Each week brothers Mike and Fred Klonsky, bloggers and activists engage in conversation, often with in-studio guests. Topics may be local, national or international, but always with a Chicago sensibility and perspective, and always from "the Left side of the plate."
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We're digging into sexual harassment inside Illinois politics, where power has a long habit of circling the wagons. In studio with us: Rep. Kelly Cassidy(R) and Alaina Hampton, two women who've forced this state to confront what it prefers to ignore. We'll talk about the fallout from the Ex-Rep. Harry Benton findings, the political machinery that kept him protected, and the role of Speaker Chris…
It's a family affair on this edition of Hitting Left as political strategist Joanna Klonsky and activist Fred Klonsky join Mike in a discussion of last Tuesday's Michigan election, Mamdani's New York, the troubles of the Democratic Party establishment, and the race for Chicago's mayor. Also, where's Andrew Cuomo?
Joining Mike on this edtion of the HItting Left podcast is former Chicago Mayor Lori LIghtfoot. Mike and Mayor Lightfoot talk WNBA basketball, recent MAGA attacks on LIghtfoot and her role in the fight against ICE.
Joining Mike is Flint Taylor, the Chicago attorney who co-founded the People's Law Office and who has spent fifty years putting the city's power structure on trial, from the killing of Fred Hampton to the CPD torture chambers run by Jon Burge. Flint is back on Hitting Left to talk about his new book, The Conviction Machine.
Joining Mike on this edition of Hitting Lefty is Flint Taylor, the Chicago attorney who co-founded the People's Law Office and who has spent fifty years putting the city's power structure on trial, from the killing of Fred Hampton to the CPD torture chambers run by Jon Burge. Flint is back on Hitting Left to talk about his new book, The Conviction Machine.
Mike is joined by researcher and writer Ben Lorber, whose work tracks the strange new alliances reshaping the American right — from Christian Zionists to the Gen‑Z 'America First' crowd — and what all this means for antisemitism, Palestine, and the future of Jewish politics."
This week on Hitting Left, Mike sits down with Michael Rabbitt and Joselyn Walsh, members of the Broadview 6, whose arrests during an anti‑ICE protest have become a flashpoint in Chicago's struggle for immigrant rights and the right to protest. They share their story and the broader stakes of resisting state violence.
Mike and Susan Klonsky are joined by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, playwright, screenwriter, and author of the new memoir Dangerous, Dirty, Violent & Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground. Dohrn's story cuts straight into the contradictions we talk about every week on Hitting Left — the collision of family, politics, violence, and repression, and the long shadow of American radicalism. His…
Joining Mike this week is the co-founder and trumpeter of the Grammy-winning klezmer group, the Klezmatics. The Klezmatics are a fiercely inventive New York klezmer band that fuses Jewish musical tradition with jazz, punk, folk, and political fire.
Joining Mike on May Day is Ivan Weiss, retired journalist, union organizer and the son of a Philadelpia family of McCarthy era political survivors. Now a small family farmer near Seattle, Wahington, Ivan shares with Mike family stories of life growing up during the notorious Red Scare and the lessons for today.
