Category Archives: history

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young WRONG: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young is a professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware. In addition to being an award winning scholar, she has also been an improvisational comedian. Her 2020 TED Talk (link below) explaining how our psychology shapes our politics and how media exploit these relationships has been viewed over 2 Million times. She publishes extensively in the popular press with essays and Op-eds in outlets including Vox.com, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Her earlier book is Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States.

Her book, WRONG: HOW MEDIA, POLITICS, AND IDENTITY DRIVE OUR APPETITE FOR MISINFORMATION, was just published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

As Jaime Settle, author of FRENEMIES: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA POLARIZES AMERICA, writes of it ‘Powerful, distinctive, and utterly compelling, Wrong argues that the way we satisfy our needs for comprehension, control, and community is shaped by our social identities, which are at the core of both the supply and demand for misinformation. Because politicians and the media know this fact, they behave strategically in order to structure politics through this perspective.”

We spoke with Dr. Young on November 7, 2023 via Skype.

Links to articles/videos pertinent to this interview:

The psychological traits that shape your political beliefs Dannagal G. Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSJzPB4qrxU

Republicans Have Chosen Nihilism https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/opinion/trump-allan-bloom-republicans.html

We can’t fight the Republican party’s ‘big lie’ with facts alone https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2023/oct/29/you-cant-fight-the-republican-partys-big-lie-with-facts-alone

Trump’s Recipe for a Shockingly Raw Power Grab https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/07/mag-shafer-trump-dictator-00125767

City Summons Reporter to Court After He Asked Too Many Questions https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/us/chicago-reporter-officals-calumet-citation.html

Online Christian group petitions to condemn Mike Johnson as a false prophet https://www.salon.com/2023/11/05/online-christian-group-petitions-to-condemn-mike-johnson-as-a-false-prophet/?in_brief=true

“Apocalypticism”: Polling expert reveals the root of “panic among conservative White Christians https://www.salon.com/2023/11/06/apocalypticism-polling-expert-reveals-the-root-of-panic-among-conservative-christians/

Conversations are essential to our well-being. Psychologists are exploring the science of why they’re so powerful https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/11/conversations-key-to-wellbeing

Greg King – THE GHOST FOREST: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods

In this edition of Forthright Radio our guest is journalist, author, environmentalist, Greg King. I first became aware of Greg’s work back in the late 1980s, when we who lived in the remnants of the once great redwood biome organized to protect what remained of that ecosystem from voracious predatory capitalists, who proudly vowed to “log to infinity.”

Greg King in All Species Grove 1987 (courtesy of Greg King)

Greg is the fifth generation of his family to live in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties of northern CA, – his ancestors having arrived in the 1860s and owned what was then one of the largest redwood mills, the King-Starrett mill in Monte Rio. The The King Range Mountains were named for his great-great uncle, John King, who lived north of Westport in Mendocino County, due to his hospitality to the government surveyor before his mapping that steep coastal range in the Lost Coast. Long before Greg was born, the last of the great redwood forests in Sonoma County were cut, but there were second growth stands and massive stumps of 20’ or greater diameter which served as his childhood playground. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1985, he joined the staff of the West Sonoma County Paper, now called the Bohemian, where he won his first of two Lincoln Steffens Investigative Journalism Award.

Investigating Louisiana-Pacific’s “logging to infinity” in his neighborhood led him to the Maxxam Corporation’s hostile takeover, financed by junk bonds, of Humboldt County’s Pacific Lumber Company and the ensuing accelerated destruction of the last intact, ancient redwood groves in private hands to pay off the debt. Exploring these untouched forests with the largest, oldest trees on the planet inspired a reverence and awe unlike anything he had ever experienced. The rest, as they say, is history.

In his book, THE GHOST FOREST: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods, he describes how he left his home and promising career to devote his life to identifying and protecting those few remaining giants and the biome centered on them. He is credited with mapping the remaining groves, including The Headwaters Forest, as well as pioneering tree sitting to prevent logging of redwoods in Humboldt County.

Greg King on traverse during a tree-sit in the middle of 1,000 acre All Species Grove, September 1987. Note sleeping platform on the tree in the background, tied under the lowest branch 150′ above the forest floor. (photo by Mary Beth Nearing, courtesy of Greg King)

What might have been merely a memoir became a shocking exposé of the all too successful efforts of financiers and industrialists via their creation of the Save the Redwoods League in 1917, to subvert the growing desire of the public to protect and preserve the remaining redwoods, by promoting instead small “beauty strips” along roadways to hide devastating clearcuts. As one of the first to delve into The League’s archives at U. C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, Greg followed the history back to the federal acts of the 19th century, that allowed well organized land fraud syndicates to place what had been 2 million acres of undisturbed ancient forests into private corporate hands. His research led him to the connections between the Save the Redwood League creators and the so-called “scientific racism” eugenics movement, which was so helpful to the Nazis in Germany, and which still plagues our nation even today.
We spoke with Greg King on October 18, 2023 via Skype.

In 1996 more than 8,000 people protested ancient redwood logging at the Pacific Lumber log deck along Yager Creek, in Humboldt County. More than 1,000 were arrested. It remains the largest single-day arrest number for an environmental protest in U.S. history. photo by Greg King

Articles pertinent to this interview:

America’s oldest example of greenwashing sacrificed California redwoods (Excerpt from THE GHOST FOREST) https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/09/greenwashing-sacrificed-california-redwoods/

There Has Never Been A ‘Timber War’ https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=hjsr

A Car Bomb Nearly Kiilled Eco-Activist Judi Bari – and Yet the Feds Blamed Her (Excerpt from THE GHOST FOREST) https://www.thedailybeast.com/judi-bari-was-nearly-murdered-by-a-car-bomb-and-yet-the-feds-blamed-her

California’s Collusion with a Texas Timber Company Let Ancient Redwoods be Clearcut (Excerpt from THE GHOST FOREST) http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/185783

Can We Save the Redwoods by Helping Them Move? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/magazine/redwoods-assisted-migration.html

Molly Conners: Butcher’s Crossing

On Wed., October 25, The Bozeman Film Society will be screening Butcher’s Crossing, which was filmed in just 19 days entirely in Montana, mostly on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Glacier National Park and Nevada City in Madison County were also locations. We spoke with producer, Molly Conners, about Butcher’s Crossing and producing it here in Montana.

Molly Conners is founder and CEO of Phiphen, an independently owned film, television, and digital media company focused on producing creative, smart productions for a global audience. Her films have been Emmy nominated, and she has produced or executive produced 35 feature films over the last 15 years that have earned a total of 4 Academy Awards and 11 Academy Award nominations. Some of Molly’s notable credits include the 2014 Academy Award-winner BIRDMAN, the 2009 Academy Award-nominated FROZEN RIVER, as well as the films: KILLER JOE, THE IMMIGRANT, JOE, and RULES DON’T APPLY.

Her latest film, Butcher’s Creek, is based on the seminal 1960 novel of the same name by John Edward Williams, with a screenplay co-written by director, Gabe Polsky. An epic frontier adventure, Butcher’s Crossing, is a riveting commentary on human nature, ambition, masculinity, and man’s relationship to his natural environment. Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage stars in this tragedy about the last of the buffalo hunters in the Old West. Young greenhorn, Will Andrews, played by Fred Hechinger, has left his undergraduate life at Harvard to find adventure in the wild west. He teams up with Cage’s character, buffalo hunter, Miller, a taciturn frontiersman offering a hunt of an unprecedented number of buffalo for their pelts in a secluded valley in the Colorado Rockies. Their crew must survive an arduous journey, where the harsh elements will test everyone’s resolve, leaving their sanity on a knife’s edge.

We spoke with Molly Conners on October 13, 2023 via Skype.

Robert P. Jones THE HIDDEN ROOTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY and the Path to a Shared American Future

Robert P. Jones is the author of the book, THE HIDDEN ROOTS of WHITE SUPREMACY and the PATH to a SHARED AMERICAN FUTURE, published by Simon and Schuster.

His earlier award winning books include WHITE TOO LONG: THE LEGACY OF WHITE SUPREMACY IN AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY; THE END OF WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICA; and PROGRESSIVE AND RELIGIOUS: HOW CHRISTIAN, JEWISH, MUSLIM AND BUDDHIST LEADERS ARE MOVING BEYOND THE CULTURE WARS AND TRANSFORMING AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE.

In this latest book, he reminds us that the enslavement of Africans was not America’s original sin, but rather the continuation of a pattern of genocide and dispossession that began with the first European contact with the Indigenous peoples of this land. His reframing of America’s origins explores how the founders of the US could build a democratic society on the foundations of mass racial violence, and why this paradox survives today in the form of White Christian Nationalism. Through three stories from our history and current re-examination and reckonings by those living today, he has illuminated the possibility of a new American future in which we finally fulfill the promise of true democracy.

We spoke with him on September 20, 2023 via Skype.

Articles or videos pertinent to this interview:

Nearing Her 109th Birthday, and Still Waiting for Her Day in Court https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/us/tulsa-race-massacre-lawsuit-oklahoma-supreme-court.html

“Apocalypticism”: Polling expert reveals the root of “panic among conservative White Christians” https://www.salon.com/2023/11/06/apocalypticism-polling-expert-reveals-the-root-of-panic-among-conservative-christians/

The Embodiment of White Christian Nationalism in a Tailored Suit https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/opinion/mike-johnson-christian-nationalism-speaker.html

Man in MAGA Hat Charged at Protest Against Reinstallation of Statue Honoring Spanish Conquistador in Española, New Mexico https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/30/man-maga-hat-new-mexico-shooting-charged

Judge dismisses charges against activists accused of disrupting Enbridge Line 3 https://www.startribune.com/judge-dismisses-charges-against-activists-accused-of-disrupting-enbridge-line-3/600305634/

This Supreme Court’s dangerous vision of ‘history and tradition’ https://religionnews.com/2022/07/04/this-supreme-courts-dangerous-vision-of-history-and-tradition/

The Unmaking of the White Christian Worldview https://time.com/6102117/white-christian-americans-sins/

White American Christianity Needs to Be Honest About Its History of White Supremacy https://time.com/5929478/christianity-white-supremacy/

The call is coming from inside the house: White Christian churches as incubators of anti-democratic sentiment https://baptistnews.com/article/the-call-is-coming-from-inside-the-house-white-christian-churches-as-incubators-of-anti-democratic-sentiment/

Colorado mountain honoring governor who led Indigenous massacre renamed https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/16/colorado-mountain-renamed-blue-sky-indigenous-massacre

Joe Biden Is Going To Have To Talk About Leonard Peltier https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leonard-peltier-joe-biden-clemency-indigenous-rights_n_64e7737ae4b07a9e3f5bc6dc

Tribes Strike Historic Deal for Return of Children Buried at Residential School https://truthout.org/articles/tribes-strike-historic-deal-for-return-of-children-buried-at-residential-school/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=a596a5632b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-a596a5632b-651106009&mc_cid=a596a5632b

Artifacts from the Tulsa Race Massacre https://getpocket.com/explore/item/artifacts-from-the-tulsa-race-massacre?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiOaoOYNXpY

Look At Us (Peltier and AIM Song) – John Trudell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5szsygmZmY

John Trudell ” Religious vs Spiritual” Perception of Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbjzujo1Qx8

Naomi Oreskes THE BIG MYTH: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market

Naomi Oreskes is Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A world renowned earth scientist, historian and public speaker, she is the author or co-author of nine books, including the best-selling book, Merchants of Doubt, and a leading voice on the role of science in society, the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and the role of disinformation in blocking climate action.

Her latest book, co-written with Erik Conway, is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, published by Bloomsbury Press.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

‘It’s slavery for modern times’: how children of 12 toil in Colorado’s fields https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/sep/06/how-children-of-12-toil-in-colorado-san-luis-valley-farms

US ‘university’ spreads climate lies and receives millions from rightwing donors https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/06/prageru-climate-change-denier-republican-donors

Supreme Court backs Nestle, Cargill in child slave labor suit https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/17/supreme-court-ruling-child-slave-labor-495022

Prominent Anti-Trump Attorney Asks the Supreme Court to Let Companies off the Hook for Child Slavery https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/neal-katyal-supreme-court-nestle-cargill-child-slavery.html

Masters of Crowds: The Rise of Mass Social Engineering https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/masters-of-crowds-the-rise-of-mass-social-engineering/

Private equity profits from climate disaster clean-up – while investing in fossil fuels https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/07/private-equity-climate-crisis-disaster-cleanup

Broadcast of this interview on KZYX included this parody:

Fourteenth Amendment – Don Caron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJcW-BEpgGk

“Necessary to defend our republic”: Republicans sue to keep Trump off ballot in battleground state https://www.salon.com/2023/09/06/navy-secretary-slams-tuberville-for-aiding-and-abetting-communists-with-military-blockades/

Andrew Seidel AMERICAN CRUSADE: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom

Andrew Seidel is a constitutional and civil rights attorney and the author of two books: The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American and American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom. He’s also co-editor of an academic text, Law and Religion: Cases and Materials 5th Edition, with Prof. Leslie Griffin of UNLV law school.

He has been fighting to keep state and church separate for more than a decade. Currently, Andrew is the Vice President of Strategic Communications at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the largest organization fighting for that founding principle. Previously, he served as a constitutional attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) beginning in 2011 and later as the Director of Strategic Response, running a nimble unit known as the Strategic Response Team.

Andrew Seidel is a Senior Correspondent at Religion Dispatches, a prolific author of op-eds and scholarly articles. He organized and contributed to the groundbreaking report “Christian Nationalism at the January 6, 2021, Insurrection,” which was published by the Baptist Joint Committee and FFRF and which aroused considerable congressional interest. He has appeared on Fox News to debate Bill O’Reilly, MSNBC, and hundreds of other media outlets.

Andrew graduated cum laude from Tulane University (’04) with a B.S. in neuroscience and environmental science and magna cum laude from Tulane University Law School (’09, part of the first post-Katrina class), where he was awarded the Haber J. McCarthy Award for excellence in environmental law. He studied human rights and international law at the University of Amsterdam and traveled the world on Semester at Sea. Andrew completed his Master of Laws at Denver University Sturm College of Law (’11) with a perfect GPA and was awarded the Outstanding L.L.M. Award for his work as the Erik Bluemel International Environmental Law Fellow.

Before dedicating his life and law degree to keeping state and church separate, Andrew was a Grand Canyon tour guide and an accomplished nature photographer.

Tennessee Pastor burning **THE FOUNDING MYTH: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American**

Articles pertinent to this interview:

What Ginni Thomas and Leonard Leo wrought: How a justice’s wife and a key activist started a movement https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/10/ginni-thomas-leonard-leo-citizens-united-00108082

Another Right-Wing Supreme Court SHAM RULING is Exposed for FAKE FACTS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEh5R3Bkf4

Oklahoma’s Religious Public Charter School Would Be an Affont to Taxpayers Everywhere https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/opinion/religion-schools-constitution-oklahoma.html

Oklahoma sued for funding US’s first ‘state-sponsored’ religious charter school https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/13/oklahoma-lawsuit-religious-public-charter-school

Religious identity and Supreme Court justices – a brief history https://theconversation.com/religious-identity-and-supreme-court-justices-a-brief-history-146999

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND THE JANUARY 6, 2021 INSURRECTION https://ffrf.org/uploads/legal/Christian_Nationalism_and_the_Jan6_Insurrection-2-9-22.pdf

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court

Trump’s assault on American justice gives inspiration to authoritarians everywhere https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/06/donald-trump-assault-american-justice-gives-inspiration-authoritarians-everywhere

Americans United applauds updated federal guidance on religion and prayer in public schools https://www.au.org/the-latest/press/guidance-religion-prayer-public-schools/

COURT FOR SALE Supreme Court Corruption | Don Caron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fXwDifHPds

This lawmaker and rabbi was scheduled to deliver an invocation. His colleagues replaced him with a Christian https://forward.com/news/547677/montana-lawmaker-rabbi-invocation-prayer-legislature-ed-stafman-legislature-house/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI%20was%20never%20given%20a,the%20rest%20of%20the%20session

Montana Rep (And Rabbi) Confronts Christian Lawmakers after Invocation Cancellation https://momentmag.com/montana-rep-and-rabbi-confronts-christian-lawmakers-after-invocation-cancellation/

Thom Hartmann The Hidden History of American Democracy & Robert Pape ‘The Dangers to Democracy’

This edition of Forthright Radio is in in two parts. In our first segment, radio& TV host/journalist and author, Thom Hartmann, returned with the latest in his Hidden History series, THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: REDISCOVERING HUMANITY’S ANCIENT WAY OF LIVING, published by B-K, Barrett-Kohler Publishers. This is the 8th book in the series and the 32nd of the books he has written. He has hosted his nationally syndicated show, The Thom Hartmann Program, since 2003. We spoke with Thom via Skype on July 24, 2023.

In our second segment, we spoke with University of Chicago Political Science Professor, Robert Pape, about the Project on Security and Threats (CPOST). You may recall their initial study published a few months after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, analyzing those who had been arrested & the surprising details they discovered. They have published a follow-up study and report from their most recent of 7 surveys since then, from this June, 2023, titled “The Dangers to Democracy.”

Robert Pape has been studying and writing about the causes and solutions to political violence since 1992 during the Bosnian War; and the 1999 War in Kosovo. In the 2000s, he studied suicide terrorism, as well as humanitarian intervention centering on appropriate international responses to political violence related to the Arab Spring in Libya and Syria. Professor Pape has testified before Congress, briefed the National Security Council and the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate. In 2020, he published the results of his analysis of the impact of the deployment of Homeland Security agents on political violence in Portland, OR, during the George Floyd demonstrations. In 2021, he published the first systematic study of the demographic profile and political geography of individuals arrested for assaulting the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Project on Security and Threats, has continued the surveys, and recently released the report on their 7th survey, titled The Dangers to Democracy. We spoke with Professor Pape on July 26, 2023 via Skype.

What the Glorification of Luigi Mangione Reveals About America https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/opinion/luigi-mangione-united-healthcare-ceo-shooting.html

You can see THE DANGERS TO DEMOCRACY report here: https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/2023-04_CPOST-NORC_Survey_Report.pdf?mtime=1690380798

Articles pertinent to these interviews:

‘Anger and radicalization’: rising number of Americans say political violence is justified https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/25/us-political-crisis-radicalizing-republicans-democrats-alike

Understanding American Domestic Terrorism https://cpost.uchicago.edu/publications/understanding_american_domestic_terrorism_mobilization_potential_and_risk_factors_of_a_new_threat_trajectory/

How Trump’s Plan for the Military Could Topple America https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-trumps-plan-for-the-department-b10

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html

How Democracy Dies the First Month of the Next Trump or GOP Presidency https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-democracy-dies-the-first-month-6a3

Trump’s plans for 2025 sound like a vengeful disaster https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-presidential-power-second-term-2024-autocracy-rcna95098?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

How Long Will Politicians Be Able to Ignore the Planet Becoming Unlivable? https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-long-will-politicians-be-able-ed4

DeSantis’s Apartheid Pedagogy in the Age of Fascist Politics https://www.laprogressive.com/election-reform-campaigns/apartheid-pedagogy

The Redneck Army Refuses to Stay Buried https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/opinion/culture/west-virginia-strike-coal-miner-history.html

Everything They Owned Burned, and They Still Can’t Get Restitution 102 Years Later https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/28/opinion/tulsa-race-massacre-reparations.html

“Anonymous” Miles Taylor: Trump Second Term Would Focus Solely on Revenge | Amanpour and Company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eqm5wuSN9s

David Neiwert THE AGE OF INSURRECTION: The Radical Right’s Assault on American Democracy

This interview was originally broadcast on July 14, 2023, Bastille Day, when the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. It was a day of insurrection, so it was fitting that we shared our interview with award winning journalist and author, David Neiwert, that day discussing his latest book, THE AGE OF INSURRECTION: THE RADICAL RIGHT’S ASSAULT ON AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, published by Melville House.

For over four decades he has worked in newspapers, television, the blogosphere, as well as having been the Pacific Northwest correspondent for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Among his nine books are RED PILL, BLUE PILL: HOW TO COUNTERACT THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES THAT ARE KILLING US; ALT-AMERICA: THE RISE OF THE RADICAL RIGHT IN THE AGE OF TRUMP; and OF ORCAS AND MEN: WHAT KILLER WHALES CAN TEACH US. We spoke with David Neiwert on July 9, 2023 via Skype.

© 2023 Clay Bennett / Chattanooga Times Free Press / dist. by Counterpoint Media. Used with Permission

Articles pertinent to this interview:

More of Clay Bennett’s editorial cartoons here: https://www.gocomics.com/claybennett/2023/07/11

Fourteenth Amendment song by Don Caron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJcW-BEpgGk

Rise of the Freemen https://www.montanapbs.org/programs/rise-of-the-freemen/

US white supremacists found guilty of gay pride riot plot https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66271505

Republican women learn the hard way: Complicity will not protect you https://www.salon.com/2023/07/11/women-learn-the-hard-way-complicity-will-not-protect-you/

The Age of Insurrection review: how the far right rose – and found Trump https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/05/the-age-of-insurrection-review-far-right-trump-david-neiwert

As Trump is arraigned, Republicans honor the insurrectionists https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/16/house-gop-trump-indictment-reaction-jan-6

Republicans reignite the red scare in service of Trump https://www.salon.com/2023/06/28/reignite-the-red-scare-in-of/

“Trump thinks he has this big army out there still”: A MAGA movement betrayed has now morphed https://www.salon.com/2023/06/27/trump-thinks-he-has-this-big-army-out-there-still-a-maga-movement-betrayed-has-now-morphed/

Family of activist killed in alleged ‘spray of bullets’ by US police files lawsuit https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/13/michael-reinoehl-activist-killed-police-family-lawsuit

“Unfriending” America: The Christian right is coming for the enemies of God — like you and me. Rising far-right Christian movement linked to GOP calls for “kingdom revolution” led by an “army of believers” https://www.salon.com/2023/06/17/unfriending-america-the-christian-right-is-coming-for-the-enemies-of-god–like-you-and-me/

How Europe’s far right is marching steadily into the mainstream https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/far-right-on-the-march-europe-growing-taste-for-control-and-order

Trump Denies Inciting The Capitol Attack, But 174 Jan. 6 Defendants Blame Him For It https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-jan-6-incitement_n_64a717a1e4b0e5efaada8926

Moms for Liberty is part of a long history of rightwing mothers’ activism in the US https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/06/moms-for-liberty-long-history-rightwing-activism

A Jan. 6 “Moms” Group Funded by Big Lie Donors Is Stoking Voter Suppression https://truthout.org/articles/a-jan-6-moms-group-funded-by-big-lie-donors-is-stoking-voter-suppression/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=fb7a46e5e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-fb7a46e5e2-651106009&mc_cid=fb7a46e5e2&mc_eid=f9703b4752

Major ”Grassroots” Parents’ Rights Group Rakes in Big Right-Wing Money https://www.importantcontext.news/p/major-grassroots-parents-rights-group

School boards get death threats amid rage over race, gender, mask policies https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-education-threats/

Moms for Liberty Uses Hitler Quote To ‘Scare’ Parents https://www.vice.com/en/article/ak3kz5/moms-for-liberty-hitler-quote

Inside Moms for Liberty’s Close Relationship With the Proud Boys https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d93qd/moms-for-liberty-proud-boys

Held v State of Montana Day 7 Closing Arguments

This special edition of Ecotones is the final daily audio digest of the historic Held v State of Montana trial.

On the final day of this trial, one day before the summer solstice, on June 20, 2023, closing arguments were given before Judge Kathy Seeley, presiding judge of the Lewis and Clark District Court in Helena, MT.

Our Children’s Trust Senior Staff Attorney, Nate Bellinger, delivered the plaintiffs’ closing arguments, followed by Montana Assistant Attorney General, Michael Russell, delivering closing arguments for the State.

Judge Kathy Seeley presides as plaintiffs’ attorney, Nate Bellinger, delivers closing arguments.

Before these remarks, plaintiffs’ attorney Philip Gregory, offered further information attacking the credibility of the State’s lone outside expert witness, economist Dr. Terry Anderson, submitting a report documenting errors of his sources and information, and asking the court to take judicial notice, which the court granted. The audio of this portion of the proceedings, which came before the closing arguments was problematic, and our best efforts only made marginal improvements, so we have put this portion at the end of this recording after the closing arguments.