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Rural America is Trump country. Last November Trump carried 93 percent of rural counties.. How can Democrats change that? Anthony Flaccavento and Erica Etelson, co-founders of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, have a strategy to accomplish that. Also: 20 minutes without Trump: We know a lot about the bad things J. Edgar Hoover did, but it turns out there's a lot we didn't know. In this episode from the archives, Historian Beverly Gage will explain. Her award-winning book is “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover & the Making of the American Century.” (originally aired in December, 2022)Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Russia-Ukraine delegations meet for the first time since 2022, Donald Trump secures $2 trillion in Gulf state deals, An al-Qaeda affiliate claims the killing of 200 Burkina Faso soldiers in a major attack, Albania declines Kier Starmer's migrant return hub proposal, A BBC report claims that Iran is leveraging organized crime for attacks abroad, An ex-FBI boss is investigated over a post alleged to be a Trump death threat, The FBI will be vacating the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C., xAI says an unauthorized change made Grok push South Africa genocide claims, Papua New Guinea declares a polio emergency, and custom CRISPR gene therapy saves a Pennsylvania baby with a rare disease. Sources: www.verity.news
Matt Crawford speaks with Andrew Holter about his book, Going Around: Selected Journalism Murray Kempton. A courtly man of Southern roots, Murray Kempton worked as a labor reporter for the New York Post, won a Pulitzer Prize while at Newsday, and was arrested at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago along the way. He wore three piece suits and polished oxfords and was known for riding his bicycle around New York City while listening to his CD Walkman and smoking a pipe with wild red hair that later turned white. He developed a taste for baroque prose and became, in the words of Robert Silvers, his editor at The New York Review of Books, ''unmatched in his moral insight into the hypocrisies of politics and their consequences for the poor and powerless.'' He went to court proceedings and traffic accidents and funerals and to speeches by people who either were or wanted to be rich and famous. He wrote about everything and anybody—Tonya Harding and Warren Harding, Fidel Castro and Mussolini, Harry Truman and Sal Maglie, St. Francis of Assisi and James Joyce and J. Edgar Hoover. From dispatches from a hardscrabble coal town in Western Maryland, a bus carrying Freedom Riders through Mississippi, an Iowa cornfield with Nikita Krushchev, an encampment of guerrillas in El Salvador, and Moscow at the end of the Soviet Union (these last two assignments filed by a reporter in his 70s), Kempton's concerns and interests were extraordinarily broad. He wrote about subjects from H.L. Mencken to Tupac Shakur; organized labor and McCarthyism; the Civil Rights and Black Power movements; presidential hopefuls and Mafiosi; frauds and failures of all stripes; the “splendors and miseries” of life in New York City.
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapters 20 & 21: Closing Cases & Dumbstruck That It Meant Something The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Recently Matt joined Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub of the excellent In Bed with the Right podcast to record what turned out to be two episodes about Roy Cohn—the "lawyer, closet case and ratfucker extraordinaire," as they describe him. These days Cohn is perhaps most infamous for being Donald Trump's lawyer and mentor, but this first episode focuses on Cohn's childhood and family life, his decisive role in the Rosenberg trial (especially their execution), and his time working with Sen. Joe McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. After you listen, please head over to In Bed with the Right to check out the second episode on Cohn and hear the rest of his story.Sources:Nicholas von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn (1988)Christopher M. Elias, Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation (2021)Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990)Ivy Meeropol (dir.), Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019)Matt Tyrnauer (dir.), Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019)...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
Aan de vooravond van Dodenherdenking en Bevrijdingsdag herdenken we niet alleen, maar herkennen ook. Dat is leerzaam, maar ook confronterend. Het boek De tien van Den Haag van Stephan Steinmetz is dat zeker in tijden dat ambtenaren worstelen met vragen van loyaliteit. In Amerika bij de omgang met de regering-Trump. En ook in eigen land met vragen over controversieel beleid.Jaap Jansen en PG Kroeger praten met Stephan Steinmetz over de belevenissen van de tien hoogste ambtenaren op de Haagse ministeries toen in mei 1940 Nazi-Duitsland Nederland binnenviel en al na enkele dagen dwong tot capitulatie.***Deze aflevering is mede mogelijk gemaakt met donaties van luisteraars die we hiervoor hartelijk danken. Word ook vriend van de show!Deze aflevering bevat een advertentie van Lendahand.com - gebruik de code betrouwbarebronnen500 bij je eerste investering (geldig t/m 31 mei 2025)Heb je belangstelling om in onze podcast te adverteren of ons te sponsoren? Zend een mailtje naar adverteren@dagennacht.nl en wij zoeken contact.Op sommige podcast-apps kun je niet alles lezen. De complete tekst plus linkjes en een overzicht van al onze eerdere afleveringen vind je hier***Ineens stonden de secretarissen-generaal moederziel alleen, zonder gezamenlijke beleidslijn. Met een naar Londen gevluchte regering die radeloos was en met een vijandige overwinnaar die scherp had afgewogen hoe de Nederlanders te paaien en te onderwerpen. "Maak er het beste van", zei minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy bij het afscheid tegen zijn SG.Steinmetz vertelt met rijke details hoe de ambtelijke top niet alleen een eigen werkwijze moest vinden - die was er voorheen nauwelijks - maar ook moest leren omgaan met een bezetter die geheel anders te werk ging dan waar men zozeer voor gevreesd werd. Een merkwaardige mengeling van opluchting, daadkracht, argwaan en onbestemde vrees nam de overhand. En stiekem waren 'de tien' zelfs blij dat ze zonder ministers, parlement, verdeelde partijen en verzuilde polder nu eens flink en 'modern' aan de slag konden.Adolf Hitler wilde ‘het Germaanse broedervolk' paaien en de Nederlandse economie inzetten voor zijn oorlogsmachine. Steinmetz laat zien hoe bij alle geruststellend klinkende boodschappen - ook over 'het Jodenvraagstuk'- al in de zomer van 1940 doelgericht werd gewerkt aan de voorbereiding van het maatschappelijk isolement en de ondergang van Joden - ook in Nederland.De tien SG's kozen daarbij voor een lijn van formele samenwerking met de bezetter, om bestuur, economie en grondwettelijke rechten zoveel mogelijk overeind te houden. En ze ontdekten dat ze met de bezetter - onder leiding van Hitlers 'stadhouder' Arthur Seyss-Inquart - één doel deelden: NSB'ers zoveel mogelijk buiten de deur houden.Zo probeerden ze vanuit een defensieve houding te doen wat de vader van Jan de Koning zijn tienerzoon destijds voorhield: 'het onderscheid tussen een greppel en de laatste gracht' in de gaten houden. Dat ze zich met hun houding op ‘een hellend vlak' begaven, beseften sommigen al aan het begin van de bezetting. Anderen hielden zich vast aan hun drijfveer ‘erger te voorkomen'. De sterke man onder de SG's, Hans Hirschfeld, noemde het de principiële keuze tussen 'Gesinnungsethik' en 'Verantwortungsethik', naar de terminologie van Max Weber.Een manier om de dialoog met Seyss-Inquart en zijn staf gaande te houden was het niet agenderen van mogelijke conflictstof, maar wel formele protesten uiten als het niet anders kon. Daarna poogden ze de scherpe kantjes eraf te halen, vaak met procedurele trucjes. Toen Joodse Nederlanders geen parken meer mochten bezoeken, ontstond een hele discussie over de definitie van 'een park'.Intussen kaapte de bezetter een perfectionistisch ambtelijk project dat het mogelijk maakte iedere inwoner nauwkeurig te identificeren en registreren. Stephan Steinmetz laat zien hoe naïef professionalisme, cowboygedrag en gebrek aan toezicht vanuit de top rampzalige gevolgen kreeg.Ondertussen droegen veel Nederlanders op de verjaardag van prins Bernhard een anjer – als stil protest. De aanhankelijkheid aan het Oranjehuis deed Nazi-propagandachef Joseph Goebbels tijdens een bezoek aan Den Haag in woede ontsteken. Steinmetz vertelt buitengewoon beeldend van een confrontatie tussen Hermann Göring en opperbevelhebber Winkelman.De NSB buiten de deur houden lukte uiteindelijk niet. Allengs werden Duitsgezinde SG's in vacatures benoemd. Toch probeerden de resterenden van de oorspronkelijke tien ook met hen erbij het land draaiende te houden. De bezetter besefte dat met name Hirschfeld onmisbaar was voor de economische situatie en de loyaliteit van het bedrijfsleven.Hoogst opmerkelijk - en verrassend actueel - is hoe hij de land- en tuinbouw drastisch aanpakte om mogelijke hongersnood te voorkomen. Niet minder hoe hij zo nodig bruut de confrontatie zocht als geweld dreigde, bijvoorbeeld bij een mijnstaking. "Wilt u kolen of lijken?" zei hij ijskoud tegen de generaals.Na de bevrijding werden de SG's vooral beoordeeld op wat zij hadden gedaan om 'het verzet' te helpen. Dat zij hun taak zagen als 'erger voorkomen', de NSB tegenhouden en 'het land draaiende houden' werd minder zwaar gewogen.Des te opvallender is dat de regering na 1945 Hirschfeld toch hoge posten bleef gunnen. Impliciet besefte men blijkbaar dat "Maak er het beste van" het enige was, dat hem en zijn collega's was meegegeven in onmogelijke omstandigheden.***Verder luisteren322 - 30 januari 1933, een fatale dag voor Duitsland en de wereld105 - Dagelijks leven in Nazi-Duitsland478 - Was Hitler een socialist?314 - Prins Heinrich XIII en het verlangen naar een autoritair Duisland385 - Jan de Koning en het verschil tussen een greppel en de laatste gracht479 - Winston Churchill. Staatsman. Redenaar. Excentriekeling.32 - Churchill en Europa: biografen Andrew Roberts en Felix Klos (vanaf 1 uur 3)300 - Ethische politiek: het bijzondere Nederland met zijn 'moreel hoogstaande opvattingen'441 - Extra zomeraflevering: boekenspecial! (oa over de secretarissen-generaal)186 - Hoe je een ministerie bestuurt, terreur bestrijdt en Poetin op je dak krijgt: Tjibbe Joustra over crisis en controle120 - Roel Bekker: Waarom bij de overheid dingen zo vaak fout gaan489 – Trump, Musk en de aanval op de privacy408 – FBI-chef J. Edgar Hoover, de machtigste ambtenaar van Amerika208 - Max Weber: wetenschap als beroep en politiek als beroep200 - De Heerser: Machiavelli's lessen zijn nog altijd actueel***Tijdlijn00:00:00 – Deel 100:52:00 – Deel 201:38:00 – Deel 302:00:51 – Einde Zie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Donald Trump is "the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s"—that's what Princeton's president Christopher Eisgruber said. Others say that what Trump is doing is worse. Beverly Gage comments – she wrote “G-Man,” the award-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover.Also on this episode: In 1948, Alger Hiss, a prominent New Deal Democrat, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he had not been a Soviet spy. The conventional wisdom is that he was probably guilty. Now, Jeff Kisseloff says it's not hard to show that Hiss was innocent; the hard part is figuring out who framed him. Jeff's new book is “Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth About Alger Hiss.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Donald Trump is "the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s"—that's what Princeton's president Christopher Eisgruber said. Others say that what Trump is doing is worse. Beverly Gage comments – she wrote “G-Man,” the award-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover.Also on this episode: In 1948, Alger Hiss, a prominent New Deal Democrat, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he had not been a Soviet spy. The conventional wisdom is that he was probably guilty. Now, Jeff Kisseloff says it's not hard to show that Hiss was innocent; the hard part is figuring out who framed him. Jeff's new book is “Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth About Alger Hiss.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Continuing with Author Eric Dezenhall! Discussion on J. Edgar Hoover, Truman and The Mob, Trump's Reputation as a Mobster, The Vietnam War, Watergate, Thoughts on Conspiracy Theories, and more! BUY "WISEGUYS AND THE WHITE HOUSE" and other Eric Dezenhall Books!: https://dezbooks.net/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A year ago, the great American historian Adam Hochschild came on KEEN ON AMERICA to discuss American Midnight, his best selling account of the crisis of American democracy after World War One. A year later, is history really repeating itself in today's crisis of American democracy? For Hochschild, there are certainly parallels between the current political situation in the US and post WW1 America. Describing how wartime hysteria and fear of communism led to unprecedented government repression, including mass imprisonment for political speech, vigilante violence, and press censorship. Hochschild notes eery similarities to today's Trump's administration. He expresses concern about today's threats to democratic institutions while suggesting the importance of understanding Trump supporters' grievances and finding ways to bridge political divides. Five Key Takeaways* The period of 1917-1921 in America saw extreme government repression, including imprisoning people for speech, vigilante violence, and widespread censorship—what Hochschild calls America's "Trumpiest" era before Trump.* American history shows recurring patterns of nativism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and scapegoating that politicians exploit during times of economic or social stress.* The current political climate shows concerning parallels to this earlier period, including intimidation of opposition, attacks on institutions, and the widespread acceptance of authoritarian tendencies.* Hochschild emphasizes the importance of understanding the grievances and suffering that lead people to support authoritarian figures rather than dismissing their concerns.* Despite current divisions, Hochschild believes reconciliation is possible and necessary, pointing to historical examples like President Harding pardoning Eugene Debs after Wilson imprisoned him. Full Transcript Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. We recently celebrated our 2500th edition of Keen On. Some people suggest I'm mad. I think I probably am to do so many shows. Just over a little more than a year ago, we celebrated our 2000th show featuring one of America's most distinguished historians, Adam Hochschild. I'm thrilled that Adam is joining us again a year later. He's the author of "American Midnight, The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis." This was his last book. He's the author of many other books. He is now working on a book on the Great Depression. He's joining us from his home in Berkeley, California. Adam, to borrow a famous phrase or remix a famous phrase, a year is a long time in American history.Adam Hochschild: That's true, Andrew. I think this past year, or actually this past 100 days or so has been a very long and very difficult time in American history that we all saw coming to some degree, but I don't think we realized it would be as extreme and as rapid as it has been.Andrew Keen: Your book, Adam, "American Midnight, A Great War of Violent Peace and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis," is perhaps the most prescient warning. When you researched that you were saying before we went live that your books usually take you between four and five years, so you couldn't really have planned for this, although I guess you began writing and researching American Midnight during the Trump 1.0 regime. Did you write it as a warning to something like is happening today in America?Adam Hochschild: Well, I did start writing it and did most of the work on it during Trump's first term in office. So I was very struck by the parallels. And they're in plain sight for everybody to see. There are various dark currents that run through this country of ours. Nativism, threats to deport troublemakers. Politicians stirring up violent feelings against immigrants, vigilante violence, all those things have been with us for a long time. I've always been fascinated by that period, 1917 to 21, when they surged to the surface in a very nasty way. That was the subject of the book. Naturally, I hoped we wouldn't have to go through anything like that again, but here we are definitely going through it again.Andrew Keen: You wrote a lovely piece earlier this month for the Washington Post. "America was at its Trumpiest a hundred years ago. Here's how to prevent the worst." What did you mean by Trumpiest, Adam? I'm not sure if you came up with that title, but I know you like the term. You begin the essay. What was the Trumpiest period in American life before Donald Trump?Adam Hochschild: Well, I didn't invent the word, but I certainly did use it in the piece. What I meant by that is that when you look at this period just over 100 years ago, 1917 to 1921, Woodrow Wilson's second term in office, two things happened in 1917 that kicked off a kind of hysteria in this country. One was that Wilson asked the American Congress to declare war on Germany, which it promptly did, and when a country enters a major war, especially a world war, it sets off a kind of hysteria. And then that was redoubled some months later when the country received news of the Russian Revolution, and many people in the establishment in America were afraid the Russian Revolution might come to the United States.So, a number of things happened. One was that there was a total hysteria against all things German. There were bonfires of German books all around the country. People would take German books out of libraries, schools, college and university libraries and burn them in the street. 19 such bonfires in Ohio alone. You can see pictures of it on the internet. There was hysteria about the German language. I heard about this from my father as I was growing up because his father was a Jewish immigrant from Germany. They lived in New York City. They spoke German around the family dinner table, but they were terrified of doing so on the street because you could get beaten up for that. Several states passed laws against speaking German in public or speaking German on the telephone. Eminent professors declared that German was a barbaric language. So there was that kind of hysteria.Then as soon as the United States declared war, Wilson pushed the Espionage Act through Congress, this draconian law, which essentially gave the government the right to lock up anybody who said something that was taken to be against the war. And they used this law in a devastating way. During those four years, roughly a thousand Americans spent a year or more in jail and a much larger number, shorter periods in jail solely for things that they wrote or said. These were people who were political prisoners sent to jail simply for something they wrote or said, the most famous of them was Eugene Debs, many times the socialist candidate for president. He'd gotten 6% of the popular vote in 1912 and in 1918. For giving an anti-war speech from a park bandstand in Ohio, he was sent to prison for 10 years. And he was still in prison two years after the war ended in November, 1920, when he pulled more than 900,000 votes for president from his jail cell in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.So that was one phase of the repression, political prisoners. Another was vigilante violence. The government itself, the Department of Justice, chartered a vigilante group, something called the American Protective League, which went around roughing up people that it thought were evading the draft, beating up people at anti-war rallies, arresting people with citizens arrest whom they didn't have their proper draft papers on them, holding them for hours or sometimes for days until they could produce the right paperwork.Andrew Keen: I remember, Adam, you have a very graphic description of some of this violence in American Midnight. There was a story, was it a union leader?Adam Hochschild: Well, there is so much violence that happened during that time. I begin the book with a graphic description of vigilantes raiding an office of the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, taking a bunch of wobblies out into the prairie at night, stripping them, whipping them, flogging them fiercely, and then tarring and feathering them, and firing shotguns over their heads so they would run off into the Prairie at Night. And they did. Those guys were lucky because they survive. Other people were killed by this vigilante violence.And the final thing about that period which I would mention is the press censorship. The Espionage Act gave the Postmaster General the power to declare any publication in the United States unmailable. And for a newspaper or a magazine that was trying to reach a national audience, the only way you could do so was through the US mail because there was no internet then. No radio, no TV, no other way of getting your publication to somebody. And this put some 75 newspapers and magazines that the government didn't like out of business. It in addition censored three or four hundred specific issues of other publications as well.So that's why I feel this is all a very dark period of American life. Ironically, that press censorship operation, because it was run by the postmaster general, who by the way loved being chief censor, it was ran out of the building that was then the post office headquarters in Washington, which a hundred years later became the Trump International Hotel. And for $4,000 a night, you could stay in the Postmaster General's suite.Andrew Keen: You, Adam, the First World War is a subject you're very familiar with. In addition to American Midnight, you wrote "To End All Wars, a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914 to 18," which was another very successful of your historical recreations. Many countries around the world experience this turbulence, the violence. Of course, we had fascism in the 20s in Europe. And later in the 30s as well. America has a long history of violence. You talk about the violence after the First World War or after the declaration. But I was just in Montgomery, Alabama, went to the lynching museum there, which is considerably troubling. I'm sure you've been there. You're not necessarily a comparative political scientist, Adam. How does America, in its paranoia during the war and its clampdown on press freedom, on its violence, on its attempt to create an authoritarian political system, how does it compare to other democracies? Is some of this stuff uniquely American or is it a similar development around the world?Adam Hochschild: You see similar pressures almost any time that a major country is involved in a major war. Wars are never good for civil liberties. The First World War, to stick with that period of comparison, was a time that saw strong anti-war movements in all of the warring countries, in Germany and Britain and Russia. There were people who understood at the time that this war was going to remake the world for the worse in every way, which indeed it did, and who refused to fight. There were 800 conscientious objectors jailed in Russia, and Russia did not have much freedom of expression to begin with. In Germany, many distinguished people on the left, like Rosa Luxemburg, were sent to jail for most of the war.Britain was an interesting case because I think they had a much longer established tradition of free speech than did the countries on the continent. It goes way back and it's a distinguished and wonderful tradition. They were also worried for the first two and a half, three years of the war before the United States entered, that if they crack down too hard on their anti-war movement, it would upset people in the United States, which they were desperate to draw into the war on their side. Nonetheless, there were 6,000 conscientious objectors who were sent to jail in England. There was intermittent censorship of anti-war publications, although some were able to publish some of the time. There were many distinguished Britons, such as Bertrand Russell, the philosopher who later won a Nobel Prize, sent to jails for six months for his opposition to the war. So some of this happened all over.But I think in the United States, especially with these vigilante groups, it took a more violent form because remember the country at that time was only a few decades away from these frontier wars with the Indians. And the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century, the western expansion of white settlement was an enormously bloody business that was almost genocidal for the Native Americans. Many people had participated in that. Many people saw that violence as integral to what the country was. So there was a pretty well-established tradition of settling differences violently.Andrew Keen: I'm sure you're familiar with Stephen Hahn's book, "A Liberal America." He teaches at NYU, a book which in some ways is very similar to yours, but covers all of American history. Hahn was recently on the Ezra Klein show, talking like you, like we're talking today, Adam, about the very American roots of Trumpism. Hahn, it's an interesting book, traces much of this back to Jackson and the wars of the frontier against Indians. Do you share his thesis on that front? Are there strong similarities between Jackson, Wilson, and perhaps even Trump?Adam Hochschild: Well, I regret to say I'm not familiar with Hahn's book, but I certainly do feel that that legacy of constant war for most of the 19th century against the Native Americans ran very deep in this country. And we must never forget how appealing it is to young men to take part in war. Unfortunately, all through history, there have been people very tempted by this. And I think when you have wars of conquest, such as happen in the American West, against people who are more poorly armed, or colonial wars such as Europe fought in Africa and Asia against much more poorly-armed opponents, these are especially appealing to young people. And in both the United States and in the European colonization of Africa, which I know something about. For young men joining in these colonizing or conquering adventures, there was a chance not just to get martial glory, but to also get rich in the process.Andrew Keen: You're all too familiar with colonial history, Adam. Another of your books was about King Leopold's Congo and the brutality there. Where was the most coherent opposition morally and politically to what was happening? My sense in Trump's America is perhaps the most persuasive and moral critique comes from the old Republican Center from people like David Brooks, Peter Wayno has been on the show many times, Jonathan Rausch. Where were people like Teddy Roosevelt in this narrative? Were there critics from the right as well as from the left?Adam Hochschild: Good question. I first of all would give a shout out to those Republican centrists who've spoken out against Trump, the McCain Republicans. There are some good people there - Romney, of course as well. They've been very forceful. There wasn't really an equivalent to that, a direct equivalent to that in the Wilson era. Teddy Roosevelt whom you mentioned was a far more ferocious drum beater than Wilson himself and was pushing Wilson to declare war long before Wilson did. Roosevelt really believed that war was good for the soul. He desperately tried to get Wilson to appoint him to lead a volunteer force, came up with an elaborate plan for this would be a volunteer army staffed by descendants of both Union and Confederate generals and by French officers as well and homage to the Marquis de Lafayette. Wilson refused to allow Roosevelt to do this, and plus Roosevelt was, I think, 58 years old at the time. But all four of Roosevelt's sons enlisted and joined in the war, and one of them was killed. And his father was absolutely devastated by this.So there was not really that equivalent to the McCain Republicans who are resisting Trump, so to speak. In fact, what resistance there was in the U.S. came mostly from the left, and it was mostly ruthlessly silenced, all these people who went to jail. It was silenced also because this is another important part of what happened, which is different from today. When the federal government passed the Espionage Act that gave it these draconian powers, state governments, many of them passed copycat laws. In fact, a federal justice department agent actually helped draft the law in New Hampshire. Montana locked up people serving more than 60 years cumulatively of hard labor for opposing the war. California had 70 people in prison. Even my hometown of Berkeley, California passed a copycat law. So, this martial spirit really spread throughout the country at that time.Andrew Keen: So you've mentioned that Debs was the great critic and was imprisoned and got a considerable number of votes in the election. You're writing a book now about the Great Depression and FDR's involvement in it. FDR, of course, was a distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt. At this point, he was an aspiring Democratic politician. Where was the critique within the mainstream Democratic party? Were people like FDR, who had a position in the Wilson administration, wasn't he naval secretary?Adam Hochschild: He was assistant secretary of the Navy. And he went to Europe during the war. For an aspiring politician, it's always very important to say I've been at the front. And so he went to Europe and certainly made no sign of resistance. And then in 1920, he was the democratic candidate for vice president. That ticket lost of course.Andrew Keen: And just to remind ourselves, this was before he became disabled through polio, is that correct?Adam Hochschild: That's right. That happened in the early 20s and it completely changed his life and I think quite deepened him as a person. He was a very ambitious social climbing young politician before then but I think he became something deeper. Also the political parties at the time were divided each party between right and left wings or war mongering and pacifist wings. And when the Congress voted on the war, there were six senators who voted against going to war and 50 members of the House of Representatives. And those senators and representatives came from both parties. We think of the Republican Party as being more conservative, but it had some staunch liberals in it. The most outspoken voice against the war in the Senate was Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, who was a Republican.Andrew Keen: I know you write about La Follette in American Midnight, but couldn't one, Adam, couldn't won before the war and against domestic repression. You wrote an interesting piece recently for the New York Review of Books about the Scopes trial. William Jennings Bryan, of course, was involved in that. He was the defeated Democratic candidate, what in about three or four presidential elections in the past. In the early 20th century. What was Bryan's position on this? He had been against the war, is that correct? But I'm guessing he would have been quite critical of some of the domestic repression.Adam Hochschild: You know, I should know the answer to that, Andrew, but I don't. He certainly was against going to war. He had started out in Wilson's first term as Wilson's secretary of state and then resigned in protest against the military buildup and what he saw as a drift to war, and I give him great credit for that. I don't recall his speaking out against the repression after it began, once the US entered the war, but I could be wrong on that. It was not something that I researched. There were just so few voices speaking out. I think I would remember if he had been one of them.Andrew Keen: Adam, again, I'm thinking out loud here, so please correct me if this is a dumb question. What would it be fair to say that one of the things that distinguished the United States from the European powers during the First World War in this period it remained an incredibly insular provincial place barely involved in international politics with a population many of them were migrants themselves would come from Europe but nonetheless cut off from the world. And much of that accounted for the anti-immigrant, anti-foreign hysteria. That exists in many countries, but perhaps it was a little bit more pronounced in the America of the early 20th century, and perhaps in some ways in the early 21st century.Adam Hochschild: Well, we remain a pretty insular place in many ways. A few years ago, I remember seeing the statistic in the New York Times, I have not checked to see whether it's still the case, but I suspect it is that half the members of the United States Congress do not have passports. And we are more cut off from the world than people living in most of the countries of Europe, for example. And I think that does account for some of the tremendous feeling against immigrants and refugees. Although, of course, this is something that is common, not just in Europe, but in many countries all over the world. And I fear it's going to get all the stronger as climate change generates more and more refugees from the center of the earth going to places farther north or farther south where they can get away from parts of the world that have become almost unlivable because of climate change.Andrew Keen: I wonder Democratic Congress people perhaps aren't leaving the country because they fear they won't be let back in. What were the concrete consequences of all this? You write in your book about a young lawyer, J. Edgar Hoover, of course, who made his name in this period. He was very much involved in the Palmer Raids. He worked, I think his first job was for Palmer. How do you see this structurally? Of course, many historians, biographers of Hoover have seen this as the beginning of some sort of American security state. Is that over-reading it, exaggerating what happened in this period?Adam Hochschild: Well, security state may be too dignified a word for the hysteria that reigned in the country at that time. One of the things we've long had in the United States is a hysteria, paranoia directed at immigrants who are coming from what seems to be a new and threatening part of the world. In the mid-19th century, for example, we had the Know-Nothing Party, as it was called, who were violently opposed to Catholic immigrants coming from Ireland. Now, they were people of Anglo-Saxon descent, pretty much, who felt that these Irish Catholics were a tremendous threat to the America that they knew. There was much violence. There were people killed in riots against Catholic immigrants. There were Catholic merchants who had their stores burned and so on.Then it began to shift. The Irish sort of became acceptable, but by the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century the immigrants coming from Europe were now coming primarily from southern and eastern Europe. In other words, Italians, Sicilians, Poles, and Jews. And they became the target of the anti-immigrant crusaders with much hysteria directed against them. It was further inflamed at that time by the Eugenics movement, which was something very strong, where people believed that there was a Nordic race that was somehow superior to everybody else, that the Mediterraneans were inferior people, and that the Africans were so far down the scale, barely worth talking about. And this culminated in 1924 with the passage of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act that year, which basically slammed the door completely on immigrants coming from Asia and slowed to an absolute trickle those coming from Europe for the next 40 years or so.Andrew Keen: It wasn't until the mid-60s that immigration changed, which is often overlooked. Some people, even on the left, suggest that it was a mistake to radically reform the Immigration Act because we would have inevitably found ourselves back in this situation. What do you think about that, Adam?Adam Hochschild: Well, I think a country has the right to regulate to some degree its immigration, but there always will be immigration in this world. I mean, my ancestors all came from other countries. The Jewish side of my family, I'm half Jewish, were lucky to get out of Europe in plenty of time. Some relatives who stayed there were not lucky and perished in the Holocaust. So who am I to say that somebody fleeing a repressive regime in El Salvador or somewhere else doesn't have the right to come here? I think we should be pretty tolerant, especially if people fleeing countries where they really risk death for one reason or another. But there is always gonna be this strong anti-immigrant feeling because unscrupulous politicians like Donald Trump, and he has many predecessors in this country, can point to immigrants and blame them for the economic misfortunes that many Americans are experiencing for reasons that don't have anything to do with immigration.Andrew Keen: Fast forward Adam to today. You were involved in an interesting conversation on the Nation about the role of universities in the resistance. What do you make of this first hundred days, I was going to say hundred years that would be a Freudian error, a hundred days of the Trump regime, the role, of big law, big universities, newspapers, media outlets? In this emerging opposition, are you chilled or encouraged?Adam Hochschild: Well, I hope it's a hundred days and not a hundred years. I am moderately encouraged. I was certainly deeply disappointed at the outset to see all of those tech titans go to Washington, kiss the ring, contribute to Trump's inauguration festivities, be there in the front row. Very depressing spectacle, which kind of reminds one of how all the big German industrialists fell into line so quickly behind Hitler. And I'm particularly depressed to see the changes in the media, both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post becoming much more tame when it came to endorsing.Andrew Keen: One of the reasons for that, Adam, of course, is that you're a long-time professor at the journalism school at UC Berkeley, so you've been on the front lines.Adam Hochschild: So I really care about a lively press that has free expression. And we also have a huge part of the media like Fox News and One American Network and other outlets that are just pouring forth a constant fire hose of lies and falsehood.Andrew Keen: And you're being kind of calling it a fire hose. I think we could come up with other terms for it. Anyway, a sewage pipe, but that's another issue.Adam Hochschild: But I'm encouraged when I see media organizations that take a stand. There are places like the New York Times, like CNN, like MSNBC, like the major TV networks, which you can read or watch and really find an honest picture of what's going on. And I think that's a tremendously important thing for a country to have. And that you look at the countries that Donald Trump admires, like Putin's Russia, for example, they don't have this. So I value that. I want to keep it. I think that's tremendously important.I was sorry, of course, that so many of those big law firms immediately cave to these ridiculous and unprecedented demands that he made, contributing pro bono work to his causes in return for not getting banned from government buildings. Nothing like that has happened in American history before, and the people in those firms that made those decisions should really be ashamed of themselves. I was glad to see Harvard University, which happens to be my alma mater, be defiant after caving in a little bit on a couple of issues. They finally put their foot down and said no. And I must say, feeling Harvard patriotism is a very rare emotion for me. But this is the first time in 50 years that I've felt some of it.Andrew Keen: You may even give a donation, Adam.Adam Hochschild: And I hope other universities are going to follow its lead, and it looks like they will. But this is pretty unprecedented, a president coming after universities with this determined of ferocity. And he's going after nonprofit organizations as well. There will be many fights there as well, I'm sure we're just waiting to hear about the next wave of attacks which will be on places like the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation and other big nonprofits. So hold on and wait for that and I hope they are as defiant as possible too.Andrew Keen: It's a little bit jarring to hear a wise historian like yourself use the word unprecedented. Is there much else of this given that we're talking historically and the similarities with the period after the first world war, is there anything else unprecedented about Trumpism?Adam Hochschild: I think in a way, we have often had, or not often, but certainly sometimes had presidents in this country who wanted to assume almost dictatorial powers. Richard Nixon certainly is the most recent case before Trump. And he was eventually stopped and forced to leave office. Had that not happened, I think he would have very happily turned himself into a dictator. So we know that there are temptations that come with the desire for absolute power everywhere. But Trump has gotten farther along on this process and has shown less willingness to do things like abide by court orders. The way that he puts pressure on Republican members of Congress.To me, one of the most startling, disappointing, remarkable, and shocking things about these first hundred days is how very few Republican members to the House or Senate have dared to defy Trump on anything. At most, these ridiculous set of appointees that he muscled through the Senate. At most, they got three Republican votes against them. They couldn't muster the fourth necessary vote. And in the House, only one or two Republicans have voted against Trump on anything. And of course, he has threatened to have Elon Musk fund primaries against any member of Congress who does defy him. And I can't help but think that these folks must also be afraid of physical violence because Trump has let all the January 6th people out of jail and the way vigilantes like that operate is they first go after the traitors on their own side then they come for the rest of us just as in the first real burst of violence in Hitler's Germany was the night of the long knives against another faction of the Nazi Party. Then they started coming for the Jews.Andrew Keen: Finally, Adam, your wife, Arlie, is another very distinguished writer.Adam Hochschild: I've got a better picture of her than that one though.Andrew Keen: Well, I got some very nice photos. This one is perhaps a little, well she's thinking Adam. Everyone knows Arlie from her hugely successful work, "Strangers in their Own Land." She has a new book out, "Stolen Pride, Lost Shame and the Rise of the Right." I don't want to put words into Arlie's mouth and she certainly wouldn't let me do that, Adam, but would it be fair to say that her reading, certainly of recent American history, is trying to bring people back together. She talks about the lessons she learned from her therapist brother. And in some ways, I see her as a kind of marriage counselor in America. Given what's happening today in America with Trump, is this still an opportunity? This thing is going to end and it will end in some ways rather badly and perhaps bloodily one way or the other. But is this still a way to bring people, to bring Americans back together? Can America be reunited? What can we learn from American Midnight? I mean, one of the more encouraging stories I remember, and please correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't it Coolidge or Harding who invited Debs when he left prison to the White House? So American history might be in some ways violent, but it's also made up of chapters of forgiveness.Adam Hochschild: That's true. I mean, that Debs-Harding example is a wonderful one. Here is Debs sent to prison by Woodrow Wilson for a 10-year term. And Debs, by the way, had been in jail before for his leadership of a railway strike when he was a railway workers union organizer. Labor organizing was a very dangerous profession in those days. But Debs was a fairly gentle man, deeply committed to nonviolence. About a year into, a little less than a year into his term, Warren Harding, Woodrow Wilson's successor, pardoned Debs, let him out of prison, invited him to visit the White House on his way home. And they had a half hour's chat. And when he left the building, Debs told reporters, "I've run for the White house five times, but this is the first time I've actually gotten here." Harding privately told a friend. This was revealed only after his death, that he said, "Debs was right about that war. We never should have gotten involved in it."So yeah, there can be reconciliation. There can be talk across these great differences that we have, and I think there are a number of organizations that are working on that specific project, getting people—Andrew Keen: We've done many of those shows. I'm sure you're familiar with the organization Braver Angels, which seems to be a very good group.Adam Hochschild: So I think it can be done. I really think it could be done and it has to be done and it's important for those of us who are deeply worried about Trump, as you and I are, to understand the grievances and the losses and the suffering that has made Trump's backers feel that here is somebody who can get them out of the pickle that they're in. We have to understand that, and the Democratic Party has to come up with promising alternatives for them, which it really has not done. It didn't really offer one in this last election. And the party itself is in complete disarray right now, I fear.Andrew Keen: I think perhaps Arlie should run for president. She would certainly do a better job than Kamala Harris in explaining it. And of course they're both from Berkeley. Finally, Adam, you're very familiar with the history of Africa, Southern Africa, your family I think was originally from there. Might we need after all this, when hopefully the smoke clears, might we need a Mandela style truth and reconciliation committee to make sense of what's happening?Adam Hochschild: My family's actually not from there, but they were in business there.Andrew Keen: Right, they were in the mining business, weren't they?Adam Hochschild: That's right. Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Well, I don't think it would be on quite the same model as South Africa's. But I certainly think we need to find some way of talking across the differences that we have. Coming from the left side of that divide I just feel all too often when I'm talking to people who feel as I do about the world that there is a kind of contempt or disinterest in Trump's backers. These are people that I want to understand, that we need to understand. We need to understand them in order to hear what their real grievances are and to develop alternative policies that are going to give them a real alternative to vote for. Unless we can do that, we're going to have Trump and his like for a long time, I fear.Andrew Keen: Wise words, Adam. I hope in the next 500 episodes of this show, things will improve. We'll get you back on the show, keep doing your important work, and I'm very excited to learn more about your new project, which we'll come to in the next few months or certainly years. Thank you so much.Adam Hochschild: OK, thank you, Andrew. Good being with you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
The observation that, “justice is merely incidental to law and order” has been on my mind more often than not these past few months. Though possibly apocryphal, the quote is attributed to J. Edgar Hoover and – irony aside – is a solid piece of logic. As you may have guessed from the subject-line, today's episode is not going to be a jovial one. I also think it happens to be one of the most important we've ever recorded. And while the subject of immigration carries the weight of policy and politics, THIS conversation is about the laws that already exist – the same one's all attorneys are sworn to uphold. My guest this week is Astrid Munn, Lead Attorney for the Center of Immigration and Refugee Advancement.Her work centers around providing direct representation to clients who have survived violent crime, domestic violence, and severe forms of trafficking.Astrid and I discuss the consequences of cherry-picking language, the impact of the current legal climate on legal education, and why so often the important work goes unseen. Enjoy the show. __________________________Learn more about the Immigration Law & Justice Network
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapter 19: Crude and Cruel The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Moira and Adrian are joined by Matt Sitman of Know Your Enemy to discuss the life of Roy Cohn -- lawyer, closet case and ratfucker extraordinaire. This first part deals with Cohn's childhood, the Rosenberg trial, and his time with Sen. McCarthy.Here are the books and documentaries we discuss in this first half:-- Nicholas von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn (1988)-- Ivy Meeropol (dir.), Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019)-- Matt Tyrnauer (dir.), Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019)-- Christopher M. Elias, Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation (2021)-- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990)
Tasting Notes Include: Angelic Jughead, Tabitha can Quantum Leap, Sundown Towns, Doxxing J. Edgar Hoover, Leaving a body behind when she dies(?), The Devil is also Indiana Jones, I am Legion, Braining Someone with a Can of Soup, and then Freezing Him to Death, Why can't Jug have a Guardian Angel, Powers Posse At Pops, Tabs being Trained for War, Bleak Look Into the Future, A-Pops-colypse! Thanks for tuning in this week! We are on the internet (allegedly), so hit us up there or(more effectively)email us with your holy grail refreshments, and we will shout them out in the next episode! As Always Have a Great Week, Find Joy Where You Can, Gather Your Own Powers Posse and Don't Fuck By a Quantum Leap! Our Socials-Bluesky:@RiverdaleRuns / Instagram: riverdale_runs Our Email- arrtipod@gmail.com
Was What's My Line TV Star, media icon, and crack investigative reporter and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen murdered for writing a tell-all book about the JFK assassination? If so, is the main suspect in her death still at large?These questions and more are answered in former CNN, ESPN, and USA Today legal analyst Mark Shaw's 25th book, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. Through discovery of never-before-seen videotaped eyewitness interviews with those closest to Kilgallen and secret government documents, Shaw unfolds a “whodunit” murder mystery featuring suspects including Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Mafia Don Carlos Marcello and a "Mystery Man" who may have silenced Kilgallen. All while by presenting through Kilgallen's eyes the most compelling evidence about the JFK assassinations since the House Select Committee on Assassination's investigation in the 1970s.Called by the New York Post, “the most powerful female voice in America,” and by acclaimed author Mark Lane the “the only serious journalist in America who was concerned with who killed John Kennedy and getting all of the facts about the assassination,” Kilgallen's official cause of death reported as an overdose of barbiturates combined with alcohol, has always been suspect since no investigation occurred despite the death scene having been staged. Shaw proves Kilgallen, a remarkable woman who broke the "glass ceiling" before the term became fashionable, was denied the justice she deserved, that is until now.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
Wonder Media Network - an award winning female-founded, audio-first creative podcast studio - and iHeartPodcasts, the No.1 podcast publisher globally according to Podtrac, have launched "Divine Intervention," a 10-episode narrative podcast, fifteen years in the making. Host Brendan Patrick Hughes delves into one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the Catholic Church, the United States and the personal lives of ten revolutionaries. Fifty years ago, a ragtag band of radical nuns in combat boots, wild-haired priests and their madcap friends swiftly became accomplished cat burglars in a hellbent effort to sabotage a war. They did everything they could to destroy the war machine - they scaled walls, picked locks, hid in broom closets and broke into federal draft boards, stealing the files of the young men about to be sent into combat. They napalmed these files in city squares. They shredded them at press conferences, harbored draft fugitives in church sanctuaries, and traded blows with J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Many went to jail, others betrayed their friends, and some fell in love. "Working on this project for so many years meant that I was able to capture a lot of important voices that have since left us, like Howard Zinn," said Hughes. "This has been a decades-long labor of love about the people I grew up with - outlandish and fiercely political Boston Irish Catholics out to save the world." Episodes available here: Https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-divine-intervention-98132542/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins interviews Chris Franzblau, author of The Last Mob Lawyer. Franzblau represented Meyer Lansky in his deportation hearing, he represented Genovese labor racketeers like Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano and Jerry Catena. He knew Jimmy Hoffa very well. Chris shares his remarkable career as a defense attorney for prominent figures in organized crime, offering a firsthand look at the legal battles that have shaped mob history in his book, The Last Mob Lawyer: True Stories from the Man Who Defended Some of the Biggest Names in Organized Crime. The conversation begins with Franzblau's background—his education at Duke University Law School, service in the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps, and training in cryptography. He then details his transition from prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office to private practice, coinciding with the federal government's intensified pursuit of La Cosa Nostra under Attorney General Robert Kennedy. A twist of fate led him to represent high-profile mobsters when established defense attorneys left the scene, catapulting him into the world of organized crime defense. Franzblau shares captivating stories of his legal work with infamous figures like labor leader Jerry Catena and Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano. He sheds light on mob influence in unions and high-stakes power struggles, including the bitter feud between Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano and Jimmy Hoffa. He also discusses the FBI's controversial surveillance tactics, J. Edgar Hoover's wiretapping strategies, and how landmark legal battles helped expose the government's overreach in investigating organized crime. Adding to the intrigue, Franzblau touches on the mob's connections to Hollywood and celebrities, including Frank Sinatra's complex ties to the underworld. He also offers a compelling story surrounding Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance, hinting at new information that could reshape the narrative. Throughout the episode, Franzblau offers insight into the ethical dilemmas of defending mobsters, debunking the myths that attorneys are complicit in their clients' activities. He also weighs in on the handling of Teamsters' pension funds, contrasting transparency in his experience with the corruption seen in other cities. This episode is a must-listen for true crime enthusiasts, mafia history buffs, and legal minds alike. Don't miss Franzblau's inside stories and deep knowledge of mob history—Click here to grab a copy of The Last Mob Lawyer to dive even deeper into these gripping tales. Subscribe to get gangster stories weekly Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee" To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here! Transcript [0:00] So, hey, welcome all you Wire Tappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have The Last Mob Lawyer. Now, you know, we did a series on mob lawyers, Bruce Cutler and, what's his name, Jerry Nagel and a bunch of those guys. Well, I have Chris Franzblau. Now, he has written a book called The Last Mob Lawyer. And I really, I started looking at his stuff and the promos that his editor put out. And he really has had an interesting career. You know, he did some stuff with Mayor Lansky and around the Hoffa case. And he's got a lot of really interesting stories. So welcome, Chris. I'm really happy to have you on the show. [0:44] Thank you. Good morning. Chris, tell the guys a little bit about, you know, your law school experience and your early pract...
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapter 18: The Secret FBI EmergesThe Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Voted? Tell me why you chose your answer below! Let's talk.Emma Goldman: Rebel, Radical, Revolutionary.She wasn't just a woman ahead of her time—she was a woman outside of it. In this episode, we dive deep into the life and legacy of Emma Goldman: anarchist, feminist, free speech fighter, and one of the most dangerous women in America (according to J. Edgar Hoover, anyway).
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapter 16: Victory at CamdenThe Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapter 17: Defeat at CamdenThe Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessIn a perfect pairing with our ongoing series on Lacan, we come in from the cold and go underground by watching Theodore Flicker's neglected classic, “The President's Analyst” (1967). James Coburn stars as a psychoanalyst drafted to serve as the president's shrink, and who swiftly goes from starstruck to depleted to a fugitive on the run. This satiric romp hit a nerve with the FBI, was censored in post-production, and quickly disappeared from theaters. A loving sendup of psychoanalysis, an acid-addled dramatization of Cold War anxieties, and just a gonzo all-around-good time, the film gives us plenty to talk about, from the paranoic structure of knowledge to the Big Other of surveillance to unorthodox cures for “hostility” to J. Edgar Hoover's secret flirtations with self-analysis and more. Beverly Gage's biography of J. Edgar Hoover is G-MAN: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. You can listen to Barry McGuire's “Inner-Manipulations” (featured in the film) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU7F_u9L5X8Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you've traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness Twitter: @UnhappinessPod Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Theme song: Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1 https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO Provided by Fruits Music
The truth behind The Irishman's tall tales: DNA evidence from a Michigan landfill ties Hoffa's remains to a Teamsters-funded incinerator. Retired hitman Frank Sheeran's daughter reveals his deathbed confession: “We fed Hoffa to gators in Florida.” Plus, FBI files proving J. Edgar Hoover let the mafia kill Hoffa to silence his Nixon tapes. Was Hoffa's corpse buried under Trump Tower?
This week Johnboy brings the tale of the man J. Edgar Hoover called “the most amazing figure in contemporary criminal history!” Gaston Bullock means falls in love with the thrill of deception as a youth and it takes him from blackmailing criminals while a government agent to grafting and murdering an heiress and finally, exploiting the kidnapping and death of the Lindbergh baby!
J. Edgar Hoover is one of the most polarizing figures in U.S. history. And the seeds he planted as the decades long founding director of the FBI continue to shape much of today's conservative political landscape. Kash Patel, who now leads the FBI, has openly vowed to find ways to punish Trump's political enemies. While that's appalling, it's not the first time an FBI director has used abused institutional power. There's a lot of historical precedent that we can compare and contrast with the current moment. Beverly Gage is a historian at Yale University and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.” She joins WITHpod to discuss Hoover's influence, the politicization of the FBI, the abuse of its power, the FBI in Trump 2.0 and more.
It all started in the 1500s with Sir Francis Bacon, and then in the 1700s with Carl Linnaeus. And along the way we run into Thomas Jefferson, President McKinley, Melvil Dewey, Elihu Root, Napoleon Bonaparte, Al Capone, Teddy Roosevelt, the Library of Congress, Ainsworth Rand Spofford and J. Edgar Hoover. All of them to birth the FBI.
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapters 14 & 15: Subterfuge Continues & COINTELPRO HoversThe Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
President Donald Trump has found inspiration for tariffs and more in the 25th President of the United States: William McKinley. This hour, we look at the life and legacy of McKinley, and why Trump is drawn to him. Plus, we'll learn about the Gilded Age and its parallels to today. GUESTS: Kevin Kern: Associate Professor of History at The University of Akron. He is co-author of Ohio: A History of the Buckeye State Beverly Gage: Professor of 20th-century U.S. history at Yale University. Her newest book, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Joan Antonson: Executive Director of the Alaska Historical Society Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapters 12 & 13: I'm Thinking of Turning You In & Being American While Black and Other Insights from Media. The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Betty Medsger is the author of the forthcoming book, THE BURGLARY, as well as: Winds of Change, Framed, and Women at Work. She lives in New York.In late 1970, a mild-mannered Haverford College physics professor privately asked a few people this question: “What do you think of burglarizing an FBI office?” In remarkable detail and with astonishing depth of research, Betty Medsger reveals the never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the Media, Pennsylvania, FBI offices. Through their exploits, a group of unlikely activists exposed the shocking truth that J. Edgar Hoover was operating a shadow Bureau engaged in illegal surveillance and harassment of the American people.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
Subscribe for full episode The MAGA attack on government jobs, takeover of government agencies, and purge of supposed “DEI” and “woke” professionals has a long history in the US. Julian uses old-timey newsreels, biographies, and events in the public record to trace the lines from 1919 to today, making stops at the so-called Red Summer's “race riots,” Red Scare communist panics, Hollywood Blacklist, and Lavender Scare that fired thousands for being presumed gay. Unrelated to any of this completely useless and repressive paranoid bigotry, actual Soviet spies were being apprehended and prosecuted—even then everything was not on the level. The prosecutors had their own hidden skeletons and shady bedfellows, even as they claimed the patriotic moral high ground. At the heart of this history is a lineage of men who never let truth get in the way of gaining, and wielding, power and cruelty. Julian uncovers a surprisingly direct lineage of dirty-tricks demagogue succession, from Woodrow Wilson to A. Mitchell Palmer, to J. Edgar Hoover, to Joe McCarthy, to Roy Cohn, to Roger Stone, to our current president. Editorial Note: The Paul Robeson clip that starts the episode is a re-enactment by James Earl Jones for the Zinn Education Project. It uses the transcript of Robeson's 1956 appearance before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Send us a textWelcome to the conclusion of a special two part show with fan favorite, former Gambino Family Mobster turned mafia historian and international bestselling author, Louis Ferrante. Mr. Ferrante grew up in New York City and became entangled in the Gambino crime family. He was eventually arrested and served almost ten years in prison. While he was incarcerated, he taught himself to write, and he fell in love with books. He promised himself that he would someday become an international bestselling author, and he did!Louis Ferrante is an international bestselling author, including his newest book, Borgata: Clash of Titans: A History of the American Mafia: Volume 2 of the Borgata Trilogy. He is also a global speaker and television host for Discovery Networks International. His books have been translated into twenty languages and his television series has aired in over 200 countries and territories around the world.Please enjoy this conversation where we discuss the head of the Kennedy clan, Joe Kennedy and his affiliation with the mob, his manipulation of American Politics that led to his sons John F. Kennedy becoming president and Bobby Kennedy becoming attorney general and both of their eventual assignations. We also dive into the hatred between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Kennedy's. We also discuss mob and union bosses Jimmy Hoffa, Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Florida don Santo Trafficante and a host of other prominent mafia characters.In today's episode we discuss:.· J. Edgar Hoover, The Kennedys, and the mob. · FBI conducting illegal wiretaps and other illegal activities regarding the mob.· The mob and the bay of pig's connection.· The United States hiring mafia hitmen to take out Fidel Castro.· The Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby connection with the mob.· J. Edgar Hoover withholding information on the John F. Kennedy assassination that could have saved his life.· The Warren Commission. · The movie The Godfather and blowback from the real mafia.· The Jimmy Hoffa / Richard Nixon and the mob connection. Visit Lou on his website to learn more about him and his books!Check out the new Cops and Writers YouTube channel!Check out my newest book, The Good Collar (Michael Quinn Vigilante Justice Series Book 1)!What would you do if you lost the one you loved the most? How far would you go to quench your thirst for vengeance?https://a.co/d/2UsJPbaSupport the show
Robbin Milne painter’s audio blog about visual art and multi media inspiration.
Chapter 11: Appropriate for the Secret Police of the Soviet Union The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
Since Kash Patel was announced as the director for the FBI, pundits have warned of a return to the era of J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the bureau for 48 years. But according to Beverly Gage, the author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, under Patel, the FBI could be politicized in ways that even its notorious first director would have rejected. This week, Micah and Beverly discuss how Hoover established a playbook for weaponizing the FBI, and how Patel might go even further. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.
FBI Director Kash Patel wants to go after President Trump's enemies. That reminds some historians of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's notorious first director. But some say Patel wants to weaponize the FBI so completely, even Hoover would disapprove.
Send us a textWelcome to part one of a special two-part show with former Gambino Family Mobster turned mafia historian and international bestselling author Louis Ferrante. Mr. Ferrante grew up in New York City and became entangled in the Gambino crime family. He was eventually arrested and served almost ten years in prison. While he was incarcerated, he taught himself to write, and he fell in love with books. He promised himself that he would someday become an international bestselling author, and he did!Louis Ferrante is an international bestselling author, including his newest book, Borgata: Clash of Titans: A History of the American Mafia: Volume 2 of the Borgata Trilogy. He is also a global speaker and television host for Discovery Networks International. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his television series has aired in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.Please enjoy this conversation where we discuss the head of the Kennedy clan, Joe Kennedy and his affiliation with the mob, his manipulation of American Politics that led to his sons John F. Kennedy becoming president and Bobby Kennedy becoming attorney general and both of their eventual assignations. We also dive into the hatred between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Kennedy's. We also discuss mob and union bosses Jimmy Hoffa, Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Florida don Santo Trafficante and a host of other prominent mafia characters.In today's episode we discuss:.· Does Lou ever feel like his life is in danger because of writing these books? He exposes a lot of dirt, some known some unknown on some very powerful families (both mob and non-mob) and politicians..· The first book of the trilogy, Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (Borgata Trilogy).· The history of the Catholic religion and the mob. · Chicago politics and organized crime.· Trump signing off on the Warren Commission files. What, if any, startling revelations will come out of this? Who do you think killed Kennedy? · The rumblings in the mob to kill John F and Bobby Kennedy.· Joe Kennedy. The big boss of the family. His alliance with the mob, bootlegging, killing illegal aliens (dumping them off boats), FDR and Joe Kennedy?· Joe Kennedy aspiring to become president but was anti-democracy. More pro-Hitler and Nazis. · Joe Kennedy having girlfriend's and then handing them down to his sons after he was done with them.· JFK, war hero and second son of the Kennedys. Joe had him picked to become president. Joe made a deal with Sam Giancana (Chicago mob) to get his son elected in a very close race between him and Nixon.· Bobby Kennedy was thought of as a slacker and a wimp. Not up to par for the Kennedy persona.· Bobby Kennedy going after the teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa. History of Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa.· Frank Sinatra and the mob? Unofficial liaison?Visit Lou on his website to learn more about him and his books!Check out the new Cops and Writers YouTube channel!Check out my newest book, The Good Collar (Michael Quinn Vigilante Justice Series Book 1)!What would you do if you lost the one you loved the most? How far would you go to quench your thirst for vengeance?https://a.co/d/2UsJPbaSupport the show
In our final episode on the genius inventor Nikola Tesla, we bid the old wizard a fond farewell. The latter portion of his life had its fair share of inventions and recognition, but it was also riddled with struggle, hardship, and rejection. Despite holding patents for a multitude of his electrical inventions, people just couldn't seem to stop themselves from stealing his work, and giving him zero credit or royalties. His senior years weren't easy; with a lack of funding and an increasingly smaller number of real friends, Nikola would soon turn to the humble pigeons of New York City for companionship. However, his mind never stopped thinking up new ideas, and not long before his death, he would theorize a "death ray" that would ultimately attract the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and his cronies at the FBI. Tune in for part five of Nikola Tesla as we say goodbye to one of the most brilliant minds in history. (Ep. 050)
Retired Secret Service agent Todd Hiles and retired FBI agent Stewart Fillmore take you deep inside the Bureau for a gripping look at one of its most legendary figures: Melvin Purvis.In Case 16 – The Original G-Man, Hiles and Fillmore unravel the meteoric rise and mysterious downfall of the man who took down John Dillinger and became America's first celebrity lawman. Revered by the public but resented by his own boss, Purvis found himself in the crosshairs of J. Edgar Hoover—the powerful and ruthless director of the FBI.What happens when a man meant to serve justice becomes bigger than the institution itself? From high-profile gangster takedowns to the silent war waged against him from within, this episode explores how Purvis went from Hoover's golden boy to an outcast in the very agency he helped define.With expert insight and compelling storytelling, Back in Crime dives into the untold truth behind Purvis' FBI career, his clashes with Hoover, and the unanswered questions surrounding his tragic end. Was it a fall from grace—or something more sinister?Follow Texas Crime Travelers:TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@texascrimetra...Instagram: https://instagram.com/texascrimetrave...Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/texascrimetr...Substack: https://substack.com/@texascrimetravelershttps://texascrimetravelers.com/Have a specific case in mind that you'd like us to explore or just want to get in touch? Case Request/Contact Form: https://forms.gle/hynpjFrKEVvG6FWw9For business inquiries or opportunities to sponsor our next podcast episode, please reach out to us at hello@texascrimetravelers.com Music by: Eddie BandasContact: edbandas@outlook.com
On this episode, Frank Morano engages in a compelling conversation with Lou Ferrante, a former mob associate turned historian and author. Lou's latest book, 'Borgata: Clash of Titans: A History of the American Mafia: Volume 2 of the Borgata Trilogy', delves deep into the history of organized crime. Lou shares his personal journey from a young hijacker involved with the Gotti family to serving time in the penitentiary where he reformed and educated himself. The discussion covers notable mafia events and figures, including the Profaci-Gallo war, Joe Valachi's high-profile betrayal, and intricate details surrounding the alleged mafia involvement in JFK's assassination. Lou provides unique insights into the mafia's operations, their interactions with law enforcement, and the power dynamics within. The episode also touches upon J. Edgar Hoover's stance on the mafia, internal mafia politics, and the underestimated influence of mob bosses like Carlos Marcello. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, Kelly and John are joined by Lerone A. Martin to discuss his unfortunately timely and prescient book, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism. Martin is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies, African & African American Studies, and The Nina C. Crocker Faculty Scholar. He also serves as the Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. He's is an award-winning author. The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover was published in February 2023 by Princeton University Press. The book has garnered praise from numerous publications including The Nation, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, Publisher's Weekly, and History Today. In 2014 he published, Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Making of Modern African American Religion. That book received the 2015 first book award by the American Society of Church History. His commentary and writing have been featured on The NBC Today Show, The History Channel, PBS, CSPAN, and NPR, as well as in The New York Times, Boston Globe, CNN.com, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He currently serves as an advisor on the upcoming PBS documentary series The History of Gospel Music & Preaching.
TAKEAWAYSPearl Harbor was said to be a vulnerable place to berth Naval vessels, but President FDR purposefully paid this concern no heedMore than 2,000 people died in the Pearl Harbor attacks - Pearl Harbor was President Roosevelt's 9/11First director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, knew about the incoming attack before it happenedU.S. Army code-breakers received transmissions about the attacks before December 7, yet no warning was issued to Pearl Harbor
Temple's years in the limelight had made her a target for death threats, kidnapping threats, and extortion threats. As a result she formed a close relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, who gave her a tear-gas fountain pen while they watched the inauguration procession from his office ...
Louis Ferrante is back on the show, sharing more of his extensive research into the history of the American Mafia. In volume two of his trilogy, called "Borgata: Clash of Titans", he focuses on the Mafia during the height of its power in the 1960s and 70s. In our interview he talks about the origins of the animosity between the mob and Bobby Kennedy, and how he believes Bobby's pressure led to his brother's assassination. We also go quite a bit into J. Edgar Hoover's role in the conflict, and I ask Lou what he thinks happened to Jimmy Hoffa's body. More about the author and his work here: https://louisferrante.com/ Our sponsor this week is Acorns. Head here https://acorns.com/notorious or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Democrat members of Congress plot to steal the election from Trump during the electoral vote count. Plus, the New Yorker in an attempt to attack Kash Patel defends the record of J. Edgar Hoover and is community noted. Visit the Howie Carr Radio Network website to access columns, podcasts, and other exclusive content.
Mercifully, the murders in the Osage Nation paused in 1924 and 1925. J. Edgar Hoover became the director of the Bureau of Investigation and assigned a new man to the case of the Osage murders. Special Agent Tom White succeeded where all others failed. He eliminated suspects; uncovered lies and corruption; and discovered new evidence. In the process, he believed he learned the identities of some of the killers. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Guests: Ryan Reilly, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Beverly Gage, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Jamelle Bouie, Michelle GoldbergThe FBI director resigns before Donald Trump takes office. Tonight: the resignation of Christopher Wray—and the major implications it has for Trump's second term. Plus, the historian who wrote the book on J. Edgar Hoover on why Trump's new pick could be worse. And inside the MAGA campaign to save Pete Hegseth by intimidating the Republican Senate. Want more of Chris? Download and subscribe to his podcast, “Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes podcast” wherever you get your podcasts.
Guests: Zeke Faux, Marq Claxton, Tim Weiner, James Risen, Rep. Jasmine CrockettThe billionaire takeover of the American Government. Tonight: shedding new light on what those billionaires are getting for their investment. And the growing concerns that Trump's FBI pick could pull America back to the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover. Then, an update on Day 3 of the manhunt after the insurance CEO shooting. Want more of Chris? Download and subscribe to his podcast, “Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes podcast” wherever you get your podcasts.
Joe Biden pardons his son Hunter. Are we surprised? The Republican majority is razor thin. Pat reviews the "Wicked" movie. More picks for Donald Trump's administration ... some great ... some not good at all. Kash Patel could be the most important FBI chief since J. Edgar Hoover. Trump's immigration plans take shape through soon-to-be border czar Tom Homan. It's officially Christmas season as Pat sings for us! Who do the Democrats have ready to run in 2028? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a warning about America's future. Is AOC pregnant? Lindsey Graham explains why the U.S. should care about the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Donald Trump warns BRICS countries. Jane Fonda is clueless about her home state of California. The evils of de-banking and civil asset forfeiture. 00:00 Pat Gray UNLEASHED 00:37 Football Talk 05:41 Flashback to Joe Biden about Hunter Pardon 07:19 Flashback to KJP about Hunter Pardon 09:22 Joe Biden's Statement on Pardoning Hunter Biden 13:31 Trump Talks J6 Hostages 14:29 Joe Biden Gets Community Notes 21:25 Sen. Chuck Grassley Files for Re-Election 2029 25:31 Very Small Republican Majority 30:14 Movie Reviews (Wicked & Moana 2) 34:07 Kash Patel for FBI Director 37:03 Who is Kash Patel? 38:46 MSNBC Doesn't Like Kash Patel 42:22 Kash Patel Background 44:01 Who is Dr. Janette Nesheiwat? 45:26 Who is Sheriff Chad Chronister? 46:57 Border Czar's Warning to Democrats 50:24 Tom Homan's Priorities for America 54:22 Is Putin Sick? 58:05 Biden Cuts Down Christmas Tree 59:13 Drunk Kamala Harris' Thanksgiving Speech 1:07:02 2028 Bench for Democrats 1:08:57 AOC's Warning for America 1:10:45 AOC is Pregnant?! 1:12:27 Pete Hegseth's Mom Email Leaked 1:16:17 Lindsey Graham on Fighting Russia 1:19:10 President Trump Addresses BRICS 1:24:39 Jane Fonda Sits with Bill Maher 1:29:24 Civil Asset Forfeiture Continues Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
My guest this week is John Oller, author of the new book "Gangster Hunters: How Hoover's G-men Vanquished America's Deadliest Public Enemies". He walks us through the evolution of J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau in the early 1930s, highlighting some of the unsung federal agents that battled America's Depression Era bank-robbing outlaws and the pivotal crimes that helped shape the country's most storied law enforcement organization. The author's website: https://www.johnollernyc.com/ Support the show and ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile's deal and get 3 months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month! https://www.mintmobile.com/notorious Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices