Ladd Everitt: After Orlando, Congress Once Again Fails to Pass Measures to Reduce Gun Violence

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.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

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

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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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.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"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.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

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After Orlando, Congress Once Again Fails to Pass Measures to Reduce Gun Violence

Posted June 22, 2016

Interview with Ladd Everitt, director of communications with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, conducted by Scott Harris

In the aftermath of the mass murder of 49 – and injuries to more than 50 others at an Orlando, Florida LGBTQ nightclub – the U.S. is again debating the need for stronger gun regulations. The worst mass shooting incident in U.S. history motivated Connecticut Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy to launch a 15-hour filibuster that succeeded in scheduling a vote on several key gun control measures on June 20. But like so many times before Republicans, backed by the NRA, voted to block the most effective legislative proposals designed to make the nation’s background check system more comprehensive – and preventing individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms.

Despite overwhelming support for these bills, GOP politicians and a handful of conservative Democrats continue to oppose virtually all initiatives to reduce gun violence. A recent poll conducted by CNN/ORC found 92 percent of Americans say they want expanded background checks, while 85 percent say they favor banning people on federal watchlists from buying firearms. The deadly epidemic of 30,000 gun-related murders and suicides that occur each year in the U.S., are among the highest per capita in the world.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Ladd Everitt, director of communications with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, who talks about the slow, but steady progress he sees in mounting public pressure on Congress to enact basic gun safety regulations. (Rush transcript)

LADD EVERITT: I think we've always known, even going into this vote, that's going to have to be I guess you would call some regime change in Congress before we can really move forward aggressively with reform. I'm very confident that we're going to do that. One really, really important thing that's come out of all this is we are, I think we are going to get the buy-in of the LGBTQ movement moving forward on gun violence prevention measures. Many people might have seen George DeKay's great piece in the Daily Beast the other night, where he was full-throatedly arguing for a LGBTQ involvement in this issue. That's going to make a humungous difference for us. And you can only imagine, I mean, there's a lot of people undoubtedly, probably mostly in Orlando and Florida who are really aggravated that we couldn't even do something simple, like prohibiting suspected terrorists like the Orlando shooter from buying guns. So I think this is going to come back to bite them in a big way. And I am very confident at this point, moving into November, that many of these politicians are going to pay a price. When (Sen.) Kelly Ayott (R, New Hampshire) spoke on the floor today before the votes, she looked pale as a ghost and was clearly nervous. She was trying to lay out a case for why she was going to vote the way she was going to vote, but she knows that she's up in November. So, this is a long game. This is not a short game.

For those who lack patience, or lack a sense of history of how change comes in this country, you're probably going to be pretty frustrated. But I feel very good about where we are after this terrible shooting. There was real movement, even in the Republican ranks, particularly with the way Donald Trump responded about the terrorist watch list issue. He moved the NRA on the issue. Republicans clearly are more skittish than they've ever been. You could see that by the mere fact that they were willing to allow votes so quickly. But I think there will now obviously will be - you know we're getting plenty of calls now, let's have these votes, hopefully they'll die off. I think what they're going to find out is it's not going to die off. We're going to stay red hot going up until November, and then there's going be some very contested races. And I think this issue will play a huge role then.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Ladd, I wanted to ask you about Maine Rep. Susan Collins. In a compromise proposal that she was talking about late last week that included using the "no-fly" list as opposed to the terrorist watchlist to prohibit sales of firearms to those individuals. What do you make of her proposal as a compromise? Is it credible?

LADD EVERITT: I think it is credible, yeah. It will be very interesting to see where this goes from here. For those who just think as a knee-jerk that we've had our votes and we're not going to get anymore votes, I wouldn't be so quick to say that right now. It's possible that Sen. Collins and Sen. (Heidi) Heitkamp, who was working with her on those compromise measures, could step forward and keep developing their proposal and we could have an additional vote on you know, on that measure. But I appreciate Sen. Collins and Sen. Heitkamp working on that. I will say that Sen. Heitkamp's two "no" votes on the good bills today (June 20) but it would not surprise me in the least if unlike Newtown, this vote is the beginning of a process as opposed to the end of a process.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So many politicians who are voting with the National Rifle Association and getting their money for their campaign contributions have for years appeared to be insulated against public accountability for their votes in Congress that go against public opinion. But does it come down to gerrymandered districts? It's just hard to imagine why these folks continue to be so insulated from any kind of accountability.

LADD EVERITT: Yeah, but I don't think that's a permanent feature of our politics. You know, it's not as if Democrats can retake these chambers of Congress. You know, the Senate is certainly in play, very much in play in November. And I think a lot of people now feel that the House is as well. Republicans have a presidential candidate who – probably "unstable" is a good way to describe him – where who knows what's going to happen between now and November that could affect voting downticket from the president. And long term, looking forward, the demographic and cultural changes in this nation do not favor Republicans and they certainly don't favor a radical Republican party. So, look, I think the Republicans are trying to milk this reactionary wave as much as they can of you know of, certain white Americans who feel downtrodden or feel like they're losing their privilege in society. But again, I don't think that's a long-term strategy for organizing. I think it has some short-term benefits. But long term, it's a failed strategy that's not going to work.

Learn more about the campaign to enact common sense gun regulations by visiting the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence at csgv.org; Every Town For Gun Safety at everytown.org; Shooter Tracker at shootingtracker.com