This week, we're letting the private prison profiteers speak for themselves — with some annotations. You can hear the leaders of CoreCivic brag about their 2025 contracts with ICE. And also some things about their prisons that they forgot to mention to shareholders. sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-43...

The centrist impulse to offer up the LGBTQ community as a sacrifice in order to achieve "peace" in the wokeness wars is exactly the sentiment that led to the industrial north giving up enforcement of racial equality in exchange for getting the country back humming again after the Civil War.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn is a cheerleader for ICE and the mass detention and deportation of immigrants. But she has made sure ICE won't put a detention camp of 16,000 prisoners in white, affluent, Republican Wilson County.

On back to back days, the Tennessee Valley Authority reversed course on plans to close two massive coal-fired power plants, and the Trump administration abandoned federal regulation of greenhouse gases. We talked about it with Steve Smith of @cleanenergy.org.

“They’re very intentionally staffing the Department of Education office with these ultraconservative ideologues.” www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Terrific reporting from @nashvillebanner.bsky.social. "Footage also captured a pattern of demeaning conduct from law enforcement, who used a mix of pejoratives to describe the targets ... as teams of law enforcement apparently competed to detain the most people."

The great @jimhightower.com recalls his work with Jesse Jackson. When we talked to Hightower last fall, he said that Jackson in 1988 ran "the only intentionally racially inclusive populist campaign in recent American history."

This week: How the @selc.bsky.social is fighting for environmental protections in the South. We talk to Program Director Geoff Gisler about the first year of Trump 2.0, and what's ahead. Also: more on the FBI's seizure of Georgia ballots, and a look at Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas."

Alabama Power produces some of the dirtiest and most expensive electricity in the country. This week, we talk to @insideclimatenews.org reporter @dennispillion.bsky.social about why that is. Also: What does Taylor Rehmet’s win in a red district mean for Texas? sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-40...

The erasure of Black history by this administration continues.

This week: New Orleans vs. ICE. NOLA Mayor Helena Moreno and other leaders testified last week about the fear and disruption spread by Operation Catahoula Crunch. Also: Trump's FBI seizes Georgia ballots, and the ongoing impact of winter weather across the South. sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-39...

Inside the FBI raid taking archived 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Ga. County Commissioner Mo Ivory, who's also a law professor, says local officials are looking for legal avenues to protect the ballots from seizure by Trump's Justice Department. www.instagram.com/reel/DUEZYDN...

NOLA City Council President JP Morrell: "If Minneapolis is the tip of the spear, New Orleans is the hand — a blue city in a red state being used as a test case. So goes New Orleans, so goes the South." www.axios.com/local/new-or...

Nashville Metro Council votes down enhanced surveillance cameras. Councilmember Zulfat Suara: “I do not trust our state government. I do not trust our federal government. By being paranoid, that’s the only way we make sure people don’t get hurt.”

King's work and words went so far beyond "I have a dream." This week, we listen to selections from speeches across his career, from the age of 25 to his death at 39, as he argued forcefully for political equality and economic justice, in the name of love and brotherhood. (link below)

Last year @texasobserver.org outed an ICE prosecutor as a vehement white supremacist. After an unspecified internal review, he's back on the job with no official acknowledgement of his online activities.

The Tennessee House opens its session by classifying any venue that hosts even one drag show a year as an "adult cabaret," subjecting them to zoning restrictions. This is just a warm-up for a promised raft of anti-immigrant bills.

This week: Talking with Marques Thompson, organizing director for @democracync.bsky.social about the fight for democracy in the Tar Heel State. Also: How Texas A&M's crazy DEI purge led to Texas' largest public university censoring Plato. theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

Context if needed is that Wesley Hunt is running for Senate, and is trying to squeeze through a Republican primary between John Cornyn and wildman Attorney General Ken Paxton. He appears to be vying for the "enthusiasm for state violence" caucus. thehill.com/homenews/hou...

Republican county mayors, pastors and child advocates across Tennessee asked Gov. Bill Lee to apply for federal funds for summer food aid. For the second year in a row, Lee said no.

Lots of interesting races across the South this year. This week we talk about Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. What campaigns or candidates are on your radar? sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-35...

Significant news for the 2026 congressional elections: Louisiana will continue to use its challenged district map for this cycle, drawn with two majority-Black districts. But a Supreme Court ruling still to come in the case could affect future elections.

We have some suggestions for other governors who might merit extended overseas deployments ...

2025 has been a tumultuous and difficult year. In a year-end episode, we look back at some of the major issues we’ve covered on Headlights, from immigration enforcement to redistricting battles to labor rights and electoral contests.

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, showing his usual keen grasp of the U.S. Constitution, says immigrants have to "worship our god" or "get the hell out."

Had a great time talking with @katebarrcanwin.bsky.social about the @cantwinvictoryfund.bsky.social in North Carolina. Taking a fresh approach to highlighting the damage done by gerrymandered maps — and having fun doing it. (link below)

Great news in Alabama! Fantastic work by the alumni group MASTHEAD.

Florida's voucher program is going great. "On any given day, Florida’s education department did not know where 30,000 students were going to school and could not account for the $270 million in taxpayer funds it took to support them." www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

What did @aftynbehn.bsky.social's sizable swing in Tennessee's 7th Congressional District election mean? We check in again for some thoughts and analysis with @corbintrent.bsky.social of America's Undoing. Also: farewell to Southern soul giant Steve Cropper. theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

Sat down with the great @jimhightower.com for a talk about Texas politics past, present and future. He's been sounding a consistent alarm for decades about the Democratic Party's reliance on and deference to corporate donors. theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

This week Jesse talks to Southlands founder and editor @boyceupholt.bsky.social about Southerners' relationship to our natural surroundings — and about a new book Upholt has also written, about the history and destiny of the Mississippi River. theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

Across the South — and especially in Florida, home to Moms for Liberty, Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz — MAGA has spent the last 5 years attacking and demonizing librarians, teachers, LGBTQ people and other innocent parties for "sexualizing" and "grooming" children.

ICE detainees report overcrowding and abusive conditions at Pine Prairie center in Louisiana. We looked at ICE detention in Louisiana here: theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

#Louisiana State Rep. Terry Landry Jr. has hope for the future of our democracy 🌟. 🎙️ "Real change happens through the work, relentless work of the people." Haven't listened to the latest episode of the SPLC's #ApathyIsNotAnOption podcast? Listen today 📲: https://bit.ly/4kkwX7U

What did last week's elections mean for the South? We brought in @votegloriaj.bsky.social — one of the Tennessee Three — to talk about it. Also: her thoughts on Trump's pardon of felonious former TN House Speaker Glen Casada. sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-29...

It is an amazing time to be a corrupt politician facing jail time. You finally have a president who understands you. He feels your pain! tennesseelookout.com/briefs/forme...

This week on HEADLIGHTS: A talk with Eva Posner at @evincocampaigns.bsky.social about what it takes to run a successful progressive campaign in the South. Also: the impact of lost SNAP benefits. theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

Kind of an eye-popping look at the power behind North Carolina's Supreme Court. "He’s packed higher and lower courts with former clerks and mentees whom he’s cultivated at his Bible study, prayer breakfasts and similar events. His political muscle is backed by his family’s ..."

Good news from S.C.: "With more than 20 miles of land along the Santee, Black and Pee Dee rivers, preventing development will help reduce flooding. At least 115 plant and animal species considered a priority for protection also live on the protected land, according to Open Space Institute."

What are the prospects for progress in Texas? Who better to talk to than @progresstexas.bsky.social? @chrismosser.bsky.social is the guest on this week's Headlights, talking Lone Star politics and media. Link below.

On this week's HEADLIGHTS: Tennessee State Senator Heidi Campbell on the state's gun death statistics — and why they're among the worst in the country. Also, a remembrance of what the late great D'Angelo meant to his hometown of Richmond, Va. — and what it meant to him.

The South's war on libraries continues: "In what intellectual freedom advocates have seen coming for months, a Texas school district has just shut down access to all secondary school libraries for students due to the regulations of the state’s Senate Bill 13."

Florida's ongoing assault on free speech continues. Two grandparents who sent a signed postcard critical of the state's chief financial officer were visited at home by state law enforcement officers. These are police-state tactics aimed at people engaged in free expression.

R.I.P. D'Angelo, a native of Richmond, Va., whose music was soaked in Southern soul and funk. One of the greats. variety.com/2025/music/n...

This week: great conversation with Texas state Sen. @saraheckhardttx.bsky.social about Lone Star politics: the redistricting fight, the Texas non-voter problem, and where she sees opportunities. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

This week: @corbintrent.bsky.social on "America's Undoing" and why Democrats are being too timid in pushing for a popular, populist progressive agenda. Also: How the right-wing media outrage machine works, and a memoriam for the late great Arkansas drag queen and club owner Norman Jones.

Arkansas native Norman Jones, a towering drag performer who won the first-ever Miss Gay America pageant and the driving force behind some of the state’s most beloved gay clubs, died Monday at the age of 79.

Good news from Georgia, although a referendum is still to come.

On this week's HEADLIGHTS: an interview with the reporter and author Alexis Okeowo, a contributing writer for The New Yorker who has a great new book out called BLESSINGS AND DISASTERS: A STORY OF ALABAMA. Part memoir, part history, part deeply reported consideration of her complex home state.

"Literacy is much more than the ability to read. Literacy is what results from repeatedly exercising that skill with a wide range of books. Learning. Empathy. A broader understanding of the world and the people in it. The Alabama Public Library Service Board does not seem to like that."