Tribe Over Truth
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Ralph speaks to law professor, Barbara McQuade, who specializes in national security issues and has written a book that outlines the very real threat to American democracy, “Attack From Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America.” Also, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson sums up Israeli goals in its war on the Palestinians with three words “eradication, elimination, and expulsion.” Barbara McQuade is a professor from practice at Michigan Law School. Her interests include criminal law, criminal procedure, national security, data privacy, and civil rights. From 2010 to 2017, Professor McQuade served as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. As US attorney, she oversaw cases involving public corruption, terrorism, corporate fraud, theft of trade secrets, civil rights, and health care fraud, among others. She also serves as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. Barbara McQuade is the author of Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. I think people are still bewildered about how to respond to Donald Trump. I think the media is bewildered because we've never seen anything like him—he's an absolute disruptor of how our system works. And so, he's a big bully who runs around and says all kinds of mean things and nobody knows how to deal with it. I think the media still struggles to decide how do you cover someone—when we've been trained to get both sides of an argument which presumes that both sides are engaging in good faith—when instead you have someone who is not engaging in good faith, engaging in lies, making inconsistent statements. Barbara McQuade We need to demand truth. We can't allow ourselves to engage in fiction, even if we believe it is to advance our ends. The ends can never justify the means. Our country is built on integrity in the rule of law and we need to demand truth if we are going to have a democracy and effective self-government. Barbara McQuade You don't want to go down in the mud with people. But when the national press begins and continues to be [Trump’s] bullhorn, verbatim, repeating it, repeating it, giving no right of reply, there's no way you can simply say, “I don't want to go to his level,” because the press has raised it to a level that is devastating to our democracy. Ralph Nader Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel. Over his 31 years of service, Colonel Wilkerson served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2005, and Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993. Colonel Wilkerson also served as Deputy Director and Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia, and for fifteen years he was the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, senior advisor to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and co-founder of the All-Volunteer Force Forum.  The media is an Israeli agent when they do give some kind of deference to “the other side,” as it were, it's always in words and terminology and short sentences that make you know that “they are balanced.” “They are fair and balanced.” They're about as fair and balanced as my left foot. That's the way it is. The purpose here is eradication, elimination, or expulsion, period. Eradication, elimination, or expulsion. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson We all need to wake up, and we need to start taking actions such as we can locally—whatever's within our purview and power to do. Because we're losing this country. We're losing it to the moneyed oligarchy. We're losing it to the unprecedented amount of money, because of Citizens United, that's pouring into the political coffers of people who have no interest in what you want…These people are basing their decisions on money. Money—not you. They're not the people's representatives… They're the repres
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