Welcome to this educational and explosive, brand-new edition of Light ‘Em Up!
Share us with a friend! We are now being actively downloaded in 131 countries!
We continue our intense focus on how the Rule of law and democracy are being endangered.
Democracy hangs in the balance and is under constant daily attack — threatened on every front.
What better example than the current Department of Justice (DOJ) ordering its civil rights division to halt the majority of its functions, including a freeze on pursuing any:
— new cases
— indictments or
— consent decree settlements.
For civil rights this is a crisis! It has only been 59 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. This was a landmark piece of legislation that helped to dismantle many discriminatory barriers and enforce the voting rights of African Americans. Imagine having that office shut down during the LBJ Administration! The KKK would have won!
In a democracy, the majority can wield immense power, potentially leading to the suppression of dissenting voices and the marginalization of minority groups.
You had better begin to ask yourself the tough question:
Are you okay with your civil rights being suspended until 2028 and maybe beyond?
White people, too, can have their civil rights violated. Are you ready for that?
Will the police be able to simply continue to brutalize people and get away with it as the Louisiana State Police did on May 10th, 2019, with Ronald Greene?
Greene was an unarmed 49-year-old black man who, on a dark night in Monroe, Louisiana, 6 members of the LSP “goon squad” tazed, punched, kicked, pepper sprayed, and dragged face down on the concrete, only to place him in a chokehold until he died.
Good night and good luck! Under this current Trump administration your civil rights will be “enforced” like his were.
We are staring in the face of “soft despotism" or "soft tyranny".
This occurs when a powerful, centralized state, while not overtly oppressive, gradually takes over the responsibilities and decision-making of individuals and communities.
The state becomes like a benevolent but overbearing parent, providing for citizens' needs and ensuring their well-being, but in doing so, it diminishes their capacity for independent thought and action. We’ve arrived there, stop fooling yourself otherwise.
We’ll discuss and analyze the current push from the ultra-conservative-talk-show host, Ben Shapiro to petition the adjudicated felon Donald Trump to federally pardon Derek Chauvin, the felon, former police officer — who drove his knee into the neck of George Floyd for more than 9 minutes, hastening his death on May 25th, 2020.
We have passed the 5-year mark of this deadly encounter on the streets in Minneapolis, MN and tell me, what has changed for the better?
Shapiro clearly sees this as an opportunity to continue to support his white, racist agenda as it gins up his base of white nationalist followers. MAGA-folk and beyond!
We ask out loud:
Could a president do that?
What would it matter, since Chauvin also is in prison on state charges?
And we’ll wrap things up looking at what happens to democracy when police regularly brutalize its citizens as the “politics of policing” has changed drastically since George Floyd’s’ death.
The truth is under attack! The truth is worth defending!
Tune in for all of the explosive details.
Justice comes to those that fight, not those that cry!
Without fear or favor we follow the facts and tackle the topics that touch your lives.
Follow our sponsors: Newsly & Feedspot.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.