30 years later, Waco siege still resonates – especially among anti-government extremists

  Feb. 28, 2023 marked 30 years since the beginning of the Waco siege, the confrontation at a Texas compound that killed around 80 members of the Branch Davidian religious community and four federal agents.

  Part of the siege’s legacy in popular culture is tied to sensational coverage that has presented the Branch Davidians as a cult. But the tragedy is also a powerful moment in political extremist groups’ ideologies. As scholars of domestic extremism, we have repeatedly seen how what happened at the Mount Carmel Center has been used by anti-government groups from the 1990s to today.

The Jan. 6 Capitol attacks offer a reminder – distrust in government has long been part of Republicans’ playbook

  The Republican National Committee has legitimized the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attacks. The RNC declared on Feb. 4, 2022 that the insurrection and preceding events were “legitimate political discourse” — an assertion that Sen. Mitch McConnell soon after countered, saying that it was a “violent insurrection.”

  The Justice Department is investigating former President Donald Trump’s involvement on Jan. 6, when several thousand rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The attacks resulted in the deaths of at least seven people and the injury of 150 police officers.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court

  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, the Supreme Court announced.

  Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement that “Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature.”

  Even before her appointment, she had reshaped American law. When he nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, President Bill Clinton compared her legal work on behalf of women to the epochal work of Thurgood Marshall on behalf of African-Americans.

Trump’s law-and-order campaign relies on a historic American tradition of racist and anti-immigrant politics

  The Republican Party made it clear in its national convention that it intends to make restoring “law and order” central to this fall’s presidential campaign.

  As he did when he first ran in 2016, President Donald Trump highlighted law and order in his 2020 acceptance speech.

  “Your vote,” Trump said, “will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans and whether … we will defend the American way of life or allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.”

Senate impeachment trial must include all important evidence

  In impeaching President Donald Trump, the U.S. House of Representatives uncovered overwhelming evidence that Trump extorted a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election. The House did so even though Trump engaged in unprecedented obstruction of Congress by blocking critically important witnesses and documents, circumstances that underlay the House’s second impeachment article. Now, as the U.S. Senate begins the trial phase of impeachment proceedings, every senator must make a crucial decision: recklessly support the president’s obstruction or uphold their oaths under the U.S. Constitution.

If impeachment comes to the Senate – 5 questions answered

Editor’s note: If the House of Representatives concludes its impeachment inquiry by passing articles of impeachment of President Donald Trump, attention will turn to the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is known as a master of the Senate’s rules and has been raising campaign donations with ads touting the power he would have over impeachment proceedings. Constitutional scholar Sarah Burns from the Rochester Institute of Technology answers some crucial questions already arising about what McConnell might be able to do, to either slow down the process or speed things along.

1) Will the Senate even take up a House impeachment?

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1669 - To impeach or not to impeach

  To impeach or not to impeach? That is the question. Every time we view or read or listen to our televisions, radios, newspapers, internet, and other media, we face the question: Should President Trump be impeached? I have a thought or two to share on the issue of impeachment. To impeach or not to impeach.

  “If a president, vice president, and other civil officers commit treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, the U.S. Congress has the authority to impeach them.” This authority is provided in Article 2 of the United States Constitution. This provision is 230 years old but has been utilized just three times in history to try to impeach a president.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1652 - The Jubilee is coming!

  The Jubilee is coming! The Jubilee is upon us! The 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee is coming to Selma, Alabama. It is less than a month away. It arrives on Thursday, February 28th and continues through Sunday, March 3rd. The Jubilee is really upon us!

  The Jubilee is massive. There are 40-50 events over the four-day Jubilee period. Additional events not sponsored by the Jubilee take place as well. There is so much happening. The Jubilee is massive in many ways.

Kavanaugh’s credibility chasm

  Amid a crisis in Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination process, new reports suggest that President Trump’s nominee may have been personally involved in a public relations effort to shift blame for sexual assault allegations made against him onto another specific individual with unsubstantiated speculation from an ally. This alone would demonstrate a deep breach of integrity and credibility and would be disqualifying in itself for a position on the highest court in the land. Unfortunately, it also aligns with an entire career using dishonest tactics and statements to advance his personal ambition.

Obstructing justice through pardons is an impeachable offense

  As the investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, continues to close in on President Donald Trump, he has started discussing his ability to pardon, even arguing that he could pardon himself despite the long-standing determination to the contrary by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Trump’s legal team has made an equally baseless assertion with respect to his actions to impede the Russia investigation, claiming that “the President’s actions here, by virtue of his position as the chief law enforcement officer, could neither constitutionally nor legally constitute obstruction … and that he could, if he wished … even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired.”

  This view is wrong: It is clear that the president can obstruct justice. And—as reflected in past precedent, a Supreme Court decision, and constitutional history—abuse of the pardon power can constitute such obstruction and be grounds for impeachment.

The Little Rock Nine – and America – 60 years later

  Sixty years before Colin Kaepernick took a knee, nine black teenagers in Little Rock, Arkansas, took a stand.

  The pictures have since become iconic: Elizabeth Eckford stoically walking as a white mob jeers and shouts at her; Terrence Roberts and Carlotta Walls LaNier clutching textbooks under the cover of armed soldiers; Minnijean Brown arriving at Little Rock Central High School, escorted by the 101st Division of the Airborne Command.

Miscarriage of justice

  In rural Alabama, the men were told they were being treated for rheumatism, bad stomachs, or “bad blood.” They were promised free meals and free health care.

  They didn’t get the health care they needed most.

  Hundreds of men — mostly poor, all of them black — were recruited in 1932 for the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. They were never told they were to be the subjects of a secret U.S. Public Health Service experiment. They were never informed that they had been diagnosed with syphilis. And they never received treatment.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1551: Standing on history is never a party

  I could not believe my eyes. I just could not be seeing what I saw. It was a Facebook message posted by the Mayor of Selma and forwarded to me. The Facebook message said that the Bridge Crossing Jubilee was a “four-day party for Senator Sanders and his wife.” After all the years of hard work, this was unbelievable. I could not believe my eyes.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Looking back and looking forward

  Historically speaking, Alabamians have been more interested in the governor’s race than presidential politics.

  From 1876 to 1964, we were a totally Democratic state, more so out of tradition than philosophy. The hatred for the radical Republican Reconstruction imposed on the South made an indelible mark on white southern voters. It was so instilled that there are a good many stories told throughout the South where a dying grandfather would gather his children and grandchildren around his deathbed and gaspingly admonish them, “Two things I’m gonna tell y’all before I die – don’t ever sell the family farm and don’t ever vote for a damn Republican.”

Jacob G. Hornberger: 9/11 evil did not cancel pre-9/11 evil

  Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and other U.S. officials declared that the attackers were motivated by hatred for America’s freedom and values. It was a lie, one of the biggest ever told by U.S. officials. The truth was that the attackers were motivated by anger and rage over pre-9/11 U.S. government interventionism in the Middle East, especially the large number of people, including children, that the U.S. military and the CIA had been knowingly and intentionally killing in Iraq prior to 9/11.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1521: It was an unforgettable week!

  It was a series of unforgettable moments. The moments were cast over four days. Each day had multiple unforgettable moments. Each day was unforgettable in its own way. Each day built on the previous day. For me, it was up close and personal.

  Day One. First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech was unforgettable. She spoke so beautifully and powerfully. She touched something deep inside of me that exploded throughout my being. I was moved to tears. She calmed and lifted the convention waters. She set extremely high standards for the speakers to follow.

Sheldon Richman: Domestic fear is the price of empire

  If you find no other argument against American intervention abroad persuasive, how about this one? When the U.S. government invades and occupies other countries, or when it underwrites other governments’ invasions or oppression, the people in the victimized societies become angry enough to want and even to exact revenge — against Americans.

  Is the American empire worth that price?

Tom Kenworthy: For President Obama, it is all about veto power now

  Similar to former President Bill Clinton before him, President Barack Obama now faces a Republican-controlled Congress, one that will almost certainly be implacably hostile toward progressive governance and determined to put a conservative stamp on the statute books.

  If the past is any guide, a significant part of the agenda of the incoming Congress will be a broad-based attack on the conservation of public lands. The GOP leadership launched exactly that kind of assault after sweeping into power on Capitol Hill in 1995 following an election in which Republicans gained 54 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate. It was the first time since 1954 that Republicans controlled the House, and they had considerable pent-up demands about how the federal government should manage its vast network of national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, and rangelands.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Life after the White House

  This week our 39th President, Jimmy Carter, turns 90 years old. In my lifetime, he is the most ethical, moral and Christ-like president to occupy the Oval Office.

  Most, if not all of our presidents, have claimed to be Christians. However, Jimmy Carter truly walked the walk. There is no spectre of hypocrisy surrounding his life. Everything he did while in the White House was above reproach and his life after his presidential tenure has been an example of living your life humbly and being a true Christian servant.

Charles C. Haynes: Gay marriage, religious freedom and the need for civil dialogue

  In recent months, legislators in more than a dozen states — from Hawaii to Georgia — have attempted to enact laws they describe as necessary to protect religious freedom.

  Some are broad "religious freedom restoration acts" very similar to laws already on the books in many states. Others are amendments to existing laws aimed at allowing businesses to deny wedding services to gay couples on religious grounds.