Tag Archives: Charles Goldman

Remembering the Civil War veterans who continued the fight for equality after the War

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This week — our Memorial Day edition — we discuss Steve’s soon-to-be-released book, One More War to Fight: Union Veterans’ Battle for Equality through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause.

In an era where misinformation and outright lies too often pass as facts, Steve’s book “looks at the contentious post-Civil War era from the perspective of that special breed, Union soldiers, who lived by the bayonet and survived to carry on the fight for equality in the decades to come.”

Edna Greene Medford (professor of History Emerita at Howard University) writes, “Goldman offers a compelling argument in this comprehensively researched volume that addresses ways in which certain groups of northern white Union veterans supported a ‘just’ Reconstruction that aimed to protect and extend the rights of African Americans. Of particular interest is Goldman’s discussion of the role of the members of the Veterans Reserve Corps (wounded warriors), whose political activism, especially in veterans’ organizations; Freedmen’s Bureau work; and opposition to Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plans, countered the prevailing prejudices and racism of post-Civil War America. This is a study that will enlighten both the serious student of history as well as the general reader.” Continue Reading →

Dems should be in panic mode at Biden’s poll numbers

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Democrats should be in panic mode about Biden’s poll numbers. The way things are going, Joe Biden is going to lose to Donald Trump in November, 2024. You probably don’t want to hear that, and I hate to say it, but I believe it’s true and a reality that needs to be confronted.

A May 7 Washington Post-ABC News poll confirms my fear. That poll found that 44% said they’d either definitely or probably vote for Trump in 2024, while 38% picked Biden. The poll also had DeSantis beating Biden, 48-41%.

Democrats ignore these numbers at their peril. But wait, it gets worse. A question on page 18 of a February, 2023, Harris Poll reads: “Is Joe Biden mentally fit to serve as President of the United States or do you have doubts about his fitness for office?”

A whopping 57% of respondents had doubts about Biden’s mental fitness, and 63% said he’s too old to be president. Sure, the same questions could be — and should be — asked about Donald Trump. Regardless, the reality is voters have reservations about Biden’s mental well being, and those reservations aren’t going away. Continue Reading →

Interview with a pipeline attorney

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I’m a big believer in reaching across the political divide. My first guest this week, Katie O’Harra, seems to fit that bill.

Katie is a recently retired attorney for pipeline companies. You will, no doubt, be surprised to learn she doesn’t sport satanic horns and spew fire (see photo for confirmation). In fact, Katie and I agree on a wide range of concerns unrelated to pipelines.

Not surprisingly, we disagree on the use of eminent domain. Katie defends eminent domain as “a balancing of private rights and the public need,” though she agrees that “the net benefit goes to the producers who are selling and the consumers who are buying — and the people in the middle, not so much.”

And while Katie and I agree that climate change is an urgent matter, we disagree about the speed with which the problem can/must be addressed. Katie says that the company she worked for most recently “sees the writing on the wall and knows that pipelines aren’t the wave of the future.” She explains that the industry understands it has to eventually move beyond fossil fuels. Good, but I’m not convinced the industry (or its supporters within the political class) are willing to evolve at the speed science indicates is necessary. Continue Reading →

America needs a new peace movement

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Other than a few persistent, isolated voices for peace, we mostly hear crickets. Thus the question I ask in this week’s program and have asked before: Where is the peace movement?

Forty years ago, the anti-nuclear-weapons movement was broad and vibrant. It embraced every conceivable strategy — from hammering missile silos to volunteering in campaigns of “pro-peace” candidates.

That movement accomplished a lot: The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, START, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, US-Soviet citizen-diplomacy, and much more. There are still 13,080 nuclear weapons in the world, but that’s down from over 60,000 in 1986.

Change happened, as it always does, because hundreds of thousands of people marched, spoke out, got arrested, campaigned, and made more noise than the lumbering colossus of the federal government could ignore. Continue Reading →

Our Presidents Day celebration: Goldman lauds Trump’s greatest hits

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A few highlights from this week’s radio program and podcast:

BROOKINGS VS STEVE BANNON. The Brookings Institute recently published a study of 79 prominent political podcasters (darn, I didn’t make the cut). After analyzing 36,603 episodes, Brookings concluded that ten conservative podcasters were responsible for 60% of all “unsubstantiated and false claims.”

The study focuses mostly on election denial and COVID (incredibly, researchers ignored the blatantly false statements on climate change prevalent in conservative podcasts). Steve Bannon’s War Room finished a decisive first. From the Brookings study: “Bannon’s podcast alone accounted for nearly three-quarters of all conspiracy-related content on political podcasts and more than one-quarter of all COVID-related claims.”

Placing a distant but still respectable third was the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. They’re Rush Limbaugh’s successors, and they now dominate commercial radio for three hours each weekday. It was, in fact, during a Clay and Buck episode that I learned of the Brookings study. You know the mainstream media isn’t covering your story when I have to find out about it from a program the study critiques. Continue Reading →

Eminent domain bills on the move at the Iowa Statehouse

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If you live in Iowa, please contact your state rep and senator immediately regarding eminent domain legislation.

Several bills are on the move at the Statehouse, and now is a critical time to contact lawmakers.

Yesterday morning, I reached out to four Republicans and four Democrats about the issue, including the House and Senate minority leaders. I immediately heard back from three of the four Republicans, but not a single Democrat. (UPDATE: Two Democrats, Rep. Austin Baeth and Sen. Janet Peterson, have since responded.)

Yesterday, one Republican lawmaker shared this with me: “Today, for the third week in a row, we had dozens of landowners at the Capitol seeking legislative relief and protection. SF 101 has received registered support from the Iowa State Association of Counties and the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association. SF 104 addresses the 90% threshold and is supported by the Iowa Farm Bureau. House companion bills are being drafted, and there’s an even stronger 90% threshold bill in the works in the House that might stand a decent chance of movement.” Continue Reading →

COP27: Success, failure, or mixed bag?

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Was COP27 a success, a failure, or a mixed bag? Sad to say, it was mostly a flop.

At the conclusion of COP27, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Our planet is still in the emergency room. We need to drastically reduce emissions now — and this is an issue this COP did not address. The world still needs a giant leap on climate ambition.”

The bottom line is the summit didn’t deliver on what the scientific consensus says is most desperately needed and long overdue: a global commitment to drastically slash greenhouse-gas emissions. Continue Reading →

The Great “Are We Doomed?” Debate

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If I'm ever bothered that my opinions on climate change might offend people, I simply reflect on Guy McPherson's life. He's the renowned prophet-of-doom that many climate activists and scientists love to hate. This week, Guy joins Charles and me to discuss whether humanity is indeed plummeting toward extinction, or merely in for a very bad ride.

Guy: "I have complete confidence that there won't be a human being on the planet in 2030."

Me: "Despite the gravity of our climate dilemma, I have hope." Continue Reading →

House Dems retract call for diplomacy in Ukraine

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On another light note, five of us witched the heck out of Sherman Hill’s seasonable bash, Halloween on the Hill, this week. If you’re a Des Moiniac and there’s any room in your schedule for fun, be sure to add this October 31 event to your calendar next year.

On to serious stuff, specifically the letter sent to President Biden by thirty House Democrats calling for diplomacy in Ukraine.

The letter was really quite moderate, yet its the authors retracted it almost immediately. I strongly disagree with that decision. Charles, on the other hand, thinks it was the right call. What ensues us is a spirited debate that Charles loses (in my opinion). Give it a listen starting at the four-minute mark and let me know what you think. If a majority of you agree with Charles, I’ll buy him lunch.

For me, what Ryan Grim wrote in The Intercept sums it up: “That the letter was met with fierce opposition is a measure of the space available for debate among congressional Democrats when it comes to support for the war and how it might be stopped before it turns nuclear: roughly zero.”
Continue Reading →