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Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

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SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.


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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.





Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.


JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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After Aurora Shooting, Political Cowardice Prevents Revival of Assault Weapons Ban

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Posted July 25, 2012

Interview with Ladd Everitt, communications director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

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As moviegoers in Aurora, Colo., settled in to watch the latest Batman movie after midnight on July 20, James Eagan Holmes entered the theater, threw a smoke grenade and began shooting people at random, with weapons that included a semi-automatic assault rifle. Twelve died, 58 were injured. This mass murder is just the latest in a long string of attacks that differ in detail, but are similar in that America's lax gun laws provide easy access to all kinds of guns and ammunition, often to people who are ex-felons or those who suffer from mental illness. Recent incidents include Jared Loughner's January 2011 attack on former House Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead.

Critics of gun control laws assert that they cannot prevent these kinds of atrocities, but many of the gun regulations that have been implemented are usually so full of loopholes as to be almost useless. That was the case with the assault weapons ban that was passed by Congress in 1994. Before the assault weapons ban expired in 2004, gun manufacturers got around the law by making gun models that had slightly different specifications than those banned by law. A new version of the bill proposed in 2008 would have closed those loopholes, but it failed to pass, due in large part to the lobbying power of the National Rifle Association. One of the principal weapons used by James Eagan Holmes in the Aurora, Colo. shooting would have been illegal to sell under 1994 Assault Weapons ban.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Ladd Everitt, communications director with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which was founded in 1974, and works to reduce gun deaths and injuries. He talks about the assault weapons ban and suggests that if any progress is to be made in this arena, political pressure must be brought to bear on elected officials.

LADD EVERITT: It was put in place in 1994. It was a 10-year ban on certain categories of assault weapons. It came as a response to some horrific violence and mass shootings perpetrated with those weapons. It wasn't a perfectly written bill; it allowed a lot of loopholes for the gun industry to get through and basically produce similarly lethal weapons that maybe didn't meet the letter of the law, but were certainly just as dangerous. But it certainly did reduce crime gun seizures of certain weapons of many types of weapons that were listed in the bill. Unfortunately, it expired in 2004. President Bush said he supported renewing it but really didn't do much to energize the Congress or direct the Congress to make it a priority. And you know, since that time, seizures of assault weapons have been climbing, in particular we see a lot of these guns flowing south into Mexico but also we see them turning up in some horrific incidents in which people either engage in mass killings or target police or government officials.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 may be one of the most infamous, or well-publicized such atrocity. Do you know if that led to any changes in gun laws?

LADD EVERITT: There were some state-level initiatives that were successful. For example, looking at Colorado, they were able to close their gun show loophole and regulate private sales at gun shows to require background checks. So there were some things at the state and local level that improved, but the federal Congress, while it came close, was unable to enact a bill and really did nothing in response, and here we are 13 years later, and we are still watching deranged shooters gain easy access to guns and use military weapons against our populace.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What is it going to take to make any changes at the federal level?

LADD EVERITT: Well, it's going to be tough, obviously, in this Congress, because you have a House of Representatives that's moved so far to the right that essentially they're a subsidiary of the National Rifle Association. So that's a tough get. We would like to see some senators step forward with an initiative. There's another really good bill in Congress right now – the Fix Gun Checks Act – which would require background checks on all gun sales and really improve the amount of information that gets submitted to the FBI's "nix" data base, which is checked during gun background checks. So there's some good legislation in the hopper right now in Congress. There's also a bill that would prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines, so there's good legislation there; it's just a matter of finding elected officials with the courage to do the right thing. They know what's going on here – anyone with basic brain activity understands that we've reached a point in this country where homicidal maniacs can legally buy guns. We've actually facilitated their access to guns in this country, including military style firearms. I mean, you can look at the arsenal that this kid was able to amass to attack these people with. It's gone way too far. Our legislators know this; they just have to summon the courage to do the right thing. And we need to get them to do that; the way to get them to do that is by putting an enormous amount of political pressure on them, by calling them, emailing them, showing up at their events. Be peaceful, but be firm and be outraged. Let them know that if they do not contest the NRA and enact gun reform, you will vote them out of office. And call their funders. Call their donors and tell them to defund them.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Yeah, if we knew who their donors were! That's another issue...

LADD EVERITT: The beauty of it is, people in local communities know. You know, we all know people in local communities who give politically, and at the local level, there's a much higher degree of knowledge. And there's conversations that can take place, but they have to take place. We have to reach out to other people and share information, and stress priorities.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Ladd Everitt, right after this latest mass shooting, President Obama called for a moment of silence and cut a campaign event short, but I didn't hear any call from him for real action.

LADD EVERITT: Yeah, he needs to find his backbone, too. He made a lot of promises during the campaign about gun laws he wanted to see enacted, and once he got in office, he decided to listen to some of his advisers and essentially do nothing on this. So he needs to find his courage as well, and again, it's up for us to help him do that. You can call the White House at 202-456-1111 and tell him you want him to stand up to the NRA today and call for gun reforms to prevent people like Holmes from getting guns.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I don't recall Obama ever being very vocal on this issue.

LADD EVERITT: He called for a renewal of the assault weapons ban. He called for improvements to our background checks system. Yeah, he talked about it. But he gets into office and starts listening to David Axelrod and Rahm Emmanuel and they're saying, "Well, you want to do health care and these other things; if you talk about guns, you're going to blow it" and all of a sudden that courage goes out the window. He needs to summon his backbone and courage and do the right thing. Obama knows this is nuts. Obama is a constitutional scholar. He understands the real meaning behind the Second Amendment, not the NRA's insurrectionist fantasy version. He understands that people who are blatantly insane are getting guns legally.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Historically, the Second Amendment dealt with state militias, no?

LADD EVERITT: Yeah, the Second Amendment was about James Madison, once the Constitution was written, trying to re-assign some control of the militias back to the states, and assuage some of their concerns about the federal government potentially being able to disarm the militias. It did have to deal with confronting potential federal tyranny, but Madison always made it clear that that would be done under the conduct and authority of state governments. It was not meant to be lone wolves like Jared Loughner running around and killing when they sniffed "tyranny."

To find more about Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, visit www.csgv.org.

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