Contributing Writers

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden pledged to deploy nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea for the first time in 40 years. Alongside South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol, Biden also pledged to involve officials from Seoul in nuclear planning operations targeting North Korea. The visit between the two leaders comes as the U.S. and South Korea mark 70 years of military alliance under 1953’s Mutual Defense Treaty, signed at the close of active conflict in the Korean War.

Tennessee’s Justin Jones and Montana’s Zooey Zephyr, two Democratic state lawmakers who were both punished by their Republican-led legislatures for peaceful protests, say the only way to fight such anti-democratic moves is through broad solidarity. “Courage is contagious,” says Zephyr, who has been barred from the floor of the Montana House of Representatives for opposing anti-trans legislation.

As we continue our in-depth conversation with Daniel Ellsberg, the famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower talks about his lifelong antiwar activism and responds to the more recent leak of Pentagon documents about the war in Ukraine. Ellsberg also reflects on the many people who inspired him and says others who look up to his example should know that the sacrifices for building a better world are worth it. “It can work,” he says.

We spend the hour with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who recently announced that he has been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer with only months left to live. Ellsberg, who turned 92 on April 7, may be the world’s most famous whistleblower. In 1971, The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 pages of top-secret documents outlining the secret history of the Vietnam War.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden pledged to deploy nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea for the first time in 40 years. Alongside South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol, Biden also pledged to involve officials from Seoul in nuclear planning operations targeting North Korea. The visit between the two leaders comes as the U.S. and South Korea mark 70 years of military alliance under 1953’s Mutual Defense Treaty, signed at the close of active conflict in the Korean War.

Tennessee’s Justin Jones and Montana’s Zooey Zephyr, two Democratic state lawmakers who were both punished by their Republican-led legislatures for peaceful protests, say the only way to fight such anti-democratic moves is through broad solidarity. “Courage is contagious,” says Zephyr, who has been barred from the floor of the Montana House of Representatives for opposing anti-trans legislation.

Earlier this month, the largely white Tennessee House of Representatives, with its heavily gerrymandered Republican supermajority, expelled two members, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the two youngest Black representatives in the House. They stood accused of breaching House “decorum” for nonviolently protesting the chamber’s inaction on gun violence in the wake of a mass school shooting in Nashville.

The Republican-controlled Montana House of Representatives voted Wednesday to censure the state’s first and only openly transgender lawmaker, Zooey Zephyr, banning her from the House floor and forbidding her from speaking, a week after Zephyr delivered a searing condemnation of a bill that would ban gender-affirming healthcare for youth. Zephyr will only be able to cast votes remotely for the remainder of the legislative session.