The Good Fight, with Ben Wikler

Lawrence Lessig's Mayday Super PAC stunned the political world by raising $7 million to fight corruption. Now comes the hard part: using money in politics to kick money out of politics. Lessig returns to the show to bring us inside the battle.

Before the Win Report, before MoveOn.org, Garlin Gilchrist II was exactly the person Detroit couldn't afford to lose: a brilliant, entrepreneurial computer engineer and civic patriot. He left. But now he's back. Here's his story. http://tgf.fm/30

The soon-to-be legendary live taping of The Good Fight from Netroots Nation 2014! Hear amazing stories from NARAL president Ilyse Hogue and newly-elected NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia, thrill to a live Win Report with Garlin Gilchrist II, and march through the streets with Mark Ruffalo and a big crowd of Detroiters as they try to get their water turned back on. Netroots is a massive annual gathering of progressive activists, organizers, and media/tech people; featured speakers this year included Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. But the highight of it all happened in room 320: the Good Fight Live.

For decades, criminal justice reform was political Kryptonite. But Cory Booker isn't from Krypton. Booker joins us to explain why he's tackling this fight—and how, in a Festivus miracle of bipartisanship, he teamed up with Rand Paul. http://tgf.fm/28

UltraViolet co-founder Nita Chaudhary takes us behind the scenes in the insurgent, devastatingly effective campaign to make the anti-feminist backlash backfire. The strategy: using cutting-edge online advocacy to put a political and economic price on sexism. The good news: it's working. Hobby Lobby, watch out. Find background info, links to sources, and how to get involved here: http://tgf.fm/27

In this week's Win Report, the Supreme Court rules on Hobby Lobby  blocking birth control and home-care workers' rights. Good news and bad  news on climate change. Plus, marriage equality in Kentucky, a gay police chief in South Carolina,  and more updates from around the country. 

When Jose Antonio Vargas was 16, he discovered his green card was fake. At 26, he won journalism’s biggest prize. At 30, he outed himself as undocumented. Vargas’s powerful new film, #Documented, tells his story—and it will change the way you think about immigration. He joins The Good Fight to discuss his life, how it felt to see his mother after 21 years, and what it’s like to be asked by journalists "Why don’t you just become legal?" More info: http://tgf.fm/26

What if you’re doing the wrong thing with your life? That’s what 20-year-old Aaron Swartz asked Lawrence Lessig. In response, Lessig transformed his career. Today, he’s got an insanely audacious plan to kick billionaires out of politics… with help from billionaires. Hear his story: http://tgf.fm/25

A stand-alone Win Report! The latest victories and defeats in progressive fights throughout the country, including Gov. Rick Perry's stupid comment about homosexuality and Obama's recent and awesome executive orders. http://tgf.fm/WR0620

Obama's new carbon pollution rules are the biggest step ever taken by the U.S. government to fight climate change—but they're not the biggest step taken by the country. The most important win is one that's taken place invisibly, in city by city battles over the last decade: a grassroots campaign that's blocked 90% of proposed coal-fired power plants (182 in all) and shut down a third of the existing coal plants in the nation—165 and counting.    It's a wave of unheralded victories that set the stage for surge in renewable energy, created the political space for the new Obama policies, and could open the door to a global climate treaty that seemed impossible just a few years ago.    This episode of The Good Fight brings you inside one of the most successful environmental fights in U.S. history, the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, as recounted by the people leading it. If you think the fossil fuel industry is unbeatable, put on some headphones and make sure you're sitting down. 

The National Popular Vote campaign is on track to do the impossible: fix the broken, crazy, undemocratic way the USA picks its presidents. The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg takes us inside the fight. Plus, a new Win Report.

Rev. Jim Wallis left evangelical Christianity to fight for social justice—and then found his vocation by mixing them together. Now, he's a spiritual adviser to Obama, a force in immigration, and our guest. Plus: a new Win Report. http://tgf.fm/22

The documentary Citizen Koch was almost crushed by the Koch brothers' power. But filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal fought back. Today, the story behind the movie America's ultra-conservative power brokers don't want you to see.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage like to claim that economists are on their side. They're wrong. In this episode: the truth about minimum wage economics, the fight in the field, and the reason the jobs debate is a sideshow. Learn more at http://thegoodfight.fm/20

For two long decades, gun safety reform was a nonstarter. And then came the Newtown massacre. Outrage swept the country. Politicians vowed to act. And in Zionsville, Indiana, a stay-at-home mother of five logged on to Facebook and created a page that would become the epicenter of a new movement of moms to demand action and save lives.  That mom, Shannon Watts, was a political neophyte, but her communications expertise—honed in her past career as a PR pro—made her an instant force to be reckoned with. Within a year, she and her network became the grassroots partner of Michael Bloomberg's campaign to stem the tide of gun violence in America. And this week, Bloomberg and Watts announced a new organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, and a $50 million plan to hold anti-safety politicians accountable in this year's elections... with far greater investments possible down the line.    Today on The Good Fight, Shannon shares her story, her strategy, and the reasons why change is possible in a country where tens of thousands die from gunshots every year. http://thegoodfight.fm/19