Dear Progressive Reader,

Donald Trump made an announcement on Tuesday from his Mar-a-Lago estate. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, it was very Trump-like speech. As Fiore tells us, “the twice-impeached, insurrection-inciting, soon-to-be-indicted former President” announced his candidacy for 2024. But Trump’s long-expected announcement was followed a few days later by another announcement from Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland, in what was apparently even a surprise to the Biden White House, told the American people that Trump’s declaration had forced his hand and he was now appointing a Special Counsel to investigate the former President for his involvement in the attempt to subvert the transition of power on January 6, 2021, and his role in removing confidential documents from the White House and concealing them at Mar-a-Lago, in contravention of U.S. law. As Garland told the audience, “appointing a Special Counsel at this time is the right thing to do. The extraordinary circumstances presented here demand it.”

In the meantime, across the globe, two long-awaited global events are transitioning. The COP27 global climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, have gone into overtime as world leaders try to forge an agreement. As of this writing, the outcome of the talks remain uncertain, but the realities of climate change are well established—as we have regularly reported. At the same time, a global gathering of another sort is set to begin in the Middle East. The 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer competition begins tomorrow in Qatar. A new Netflix documentary chronicles many of the scandals and concerns surrounding this year’s World Cup—including the abysmal human rights record of the host country. As Dave Zirin writes in his column for the forthcoming issue of The Progressive, “Awarding the Cup to Qatar has left a stain on soccer that FIFA President Gianni 'Johnny Boy' Infantino will never cleanse.” Stay tuned to our website for more on this story next week.

Elsewhere on our website this week, Jeff Abbott reports on the changing visa laws that imperil many refugees and asylum seekers; Eleanor J. Bader writes about a new report on the possibilities of addressing domestic violence situations without the use of armed police officers; and Mike Ervin remembers the life of late activist Lois Curtis, who passed away on November 3. “She didn’t set out to be a hero,” he writes. “She just had a simple dream to live a life where, as much as possible, she could do as she pleased.” Also, Joe George reviews the new film Wakanda Forever; Paul Buhle writes about the new book Troublemaker: Saying ‘No’ to Power by Frank Emspak; and I interview Dr. Ira Helfand, physician and peace activist, about the new “Beyond the Brink” campaign seeking to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Finally, we sadly observe the passing of historian, peace activist and attorney Staughton Lynd (November 22, 1929 – November 17, 2022), who died last Thursday at the age of ninety-two. As Jane Slaughter wrote in her February 1994 interview with Lynd for The Progressive, “Staughton Lynd describes himself as ‘briefly notorious in the 1960s,’ when he was the director of Freedom Schools in the Mississippi Summer Project and chairperson of the April 1965 march on Washington against the Vietnam war. As a young assistant professor of history at Yale, he made a trip to Hanoi with Herbert Aptheker and Tom Hayden, which attracted a great deal of attention.” Lynd was a longtime friend of The Progressive and remained active in his community of Youngstown, Ohio, to the end of his life. Ever a supporter of working people and the building of a better world, Lynd told Slaughter nearly three decades ago, “In my opinion, American capitalism no longer has any use for 40 percent of the population.” He actively worked to change that system, and his life and work will be long remembered.

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

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available. You can order one online and get it mailed in time for the holidays.

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