Thanks to J.D. Vance deciding to attack fellow veteran Tim Walz’s service, veteran’s issues have suddenly been thrust into the Presidential campaign like never before. From outrageous accusations of ‘stolen valor’ to support for our veterans and their families the issues that face the military community are suddenly at the forefront. Fred dives into it with fellow West Point grad and Iraq veteran Terron Sims who is the co-chair of the Democratic National Committee Veterans and Military Families Council. Sims served on active duty in the US Army as a Field Artillery officer. Since leaving the military he has served in a host of political roles of increasing responsibility. In 2008 and 2012, he was Director, Virginia VMF for Obama and served on the Defense and Veterans Policy Teams, where he wrote the Service Member Life Insurance policy. In 2010, Sims wrote the Democratic National Committee’s VMF candidates’ platform, which is used in federal campaigns nationwide. During Sec. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Sims wrote her DoD and VA Intergovernmental Agency Policy. For the 2020 Biden campaign, Mr. Sims wrote five pieces of veterans policy, primarily in the areas of entrepreneurship and business for military spouses and veterans. In addition to his political accomplishments, Terron has published two novels, With Honor In Hand and Hands of Honor, and has written his third novel, For Hands to Honor, along with his Iraq memoirs, Baghdad Peace, as well as other pieces of work. He also writes regularly about veterans and military families and national security issues.

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J.D. Vance is obsessed with the importance of having children, but his party has been against nearly every proposed policy solution to help them. They are now attacking Governor Tim Walz for implementing family friendly laws like free meals for school children, a child tax credit, and much more. Democrats are clearly the family focused party, and they have a chance to enact real policies to back that up. So, Fred talks families with guest Justin Talbot Zorn. Zorn is an author, adviser, and policymaker. He has served as Legislative Director for three members of the US Congress. His first book, published with HarperCollins in the US and Penguin in the UK, was printed in 14 languages globally and topped Audible bestsellers lists in diverse categories including philosophy, meditation, and business. Justin is a Senior Adviser to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Truman National Security Fellow, and co-founder of a first-of-its-kind talent pipeline for Congressional staffers. A former Fulbright Scholar, Justin received graduate degrees in international relations and public policy from Oxford and Harvard.

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It has been another insane political week in the United States and now more than ever the lack of ethics and even morals from Donald Trump and his propagandists have never been more clear. What do we do when politics becomes unmoored from norms and any sense of public service? Longtime Democratic attorney Bob Bauer set out to answer the question in his new book ‘The Unraveling: Reflections on politics without ethics and democracy in crisis’ and joins Fred to discuss this dangerous path. Bauer has been involved in many of the biggest political struggles in the five decades since the post-Watergate 1970s. He has been a leading legal adviser to the national Democratic Party and to its candidates on strategies for winning elections and protecting voting rights, and he has represented the party in national political conflicts and controversies. He was the chief counsel to both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns and was the President’s White House counsel. He was counsel to the Democratic Senate leader during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. He was a senior adviser to the Biden presidential campaign on voting rights and election protection, and on vice presidential selection. Bauer is also now on the faculty of the New York University School of Law.

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It has been one of the biggest weeks in U.S. political history as President Biden stepped away from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in at light speed. Since then she has raised record amounts of money, volunteers, and support. It’s leaving almost all Democrats feeling something they haven’t in a long time…hope. Fred sits down with the biggest hopium dealer in the nation to discuss the moment and what lies ahead. Simon Rosenberg is the producer of the Substack community the ‘Hopium Chronicles’ and was the founder and president of NDN/New Policy Institute, a center-left think tank in Washington, DC. He moved on this year to take his fight for our democracy into a direct mission of motivating and informing Americans on the way we can take back our nation. Simon has been a leader in efforts to modernize the center-left in American politics over the past generation and was the leading voice who predicted the supposed 2022 ‘Red Wave’ would be a crashing failure. He was right.

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This week included an attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Philadelphia by a young kid with a high-powered rifle. Many of his supporters called for revenge and “2nd amendment solutions.” This kind of rhetoric has been rising on the far right for years and nowhere has so much of it swirled than Nashville. From Nazis marching in the streets to militias guarding extremist local political candidates and conspiracy nuts serving as assistant police chiefs. One long-time local journalist has been tracking all of it and he joins Fred to piece it all together. Phil Williams is chief investigative reporter for NewsChannel 5's nationally award-winning investigative team. For more than three decades, Phil has set the standard for serious investigative journalism on the state and local level, making a difference in his community year after year and earning him the industry’s highest honors and praise from his peers. Phil is the 2023 recipient of the prestigious John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, which is presented each year to a reporter with courage, character and integrity for cumulative professional accomplishments. Phil is the first local television journalist to ever receive the honor. In addition, Phil is a four-time recipient of the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award and a three-time recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award. He is the only TV journalist to ever receive a coveted Toner Prize for political reporting. Beginning his career as a print reporter, Phil was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

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It’s been an absolutely insane couple of weeks. From Bidenmania, Christian Nationalists putting the Bible in schools, and Trump doing the hits on his own golf course. To get it all in perspective Fred turns to two lefties in the middle of the reddest of the red states with Oklahoma’s Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan the hosts of the now iconic and wildly popular “I’ve Had It” podcast. Longtime friends and former stars of Bravo’s ‘Sweet Home Oklahoma’ they regularly offer their thoughts on the news, humorous perspective, and raw honest takes on all of life’s difficulties and Republican politics from the eye of the storm in a deep red state. When Angie Sullivan told her eldest son about their plans to launch a podcast he gave a brutally direct perspective, “Just what the world needs, two middle-aged white women bitching.” It appears the world needed it and we are lucky to have them!

Catch them and their show at https://ivehaditpodcast.com/

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The Supreme Court shocked the country this week deciding that a President can actually be above the law flipping centuries of American tradition and a fundamental concept of our nation that no man is above the law. It’s the last ruling in a string of increasingly outrageous decisions that have tossed out one precedent after another. Lisa Graves joins Fred to discuss the mess, how we got here, and how we can fix it. Lisa Graves hosts Courier News new Grave Injustice podcast, which explains key cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this summer and how they relate to larger issues, with a focus on the decades-long right-wing capture of the court. She is also the founder and Executive Director of True North Research, a national investigative watchdog group that works to shine a light on the dark money fueling regressive agendas targeting vital institutions in our republic, such as our courts and public schools. Graves is one of the nation’s foremost experts in exposing how special interests distort public policy and try to thwart the public’s interest in a thriving and inclusive democracy and to impede measures to protect our environment and mitigate climate change.

Watch her podcast Grave Injustice on Courier News: https://couriernewsroom.com/grave-injustice/

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The Christian Nationalism movement is gaining momentum with a goal to make the United States a Christian nation and subservient to the Bible. Long time journalist Heath Druzin has spent the last year following the movement right in his home state of Idaho for the second season of the Extremely American podcast on NPR titled ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ He and his partner James Dawson focus on the rise of Christian nationalism, a conservative religious movement with a rapidly expanding epicenter in a surprising place: the college town of Moscow, Idaho. Across eight episodes they zero in on Christ Church, a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches based in Moscow. Heath Druzin is the host and creator of Extremely American, a sound-rich podcast series that looks at the intersection of extremism and politics. In the first season, he took listeners inside the militia movement, from weapons training to the campaign trail. Heath has covered extremism since 2018, first as a reporter with the public radio project Guns & America. He has reported for outlets such as NPR, BBC and the Daily Beast. Previously he spent more than six years as a war correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan for Stars and Stripes.

Catch both seasons of Extremely American on NPR: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510381/extremely-american

Fred Wellman’s Legal Defense Fund: https://gofund.me/89a239c5

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The Supreme Court is showing us over and over how out of touch they are with not just the American people but actual reality. Last week in a shocking decision written by none other than Clarence Thomas, they twisted themselves in knots to approve the sale of bump stocks over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. A rule implemented after the devices were used in the slaughter in Las Vegas in 2017. Our guest this week had to cancel at literally the last minute, but we thought it was a good time to revisit the gun violence issue as poll after poll shows most Americans support reasonable gun violence prevention measures from universal background checks to age limits on purchases. A recent poll shows that 85% of Americans support a ban on bump stocks. Fred interviews Kris Brown, the president of one of the leading gun violence prevention organizations, Brady, last March. That interview is as timely now as it was then. She and Fred had a robust discussion about how the continued refusal by Congress and leaders to enact laws to end this scourge is a true failure of democracy. Kris is President of Brady one of the oldest and most respected anti-gun violence organizations in the United States named after legendary White House Press Secretary and gun violence advocates Jim and Sarah Brady. Kris has led Brady since 2016 and is a long-time veteran of gun violence prevention work starting her career on Capitol Hill working for Rep. Jim Moran, advocating for the bill that would eventually become the groundbreaking Brady Bill requiring background checks on federally licensed gun sales. You can learn more at and support their work at https://www.bradyunited.org/

(This interview originally aired March 20th, 2023)

Fred’s Legal Defense Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/defend-democracy-against-maga-litigation

Forgotten Democrats: https://contribute.forgottendemocrats.org/join_fd?sc=hhb

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Project 2025 is an insidious and extensive blueprint to dismantle the federal government and roll back Americans fundamental rights in the name of an authoritarian agenda. Led by the Heritage Foundation with over a hundred other extremist and MAGA organizations, funded by millions of dollars in dark money, and recruiting the most extreme MAGA people to flood the government if Donald Trump wins a second term, the thousand-page plan is one of the greatest threats we’ve faced in decades. This week Congressman Jared Huffman and several of his Democratic colleagues in the House announced the Stop Project 2025 Task Force to coordinate a strong response to this horrendous agenda. Congressman Huffman joins Fred this week to discuss the danger of Project 2025, what they plan to do with the Task Force, the rise of Christian Nationalism in the Congress, and much more in this important episode. Jared Huffman represents California's 2nd Congressional District which spans the North Coast of the state, from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border, and includes Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, and Del Norte counties. He was first elected to Congress in November 2012 and currently serves on the Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. In the 118th Congress, he serves as the Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries with jurisdiction over federal water projects, fisheries management, coastal zone and oceans policy, and wildlife and endangered species.

Fred also updates us on his ongoing battle with disgraced former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. You can support his legal defense fund as this process drags out to drain his finances and silence his voice. https://www.gofundme.com/f/defend-democracy-against-maga-litigation  

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Link to the GoFundMe that I'd like to put on screen and hot link too. https://www.gofundme.com/f/defend-democracy-against-maga-litigation