This is a coup, a veritable coup d’état! A coup d’état is the illegal seizure of power by violent or anti-constitutional means. The classic coup is a violent eruption, with dramatic scenes of tanks roaming the streets or planes bombarding the presidential palace. Self-coups, conversely, are a variant in which democratically elected leaders use their … [Read more…]
There was no reason to expect competence by the Trump administration’s security officials. Experts expected things to go wrong. Top national security officials in the new administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted war plans for military strikes in Yemen in a group chat on Signal Messenger, an app that accidentally included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey … [Read more…]
Below are excerpts from a post by Tim Snyder, historian and author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom, among other books. He wrote this a few weeks ago while riding on an overnight train from Kyiv to a city in the southeast of Ukraine which is about twenty miles from the line that … [Read more…]
At the end of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mrs. Elizabeth Powell of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” In some versions of this story, Mrs. Powell responded, “And why not keep … [Read more…]
Amid President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s mass firings of federal employees, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) suggested during a hearing last month that federal employees “do not deserve a paycheck.” Addressing Democrats, Greene said, “You can protest all you want outside of departments of this government, you can protest all you want, but the American people … [Read more…]
For decades, the radical right proclaimed a conspiratorial “New World Order” as either in existence and being strengthened or in development. In cruel irony they have produced an actual New World Order right before our eyes. Southwest Virginia witnessed the expression of wild ideas pushed by the Tea Party movement and the radical right. One … [Read more…]
“Who the hell is Diane Nash?” queried Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in May 1961. His assistant, John Seigenthaler, had just reported back that he had relayed his message to the students that they could be killed if they continued with the Freedom Rides, and their leader, Diane Nash, had responded that they were willing to … [Read more…]
There are many stories of heroes in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. One of my favorites concerns Diane Nash and the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Rides, organized by James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), involved civil rights activists riding interstate buses through the segregated Southern United States in 1961 to … [Read more…]
Some groups objected strongly to the planned inclusion of the Black National Anthem in the pregame ceremonies of the recent Super Bowl. While I feel no need for that gratuitous act of the Super Bowl Committee, I find this controversy ironic. See the following: Below is a copy of a letter to the local newspaper … [Read more…]
During this Black History Month let us celebrate Barbara Johns, who has been called the most successful American high school activist ever by Slate magazine and the Roanoke Times newspaper. And I agree with them. Who was Barbara Johns and what did she do specifically? I will use again words from a March 1, 2018, … [Read more…]