Category Archives: Uncategorized

David Daley Texas Redistricting & Our Democracy

When Governor Greg Abbot called The Texas Legislature into special session ostensibly to deal with the aftermath of the devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River, but instead listed first on the agenda a highly unusual mid-decade redistricting to re-gerrymander the already gerrymandered redistricting after the 2020 Census, with the stated intention of providing 5 more Republican seats in Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm election; and After enough Democratic members fled Texas to deprive the Republican majority of the necessary quorum to do this, we invited Dave Daley back to help us understand what the heck is going on.

We had him on in September, 2024 when his book, Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections, came out; and in 2022 right after the midterms; and in 2020 when his book, Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy, was published.

We spoke with him on August 5, 2025 via Zoom.

Also included are excerpts from an interview with Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works. Here is a link to the full interview: https://forthright.media/2025/08/06/alex-lawson-90th-anniversary-of-the-social-security-act/

Links to our earlier interviews with David Daley: https://forthright.media/2024/09/27/david-daley-antidemocratic-inside-the-far-rights-50-year-plot-to-control-american-elections/

From 2020: https://forthright.media/2020/06/06/david-daley-unrigged-how-americans-are-battling-back-to-save-democracy/

From 2022: https://forthright.media/2022/11/12/david-daley-paul-pierson-post-midterms-2022/

Articles, etc. pertinent to this interview:

Judge Rules Utah Must Redraw Its Congressional Map, Frustrating Republicans https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/us/utah-congress-gerrymander-redistricting.html

State voting rights acts recognize proportional ranked choice voting as a way to protect voters https://fairvote.org/state-voting-rights-acts-recognize-proportional-ranked-choice-voting-as-a-way-to-protect-voters/

Gov. Greg Abbott’s options to force a redistricting vote are more limited than they appear https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/04/greg-abbott-texas-democrats-redistricting-00492100

California moves to dismantle GOP map — and Trump’s grip https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/04/california-fires-back-at-texas-redistricting-00493314

Federal court says Alabama must use map that creates 2nd Black majority district https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/07/federal-court-alabama-must-use-map-black-majority-district-00499369

The America We Knew Is Rapidly Slipping Away https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/opinion/columnists/friedman-trump-labor-firing.html

The Supreme Court Has Finally Found a President It Likes https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/opinion/supreme-court-trump-administration.html

The Origins of the Political Power Grab in Texas https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/us/politics/texas-redistricting-politics.html

Group releases text of proposed Montana Constitutional amendment to curb dark money https://dailymontanan.com/2025/08/01/group-releases-text-of-proposed-montana-constitutional-amendment-to-curb-dark-money/

Donald Trump’s golf tab for taxpayers continues to skyrocket. Here’s the eye-popping new estimate https://www.pennlive.com/news/2025/08/donald-trumps-golf-tab-for-taxpayers-continues-to-skyrocket-heres-the-eye-popping-new-estimate.html

Democrats sound alarm over Trump’s reported $1bn plan to retrofit gifted Qatari jet https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/07/trumps-qatar-jet-retrofitting-democrats-letter

Henry Giroux: Expanding Democracy or “Unified Reich?”

We were especially grateful and delighted to interview Henry Giroux in this last minute conversation, because he generously agreed to join us with mere hours notice beforehand, when our originally scheduled guest had to postpone due to illness.

Author and public intellectual, Henry Giroux, is Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy and Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest at McMaster University. He has written more than 65 books since his first book, Ideology, Culture and the Process of Schooling, was published in 1981. He has always been generous with us with his time over the years, as he published books such as Zombie Politics in the Age of Casino Capitalism; Disposable Youth: Racialized Memories, and the Culture of Cruelty; The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America’s Disimagination Machine; Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle; America at War with Itself; American Nightmare: The Challenge of US Authoritarianism; and The Terror of the Unforeseen.

He last joined us when his book, INSURRECTIONS: EDUCATION IN AN AGE OF COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS, was published by Bloomsbury Press in January, 2023.

Bloomsbury will be re-releasing in updated form two of his earliest books: Theory and Resistance in Education, originally published in 1988, and Teachers as Intellectuals from 1983. We began our conversation by congratulating him about this.

Articles pertinent to this conversation can be accessed here:

The neoliberal university faces a crisis: This generation could change everything https://www.salon.com/2024/06/08/the-neoliberal-university-faces-rebellion-this-generation-could-change-everything/

Mainstream Media Obscure the Threat Posed by Trump’s Authoritarianism https://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-justice/disimagination-machines

Poisoning the American Mind: Student Protests Against the War on Gaza in the Age of the New McCarthyism https://www.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/poisoning-the-american-mind

Silence Is Dangerous in the Current Age of Rising Fascism in the US https://truthout.org/articles/silence-is-dangerous-in-the-current-age-of-rising-fascism-in-the-us

Assassins of Memory: Lessons from the Attacks on Biden’s Forgetfulness https://www.laprogressive.com/election-reform-campaigns/assassins-of-memory

Trump told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests, deport demonstrators https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/27/trump-israel-gaza-policy-donors/

Ruth Ben-Ghiat Discusses Project 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnjdKuQAuq8&t=5s

Heather Cox Richardson’s Politics Chat: June 11, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EvFEjedw-8

Held v State of Montana Opening & Closing Arguments

Since the historic Held v. State of Montana trial began on June 12, 2023, in the Lewis and Clark County District Court in Helena, MT, Judge Kathy Seeley presiding, we have been recording and archiving the audio to preserve the record, to inform and allow listeners to hear for what transpired.

For the first time in the United States, youth plaintiffs were able to present their case in a court of law, that the state of Montana was denying them their inalienable constitutional rights under Article II Section 3 of the Montana State Constitution

“to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life’s basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways.” ….. were being denied and violated by the policies and actions of their government.

Further, that The State was in violation of their responsibilities as required under Article IX, Environment and Natural Resources, Section 1. Protection and Improvement that “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations. Section 2. The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty. and Section 3. The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources. ”

In this edition of Ecotones, we share the opening arguments given in Held v State of Montana on Monday, June 12, 2023, as well as the closing arguments from Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Here is a list of the unedited testimonies of witnesses in this trial in chronological order of their appearance:

Mae Nan Ellingson http://kgvm.org/show/held-mae-nan-ellingson-testimony-6-12-23/

Ricki Held http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-ricki-held-testimony-6-12-23/

Dr. Steven Running http://kgvm.org/show/held-dr-steve-running-testimony-6-12-23/

Grace Gibson-Snyder http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-grace-testimony/

Eva http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-eva-testimony-6-12-23/

Dr. Cathy Whitlock http://kgvm.org/show/held-dr-cathy-whitlock-testimony-6-13-23/

Mica http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-mica-testimony-6-13-23/

Dr. Daniel Fagre http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-dr-dan-fagre-6-13-23/

Badger Busse http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-badge-testimony-6-13-23/

Dr. Lori Byron http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-dr-lori-byron-testimony-6-13-23/

Dr. Shane Doyle http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-shane-doyle-testimony-6-14-23/

Michael Durglo, Jr. http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-michael-durglo-jr/

Sariel Sandoval http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-sariel-sandoval-testimony-6-14-23/

Taleah Hernández http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-taleah-hernandez-testimony-6-14-23/

Georgianna Fischer http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-georgianna-fischer-testimony-6-14-23/

Kian Tanner http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-kian-tanner-testimony-6-15-23/

Anne Hedges http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-anne-hedges-testimony-6-15-23/

Claire Vlases http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-claire-vlases-testimony-6-15-23/

Peter Erickson http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-peter-erickson-testimony-6-15-23/

Mark Jacobson http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-mark-jacobson-testimony-6-16-23/

Olivia V. http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-olivia-v-testimony-6-16-23/

Dr. Lise Van Susteren http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-lise-van-susteren-testimony-6-16-23/

Lander Busse http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-lander-busse-testimony-6-16-23/

Christopher Dorrington & Sonja Nowakowski http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-day-6-christopher-dorrington-sonja-nowakowski/

Sonja Nowakowski & Dr. Terry Anderson https://forthright.media/2023/06/20/held-v-state-of-montana-day-6-part-2-cross-examination-of-sonja-nowakowski-final-witness-dr-terry-anderson/

Reece Jones NOBODY IS PROTECTED: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States

Reece Jones is a Professor of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. His latest book, NOBODY IS PROTECTED: HOW THE BORDER PATROL BECAME THE MOST DANGEROUS POLICE FORCE IN THE UNITED STATES, is published by Counterpoint Press.

He is the editor-in-chief of the journal, Geopolitics, and co-editor of the Routledge Geopolitics Book Series with Klaus Dodds. He is best know for his work on border walls, the militarization of borders, and the rise in migrant deaths. His earlier books include Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move ; Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement; and Placing the Border in Everyday Life . Among his numerous awards is a Guggenheim Fellowship.

In NOBODY IS PROTECTED: HOW THE BORDER PATROL BECAME THE MOST DANGEROUS POLICE FORCE IN THE UNITED STATES, he traces the history of the Border Patrol, from its creation, quietly tucked into The Labor Appropriation Act of 1924. He writes “Its sole mission was to enforce the new eugenics-derived rules about who could enter the United States.” For most of its existence it was a small, underfunded agency, a mere 1,500 agents in the 1970s, until the 21st century, when it has become “a modern, sophisticated paramilitary force of over19,000 agents that asserts the legal right to sweep people off the streets of an American city without a warrant or even probable cause that a crime was committed.” Citizens and noncitizen alike. As Justice Thurgood Marshall noted, NOBODY IS PROTECTED. We spoke with Reece Jones on September 20, 2022.

We end the program with the poem with which Amanda Gorman opened the 2022 United Nations General Assembly on September 19, 2022.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

Arrests at Southwestern Border Exceed 2 Million in a Year for the First Time https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/us-border-arrests.html

‘The numbers kept going’: the forensic office identifying human remains at the border https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/19/arizona-migrants-remains-border-forensics

The Border Patrol Invited the Press to Watch It Blow Up a National Monument https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/border-wall-construction-organ-pipe-explosion/

“This Is America Motherfucker”: Witnesses Describe Border Patrol Killing of Mexican Migrant https://theintercept.com/2022/05/12/border-patrol-migrant-killing-coverup/

Border Patrol Agents Are Trashing Sikh Asylum-Seekers’ Turbans https://theintercept.com/2022/08/02/sikh-turban-border-patrol/

A Pastor’s Legal Fight Against CBP Exposes a Reckless Surveillance Operation https://theintercept.com/2022/03/06/cbp-border-surveillance-migrant-caravan/

U.S. poet Amanda Gorman opens 2022 U.N. General Assembly week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf3xEgVsgJo

Matthew Rozsa: How the MAGA Crowd Is Motivated by Aesthetics, Not Ideas

Matthew Rozsa is a political blogger and staff-writer for Salon.com. Since 2012, In addition to covering politics, he has written about American history, social justice causes, popular culture, and the concerns of the high-functioning autistic community. Toward that end, he appeared on Sesame Street, where he interviewed Elmo and Julia, a character who also has autism.

At a time when American democracy is weathering grave challenges to the peaceful transfer of government, where the constitutionally required meetings of the Electoral College in numerous states had to be conducted in secret, due to credible threats of violence by those seeking to overturn the certified votes, Matthew Rozsa has a lot to say of what is happening and how it has come to this.

At the end, high school Head Soccer Coach, Hunter Terry, reads his Letter to the Editor, “Our ‘American values’ include knowing how to lose,” published in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on December 16, 2020,

Head Soccer Coach, Hunter Terry

Articles cited in this interview include:

Trump the fascist artist: How the MAGA crowd is motivated by aesthetics, not ideas https://www.salon.com/2020/12/05/trump-the-fascist-artist-how-the-maga-crowd-is-motivated-by-aesthetics-not-ideas/

Why the 2020 election looks a lot like 1876 — with one crucial difference https://www.salon.com/2020/11/07/why-the-2020-election-looks-a-lot-like-1876-with-one-crucial-difference/

It’s not the first time that an outgoing president refused to work with an incoming one https://www.salon.com/2020/11/29/its-not-the-first-time-that-an-outgoing-president-refused-to-work-with-an-incoming-one/

There are economic reasons that Trump’s coup attempt won’t work, experts say https://www.salon.com/2020/11/15/there-are-economic-reasons-that-trumps-coup-attempt-wont-work-experts-say/

The internet has become captured by the right. The Gravel Institute is trying to take it back https://www.salon.com/2020/11/29/the-internet-has-become-captured-by-the-right-the-gravel-institute-is-trying-to-take-it-back/

Conservative women often don’t perceive sexism as a social problem. Here’s why https://www.salon.com/2020/11/28/conservative-women-often-dont-perceive-sexism-as-a-social-problem-heres-why

Biden’s economic adviser picks are underwhelming the left, to say the least https://www.salon.com/2020/12/07/biden-neoliberal-picks-for-economic-advisers-neera-tanden-brian-deese/

Rebekah Jones, Florida’s COVID-19 whistleblower, says Gov. DeSantis has health officials “terrified” https://www.salon.com/2020/12/11/rebekah-jones-floridas-covid-19-whistleblower-says-gov-desantis-has-health-officials-terrified/

Trump Has Never Believed in Democracy https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/13/opinion/donald-trump-election.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Our ‘American values’ include knowing how to lose https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/letters_to_editor/our-american-values-include-knowing-how-to-lose/article_af157cc7-3d47-5716-bccd-29acb6e9edb6.html

Donald Trump and the Aesthetics of Fascism https://inthesetimes.com/article/donald-trump-and-the-aesthetics-of-fascism

Trump won’t attend Biden’s inauguration: Why that’s ominous after his Capitol siege https://www.salon.com/2021/01/11/trump-wont-attend-bidens-inauguration-why-thats-ominous-after-his-capitol-siege/

Sarah Chayes ON CORRUPTION IN AMERICA and What’s at Stake

Sarah Chayes is an award winning journalist, author, former senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and special advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sarah Chayes. Her latest book is ON CORRUPTION IN AMERICA AND WHAT IS AT STAKE, published by Knopf.

Her fluency in French, Arabic and Pashto, not only allowed her to be an NPR reporter in Paris, North Africa, and the Balkans from 1996 to 2002, but after 9/11 she reported from Afghanistan. In 2002, she left reporting to contribute to rebuilding that country. She arrived in Kandahar two days after the Fall of the Taliban and lived there til 2009, where she helped establish the Argand Cooperative in 2005, and became intimately acquainted with kleptocracy.

In 2010, Sarah Chayes became a special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. In this capacity, she contributed to strategic US policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring. Her previous books include The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban and Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security.

Opinion | The Taliban Is Vulnerable. Here’s How to Seize the Moment https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/13/the-taliban-is-weaker-than-we-think-520919

Robert Jay Lifton LOSING REALITY: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindest of Political and Religious Zealotry

Robert Jay Lifton is a nonegenarian psychiatrist, author, and psychohistorian. In his long life, he has studied and written about the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence. In addition to his theory of thought reform, he was an early proponent of psychohistorical techniques, and he was instrumental in the inclusion of Post traumatic Stress Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder. He coined the term, psychic numbing. In 1953, he began interviewing US servicemen who had been prisoners of war during the Korean War, as well as others who had been in Chinese prisons after 1951. He published THOUGHT REFORM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM: A STUDY OF BRAINWASHING IN CHINA. Among his other books are DEATH IN LIFE: SURVIVORS OF HIROSHIMA; HOME FROM THE WAR: VIETNAM VETERANS – NEITHER VICTIMS NOR EXECUTIONERS; and THE NAZI DOCTORS: MEDICAL KILLING AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE.

His latest book is LOSING REALITY: ON CULTS, CULTISM AND THE MINDSET OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS ZEALOTRY. We spoke with Dr. Lifton on October 19, 2020.

Robert Jay Lifton, Psychiatrist Drawn to Humanity’s Horrors, Dies at 99 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/obituaries/robert-jay-lifton-dead.html

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton Dies at 99; Explored Human Darkness, from Nazi Doctors to Hiroshima https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/8/remembering_robert_jay_lifton_archival_interview

Robert Jay Lifton on the Apocalyptic Twins of Nuclear and Climate Threats & Reflections on Survival https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/13/robert_jay_lifton_on_the_apocalyptic

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on Duty to Warn: Trump’s “Relation to Reality” is Dangerous to Us All https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/13/psychiatrist_robert_jay_lifton_of_duty

Robert Jay Lifton on How Climate Change Joins Nuclear War in Threatening Human Survival https://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/7/robert_jay_lifton_on_how_climate

Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki https://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/9/atomic_cover_up_the_hidden_story

Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation With The World https://www.democracynow.org/2004/1/5/superpower_syndrome_americas_apocalyptic_confrontation_with

Jon Tester GROUNDED: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America

Jake Laperrruque INJUSTICE: Tracking BIll Barr’s Misconduct as Attorney General

In addition to being the only working farmer in the US Senate, and an organic farmer at that, he has now written a memoir, GROUNDED: A SENATOR’S LESSONS ON WINNING BACK RURAL AMERICA, just published by Ecco Press.

Jon Tester entered the US Senate in 2006 and was re-elected for a third term in 2018, in spite of having been the recipient of Donald Trump’s ire for having announced the unsuitability of his nominee for Director of Veterans Affairs, his personal physician, Dr. Ronald Jackson, because more than two dozen Whistle blowers had reported serious, credible problems with Dr. Jackson’s nomination. After Jackson withdrew his name, Trump flew to Montana four times to campaign against Senator Tester, Donald Trump, Jr. came four other times, and Vice President Pence also came, each determined to defeat Jon Tester. However, notwithstanding the fact that Trump had won the state of Montana in 2016 by 20 points, not only did Senator Tester get re-elected in 2018, but by a larger percentage of the vote than in any of his previous elections.

In these polarized times, when power trumps propriety, when those who serve are seen as suckers and losers, when science and good sense are subsumed in phantasmagorical conspiracies, there are those few who remain true to their roots, who not only believe in democracy, but struggle to maintain it against ever increasing odds. Such a one is Senator Tester. We recorded this interview on September 23, 2020.

Jake LaPerruque is Senior Counsel of The Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight, POGO. POGO is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and when the government fails to serve the public, or silences those who report wrongdoing.

They published Jake LaPerruque’s article, Injustice: Tracking Bill Barr’s Misconduct as Attorney General, on September 25, 2020. It examines William Barr’s tenure since being confirmed as Attorney General of the United States on Feb. 14, 2019, identifying what they call a long string of actions that constitute serious misconduct, and may inflict lasting damage to the Justice Department. These actions generally fall into four key categories of misconduct that are antithetical to the department’s responsibilities to the public and to the Constitution. Namely, Barr has on numerous occasions interfered with impartial prosecutions, prioritized politics over justice, undermined the independent special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and hindered congressional oversight.