Category Archives: Social Justice

Norman Eisen OVERCOMING TRUMPERY: How to Restore Ethics, the Rule of Law & Democracy

Norman Eisen is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and an internationally recognized expert on law, ethics, and anti-corruption. He served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2020, including for the impeachment and trial of President Trump, which he wrote about in his 2020 book, A CASE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: THE UNITED STATES VS. DONALD J. TRUMP. From January 2009 to January 2011, he worked in the White House as special counsel and special assistant to the president for ethics and government reform. Norman Eisen served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014. In 2003, He co-founded Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog organization.

His most recent book, OVERCOMING TRUMPERY: HOW TO RESTORE ETHICS, THE RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY, is published by The Brookings Institution Press. We spoke with him on June 21, 2022.

Unfortunately our interview was cut short due to technical issues, but this allowed us to share excerpts from the June 23, 2022 session of the House Jan. 6 Committee featuring former Acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, Deputy Attorney General, Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel. It is chillingly relevant to our discussion of overcoming Trumpery. In fact, their testimony recounting their united refusal to enable efforts by Donald Trump and his minions to orchestrate a coup d’état, using the Department of Justice to add credence to his baseless assertions of fraud in the 2020 presidential election was riveting. The hearing came one day after the FBI executed a warrant to search former DOJ employee, Jeffrey Clark’s, residence. The hearing revealed that he was the lone member of the DOJ who was willing, even eager, to serve Donald Trump instead of DOJ process or policy. Their testimony, illustrate how radically norms and policies were violated.

In response to news of Matt Gaetz’s 1st Tweet after his request for a general pardon was made public (see below), Norman Eisen responded:

How did the Secret Service lose its Jan. 6 texts? So far, the explanations won’t wash https://www.salon.com/2022/07/20/how-did-the-secret-lose-its-jan-6-texts-so-far-the-explanations-wont-wash/

Cassidy Hutchinson Changes Everything https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/opinion/cassidy-hutchinson-january-6-committee.html

At Least 5 Members Of Congress Asked Trump For Pardons, According To Jan. 6 Committee https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ongress-members-asked-trump-pardons-january-6_n_62b4d3c4e4b0cdccbe68f26a

Twitter Users Mock Matt Gaetz’s 1st Tweet After His Pardon Request Is Made Public https://www.huffpost.com/entry/matt-gaetz-pardon-request-twitter-snark_n_62b4e5f7e4b06594c1e1c79b

DOJ searches home of former official who aided alleged pro-Trump ‘coup’ https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/23/law-enforcement-trump-official-coup-00041767

A radical plan for Trump’s second term https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/trump-2025-radical-plan-second-term

SAY NO TO OPTIONAL GOVERNMENT ETHICS! https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2022/06/the-bridge-say-no-to-optional-government-ethics

Supreme Court appears ready to hear election case that could increase state lawmakers’ power https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-appears-ready-to-hear-election-case-that-could-increase-state-lawmakers-power

Bipartisan senators reach a general agreement on updating Electoral Count Act https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electoral-count-act-senators-agreement-electoral-college/

To Avert January 6, We Needed Whistleblowers—and We Never Got Them https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/january-6th-pence-eastman/

Who Is Financing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Caucus? Corporations You Know. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/opinion/jan6-companies-donate.html

Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches Crucial Moment https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/climate/supreme-court-climate-epa.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Climate%20and%20Environment

Joseph Scalia, III What If Environmental Leaders Actually Decided to Lead?

In February of 2022, we interviewed John Leshy about his book, OUR COMMON GROUND: A HISTORY OF AMERICA’S PUBLIC LANDS. That interview can be heard on the forthright.media website. And in fact, the history of America’s public lands is an evolving story. It has always been a tale of competing interests and ideologies with tremendous consequences for not only American citizens, but all of Nature on this continent and as we learn more and more, the entire biosphere.

Our guest today on Forthright Radio, environmental writer, activist and psychoanalyst, Joseph Scalia, III, brought to our attention what’s at stake in the recent revision of a National Forest Service Plan that affects the area bordering the north of Yellowstone National Park.

Joseph Scalia writes, “The Gallatin Range is the last crucial, and wholly unprotected yet indispensable wild country in the northern reaches of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a vast wild land of some 20 million acres, a true rare find in today’s world of diminishing wild country. Here lives all of the fauna of its pre-1492 conditions.”

“In the Rocky Mountain West, in addition to the despoliation of wild lands by extractive industries as well as misguided efforts at “forest management” – which itself has become a hotly contested and too-often perverted concept, recreation has proved to be a major threat to both the ecological and the aesthetic or spiritual values of these lands. Over and over and over, we have carved up wilderness for another and yet another “use” that degrades its integrity. The policy that has dominated this unending subdivision that eschews rigorous reflections on both ecological science and conservation aesthetics and losses of opportunities for quietude has been known as “collaboration and compromise.”
“This model has been promoted by neoliberal capitalist or, one could accurately say here, predatory capitalist corporate foundations on whose grants most Big Green environmental groups have grown dependent for their survival. This is Cornel West’s “the commodification of everybody and everything.” It’s not just that monetary reward drives decisions, but more that corporatization has been unfettered and ubiquitous in its social engineering that has us, as a collective, thinking we can go on indefinitely and with impunity in such acts as the unending subdivision of nature.”

He asks:
“What if environmental leaders did not acquiesce to putatively dominant unfriendliness to Wilderness designation? What if they didn’t conform to the story that’s publicly delivered? What if, instead, they got out in front, and argued forcefully – with all the big-money resources they have to potentiate such efforts – what if they argued passionately, persuasively for broad Wilderness protections that are based upon ecosystem considerations, without succumbing to what Aldo Leopold called political and economic expediency? Expediency. A good word: “The quality of being convenient and practical despite possibly being improper or immoral; convenience.”

Journalist Todd Wilkinson, who has also been our guest, called it “industrial-strength outdoor recreation,” supported by “the outdoor recreation industrial complex” and its consumptive consumerism.

The program ends with excerpts from Judi Bari’s talk at an event recorded at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarians on April 23, 1993, and a poem by Dr. Ian McCallum, “Wilderness,” (links to both below).
We recorded this interview on June 6, 2022.

Here are links to articles pertinent to this interview:

Must Environmental Leaders Conform? Or Dare We Actually Lead? https://rewilding.org/must-environmental-leaders-conform-or-dare-we-actually-lead/

How did wildlife groups start collaborating in the destruction of nature? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/24/how-did-wildlife-groups-start-collaborating-in-the-destruction-of-nature-

Has ‘Collaborative Conservation’ Reached Its Limits? https://mountainjournal.org/the-failures-and-limits-of-collaborative-conservation

The Inherent Trauma of Conservation https://outsidebozeman.com/culture/conservation/the-inherent-trauma-conservation

Can the Wolf Unite Us? Environmental Leadership in Polarized Times https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/03/can-the-wolf-unite-us-environmental-leadership-in-polarized-times/

For the Wolf https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/01/for-the-wolf/

Wolf-Talk https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/18/wolf-talk/

Terra & Demos: A Unified Ethics for Conservation and the Human Quest https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/06/terra-demos-a-unified-ethics-for-conservation-and-the-human-quest/

Yellowstone, Environmental Collapse, and Compromised Thinking https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/31/yellowstone-environmental-collapse-and-compromised-thinking/

Return to Leopold: Dare We Speak Up for Yellowstone? https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/21/return-to-leopold-dare-we-speak-up-for-yellowstone/

Yellowstone Imperiled by Compromise https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/13/yellowstone-imperiled-by-compromise/

Conserving Politics or Conserving Nature? https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/07/conserving-politics-or-conserving-nature/

An Ethical Imperative: the Visionary “Impossible” in the Northern Rockies https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/04/an-ethical-imperative-the-visionary-impossible-in-the-northern-rockies/

A fight over wolves pits facts against feelings in Wisconsin https://undark.org/2022/06/06/a-fight-over-wolves-pits-facts-against-feelings-in-wisconsin/

After killing wolf, Gianforte signs bills allowing strangulation, expanded hunting of wolves https://missoulacurrent.com/outdoors/2021/04/gianforte-wolves/

Judi Bari Revolutionary Ecology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-yKQxV1AIs

Dr Ian McCallum recites his poem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kh7VC57Vs0

Alana Waksman WE BURN LIKE THIS

The film, WE BURN LIKE THIS, is a debut feature written, directed and produced by Alana Waksman.

It’s a coming-of-age story of historical trauma, survival, and healing. When 22-year-old Rae, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, is targeted by Neo-Nazis in Billings, Montana, her ancestors’ trauma becomes real. It’s inspired by true events and features a terrific ensemble cast of largely Montana actors, as well as film crew.

We spoke with Alana Waksman on June 10, 2022.

From the website https://www.weburnlikethis.com/

director’s statement
I never met my grandparents. They were taken from their homes near Radomsko, Poland in 1942 and survived forced labor camps as young teenagers in Russia. I have been told that my grandfather survived a period of time by eating grass. After the war, my grandparents found themselves at a displaced persons camp in Germany. This is where my dad was born, and two years later they were able to immigrate to Brooklyn, New York. My grandparents were proud to be Americans, but my father grew up ashamed of his immigrant and Jewish identities as it was often the reason he was singled out, threatened, and bullied.
The day after the 2016 election, Neo-Nazi pamphlets showed up on the doorsteps of Har Shalom Synagogue in Missoula, Montana where I was living at the time. For the first time in my life, my family’s history was suddenly very real.
I made this film in order to sort through my thoughts about my identity, the inherited effects of historical trauma, and what self-acceptance and self-love looks like. We Burn Like This is my debut feature, which I have been developing for the last seven years. It is my contribution to the greater healing of Jewish bigotry, which continues to be even more important, timely, and urgent.
The storming of the capitol on January 6th was a continued reminder after an exhausting and frightening four years that we are living beside much hatred and rage, and our new administration does not erase the true colors and feelings of our fellow Americans. I believe that it matters to share this story and inspire discussion about Jewish identity and historical trauma in present day America.
May we find a way to forgive, accept, and love ourselves and others. May we find the perfection even in the darkest times and in the darkest memories. May this film be a part of that process, and may we all radically heal.
-Alana Waksman

Only love can stop war: a Northern Cheyenne chief’s call to the world https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/17/only-love-can-stop-war-a-call-to-the-world-from-a-northern-cheyenne-chie

Dahr Jamail and Mark Manning

We were already in production to rebroadcast this archived edition of Forthright Radio from April 25, 2005, featuring un-embedded journalist, Dahr Jamail, with documentary filmmaker and humanitarian assistance worker, Mark Manning, recounting their experiences relating to the two battles of Fallujah waged by the United States military in Iraq in the Spring and Fall of 2004. – when former President Bush made this statement in a speech at his presidential library on May 18, 2022:

“Russian elections are rigged. Political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process. The result is an absence in checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq …… I mean of Ukraine …. “

Mark Twain noted that history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

And we were struck by certain similarities between the selling of the U. S. invasion of Iraq to the American people in April of 2003, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. In both cases, the leaders asserted that the military actions by their vastly larger, stronger and wealthier nations were purely defensive in nature. In the case of the US, the administration claimed that Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (which was later proven to be entirely false, and were known to be false at the time) required immediate preemptive military force, and that “we must fight them over there to prevent having to fight them here.”
Russia justified their military actions by claims of NATO provocations by encroaching on its border and the potential of Ukraine joining NATO.

Saddam Hussein, who had formerly been an ally of the US in the 1980s against Iran, now had to be subjected to regime change, because of the brutal nature of his dictatorship. The Russian excuse was the Ukraine government was rife with Nazi fascists.

Each government maintained tight control over information, and the mainstream media in both countries were slavish in delivering their governments’ messages of the righteousness and necessity of their respective invasions, assuring their populace that their soldiers would be welcomed as liberators and the military actions would be over quickly. The popularity of both these leaders and their military actions initially rose in polls.

Many Americans are amazed that Russians support Putin’s aggression, forgetting how enthusiastically they watched the “Shock and Awe” spectacle delivered by all major American media, at least in the early days of the Iraq War. In Russia protest and demonstrations against the invasion are put down swiftly, and those who even refer to the situation with the word “war” are subject to lengthy prison terms.

Before the invasion of Iraq, in major world capitals, some of the largest peace demonstrations in world history were either ignored or dismissed as mere “focus groups” by the Bush administration.

As we view with horror the senseless destruction of Ukraine villages and cities and the wanton civilian deaths, we find this interview with Dahr Jamail and Mark Manning instructive of our own nation’s responsibility for similar acts.

You can find out more about Mark Manning’s work here: http://conceptionmedia.net

You can learn more about Dahr Jamail’s work here: http://dahrjamail.net

Iraq war leukemia rates worse than after Hiroshima bombing https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/apr/02/iraq-war-hiroshima-bombing-leukemia-rates

THE ROAD TO FALLUJA https://www.theroadtofallujah.com/#

A Message From Falluja to the American People https://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-manning290305.htm

Depleted Uranium, Devastated Health: Military Operations and Environmental Injustice in the Middle East https://hir.harvard.edu/depleted-uranium-devastated-health-military-operations-and-environmental-injustice-in-the-middle-east/

Gustavo Vazquez KEEPER OF CORN

Indigenous artisans, cooks and farmers tell us this story (in Spanish and in their own languages) about the origins of indigenous corn and how their ancestors have guided the evolution of seeds from the dawn of agriculture to the 21st century; a collective effort that spans more than 350 generations.

To their voices are added those of community leaders, scientists, cooks and many others whose knowledge and activism are committed not only to the defense of food sovereignty and genetic integrity, diversity and the collective property of indigenous seeds, but also for the defense of an enduring cultural legacy and way of life.

Filmmaker and Chair of the FIlm & Digital Media Department at UC Santa Cruz , Gustavo Vazquez, brings us to Oaxaca to experience the wisdom of various indigenous communities, as they explain that “Corn was not domesticated by man – Man was domesticated by corn.”

Professors Ignacio Chapela (UC Berkeley) and Alan Bennett (UC Davis) discuss the merits and dangers of genetically modified organisms, and the characteristics of different landraces of corn that have co-evolved with the people of Oaxaca – continuing co-evolution vs. exploitation for patenting and profit.

Susana Harp, Senator from Oaxaca, works to protect the heritage and health of her region, and to respect the validity of their approach. “Corn & its surrounding rituals are tied to the cosmology of the indigenous people – by extension, the essence of being Mexican, linking our lives to corn.”

‘A stepping stone’: Indigenous-led initiative at MSU helps bolster native food sovereignty https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/agriculture/a-stepping-stone-indigenous-led-initiative-at-msu-helps-bolster-native-food-sovereignty/article_291fdf99-feb8-549c-a30c-0ab9a5d96e2f.html

Alex Pritz THE TERRITORY

The Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people have seen their population dwindle and their culture threatened since coming into contact with non-Native Brazilians in the 1980s. Though promised dominion over their own rain forest territory, they have faced illegal incursions from environmentally destructive logging and mining, and, most recently, land-grabbing invasions spurred on by right-wing politicians like President Jair Bolsonaro. With deforestation escalating as a result, the stakes have become global.

Screen shots from THE TERRITORY of remaining Uru-eu-wau-wau territory surrounded on 3 sides by man made desert.

Filmmaker, Alex Pritz, gained incredible access to the Uru-eu-wau-wau people, and environmentalists dedicated to protecting them and their Amazonian rain forest, as well as Brazilian settlers, filming as the groups come into conflict. From stone age technology to e-technology in only a couple of generations, The Uru-eu-wau-wau understand that the struggle for their survival is also the struggle for humanity’s survival. Protecting the rain forest is crucial to minimizing the catastrophic effects of climate change.

eu-wau-wau people protect their land from invaders & illegal deforestation:

http://Invaded Uru-eu-wau-wau indigenous reserve awaits relief by Brazil’s new government

http://These women are fighting for their Indigenous land and the survival of the Amazon

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-amazon-indigenous.html

‘Record after record’: Brazil’s Amazon deforestation hits April high, nearly double previous peak https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/07/record-after-record-brazils-amazon-deforestation-hits-april-high-nearly-double-previous-peak

Land of Resistants—Threatened Indigenous People and Communities in the Brazilian Amazon https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/land-resistants-threatened-indigenous-people-and-communities-brazilian-amazon

THE WOBBLIES Deborah Shaffer & Stewart Bird

As more and more workers in the United States are organizing to create unions to represent their interests, and corporations are spending millions and millions of dollars to thwart their efforts, it is good to honor this International Workers Day, May Day, by celebrating the restoration and screening of the film, THE WOBBLIES. It was produced during the 1970s and premiered at the NY Film Festival in 1979, and has been recently restored to 4K digital format by the Museum of Modern Art, as well as being inducted into The National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2021, one of only 25 films added each year.

May 1st is celebrated in many countries around the world as a holiday to honor laborers. May 1st was chosen because it marked the day, May 1st, 1886, when a general strike began in the United States to campaign for an 8 hour work day. Four days later in the so-called Haymarket Affair in Chicago police arrived to disperse a packed public assembly in Haymarket Square in support of the general strike, when a person, never identified, threw a bomb. The police fired on the workers. In the ensuing melée seven police officers were killed, as well as at least four citizens. In addition, 60 police were injured as were at least 115 citizens. Hundreds of labor leaders and sympathizers were rounded-up and four were executed by hanging, after a trial that many historians consider a miscarriage of justice. On May 5, 1886 in Milwaukee, WI, the state militia fired on a crowd of strikers, killing seven, including a schoolboy and a man feeding his chickens in his own yard.

We interviewed filmmakers, Deborah Shaffer and Stewart Bird, about their film, THE WOBBLIES, about the period about 20 years after the deadly events during the General Strike of 1886, as a new effort to organize ALL the workers began. They state:

“When we started production on The Wobblies in 1977 our goal was to rescue and record an almost completely neglected chapter of American history as told by its elderly survivors. We never imagined then that the themes of labor exploitation, anti-immigrant legislation, and racial and gender discrimination would resonate as strongly today. We couldn’t be prouder to have the film included last year in the National Film Registry, and to have Kino Lorber present the new 4K MoMA restoration nationwide on International Workers Day.”

About Producer-Director Deborah Shaffer
Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Deborah Shaffer began making social issue documentaries as a member of the Newsreel Collective in the ‘70’s. She co-founded Pandora Films, one of the first women’s film companies, which produced several shorts. Her first feature documentary, The Wobblies, premiered at the prestigious New York Film Festival in 1979. During the ’80s Shaffer focused on human rights in Central America and Latin America, directing many films including Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements, which won the Academy Award® for Short Documentary in 1985, and Fire from the Mountain and Dance of Hope, which both played at the Sundance Film Festival. Shaffer directed one of the first post-September 11 films, From the Ashes: 10 Artists followed by From the Ashes: Epilogue, which premiered at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. She is also the Executive Producer of the Academy Award®-nominated short Asylum, and has directed numerous acclaimed public television programs on women and the arts. She directed and produced To Be Heard, which won awards at numerous festivals and aired nationwide on PBS. Her most recent film, Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack premiered at DOC NYC and won the Audience Award at the Hamptons Documentary Film Festival. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award by the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

About Producer-Director – Editor Stewart Bird
Stewart Bird is a Bronx-born writer and filmmaker. Murder at the Yeshiva is his first novel and he is presently writing his second NYPD homicide detective novel with Detective Mo Shuman. He wrote Solidarity Forever, an oral history of the I.W.W. (University of Minnesota Press) with Dan Georgakas and Deborah Shaffer. He also co-authored the play “The Wobblies: The U.S. vs. Wm. D. Haywood et. al.,” (with Peter Robilotta), which was performed at the Hudson Guild Theatre in New York and published by Smyrna Press. Bird wrote a one-hour story for PBS entitled “The Mighty Pawns” about a black inner-city chess team, which was shown nationally on Wonderworks and distributed nationally by Disney. As a writer/producer for Fox television’s Current Affair, he produced various segments: “Alan Berg,” “Elvis Presley,” “A Cycle of Justice,” and “The Night Natalie Died.” He worked as a writer/producer for CBS News’ 48 Hours and produced segments like “Another America,” “Underground,” “Stuck on Welfare,” and “Earth Wars.” He has produced numerous feature-length documentaries including “Finally Got the News,” about black auto workers in Detroit; “Retratos,” on the Puerto Rican community in New York; “Coming Home,” on Vietnam Veterans; “Building the American Dream: Levittown, NY” and The Wobblies (with Deborah Shaffer) focusing on the Industrial Workers of the World a turn-of-the-century labor union.

One can rent Wobblies via this link: https://kinonow.com/film/the-wobblies/624202eb7b0e1200011ce8c3

Right-wing snowflakes love to whine about free speech — this socialist went to jail for it https://www.salon.com/2022/05/29/right-wing-snowflakes-love-to-whine-about-free-speech–this-socialist-went-to-jail-for-it/

Stephen Marche THE NEXT CIVIL WAR: Dispatches from the American Future

Stephen Marche is a Canadian novelist and journalist. He writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and Esquire, among other outlets. His latest book, which we’ll be discussing in this interview is THE NEXT CIVIL WAR: DISPATCHES FROM THE AMERICAN FUTURE, published by Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.

He writes, “There will be those who say that the possibility of a new civil war is alarmist. All I can say is that reality has outpaced even the most alarmist predictions.”

“The intelligence services of other countries are preparing dossiers on the possibilities of America’s collapse. Foreign governments need to prepare for a post-democratic America, an authoritarian and hence much less stable superpower. They need to prepare for a broken America, one with many different centers of power. They need to prepare for a lost America, one so consumed by its crises, that it cannot manage to conceive, much less to enact, domestic or foreign policies.

The purpose of this book is to give readers access to the same advance information. These dispatches are projections but not fantasies. The next civil war isn’t science fiction anymore. The plants to the first battle have already been drawn up. And not by novelists. By colonels.”

We spoke with Stephen Marche on April 19, 2022.

Links to articles pertinent to this interview:

Where Will This Political Violence Lead? Look to the 1850s. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/29/political-violence-1850s-paul-pelosi-00064107

Biden says US democracy is under threat. Here’s what he can do to help fix it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/16/biden-says-us-democracy-is-under-threat-heres-what-he-can-do-to-help-fix-it

The January 6 hearings are a brilliant spectacle. That’s also their danger https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/january-6-hearings-trump-consequences

With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/26/second-civil-war-us-abortion

Effort to Remove Marjorie Taylor Greene From Ballot Can Proceed, Judge Says https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-jan-6.html

Judge Blocks Effort to Disqualify Cawthorn from Ballot as ‘Insurrectionist’ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/us/politics/madison-cawthorn-north-carolina-insurrectionist.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Legal Effort Expands to Disqualify Republicans as ‘Insurrectionists” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/us/politics/insurrectionists-congress.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

How Do We Break the Cycle Of Political Violence? https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-do-we-break-the-cycle-of-political?s=r

Self-proclaimed Leader of Sovereign Citizen Group Sentenced to Federal Prison for Promoting Tax Fraud Scheme https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/self-proclaimed-leader-sovereign-citizen-group-sentenced-federal-prison-promoting-tax-fraud

Sovereign citizen Bruce Doucette sentenced to 38 years in prison https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/05/23/sovereign-citizen-bruce-doucette-sentenced-38-years-prison

Everything We Know About Jerad And Amanda Miller, The Las Vegas Couple Who Went On A Shooting Rampage https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikehayes/everything-we-know-about-jerad-and-amanda-miller-the-suicida

Florida Neo-Nazi leader gets 5 years for having explosive material https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-neo-nazi-leader-gets-5-years-having-explosive-material-n836246

Extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the future of the Republican party https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/13/extremists-like-marjorie-taylor-greene-are-the-future-of-the-republican-party

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/ also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRuvKtFvqo

For a Black Man Hired to Undo a Confederate Legacy, It Has Not Been Easy https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/arts/confederate-statue-removal-contractor.html

Fearing a Trump Repeat, Jan. 6 Panel Considers Changes to Insurrection Act https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/us/politics/trump-jan-6-insurrection-act.html