Opinion

So Steve Bannon, former Trump adviser and current podcaster, got indicted on federal charges again. Last time he was charged with defrauding desperate MAGA donors with a scam called "We Build the Wall" that siphoned off a million dollars to cover his own personal expenses. With no care for his duped followers, Donald Trump granted Bannon a full pardon on his last day as president. Now Bannon stands accused of contempt of Congress for his refusal to respond to a congressional subpoena. He turned himself into authorities today — and it's probably one of the best days of his life.

"We're taking down the Biden regime," he said with a sly smile facing a camera live-streaming his surrender in front of a D.C. courthouse. Bannon went on to promote Monday's lineup for his War Room: Pandemic podcast before addressing his followers directly: "I want you guys to stay focused and stay on message. Remember. Signal not noise. This is all noise. That's signal."

On Aug. 23, 2020, Jacob Blake was shot seven times, in front of his kids, as he walked away from police. While Jacob survived the shooting, he is paralized and his life will never be the same. Two days later, a 17-year-old white supremacist, drove over state lines and shot two people, murdering two of them. All three were protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake.

After a summer of national protests, this racial reckoning was brought to our doorstep in Wisconsin. Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber both died the evening of Aug. 25, 2021. They could have easily been any of us who have been to protests against police brutality. Our state was shaken and enraged. We searched for answers, and demanded real criminal justice reform. Shortly after the tragic events in Kenosha, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) launched a task force on racial disparities. We were skeptical for obvious reasons, but also a small part of us hoped that this would be the catalyst to finally get some real change. That didn't happen.

America is in deep trouble — and I say that not out of hatred but out of love. James Baldwin once explained that he loved America "more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."

With little fanfare, last Monday was World Freedom Day. President Biden offered an obligatory public statement, including the somewhat dubious claim that since the fall of the Berlin Wall 32 years ago, "we have seen great progress to advance human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as to build and consolidate democratic institutions across the formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and around the world." But democracy, the president admitted, "remains under threat" in many parts of the world where "we see aspiring autocrats trample the rule of law, attack freedom of the press, and undermine an independent judiciary."

Over the past year, Republicans have declared a war on how race and racism are addressed in public schools. This enmity was forefront in the gubernatorial election in Virginia, as well as battles over school boards across the country. In the past few months, at least seven states have banned so-called "critical race theory" from curricula. Over a dozen more are moving similar bans through state legislatures.

It would be naïve to expect more from the Republican Party. It requires an ongoing and bloody culture war to win. But there is another party with a role to play, who might be receptive to correction: the media.

Last week's election results, which showed modest Republican gains across the nation, set off alarm bells in America's pundit class about the power of progressives in the Democratic party.

Democrats promised change, the Times contrarian Maureen Dowd complained, and instead offered "wokeness" and infighting. Bloomberg's Ramesh Ponnuru warned that even though the Virginia governor's race normally means nothing, former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe's loss was a "portent" and "bad news" for the national party as it moved forward on a human infrastructure package.

I think we need to think about the meaning of freedom, and how the meaning is so often colored by the right-flank of history.

I think we need to think about it, because the fact that we don't is why all of us, including liberals, spend so much time talking about "positive" versus "negative" freedom, as if an "active" or "passive" government were really on the minds of ordinary citizens.

Thirteen Republican lawmakers who voted for Biden's $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill are now receiving threatening calls for breaking party ranks following the release of their office phone numbers by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

Last week, the measure – which has been significantly watered down by centrist Democrats and House Republicans over the past several months – passed along a 228-206 House vote with just 13 Republican votes, according to AP News. Immediately following the bill's passage, Greene tarred the Republican defectors as "traitors," tweeting all of their names and office telephone numbers.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Republican Party was embarrassed when a tape of Donald Trump was released in which the then-GOP nominee saw heard bragging about sexual assault with the memorable lines "grab 'em by the pussy" and "when you're a star, they let you do it." In 2021, however, what was once a cringe moment for the GOP has now become an ethos, and not just because of Sen. Josh "Make Me a Sandwich" Hawley of Missouri's pre-campaign sermonizing on a delusional gospel of masculinity. With a heavy assist from Trump himself, the candidate field for the 2022 GOP primaries is thick with devotees of the Church of Pussy Grabbing.

There hasn't really been a frontrunner in the closely-watched Pennsylvania GOP primary for the state's open U.S. Senate seat, so it was a big deal in September when Trump stepped in to endorse Sean Parnell, an Army vet running to replace retiring incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey. In an unsurprising twist, Parnell's ugly divorce has produced some headline-grabbing testimony from his ex-wife about the their marriage.

Jury selection has begun for the trial of Gregory and Travis McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan Jr., the three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed twenty-five year old African American man in February 2020, outside of Brunswick, Georgia. The three face multiple charges including malice and felony murder. According to the Georgia State Legal Code, a conviction for malice murder requires murderous intent or forethought. A conviction on the charge of felony murder means the murder was committed, whether intentionally or not, during the course of another crime. The penalty for both crimes can be death, imprisonment for life without parole, or imprisonment for life with the possibility of parole.

The defense is expected to argue that the assault on Ahmaud Arbery was legitimate under Georgia's Citizens Arrest law, which was applicable at the time, and that Arbery's death was caused by his physical resistance to a legal action and was therefore self-defense on the part of the three white men.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story claimed that Rittenhouse carried his weapon across state lines. This is incorrect. Prosecutors of the case said there is no evidence this happened and in October 2020, the Office of the State's Attorney in Lake County said that an "investigation revealed the gun used in the Kenosha shooting was purchased, stored and used in Wisconsin. Additionally, there is no evidence the gun was ever physically possessed by Kyle Rittenhouse in Illinois.” Raw Story regrets the error.

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who brought an illegally obtained AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to a chaotic street protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and shot three people, killing two of them, has the country riveted this week. The judge and the prosecutor have been at each other's throats, the top prosecution witnesses turned out to be more helpful for the defense, and defense attorneys unexpectedly put the baby-faced Rittenhouse on the stand, where he breathlessly sobbed like a toddler. Meanwhile, the judge got a phone call as he sat at the bench, revealing his ring tone to be Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," an unofficial Republican theme song. So the trial has been both dramatic and bizarre in equal measure.

Donald Trump justified threats by his supporters to hang former vice president Mike Pence, which prompted some strong reactions.

The twice-impeached one-term president made the remarks in a recording shared by ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, who interviewed Trump for his new book, "Betrayal," and legal experts, historians and journalists were aghast.