YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali

YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali is a weekly broadcast program—an antidote to the doom and gloom of mainstream news, lifting up solutions that bring us closer to economic, racial, gender, and environmental justice. Hosted and produced by YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar, YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali is available as a podcast, on independent radio stations nationwide, on Free Speech TV, and right here through YES! Media. Learn more about the show here.

Ending “Death by Incarceration”

A Pennsylvania man is challenging mandatory life without parole sentencing for felony murders in a case that has national implications.

| Sep 27, 2024

Progress 2025: Protecting Voting Rights and Democracy

Instead of Project 2025's white supremacist vision for voting rights, Progress 2025 envisions universal early voting, a national federal holiday and more.

| Sep 26, 2024

A Liberatory Vision for Reproductive Justice

A progressive alternative to Project 2025's anti-abortion vision includes no-cost abortions, on-demand, for everyone who wants one.

| Sep 25, 2024

Arn H. Pearson, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, speaks with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about the dangers posed by the fake electors.

Trump’s Fake Electors Eye 2024 Election Theft

A new report by Insurrection Exposed prepares voters on what to expect from Trump’s next effort to steal an election.

| Sep 20, 2024

Natalia Renta, senior policy counsel for corporate governance and power at Americans for Financial Reform, talks labor, capital, and commerce with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali.

Progress 2025: A Vision for Economic Justice

A progressive alternative to Project 2025’s anti-tax, anti-worker economy includes worker protections and a strong social safety net.

| Sep 19, 2024

Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, Boston discusses immigration issues with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali.

A Progress 2025 Vision for Immigration

Instead of Project 2025’s harsh anti-immigrant policies, here’s what a progressive, human-centered vision for immigrant rights looks like.

| Sep 18, 2024

Journalist Peter Yeung explains to Sonali Kolhatkar how Los Cedros remains protected against extractive industries thanks to its constitutional rights.

Video | Los Cedros | Progress 2025: Climate and Environment | Progress 2025 | Rights of Nature

Does a Forest Have Rights? In Ecuador, It Does.

Journalist Peter Yeung explains how Los Cedros has remained protected for years thanks to Ecuador’s constitution extending rights to nature.

| Sep 13, 2024

Mia Ives-Rublee, senior director for the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress, outlined a progressive vision for health care in conversation with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar.

Video | Health Care | 2024 Election | Progress 2025: Health Care | Progress 2025

A Progress 2025 Vision for Health Care

Instead of gutting Medicare and Medicaid, as Project 2025 envisions, here's what a holistic, collective approach to health care would look like.

| Sep 12, 2024

Jenn M. Jackson, Ph.D., talks with Sonali Kolhatkar about what a progressive vision for LGBTQ people would look like in the U.S., as part of YES! Media's Progress 2025 intitative.

Video | LGBTQ Rights | Progress 2025: LGBTQ Rights | Progress 2025 | Jenn M Jackson

Progress 2025: A Vision for LGBTQ Rights

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has promised a dystopian vision for LGBTQ rights. Its ideas are consistent with authoritarian, Christian nationalist, and white supremacist objectives. It aims to criminalize the existence

| Sep 11, 2024

Video | Amanda Jones | Book Banning | Librarians | Book Bans

Meet the Librarian Battling Book Bans

Librarian Amanda Jones refused to stay silent in the face of vicious attacks by a right-wing book-banning campaign. She tells all in a new book.

| Sep 5, 2024

Can the Next President Solve the Housing Crisis?

A housing rights organizer analyzes the solutions being proposed this election year to address the high cost of home buying and renting.

| Sep 4, 2024

Video | Monopolies | Kroger | Albertsons | labor unions

Workers Challenge Mega Grocery Merger

The Biden administration has sued to stop the largest grocery merger in the nation’s history, between Kroger and Albertsons.

| Aug 30, 2024

Video | Abolition | Dortell Williams | Criminal Justice | Felon Disenfrachisement

Voters Behind Bars

Incarcerated Americans aren’t allowed to vote. Those with felonies also face barriers. Here’s what that means for democracy.

| Aug 29, 2024

Disrupting the DNC for Palestine

Breaking the DNC blackout on Gaza, Codepink's Jodie Evans joined other activists working to keep Palestinians on the Democratic Party’s radar.

| Aug 28, 2024

Video | Murmurations | adrienne maree brown | Loving Corrections

adrienne maree brown’s “Loving Corrections” to Build Collective Power

Best-selling author adrienne maree brown’s new book offers tools to navigate the difficult conversations and dynamics of organizing and belonging.

| Aug 22, 2024

Jordan Ifueko spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about her new book, The Maid and the Crocodile.

Video | Afrofuturism | Raybearer | Jodan Ifueko | Afrofantasy

Rewriting Fantasy Tropes on Race and Economy

Young adult author Jordan Ifueko has created new worlds with her best-selling series Raybearer, centering Black characters and workers.

| Aug 16, 2024

Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley, spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about taxation on tips

Instead of Ending Taxes on Tips, Pay a Living Wage

Taxes on tipped wages have now become a campaign issue. But economic equality advocates say ending sub-minumum wages would help workers more.

| Aug 15, 2024

Torture Inside a Secret Israeli Concentration Camp

Video now circulating in Israeli media corroborates allegations from Palestinian detainees that Israeli agents at Sde Teiman detention center rape and torture prisoners.

| Aug 14, 2024

Video | Reparations | Black farmers | USDA | National Black Farmers Association

USDA Will Compensate Black Farmers for Discrimination

The National Black Farmers Association just won a historic $2.2 billion in reparations from the U.S. government.

| Aug 9, 2024

Video | Black Futures Lab | 2023 Black Census | Black to the Future Action Fund

Setting a Black Economic Agenda

After conducting the largest-ever survey of Black Americans, Black to the Future has released a detailed Black economic agenda.

| Aug 8, 2024

Lessons from Ferguson, 10 Years Later

The Ferguson uprising ignited a national reckoning about racist policing. Missouri State Sen. Brian Williams, who grew up in Ferguson, reflects on the progress made and challenges remaining.

| Aug 7, 2024

What Is (and Is Not) Political Violence?

Violence against communities of color has always been political, but American elites have avoided that framing, says NDN Collective’s Janene Yazzie.

| Aug 2, 2024

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