Dear Progressive Reader,

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has issued its official subpoena requesting records and a deposition from former President Donald Trump. The subpoena requests that Trump deliver records to the committee by November 4, and that he testify in person, or via videoconference, on November 14. The request for records includes Trump’s communications “through Signal [an encrypted messaging service] or any other means” with many known figures such as Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, but also some lesser-known names like Boris Ephsteyn, a Russian-born attorney and investment banker who served the Trump Administration (among other positions) under the ominous title of “White House Assistant Director of Communications for Surrogate Operations,” and attorney Jenna Ellis, who was a member of what she called Trump’s “elite strike force team.” Trump’s legal team responded by attacking the fact that the committee had released the text of the subpoena, but did not say how the former President would respond.

While the White House has now walked back a bit on President Joe Biden’s October 6 remark comparing Russian president Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling to the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is important to note that this week marks the sixtieth anniversary of that frightening thirteen days in October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 13-29, 1962) was characterized by a standoff between then-President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev over the placement of nuclear missiles near the United States. The crisis was ultimately resolved with a negotiated settlement in which both sides removed some their missiles pointed at the other—the Soviets removed missiles based in Cuba, and the United States removed its missiles based in Turkey. Another result of the crisis was the creation of the “hotline”—a direct channel of communication between the two countries to avoid a possible future accidental confrontation.

I had a chance to speak with peace activist Medea Benjamin on Wednesday as she passed through Madison, Wisconsin, on a fifty-city book tour to promote the new book, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, that she co-authored with Nicolas J. S. Davies (both of whom are regular contributors to The Progressive). As we discussed those events of sixty years ago, Benjamin noted, “I think it's important for people to recognize what JFK said after that, which is, ‘You don't back a nuclear power into a corner when the only option would be a humiliating defeat or the use of a nuclear weapon.’ And that is something that should echo in our minds today when it seems like the Biden Administration is really anxious to push Russia into a corner.” The Progressive, throughout its history, has always opposed militarism and war, and supported peaceful alternatives. The costs of war are too high, the suffering of everyday people and the planet too great.

This week on our website, Kathy Kelly and Nick Mottern look at the new drone-use policy announced by the Biden Administration; Bill Blum delves into the First Amendment issues behind Donald Trump’s attempted libel suits against various media outlets; Jeff Abbott reports on the record numbers of Venezuelan migrants taking dangerous routes to try and reach the United States; and Erik Gunn examines the increasingly mean-spirited attacks by Ron Johnson in his race against Mandela Barnes for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. Plus Jake Whitney reviews the new book Chokepoint Capitalism, and Ed Rampell provides a preview of the new film about director Orson Welles and his legendary 1936 staging of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Harlem with an all-Black cast. The film opens in theaters this weekend.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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