On MidPoint we hear a new ad by the NRA warning their gun owing members about taking on liberals and “fighting the violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth;” but first we hear a moving speech about the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass. You may have heard segments of the Frederick Douglass speech before,… Read more »
About sixty protesters chanted “Take it down!” in front of a monument to Confederate soldiers outside a Hillsborough Courts administration building in downtown Tampa Tuesday morning; they were there for a press conference criticizing last week’s Hillsborough County Commission narrow vote to keep the monument in place, despite widespread community objection. Rev. James T. Golden is… Read more »
The monument to Confederate soldiers outside a Tampa court administration building is staying put; after nearly two hours of heated public comment the Hillsborough County Commission voted 4-3 Wednesday to keep the memorial. Members of the public pleading with the commission to support Les Miller’s motion to remove the 1911 memorial outnumbered those who want to… Read more »
This weekend is one of the largest gay pride events in the south: St. Pete Pride. Organizers expect hundreds of thousands of people to converge on St. Petersburg. Here is a link to previous WMNF stories about St. Pete Pride. Eric Skains, executive director of St. Pete Pride, says Saturday’s pride parade will kick off with… Read more »
On the Juneteenth WMNF Sustainable Living Program we talked about food, cooking and helping others. Our guests were Hal and Liza Bailstein, co-founders of the non-profit Illumi-Nation Project. Liza also teaches healthy cooking to inner-city children at the Academy Prep in St. Petersburg. Halimat Ajibade, a 20 year old woman interested in nutrition, farming and… Read more »
Juneteenth Jubilee at WMNF * June 19, 2017 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm Please join us at the WMNF studios for an open house, party, movie screening, pot luck meal, and more. WMNF once again invites our community to come celebrate Juneteenth, marking the end of slavery in the United States. This year film will be 13th, a 2016… Read more »
Will the controversial TBX plan be revived? Central Avenue in Tampa is a storied place and its past, present, and future ties together African American history, police killings, walkable communities, and the future of transportation in the entire Tampa Bay area. A few months ago, residents living in Tampa’s central neighborhoods — Tampa Heights, Ybor… Read more »
After an ex-felon has served his time in Florida, his civil rights are not automatically restored; unlike most states, Florida keeps thousands of ex-felons from voting and a from number of other basic citizenship rights. But many people, including Tampa-area state Representative Sean Shaw, want to change that. The Democrat is co-hosting an ex-felon rights… Read more »
The time of reckoning… Frustrated? Ashamed? Incredulous? Disturbing? The words fail, don’t they? How did it come to this – that we have a man whose moral and emotional temperament are absolutely unsuitable to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world? When anything is this shocking to a person’s reality, there… Read more »
Trump…Trump…Trump…the Trumps are Marching… The assaults on our democracy are coming like machine gun fire – the separation of church and state. Last week on National Prayer Day, the president signed a “religious freedom” executive order. Many breathed a sigh of relief – it could have been so much worse, but attacking the Johnson Amendment… Read more »
May Day Rally Planned in Tampa This coming Monday is May Day, which around the world is a day to celebrate workers. There will be a May Day event in Tampa on Monday, May 1 starting at 5:00 PM. Host Rob Lorei spoke about it with local labor, immigration, socialist and racial justice activists Christian… Read more »
Wrongly convicted Death Row survivor speaks out Host Rob Lorei interviewed Juan Melendez, who spent more that 17 years on Florida’s Death Row before being exonerated and released. Juan is one of 26 innocent people exonerated and released from Florida’s Death Row – by far the nation’s highest number of exonerated death row survivors. He’ll be… Read more »
Florida Police Shootings investigated by Times’ Ben Montgomery For years, no one could say with much certainty how many times police shot people in Florida. Now, we have an answer as a result of a months-long investigation from the Tampa Bay Times titled Why Cops Shoot. According to the Times report, “No one was keeping track of… Read more »
What is happening? This reminds me of what I call the shadow. I have been lucky to observe eagles and hawks in nature (eagles do not always fish). I have watched them do their dive after a rabbit or a squirrel and in the moment before the talons strike, a shadow comes over the prey… Read more »
We had three different guests on today’s program. Jon Sherman, Senior Counsel for the Fair Elections Legal Network, spoke about his organization’s lawsuit against Rick Scott and other states officials on attempting to automatically restore former felons’ voting rights and eliminate Florida’s “arbitrary and opaque process for re-enfranchisement.” Also, Penn State University professor Sophia McClennan on why the media isn’t doing… Read more »
The 2016 election didn’t just bring a new administration into the White House or spark new energy in the building progressive protest movement. Apps and websites have been springing up to help people get their resistance on. Many of them are built by people in their late teens or early 20s, which might be an interesting… Read more »
WMNF’s Radioactivity Feb 1 2017 Good morning, welcome to Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei. Coming up we’ll get the perspective of a Constitutional law scholar from Stetson on President Trump’s nominee to fill the nearly year-long vacancy on the US Supreme Court. And with all the energy generated by the Women’s marches around the country two… Read more »
The good, the bad, the ugly… The tweets are coming like Nano-bullets and we are realizing the constitution and our government are the targets. But no matter how much things are changing, some things remain the same. One of the first acts was to kick the political football of the global gag rule off the… Read more »
WMNF 88.5FM’s Radioactivity with Rob Lorei 1 -23-17 Coming up toady we’ll hear Florida This Week from this past Friday night on WEDU-TV where we talked about the inauguration of President Donald Trump. And we’re going to talk about this Saturday’s 280th birthday celebration of Founding Father Thoma Paine the author of the influential pamphlet… Read more »
While a crowd of over 200,000 people is expected to jam the streets of Washington D.C. on Saturday to protest Donald Trump’s inauguration, similar rallies are being held around the world, with the biggest one in the Tampa Bay area planned to take place in St. Petersburg. The Women’s Solidarity March St. Pete is scheduled to run from… Read more »
Join us today at 10 am. We will have frequent guest Medea Benjamin from CODEPINK covering all that is happening in Washington D.C this week. CODEPINK will be taking part in three days of Presidential Counter Inauguration activities in Washington, D.C. from January 19-21. They will be participating in the Peace Ball, Occupy Inauguration, Disrupt J20,… Read more »
On Monday’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day edition of the WMNF 88.5 FM Sustainable Living program we talked with a local community activist and political organizer, Kofi Hunt. Kofi’s presently working with “Fight For 15 Florida” and has “The Peoples Inauguration” event coming up this Friday, January 20, at Williams Park in St Petersburg… Read more »
Raise your banners, women. We are marching on Washington – and the streets of Sarasota, St. Petersburg and beyond. We will not allow anyone – and you know who you are – to define who we are. We are picking up the mantle from our foremothers and we are going to change the present so… Read more »
There were some very tense moments – but no arrests – Tuesday morning as Tampa Police faced off against volunteers sharing food without a permit in a city park; this follows on the heels of seven arrests last Saturday when members of Tampa Food Not Bombs shared food in the same park. About 30 people,… Read more »
On December 15th we spoke with guest Jeanne Mirer. She practices labor and employment law in New York, and is the president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She talke about irregularities in the recent presidential election and the recount. Steven Rosenfeld, attorney, a senior fellow at AlterNet covering democracy issues, updated us on election fraud…. Read more »
