Grateful Dead at 60: Three folklore tales that inspired the band’s music

Grateful Dead in the 1970s.

Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo

The Conversation
March 30, 2025

Dead & Company, the latest and most enduring post-Grateful Dead project, is about to take to the stage for the second time at the Las Vegas Sphere. The lineup contains original Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, and one of two original drummers, Mickey Hart. They’re joined by the singer-songwriter John Mayer on lead guitar, Oteil Burbridge on bass and Jay lane on second drums.

It has now been 60 years since the Grateful Dead formed. The US rock band first played at Ken Kesey’s “acid tests” in La Honda, California, in 1965. There, attendees would consume large doses of LSD and spend the night enjoying psychedelic projections and the Dead’s intermittent musical stylings.

Before this, a number of the band members had well-established careers in the Californian Bay Area folk scene. Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter performed folk and bluegrass together in the early 1960s.

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Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions was another project that involved a number of artists who would go on to form the Grateful Dead. The band’s innate chaos was already clear. Playing an early gig at a coffee house, they were described by the host as “just a panic to watch”.

This chaotic approach is something that continued. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1971, Garcia said: “Hunter and I always had this thing where we liked to muddy the folk tradition by adding our own versions of songs … taking a well-founded tradition and putting in something that’s totally looped”.

This revitalising understanding of folk adds an element of Grateful Dead fun, contributing to some of their most enduring and interesting songs. Here are three examples of the folk tales that inspired their music.

1. Stagger Lee (1978)

On Christmas Day 1895, two Texans named Lee “Stack” Shelton and Billy Lyons had a disagreement, which ended with Billy snatching Stack’s hat, and Stack shooting him to get it back. This simple story blossomed over time, often richly embellished, into song, folk tale and theatre.

Hunter and the Dead turned the classic folk tale of murder on its head. In most songs about the incident, the focus is on the slightly renamed “Stagger Lee” and “Billy DeLyon”. Most renditions focus on the details and morality of the murder, or the nuance of Stagger as a proto-gangster, and a victim of racist policing.

Grateful Dead performing Stagger Lee in 1978.

The version that the Grateful Dead released is different, with only the first verse dedicated to the murder itself. The body of the song centres the journey of widowed Deliah DeLyon, now in pursuit of justice.

She first pleads with a policeman for help saying “you’ll arrest the girls for turning tricks, but you’re scared of Stagger Lee,” before going to the bar herself, emasculating Stagger Lee, and dragging him to city hall.

These changes attack hyper-masculine versions of the song and suggest an alternate perspective that prioritises the previously unheard.

2. Casey Jones (1970)

Casey Jones (1863-1900) was a renowned train engineer from Mississippi. He was known for his punctuality and skill, but was killed in a wreck after missing a signal in dense fog.

Jones was the only fatality in the train crash and his actions are said to have saved the passengers and the train’s fireman. Just like Stagger Lee, this folk hero has been sung about from many different perspectives.

In the one folk rendition, covered by Pete Seeger, Jones was a union scab, crashing his train though a slavish obedience to his bosses. In Johnny Cash’s song, he was a true hero. But in Grateful Dead’s song, he was a cocaine-addicted speed freak.

Grateful Dead performing Casey Jones in 1977.

By bringing Casey Jones into the 1970s, the Dead sought to use folk to give a contemporary moral warning. Hunter philosophises throughout, referencing both the story of the crash and his own shortsightedness when he writes “got two good eyes, but we still don’t see”.

The Grateful Dead’s approach to folk is at once firmly rooted in tradition and with one foot in the future.

3. Terrapin Station (1977)

The first part of one of the Dead’s most famous musical suites is an adaptation of The Lady of Carlisle.

This folk song tells a story of a lady choosing between two suitors – a soldier and a sailor. To decide, she throws her fan into a lion’s den and challenges the men to retrieve it.

In traditional versions of the song the lady is fragile, becoming catatonic after delivering her challenge, but Hunter’s changes to the song elevate her. This section of the suite, Lady with a Fan, weaves this into an overarching narrative about the illuminating power of stories.

Grateful Dead performing Terrapin Station in 1977.

In the song, a speaker is retelling the story of The Lady of Carlisle while a magical fire conjures images as they happen. Here we see the protagonist emboldened, her “eyes alight with glowing hair,” and much more directly telling the men “I will not forgive you, if you will not take the chance”.

After the sailor retrieves the fan, the meta-narrative challenges the listener. “You decide if he was wise,” the narrator sings, telling us “the storyteller makes no choice”. Hunter and the Dead again seek to use folklore to explore narrative and stories, their powerful influence on the world and our perspective.

This visionary approach to folk helped ground the band’s musical catalogue in history, elevating folk music and offering curious listeners threads that lead into the narrative past.

Max Bowden, PhD Candidate, impact and influence of the Grateful Dead, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Discovery of a 4,000-year-old Bronze Age settlement in Morocco rewrites history

Photo by Sergey Pesterev on Unsplash

The Conversation

March 30, 2025

A new archeological discovery at Kach Kouch in Morocco challenges the long-held belief that the Maghreb (north-west Africa) was an empty land before the arrival of the Phoenicians from the Middle East in around 800 BCE. It reveals a much richer and more complex history than previously thought.

Everything found at the site indicates that during the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago, stable agricultural settlements already existed on the African coast of the Mediterranean.

This was at the same time as societies such as the Mycenaean flourished in the eastern Mediterranean.

Our discovery, led by a team of young researchers from Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeology, expands our knowledge of the recent prehistory of north Africa. It also redefines our understanding of the connections between the Maghreb and the rest of the Mediterranean in ancient times.

How the discovery was made

Kach Kouch was first identified in 1988 and first excavated in 1992. At the time, researchers believed the site had been inhabited between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. This was based on the Phoenician pottery that was found.

Nearly 30 years later, our team carried out two new excavation seasons in 2021 and 2022. Our investigations included cutting-edge technology such as drones, differential GPS (global positioning systems) and 3D models.

A rigorous protocol was followed for collecting samples. This allowed us to detect fossilised remains of seeds and charcoal.

Subsequently, a series of analyses allowed us to reconstruct the settlement’s economy and its natural environment in prehistoric times.

What the remains revealed

The excavations, along with radiocarbon dating, revealed that the settlement underwent three phases of occupation between 2200 and 600 BCE.

The earliest documented remains (2200–2000 BCE) are scarce. They consist of three undecorated pottery sherds, a flint flake and a cow bone.

The scarcity of materials and contexts could be due to erosion or a temporary occupation of the hill during this phase.

In its second phase, after a period of abandonment, the Kach Kouch hill was permanently occupied from 1300 BCE. Its inhabitants, who probably numbered no more than a hundred, dedicated themselves to agriculture and animal husbandry.

They lived in circular dwellings built from wattle and daub, a technique that combines wooden poles, reeds and mud. They dug silos into the rock to store agricultural products.

Analysis shows that they cultivated wheat, barley and legumes, and raised cattle, sheep, goats and pigs.

They also used grinding stones for cereal processing, flint tools, and decorated pottery. In addition, the oldest known bronze object in north Africa (excluding Egypt) has been documented. It is probably a scrap metal fragment removed after casting in a mould.

Interactions with the Phoenicians

Between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, during the so-called Mauretanian period, the inhabitants of Kach Kouch maintained the same material culture, architecture and economy as in the previous phase. However, interactions with Phoenician communities that were starting to settle in nearby sites, such as Lixus, brought new cultural practices.

For example, circular dwellings coexisted with square ones made of stone and wattle and daub, combining Phoenician and local construction techniques.

Furthermore, new crops began to be cultivated, like grapes and olives. Among the new materials, wheel-made Phoenician ceramics, such as amphorae (storage jugs) and plates, and the use of iron objects stand out.

Around 600 BCE, Kach Kouch was peacefully abandoned, perhaps due to social and economic changes. Its inhabitants likely moved to other nearby settlements.

So who were the Bronze Age inhabitants?

It’s unclear whether the Maghreb populations in the Bronze Age lived in tribes, as would later occur during the Mauretanian period. They were probably organised as families. Burials suggest there were no clear signs of hierarchy.

They may have spoken a language similar to the Amazigh, the indigenous north African language, which did not become written until the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet. The cultural continuity documented at Kach Kouch suggests that these populations are the direct ancestors of the Mauretanian peoples of north-west Africa.

Why this matters

Kach Kouch is not only the first and oldest known Bronze Age settlement in the Maghreb but also reshapes our understanding of prehistory in this region.

The new findings, along with other recent discoveries, demonstrate that north-west Africa has been connected to other regions of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Sahara since prehistoric times.

Our findings challenge traditional narratives, many of which were influenced by colonial views that portrayed the Maghreb as an empty and isolated land until it was “civilized” by foreign peoples.

As a result, the Maghreb has long been absent from debates on the later prehistory of the Mediterranean. These new discoveries not only represent a breakthrough for archaeology, but also a call to reconsider dominant historical narratives. Kach Kouch offers the opportunity to rewrite north Africa’s history and give it the visibility it has always deserved.

We believe this is a decisive moment for research that could forever change the way we understand not only the history of north Africa, but also its relationship with other areas of the Mediterranean.

Hamza Benattia, Prehistory, Universitat de Barcelona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Gutenberg.orgwww.gutenberg.org/files/1290/1290-h/1290-h.htm

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Salammbô, by Gustave Flaubert

CHAPTER I. THE FEAST. It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar. The soldiers whom he had commanded in Sicily were having a great ...

 Revealed: Trump's CDC buried a measles forecast that stressed the need for vaccinations

REUTERS/Carlos Barria
U.S. President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon attend a cabinet meeting at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 24, 2025.

Patricia Callahan
Pro Publica

March 29, 2025
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica.

In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show.

A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.”

But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines:

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.”

ProPublica shared the new CDC statement about personal choice and risk with Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. To her, the shift in messaging, and the squelching of this routine announcement, is alarming.

“I’m a bit stunned by that language,” Nuzzo said. “No vaccine is without risk, but that makes it sound like it’s a very active coin toss of a decision. We’ve already had more cases of measles in 2025 than we had in 2024, and it’s spread to multiple states. It is not a coin toss at this point.”

For many years, the CDC hasn’t minced words on vaccines. It promoted them with confidence. One campaign was called “Get My Flu Shot.” The agency’s website told medical providers they play a critical role in helping parents choose vaccines for their children: “Instead of saying ‘What do you want to do about shots?,’ say ‘Your child needs three shots today.’”

Nuzzo wishes the CDC’s forecasters would put out more details of their data and evidence on the spread of measles, not less. “The growing scale and severity of this measles outbreak and the urgent need for more data to guide the response underscores why we need a fully staffed and functional CDC and more resources for state and local health departments,” she said.

Kennedy’s agency oversees the CDC and on Thursday announced it was poised to eliminate 2,400 jobs there.

When asked what role, if any, Kennedy played in the decision to not release the risk assessment, HHS’ communications director said the aborted announcement “was part of an ongoing process to improve communication processes — nothing more, nothing less.” The CDC, he reiterated, continues to recommend vaccination “as the best way to protect against measles.”

“Secretary Kennedy believes that the decision to vaccinate is a personal one and that people should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine,” Andrew G. Nixon said. “It is important that the American people have radical transparency and be informed to make personal healthcare decisions.”

Responding to questions about criticism of the decision among some CDC staff, Nixon wrote, “Some individuals at the CDC seem more interested in protecting their own status or agenda rather than aligning with this Administration and the true mission of public health.”

The CDC’s risk assessment was carried out by its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which relied, in part, on new disease data from the outbreak in Texas. The CDC created the center to address a major shortcoming laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic. It functions like a National Weather Service for infectious diseases, harnessing data and expertise to predict the course of outbreaks like a meteorologist warns of storms.

Other risk assessments by the center have been posted by the CDC even though their conclusions might seem obvious.

In late February, for example, forecasters analyzing the spread of H5N1 bird flu said people who come “in contact with potentially infected animals or contaminated surfaces or fluids” faced a moderate to high risk of contracting the disease. The risk to the general U.S. population, they said, was low.

In the case of the measles assessment, modelers at the center determined the risk of the disease for the general public in the U.S. is low, but they found the risk is high in communities with low vaccination rates that are near outbreaks or share close social ties to those areas with outbreaks. The CDC had moderate confidence in the assessment, according to an internal Q&A that explained the findings. The agency, it said, lacks detailed data about the onset of the illness for all patients in West Texas and is still learning about the vaccination rates in affected communities as well as travel and social contact among those infected. (The H5N1 assessment was also made with moderate confidence.)

The internal plan to roll out the news of the forecast called for the expert physician who’s leading the CDC’s response to measles to be the chief spokesperson answering questions. “It is important to note that at local levels, vaccine coverage rates may vary considerably, and pockets of unvaccinated people can exist even in areas with high vaccination coverage overall,” the plan said. “The best way to protect against measles is to get the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”

This week, though, as the number of confirmed cases rose to 483, more than 30 agency staff were told in an email that after a discussion in the CDC director’s office, “leadership does not want to pursue putting this on the website.”

The cancellation was “not normal at all,” said a CDC staff member who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal with layoffs looming. “I’ve never seen a rollout plan that was canceled at that far along in the process.”

Anxiety among CDC staff has been building over whether the agency will bend its public health messages to match those of Kennedy, a lawyer who founded an anti-vaccine group and referred clients to a law firm suing a vaccine manufacturer.

During Kennedy’s first week on the job, HHS halted the CDC campaign that encouraged people to get flu shots during a ferocious flu season. On the night that the Trump administration began firing probationary employees across the federal government, some key CDC flu webpages were taken down. Remnants of some of the campaign webpages were restored after NPR reported this.

But some at the agency felt like the new leadership had sent a message loud and clear: When next to nobody was paying attention, long-standing public health messages could be silenced.

On the day in February that the world learned that an unvaccinated child had died of measles in Texas, the first such death in the U.S. since 2015, the HHS secretary downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak. “We have measles outbreaks every year,” he said at a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.

In an interview on Fox News this month, Kennedy championed doctors in Texas who he said were treating measles with a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil, a supplement that is high in vitamin A. “They’re seeing what they describe as almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery from that,” Kennedy said.

As parents near the outbreak in Texas stocked up on vitamin A supplements, doctors there raced to assure parents that only vaccination, not the vitamin, can prevent measles.

Still, the CDC added an entry on Vitamin A to its measles website for clinicians.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that several hospitalized children in Lubbock, Texas, had abnormal liver function, a likely sign of toxicity from too much vitamin A.

Texas health officials also said that the Trump administration’s decision to rescind $11 billion in pandemic-related grants across the country will hinder their ability to respond to the growing outbreak, according to The Texas Tribune.

Measles is among the most contagious diseases and can be dangerous. About 20% of unvaccinated people who get measles wind up in the hospital. And nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications. The virus can linger in the air for two hours after an infected person has left an area, and patients can spread measles before they even know they have it.

This week Amtrak said it was notifying customers that they may have been exposed to the disease this month when a passenger with measles rode one of its trains from New York City to Washington, D.C.

Q&A: UTA expert on Texas' growing measles crisis

Public health professor Erin Carlson says increasing vaccinations is key to containing state’s largest outbreak in 30 years

University of Texas at Arlington

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Erin Carlson, associate clinical professor and director of graduate public health programs at The University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation, says the erosion of trust in the unequivocally safe and effective MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is dangerous. She discussed the latest developments of the outbreak.

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Credit: UTA

Measles is a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. by the World Health Organization 25 years ago due to the success of vaccination efforts. Yet, Texas counties primarily in the South Plains and Panhandle regions, continue to deal with the state’s largest measles outbreak in 30 years.

As of March 25, there were 327 confirmed cases since the first two were reported in late January, with more than 60 cases confirmed in just the last week. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, at least 40 people have been hospitalized so far.

Erin Carlson, associate clinical professor and director of graduate public health programs at The University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation, says the erosion of trust in the unequivocally safe and effective MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is dangerous. She discussed the latest developments of the outbreak.

The U.S. declared measles eliminated in 2000 thanks to a successful vaccination program. What does “eliminated” mean in this context?

We define elimination as stopping disease transmission within a defined geographic area such as a country or a region, not globally. Even when a disease is eliminated according to the epidemiological definition, it doesn’t mean that we can become lax in our interventions. It means that we must maintain those to continue the elimination of measles from the United States.

What factors have contributed to the current outbreak?

We have seen fewer people getting vaccinated compared to historical levels, which has allowed these outbreaks to take hold.

How effective and safe is the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine?

It is unequivocally safe and effective. We have decades of research. There are devastating complications from measles, but we don’t see these types of complications or side effects from the vaccine. It is 97% effective against measles.

Most know measles to be a highly contagious disease. What exactly is measles, and how does it spread from person to person?

If you wanted to design a virus to be as contagious as possible, you would design measles. It has the highest reproduction rate in the world. For every one person who has the disease, they spread it to 12 to 18 people on average. That’s extraordinary.

With measles, a person is infected for four days before they ever get the rash. For four days, they are spreading the disease before they have signs that they’re sick. Then, once the rash develops, they’re contagious for another four days. So, there are eight days where they can be spreading the disease, eight days when they’re highly contagious.

What are the potential health complications for those who contract it? How is it cured?

With measles, we tend to think of it as a rash, but it is a respiratory illness. Just like with influenza or COVID-19, pneumonia is a key complication that can develop.

Encephalitis, inflammation of the brain that can lead to seizures and brain damage, is another leading complication. There is also a very scary brain disorder called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, which you should think of as Alzheimer’s in young people. Measles also can lead to vitamin A deficiency, which can cause eye damage and blindness.

There is a misconception that measles can be treated with vitamin A, which is not true. Vitamin A supplementation helps reduce the chance of blindness, which can be a complication of measles infection.

There is no cure for measles. It’s just palliative treatment, helping people be comfortable.

What advice would you give to parents who have not yet had their child vaccinated against measles?

Get vaccinated. Measles can be deadly or lead to serious lifelong health complications. This is a disease that is completely preventable.

Vaccinations also benefit our communities and our neighbors. Maybe your own child is very healthy and robust, but you may have another child in your community who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. We all can do our part to keep the most vulnerable from getting sick.

GOP rep booed by hundreds at town hall after saying migrants 'not entitled to due process'

Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz (L) answering a constituent's question (R) at a town hall on March 28, 2025 (Image: Screengrab via IndyStar / YouTube)

Carl Gibson

March 28, 2025

ALTERNET

One Republican member of Congress was met with a rowdy crowd of several hundred people at a town hall in her normally solid-red district who frequently booed and shouted her down — particularly when she defended President Donald Trump's most controversial policies.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) held a town hall meeting on Friday in Westfield, Indiana, which is in reliably conservative Hamilton County. According to WIRED reporter Jake Lahut, Trump won the county by a 51-45 margin in November, and Spartz defeated her Democratic opponent by 18 percentage points. Politico national political correspondent Adam Wren tweeted that there were approximately 500 people present at the event.

Roughly an hour into the stream of the town hall posted by the Indianapolis Star, one man stood up and asked Spartz about "all the immigrants who are being rounded up and deported," which drew loud applause from attendees.

"Are they entitled to due process, or is the expectation that we're supposed to take the word of the administration that these people need to be shipped out of the country without any opportunity to defend themselves?" The man asked, which prompted a standing ovation from the crowd.

Spartz began her response by acknowledging that she "came here as an immigrant" from Ukraine, and opined that the immigration system is broken, saying that "coming here legally takes decades." But she then pivoted to arguing that "we cannot open the borders" and that undocumented immigrants can live off of "benefits." She notably didn't answer the man's question about whether the Trump administration can be taken at its word that the immigrants being deprived of due process are criminals who don't deserve their day in court.

"We have to make sure that we get that border under control. I've been to that border many times. It's insanity," Spartz said as the crowd booed. "When you seek asylum, wait in the other country ... There is no due process if you come here illegally because you violated the law. Period! You violated the law, you are not entitled to due process."

Wren tweeted that many of the attendees left the town hall early because they felt Spartz wasn't actually answering constituents' questions. NOTUS reporter Daniella Diaz, who was live-tweeting from the town hall, reported that one constituent shouted: "Could you even answer one question?"

Watch the stream of Spartz's town hall below, or by clicking this link.

'One phrase in particular' makes Trump's Smithsonian order 'deeply disturbing': analysis

Alex Henderson

March 29, 2025

ALTERNET

On Thursday, March 27, President Donald Trump issued yet another executive order — this time, one aimed at the Smithsonian Institute. Trump called for expressions of "improper ideologies" or to be removed from Smithsonian's museums and information centers, and for the removal of displays that "promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy,"

Journalist Lauren Wolfe was quick to respond on X, formerly Twitter, and posted, "This is unabashed fascism."

Wolfe isn't the only journalist who is speaking out.

In a column published on March 29, the Daily Beast's David Rothkopf lays out some reasons why he finds Trump's use of the words "improper ideology" so troubling.

"What damage could such an exercise do?" Rothkopf argues. "After all, the Smithsonian is not under the control of the president! He has no authority to alter its content or behavior in any way. And if he wants to send J.D. Vance to pick a fight with a panda well, that's probably less damage than he might do participating in high-level national security chats or during recon for an invasion of Greenland. But the order contained several elements that, are in fact, deeply disturbing. One, of course, is that it is racist to its core — a manifestation of white supremacists' longstanding grievances with depictions of American history that actually tell the truth about our bloody and cruel past."

The Daily Beast columnist continues, "And it contains one phrase in particular that made my blood run cold, because of what it plainly says about what Trump and his aides are trying to engineer here in America: Down deep, in the section dubiously titled 'Saving Our Smithsonian,' is the requirement that the VP and other aides work with the people who run our national museums to 'remove improper ideology from such properties.'"

Rothkopf stresses that when a president speaks of "improper ideologies," it is flat-out thought policing.

"Improper ideologies? Those alone are two words that signal the end of America as we know it," Rothkopf warns. "There are not supposed to be 'improper ideologies' in these United States, a country with freedom of expression woven into the fabric of its founding documents."

'Improper ideology': Trump executive order targets the Smithsonian

Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash

Eloise Goldsmith, 

Common Dreams

March 28, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump has elicited a fresh wave of anger after he signed an executive order on Thursday targeting exhibits or programs critical of the United States at the Smithsonian Institution, a sprawling network of largely free museums and Washington, D.C.'s National Zoo.

The order aims to prevent federal money from going to displays that "divide Americans based on race" or "promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy," as well as remove "improper ideology" from Smithsonian's museums, education centers, and research centers.

"This is unabashed fascism," wrote the journalist Lauren Wolfe on X on Thursday. Amy Rutenberg, a history professor at Iowa State University, wrote: "Last week, while visiting several Smithsonian museums, I kept wondering how long it would take for this administration to direct exhibits to be pulled. Not long, it turns out."

Another observer, journalist and founding editor of the outlet SpyTalk Jeff Stein, remarked that "Trump goes full-on Soviet with intent to scrub Smithsonian museums etc. of 'improper ideology.'"

The move highlights Trump's desire to reshape not only American politics, but cultural institutions too.

The order, which included an accompanying fact sheet, also directs U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to reinstate monuments, memorials, statues, and other properties that have been taken down or altered since the beginning of 2020 to "perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology."

The order also specifies that U.S. Vice President JD Vance—a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents—will be tasked with identifying and appointing Smithsonian board members "who are committed to advancing the celebration of America's extraordinary heritage and progress."

The executive order singles out specific museums, like the African American History and Culture, and a "forthcoming" American Women's History Museum plan to celebrate what the White House described as "the exploits of male athletes participating in women's sports."

"Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology," according to the executive order.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) connected Trump's targeting of Smithsonian to his administration's attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

"First Trump removes any reference of diversity from the present—now he's trying to remove it from our history. Let me be PERFECTLY clear—you cannot erase our past and you cannot stop us from fulfilling our future," she wrote on X on Thursday.

'Mussolini talk': Retired ARMY general slams Trump’s claim US will 'get Greenland — 100 percent'

U.S. Vice President JD Vance poses with second lady Usha Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, his wife , former homeland security advisor, Julia Nesheiwat and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright as they tour the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Jim Watson/Pool via REUTERS

Elizabeth Preza

March 30, 2025

ALTERNET

Retired United States Army general Brian McCaffrey on Sunday slammed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Greenland, urging Republican leaders in Congress to act in response to the president’s musings.

Trump on Saturday told NBC News he’s believes the U.S. will “get Greenland ... 100 percent.”

Trump also refused to rule out annexing the self-governing Danish territory.

”I don't take anything off the table," Trump told NBC News.

As Newsweek notes, Trump’s talk about taking Greenland has led to “[strained] relations between the U.S. and [North Atlantic Trade Organization] NATO ally Denmark.”

“The inhospitable Arctic is being reshaped by climate change, new trade routes and fresh military footprints from Russia and China,” Newsweek reports.

McCaffrey on Sunday called the president’s NBC News interview “Mussolini talk,” referring to former Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.

"Where are the Republicans leaders in Congress and [the] states,” McCaffrey wondered.

As Newsweek reports, Trump's "remarks came a day after Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland in a scaled-back visit with his wife, Usha Vance, touring the U.S.'s Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, hundreds of miles from Greenland's capital, Nuuk."

Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy, Jim Townsend, last week told Newsweek NATO "would never recover" from a U.S. military operation in Greenland.

"It would be just a horrendous catastrophe for the trans-Atlantic relationship, or NATO or U.S. relations with Europe and the rest of the world," Townsend said.

"It would hand a huge victory to Russia and to China,” the former official added.

Watch the video below or at this link. 

'We cannot be allies' with US if Trump tries to 'take our territory away': Danish official

U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Jim Watson/Pool via REUTERS

Carl Gibson

March 28, 2025

ALTERNET

One member of Denmark's parliament is now warning the United States that its bellicose rhetoric toward Greenland won't be tolerated much longer.

Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland on Friday, amid President Donald Trump's repeated insinuations that he wouldn't rule out using economic and/or military methods to take over the island — which is an official territory of Denmark. Vance said during a press conference that Denmark had "not done a good job" in keeping their territory safe, citing China and Russia ramping up their presence in the Arctic. He then suggested that Greenland would be better off if it separated from Denmark and agreed to be a part of the United States.

"What we think is going to happen is that the Greenlanders are going to choose, through self-determination, to become independent of Denmark, and then we're going to have conversations with the people of Greenland from there," he said.

During a Friday interview with CNN host Brianna Keilar, Danish MP Rasmus Jarlov responded to Vance's comments by pointing out that Greenland has actually had the ability to become an independent nation since 2009, but has opted to stick with Denmark instead. And he noted that even though recent elections in Greenland saw a pro-independence party make gains, the residents of the island are still hesitant about being a United States territory.

"Don't mistake the need and the desire for independence with a desire to become American," Jarlov said. "They are very clear that if they should choose between Denmark and the United States, they will choose and prefer to stay with Denmark."

Jarlov further characterized Vance's remarks as "trying to drive a wedge" between the Greenlandic population and Denmark. He added his country was "not happy with Americans going to a fully integrated region of Denmark and ... trying to make an alliance with separatists to try to to take that region."

"How would you react if China went to Hawaii and started a campaign trying to bribe people there to make them become part of China? I don't think any country would accept that," he said. "This is not acceptable behavior from an allied country. And it's really very bad for the Western alliance. We cannot be allies if one country tries to take another country's territory. We are allied with the Americans because we want to be protected from others taking our territory, not because we want allies to take our territory away from us. So it's it's really not something that we can accept."

Watch Jarlov's segment below, or by clicking this link.

 

'Absurd and unlawful': JD Vance slams Denmark to promote Trump’s Greenland takeover bid

U.S. Vice President JD Vance arrives to board Air Force Two after touring the U.S. military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Jim Watson/Pool via REUTERS

David Badash

NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

March 28, 2025

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Greenland to promote President Donald Trump’s claim that America has to have the Danish territory—and that Greenlanders would be more secure under U.S. protection.

President Trump “has repeatedly suggested the U.S. should take over Greenland ‘one way or the another’ for national security purposes,” ABC News reported. On Friday in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of: Do you think we can do without it? We can’t.”

During his visit to Greenland, Vance added, “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires.”

The original plan appeared to be a charm offensive: Second Lady Usha Vance would travel to Greenland with one of the couple’s sons to attend cultural events in a show of support to pave the way for the administration’s efforts to annex one of the world’s largest islands.

85% of Greenlanders oppose any form of U.S. takeover of Greenland, CNN has reported. But when the advance team could find not a single Greenlander to welcome Vance and her son, that mission was scrapped.

“Amid the lack of enthusiasm among Greenland residents about the Americans’ visit, JD Vance announced in a video on X that he would be joining his wife on the trip,” USA Today reported.

“There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said, a remark that was “at odds” with reports stating that the “Americans’ charm offensive mission has failed.”

It was the first of several calculated claims the Vice President has unleashed about Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

“The president has said clearly he doesn’t think that military force is going to be necessary,” Vance told reporters while speaking at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. military base operating under NATO. “But he absolutely believes that Greenland is important part of the security, not just of the United States, but of the world, and of course, the people of Greenland, too.”

“It’s very simple. Greenland really matters for the security of the United States,” Vance continued. But he claimed that Greenland is “extremely vulnerable right now, and if the people of Greenland were willing to partner with the United States and I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States, we could make them much more secure, we could do a lot more protection, and I think they’d fare a lot better economically as well.”

The Vice President’s remarks were made on the same day the stock markets in the U.S. crashed, reports show inflation rising, experts are warning of “stagflation” and increasing unemployment all in anticipation of President Trump’s tariffs, more of which are set to be introduced next week.

“This has to happen, and the reason it has to happen,” Vance threatened. “I hate to say it is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe. They they just haven’t done It . it it’s very simple for for all of our our friends in the American media who attack the administration for pointing out the obvious, what is the alternative to give up the North Atlantic, to give up the Arctic to China, to Russia, and other regimes that don’t have the best interest the American people at heart.”

“We have no other option, we need to take a significant position in Greenland to keep the people here safe, but to keep our own country safe too.”



Vance went on to say, “our friends in Denmark, I hate to say it, have not done their job in keeping this area safe.”

Dr. Jana Puglierin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), asked why the Vice President ignored NATO.



NATO solves all the concerns Vance listed. As the New York Times columnist David French explained: “We don’t have to own Greenland to protect our interests. Denmark is part of NATO. We’re bound to defend each other, and we have every ability to defend our interests without an absurd and unlawful annexation.”

“As China and Russia have taken greater and greater interest in Greenland, in this base, in the activities of the brave Americans right here,” Vance also said, “we know that too often our allies in Europe have not kept pace. They haven’t kept pace with military spending. And Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and from other nations.”

CBS News’ Jim LaPorta, who has written extensively on the military, remarked: “82 years ago. That was the last ‘aggressive incursion’ by a military force in Greenland.”


Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned that President Trump’s frequent rhetoric promoting a U.S. takeover of Greenland is not “just some eccentric talk of the new American administration.”



Veteran and veterans activist Paul Rieckhoff blasted Vance.

“Another ridiculous and nationally embarrassing statement, position and photo op,” Reikhoff wrote. “Vance is becoming more ridiculous and shameless by the day. He makes Dan Quayle look like a superstar. This charade is a perfectly terrible bookend to the week after Noem’s disgusting debacle. Dear Greenland (and world), please know that he does not speak for most Americans.”

“This is called blatant aggression,” warns economist and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Anders Åslund, responding to Vance’s claim that the U.S. has “no other option.”

“Hitler did the same before attacking Poland in 1939 & so did Putin before his full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022,” Åslund said.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Here's why Trump is really targeting big DC law firms

Alex Henderson

March 29, 2025
ALTERNET

Two months into his second presidency, Donald Trump is aggressively attacking both judges and law firms. Trump is calling for judges who are blocking his executive orders to be impeached, and he is trying to make life difficult for major law firms that represent his political foes by pulling their security clearances.

Some major firms are making concessions in the hope of making peace with Trump, including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Full disclosure: this journalist's mother was employed by Skadden, Arps during the 1980s.

In an op-ed published on March 29, the New York Times' David Enrich analyzes Trump's motivations for targeting major law firms.

"Mr. Trump and his administration's lawyers are fighting in court," Enrich explains, "but they are also pursuing a much more ambitious and consequential goal: deterring lawyers from suing his administration in the first place. In a series of recent executive orders, Mr. Trump has restricted the ability of some major law firms, including those that employed his perceived political enemies, to interact with the federal government. Among the president's stated rationales was that some of the work done by the firms gets in the way of his administration's immigration and other policies."

In a March 22 memo, Enrich notes, Trump directed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi "to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States."

Enrich argues, "Those adjectives are fuzzy, but the threats are clear. Giant law firms tend to have lucrative businesses helping corporate clients get their way with the federal government, whether it is winning contracts or defusing investigations or minimizing the impact of regulations. Being penalized by the government would be bad for business. Mr. Trump's recent broadsides have stunned the legal industry, many of whose practitioners pride themselves on pursuing cases against perceived overreach by both Republican and Democratic administrations."

Enrich points out that Trump's executive orders "have revealed stark differences in how powerful law firms want to handle an aggressive and unpredictable president."

"Three firms have sued to block Mr. Trump's orders, calling them blatantly unconstitutional," Enrich observes. "On Friday evening, (March 28), federal judges in Washington issued temporary restraining orders granting two of the firms, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, relief from the executive orders. Two others — Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison — struck deals with the president to avoid or rescind such orders. Regardless, Mr. Trump's moves have the potential — and perhaps the goal — to undermine people's ability to challenge their government."

David Enrich's full New York Times analysis is available at this link (subscription required).

'What possible threat do they pose?' Judge grills Trump DOJ attorney over law firm threats

U.S. President Donald Trump holds an executive order, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 25, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Carl Gibson

March 29, 2025

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump has recently issued a wave of executive orders targeting law firms that represented some of his political opponents, along with firms where his opponents previously worked. But some of those firms are fighting back, and scoring big wins against the Trump administration in court.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the law firms Jenner & Block and WilmerHale both sued Trump over his executive orders, which stripped their attorneys of security clearances, barred them from government buildings and directed federal agencies to cancel active contracts with the firms. In the case of WilmerHale, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon (who was appointed by former President George W. Bush) granted the firm a temporary restraining order on Friday blocking Trump's executive order from going into effect.

"The injuries to [WilmerHale] would be severe and spill over to its clients and the justice system at large," Judge Leon wrote.

During Friday afternoon's hearing in Leon's courtroom, the Republican-appointed judge was reportedly "incredulous" when questioning an attorney representing the Trump administration's Department of Justice, according to NBC News reporter Gary Grumbach. Leon pointed out that the E. Barrett Prettyman District of Columbia courthouse was in the same category of buildings that the administration was seeking to prevent the firm's staff from entering.

"What possible threat do they pose from having access to government buildings?" Leon said. “This is a government building."

The white-shoe law firm Perkins Coie was also targeted by one of Trump's executive orders, but the firm's attorneys have held fast and fought back, and some of the firm's clients have reportedly sought to have more work sent to Perkins Coie as a form of encouragement. Some of its top clients, like Boeing, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Intel and even the Seattle Seahawks NFL team have refused to cut their contracts in spite of Trump's attacks.

Not all of the targets of Trump's rage have stood up to him. Last week, the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Paul Weiss) agreed to provide $40 million worth of pro bono work on causes important to the Trump administration in order for Trump to rescind his order targeting the firm, which some critics described as a "shakedown." Trump also agreed to a similar deal with the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom (Skadden) on Friday for $100 million in pro bono services. Both Paul Weiss and Skadden also agreed to not hire new attorneys based on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.

Click here to read the Journal's report in full (subscription required).