Breaking News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/8/2022
  

  Law Prof: If Recent SCOTUS Decisions Relied on Bad History, Opponents Need to Come Up with a Better Version

  William Baude of the University of Chicago argues that if historical arguments have been used selectively in recent cases, it opens the door for dissenting justices to propose more compelling narratives about the constitutional basis of rights. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/4/2022
  

  How Hitler's Favorite Passion Play Lost its Anti-Semitism

  The Oberammergau Passionspiele in the 1930s garnered praise from Hitler for its vilification of Jews for the death of Christ. Today, the village production reflects Germany's efforts to eradicate antisemitism from many of its traditional cultural products, though that process is slow and contentious. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/9/2022
  

  Fighting Back Against Book Banners

  by Margaret Sullivan

  Attempts to ban books from public libraries are a threat to democratic culture and should alarm all Americans, argues Post columnist Margaret Sullivan. 

• 
• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  8/8/2022
  

  At CPAC, Trump Presents a Violent Blueprint for Taking Power

  The combination of persecution and rage on display in CPAC rhetoric by the former president and others suggests the right granting itself permission to take steps including violence to take power if the ballot fails. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  8/9/2022
  

  Mario Fiorentini (1918-2022): The Last Surviving Italian Partisan

  by David Broder

  After Nazi German occupied post-Mussolini Rome, Fiorentini escaped from prisons four times during twenty months of anti-Nazi struggle. He remained an important witness for a society prone to forgetting the horrors of far-right politics.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  8/9/2022
  

  Lamont Dozier, Part of Legendary Motown Songwriting Team, Dies at 81

  With Brian and Eddie Holland, Dozier formed the formidable "HDH" songwriting partnership that turned out many of the biggest hits of the 1960s for The Supremes and The Four Tops among other Motown acts. 

• 
• SOURCE: ABA Journal
  8/5/2022
  

  Civics Teacher and Students Help Win Exoneration for Last Convicted Witch in Massachusetts

  Carrie LaPierre of North Andover turned a project on the legislative process into an amendment to the state budget bill. Elizabeth Johnson's 1693 conviction was finally overturned. 

• 
• SOURCE: New Statesman
  8/4/2022
  

  Orban's American Apologists

  by John Ganz

  Why is the leader of a small and politically insignificant European nation suddenly a celebrated hero for the American right? Orban's brand of nationalism represents a test of how far ethnonationalists can go in public. 

• 
• SOURCE: Politico
  8/5/2022
  

  After Winning as An Activist Preacher, Can Warnock Win Again as an Effective Pragmatist?

  After winning a close special election, Raphael Warnock needs to find a way to notch small victories in a nearly deadlocked Senate as he seeks election to a full term. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/3/2022
  

  Youngkin's Neoconfederate Nominee to State Historical Board Resigns

  Ann Hunter McLean resigned after facing controversy for her remarks about Confederate monuments and the causes of the Civil War. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  8/5/2022
  

  Commission Recommends Change to Massachusetts State Seal, Motto

  Activists and members of the state’s Indigenous population have long objected to the image, which one critic called the “last state flag of white supremacy.”

• 
• SOURCE: The At
  8/7/2022
  

  History's Greatest Barrier to Climate Action—the Senate—May Have Fallen

  Critics have legitimate disagreements with the scope and urgency of climate action enabled by the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act. But it's a departure from precedent for the Senate to do anything at all. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/5/2022
  

  Former Star Keyshawn Johnson: Football Hall Must Honor "Forgotten Four" Integration Pioneers

  Kenny Washington, Marion Motley, Woody Strode and Bill Willis reintegrated the NFL in 1946, breaking a "gentlemen's agreement" among the owners not to sign Black players. 

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  8/1/2022
  

  The Battle over Reproductive Freedom Still Rages at Dr. George Tiller's Former Clinic

  "It’s been more than a decade since Tiller was murdered, but at Trust Women, which reopened and rebranded under his protégé Julie Burkhart in 2013, the past has a habit of lingering outside the gates."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/4/2022
  

  How Decades of Coal Mining Left West Virginia Vulnerable to Flooding

  For a century, coal mining companies have taken billions of dollars of wealth out of eastern Kentucky, stripped the land of vegetation that can contain flood waters, and contributed to the climate change making severe storms more frequent, while leaving little for the people who live there. 

• 
• SOURCE: Associated Press
  8/3/2022
  

  Can 500 Dinner Discussions Bring Atlantans to Recognition and Reconciliation over the 1906 Race Massacre?

  Local activists seek to overcome a local pattern of forgetting of the events of 1906, a collective amnesia supported by the city's black and white leaders who have favored the image of a harmonious city as part of a good business climate. 

• 
• SOURCE: YouTube
  8/3/2022
  

  Remember Vin Scully With His Classic Call of the Last Outs of Sandy Koufax's Perfect Game

  The legendary broadcaster's ability to say just enough to frame the drama of a moment without overshadowing it was on full display on September 9, 1965 at Dodger Stadium. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/30/2022
  

  How Trumpism Changed the Claremont Institute (and Vice-Versa)

  The actions of John Eastman in urging the rejection of the 2020 election results and urging Trump supporters to storm the capitol raise questions for both participants and critics about how far the Claremont Institute should go in putting ideas into action. 

• 
• SOURCE: PBS News Hour
  7/31/2022
  

  Early America's Complicated Relationship with Abortion Access

  The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade relied heavily on the argument that, in Justice Samuel Alito’s words, “a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions.” Paul Solman takes a look at that history, as part of our continuing coverage of America after Roe.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  8/1/2022
  

  The Demise of the Church-State Wall

  by Steven V. Mazie

  A political scientist and court correspondent says that SCOTUS has adopted a radical version of the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment that makes a mockery of the historic separation of religious and political authority.