Could a populist, independent candidate win an election in the most Republican part of Nebraska's 1st Congressional District? In a time when the Republican and Democratic Party are both notoriously corrupt, Austin Ahlman is making the call to "Take Back Nebraska."

This week we talk with Austin about his run for office, antimonopoly, Abundance, and how tech companies are undermining Nebraska's public power system through regulatory carve-outs.

Find Austin's campaign at ahlmanfornebraska.com or takebacknebraska.com.

Further Reading

• Austin Ahlman for The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/staff/austin-ahlman/

• Austin Ahlman Launches Insurgent Independent Campaign in Nebraska https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYE10gacxiE

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Oliver Larkin, activist, union organizer, and Democratic Socialist, joins us this week to discuss his run for election to the U.S. House as a Florida representative.

We talk about Oliver's campaign, how South Florida and Greater Miami are becoming new headquarters for tech companies including Palantir, and what we can do electorally to support working people instead of billionaires.

Further Reading

• Find Oliver's campaign at https://www.oliverforcongress.com

• https://theintercept.com/2026/02/26/iran-war-powers-vote-democrats-gottheimer-moskowitz

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On this special Patreon episode, we talked to antitrust hero and Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout about surveillance pricing and surveillance wages.

From airlines charging us more to fly home if they see we've recently searched "funeral arrangements" to rideshare companies paying less per ride if your bank account is low, we explored the present and future possibilities of data as a tool for economic and labor exploitation.

Book Mentioned

• Karen Levy, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance

Further Reading

• FTC Report, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer

• ACLU Report, https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/surveillance-pricing

• Electronic Frontier Foundation on surveillance pricing, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/fight-surveillance-pricing-we-need-privacy-first

• Maryland ban on surveillance pricing, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/29/maryland-grocery-stores-ban-surveillance-pricing

• New York legislation, https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2026/05/19/surveillance-pricing-

• Cory Doctorow on surveillance wages, https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2026-04-06-empiricism-washing-veena-dubal-d63fef485503