On Tuesday, Donald Trump was arraigned at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for paying $130,000 in hush money to a former mistress in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign and then falsifying related business documents. Supporters and detractors of Trump rallied outside the courthouse. The intense divisions of the Trump era were on full display as well as the toxic brew of grievances and conspiracy theories embraced by the former president’s most rabid followers. We covered Arraignme...
Apr 05, 2023•16 min
On Tuesday, Donald Trump was arraigned at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for paying $130,000 in hush money to a former mistress in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign and then falsifying related business documents. Supporters and detractors of Trump rallied outside the courthouse. The intense divisions of the Trump era were on full display as well as the toxic brew of grievances and conspiracy theories embraced by the former president’s most rabid followers. We heard from Indy c...
Apr 05, 2023•11 min
On Tuesday, Donald Trump was arraigned at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for paying $130,000 in hush money to a former mistress in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign and then falsifying related business documents. Supporters and detractors of Trump rallied outside the courthouse. The intense divisions of the Trump era were on full display as well as the toxic brew of grievances and conspiracy theories embraced by the former president’s most rabid followers. We covered Arraignme...
Apr 05, 2023•59 min
We will hear from Indypendent investigative journalist Ted Hamm about a wrongful conviction case he's covering. Hector Lopez was convicted of a 1994 arson-double murder despite a lack of physical evidence tying him to the crime.
Mar 31, 2023•5 min
We speak with Gabriel Medrano, a lead worker-organizer at the Essex Crossing Trader Joe's in lower manhattan, where the independent Trader Joe's Union announced a union election will be held last week. We also get updates on other labor happenings in the city and country and hear voices from the current mass protests and strikes in France. Then, we take listener call ins to honor their heroes for Women's History Month. Lastly, we provide an update on the fight down in Atlanta to stop the constru...
Mar 29, 2023•53 min
We speak with Gabriel Medrano, a lead worker-organizer at the Essex Crossing Trader Joe's in lower manhattan, where the independent Trader Joe's Union announced a union election will be held last week. We also get updates on other labor happenings in the city and country and hear voices from the current mass protests and strikes in France.
Mar 29, 2023•26 min
We take call-ins from listeners who shout out women they'd like to honor for Women's History Month.
Mar 25, 2023•18 min
We hear from DSA-NYC organizer Danny Valdez about the DSA's ongoing Tax the Rich campaign that aims to expand social spending to New York that would benefit the state's working class. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature are facing an April 1 deadline to complete the budget. On Saturday, hundreds of New Yorkers with the Invest in Our New York coalition marched from Columbus Circle to “Billionaire’s Row” on 5th Avenue to call for higher taxes on NY’s wealthiest residents.
Mar 25, 2023•14 min
We look at the battle over New York State’s $227 billion annual state budget. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature are facing an April 1 deadline to complete the budget. On Saturday, hundreds of New Yorkers with the Invest in Our New York coalition marched from Columbus Circle to “Billionaire’s Row” on 5th Avenue to call for higher taxes on NY’s wealthiest residents. We speak with Socialist NY Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani about budget negotiations at the State Capitol right now — the mee...
Mar 24, 2023•16 min
In the first half of the show, we look at the battle over New York State’s $227 billion annual state budget. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature are facing an April 1 deadline to complete the budget. On Saturday, hundreds of New Yorkers with the Invest in Our New York coalition marched from Columbus Circle to “Billionaire’s Row” on 5th Avenue to call for higher taxes on NY’s wealthiest residents. We speak with Socialist NY Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani about budget negotiations at the St...
Mar 24, 2023•55 min
We will look at Cop City, a massive new police training facility being built on the edge of Atlanta. Atlanta’s political leaders describe Cop City as a progressive response to the George Floyd protests and demands for better police training. However, critics of the $90 million project say it promotes the further militarization of policing. Cop City has become a magnet for protesters not only in Atlanta but from around the country. On January 18, a forest defender named Tortuguita was shot and ki...
Mar 08, 2023•18 min
We speak with Anthony Sims, who was convicted in the 1998 slaying of Li Run Chen at a Bushwick Chinese food joint in May 1998. The prosecution’s case was built around the testimony of a witness whose story has since been found to be awash in contradictions. Sims was paroled last fall after 24 years behind bars. He is still seeking to clear his name. He has a court hearing on Friday where Judge Danny Chun could throw out his conviction Meanwhile, Anthony is about to begin a fellowship with the Fo...
Mar 08, 2023•17 min
In the first segment, we speak with Anthony Sims, who was convicted in the 1998 slaying of Li Run Chen at a Bushwick Chinese food joint in May 1998. The prosecution’s case was built around the testimony of a witness whose story has since been found to be awash in contradictions. Sims was paroled last fall after 24 years behind bars. He is still seeking to clear his name. He has a court hearing on Friday where Judge Danny Chun could throw out his conviction Meanwhile, Anthony is about to begin a ...
Mar 08, 2023•52 min
Tenants of 1111 Ocean Ave, a 102-unit, six-story building in Flatbush, announced a lawsuit last week against their landlord, Sam Wasserman, demanding immediate repairs to their apartments and an end to years of harassment. The building now has a record 572 violations, including 157 immediately hazardous conditions that include years-old leaks and massive ceiling collapses. With support from Flatbush Tenant Coalition, tenants at 1111 Ocean Ave have been fighting for years for repairs, and 16 of t...
Mar 01, 2023•21 min
First segment: Tenants of 1111 Ocean Ave, a 102-unit, 6-story building in Flatbush, announced a lawsuit last week against their landlord, Sam Wasserman, demanding immediate repairs to their apartments and an end to years of harassment. The building now has a record 572 violations, including 157 immediately hazardous conditions that include years-old leaks and massive ceiling collapses. With support from Flatbush Tenant Coalition, tenants at 1111 Ocean Ave have been fighting for years for repairs...
Mar 01, 2023•56 min
The New York State Senate recently approved the Build Public Renewables Act. If enacted, the bill would supercharge the buildout of wind, solar and geothermal energy in New York and put it under publicly controlled, democratic management. However, some key unions have so far declined to support the measure as it heads to the State Assembly where it is likely to face more resistance.
Feb 24, 2023•19 min
We spent the full hour with Nicholas Powers about his cover story on Black Love and its transformative impact on American history. Nicholas is a professor of African-American literature at the State University of New York. Our discussion draws on his knowledge of Black history, the Black literary canon and his own experience of becoming a parent for the first time and raising his son as a single Black father.
Feb 15, 2023•54 min
We speak with New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé, elected in 2021 at the age of 23 as the youngest-ever member of the council. He played an important role in organizing BLM protests during the George Floyd uprising in NYC and has been one of the forceful voices in the City Council that has pushed back against Mayor Adams' austerity initiatives.
Feb 09, 2023•23 min
We speak on The Indy News Hour with WBAI’s very own Rachel Hu. She is the co-host of Covert Action, which airs on Wednesdays mornings from 9-10 a.m. She is also a managing editor at Breakthrough News, an independent media project that uplifts critical voices of resistance nationally and internationally. Breakthrough News has a recently-launched program, Breakthrough Disruptors, that brings together media makers and activists. Rachel joins us to talk about that and movement media.
Feb 09, 2023•19 min
We spend the first half of the show with WBAI’s very own Rachel Hu. She is the co-host of Covert Action, which airs on Wednesdays mornings from 9-10 a.m. She is also a managing editor at Breakthrough News, an independent media project that uplifts critical voices of resistance nationally and internationally. Breakthrough News has a recently-launched program, Breakthrough Disruptors, that brings together media makers and activists. Rachel joins us to talk about that and movement media. In the sec...
Feb 09, 2023•55 min
In this episode, we talk about police accountability and why it’s so sorely lacking here in New York. We speak with John Teufel, the author of This Month in Eric Adams, a column on indypendent.org. Teufel is a savvy observer of New York politics and media and a former investigator at the Civilian Complaint Review Board, where he reviewed dozens of case of police misconduct and saw first-hand how the system of police accountability works. In 2021, he won a lawsuit against the city to dislodge NYP...
Feb 06, 2023•52 min
We speak with Kristen Gonzalez, NY's newest Democratic Socialist state senator and, at 27, the youngest woman to ever serve in the NY State Senate. She talks about tech privacy, housing, staying true to socialism, and the NY Supreme Court. We also get updates on co-host Amba Guerguerian's time in Cairo, the new lows the machine Democrats have sunk to, and organizing Amazon.
Jan 18, 2023•52 min
We speak with Kristen Gonzalez, NY's newest Democratic Socialist state senator and, at 27, the youngest woman to ever serve in the NY State Senate. She talks about tech privacy, housing, staying true to socialism, and the NY Supreme Court.
Jan 18, 2023•23 min
Yesterday City Council’s labor committee held a public hearing on a measure supported by the Adams administration that would make it possible for the City to transfer 250,000 retired city workers from their current medicare health coverage to privately-run Medicare Advantage. The retirees have put up a fierce battle for over a year. City council is tentatively scheduled to vote on the measure on Jan. 19. We speak with Barbara Caress, adjunct professor at Baruch College in manhattan and a proud m...
Jan 12, 2023•18 min
The Indypendent's Steven Wishnia updates us on the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) strike. He’s been speaking with nurses about their working conditions and demands. Over seven thousand nurses at four private hospitals are on strike. “Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms our patients,” says the union.
Jan 11, 2023•24 min
We take call ins live on the air on The Indypendent News Hour on WBAI 99.5 FM. Callers share their views on the nurses’ strike and how municipal union leaders have set up retired municipal employees to lose medicare benefits.
Jan 11, 2023•10 min
The Indypendent's Steven Wishnia updates us on the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) strike. He’s been speaking with nurses about their working conditions and demands. Over seven thousand nurses at four private hospitals are on strike. “Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms our patients,” says the union. Yesterday City Council’s labor committee held a public hearing on a measure suppor...
Jan 11, 2023•57 min
We speak with The Indy's Nicholas Powers' beautiful essay in our December-January print edition about his mother who passed away last year. She was a radical Nuyorican activist and a child of the '60s generation. "She was born in 1948, in a Puerto Rican Brooklyn enclave and turned 20 in 1968, the peak of anti-Vietnam War protests, the hippie movement, the Young Lords and Black Panther rebellions. All the marches and slogans scooped my mother like a giant wave and lifted her out of the neighborho...
Jan 04, 2023•19 min
We get the latest on the battle to stop Gov. Hochul's Hector LaSalle nomination to NY Court of Appeals from Peter Martin of the Center for Community Alternatives. We also speak with Nicholas Powers about his radical Nuyorican mother and an article he wrote about her in the current issue of The Indypendent.
Jan 04, 2023•57 min
We look once again at the epic battle for the Hector LaSalle nomination to be the chief judge of New York State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. The selection by Gov. Kathy Hochul has earned the ire of progressives. We speak with one of the advocates who has been leading the fight against this nomination about the broad resistance.
Jan 04, 2023•22 min
