David Daley ANTIDEMOCRATIC: INSIDE THE FAR RIGHT’S 50 YEAR PLOT TO CONTROL AMERICAN ELECTIONS

David Daley is the author of the national bestseller Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, which has been credited for kick-starting the national drive to end gerrymandering; and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy.

He returned to discuss his assiduously researched, well written and important latest book, ANTIDEMOCRATIC: INSIDE THE FAR RIGHT’S 50 YEAR PLOT TO CONTROL AMERICAN ELECTIONS, published by Mariner Books. It follows on the themes of those earlier books, and it couldn’t be coming at a more crucial time in our nation’s history’s, as we reel towards this tumultuous 2024 election, as democracy itself seems to be on the brink.

In addition to his books, David’s journalism has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian, and he is the former editor in chief of Salon.com, as well as a senior fellow at FairVote. He has taught journalism and political science at Wesleyan University, Boston College, Smith College and the University of Georgia. We spoke with him via Skype on September 26, 2024.

Links to some articles pertinent to this interview:

There’s a danger that the US supreme court, not voters, picks the next president https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/17/us-supreme-court-republican-judges-next-president Millions of Americans will vote this fall – but six Republican justices might have the final say, in a Bush v Gore redux

There’s a fair way to ensure third-party candidates don’t ‘spoil’ the US election https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/28/presidential-election-ranked-choice-voting Two states have already adopted ranked-choice voting, a nonpartisan fix to our outdated electoral system

The election deniers with a chokehold on Georgia’s state election board https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/georgia-board-of-elections-election-deniers

An ‘Utterly Bonkers’ Miscarriage of Justice in Texas https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/opinion/texas-erma-wilson-marcellus-williams.html

David S. Tatel VISION: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice

In this edition of Forthright Radio our guest is retired Federal Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, David S. Tatel. After many years as a civil rights attorney in private practice and public service, he was nominated by President Bill Clinton in June of 1994 to the seat vacated by Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when she ascended to the Supreme Court. After only a one hour hearing and unanimous vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was confirmed by the full Senate in a voice vote. In the 1970s, he was the founding Director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and then director of the national Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. During the Carter Administration, he served as the Director of the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. By that time, he was fully blind, after the gradually progressing deterioration of his vision due to the genetic condition, retinitis pigmentosa.

His book, VISION: A MEMOIR OF BLINDNESS AND JUSTICE, was published by Little, Brown and Company in June of 2024. It’s the story of one individual’s journey in the service of justice through many historical moments – from John F. Kennedy, who inspired him to the nobility of public service, through the Donald J. Trump’s administration’s harangues against “The Deep State” and the mockery of the very idea of service, to his decision to retire from the bench during the Biden administration, so as not to repeat the strategically tragic decision of his friend, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, not to retire. As you will hear in this interview, the lack of judicial restraint by the Republican appointees of the current Supreme Court, and their ideological overturning of well established precedents in civil rights and environmental cases contributed to his decision to retire when he did from that position he loved.

But it’s not just a memoir of his legal experiences or philosophy. It’s a very human love story – for his wife of almost 60 years, his four children, and most recently, his guide dog, Vixen, as well as a memoir of his blindness, vulnerability, and rising above disability to his decades of public service.

We spoke with Judge Tatel via Skype from his home in rural Virginia on August 19, 2024.

Hamilton Nolan THE HAMMER: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor

Hamilton Nolan is a labor journalist, author, and organizer, who has been writing about labor issues for over 2 decades. As well as writing for In These Times, the Guardian and elsewhere, he organized the first on-line writers union In 2015, while working at the Gawker site. He has a substack blog under the tag, How Things Work.

His book, THE HAMMER: POWER, INEQUALITY, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF LABOR, was published by Hachette in February, 2024. We spoke with him on August 5, 2024 via Skype.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

Unions and Antitrust Are Peanut Butter and Jelly https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/unions-and-antitrust-are-peanut-butter

How the “Working Class Republican” Scam Works https://substack.com/home/post/p-146882549

Capitalism’s Washing Machine https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/capitalisms-washing-machine

You Patsy https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/you-patsy

‘Stand your butt up’: Republican senator challenges Teamsters chief to fight during hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWN0zbjdDVA

A Transcript of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ Speech About Our “Second American Revolution” https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/a-transcript-of-heritage-foundation

Onward, Christian Soldiers—To War! https://inthesetimes.com/article/national-conservatism-conference-2024-trump-gop

Housing Is The Economy https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/housing-is-the-economy

Dissident Group Wins Amazon Union Leadership Vote https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/business/economy/amazon-labor-union-election.html

Trump claims he’s pro-worker. Project 2025 will gut labor rights https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/04/project-2025-trump-unions-overtime-pay

US chip factory workers say it’s a ‘struggle to survive’ on their wages as industry booms https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/05/chip-factory-workers-wages

13,500 US hotel workers hold strike votes over pay and conditions https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/06/hotel-workers-strike-vote

Randy Kehler, 80, Dies; Peace Activist Inspired Release of Pentagon Papers https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/us/politics/randy-kehler-dead.html

High School Project on Genocide Was a Portent of Real-Life Events https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/education/23education.html

Timothy Winegard THE HORSE: A GALLOPING HISTORY OF HUMANITY

In this episode we share our interview with best selling author and Colorado Mesa University History Professor, Timothy Winegard. His latest book, THE HORSE: A GALLOPING HISTORY OF HUMANITY, is being published by Dutton on July 30, 2024. His five earlier books include THE MOSQUITO: A HUMAN HISTORY OF OUR DEADLIEST PREDATOR; THE FIRST WORLD OIL WAR; and FOR KING AND KANATA: CANADIAN INDIANS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

We spoke with Professor Winegard about his fascinating book, THE HORSE: A GALLOPING HISTORY OF HUMANITY, on July 24, 2024, but a warning: the past two weeks since our most recent Forthright Radio had been characterized by technical breakdowns on several fronts. Without going into too many details, our Forthright Radio email address of many years became completely inaccessible on July 10th. Since July 12th, the computer had been elsewhere being worked on in the hope of retrieving the email information from it, but without success. Mere hours before our interview was scheduled,we got the computer back, but software we had been using for years, and which had been working when the computer was relinquished, no longer worked.

The reason we’re sharing this is because the audio software with which we record interviews was malfunctioning. We could hear and record Professor Winegard, but he couldn’t hear us, nor would the equipment record us. So, we had to do the interview recording him via Skype, and his listening to our questions via our ancient, failing land line phone. Bad as the audio quality of our questions is, Professor Winegard’s voice is of the quality you have come to expect. We are especially grateful to him for his patience and willingness to engage under such conditions.

The good news is that after our interview, the problems were located and remediated, so with any luck, this won’t happen again.

As for the Forthright Radio email address, that is sadly gone, never to return. However, we can still be contacted via the program’s website forthright.media contact page.

The Return of the Ojibwe Pony, the Midwest’s Native Horse https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/return-of-the-ojibwe-pony-the-midwests-native-horse?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

Amanda Jones THAT LIBRARIAN: The Fight Against Book Banning in America

What if you attended your local small town public library board meeting to speak out against book censorship and soon found your reputation smeared by people from an entirely different county with lurid and untrue allegations that go viral, alleging that you advocate teaching anal sex to 11 year olds?

That’s what happened in July of 2022 to award winning Middle School librarian, Amanda Jones, which she writes about in her forthcoming book, THAT LIBRARIAN: THE FIGHT AGAINST BOOK BANNING IN AMERICA. Among her many awards are the 2021 School Librarian of the Year and the 2023 American Association of School Librarians’ Intellectual Freedom Award, as well as the American Library Association’s Paul Howard Award for Courage.

The group who singled her out of the thirty or so other people who spoke against book censorship at that Livingston Parish public library meeting, is Citizens for a New Louisiana, whose leader is Michael Lunsford. His confederate, Ryan Thames, operates the Facebook page, “Bayou State of Mind,” which posted mean, fallacious memes about her repeatedly, so she sued them for defamation of character.

We spoke with Amanda Jones on July 5, 2024 via Skype, but before we share our conversation, we begin with what she actually said on July 22, 2022, that made her the focus of the ire of reactionary, Christian Nationalist agitators.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

Librarian Fired in Books Dispute to Receive $700,000 Settlement https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/us/wyoming-library-settlement-book-bans-terri-lesley.html

2021 School Librarian of the Year Amanda Jones Keeps Fighting, Files Appeal of Court Decision http://2021 School Librarian of the Year Amanda Jones Keeps Fighting, Files Appeal of Court Decision

Georgia lawsuit challenges anti-LGBTQ+ book bans over ‘real harms’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/03/georgia-lawsuit-book-bans

Arkansas Law Criminalizing Librarians Ruled Unconstitutional https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-book-ban-librarians_n_6769ee23e4b04743daf033a9

Florida 7-year-old compelled to testify in book ban lawsuit https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/23/florida-book-ban-child-testify-00170618

What Was the First Banned Book in History? https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-was-the-first-banned-book-in-history?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Trump and Project 2025 are attacking the Department of Education. How might they reshape US schools? https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/04/trump-project-2025-heritage-foundation-education-department

How a Patriotic Painting Became the Internet’s Soap Box https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/style/norman-rockwell-freedom-of-speech-meme.html

Your Religious Values Are Not American Values https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/opinion/christian-nationalist-religion-america.html

Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Requires Public Schools to Teach the Bible https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/us/oklahoma-public-schools-bible.html

Young girl faints as Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signs controversial Ten Commandments bill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_XBSWQwyMQ

Louisiana now requires the 10 Commandments to be displayed in classrooms. It’s not the only terrifying state law https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/commandments-louisiana-laws-religion-republicans-b2572077.html

Featured image of Amanda Jones above: Emily Kask/NBC News

Zoë Schlanger THE LIGHT EATERS: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

Zoë Schlanger is an award winning environmental journalist and reporter with The Atlantic. Her book, THE LIGHT EATERS: HOW THE UNSEEN WORLD OF PLANT INTELLIGENCE OFFERS A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE ON EARTH, was published in May 2024 by Harper.

We are at a revolutionary moment in the field of botany, a veritable paradigm shift for those who pay attention to such things, and Zoë Schlanger chronicles the remapping of scientific frontiers, as one assumption after another is being proven not only to be false, but ignorant and arrogant. Along with the scientists she interviews, she explores questions such as do plants communicate with each other and even other species? Can they recognize and favor their own kin? Can they respond to visual and aural stimuli, store memories and learn? Are they conscious and intelligent? How is any of this possible lacking a brain? We asked about these and other questions when we spoke with her via Skype on June 24, 2024.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

‘Tiny Crime Fighters With Wings’: Bees Go to Work on a Virginia ‘Body Farm’ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/science/body-donation-farm-virginia-death-scent.html

Scientists Find the Largest Known Genome Inside a Small Plant https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/science/largest-genome-fern-plant.html

Are animals conscious? How new research is changing minds https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo

Videos Show Ants Amputating Nest Mates’ Legs to Save Their Lives https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/science/ants-amputation-legs.html

A New Book About Plant Intelligence Highlights the Messiness of Scientific Change https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/a-new-book-about-plant-intelligence-highlights-the-messiness-of-scientific-change?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_Free_061224&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=63b1f92250183f0ae10c0ba9&cndid=72363063&hasha=84d21cdfe18d0cd11a658c9d53f6399e&hashb=06e188f77cae68a6da1a2a975a274177f3b8a307&hashc=00628266d9531298e9eb7ccaabcc24f623d796b2c5e9e46cfbdc3eb12203466e&esrc=&mbid=CRMNYR012019

When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/science/moths-hearing-plant-sounds.html

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

Elaine McMillion Sheldon: KING COAL & Josh Margolin: THELMA

This is our final Radio Goes to the Movies series before the 2024 Mendocino Film Festival, in which we feature two films that are screening today in the Matheson. First we speak with Elaine McMillion Sheldon about her film, KING COAL, and in the 2nd segment, we speak with Josh Margolin about his film, THELMA, which begins at 25:16.

You might think, oh I don’t want to see a film about coal, but this is a very artistic, lyrical tapestry of a place and people. KING COAL meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped, and the myths it has created. This is a spectacularly beautiful and deeply moving immersion into Central Appalachia, where coal is not just a resource, but a way of life.While deeply situated in the communities under the reign of King Coal, where Elaine McMillion Sheldon has lived and worked her entire life, the film transcends time and place, emphasizing the ways in which all are connected through an immersive mosaic of belonging, ritual, myth, and imagination. Emerging from the long shadows of the coal mines, KING COAL untangles the pain from the beauty, and illuminates the innately human capacity for change.We spoke with her via Skype on May 28th, 2024.

Inspired by a real-life experience of director Josh Margolin’s own grandmother, THELMA puts a clever spin on movies like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, shining the spotlight on an elderly grandmother as an unlikely action hero. With infectious humor, Margolin employs the familiar tropes of the action genre in hilarious, age-appropriate ways to tackle aging with agency. In the first leading film role of her 70-year career, Squibb portrays the strong-willed Thelma with grit and determination, demonstrating that she is more than capable of taking care of business — despite what her daughter Gail (Parker Posey), son-in-law Alan (Clark Gregg), or grandson Danny might believe.

This edition ends with excerpts from Congressman Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) New York Times piece from Nay 29, 2024 headlined, How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/opinion/alito-thomas-recuse-trump-jan-6.html

The Supreme Court Is Going Off the Rails. It’s About to Get So Much Worse. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/supreme-court-going-off-the-rails-amicus-end-of-term-june.html

Yael Bridge THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD & Lois Lipman FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO

This edition of Radio Goes to the Movies features two films that are screening at the Mendocino Film Festival, THE BIG SCARY ‘S’ WORD and FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO.

In our first segment, we spoke with Yael Bridge, who produced the award winning, Left on Purpose, and Saving Capitalism, starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in Business and Economics. She was also the director of productions at Inequality Media, making viral videos that tackle complex political issues and gained over 100 million views in 2016. She lives in Oakland, where she works as a filmmaker and film educator. Her film, THE BIG SCARY ‘S’ WORD, which she directed and produced is screening on Sunday June 2nd, at the Matheson.

In our second segment, we spoke with Lois Lipman about her film, FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO, which tells the story that the blockbuster film, Oppenheimer, leaves out – about the nuclear victims of the first nuclear detonation in history, who lived in the villages around the Trinity test site. They were not warned, evacuated, nor informed after the explosion of any danger, much less protected from the fallout. The interview with Lois begins at 27:30.

For many years Lois Lipman researched, developed, and field produced films for 60 Minutes worldwide —from India, Gaza, Guantanamo Bay to Paris and Saint Petersburg. Her films won numerous awards including an Emmy and a Peabody. Til Death Do Us Part: Dowry Deaths in India won Best Documentary of the Year from American Women in Television and Radio, and lead to the first arrests and convictions for this crime against women in India.
After Lois left 60 Minutes, she worked internationally for the BBC, Channel 4 – UK, and PBS. After teaching at the University of Maryland, Lois returned to her home in New Mexico, where she committed to making FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO, a film that exposes the injustices suffered, and continuing to be suffered, for almost 8 decades by New Mexican Downwinders. It screens on Sunday, June 2, at 10:30a.m. at The Coast Cinemas.

Special thanks to Paul Pino for permission to include his anthem, “It Ain’t Over Til We Win,” from FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO.

Mike Johnson Urged to Advance Bipartisan Bill For Nuclear Test Victims https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-johnson-nuclear-test-victims_n_66462dcee4b098d9bd48f148

Maureen Gosling: The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane/ Sabrine Keane & Kate Dumke: Preconceived

It’s the merry month of May, and that means it’s time for our “Radio Goes to the Movies” editions of Forthright Radio. For the past 16 years, we have devoted our programs in the month before the Mendocino Film Festival to featuring interviews with filmmakers whose films are screening the first week in June at the Festival. Today, we feature two interviews. Our first is with Maureen Gosling about her wonderful film, THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE.

Maureen Gosling, director and editor of THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE – the folk, blues and jazz singer, international social justice activist and recording star, wife, mother of three, feminist, record producer, unwavering maverick and general good troublemaker on the road when she was 90 years old. She is turning 97 on Sunday, May 12th! THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE is an underground history of a singer-agitator, whose unbending principles guide her through notoriety, obscurity, and finally, music legend.

In the second segment, an interview with Sabrine Keane and Kate Dumke, directors of the documentary, PRECONCEIVED, which investigates the question: Where does someone turn these days when facing an unplanned pregnancy? It’s an insightful look into the rise of crisis pregnancy centers proliferating across the United States, and explores the complex role of deception, finances, faith, and privacy…

Barbara Dane’s songs, which end this edition, Working People’s Blues and Resistance Hymn, are included courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recording, with special thanks to Will Griffin for permission to do so.

Articles pertinent to these interviews:

Texas man asks court for permission to investigate former partner’s out-of-state abortion https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2024/05/03/texas-man-asks-court-for-permission-to-investigate-former-partners-out-of-state-abortion/

Dallas church opens pregnancy center with abortion resources https://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/2024/04/29/dallas-church-opens-pregnancy-center-with-abortion-resources/

Study Links Abortion Restrictions and Intimate Partner Homicide https://www.commondreams.org/news/abortion-bans-kill-women?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=73db0d213b-Top+News%3A+Wed.+5%2F8%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D