Photo: The Sumner County Administration building is seen Wednesday, May 3, 2023, in Gallatin, Tenn. Shortly after being sworn in last fall, the new majority of the Sumner County Commission in Tennessee acted to update one of its official documents. The new version said county operations would not only be orderly and efficient, but “most
Photo: Cochise County District 1 Supervisor Tom Crosby holds a copy of the public meeting’s agenda during a discussion over a proposed transfer of election functions and duties to the county recorder James Knox was glad to get out of the big city. Part of a network of activists who believe U.S. elections are unreliable,
Our government seeks more and more control. Our government is not competent. These two statements are both true, and together amount to a nightmare for institutional credibility. A government that seeks more control must at the very least demonstrate credibility in implementing its goals; a government that is incompetent can only regain legitimacy by limiting
Photo: John Kraft sits next to his yawning cat, Tux, at his hilltop farmhouse in Clear Lake, Wis, A word — “Hope” — is stitched onto a throw pillow in the little hilltop farmhouse. Photographs of children and grandchildren speckle the walls. In the kitchen, an envelope is decorated with a hand-drawn heart. “Happy Birthday,
Photo: Stewart Rhodes, founder of the citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers, center, speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington, on June 25, 2017 Long before he assembled one of the largest far-right anti-government militia groups in U.S. history, before his Oath Keepers stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,
A man firing a rifle killed shoppers at an Indiana mall’s food court. A gunfight at a Houston home killed four people. A stand-up act by the comedian Craig Robinson in North Carolina didn’t even begin before club-goers fled from a man with a gun. In Las Vegas, the specter of gunfire at the MGM