Delete Your Account Podcast

Episode 201 - Anarchist Elegy

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again from the top of the hour by Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby, hosts of Street Fight Radio and the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV, in their first appearance on the show since November. The gang catches up, discussing Biden banning blunts and recent innovations in the field of getting high. Brett and Bryan talk about the community response in Columbus to the police murder of Ma’Khia Bryant before tacklin...

Episode 200.5 - Panel Pulp (free teaser)

This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts.  This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by political cartoonists extraordinaire Eli Valley and our resident artist M...

Episode 200 - Hope from Despair

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined today by Mark Maher, a staff attorney with Reprieve US. Mark currently works as counsel to six men detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and works on Reprieve US’ death penalty casework.  During this episode Mark goes in-depth discussing the history behind the horrific abuse and internment of some 800 men and boys in the notorious Guantánamo Bay detention camp and how this grave injustice has impacted not only his clients but their families by strippin...

Episode 199 - Fan the Flames

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined from the top of the show by Amanda Yee, an independent analyst and writer in New York City with a specialty in medical anthropology, and Ian Goodrum, a Beijing-based commentator and senior digital editor for China’s premier English language newspaper China Daily. In Amanda’s first appearance on the show in March 2020, she talked about the rising tide of anti-Asian racism and the demonization of China in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.  ...

Episode 198 - The People's Vaccine

Kumars and Roqayah are joined today by Danielle Salinas, a certified medical assistant in Oregon and a member of AFSCME Local 328. Danielle recounts visiting Cuba as a public health student and discusses what makes the Cuban health care system unique befores sharing her more a bit of her more recent experience being thrown into the front lines during the pandemic. The gang talks all things vaccines, from vaccine envy and the success of the US rollout to vaccine hesitancy and the merits of co...

Episode 197 - Klippenstein's Monster

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by Ken Klippenstein, a DC-based investigative reporter with The Intercept whose explosive work has appeared in The Daily Beast, The Young Turks and many other outlets. In his previous appearances, Ken has discussed his exclusive reporting on the Trump administration’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in revealing government misdeeds and corporate malfeasance.  This...

Episode 196 - Love and Class War

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by independent labor journalist Sarah Jaffe, reporting fellow at Type Media Center, cohost of Dissent Magazine’s Belabored podcast, and the author of two books: Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, and a new book out now from Hurst and Bold Type Books, Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone. In her new book, Sarah examines the expectation in the neoliberal era that w...

Episode 195 - No Unsafe Return

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Dr. Abigail Cartus, PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh; Justin Feldman, epidemiologist and Health and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights; and Jay O'Neal, West Virginia teacher and organizer who co-founded the West Virginia United Caucus within the WVEA. After getting to know our guests, including Jay’s experience leading the West Virginia teachers wildcat strike in 2018 that kicked off a wa...

Episode 194 - Drop the Charges

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) organizer Lillian House, one of 6 leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Denver area to be arrested on September 17, 2020. After sharing a bit about her own path to organizing, Lillian shares her insight into the strength and endurance of BLM organizing in Colorado around the cause of 23-year-old Elijah McClain, slain in 2019 when Aurora, CO police put him into a chokehold and injected with a sed...

Episode 193 - Impossible Conditions

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Cliff Willmeng, a registered nurse of 13 years, an activist in rank and file labor and environmental struggles, and a front line healthcare worker unjustly dismissed for bringing attention to safety violations which includes the reusing of hospital scrubs and the lack of basic supplies. Cliff, who once ran for Boulder County Commissioner as a independent socialist and worker’s candidate, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on nurses, ...

Episode 192.5 - Zero Dark Flirty (teaser)

This week, Roqayah and Kumars go solo and answer a listener question about their own origin stories, and how the show came to be. If you want to hear the rest, subscribe at patreon.com/deleteyouraccount for $5 a month! We can't do the show without your support!

Episode 192 - Not Here to Make Friends

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston and his chief of staff Jen Snyder to discuss just how the pandemic is impacting homelessness, housing, and evictions across California.  Dean, founder of Tenants Together, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on housing, and how his administration worked to permanently ban evictions in San Francisco for those unable to pay their rent due to COVID-19. Jen, a housing rights activ...

Episode 191 - The Obama Doctrine

This week, just in time for the inevitable arguments at Zoom Thanksgiving, Roqayah and Kumars go guest-less, spreading holiday cheer with a look at Trump’s foreign policy in review. They analyze the common conception of Trump as an anti-interventionist, taking stock of his legacy in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East before touching on some of what we can expect from the incoming Democratic administration.   If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content...

Episode 190 - Death by Election Vol. 2

For Roqayah’s triumphant return, she and Kumars are joined from the top of the hour by friends of the show Brett Payne and Bryan Quinby for the 4-year reunion of their classic election night 2016 episode. Brett and Bryan are the hosts of Street Fight Radio as well as the creators and stars of an upcoming live action comedy series on Means TV.  The gang begins by catching up at the tail end of the weirdest year in American history before diving into some ballot proposition election results...

Episode 189 - Homewreckers

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Shanti Singh along with René Christian Moya, California-based housing rights activists extraordinaire, for a deep dive into Proposition 21, the statewide rent control expansion up for popular referendum in next week’s elections. Shanti, who is based in San Francisco, is a leader in DSA SF’s Housing Committee, the former deputy data director for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign in California, and ...

Episode 188 - The Israel Lobby

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest cohost Nora Barrows-Friedman, associate editor at the Electronic Intifada and cohost of the Electronic Intifada Podcast as well as The Brief, along with Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Estee Chandler, founder of that group’s Los Angeles chapter, producer of Middle East in Focus and Middle East Minute+ on KPFK, and host of the upcoming podcast called The Breakout Room with Estee Chandler. After sharing...

Episode 186.5 - Eye On Sport (UNLOCKED)

As a special treat, we've unlocked our recent sporting edition of Delete Your Account AFTER HOURS. Kumars was joined once again by Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op, who host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their weekly collaboration with Means TV.  The Sams give listeners a rundown of newsworthy events in the worlds of sports and politics, including the hijacked NBA players’ strike over the kil...

Episode 187 - Lovestrike

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two veterans of arguably the first successful video game worker strike in history, writer Krissy Perez and returning guest Emma Kinema. Krissy is the most senior writer for Lovestruck, a mobile visual romance novel game distributed by the US subsidiary of Japanese developer Voltage Inc. and played by millions worldwide, and a member of Voltage Organized Workers (VOW). Emma Kinema is a former game developer, one of the ...

Episode 186 - After the Storm

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two organizers with the Southwest Louisiana chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America: Phil Peterson, an activist, organizer, and educator based in Lake Charles Louisiana, and Megan Romer, also an organizer, writer, and educator based in the neighboring city of Lafayette, Louisiana. After introducing listeners to their communities and their personal paths to organizing, Phil and Megan describe the devastation on ...

Episode 185 - Adelanto

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Kimberly Galindo, lead organizer for Southern California’s High Desert region with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, an alliance of over 40 civil society organizations providing support to immigrant communities. Kimberly starts off by describing about her own political development growing up undocumented and later becoming a DACA recipient. She gives listeners an introduction to ICIJ’s various aid projects an...

Episode 184 - OANNed

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Madeline Peltz, senior researcher at Media Matters for America and the world’s foremost expert on Tucker Carlson. Madeline is best known for combing through the Fox News host’s weekly guest spots on the talk radio program of C-list shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, exposing a history of openly bigoted statements that put Carlson’s seeming descent into white nationalism in its proper context. Madeline b...

Episode 183 - Massholes (free version)

This is only part of our interview with Eoin Higgins. If you want to get the whole interview, support the show, and receive access to tons of other bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts. We can't do this show without your support!!!  Roqayah is still off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by onetime guest host and freelance journalist Eoin Higgins, who has writte...

Episode 182 - Blackwashing

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by the hosts of the Left POCket Project Podcast, returning guest Wendi Muse and Richard, who makes his Delete Your Account debut. Wendi is the creator of the Left POCket Project and a PhD Candidate in History at New York University, where her dissertation analyzes the impact of anticolonial struggles in Portuguese Africa on the Brazilian left during the Cold War. Richard is a gig worker and cohost the now defunct Progress...

Episode 181 - The Anarchist Cookbook

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Food Not Bombs cofounder and veteran organizer Keith McHenry. Keith has been active with various chapters of the network of mutual aid collectives known as Food Not Bombs for four decades and is the author of several books including Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community, which is the original handbook for the group’s model of movement building through vegan food distribution.  Keith shares momen...

Episode 180 - Occupied Portland

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by returning guest Olivia Katbi Smith and first-timer Albert Lee, both members of Portland DSA who have been in the streets of Portland since the uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing began. Olivia is the co-chair of Portland DSA and a board member of CAIR Oregon. Albert Lee is a Portland-based activist, a member of Portland DSA and former Our Revolution-endorsed congressional candidate who earlier this year ran as a...

Episode 179 - Blue Leaks

This week, Kumars and returning guest host and policy analyst with Open the Government Freddy Martinez are joined by The Intercept’s Micah Lee, a journalist, activist, and prolific open-source software developer involved in the publication and analysis of recent leak, dubbed Blue Leaks, of about 270 gigabytes of police data from more than 200 police departments and fusion centers and some 700,000 cops.  Freddy and Micah are both members of the advisory board of the transparency collectiv...

Episode 178 - The Death Camp

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Albuquerque-based community organizer Selinda Guerrero, founder of the Albuquerque Mutual Aid Coalition and National Action Coordinator for Save the Kids, an all-volunteer organization working to end the school-to-prison pipeline. Selinda also organizes with Building Power for Black New Mexico, Forward Together, and the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), and heads the Ne...

Episode 177 - The Jakarta Method

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by Vincent Bevins, an award winning journalist who has covered Southeast Asia and Latin America extensively for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and the author of a must-read history of US regime change operations during the Cold War, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World. Vincent begins by reacting to the breaking news that the far-right Br...

Episode 176 - Hope is a Discipline

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by longtime guest host and prison-industrial complex abolitionist extraordinaire Mariame Kaba, pseudonymously known as @prisonculture. Mariame is the founder and director of Project NIA, an advocacy group focused on ending youth incarceration, and has co-founded a number of other organizations including Survived & Punished and the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women.  Mariame shares her insight i...

Episode 175 - Rent Eats First

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Shanti Singh, communications coordinator with the California statewide renters' rights group Tenants Together. Shanti discusses the challenges of navigating the landscape of housings advocacy, and how a pandemic and unprecedented unemployment numbers have turned already challenging campaigns for housing rights into minefields for renters and activists alike. Shanti also helps us tackle the intersection of class disparity and po...

Episode 174 - Uprising

This week, Roqayah and Kumars have a rare one-on-one debrief on the wave of protests that have erupted in every US state in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. After recapping the basics of Floyd’s case, they give listeners a rundown of the spread of the protests across the country and the ensuing media narratives about looting and outside agitators. Roqayah and Kumars also touch on the brutal police repression of both protesters and journalists in mostly Democra...

Episode 173 - Watch the Throne

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by legal advocate, grassroots organizer, and congressional candidate Shahid Buttar about his campaign to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as he runs for California's 12th Congressional district.  Buttar, a lifelong activist, describes the lessons he's drawn from the Bernie Sanders campaign in developing his own progressive coalition and campaign, as well as what drew him out from the world of grassroots organizing and into the political arena. Bu...

Episode 172 - Permanent Quarantine

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by journalist and editor at The Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman. We are also joined by Ali Abunimah, co-founder and editor of The Electronic Intifada. Ali is also the author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine and One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. We discuss Israel's response to the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip, which has included an end to the bare minimum testing of Gaza's besieged population. Al...

Episode 171 - The District Samuels

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined from the top of the hour by two friends of the show, Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, journalists and founders of the District Sentinel News Co-op. Together they host the daily District Sentinel Radio podcast as well as Means Morning News, their new weekly collaboration with Means TV. The Sams talk about the challenges of getting a TV news show off the ground amid the pandemic and how they see the DC Sentinel’s role in the budding left mediascape. T...

Episode 170.5 - Animals of Space (Preview)

This is just a teaser for today's episode, which is available for Patreon subscribers only!   We can't do the show without your support, so help us keep the lights on over here and access tons of bonus content by subscribing on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. While you’re at it, we also love it when you subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts.  This week, Roqayah and Kumars were joined once again by Matt Lubchansky, cartoonist and associate editor of the left-wing comics...

Episode 170 - Greenpilled

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Sydney Ghazarian, a Los Angeles-based climate organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America, the founder of that organization’s Ecosocialist Working Group, and an advisory board member for the climate justice magazine The Trouble. After filling Roqayah and Kumars in on her own political background and evolution, as well as her recent involvement in DSA’s coronavirus response, Sydney talks about her work as a member both of the DSA’s Environ...

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Episode 169 - Deep Roots

Roqayah is off this week, so Kumars is joined by farmer and organizer Nate Kleinman, cofounder of the nonprofit cooperative Experimental Farm Network (EFN) and project organizer of the EFN’s Cooperative Gardens Commission, a campaign to help millions of people carve out some measure of food sovereignty in the face of COVID-19. Nate begins by giving listeners a glimpse into his storied history of organizing, from Democratic political campaigns and labor union work to leading the charge on Occ...

Episode 168 - Vote and Die

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein, current DC correspondent for The Nation whose explosive work has appeared in The Daily Beast, and The Young Turks, among others.  We take a look at Ken's latest exclusive which shows evidence that the Pentagon was specifically aware of the likelihood of a pandemic, according to an internal document composed in 2017 and obtained by The Nation. Ken guides us through some of the eerily prescient 103-page ...

Episode 163.5 - The People's Elbow (UNLOCKED)

This is a special unlocked episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, normally only available on Patreon. Subscribe there for $5 for more like this! On this herculean episode of Delete Your Account After Hours, friends of the show Nima Shirazi, Brett Payne and Bryan Quimby tag-team to give Kumars a primer on pro wrestling. Nima is a NYC-based political analyst who cohosts the podcast Citations Needed, Brett and Bryan are the hosts of Street Fight Radio, and together they share their wrest...

Episode 167 - Problem Solvers

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by insurgent Congressional candidate Arati Kreibich, an activist, a neuroscientist, a borough councilmember in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and the primary challenger to conservative Democrat Josh Gottheimer, the current House representative for NJ’s 5th district.  After filling listeners in on her personal path to left-wing politics, including her family history of resistance to British colonialism and emigration to the United States, Arati describes th...

Episode 166 - Arts & Culture

This week Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Detroit-based filmmakers Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, cofounders of Means Media and co-creators of the new digital streaming service Means TV, a workers’ cooperative and a left-wing alternative to soul-crushing corporate behemoths like Netflix.  Naomi and Nick share how they came to left politics and made a name for themselves producing the defining campaign videos for AOC and other insurgent congressional candidates in the run-up to the 2018 mid...

Episode 165 - Care for Each Other

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Amanda, also known as @CatContentOnly on Twitter, an independent researcher based in NYC whose work focuses on cultural impressions around health and illnesses. Amanda, a medical anthropology graduate from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, discusses the one thing on everyone's mind this week: COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus. We take a deep look into what the Coronavirus is and the long term implications for those with...

Episode 164 - This Isn't Over

Today we’re joined by writer and journalist Leslie Lee III, host of the left-wing arts and culture podcast Struggle Session, to take stock of the Bernie Sanders campaign thus far and the state of the Democratic primary race after another night of favorable results for Joe Biden.  After filling listeners in on his own origin story and the birth of Struggle Session, Leslie breaks down the media narratives around overwhelming black support for Biden and the various premature postmortems ...

Episode 163 - Cancellable Offense

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Kate Willett, comedian, writer, and co-host of the left-wing feminist podcast Reply Guys. Kate has also appeared in Netflix's “Comedy Lineup” and recently made her network debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Kate dives into how she broke out in comedy and what has helped define her left-wing bona fides, including the tragic passing of her boyfriend, comedian Raghav Mehta.  We discuss her powerful essay for ELLE Magazine which explain...

Episode 162 - Letters to Parchman

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined from Jackson, Mississippi by veteran community organizers Pauline and Frederick Rogers. Pauline is President of the RECH Foundation or Reaching and Educating for Community Hope, and cofounder of that organization along with her husband Fred. Pauline and Frederick were both formerly incarcerated at Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm. Together they founded RECH as a prison and reentry ministry whose projects include the Wendy H...

Episode 161 - Organizer in Chief

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Briahna Joy Gray, National Press Secretary for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and co-host of the Hear The Bern podcast. After shedding light on her formative years before joining the Sanders campaign, Brie breaks down one of the most covered media narratives that has plagued the movement: the Bernie Bro myth. Brie unpacks the implications of this smear and explains just how diverse the Sanders coalition truly is.  The gang then discusses the we...

Episode 160 - Gaming the System

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Lana Polansky, a Montreal-based video game critic, designer and journalist whose writing has appeared on Vice, Paste, and Kill Screen, among other outlets. After charting her personal journey to the intersection of gaming and left-wing politics, Lana explains the experimental impulses behind the category of indie games, with the help of a series of essays for the digital arts and culture outlet Rhizome detailing how the concept of empathy has ...

Episode 159.5 - Decade of Horror (Teaser)

In a momentous edition of Delete Your Account After Hours, Roqayah and Kumars welcome back our resident film and TV critic Sean T. Collins for our annual Oscar season roundup of the year’s best and worst movies and television, with an end of the decade twist. Sean writes for Rolling Stone and the New York Times among other outlets, and when last we heard from him, he was writing an essay every day of 2019 about Road House. This time, the gang discusses Sean’s new essay for The Outline ...

Episode 159 - Face Off

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Freddy Martinez, and Nathan "Nash" Sheard. Freddy is currently a policy analyst with the nonpartisan government accountability coalition Open The Government. Nash is an associate director of community organizing at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Freddy and Nash bring us up to speed on the explosive investigative report from the New York Times on the elusive facial recognition vendor, Clearview AI, which has scraped some thre...