The Good Fight, with Ben Wikler
by Ben Wikler
A show about people changing the world, powered by MoveOn.org. David vs. Goliath battles for justice, told from the behind-the-slingshot point of view... with a twist of comedy. Email us: [email protected]
Episodes
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Sen. Gillibrand, sexual assault, and the fight to fix military justice (Rerun from #5)
Women and men who serve in uniform often face an enemy within their own ranks: sexual assault. In this story, newly remastered from The Good Fight's 5th episode in December 2013, we tell the story of survivor Trina McDonald as she went from enlistee to victim to survivor to fearless advocate, and...
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44: How Al Franken beat Comcast and saved the Internet
One monopoly to rule them all: Comcast's attempt to gobble up Time Warner threatened the very Internet as we know it. But one senator fought back.
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43: Using the ocean without using it up
Marine biologist Ayana Johnson has a plan to bring back the fish, one island at a time. To do it, she'll have to drink a lot of beer. http://tgf.fm/43
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42: Coal, you're going to lose. You too, ALEC.
Spring is finally here. Daffodils dancing int he breeze, pollen collecting on car roofs, and the symphony of coughs filling the air. It's not just allergies that are making it hard to breathe. It's also coal. Ending coal fired power is the best weapon against the US's asthma epidemic. Host Ben...
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41: We're back! Had a baby. Got Kickstarted. And talked to three heroes.
So much glory: Kickstarter triumph, new baby, and encore visits from three beloved guests. Sister Simone gets back on the nun bus; Shannon Watts faces down the NRA; and Garlin Gilchrist makes us all want to move to Detroit. http://tgf.fm/41
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40: Why #BlackLivesMatter
Co-founder Alicia Garza shares the story of how #BlackLivesMatter began—and how it became the rallying cry for a movement, ignited by tragedy, that is fighting for survival. http://tgf.fm/40 And back the show by Feb 5 here: http://tgf.fm/ks
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VIDEO: Kickstarter for Good Fight, Year Two. Featuring Al Franken.
Want more Good Fight magic in the world? This is the moment to help, at tgf.fm/ks. We're running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 for our second year of shows, and we're already halfway there—but if we don't raise $50,000 more in the next seven days, it all disappears. Chip in now, and…
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39: ALEC: Match.com for evil
For decades, corporations have found Republicans ready to do their bidding thanks to a shadowy outfit known as ALEC. But Nick Rathod, a preacher's son, has a plan to fight back. http://tgf.fm/39
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38: How the kid with two moms saved the Boy Scouts
Zach Wahls, as a teenage Eagle Scout, gave a speech that changed the nation. If you ever clicked the headline "Two lesbians had a baby, and this is what they got," that speech was what you got—a speech that shifted the way millions of people thought about marriage equality. But as it turned out,...
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37: What $10 million buys you in U.S. politics
Mayday SuperPAC, Lawrence Lessig's anti-corruption moonshot, lost nearly all of its races in the 2014 midterms. Does that mean it failed? Or does the shadow of money in politics extend beyond mere wins and losses? Professor Lessig and the Progressive Campaign Change Committee's Adam Green take us...
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36: Turn Out For What
2014 was the election that young people were supposed to ignore. But then came the voting anthem nobody can stop humming. Today on The Good Fight, the inside story of Turn Out For What—as recounted by Rock The Vote's Ashley Spillane and Dan McSwain, and featuring the voices of Lil Jon, Lena…
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35: The progressive secret weapon
Conservatives might have money, but progressives have something even more powerful: science. That's right: gigantic, statistically valid, scientifically rigorous experiments about the best way to win elections. If that's a surprise to you, there's a reason: the most fascinating experiments are…
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34: Fed up with the economy?
Why haven't wages risen in 40 years? It's not just bad luck. The mostly invisible, ultra-powerful folks who run at the Federal Reserve have gone to great lengths to keep it that way. When too many people get jobs, when pay starts going up... wham! They knock things back down again. But lately,...
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33: Inside the ginormous, huge-tastic climate march
They promised the biggest climate march in world history. But when the big morning arrived, the Weather app showed a thundercloud. Hear what happened next—and feel the (renewable) energy of a giant, urgent movement hitting the streets together for the first time—as The Good Fight takes you inside...
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32: Will police body cameras prevent the next Ferguson?
The killing of Michael Brown, and the military-style police crackdown that followed, exposed millions of Americans to the wide-open Pandora's Box that is the American way of law enforcement. In the weeks since, as the nation wrestled with fundamental questions of race and justice, media across…
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31: Mayday Super PAC Strikes Back
Lawrence Lessig's Mayday Super PAC stunned the political world by raising $7 million to fight corruption. Now comes the hard part: using money in politics to kick money out of politics. Lessig returns to the show to bring us inside the battle.
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30: Garlin Gilchrist II: Detroit, diaspora, and destiny
Before the Win Report, before MoveOn.org, Garlin Gilchrist II was exactly the person Detroit couldn't afford to lose: a brilliant, entrepreneurial computer engineer and civic patriot. He left. But now he's back. Here's his story. http://tgf.fm/30
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29: Live from Netroots
The soon-to-be legendary live taping of The Good Fight from Netroots Nation 2014! Hear amazing stories from NARAL president Ilyse Hogue and newly-elected NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia, thrill to a live Win Report with Garlin Gilchrist II, and march through the streets with Mark Ruffalo and a...
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28: Cory Booker and Rand Paul: partners on crime
For decades, criminal justice reform was political Kryptonite. But Cory Booker isn't from Krypton. Booker joins us to explain why he's tackling this fight—and how, in a Festivus miracle of bipartisanship, he teamed up with Rand Paul. http://tgf.fm/28
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27: War on women? Meet the resistance
UltraViolet co-founder Nita Chaudhary takes us behind the scenes in the insurgent, devastatingly effective campaign to make the anti-feminist backlash backfire. The strategy: using cutting-edge online advocacy to put a political and economic price on sexism. The good news: it's working. Hobby...
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Win Report: Hobby Lobby, Hillary, and the Beyonce voters
In this week's Win Report, the Supreme Court rules on Hobby Lobby blocking birth control and home-care workers' rights. Good news and bad news on climate change. Plus, marriage equality in Kentucky, a gay police chief in South Carolina, and more updates from around the country.
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26: Pulitzer winner. Undocumented. American.
When Jose Antonio Vargas was 16, he discovered his green card was fake. At 26, he won journalism’s biggest prize. At 30, he outed himself as undocumented. Vargas’s powerful new film, #Documented, tells his story—and it will change the way you think about immigration. He joins The Good Fight to...
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25: Lawrence Lessig, Aaron Swartz, and the Super PAC to end Super PACs
What if you’re doing the wrong thing with your life? That’s what 20-year-old Aaron Swartz asked Lawrence Lessig. In response, Lessig transformed his career. Today, he’s got an insanely audacious plan to kick billionaires out of politics… with help from billionaires. Hear his story: http://tgf.fm/25
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Win Report: Rick Perry said what?!
A stand-alone Win Report! The latest victories and defeats in progressive fights throughout the country, including Gov. Rick Perry's stupid comment about homosexuality and Obama's recent and awesome executive orders. http://tgf.fm/WR0620
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24: The 347 climate wins you've never heard of
Obama's new carbon pollution rules are the biggest step ever taken by the U.S. government to fight climate change—but they're not the biggest step taken by the country. The most important win is one that's taken place invisibly, in city by city battles over the last decade: a grassroots campaign...
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23: The plot to bring democracy to America
The National Popular Vote campaign is on track to do the impossible: fix the broken, crazy, undemocratic way the USA picks its presidents. The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg takes us inside the fight. Plus, a new Win Report.
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22: You've got to hear this preacher
Rev. Jim Wallis left evangelical Christianity to fight for social justice—and then found his vocation by mixing them together. Now, he's a spiritual adviser to Obama, a force in immigration, and our guest. Plus: a new Win Report. http://tgf.fm/22
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21: Beating the Koch brothers
The documentary Citizen Koch was almost crushed by the Koch brothers' power. But filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal fought back. Today, the story behind the movie America's ultra-conservative power brokers don't want you to see.
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20: Minimum wage myths, busted
Opponents of raising the minimum wage like to claim that economists are on their side. They're wrong. In this episode: the truth about minimum wage economics, the fight in the field, and the reason the jobs debate is a sideshow. Learn more at http://thegoodfight.fm/20
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19: NRA, watch out: Meet Bloomberg's supermom secret weapon
For two long decades, gun safety reform was a nonstarter. And then came the Newtown massacre. Outrage swept the country. Politicians vowed to act. And in Zionsville, Indiana, a stay-at-home mother of five logged on to Facebook and created a page that would become the epicenter of a new movement…
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18: The muckraker and the border patrol
Everyone working at the border crossing knew that it was happening: brutal violence and abuses by border patrol agents. Sometimes even lethally. But the U.S. Customs and Border Protection wasn't talking, and politicians seemed more concerned with increasing its size and military power than in...
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17: The Nanny Uprising
Big Oil. Bankers. Global mega-corporations. Those are the powerful. But sometimes, the powerless win too—and this episode is about one of those times. It's the story of the Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights in New York, and the surging movement across the country of nannies, home health aides, and...
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16 Guns in libraries, Hobby Lobby birth control, happy dolphins
An all-Win Report episode! The latest victories and defeats—plus a special Winportunity report from MSNBC's Irin Carmon, who just watched the Supreme Court argue over whether corporations can have religions... and if so, whether corporations like Hobby Lobby can refuse to cover birth control...
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15: The really dumb reason 5 million people are uninsured
For 5 million unlucky Americans, health care reform currently means... zilch. But as Ron Pollack, the country's leading health care advocate, explains on this episode, this is a fight we're going to win. And as you'll realize as he tells amazing stories about the battles he's helped win in…
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14: This interview is illegal in Uganda
In Uganda, under the new anti-gay law, you—you reading this now—would almost certainly be a criminal. Know gay people, but don't report them? Prison. "Promote homosexuality" by posting on Facebook or Twitter about gay rights, or doing an interview for a podcast? Prison. Gay yourself? Life…
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13: Social Security cuts: the clearest explanation anywhere
A year ago, President Obama did something jaw-dropping, and not in a good way: He proposed, in his budget, cuts to Social Security benefits. This year, though? The cuts were gone. To understand why he made the proposal, and why he reversed course, you have to understand a much bigger battle. The...
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12: Did we just prevent a war with Iran?
The Iran sanctions bill was the kind of measure that usually passes Congress unanimously. And, as always, dozens of Senators signed on right away—even though the law would've destroyed the most promising US-Iran peace negotiations in a generation, and put us on a road to war. But then, suddenly,...
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11: Utah? Gay marriage in Utah?
The story of Utah's same-sex marriage movement starts with chutzpah and ends with a ridiculously, touchingly exuberant series of victory celebrations. You might get halfway through before you mist up, but don't count on it. Telling the story are Mark Lawrence, the man behind the lawsuit that…
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10: More leaders like this, please
When Heather McGhee's new job was announced, Elizabeth Warren called her "a champion," the head of the AFL-CIO said he was "thrilled," and Chris Hayes hailed her as "hands down one of the most impressive, ferociously intelligent, committed, passionate people I've had the great fortune to meet in...
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9: This prison is weird
A guy commits some crimes, gets caught, goes to prison. And then everything gets weird. Plus, before that: 2014's first #WinReport, and an exclusive global traffic and weather update that stretches from Sochi, Russia to Chris Christie's New Jersey highways. Find show notes, and sign up for our...
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8: The 2013 Winnie Awards
The Good Fight's own annual awards show—recognizing the wins and losses in the most important fights of the year. Your hosts: Garlin Gilchrist II, Ben Wikler, and Winifred the Win Horse. Plus a window into what 2013 meant for people the marriage equality movement, and the fight for equality as a...
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7 Short: How the nuns saved Obamacare
In the final days before the bill passed, who saved Obamacare? Catholic nuns. Sister Simone Campbell—one of the most charming, utterly down-to-earth, and profoundly committed people I've ever met—explains why. And in the process, she tells her own fascinating story, from an anti-segregation…
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6: Coca-Cola voter suppression. Beating ALEC. LIVE from Rootscamp.
Diet Coke. Cherry Coke. Voter Suppression Coke. Thanks to a brilliant grassroots campaign, one of these products has been discontinued. On this episode, recorded live at the Rootscamp activist summit, we take you behind the slingshot in the astonishingly successful fight to expose and shame the...
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5: Gillibrand. Rape in the military. NSA World of Warcraft.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand brings us inside her fight against military sexual assault. She's joined by Navy veteran Trina McDonald, whose story will break your heart—and then put it back together stronger. If you saw Trina in the Oscar-nominated documentary The Invisible War, you've probably...
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4: Fast food strike. McQuiz. The Ballad of Healthcare.gov.
The podcast for people who want to fix not just a website, but the whole economy. Does the Obamacare website make you want to sing? Don't answer. Just listen: we've taken care of that for you already. And once the music stops, it's time for a visit to an uprising in the underbelly of our...
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3: Nuclear option. Drugs. Thanksgiving.
Has the so-called "nuclear option" destroyed all life in the U.S. Senate? If not, why is it empty this week? And speaking of military metaphors in politics: was the war on drugs ever good policy? Plus: what might be lurking in America's turkey this Thanksgiving, and what is it trying to tell us?…
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2: Obamacare. DREAMers. Escaping the fever swamp.
As seen by denizens of the far-right fever swamps of American politics, Obamacare is a terrifying nightmare—a nightmare Ben accidentally discovers on his way to the office. After a swashbuckling escape, he's joined by MoveOn's Garlin for the second, world-traversing Win Report, and then, for our...
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1: Launch. Franken. Obamacare. Wins.
Gunfire, explosions, and the roars of marauding ultraconservatives fill the DC air as Ben launches the first episode of The Good Fight. Then: a jam-packed hour featuring the inaugural Win Report, with MoveOn.org's Garlin Gilchrist II; advice from Al Franken; and a mind-blowing perspective on...
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Coming soon!
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About this show
A show about people changing the world, powered by MoveOn.org. David vs. Goliath battles for justice, told from the behind-the-slingshot point of view... with a twist of comedy. Email us: [email protected]
Hosted by
Ben Wikler
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