Category Archives: Social Justice

Held v State of Montana – Day 1 Daily Digest

At 9 a.m. on Monday, June 12, 2023, in the Lewis & Clark County District Court in Helena, Judge Kathy Seely presiding, attorneys for 16 youth plaintiffs in the case of Held v. State of Montana began. We recorded the proceedings via Zoom, and produced this audio digest, which begins with opening statements by Plaintiff Attorney, Roger Sullivan, and Defense Attorney for the State of Montana, Assistant Attorney General, Michael D. Russel, which is broadcast in their entirety.

The plaintiff’s first expert witness was Mae Nan Ellingson, who had been the youngest delegate to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention, which established inalienable rights to “a clean and healthy environment,” which she spoke of passionately and proudly. She explained the process by which a bipartisan group of 100 delegates from all over the state of Montana met 51 years ago to create our current Montana State Constitution. http://kgvm.org/show/held-mae-nan-ellingson-testimony-6-12-23/

Then, the lead plaintiff, Ricki Held, was called to the stand. Unfortunately, there were technical problems that rendered her testimony so garbled, that we can not offer it in this audio digest. She spoke about the impacts that, just in her lifetime, have negatively affected her life and her family’s livelihood on their 3,000 acre ranch and motel near Broadus, MT, particularly the effects of drought and flood on the Powder River, which runs through it. http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-ricki-held-testimony-6-12-23/

Fortunately, the audio problems were addressed by the time Steven Running, International Panel on Climate Change 2007 Nobel Laureate and University of Montana professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences, took the stand. Plaintiff attorney, Philip Gregory, questioned Professor Running at length about numerous aspects of the science of climate change, which we excerpt in this broadcast. Defense attorney, Mark Stermitz, raised several objections most of which Judge Seely denied. We include Mr. Stermitz’s entire cross-examination of Professor Running. http://kgvm.org/show/held-dr-steve-running-testimony-6-12-23/

In the afternoon, two more of the youth plaintiffs took the stand, Grace Gibson-Snyder, from Missoula, MT, who was 16 when the lawsuit was filed and is now 19, testified how smoke and excess heat affect her ability to play soccer, hike or any outdoor activity because of threats to our health. Here is an excerpt from her testimony. http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-grace-testimony/

Eva, from Livingston, MT, who is now 17, but was 14 when the suit was filed, declined to give her last name on the stand. She testified to the effects climate change has had on her and her family. She described 7 hours of packing sand into sand bags as the waters were swiftly rising during last year’s flood of the Yellowstone River, which she noted occurred one year and a day before this trial was beginning, on June 13, 2022. Her family was forced to move from their home, when bridges connecting them to Livingston washed out in 2018.

Time prevented us from including audio from Eva’s testimony, but as soon as possible, we will post all of the testimony on kgvm.org http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-eva-testimony-6-12-23/

According to a press release from Our Children’s Trust, “Held v. State of Montana is a constitutional climate lawsuit brought by 16 Montana youth against their State to protect their equal rights to a healthy environment, life, dignity, and freedom. They are suing because their government keeps promoting and supporting fossil fuel extraction and burning, which is worsening the climate crisis and harming these youths’ lives.

The youth are suing to protect their state constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment” as well as the air, waters, wildlife and their public lands that are threatened by drought, heat, fires, smoke, and floods. They are also suing to have their rights to individual dignity and equality enforced under the Montana Constitution.

The youth plaintiffs do not seek money. They are asking the court to declare that Montana’s fossil fuel energy policies and actions violate young people’s state constitutional rights.

The 16 youth plaintiffs in this case are represented by attorneys with Our Children’s Trust, the Western Environmental Law Center, and McGarvey Law.

Our Children’s Trust is the world’s only nonprofit public interest law firm that exclusively provides strategic, campaign based legal services to youth from diverse backgrounds to secure their legal rights to a safe climate. We work to protect the Earth’s climate system for present and future generations by representing young people in global legal efforts to secure their binding and enforceable legal rights to a healthy atmosphere and safe climate, based on the best available science. Globally, we support youth-led climate cases in front of national courts, regional human rights courts, and UN bodies.” http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org

Articles pertinent to this case:

Constitutional climate change trial opens in Helena https://montanafreepress.org/2023/06/12/constitutional-climate-change-trial-opens-in-helena/

Who is ‘Held’ of Held v. State of Montana? https://montanafreepress.org/2023/06/05/who-is-held-of-held-v-state-of-montana/

Montana Lawmakers Double Down on Fossil Fuels in 2023 Legislative Session https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/montana-lawmakers-double-down-on-fossil-fuels-in-2023-legislative-session/

‘To a Clean and Healthful Environment’ https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/to-a-clean-and-healthful-environment/

For the Busse Brothers, Climate Change is a Reality — and a Violation of Constitutional Rights https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/for-the-busse-brothers-climate-change-is-a-reality-and-a-violation-of-constitutional-rights/

Running Toward a Future in the Face of Climate Change https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/running-toward-a-future-in-the-face-of-climate-change/

Battle for a Better Future https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/battle-for-a-better-future/

‘Game changing’: spate of US lawsuits calls big oil to account for climate crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/07/climate-crisis-big-oil-lawsuits-constitution

Montana Youth Prepare for Trial in Bellwether Climate Case Against State https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/held-v-montana/

Brendan Ballou PLUNDER: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America

Brendan Ballou is a federal prosecutor, who served as Special Counsel for Private Equity in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Previously, he worked in private practice, and before that, in the National Security Division of the Justice Department, where he advised the White House on counter-terrorism and other policies.

His book, PLUNDER: PRIVATE EQUITY’S PLAN TO PILLAGE AMERICA, is published by Public Affairs Books. He is clear in stating that “The views expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

He pulls no punches in characterizing what private equity firms are doing as PLUNDER and a PLAN TO PILLAGE AMERICA.

We spoke with Brendan Ballou via Skype on June 2, 2023 from his office in Washington, D.C.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

‘They were traumatized’: How a private equity-associated lender helped precipitate a nursing-home implosion https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001

Who Employs Your Doctor? Increasingly, a Private Equity Firm. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/upshot/private-equity-doctors-offices.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=The%20Upshot

from Applebaum & Batt https://prospect.org/power/private-equity-pillage-grocery-stores-workers-risk/

Here’s What Happens When a For-Profit Company Takes Over Your Local ER https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/25/us-health-care-for-profit-emergency-rooms-physician-turnover

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

Private Equity Pillage: Grocery Stores and Workers At Risk https://prospect.org/power/private-equity-pillage-grocery-stores-workers-risk/

Private Equity is Out of Control and Looting America. This Prosecutor Says We Can Fix It. http://• May 2, 2023 | Business & Industry | Government & Politics | Finance https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/private-equity-is-out-of-control-and-looting-america-this-prosecutor-says-we-can-fix-it

Private Equity Is Gutting America – and Getting Away With It https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/opinion/private-equity.html?searchResultPosition=1

Toys ‘R’ Us Case Is Test of Private Equity in Age of Amazon https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/business/toys-r-us-bankruptcy.html?searchResultPosition=2

‘It left me with nothing’: the debt trap of payday loans https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/jun/02/payday-loans-interest-rates-regulation-minnesota-law

Look at what hedge funds really do – and tell me capitalism is about ‘rewarding risk’ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/25/hedge-funds-capitalism-risk-asset-managers-tax

Asset Management Firms Are Gaining Power Over Housing, Hospitals, Water and More https://truthout.org/articles/asset-management-firms-are-gaining-power-over-housing-hospitals-water-and-more/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=c98960147d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-c98960147d-651106009&mc_cid=c98960147d&mc_eid=f9703b4752

Ian Garrett GROUNDWORKS

GROUNDWORKS travels from traditional acorn gathering spots to the studios where the “Groundworks” performance was rehearsed before being shared at sunrise on Alcatraz—nearly 50 years after the Indians of All Tribes occupied the island and brought attention to Native American rights. Originally initiated by contemporary dance company Dancing Earth Creations, the “Groundworks” project was designed to amplify the oft-forgotten Native presence everywhere in the Americas.

Groundworks weaves together four artists’ stories and their contemporary ways of sharing traditional Indigenous knowledge. By exploring their creative practices, it highlights these Native artists’ contemporary relationships to the Pomo, Ohlone, Tongva, and Wappo/Onastatis territories, languages and traditions. Their efforts to “re-story” the land through creative reclamation are important facets of the Land Back movement.

Bernadette Smith is a Pomo singer, musician, and playwright from the Point Arena Manchester Band of Pomo Indians. She is an activist leader involved with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and brought her whole family to Standing Rock to protect water rights. She is currently working on reclaiming land traditionally used by her tribe for their acorn harvest, and on protecting the source of those acorns—the tan oak—from hack-and-squirt clearing to make way for managed redwoods.

Profiled in the documentary are Ras K’dee, Pomo, a musician with ties to multiple bands in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties; Bernadette Smith, singer and dancer from the Manchester-Point Arena Band of Pomo Indians; Kanyon Sayers-Roods, a multidisciplinary Ohlone artist from Indian Canyon, a sovereign Indian Nation outside of Hollister, California; and L. Frank, a Tongva-Acjachemen artist, tribal scholar, canoe builder, and language advocate.

We spoke with director, producer, writer and cinematographer, Ian Garrett, about his film, GROUNDWORKS, via Skype on May 16, 2023.

GROUNDWORKS will be screening at the Mendocino FilmFestival on June 4 at 3pm in the Festival Tent. A special program with Coastal Pomo dancers will open the program and a panel discussion will follow.

The Pirate Radio Broadcaster Who Occupied Alcatraz and Terrified the FBI https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-pirate-radio-broadcaster-who-occupied-alcatraz-and-terrified-the-fbi?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Red Natural History https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_topic/red_natural_history/?link_id=3&can_id=26389c9ba4e6ef1db60b08fdce8085f1&source=email-duplicate-me-4-section-template-2&email_referrer=email_1839282&email_subject=red-natural-history-a-growing-movement-of-scientists-and-scholars

Maria Niro – THE ART OF UN-WAR: KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO

Maria Niro is a New York City-based artist and award-winning filmmaker whose work has been broadcasted on television and screened in theatres, festivals, and museums worldwide. She is a member of New Day Films, a filmmaker-run distribution company providing social issue documentaries to educators founded by American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist Julia Reichert in 1971.

She serves on the advisory board of More Art, a nonprofit organization that supports collaborations between professional artists and communities to create public art and educational programs that inspire social justice.

As the National Gallery of Art put it for the East Coast Premiere of The Art of Un-War:

“Internationally renowned artist Krzysztof Wodiczko has dedicated his work and life to denouncing militarization and war. Maria Niro’s recent documentary The Art of Un-War follows Wodiczko’s trajectory from his birth in Warsaw during World War II, to his expulsion from Poland by the communist regime, to today. Combining sculptural elements and technology, Wodiczko’s projects often function as interventions in public spaces, disrupting the valorization of state-sanctioned aggression. Since the 1980s, his deft, site-specific projections of images onto the facades of office and government buildings have grown to incorporate recordings of personal stories told by war veterans, refugees, and immigrants, projected directly onto war memorials, often animating the busts of revered historic leaders. Niro documents many of his major works, including The Homeless Vehicle Project (1988–1989), created in collaboration with homeless communities in Montreal, Philadelphia, and New York City; The Hiroshima Projection (1999), projected onto the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan; and the as-yet-unrealized project of transforming Paris’ monument to war, the Arc de Triomphe, into a temporary site for peace activism.”

TOWN DESTROYER: Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman

As a nation, we are in the throes of a re-examination of history, but whose history, and who gets to tell it, and how do we live today with various versions of our history, that were memorialized in the past? How do we best evaluate and live with the impacts of different versions of history and the potential harm and even re-traumatization that a particular version creates?

What role does art play in this process? whose art? and for whom?

These are among the questions addressed by the filmmakers, Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman, in their documentary, TOWN DESTROYER, which screens on Friday, June 2nd, at 1:00 PM at The Coast Cinemas.

You may recall the furor over whether or not to destroy or cover up the 13 panels of the 1930s murals by Popular Front artist, Victor Arnautoff, THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON, at San Francisco’s George Washington High School. Snitow & Kaufman film students, parents, Native American activists, artists of different ethnicities, scholars, and museum directors, all against a background of vivid cinematography of the controversial panels, as well as many other relevant works of art, both at the high school, and elsewhere across the country.

Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman’s films include the award-winning “Company Town,” “Between Two Worlds,” “Thirst”, “Secrets of Silicon Valley”, and “Blacks and Jews.”

Alan was a producer at the KTVU-TV News, the Bay Area Fox affiliate, for 12 years. Before that, he was an award winning News Director at KPFA-FM. He has served on the Boards of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Film Arts Foundation, California Media Collaborative, Food and Water Watch, and much more.

Deborah Kaufman founded and for 13 years was Director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the first and largest independent Jewish film showcase in the world. She has been a Board member of the California Council for the Humanities, the New Israel Fund, and Amnesty International USA. She has been a consultant, programmer, lecturer, and activist with a variety of human rights, multicultural and media arts organizations.

We spoke with Deborah and Alan on May 8, 2023 via Skype.

“Early Days” Pioneer Monument by Frank Happersberger, Installed 1894 in SF Civic Center Plaza

These High School Murals Depict an Ugly History. Should They Go? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/arts/design/george-washington-murals-ugly-history-debated.html?searchResultPosition=1

Think Confederate monuments are racist? Consider pioneer monuments https://theconversation.com/think-confederate-monuments-are-racist-consider-pioneer-monuments-100571

San Franciscans demand removal of anti-native monument https://sf.curbed.com/2017/8/22/16184590/pioneer-monument-confederate-statues

California reparations panel OKs state apology, payments https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/california-reparations-task-force-to-vote-on-18082723.php

David Treuer – The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present https://forthright.media/2019/03/14/david-treuer-the-heartbeat-of-wounded-knee-native-americafrom-1890-present/

Benjamin Madley – AN AMERICAN GENOCIDE: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe 1846-1873 https://forthright.media/2016/10/05/benjamin-madley-an-american-genocide-the-united-states-and-the-california-indian-catastrophe-1846-1873/

Clarence Lusane – TWENTY DOLLARS AND CHANGE: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy https://forthright.media/2023/01/12/clarence-lusane-twenty-dollars-and-change-harriet-tubman-and-the-ongoing-fight-for-racial-justice-and-democracy/

Stan Rushworth – WE ARE THE MIDDLE OF FOREVER: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth https://forthright.media/2022/08/11/stan-rushworth-we-are-the-middle-of-forever-indigenous-voices-from-turtle-island-on-the-changing-earth/

Daniel Golding – CHASING VOICES: The Story of John Peabody Harrington https://forthright.media/2022/05/10/daniel-golding-chasing-voices-the-story-of-john-peabody-harrington/

Gale Anne Hurd MANKILLER https://forthright.media/2018/05/31/gale-anne-hurd-mankiller/

William Hogeland – THE AUTUMN OF THE BLACK SNAKE: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West https://forthright.media/2017/07/19/william-hogeland-the-autumn-of-the-black-snake-the-creation-of-the-u-s-army-and-the-invasion-that-opened-the-west/

JAMIE MACGILLIVRAY: The Renegade’s Journey by John Sayles, 2022

BODY PARTS: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan & Helen Hood Scheer

The documentary, BODY PARTS, traces the evolution of “sex” on-screen from a woman’s perspective, uncovering the uncomfortable realities behind some of the most iconic scenes in cinema history and celebrating the courageous individuals leading the way for change. It’s an eye-opening investigation into the making of Hollywood sex scenes, shedding light on the actors’ real-life experiences, and tracing the legacy of exploitation of women in the entertainment industry, as well as recent hard fought changes in that industry.

On May 1, 2023, we spoke with Director, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, and Producer, Helen Hood Scheer, about BODY PARTS, which will be screening at this year’s Mendocino Film Festival at Crown Hall on Sunday June 4 at 1pm.

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan is an Associate Professor at UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television, where she heads the MFA Directing Documentary concentration. She has been making documentary films that focus on gender and representation for nearly two decades, starting with a 1999 experimental documentary about a blow-up doll (which screened at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, among other venues). Guevara-Flanagan’s documentary and experimental films have screened at the Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, and HotDocs film festivals and the Getty Museum. Her work has been broadcast on PBS and the Sundance Channel, received numerous awards, and been funded by ITVS, the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Institute, Latino Public Broadcasting and California Humanities.

Helen Hood Scheer  is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, freelance producer, and associate professor at California State University Long Beach, where she spearheads the creative nonfiction track and serves as the internship advisor for students in the Department of Film and Electronic Arts. In 2023, she won CSULB’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Throughout her instruction, service, and professional work, Helen is a strong advocate for students. In 2020, she  received the  Advancement of Women Award from the  CSULB President’s Commission on the Status of Women, and both Helen and her students were  featured in Claiming the Director’s Chair, an article expressing the CSU’s commitment to preparing  the next generation of female filmmakers for California’s multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.

Actors’ deal includes pay rises and intimacy co-ordinators, union says https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67387475

Katherine S. Newman MOVING THE NEEDLE: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor

Katherine S. Newman became the Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs of the University of California in January of 2023. She was simultaneously appointed as the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at U. C. Berkeley. Dr. Newman is the author of fifteen books on topics ranging from technical education and apprenticeship, to the sociological study of the working poor in America’s urban centers, middle class economic insecurity under the brunt of recession, and school violence on a mass scale. She has written extensively on the consequences of globalization for youth, on the impact of regressive taxation on the poor, and on the history of American political opinion on the role of government intervention.

Her latest, co-authored with Elizabeth S. Jacobs, a senior fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services and Population at the Urban Institute, is MOVING THE NEEDLE: WHAT TIGHT LABOR MARKETS DO FOR THE POOR, published this month by the University of California Press. We spoke with Dr. Newman on April 24, 2023.

We end this edition of Forthright Radio with audio from the last floor speech that Montana’s first transwoman elected to Montana’s State Legislature, Zooey Zephyr, before she was censured by the necessary 2/3 vote of House on April 26, 2023. Her offense? Calling out that the gender affirming health care they were outlawing would result in deaths, and used the phrase, “blood on their hands.”

Articles pertinent to this edition of Forthright Radio:

Poverty Is the 4th Leading Cause of Death in the US, Research Shows https://truthout.org/articles/poverty-is-the-4th-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us-research-shows/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=0f21dc5882-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-0f21dc5882-651106009&mc_cid=0f21dc5882&mc_eid=f9703b4752

Study: Racism Plays Bigger Role in Black-White Infant Mortality Gap Than Wealth https://truthout.org/articles/racism-not-economics-plays-bigger-role-in-black-white-infant-mortality-gap/

Living on the edge: how the ‘benefits cliff’ holds women back https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/benefits-cliff-housing-vouchers-cost-of-living

Oregon grocery store worker, 91, retires after raising more than $80,000 online https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/27/oregon-winco-betty-grocery-store-worker-retire

Post-WW2 Anti-Fascist Educational Film | Don’t Be a Sucker | 1947 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K6-cEAJZlE

Gianforte’s son one of many lobbying governor against trans bills https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/26/montana-governor-gianforte-lobbied-by-son-to-veto-trans-bills/

A Transgender Lawmaker Is Exiled as Montana G.O.P. Flexes New Power https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/montana-trans-legislature-zephyr.html

Roxanna Asgarian WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

You may recall the horrifying news that hit the airwaves on March 26, 2018 about a van that had driven off the 100 foot cliff on HWY 1 just south of Juan Creek between Rockport and Westport on the north coast of Mendocino County, CA. Bad as the initial reports were, as more was learned about what had actually happened and what led up to it, the horror only grew.

Texas based journalist, Roxanna Asgarian, began investigating the tragedy within a day. Her investigations since have resulted in her book, WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A STORY OF LOVE, DEATH, AND CHILD REMOVAL IN AMERICA, published in March, 2023 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction for books published in 2023.

She writes it as the true crime story that it certainly is, but her primary goal was to uncover the untold stories of the birth families of the six Black children taken from their families, who did NOT want to give them up, and who were making efforts to keep them, when the deeply flawed child welfare system thrust them first into the foster care system, and then fast tracked them into out of state adoptions.

Roxanna Asgarian reports about courts and the law for the Texas Tribune. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Magazine and Texas Monthly, as well as other publications. She received the 2022 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A STORY OF LOVE, DEATH, AND CHILD REMOVAL IN AMERICA. It goes well beyond the earlier, sensationalist reportage by the mainstream press and delves into the systems and history that allowed this murder/suicide to happen. We spoke with her via Skype on April 10, 2023.

Devonte Hart, seen in 2014 hugging a police officer at a Black Lives Matter protest. (Johnny Huu Nguyen/AP)

Tragic as this story of innocent children taken from their birth families by a Child Protection Service system which purports to protect children, it is but one aspect of our society that does NOT protect innocent children.

Once again, another mass shooting at a school ended in the murder and traumatizing of children, this one at the Covenant School in Nashville, TN, which led to protests at the State Legislature, the expulsion of two young black representatives, their unanimous reinstatement to represent their districts, and more diverse voices calling out the politicians only too happy to maintain the status quo.

One mourns the loss of the Hart children, particularly Devonte Hart, whose famous “hug heard around the world” – showing Devonte’s tear streaked face at the age of 14 hugging a white police officer during a tense demonstration protesting the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He, with his “Free Hugs” sign, would have been 20 years old now. What might he have become, had his life not been cut short, his body never found?

The broadcast ended with Cheryl Wheeler’s song, “If It Were Up to Me,” which you can hear using this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op7agdIFOGY. It is sadly even more relevant than when she first recorded it in 1997.

Articles, videos, etc. pertinent to this episode:

Texas removed six Black children from their homes. Their adoptive parents drove them off a cliff. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/14/texas-child-welfare-removal-hart-family-deaths/

Hart family inquest finds parents intentionally killed their 6 children on Mendocino Coast https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/06/hart-family-inquest-finds-parents-intentionally-killed-their-children/

We Were Once a Family’ explores flaws in foster, adoption systems and 6 children’s resulting deaths https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/04/11/we-were-once-family-book-adoption

Friends, neighbors paint uneven picture of the Harts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS6eGzCC4bk

Mountain Shadow Association https://www.mountainshadowassociation.org/

The Doyle Family: Native American Children’s Toy Company & The Family Healing Center https://forthright.media/2019/12/28/the-doyle-family-native-american-childrens-toy-company-the-family-healing-center/

“Aren’t You Guys Tired of Covering This?”: Mom Interrupts Fox News Segment on Nashville School Shooting https://newrepublic.com/post/171414/mom-interrupts-fox-news-segment-nashville-school-shooting

Gregg Popovich Slams GOP With Intense Pregame Speech On Gun Violence https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gregg-popovich-tennessee-house-expelling-democrats_n_643398dae4b0b51a6ce1aa20

Child Gun Deaths Rose 50 Percent in Just 2 Years, Research Finds https://truthout.org/articles/child-gun-deaths-rose-50-percent-in-just-2-years-research-finds/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=d5a023de39-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-d5a023de39-651106009&mc_cid=d5a023de39&mc_eid=f9703b4752

Just 2 Days After Shooting, Republicans Vote to Loosen Gun Law in North Carolina https://truthout.org/articles/just-2-days-after-shooting-republicans-vote-to-loosen-gun-law-in-north-carolina/

South Dakota Governor Says Her Two Year Old Grandchild Already Has Several Guns https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/south-dakota-governor-kristi-noem-grandchild-guns-nra

We’re misunderstanding how child abuse happens — and that has deadly consequences for kids https://www.salon.com/2023/04/09/how-child-abuse-happens/

The Supreme Court will decide the future of the Indian Child Welfare Act https://www.npr.org/2022/11/08/1135190325/the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-future-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act

Supreme Court Held oral Argument on Case Challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act https://ncuih.org/2023/01/31/supreme-court-held-oral-argument-on-case-challenging-the-indian-child-welfare-act/

Montana ICWA bill heads to Senate floor amid controversyMontana ICWA bill heads to Senate floor amid controversy https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/mtleg/montana-icwa-bill-heads-to-senate-floor-amid-controversy/article_ae2099f9-8811-572c-aac7-d033669f82ec.html

Mona Chalabi’s datablog: 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 GOP Embraces the Kyle Rittenhouse Approach to Kindergarten https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/nashville-shooting-desantis-gop-book-bans.html

Philip Bump THE AFTERMATH: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America

Philip Bump is a national columnist for The Washington Post. Prior to that, he led politics coverage for The Atlantic Wire. He focuses on the data behind polls and political rhetoric, as well as writing a weekly newsletter, “How To Read This Chart.”

His first book, THE AFTERMATH: THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABY BOOM AND THE FUTURE OF POWER IN AMERICA, looks at the overlap of the end of the baby boom and the upheaval in American politics and the U.S. economy.

After our interview with Philip Bump, we share excerpts from a conversation with former Congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, from 2014 at the Library of Congress.

At the age of 31 and the mother of two young children, she defeated an incumbent Republican congressman in 1972, and then was re-elected 11 more times before leaving Congress in 1997, disgusted with the obstructionist shenanigans of Newt Gingrich. In 1988 she ran for president of the United States.

Born in 1940, she would be designated as being in The Silent Generation, but she was anything but silent. It was she, who designated Ronald Reagan as the “Teflon President.” She served on the House Armed Services Committee, and you may be surprised by what she has to say about NATO. The final excerpt is from the end of an hour long conversation, responding to a question from the audience asking if she were president, what five things would she do immediately.

She died on March 13, 2023 at the age of 82.

Women’s History Month: Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, Presidential Candidate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MI_bpROH9c

Climate change is the legacy of people over the age of 60. That’s why we must protest https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/27/older-people-climate-protest-banks-ipcc

‘We have money and power’: older Americans to blockade banks in climate protest https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/19/climate-crisis-protest-environment-third-act-bill-mckibben

Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/

In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/climate/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html

Patricia Schroeder, Feminist Force in Congress, Dies at 82 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/obituaries/pat-schroeder-dead.html

Gordon E. Moore, Intel Co-Founder Behind Moore’s Law, Dies at 94 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/technology/gordon-moore-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

The Global Transformation of Christianity Is Here https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/opinion/christianity-global-demographics.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Guest%20Essays