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.
Source: New York Times
2/16/2021
The Capitol riots highlight the dangerous potential for far right extremists to operate inside police departments, as well as official ignorance of the scope of the problem.
Source: Daily Kos
2/13/2021
The use of force to thwart democracy is a thread connecting Confederate secession, Booth's assassination of Lincoln, and the Capitol riots against the certification of Trump's electoral defeat.
Source: The Atlantic
2/15/2021
by David Frum
The conservative commentator writes that the framers' concern with broad populist movements shouldn't overshadowing the greater damage done to democracy by a minority faction that controls key institutions and follows its own fickle self-interest.
Source: New York Times
2/14/2021
The journalist James Ridgeway exposed malfeasance by corporate polluters and politicians, but dedicated his greatest energy to his last crusade, to end the practice of solitary confinement in prisons.
Source: Bill Moyers
2/16/2021
by James D. Zirin
Attorney James Zirin, author of a book on Trump's history of litigation, critiques the second impeachment trial as a sham.
Source: The Atlantic
2/10/2021
Sportswriter Jemele Hill makes the case for Curt Flood as an advocate for the labor rights of ballplayers and especially the right of players of color to be paid for their skill, even at the cost of being blackballed from the game.
Source: New York Times
2/10/2021
Although Trump's second impeachment trial may ultimately be decided by political considerations, the legal question of his culpability for incitement hinges on the question of when speech crosses a line to encouraging action and whether an impeachment trial is governed by different standards of proof than a criminal trial.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
2/11/2021
Despite evidence that liberal indoctrination in classrooms is rare, state legislatures are proceeding with bills that would restrict professors' freedom to teach some subjects and in the case of Iowa to survey the political affiliations of faculty at state institutions.
Source: History.com
2/11/2021
TV journalist Robin Roberts produces a documentary on the famed Tuskegee Airmen – including her father – whose service in World War II supported the long movement for civil rights.
Source: New York Times
2/10/2021
"Mr. Flynt’s interpretation was simpler. 'If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me,' he said, 'then it will protect all of you. Because I’m the worst'."
Source: The Guardian
“I am struck by a disinclination,” he says, “in both academic and journalistic accounts to critique empire and imperialism. Openness to, and engagement in, a critique of nationalism has seemed greater.
Source: Bitter Southerner
2/9/2021
by Alana Dao
The story of a restaurant run by Chinese immigrants in Houston is the story of the growth of the diverse Gulf coast metropolis and its fusion of ethnic cultures.
Source: The Atlantic
2/9/2021
by Richard H. Pildes
A constitutional law professor argues for a broad perspective in the Senate trial; the questions at stake for the rule of law and Trump's accountability for a months-long effort to undermine democracy are too important to focus only on January 6.
Source: New York Times
2/10/2021
by Martha Crenshaw
An expert on terrorism and political violence looks to other examples of insurrection to ask what the hardcore extremists at the center of the Capitol riots are likely to do next. Such groups and the recruits they gained on January 6 are likely to become more isolated, but more extreme, and have access to guns unlike any other extremists in the world.
Source: The Atlantic
2/9/2021
by David Frum
David Frum argues that Trump's lawyers ignored history, contradicted their own arguments, and made it impossible for Republican senators to claim any motive other than political expediency when they vote to acquit.
Source: The New Yorker
2/4/2021
"In fact, the way that the San Francisco school names are being talked about, fretted about, and competed over seems to have little to do with history at all. It has more to do with another realm of public life: celebrity."
Source: WTOP
2/5/2021
The bill, which has bipartisan support, would rename any stretches of US Route 1 still named for the Confederate president as "Emancipation Highway" but would not reflect segments of the road already renamed by local authorities.
Source: AL.com
2/7/2021
“This is simply the right thing to do,” Trustee Judge John England Jr.
Source: USA Today
2/8/2021
The Senate's "blue slip" rule allows senators to privately exercise a veto over judicial nominations for their state. Like the filibuster, it has been used to derail the nominations of liberal judges as well as women and judges of color. A liberal judicial advocate argues that it should be scrapped.
Source: The Atlantic
2/9/2021
by Anna Deavere Smith
The playwright and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith recalls her educational experiences at a small historically white college during the Civil Rights era, and the way the campus climate spurred her fellow Black students to develop a distinct identity.
