Month: August 2017

Look What You Made Me Do (Ep. 115)

This episode of The More Perfect Union podcast looks at the political ramifications of Hurricane Harvey, the pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the latest release by Taylor Swift, and the victimization epidemic in America.

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And if you like talking politics, join us in our Facebook political debate group, OPEN FIRE, where you can discuss news and politics with Kevin, D.J., Greg, Rebekah, Cliff, Molly, Helena, and lots of other smart, fun people.

Meanwhile, Back in Virginia, Monuments Issue Careens Into Election Campaign

by D.J. McGuire

While the rest of the nation places the Charlottesville Incident in its collective memory, it continues to impact election campaigns here in Virginia. Elections for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and members of the House of Delegates are in less than three months, and it is in the AG race that the issue of Rebel monuments has been steered into absurdity by unjustified Republican outrage.

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Sanders’ Voters Are Not the Key to a Democratic Majority in the 2020s

by D.J. McGuire

Kevin Kelton is not just my collaborator on the More Perfect Union Podcast, he is also a friend. So it should not surprise anyone that I highly recommend the cyber-gauntlet he throws at Bernie Sanders supporters for 2018. I do think, however, that Kevin will be disappointed (although not surprised) to find that Sanders voters won’t tip the balance for the Democrats in 2018. On the plus side, once the lesson is learned, the Democrats can start reaching out to the center-right voters that are actually able and willing to help them build a majority coalition in the 2020s.

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Testing the Sanders’ Revolution

by Kevin Kelton

With the September release of Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened, there will undoubtably be a renewed dust-up over whether she or Bernie Sanders should’ve been the 2016 Democratic standard bearer. But it’s over a year since the Democrats settled on a presidential candidate, and it’s time we put that primary campaign on the shelf. We have a common enemy now: alt-President Donald Trump and his alt version of America. To win that Herculean battle, liberal-progressive Democrats cannot waste time and breath fighting against anything but that.

The question now is, was Bernie Sanders’ promise of a political “revolution” real or all talk. The test will come November 6, 2018.

The midterms.

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You Just Might Be a Nazi (Ep. 114)

On this episode of The More Perfect Union podcast, the gang talks about rise of Nazis on the streets of America, the ousting of Steve Bannon from Pennsylvania Avenue, continuing dysfunction in the Trump Administration, and what the new Afghanistan war policy may be.

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And if you like talking politics, join us in our Facebook political debate group, OPEN FIRE, where you can discuss news and politics with Kevin, D.J., Greg, Rebekah, Cliff, Molly, Helena, and lots of other smart, fun people.

The Hunt for the Rare, White Neo-Nazi

by William Gleed

On Saturday, August 19, Boston became the site of the latest protests between the alt-right and its opponents. This is the story of one man’s attempt to see history up close.

I went to the Boston Common on Saturday.  I wanted to see these alt-right neo-Nazis I’d heard about who were coming out to defend American history, heritage, and culture from the big, bad city elders of Boston and the week before in Charlottesville, Virginia.

You see, where I live, you don’t get to see real-life Klansmen and Nazis very often.  You read about them in history books and hear about them on the TV.  But real life Nazi sightings are about as rare as a solar eclipse.  And I might get to see both in one week!

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Hagiography vs. History (Why the Confederate Monuments Have To Go)

Defenders of Rebel monuments dotting public areas throughout the Old Confederacy like to insist that the history of our nation is complex, which is true. They like to forget, however, that the history of “the South” is equally complex – and that said complexity is, literally and figuratively, whitewashed by the very monuments they defend.

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Alt-Wrong (Ep. 113)

On this week’s More Perfect Union podcast, the gang looks at the constitutional right of peaceable assembly in the wake of the deadly white nationalism riot in Charlottesville, the fear factor caused by the Trump Administration’s nuclear showdown with North Korea, and the potential repercussions from the FBI raid of Paul Manafort’s home.

Like what you heard? Subscribe on iTunes and don’t miss a podcast! 

And if you like talking politics, join us in our Facebook political debate group, OPEN FIRE, where you can discuss news and politics with Kevin, D.J., Greg, Rebekah, Cliff, Molly, Helena, and lots of other smart, fun people.

Transcending the Trans Ban

By William Gleed

Donald Trump has said he will ban transgendered people in the Military on the advice of “his generals” and other military experts. I don’t know who his generals are, but our generals already decided that issue, and trans people already serve proudly in all branches. But maybe the president has another agenda.

“That’s straight out of Machiavelli,” said Warren Blumenfeld, a University of Massachusetts professor, author, founding member of ACT UP, as well as the Gay Liberation Front and Queer Nation, an activist and pioneer in the fight for LGBTQ rights since the early 1960’s when he was a member of SDS. He founded the first LGBTQ national organization, the National Gay Student Center, which helped college and university groups organize Gay Straight Alliances on their campuses.

“It’s the internal enemy,” he said.

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Chinese Territorial Disputes and North Korean ICBM launches: One Heck of a Coincidence

by D.J. McGuire

In mid-June, the Chinese Communist Party faced two threats to its ever-growing geopolitical ambitions. Less than a month later, its North Korean ally test-fired its first missile capable of hitting the continental United States.

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All About the Base…No Treble (Ep. 112)

Episode 112 of The More Perfect Union podcast touches on the final days of The Mooch and who might replace him, the Trump immigration bill and his battle with sanctuary cities, and the Russia probe’s new grand jury. Then the gang must make some faustian choices between hypothetical 2020 presidential opponents.

Like what you heard? Subscribe on iTunes and don’t miss a podcast! 

And if you like talking politics, join us in our Facebook political debate group, OPEN FIRE, where you can discuss news and politics with Kevin, D.J., Greg, Rebekah, Cliff, Molly, Helena, and lots of other smart, fun people.

A Grand Juror Makes His Case

By William Gleed

Let’s begin here. A federal grand jury is no witch hunt, and it’s not about indicting a ham sandwich. A grand jury does not insult voters, nor does it subvert the Constitution. I know this because I served on federal grand jury in Concord, New Hampshire, for eighteen months from 2011-2012. Here’s some of what I learned.

There are only three things the federal government can compel a citizen to do: make you serve in the military, pay your taxes, and serve on a grand jury. I was happy to serve once I realized that, like death and taxes, I couldn’t get out of it.

Unlike a regular jury, as a grand jury juror you can question witnesses yourself, and you are encouraged to do so. You can subpoena documents (like a tax return) and compel testimony. You can tell a federal prosecutor and all the federal enforcement agencies that, no, you can’t charge and try that person on those charges, and the jury on which I served would and did do exactly that more than once. I’ve never had power like that before, and it was sobering.

I’m still sworn to secrecy about the actual testimony I took, so I can’t tell you about the cases I worked on or the evidence I saw. But I am proud to know I helped make a very bad day for some very bad people who very much deserved it.

The thing I can do is tell you how a grand jury operates.

My jury was made up 23 ordinary, individually unremarkable Americans who’d never met each other until the day we showed up to serve on the panel. We were from all walks of life, all levels of education, and all kinds of life experiences. A couple were teachers, some were small business people, some had retired. A grand jury is meant to protect you from overzealous prosecution. It’s part of our great strength as a nation that ordinary, “unremarkable” people are the ones who fulfill this mission.

All a grand jury does is to listen to the evidence and the law. Their only task is to decide if the evidence is enough to bring a charge and proceed to trial. That’s it. A grand jury doesn’t decide if you’re guilty or not. It just applies the law as twenty-three ordinary citizens understand that law. A trial jury makes the call on guilt.

So if I would advise the current POTUS, I’d tell him to stop acting so guilty, and stop trying to cloud the issue if he and his minions hope to avoid indictments. The way Mr. Trump is disparaging the process is very dangerous to our democracy, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts it’s not winning him the benefit of the doubt among the jurors.

People have asked me if you can dodge a grand jury.

You don’t dodge a grand jury.  A grand jury can come for you with the US Marshals, and will do just that, if you make them. There is no place you can hide, and that you try to run is evidence of guilt at your certain eventual trial. The jury can also jail you indefinitely for contempt if you ignore their subpoena. I think Mr. Trump would be safe from that, but where’s he going to run? Russia?

If POTUS, or anyone else, is not indicted in the Russia probe, what it means is that 12 out of 23 ordinary Americans didn’t think federal prosecutors have the evidence of a crime. They could have the evidence or more evidence in the future and bring it back to the same grand jury, who can then indict with the new evidence. But you should remember, a prosecutor doesn’t take a case to a grand jury unless and until they have the evidence. At least, that’s my experience.

Right now, I would guess – and it’s only a guess – that somebody is going to jail, or at least going to trial, though it remains to be seen who that will be.

People have asked me if POTUS could plead the Fifth amendment, were he called to testify. I tell them that he can plead the Fifth all he wants. He’s not at a trial or on trial. Nobody has been charged yet, so he might be premature.

But what would you think of someone who said he couldn’t answer your question because it might make him a criminal, and he was the president of the United States? Imagine YOU had the power to charge him for the crime if (and I stress “if”) the evidence is sufficient in your mind to substantiate your charge? How would you vote on that indictment?

I don’t remember anyone, in 18 months, and dozens of cases, who took the Fifth. And I sure don’t think it would have helped them if they had.

Finally, I want to tell you that If I were under investigation but knew myself to be innocent of those charges, I would want those accusations to go before a grand jury. Twenty-three ordinary people, doing their constitutional duty, the way the Founding Fathers meant it to work.

So what’s the Trump administration worried about?

William Gleed has taught writing and literature at Southern New Hampshire University, Franklin Pierce University, Middlesex Community College, and Northern Essex Community College in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He’s been a correspondent for the Portsmouth, NH Herald and Seacoast Newspapers. He received a graduate degree in  poetry writing from the University of New Hampshire in 1995.