UMKC Constitutional Law Professor Allen Rostron1 discusses major policy changes mandated by President Trump since his second inauguration with Radio Active Magazine regulars Spencer Graves and Craig Lubow. To what extent are these changes consistent with the US Constitution and previously established law? Prior to joining the UMKC law school faculty in 2003, Rostron worked as a Senior Staff Attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, DC.1 Since joining UMKC, he has received multiple awards for excellence in teaching. In 2010 he was named the William R. Jacques Constitutional Law Scholar at UMKC. He has served as a guest professor of law at Peking University in China and a guest lecturer at Wasada University in Japan. He has also filled various administration roles in the UMKC Law School including as Associate Dean for Students between 2015 and 2020.2 He also maintains a list of roughly 200 law journals in joint with UMKC law professor Nancy Levit to help law scholars submit articles for review to different outlets. In 2018, he published a comment that a "New constitutional convention could be detrimental to democracy".3 In 2013, he supported a "Donna's Law" bill in Missouri: That would allow someone with suicidal ideations to voluntarily put themselves on a "do-not-sell list for firearms". They could later take themselves off that list after a waiting period.4 Donna's Law was named after Donna Nathan, who "bought a Smith & Wesson revolver from a gun store near her home in New Orleans and then went to a park, where she shot herself" on 2018-06-26, shortly after leaving her third voluntary hospitalization for bipolar disorder that year.5 Rostron said, "Everything with guns is very controversial, but I think this is the least controversial provision you would think, because it's voluntary. ... Even if someone felt very strongly about gun rights and they being protected, we generally let people waive their rights if they choose to do so." He said that this bill could see bipartisan support.4 On 2024-08-22, Delaware became the fourth state to pass such a law.6 _______ 1. "About Allen Rostron", UMKC School of Law (https://law.umkc.edu/docs/vitae/rostron.pdf), accessed 2025-04-01. 2. "Allen Rostron CV" (https://law.umkc.edu/docs/vitae/rostron.pdf). 3. Allen Rostron (2018-09-10) "New constitutional convention could be detrimental to democracy" (https://www.kansascity.com/article218141540.html). 4. Megan Abundis (2023-11-29) "Missouri legislator pushes Donna's Law, a voluntary do-not-sell list for firearms that aims to curb self-harm", KSHB 41 (https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/missouri-legislator-pushes-donnas-law-a-voluntary-do-not-sell-list-for-firearms-that-aims-to-curb-self-harm). 5. Agya K. Aning (2024-11-12) "To Prevent Suicide, States Want to Let People Ban Themselves From Buying Guns", The Trace, (https://www.thetrace.org/2024/11/donnas-law-suicide-prevention-gun-buying). 6. "Delaware Becomes the Fourth State to Enact Donna’s Law", 2024-08-22 (https://law.ua.edu/delaware-becomes-the-fourth-state-to-enact-donnas-law/)

Georgetown professor Amy O'Hara  discusses the deletions and modifications of massive amounts of data from US federal government websites on orders from President Trump since his second inauguration, 2025-01-20, and how those actions threaten rule of law and broadly shared economic growth for the long term. O'Hara is President of the Association of Public Data Users (APDU), which facilitates collaboration between producers, users, and disseminators of public statistical data to promote responsible and rigorous collection, creation, distribution, preservation, and analysis of federal statistical data. She is interviewed by Radio Active Magazine regular Spencer Graves. Thousands of US federal government web pages and datasets were deleted. Some have since been restored, many with alterations. The changes primarily affected content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, gender identity, public health, environment, and social programs. Major affected agencies included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which saw over 3,000 pages altered or removed, and the Census Bureau, which removed about 3,000 pages of research materials. While some content was later restored, the modifications represented significant changes to federal government data accessibility and sparked legal challenges from healthcare advocacy groups. During his first term as president of the United States, 2017–2021, Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly politicized science by pressuring or overriding health and science agencies to change their reporting and recommendations to conform to his policies and public comments. Censorship like this facilitates image management but make it exceedingly difficult and often impossible to evaluate the actual impact of changes. Leaders may claim they tried to fix a problem. If problem persist, leaders routinely claim that their efforts would have been effective without the sabotage of their designated enemies. Fixing the problems then requires the defeat of said enemies. To what extent has the massive consolidation of ownership of the media over the past 100 to 150 years contributed to giving President Trump the political support needed to make the dramatic and sweeping changes mentioned above?   Background  One major contributor to the dominant position of the US in the international political economy today may have been the US Postal Service Act of 1792. Under that act, newspapers were delivered up to 100 miles for a penny when first class postage was between 6 and 25 cents. Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited the relatively young United States of America in 1831, wrote, "There is scarcely a hamlet that does not have its own newspaper."1 McChesney and Nichols estimated that these newspaper subsidies were roughly 0.21 percent of national income (Gross Domestic Project, GDP) in 1841.2 At that time, the US probably led the world by far in the number of independent newspaper publishers per capita or per million population. This encouraged literacy and political corruption. Corruption was also limited by the inability of a small number of publishers to dominate political discourse. That began to change in the 1850s and 1860s with the introduction of high speed rotary presses, which increased the capital required to start a newspaper.3 In 1887 William Randolph Hearst took over management of his father's San Francisco Examiner. His success there gave him an appetite for building a newspaper chain. His 1895 purchase of the New York Morning Journal gave him a second newspaper. By the mid-1920s, he owned 28 newspapers. Consolidation of ownership of the media became easier with the introduction of broadcasting and even easier with the Internet.4 This consolidation seems to be increasing political polarization and violence wor...

Marilyn McCleod, Anne Calvert and Harry Bognich discuss concerns and activities of Leagues of Women Voters. They are interviewed by Radio Active Magazine regular Spencer Graves. Marilyn is President of the League of Women Voters of Missouri. Anne is President of the League of Women Voters of Kansas City, Jackson, Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri. Harry is President of the League of Women Voters of Johnson County, Kansas. Harry discusses special elections scheduled for April 1 in Lenexa, Gardner, Edgerton, and Westwood,1 other Kansas elections this year including Overland Park Mayor, and about the League's concerns about voter suppression actions by leading state and federal officials.2 Anne discusses local elections scheduled for April 8 in Missouri.3 Marilyn describes the Missouri League's concerns about alleged voter suppression by leading elected officials in Missouri.4 Both Missouri and Kansas have optional primary elections August 8.5 Leagues of Women Voters have traditionally engaged in voter registration and education. They have opposed restrictions on voting that seem unwarranted by the prevalence of actual vote fraud by individual voters and seem more designed to suppress votes by humans more likely to vote for the opposition of the party in power, e.g., residents of areas known to have higher populations of Black and Brown humans. This includes purging names from voter registration lists on questionable grounds. It includes restrictive voter ID laws that are harder to meet for people with name changes like women or address changes like students who may move more frequently than older adults.   2025 elections in Kansas   Special elections are scheduled for April 1 in Lenexa, Gardner, Edgerton, and Westwood.1 Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog is running for re-election. June 2 is the deadline to file to run against him. June 21 is the deadline for election officials to transmit absentee ballots to members of the uniformed services registered in Kansas but living away from their official home district and to other US citizens living overseas. July 15 is the deadline to register to vote or to update voter registration for the August 5 primary, if there is one. Advance voting begins sometime between July 16 and July 29, at the discretion of the local elections board. Similar deadlines apply for the general election November 4.6   2025 elections in Missouri  There are special elections in some Missouri jurisdictions April 8.3 Sample ballots for Missouri voters are available from the website of the Missouri Secretary of State.7 The website of the Kansas City Election Board offers a "sample ballot", but that includes all the races and issues for voters in both Kansas City and Jackson County, but no voter can vote in all those races.8 Vote411, a voter information website maintained by League volunteers, provides sample ballots and election information in some but not all cases. Anne Calvert noted that the Kansas City league was holding numerous forums with those events being recorded and posted to YouTube with information on their web site, lwvkc.org. Other sources for some candidates and ballot issues may include The Beacon (thebeaconnews.org) and Ballotpedia (ballotpedia.org).   Restrictions on voter ID, voter registration and absentee voting  The League has for years been fighting restrictions on voter IDs, voter registration, and voting. In 2011 the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act was enacted and took effect in 2013. It was justified by claims of massive problems with people voting illegally, especially noncitizens. In 2016 the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of Steven Wayne Fish and others claiming that the Documentary Proof of Citizenship requirements of that act were unreasonable and inconsiste...

Resurrection Downtown Kansas City, a United Methodist congregation, hosted a discussion March 10 of the "State of Immigration and Its Impact on KC". Speakers included Adam Kisler1 and Julie Doane of Resurrection, Hilary Cohen Singer, Executive Director of  Jewish Vocational Services (JVS) in Kansas City,2 Trinidad Raj Molina with Advocates of Immigration Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR),3 and immigration attorney Angela Ferguson.4 Adam Kisler Adam Kisler noted that Jacob and Abraham took their families to Egypt to escape a famine. Egypt welcomed them but turned them into slaves. Moses led them out of slavery, making them refugees again. King David fled for his life to escape execution by King Saul, living living among Israel's arch enemy, the Philistines, for roughly a decade until Saul died. Shortly after Jesus was born, King Herod ordered all males two years old or younger, to be killed. An angel appeared in a dream to Joseph, warning him to take his family to Egypt. What would happen today if a family presented themselves to a border patrol agent, and the father said an angel told me to cross the border? How would that be received? The Prophet Muhammad fled Mecca with his followers in 622 to escape persecution. They were supported in host communities for a time. More recently, the Dalai Lama and many of his followers have found refuge in India. Julie Doane regarding Matthew 25 and Hilary Cohen Singer Julie Doane noted that Kansas City had accepted over 1,000 Afghans in late 2021. Julie said, "We anchor our ministry in Matthew 25 I was a stranger, and you welcomed me." Julie then introduced Hilary Cohen Singer, the Executive Director of Jewish Vocational Services (JVS) since 2014. Hilary holds a BA in Political Science from Columbia University, a BA in modern Jewish Studies from Jewish theological Seminary of America, and a Masters of Public Administration from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. Hilary Cohen Singer Hilary noted that immigration policy attempts to address humanitarian issues regarding how we treat the most vulnerable among us. A leading document in this regard is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 as the world was grappling with the painful realities of the displacements engendered by the Second World War. In particular, Article 14 says that everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. A companion to that is the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, ratified in 1951. It defines who is a refugee and documents refugee rights and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum. Per this Convention, a refugee is someone who, owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, has left their country and cannot or should not go back for fear of their life. Refugees have three basic rights: Non-refoulement (non-returning of refugees to dangerous countries; Article 33). Non-discrimination (Article 3). Non-penalization (Article 31). There are many rules regarding who can come, how many and when. Humans officially counted as refugees present themselves to the UN in a "country of first refuge". Then they wait years while their application is processed. Half are kids. When they turn 19 or get married or have a baby, their status changes, and they must start the process over from the beginning. Hilary described a young woman from Syria, who had turned 19, She and her family had gotten approval to come to the US in 2016. The young woman was approved to come in November; the rest of the family was scheduled for late January. The family decided to send the young woman by herself,

Rick Goldsmith,1 director of the documentary, "Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink",2 discusses how Alden Global Capital has purchased many newspapers in the US, laid off many journalists and closed many newspapers. Malfeasance in government and business are increasing as a result. Vulture capitalists and hedge funds make money in multiple ways including the following: If society is lucky, the investors find ways to make the company more profitable with, e.g., better marketing, new products or cost cutting. Investors that help put a potentially failing company on a more positive trajectory should not earn the negative term, "vulture". Vultures have often saddled companies they acquire with massive debt at excessively high interest rates like 13 percent.3 This serves vultures well, because that debt typically survives bankruptcy under current US laws. Many companies owned by vultures were profitable before being bought but cannot service the massive debt that the vultures saddle them with. Vultures have been confiscating pension funds like this at least since the 1980s.4 Edge (2024) describes this in some detail. He says, for example, that newspaper chains purchased by vultures "were all still profitable ... .. The only thing that took them down was debt.5 Vultures often make money by cutting costs faster than customers stop buying.6 As Internet companies started making money from advertising, newspaper revenue has declined. Newspapers adjusted by cutting costs, including laying off journalists. However, vultures have been cutting staff at double the rate of the industry. Nieman Lab at Harvard reported, "Alden Global Capital is making so much money wrecking local journalism it might not want to stop anytime soon."7 Many companies, especially newspapers, own prime real estate that is worth more than the market value of the company. Before Alden, The Denver Post was right in the center of power in Colorado looking out onto a square with the State Capitol, the state Supreme Court and Denver City Hall on the other three sides of the square. That's the proper place for the "Fourth Estate", the watchdog press. However, not long after Alden acquired The Denver Post, they moved all the staff they did not cut to a far away space with no windows at the intersection of an animal rendering plant, the wastewater treatment plant, and a dog food factory.8 The movie rests heavily on the work of Julie Reynolds9 and Penny Abernathy.10 It includes extensive comments by Greg Moore, editor of The Denver Post from 2002 to 2016, and others. The movie recommends government subsidies, similar to those provided by the US Postal Service Act of 1792, mentioned by Penny Abernathy and cited in research reports by McChensey and Nichols.11 The latter two were co-founders of Free Press, an organization lobbying for public support for local news in several states.12 The Institute for Nonprofit News including their former executive director Sue Cross15 has been supporting local news nonprofits that are trying to fill the gap created by news deserts and ghost newspapers. The threat A previous Media & Democracy interview with Arizona State University accounting professor Roger White on "Local newspapers limit malfeasance" describes problems that increase as the quality and quantity of news declines and ownership and control of the media become more highly concentrated: Major media too often deflect the public's attention from political corruption enabled by poor media. This often contributes to other problems like scapegoating immigrants and attacking Diversity, equity, and inclusion(DEI) while also facilitating increases in pollution, the cost of borrowing, political polarization and violence, and decreases in workplace safety. More on this is included in other interviews in this Media & Democracy series avail...

Arizona State University Accounting Professor Roger White is interviewed by Radio Active Magazine regular Spencer Graves. They discuss research documenting the value of independent newspapers, especially local newspapers, in limiting malfeasance. A 2021 research article White co-authored with Kim, Stice and Stice reported that after local newspapers die, the average dividends paid by locally concentrated, publicly traded companies on average increase. They say that's because investors demand higher dividends, because malfeasance is more likely after a watchdog newspaper dies.1 Related research on the value of news White's research on the impact of local news on the cost of capital adds to a body of research documenting other problems associated with a decline in local news. For example, factories emit on average 10% more pollution,2 insider trading increases thereby reducing the efficiency of financial markets, non-profit leaders take higher wages so less of donors' money goes to the advertised purposes of their generosity,3 and workplace safety violations jump.4 Other problems include a decline in voter participation and split-ticket voting. On average, politicians spend less money to get elected and tend not to work as hard in office. Political corruption becomes more likely and costly. And bond ratings of local governmental bodies decline, thereby increasing the cost of capital.5 Other problems with questionable accounting practices White and Graves also discuss potential problems with firing inspectors general, as President Trump has done since taking office earlier this year and during his first term. This should be a red flag for anyone concerned about rule of law, given the substantial documentation that senior executives can find accountants and auditors willing to conspire to defraud investors and the public. William K. Black (2005, 2013) The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One (U. of Texas Pr.) documented this during the Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. A recent example of this was publicized with the actions of the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 2024-05-03 to fine the accounting firm of BF Borgers $12 million and ban them from further work. Reports of that action said that Borgers had filed 1,500 fraudulent filings involving 500 public companies. Trump Media & Technology Group was one of Borgers' clients. The magnitude of this fraud raises many questions. For example, how many people knew that a report they saw was fraudulent? How many looked the other way? How many were told to look the other way? How many were in the SEC vs. associated with a Borgers client? How many questionable actions by business executives would likely have been exposed or prevented by honest audits? How many customers lost how much money due to substandard products or services that would have been avoided with honest, quality audits? How many journalists suppressed this story before it finally came out? Other publications by White White has other publications that relate to this topic including the following: A 2020 paper with Ellis and Smith on "Corruption and corporate innovation" documents how political corruption is an obstacle to corporate innovation.6 Other work documents how political corruption tends to increase when newspapers die.7 A 2021 paper with Deason, Rajgopal, and Waymire on "The Role of Accounting in Ponzi Schemes" notes that some Ponzi schemes use news outlets to attract customers, even though doing so increases the risks of being caught.8 A 2022 paper with Derrald and Han Stice on “The effect of individual auditor quality on audit outcomes: opening the black box of audit quality” discusses the relative roles of junior and senior members of an accounting firm in producing high quality audits.9 The threat

Citizens for Justice in the Middle East (CJME) and Cross Border Network for Justice and Solidarity will receive the Kris and Lynn Cheatum Award at the PeaceWorks KC annual meeting, March 9. The Cheatum award is bestowed on organizations that make substantive contributions to peace and justice in the Greater Kansas City metro area.  CJME has been a leader in organizing events in Kansas City to support Palestinians. Margot Patterson, one of the leaders of CJME, is also a co-producer and co-host of Understanding Israel Palestine, a weekly program on KKFI, 90.1 FM, that seeks to give listeners a closer, more honest depiction of the struggle between Israel and Palestinians than the mainstream media. Patterson has interviewed NGO officials, foreign policy analysts, diplomats, journalists, historians and activists about what is taking place in Israel and Palestine and the U.S. role in the conflict. The Cross Border Network for Justice & Solidarity educates about the imperialist policies of the U.S. and their effect on countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It challenges Americans to recognize that corporate-driven globalization and militarism are major forces driving migration. They organize for human rights and economic justice by connecting working people and their families in solidarity across borders. They support workers across borders and who cross borders! They were formed in 1998 by labor educator Judy Ancel and union organizer and Central America support activist Katie Phelan. The PeaceWorks KC 2025 annual meeting is scheduled for March 9 (Sunday), 2-4 PM, at Simpson House, 4509 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO.

This episode of Radio Active Magazine features two topics: An interview with author Andrew Sillen about his new Black History book, Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White. And we interview Rev. Michael Stephens and attorney Suzanne Gladney who are inviting you to a Zoom event February 25, 7-8:30 PM to discuss the current "Threats to Refugees & Immigrants".   Kidnapped at Sea Andrew Sillen is author of (2024) Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White (Johns Hopkins U. Pr.). White was an illiterate free Black born in 1845 and serving as a cook  on a Yankee packet (cargo) ship,1 which was captured on the high seas 1862-10-09 by the faster CSS Alabama. White was enslaved and forced to serve on the Alabama, and lost his life when the Alabama was sunk not quite two years later, 1864-06-19, in the Battle of Cherbourg, just off the coast of France. Although relatively unknown today, the Battle of Cherbourg was one of the most famous naval battles of the American Civil War. For "the generation that survived the Civil War, this battle was as recognized as Gettysburg; the ships involved were as noted as the Monitor and Merrimack; and the captains, Raphael Semmes of the Alabama and John Ancrum Winslow of the Kearsarge, were as renowned as Admiral David Farragut.2 Sillen is a Visiting Research Associate in Anthropology at Rutgers. He noted that it was difficult to produce a serious biography of an illiterate Black teenager, who was born in 1845 and served in low-level jobs like  a ship's steward until he died in 1864, because authors had to rely on comments written about White by others. The power of this biography lies in its portrayal of the life of just such a relatively common person, typical of that period.   Threats to Refugees & Immigrants Rev. Michael Stephens and immigration attorney Suzanne Gladney invite you to a Zoom meeting February 25, 7-8:30 PM Central, on "Threats to Refugees & Immigrants". You can register at "https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/1qesJFByT-2e13bxDHd1PQ#/registration". Stephens is the pastor at Southwood United Church of Christ in Raytown and is a leader with the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. Gladney is a local immigration attorney and founder of the Migrant Farmworkers Assistance Fund. Rev. Stephens' church welcomes all. He is appalled at how immigrants are treated by so many in the US. It is particularly galling that the major media report without comment claims that immigrants are responsible for substantially more crime and are otherwise a drain on the economy for US citizens, when those claims are contradicted by available research: Studies comparing sanctuary cities to less-immigrant friendly locations find either no difference or less crime and higher median incomes in sanctuary cities. Copyright 2025 Andrew Sillen, Michael Stephens, Suzanne Gladney, and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license. _______ 1. Andrew Sillen (2024) Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White (Johns Hopkins U. Pr., p. 111-114); 2. Sillen (p. 3).

Investigative journalist Greg Palast claims that Kamala Harris would have won the 2024 US presidential election without massive vote suppression by Republicans in many different States. He was interviewed by Spencer Graves. Greg Palast Palast is known for his investigative reports for The Guardian and his books including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2002);1 Democracy and Regulation (2003); Armed Madhouse (2006, 2007), Vultures Picnic (2011); Billionaires and Ballot Bandits (2012); and How Trump Stole 2020 (2020). He has also provided evidence for numerous lawsuits.2 Some of this is discussed in a recent movie Vigilantes, Inc., America's new vote suppression hitmen, 1:20 h:mm, which can be watched for free from his website, gregpalast.com.3 Claim that "Trump lost, vote suppression won" A 2025-02-07 article by Thom Hartmann on gregpalast.com4 claims, "Greg Palast proved that Jim Crow tactics cost Vice President Harris 3.56 million votes, four states—and the presidency.":5 "If all legal voters were allowed to vote, if all legal ballots were counted, Trump would have lost the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Vice-President Kamala Harris would have won the Presidency with 286 electoral votes." His claims include the following numbers: number cum % of total what 4,776,706 4,776,706 40.01% voters wrongly purged from voter rolls according to US Elections Assistance Commission 2,121,000 6,897,706 17.77% mail-in ballots were disqualified for minor clerical errors (e.g. postage due) 585,000 7,482,706 4.90% ballots cast in-precinct were also disqualified. 1,216,000 8,698,706 10.19% “provisional” ballots were rejected, not counted. 3,240,000 11,938,706 27.14% new registrations were rejected or not entered on the rolls in time to vote. Unfortunately, it's not obvious how Palast got from these and other claims to his final conclusions. We get close to his numbers by assuming that Harris got 65% of the 12 million suppressed votes and Trump got the rest: Trump Harris Trump margin of victory 77,302,580 75,017,613 2,284,967 new vote totals additional votes if all disfranchised votes had been cast and counted Trump Harris Trump margin of victory Trump Harris % for Harris 83,271,933 80,986,966 2,284,967 5,969,353 5,969,353 50% 82,078,062 82,180,837 -102,774 4,775,482 7,163,224 60% 81,481,127 82,777,772 -1,296,645 4,178,547 7,760,159 65% 80,884,192 83,374,707 -2,490,515 3,581,612 8,357,094 70% Sadly, it is not obvious where Palast got his numbers. David Pakman notes that Palast does not adequately document how he got his numbers, saying that Palast's conclusions do not hold if some sources are replaced by others that Pakman claims are more credible.[13]Unfortunately, it's not obvious where Pakman got his numbers, either. Join a discussion of these issues at the Wikiversity article on, "Palast says Trump lost, vote suppression won the 2024 elections". See also On 2020-08-13, KKFI's Thursday Night Special featured a related discussion of "Election integrity: Voter fraud, voter suppression, gerrymandering". Bibliography

A national "Defend free speech" town hall January 25 was co-hosted by Friends of Community Media, PeaceWorks Kansas City, Pacifica Fightback, and the African People’s Socialist Party/Uhuru. Roughly 100 attended via Zoom and another 25 joined together at Simpson House, 4509 Walnut St., KCMO 64111. The event began with three keynoters: * Omali Yeshitela, chair of the African People’s Socialist Party / Uhuru, * Elisa Mejia of Insurgencia Femenina (Feminine Insurgency), Spanish-language program on KPFK Pacifica radio station in Los Angeles, CA. * Dr. Gerald Horne, history professor at the University of Houston and host of Freedom Now! on KPFK. Yeshitela discussed how he and two others with the African People's Socialist Party had been prosecuted for acting as agents of Russia without filing as such and for conspiring to spread Russian propaganda and sow political discord in the U.S. He said the government expected them to accept a plea bargain. They refused and instead fought and won: They were found not guilty of acting as foreign agents. They were convicted of conspiring to spread Russian propaganda and sentenced to three years probation and community service, and the judge acknowledge that they do community service routinely. Mejia spoke about the need to expand Spanish-language programming, especially at KPFK in Los Angeles, and about her program, Insurgencia femenina. Prof. Horne recommended substantial improvements in the media including an international campaign to raise funds for a national and international news bureau at WPFW in Washington, DC, to share content with the media organs from the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and their allies, such as Telesur, Press TV, Radio Havana, etc. The presentations were followed by questions for the speakers then breakout sessions with one session in Kansas City and the rest virtual. Most of the report backs from the breakouts focused on how to improve the five Pacifica-owned stations (KPFA in Berkeley, CA; KPFK in Los Angeles; WBAI, New York; WPFW in Washington, DC: and KPFT, Houston, TX). Spencer Graves, who led the Kansas City breakout group, said we need to improve local news and social media. Media scholars including Robert McChesney and Victor Pickard have recommended citizen-directed subsidies for local news nonprofits. This would represent an Internet-savvy reincarnation of the postal subsidies provided by the US Postal Service Act of 1792, which helped give the US during the first half of the 1800s possibly more independent news publishers per capita or per million population than at any other time and place in human history. This encouraged literacy and limited political corruption, both of which helped the early US stay together and grow both in land area and economically while contemporary New Spain / Mexico fractured, shrank and stagnated economically. Most people alive today benefit from newspapers published 200 years ago, which they have never read nor in most cases never even heard of. Those newspapers helped build an open political environment that helped create demand for new products and services while also supporting research in basic science used by those new products and services. Public health measures adopted early in the US have yet to be adopted in some countries with less open media environments. In the 1850s and 1860s, newspaper markets became increasingly dominated by publishers with expensive high speed presses.1 That trend combined with consolidation of ownership of media outlets gradually reduced the number of independent publishers. Today's Internet allows anyone to become a publisher, but audience shares are still highly concentrated. This concentration of ownership includes commercial social media companies that make money through market segmentation,