Drew Courtney: Opponents Line Up to Block Expected Trump Muslim Registry and Jeff Sessions Attorney General Nomination

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.

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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.

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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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Opponents Organize to Block Expected Trump Muslim Registry and Jeff Sessions' Attorney General Nomination

Posted Nov. 23, 2016

Interview with Drew Courtney, communications director with People for the American Way, conducted by Scott Harris

Throughout the 2016 presidential election campaign, GOP candidate Donald Trump, now president-elect, trafficked in racism, hate speech, and scapegoating of ethnic and religious minorities. The many days of anti-Trump protests in U.S. cities and towns after he won the state-by-state Electoral College vote, while failing to win the popular vote, were inspired in part by Trump’s campaign promises to deport 11 million undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. and build a wall the length of the U.S. southern border. The real estate billionaire also pledged to ban the immigration of Muslims into the U.S., and institute a national registry for Muslims already living in America.

Concern about the new Trump administration’s intention to move forward on establishing a Muslim registry was fueled by statements made by Carl Higbie, a former spokesman for a major super PAC backing Donald Trump. Higbie, speaking on a Fox News program said that the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a “precedent” for the president-elect’s plans to create a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.

People for the American Way is one of a large number of groups opposed to the Trump agenda that are gearing up for important political battles ahead, many relating directly to a feared erosion of human and civil rights in the U.S. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Drew Courtney, communications director with People for the American Way, who explains why he believes a Muslim registry is unconstitutional and the reasons his group has come out in opposition to Trump’s nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to become the next attorney general.

DREW COURTNEY: One of the things that we're reconciling ourselves to in the Trump administration is that it's sometimes very hard to know exactly what's going on because of course, Donald Trump will say one and then say something else and then deny he said the first thing. Although, unfortunately, given the appointments that we've seen and that the moves towards policies we've seen so far – some of the worst things that he's proposed need to be taken very, very seriously. So we've heard since he was elected from various advisers – folks on the transition committee, folks like Reince Priebus, who have a role in the White House – that there is consideration of some kind of Muslim registration. He was saying that they're not ruling out something like Muslim registry. And we know that on Sunday, Kris Kobach, who right now is the secretary of state of Kansas, but who has been a longtime anti-immigrant and anti-voting rights activist – who in recent years has also become a vocal anti-Muslim activist – was in with Donald Trump and was proposing to him to resurrect and expand a program that existed under President Bush that would have required Muslim immigrants from certain countries to register.

Fundamentally, what it comes down to is, any attempt to create a registration of Muslims is profoundly unconstitutional and you can dress it up by saying, "Oh, well, we're actually only asking people from certain countries, 'wink, wink' to register with the government." That fig leaf shouldn't fly. It's still profoundly offensive and it's also really dangerous. But we do know that's being considered. I think that this is something that we should really worry about. You know, if there's one that's essential to the Constitution, to the First Amendment, to the Fourteenth Amendment, it's the idea that all people are equally welcomed in our civic life. There is no exception for Muslims, there is no exception for Jews, nor for Christians, nor for atheists, and this would run deeply afoul of that principle.

And the other thing to remember is that these kind of registries do nothing to keep us safe. They actually make it much more dangerous for all of us for several reasons. You know, it buys into this very dangerous lie that's being propagated by the Islamic State, by al Qaeda, that the United States is at war with Islam, is at war with Muslims. It's a powerful recruiting tool for them. It also attacks communities who we need to help us finding extremism. You know, there are people who are radicalized within the Muslim community, and what we see is that the people who alert us to this, so that problem can be addressed, are other Muslims.

And the third thing is that it blinds us to radicalization that goes on in other communities. We've had some very dangerous terrorist attacks in the United States. Many of them have been committed by people who are not Muslim. When someone shoots up a black church in South Carolina, that was not committed by a Muslim. When someone blows up the federal building in Oklahoma City, that was not committed by a Muslim. And shame on us, if we decide that we're going to look so hard at Muslims who are radicalized that we ignore other folks in our communities who could also become radicalized with really deadly results.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Drew, I'm sure you and your colleagues at People for American Way and other allied groups are talking about mounting effective opposition to a prospective Muslim registry in the United States harkening back to the internment of the Japanese. What are some of the strategies and tactics you're talking about to effectively oppose this possible policy change in the country?

DREW COURTNEY: So I think some of things that we need to be seeing right now at the policy level before we're moving on to it, is that there is a lot of activist energy on the streets, on Facebook. I've been working at People for the American Way for over a decade; I've never seen anything like the energy and enthusiasm that's come out in response to this pushing back. I think a signal needs to be sent loud and clear that we are watching and we are watching very closely on these kinds of things. So the first place that I think it really is important that we push back is around the nomination of Jeff Sessions. He has a truly abominable record around civil rights. He has an abominable record around Muslim Americans and has spoken repeatedly and kindly to groups that are not just anti-immigrant, but specifically anti-Muslim, and it's really important that we fight very hard on that nomination. And that, frankly, if senators are going to make the choice to rubberstamp someone as extreme and dangerous as Jeff Sessions, they pay a price for it. And they need to know that this is going to be a real fight.

The second thing is that we need to oppose very stringently the first moves that we see on these things. So when we see this starting to come out; if these things get floated; if we see Kris Kobach moving in, we don't wait and see on some of this stuff. We speak up for our values immediately. The thing that I think we need to remember is not only do we have to oppose it then – when times could be tough – but we need to fight every single way, in the less dramatic, the less glamorous ways to make sure that we never ever get to that point.

For more information, visit People for the American Way at PFAW.org.