists that came after us could build a life with. And the Post-Gazette still remains. The Venetulas Institute for Journalism did buy the Post-Gazette from the blocks. And Steve and I were among the journalists who were not retained, who were not hired by Venetulas. But we do still have former strikers who are at the Post-Gazette doing the good work to get a new contract with new owners. And we’re hoping that the victories that we got during the strike are carried forward in that bargaining. There’s a bargaining session that is happening today.

    And I think that the Venetulas at least knows that the journalists of the newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh aren’t afraid of a fight. But I think that the strike really taught us that if you want something, you got to get it yourself. And when we were looking at the possibility there was no Post-Gazette, a huge vacuum in Pittsburgh, they’re like, “Well, something should replace it.” And some of the other publications in the city were circling vultures, and some of them have expanded into areas that they weren’t in before. But even with the Post Gazette continuing, the new owners did cut the newsroom by about 40%, 80% of which were strikers. We all have an intimate understanding of the gaps in the coverage and communities that told us during the strike and after the announcement of the closure that they felt underrepresented, misrepresented. Those of us before we were not rehired, we were willing to bring that knowledge and that trust in the community to Venetulus to maybe start to repair the damage and reputation the post-Gazette suffered underneath the blocks.

    But they weren’t interested in that, at least from us. So yeah, it is wild to think that we’re building our own news outlet. That’s not something that any of us though was going to happen. We wanted to get back to the post-Gazette, but now we’re in control of our own destiny in a way that we weren’t during the strike. Yes, we were out there fighting for ourselves, but also we’re at the mercy of the slow cogs of the justice system. And this is like we’re setting the pace, we’re doing the work ourselves, and it’s fully under our control, which is really amazing, but it is also a lot. It’s like, it’s our responsibility. Yay. It’s our responsibility.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    I know it intimately. Yeah, it’s such a head spinner where you’re like, oh shit. Now we got to do that. Oh shit, we get to do that. It forces you to confront the sort of decision-making that affects our lives on a day-to-day level. And it is both liberating and terrifying to have more of that decision-making power yourself instead of just trusting it to be done for you by our higher ups. But so many of us, for that reason, I don’t think have even considered what it would look like in our day-to-day work lives to have that agency, to have that democratic cooperative sort of model rather than the kind of top-down authoritarian model that we’re all so comfortable and used to, which we’ve been conditioned to be used to by force for many, many generations. But I digress. I wanted to hover on that for a second and ask about your time at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

    What did working and striking at a paper like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette teach you about what a project like the Pittsburgh Progress needs to be and why it needs to be?

    Steve Mellon:

    Well, we learned several things during the strike. Quite honestly, when I was a journalist, I tried to be out on the street a lot and talking to people. But it wasn’t until I went on strike that I was put into conversations with people in various communities that were underrepresented. And I learned a lot during the strike, especially after the strike was over. After we’d won the strike and the Post-Gazette announced its closure. And at that point, Max, we had conversations with people in the community. One of the first questions we asked, I remember, was what does it mean to lose the Post-Gazette? What does it mean to you and your community to lose the Post-Gazette newspaper? Because at that point, we didn’t know that the Venezuelas Institute was going to step in and buy it. And one of the responses really stuck with me is a young woman stood up and she said, “The closure of the Post Gazette doesn’t mean anything to me because they’ve not been relevant to my community for years.” Now, as a journalist who spent his life, a good chunk of my professional life reporting on this city, that was heartbreaking to hear that these institutions that I’d given my life to were irrelevant to the communities that had supported us during the strike and had leaned into our effort, Max.

    That’s like, well, what’s wrong with this? What’s wrong with this? This is an issue. And it gets not just to journalism. It’s like we’re seeing the crumbling of communities all over this country.

    There are a lot of forces that profit from creating division. And newspapers, news organizations have failed in their duty to be the cohesive force. And it’s like, okay, that’s an issue. How do we solve that? We kicked around several different ideas. And one, I don’t know anything about co-ops, Max, but in our discussions, when we brought up the fact that. Because we talk about nonprofit models, these different models. When somebody said, “What about a co-op?” People got really excited about that. And when we started talking about a co-op, that’s when we started to see a lot more people to show up. I was at a journalism conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania about two months ago, and there was a lot of talk at that conference about engaging with your audience. How do you engage with your audience? Honestly, if we haven’t figured out that at this point, then we failed anyway.

    But we thought, okay, well, we’re not going to engage in our audience. We’re going to ask them to become stakeholders in this process. And I think that is a game changer. I think this model going forward is one that can be replicated. There are co-ops, successful news co-ops that exist in other places, a whole list of them. So we’re not new to this. But I do think that what we can do here in Pittsburgh is build on those models and take the lessons we learned from the strikes, take ideas from the communities, the people that we met during the strike, the people that we reported on for a pup, and use those to build a publication where we are not going to have people stand up at a town hall and say, “The Pittsburgh progress is irrelevant to my community.” We’re trying to make sure that that does not happen to us.

    And our way of making sure that happens is having that young woman in the room when we’re making decisions.

    Natalie Duleba:

    The things that I learned at the Post Gazette, besides the things like the skills that I built there that I’m bringing in, I was a copy editor and a pay designer before the strike. I came back to be full-time on the web desk. I’m bringing those skills into this. I’m glad that I can bring that extra oomph to what I can offer. But also I think that being on strike, we saw what it was like to be on the other side of business interests overriding journalistic ethics or the coverage of the strike was just insulting, honestly, because we knew where these things were being obfuscated, but it went deeper of the Post Gazette trying to hide the fact that people weren’t talking to them because they were holding our picket line and getting around not saying the mayor is not responding to comment on this issue because he’s not responding to any comment, but not putting in, he’s not talking to us at all because he’s respecting a picket line, shades the way that people may have perceived that article.

    They may think the mayor is running away from accountability on this issue or leaving off said in a press release so it looks like somebody who was holding a picket line maybe gave them a quote. And an average reader might know about the strike, but not know that that came from a press release. And then they’re like, maybe they could see the way that these perceptions change potentially. Or even a local news station that has a business relationship with the post Gazette had coverage during the summer when SAG and WGA were on strike and they had a segment where they talked about all the active strikes in the country and they didn’t mention us. The strike that at that point I think had gone on for over a year at that point. We were deep into our strike. It wasn’t like it was brand new.

    And to just see, okay, so the business relationship you have with the post Gazette, I mean allegedly, it’s not like I got this confirmed by anybody, but why else would they leave it out if not because of that business relationship? There’s no other reason why I could think to not put the strike that’s happening in your own city into report about strikes that are happening across the country. And there’s no way that there’s not other communities, other issues that have been covered in that way that have felt like the nuance has been left out or that there has been gaps that have not been filled with reporting. And us being so intimately on the other side of it, I think really places us in such a great position to poke at that. What is not being said in these press releases?

    What is the CEO or the founder of this big company obfuscating with legal language? Where when you poke at it, you can like, oh, well, technically what they said is correct, but there’s all this stuff that they’re leaving out that we learned by talking to the working class, the people of Pittsburgh, the regular everyday citizens that are affected by these decisions, who have first person experience being the little guy who was affected by that. And it sucks to be on that side of it, but it has allowed us to build that extra lens of looking at things that way. I mean, journalists are trained to ask questions and poke at things, but I think seeing behind the veil intimately and personally is going to allow us to easily see where that is happening. And also, I mean, we had a little exercise when you’re in one of our founders’ meetings about what don’t we want our newsroom to look like?

    What behaviors do we want to avoid when we’re building our newsroom and our editorial practices? And a lot of it came down to not understanding why things are being done.

    Why is this decision being made? Why is this policy in place? And why aren’t these things being communicated to the people who actually have to follow these rules? And I think that the transparency that comes in being a worker-created newsroom and a worker-led newsroom will allow. When someone’s laid off, that sucks, but a lot of times an owner just says, “We got to lay you off because we are losing money, I guess.” And you just have to take the word for it. But hopefully we don’t have to ever confront that type of thing. But if we do, that’ll be a decision that is made collectively where you understand what’s gone into it, why. And it’s not a callous just cutting of the cord there so that the owner, I guess, doesn’t get to buy a second summer home. It’s like you’ve been involved in the whole process and there’s trust that is just baked into a democratically run newsroom or any business, I suppose, but we’re talking about a newsroom here.

    But we want to try to build a newsroom that people are on the same page, that is collaborative, and that people understand the mechanics that are going on and that the work and the journalism that is being done is ethical and not bowing to business interests. And I think that we’re well on our way to doing that.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    Oh yeah. Well, let’s bring this down to paper level and talk about what this looks like in the now officially launched publication. I know as we said in the intro, and as y’all say on your website, this is a work in progress. Y’all are growing, but you have officially launched. So tell folks more about what the Pittsburgh progress is, where it’s going, and what they’re going to find there, and what they can do to support y’all.

    Steve Mellon:

    Well, right now, we did launch on Monday. We’re considering that our soft launch. We’re working up to becoming a regular daily publication. We just started this process. It’s kind of crazy, Max, to think that this wasn’t even a topic of discussion until January 7th. And it took a couple of weeks before we had consensus about to even move forward with the idea of a new publication. And so a lot has happened very quickly. We’ve had to come up with a business. We’re journalists, Max, we’re not business people, but we’ve had to become business people. And it’s like, okay, the learning curve for this is very, very steep. We’ve had to come up with a business plan. We’ve had to come up with bylaws. It’s over and over and over again. It’s your social media strategy. We’ve had to hire people to do some of the things that we just don’t know how to do, and we don’t want to mess them up.

    We have to become incorporated. How do you do that in a timely manner? And all these things. So a lot has happened very quickly. It wasn’t until quite honestly a couple of weeks ago that we were able to sit down and think about, “Oh, wait a minute. If we’re going to publish, we got to have some stories in this damn thing.” So we put together a slate of stories that we felt matched what we want to be and what we want to do that align with our mission to give people a glimpse of what we hope to be in the very near future. If you look at pittsburghprogress.com right now, you’ll see, I think, five or six stories. Our lead story right now is about organized nurses here who are fighting for our contract. That’s a big, big story in this town where these big medical companies have such a big footprint.

    Nurses on the front lines of that. So that’s one of our lead stories. Natalie has a story on third places for the members of the LGBTQ community. We have a review of a new book on WPA workers. Kim Kelly wrote the foreword for that. You guys all know and love Kim Kelly. So we have our origin story is another part of that. We have a couple sports stories. We are really going to lean into high school sports because we’re interested in not covering the millionaire. God love them, our millionaire sports heroes. We are interested in covering the sports played by the sons and daughters of the working people of this region. So that’s what you’ll find when you go there now. We’re going to continue to build on that. We’re still working. We’re a small team right now. We’re building and adding, but we’re a small team and we’re having to walk and chew gum and tie our shoes and bake dinner and comb our hair all at the same time.

    So it’s going to take a minute to get this thing up to where we want it to be. And we’ve learned, Max, that this group of people, when we get together, we set our mind to something, we can accomplish that thing. And this is a goal we have set for ourselves. And I know we’ll do it. I know we have a community of support. People who want to support this, learn more about it, go to pittsburghprogress.com. You’ll find a button that says join us. It’s like a maroon button, a red maroon button. Click join us. You can learn about progress. You can learn how to support this effort. If you have questions, you can reach out to me or Natalie, I’m sure you’re willing to answer questions too. We’re hoping that there are. I’ve been in journalism a long time, Max. Most people that I was in journalism with, most of the people that I knew in journalism all over the country, none of them are in the business now.

    They’ve had to get out. Their newspapers have closed. They did not make enough money to support their families. For one reason or another, they’re out of the business. That’s got to stop. What’s the model for that? Well, we think this is a model that can be replicated in other cities. One of the things, we have a couple of goals here. At least that’s the way I see this. One goal is to do just what Natalie said, provide news coverage that is ethical and that focuses on the needs and concerns of the working class people in our region. But another goal is to say, “This can be done and this is possible. There are other cooperative news organizations that have done this. This is our model. We want to build on those models and say, okay, we’re going to take the baton and run with it.

    We are going to run like hell with that baton, and we want somebody else to pick that up too. So we’re all running here and building news organizations that are engaged in covering the news, informing, being a source of communication, but are also building community. And I think that’s one of the things I learned about working in newspapers as a young man. This is back in the ’80s. I worked at weekly newspapers. These weekly small daily newspapers in small towns were part of the fabric of that community and held the community together by being a voice where people could look at that publication and recognize themselves and recognize their community. That’s gone. What we see in a lot of newspapers that post, because that is an example of this, we have an institution talking to other institutions. And what happens when that worker voices, regular people voices are lost?

    One of our goals is to do that here in Pittsburgh is create a publication that does not do that, where people can look at that publication and recognize themselves and recognize the community that they care about and that they’re willing to invest in. So that’s where I see where we’re at right now and where we want to go.

    Natalie Duleba:

    Yeah. The pittsburghprogress.com is our website, but we’re also on Instagram, BluSky and Facebook. You can find us on all three of those by searching for the Pittsburgh Progress and all the same, the link to how to join us is available in all those places. And giving us a follow there is really helpful. And also you can stay up to date on the next steps in our rollout. But I think that having edited all of the stories that went up for the soft launch, that I would encourage people who want to support us to really. Obviously, I’d like you to read all of them, but if you do, you’ll see the way that they actually plug into each other, that they build on each other, the same concepts of building community. We have a high school football coach who has led an incredible team, but he’s also committed to staying at this high school to build up these young men into not only good football players, but also good young men and having that commitment there.

    And there’s a football club, a soccer football that’s for a community football club. And the runner of that is similarly aligned and also has similar goals of making the players better people as well as improving their skills. The review that Erin put together of American-made stories of work, it’s a look at the working class voices of many generations ago and how they echo into today’s concerns, even if the technology has changed, but it’s still working class people trying to carve out a space for themselves and finding connections through the lens of history. Also, it’s just like you feel smarter after reading it. And my own story, these are business owners who you think that the kicker is more than money. Obviously they’re running a business, but they want to build community with their customers and fill gaps that they see in their own communities. These are all sober spaces, trying to have that safe third space for people to come to and build community and find like-minded people they can be themselves around.

    And then the McGee story of nurses trying to fight for the best for their patients because they’re passionate about what they do and they’re going against big UPMC interests. And I think that seeing the way that came together and how when you let journalists pick where they can find these stories and how they do blend together, if we can continue that, I’ll be so happy and so pleased. And as Steve said, I think that as people feel more alienated from each other and from the bigger interests that control the country, that they will turn to one another and be like, “Let’s do it with each other, with our neighbors who are the people that we know and trust, and we can count on to follow through on what they’re saying they’re going to do.” I mean, our strike was sustained by donations from regular people and the other worker-led newsrooms that we’ve spoke to, they’ve been so open with us about how they did it, how we can follow their example and learn from their mistakes.

    There’s been no gatekeeping amongst the worker-led newsrooms that we’ve spoken to. And it’s the same story of journalists who were let go by a new owner or had their publication shut down, and they just turned to one another and said, “What if we did it?” We have the skills, we can learn the new skills that we need to get it off the ground and get it going. And I think that the contraction and consolidation of, as Steve said, of these local newspapers that serve communities as that continues to happen and be gutted by private equity, I think that’ll be the workers who build those things back up, that we’ll see more worker-led newsrooms under various models pop up and fill the gap that business interests left in the pursuit of more profit, more money. And I’m excited to be part of the fabric of that, that there’s other rust belt cities or cities maybe who don’t have the same kind of working class history as Pittsburgh to be like, “We know how to cover our city.

    We know these communities. We don’t need permission from a rich person to do this work. Let’s do it ourselves. Let’s get off the ground and they can rely on our lessons and the resources that collectively these worker-led newsrooms are putting together to offer.” And I would really love to see that. And I’m hopeful that we can find our place there, get our legs under us, and that we continue to see the support that we saw during the strike and during the past six months, which it is wild to think it’s only been six months since January 7th. I mean, a little bit more than six months, but what’s that? Is it that Margaret Mead quote of, “Never undermestimate the work that a small dedicated group of people can do.” I’m butchering that, but that’s the sentiment is that people who are passionate and committed to a thing can achieve it because that’s how everything has ever gotten done is people roam up their sleeves and putting in the sweat equity.

    This way, all of our work is going to directly benefit us, not rich owners who don’t actually need the money and have never had to worry about being able to pay for the food on their table or keeping the lights on. And Steve said that in his origin story on our website, and it was echoed in the conversation that Aaron had with the editor of American Made. If you resonate with any of that, you’re going to resonate with what we’re doing. So if you want to be part of our story of our effort, check us out on pittsburghprogress.com, on Instagram, BluSky, Facebook. You can hear everything that we’re doing in the next couple months as we head toward our hard launch. We really love it.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    All right, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us today. I want to thank our guests, Natalie Duleba and Steve Mellon, both former strikers of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and both now founding worker members of the newly launched Pittsburgh Progress, a cooperative news organization owned and democratically run by its workers and members. Go check them out using the links that we provided in the show notes. And of course, I want to thank you all for listening, and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see y’all back here next time for another episode of Working People. And in the meantime, go explore all the great work that we’re doing at the Real News Network, where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Check us out across our YouTube channel, our podcast feeds, our website, and our different social media pages, and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today.

    I promise you guys, it really makes a difference. I’m Maximilian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

    (more…)

  • How Trump and DOGE made it easier for you to get diarrhea

    How Trump and DOGE made it easier for you to get diarrhea

    LEFT: White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images. RIGHT: Hand holding a bag of fresh mixed salad in a supermarket, reading the nutritional information label. Photo via Getty Images.
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    This story was originally published on July 21, 2026 by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. It is shared here with permission.

    The US is currently experiencing its largest ever recorded outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a disease caused by infection with the Cyclospora parasite. The disease is typically acquired via fecal-contaminated food or drink, and can cause explosive diarrhea and severe, lingering stomach cramps. Those who contract it generally have a terrible time. Experts have yet to conclusively identify the source of the outbreak, which continues unabated. Recent tests implicating Taylor Farms have been withdrawn as false positives, though Taylor Farms’ lettuce remains a primary suspect in the ongoing investigation. 

    After presiding over the COVID-19 crisis, one might imagine a presidential administration would be eager to prevent another public health catastrophe from occurring under its watch. The Trump Administration, however, has taken pains to weaken the resilience of the already limited and chronically underfunded public health infrastructure in the US. As a result, this latest outbreak is unfolding in a system that is even more diminished and underresourced than it was in 2020.

    After presiding over the COVID-19 crisis, one might imagine a presidential administration would be eager to prevent another public health catastrophe from occurring under its watch. The Trump Administration, however, has taken pains to weaken the resilience of the already limited and chronically underfunded public health infrastructure in the US.

    First, it is worth noting that fecal contamination can happen when farm workers are not given adequate bathroom breaks. Rather than protecting farm workers, however, the Trump administration has made it harder for them to challenge unsafe conditions. In June 2025, the Labor Department suspended enforcement of a rule that expressly protected H-2A agricultural guestworkers from retaliation for filing workplace safety complaints or consulting with worker advocates. The administration subsequently proposed rescinding those protections altogether. 

    Another example of the second Trump administration’s handiwork is their changes to the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet. FoodNet is useful because it conducts active surveillance of foodborne diseases. Rather than waiting for private laboratories to send results, FoodNet staff regularly inquire about new disease cases and conduct audits to ensure cases are not missed. This proactive, standardized approach helps public health officials identify more cases earlier than systems that wait for reports to move passively up the chain. FoodNet is a joint program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the state health departments where the sites are located. There are FoodNet surveillance sites in ten states, covering 62.6 million people (Figure 1). 

    Figure 1

    FoodNet previously tracked cases of cyclosporiasis. In July of 2025, however, the Trump administration made FoodNet’s reporting of cyclosporiasis optional, mandating FoodNet tracking only for salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli. The administration justified the change as a way to conserve resources and avoid duplication, conflating FoodNet’s active surveillance with more passive surveillance systems such as the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS). The CDC’s own surveillance manual notes that active surveillance systems have been shown to increase reporting. Other empirical research has yielded similar results, with one study finding that the rate of disease reporting doubled when active surveillance practices were used, and that the disease reports themselves were more likely to be complete than those obtained through passive reporting structures.

    Unfortunately, FoodNet’s reach was already limited, covering only about 16 percent of the US population. The CDC maintains that FoodNet is not intended to detect individual outbreaks, and is geared more toward measuring disease burden over time. Rather than expanding it to make it more useful for monitoring active outbreaks, however, the Trump administration significantly weakened the program by reducing the number of diseases it was required to track, undermining even its utility as a historical dataset. This will also make it difficult to determine whether foodborne illness increased under their watch.

    The changes to FoodNet did not occur in a vacuum. In February 2025, the administration eliminated the USDA’s National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods, which was working on best-practice guidelines to combat foodborne illnesses shortly before its dissolution. In April 2025, federal workforce cuts forced the suspension of the Food Emergency Response Network proficiency testing program, which ensured that the network’s 170 food-testing laboratories could produce quality results during an emergency. The Trump Administration also downsized the CDC’s parasite surveillance team from eleven to just three. Zooming out, important institutions have been hollowed out: the USDA has shed 24,000 workers (an almost 27 percent reduction), the CDC has lost nearly 3,000 (roughly a quarter of its workforce), and the FDA is down more than 4,000 (almost a fifth of its workforce).

    Many of these cuts were initiated at the direction of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. DOGE’s handiwork should certainly allow for more efficient spread of diseases like cyclosporiasis. Given the cost of such outbreaks, however, the more economically sensible path would have been to invest in public health rather than shortchanging it. In any case, there is no evidence that the Trump administration slashed programs based on some careful cost-benefit analysis. Instead, the cuts appear to be part of the administration’s reckless and shortsighted pattern of hollowing out the federal government’s ability to serve the public. 

    Cyclospora is exactly the kind of pathogen for which timely, comprehensive surveillance matters. The incubation period for cyclosporiasis is 2 to 14 days after exposure, making it difficult to track because people often struggle to remember exactly what they ate during that period. Active surveillance is better equipped to compensate for this, however, because it both picks up more cases and collects more complete records. This enables officials to identify clusters sooner despite shaky recollections from individual patients. Making active surveillance optional removed an important source of systematic, standardized data just before a major surge that has proved difficult to characterize and trace.

    In public health, it is important to have robust systems in place before a crisis occurs. An outbreak that can be contained in its early stages may become difficult or impossible to control once it spreads. Yet these systems often become victims of their own success. Successful prevention means that the public never sees the disasters that were averted and may underestimate the scale of the danger those systems were designed to contain. The Trump administration appears to have doubled down on this terrible inclination, and people are paying for it with their bowels.

    (more…)

  • Community marches into 7-11 where 74-year-old was brutally beaten in Baltimore

    Community marches into 7-11 where 74-year-old was brutally beaten in Baltimore

    (LEFT) Surveillance video shows 74-year-old Ade Oba Tokunbo (Stephen King) on the ground, being assaulted by a group of young males in front of the 7-11 location on Liberty Heights Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, Maryland, on July 7, 2026. Surveillance video released by Baltimore Police. (RIGHT) Local residents gather in protest outside the same 7-11 where Ade Oba Tokunbo was assaulted on July 26, 2026. Photo credit: Maximillian Alvarez/TRNN.
    ” data-image-caption=”

    (LEFT) Surveillance video shows 74-year-old Ade Oba Tokunbo (Stephen King) on the ground, being assaulted by a group of young males in front of the 7-11 location on Liberty Heights Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, Maryland, on July 7, 2026. Surveillance video released by Baltimore Police. (RIGHT) Local residents gather in protest outside the same 7-11 where Ade Oba Tokunbo was assaulted on July 26, 2026. Photo credit: Maximillian Alvarez/TRNN.

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    A 7-11 on Liberty Heights Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, Maryland, has become a flashpoint of community rage and resistance after Ade Oba Tokunbo (Stephen King), a 74-year-old resident, was attacked and brutally beaten there by six teenagers on July 7, 2026. The same location is also the site of multiple robberies and the murder of Victorious Swift in March of 2017. In response, “A Clarion Call,” a new coalition of local community organizations and residents, organized a rally at the 7-11 on Sunday, July 26, and led a community march into the store to demand the company implement policies that will keep customers safe and aid in the apprehension of the youth responsible for the July 7 attack. In this on-the-ground report, TRNN takes you inside the community rally held at the 7-11, near Mondawmin Mall, on July 26. 

    Additional links/info:

    Credits:

    • Production: Maximillian Alvarez
    • Post-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino, David Hebden
    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

    Crowd Chants:

    We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we.

    Gwendolyn Levi:

    We need to be able to say that we in our community are willing to stand up. We’re standing up for our young people. We’re standing up for our seniors. We are standing up for our communities.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    On July 7th of this year, 2026, a comrade in my brother was brutally beaten by six youth at this same said 7-Eleven, brutally beaten for over 10 minutes. He was able to get into his vehicle and only go a few blocks before he had to stop. He was in so much pain that he had to call the police and have them to take him to the emergency room at Sinai Hospital. A few days later, the video was exposed and it was something that you couldn’t believe you were seeing. When he got out of the vehicle, those brothers was laying right there.

    There’s a stack of crates that they got from this 7-Eleven. Look at it. I want you to see it. That’s why we had it here. What they call ground zero. When he got out of his vehicle, they saw him. They weren’t laying for him. They were laying for somebody to come that way. They were willing and waiting for somebody to come down Towanda or Tioga, like my son did in 2017 when he left the 7-Eleven. So after walking 20 feet with my son, he put not one, not two, not three, not four, but five bullets into his body over a cell phone. Victorias fought for his life and it was stolen from him. It wasn’t taken because he fought back. It was stolen. On July 17th of this year, my comrades, this Black Panther veteran fought back.

    Speaker 4:

    Children today lost respect. You know what I’m saying? And I’m not saying all our children. I’m not saying that. But these little young men that came and jumped Bob and when I seen that, I said to myself, wow, they are chumps. They are cowards and they don’t have no dignity.

    Speaker 5:

    I don’t want it to be a blanket thing where like all our children are bad. I once was one of the little brothers out here running them up, but I’m telling you, we are misunderstood, uneducated, misguided, and easily let us stray. We need the community to gather around these young men. We don’t believe in throwing our peoples away.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    I am commissioning the entire city. There’s a $50,000 reward. Here’s a QR code. Do not call yourself an organization or revolutionary or anybody else until you click this and donate so we can find those babies. We have to find them. No one else can find them. We have to find them. We will find them. But we’re not finding them so that they can be locked up and we throw away the key. I heard that. We’re not finding them so we can throw away a key. We’re finding them so that we can follow them, hold them, love them. We’re taking whatever these demons have for them off the table. They can’t have our children anymore. That’s over. They’re our children. As hard as that is to say with what we saw, they’re still ours. They are still we are we. We’re going to walk with them every step of the way.

    Yes, we’re going to walk them to the police station. They have to be accountable for their behavior, but we will never let them go.

    Gwendolyn Levi:

    We need to teach our community the difference between snitching and protecting our community. There’s a difference. There is a difference. If your grandmother walks down the street, she can’t even go to the store. That’s not snitching. That’s saying, I want that community. I want my storefront cleaned off so my grandma can go to the store. That’s protecting your community. That’s protecting your loved ones. If you see something, say something. That’s not snitching. Snitching is when you and I go rob the 7-Eleven and not go tell on you. You need to know what snitching is. This is not snitching. This is happening ourselves.

    Speaker 6:

    You young. You haven’t lived enough life to understand anything. So when you hear elder up here talk about snitching and all this, I see your faces twisting up because you’re not intellectually understanding that these things that are being said are true in fact. But the arrogance in who you are as a person won’t allow you to listen to the truth until you’re old enough to have a child and somebody takes it from you. And now you want justice. Now you want peace. Now you want understanding. I used to be your age. You never been my age. My job or responsibility is to guide you.

    Speaker 7:

    Yo, people just need to be taught y’all. We’ve been there done that. Let’s not be so quick to forget. But one of the things I can say, I’m 63 years old. That’s something I’ve never done. Jump on it. Y’all, an older man. No, we ain’t do that. We ain’t do that. We guarded them to factor them even though we did our little stuff on the side, but we ain’t do that.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    I watched that video over and over and over and over. Even though I kept watching it, when that baby pulled that sword out like he was a samurai, all I could think about was please don’t stab him. Even though I knew he was home, I knew he was safe. The pain is so real. The visual is so vile that even when you know they’re safe, you still fear for them. When I turned that off, I said to myself, if he can fight, we can fight. If he’s not afraid to fight, even if he dies, we can fight until we’re not afraid to die. I saw it. He proved it. You can say what should have or could have happened, but what happened is he fought back. They beat him. They kicked him. They knocked him. They tormented him for 10 minutes. Do you know what 10 minutes feel like when someone is attacking you?

    All the time. It feels like forever, queen.

    Speaker 8:

    I was inspired when I looked at the fact that you just kept getting up. You just kept getting up! And if I take anything from that, here’s what we must continue to do as a people. We got to keep getting up. They talk about black people hate each other. Black people hate black people. And I often say to them, you can’t get this

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    If we hate each other. It’s time. One of the flyers say, if not us, then who? If not now, then when? We are going into that 7-Eleven and we’re telling those people, because I called them all week. I went in and got the phone number. I called them all week with no response. We tried. No response. We tried to no avail. Now we’re going full throttle. We’re not taking any prisoners. We’re not walking backwards. We’re going in there. We’re letting them know what they need to do to protect this community.

    Ujimma Masani :

    We want to walk over to this store. We want you to walk with us. We’re not going to tear up the store. We’re not going stealing anything. We just over there to let them know we ain’t playing. We write to you, not as adversaries, but as neighbors who share this corner with you every day. This location has witnessed a brutal assault of a 74 year old man, elder, an overnight break in and years of prior tragedy at the same address, including a loss of a young man’s life in March 2017. We believe you want this corner to be safe as much as we do. It is in that spirit, cordial but firm that we present the following list of demands. Number one, we are giving you a 72 hour notice to post your hours of operation in lettering large enough to be read clearly from the street.

    Number two, cut down the overgrown bushes that create a hidden nook where perpetrators can wait and hide to attack unsuspected customers and install brighter lighting throughout the parking lot. Number three, we urge you to donate toward the community reward fund established to help apprehend the assailants and toward the medical costs of the 74 year old elder who was attacked. Number four, invest in stronger security measures, including roll down security grates when the store is closed to deter further break-ins. And number five, acquire off-duty police presence to enforce a no latering policy and help assure the safety of your customers and this community. This is not a request made lightly and it is not one we intend to let go unanswered. We ask for a response and a plan of action within a reasonable time and we will report back to the we. Until then, we will continue to stand on this corner in agreement until this community is safe.

    Respectfully, the we community.

    Ade Oba Tokunbo (Stephen King):

    This gathering here is important because the community around us can see it. And they need to know that this is what needs to be done. These killings and these robberies and these auto thefts, we, I believe, can decrease it by teaching our people that hoodrats are not appreciated and should not be tolerated. I’m a veteran of the Black Panther Party. My paternal grandfather was a member of the UNIA. We are more than just a group of organizations. What I feel, because you have concern for me and care for me, this is my family.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    When I realized who it was and where it was, it brought back the night that my son Victorius walked out of this same 7-Eleven, down those steps, down to Tioga Parkway and was approached by a young man who demanded his phone. A fight pursued. The young man took out his gun and he brutally murdered my son, victorious. He shot him five times, one in the stomach, then the kneecap. Then when he fell, he shot him in the head, shot him into his eardrum, which hit his jugular vein. And as he was falling over, he shot him again and that bullet grazed his back. He left him for dead. Someone who witnessed the entire event ran over to my son, held him and told him to hold on. He called the ambulance. They took him to the hospital. And he was pronounced dead at 3:43 AM on March 26th, 2017, four days after my birthday.

    That was enough for me to say I’ve had enough. The next morning, Sister Ujimma called me and asked me how the Bible was doing when she had heard about it. We talked about what had happened. I shared with her what had happened to Victoria’s and telling her that that was the same location where Victorius came out of before he was murdered. Almost the same time of night, about three Victoria’s, I think it was like 3:15, 3:20, somewhere around that same time almost. And we said we have to do something. She called Mama Gwen. And once we came into what the Sister Queen always says, we have an agreement. That was it for us. We had decided that we were going to take no more, that we were going to do the same thing that Baba did, fight back. And that’s what we started doing. So we created the we organization mindset that we were going to communicate with every organization that we could in this city to let them know, to meet us here, where the assault happened and begin the process of changing how we think and how we look at the city and how to move forward as a collective, as a we, in agreeance, in agreement.

    Ujimma Masani :

    In agreement.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    And that’s what we did.

    Gwendolyn Levi:

    Thank you. I think one of the most significant things about this gathering that we had today is that it was not retaliatory or negative. It was not we against them or – Pointing fingers. Pointing fingers. It was to say we are here. We didn’t point fingers at our young people because we know we got some good young people in the city. Many of them that were out here with us today. But we all got some troubled young people. Sister said it best when she said it early. Some are broken. Some are just bent. Hopefully we can get to the bent ones before they get broken. That’s what this cry is about. That’s what the querying cry was for all organizations to say, “Hey, we are here for our young people. We are here for our elders. We’re here for our neighbors in the community. We are here.

    All you got to do is just look around your community. If you don’t see us in your community, call one of our older. We’ll come. We got brothers who can walk the streets with us. We got brothers who could go up in the alleys with us. We got sisters who know that our young sisters who are running up in stores and just grabbing stuff. No, no, no. You don’t have to do that. We know how to go get your nails done.

    We can get your hair done. Come see us. Come see us. That’s what we’re saying to our young people. We are here for them. And yes, you must be held accountable for your actions. I did. I served 16 years of a sentence. Guess how many years I was supposed to serve? How many? 400 months. I’m going to let you all add it up. And the ones who can’t add it up, that’s why we need to change our board of education. That’s a whole nother source. But I’m not going to tell you how many that the 400 months is figured out. But I did 16 years over 400 months sentence. I was transformed. And if old as I was can transform, I know we can help these young people who have a whole life ahead of themselves. And that’s what we’re trying to do. Save our youngsters mainly before they get into the system.

    But even the ones that get into the system, we’re here to help you so that when you come out of that system, you will come out and do what we’re doing. Do what the Tandea family, do what some of these other young or the cry organization, do what they’re doing. Help each other. Tell your story. Your story is impactful. Your story can help somebody.

    You have a store, young man. You have a store young lady. And I know some of you might be mad, not mad at me. Look in the mirror. Tell yourself who you’re mad at and address that situation before you come out here and get into some trouble that you really don’t want to get into. We are here.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    We are here.

    Gwendolyn Levi:

    For those six men who assaulted my brother, we are here.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    We are here.

    Gwendolyn Levi:

    Call one of us. Yes, you have to be held accountable, but in that accountability, you will have support. You will have support so that you won’t become broken. We don’t need more broken kids in our community. This is a healing city. This is a city that can be healed. And we are here to say that the healing has begun by the we. Thank you.

    Ujimma Masani :

    That was beautiful. Thanks. So in our effort to address this, I guess, our trust that hangs over our city with youth being not accountable in what it is that needs to happen. We’re looking for our first step, which is to be a place where you deposit information. This is an information bank. We are a repository for every organization that’s out here helping families, youth, and elders. So if you have resources, if you have services or programs, this is the one stop shop that you come to. We are not saying at this moment that we are doing anything other than that. What we want to do is when we connect with families, elders, and youth, we could point them in a direction of where they may can go. We won’t select your program for them, but we’ll tell them where they can go to get that service.

    And we’re going to aggregate all the information and make it user friendly. And you’ll be able to obtain it through our social media. We’re going to be able to obtain it through our website. And most of all, we’re going to be boots on the ground. The next event that we hope to kind of commandeer everyone together is that we’re going to be at the March on Washington on August 28th. There’s a free bus available by the National Action Network provided by the local chapters, community and city of NAN through the Reverend Al Sharpton. And we are going to take our voice across this country because I believe that other communities need the same kind of help. So we want to show that what it looks like, we’re not just the wire, we’re not just the corner. We’re not just the dancing, numbing and snowballs and the bikes.

    We are more than that. And people need to see us as a whole. And we have to take this as an organic approach to what we need to be getting done. And that’s what we’re here to do. I’m a graduate from the Morgan State University School of Social Work, and I’m calling on all my social workers, all my counselors, everybody who’s doing that work in this city. This is not about the dime or the doubt. This is about remembering how to bring community together. And with that, we are a we. And when we are we, we are in agreement. With that, I say

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    Ashe. I think the most important aspect

    Of what we are doing is to specifically reach out to families. We want the mothers and fathers of this city to know that their children are loved, that there is help available, there are resources available. Like mama said earlier, we’re not blaming anybody. There are no finger pointing. This is not anyone’s fault. If it is, it’s all of our faults. There’s no one person we can blame for this situation. I heard someone say we need to lock them up and throw away the key. I think, I hope, and I believe that we’ve had enough of that. There’s a system set up that eats, that sets up retirement funds, that sets up vacation time for our children being incarcerated. Being in a system where they’re abused, where they’re raped, where they’re tormented, where their lives literally stop. That has to stop. That has to stop. We can no longer accept our children being put into these systems and saying, lock them up and throw away the key.

    Ujimma Masani :

    I want to say one important thing. People say that things start in the home. Some people don’t have a home. We have so many people who are homeless, families that are living out here in these woods. People who have no resources whatsoever, no family in foster care. We have the largest number of foster care people in the system, youth in the system, but we’re only 13% of this whole national population. So if you keep saying that it begins at the home, did you check out whose home life you’re talking about? Because everybody don’t have a home. We

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    Don’t even know if these young men had a

    Ujimma Masani :

    Home. Right. We don’t know where they come from. And we don’t know that if their home is safe and protected and wholesome. How do we know if they’re not being abused or abandoned or – Neglected. Neglected or molested? We don’t know what that is. It’s in the body. It’s in the body. And so what we’re going to teach them is something called clean talk. We’re going to teach them about facts, feelings, judgments and outcomes. We’re going to change the dynamic of how we communicate with these people, with our babies. And that is where we’re going with this clarion call Baltimore.

    Queen Mother Victory Swift-Gye Nyame:

    Changing our journey to change their journey.

    Crowd Chants:

    We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we. We are we.

    (more…)

  • A new, centrist Uncommitted Movement has emerged

    A new, centrist Uncommitted Movement has emerged

    Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee member Sen. John Fetterman (D-WV) prepares to vote to advance Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security during a markup hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
    ” data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GettyImages-2267382191-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″>

    Suddenly, for centrists, refusing to support Democrats and withdrawing their support isn’t much of an offense, and indeed could be something worthy of “serious conversations.” 

    Over the past few weeks, progressive and self-identified democratic socialist candidates are racking up major victories in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, and leading in polls in Wisconsin and Michigan. In response, centrist pundits, politicians, and funders are increasingly threatening to boycott, leave, or otherwise announce their uncommitment to the Democratic Party. But unlike the Uncommitted Movement of 2024—which sought to use their leverage as voters to pressure the Biden, and ultimately Harris, campaign into adopting the both morally and politically correct position of ending support for genocide—the emerging Centrist Uncommitted movement is animated, in large part, by their support for genocide and lockstep support for Israel. 

    First up is perennial centrist sage James Carville, whose claim to fame is winning an election 34 years ago and spending the next several decades occupying cable news panels or calling in from gaudy pink mansions to scold Democrats for never being sufficiently centrist. He has one note, and he was going to elevate it after the recent wave of Left electoral wins, telling his podcast listeners after Mamdani-backed candidates in New York won 8 for 8 last month, “I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk the S-word: schism.” He added that some DSA-aligned candidates “have no place in the Democratic party” and, of the broader coalition: “I’m not in that fucking political party.”

    Did this brazen act of disloyalty to the party result in any condemnations or scandals, like the meltdown over streamer Hasan Piker’s insistence he would not support Gavin Newsom if he won the nomination? No, because the loyalty demands only go left, never right, as we will learn. 

    The loyalty demands only go left, never right.

    Carville is by no means alone. CNN reported that same day that there’s apparently a brewing conspiracy on Capitol Hill for centrists, namely pro-Israel centrists, to form their own party or otherwise divorce from the Democratic Party. With the courage typical in these ideological meltdowns, these designs were, of course, leaked anonymously to a friendly outlet. “One Democratic lawmaker sitting in a battleground district told CNN,” Sarah Ferris, Ellis Kim, and Annie Grayer reported, “that they are so concerned about the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America that they have recently begun having serious conversations with donors about leaving the party altogether.”

    It’s a funny formulation here by CNN: The anonymous threat is framed as being from a congressperson in a “battleground state,” implying their concern is electoral, and they are forced to respond to the organic demands of their constituents to support Israel. But then it’s immediately followed up with an acknowledgment that they’re actually taking cues from their “donors,” with whom they discussed the issue before any voters are mentioned, much less centered. 

    One of the few Democrats who has the decency to make this threat publicly is increasingly right-wing and erratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who indicated last week he will leave the party over its supposedly insufficient support for Israel. 

    We have evidence elsewhere of a pending Centrist Uncommitted movement backed by (far more consequentially than media whining) a donor strike—especially if anti-zionist Abdul El-Sayed wins his Democratic primary on August 4 in Michigan. “Some Jewish Democratic leaders in the state,” reports the Times of Israel, “are prepared to go even further.”:

    “Several prominent Metro Detroit Jews who have traditionally fundraised for Democrats are also planning fundraisers for the presumptive GOP nominee, former US Rep. Mike Rogers, as a ‘hedge.’… Others affirmed the idea that the Jewish Democratic donor class, feeling abandoned by the party, would back Rogers.”

    Other pro-Israel commentators, such as alleged gun control advocate Fred Guttenberg, have openly threatened to leave the party. 

    After Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani secured the Democratic Party nomination for mayor of New York City last year, party leaders either dragged their feet in endorsing him or—as was the case with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—never endorsed him at all. House Minority Leader (and the House’s number one recipient of AIPAC money out of 435 members) Hakeem Jeffries made veiled mob threats for months over Mamdani’s refusal to spout pro-Israel bromides, before reluctantly being forced to endorse Mamdani days before the general election, releasing a statement with all the charm and enthusiasm of an ISIS hostage video. Other Democrats, such as New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, accused Mamdani of being a “jihadist.” 

    It may seem vulgar to compare this genocidal fit to the 2024 Gaza Uncommitted Movement, but it’s a useful window into brazen hypocrisy and double standards. In retrospect, no group of people in the country were more loyal to the Democratic Party than the Uncommitted Movement, which was trying to save Democrats from themselves. Yet that movement’s acknowledgment of reality—that support for genocide would demoralize the base and reduce volunteer and GOTV energy—was framed as petulance, lack of loyalty, or a secret desire for Trump to win. Democrats were attempting to run a marathon with a rock in their shoe. The Uncommitted Movement insisted the rock must be removed. And the zionist ideologues that comprise a great deal of our media and party establishment insisted they were anti-winning the marathon. A grotesque combination of racist, stubborn, stupid, and cruel. 

    Democrats were attempting to run a marathon with a rock in their shoe. The Uncommitted Movement insisted the rock must be removed. And the zionist ideologues that comprise a great deal of our media and party establishment insisted they were anti-winning the marathon.

    The emerging Centrist Uncommitted movement is, of course, not motivated by any such humanitarian or practical concerns. It’s motivated by venality and pro-corporate politics, but is being supercharged by a deluded commitment to the dead-end ideology of zionism and its never-ending regime of indefensible and extreme regional violence. A goal these Uncommitted “donors” and pro-Israel electeds openly profess.

    The idea that threatening to leave, or not vote for, Democrats to extract concessions from the party is a uniquely left-wing phenomenon is a popular canard but not one supported by evidence. Indeed, it’s become something of conventional wisdom that disgruntled Bernie voters sat out the 2016 election or voted for Trump or Stein, but the reality is they voted for Clinton at a rate twice that of Clinton voters supported Obama in 2008. The anti-Obama PUMA movement, or the Party Unity My Ass Movement as it was called, was far more potent than any effort for Sanders supporters to boycott the general in 2016. But it nevertheless became conventional wisdom that the latter was of greater consequence than the former. Partly this is, of course, because Obama won and Clinton didn’t, but also because the Left’s loyalty to the party is taken for granted, whereas centrists must be won over and catered to. A dynamic that, conveniently, works out well for Wall Street, Corporate America, and zionism. 

    Centrists must be courted, pandered to, and their petulant threats to leave the party—in service of genocide rather than principled opposition to it—must be coddled. But those using the only lever they had to enact change in the doomed 2024 election were threatened, mocked, belittled, and turned into a punchline for disloyalty. 

    (more…)