On this week’s episode of the Signal we welcome back Bucks County’s Steve Nolan. Steve spent 30 years in the military and 25 years as a mental health professional. He is the author of the 2020 book American Carnage, An Officer’s Duty to Warn, and today Steve is here to warn us again about the MAGA-fication of the military and How Pete Hegseth is running Trump’s Department of War.

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READ:

• Trump’s Pardon of Honduran Ex-President Who Conspired to Traffic Over 400 Tons of Cocaine Into US Exposes ‘War on Drugs’ Myth
• Leaked DHS Memo Shows Trump Administration Wants to Deploy Military on City Streets to Hunt Down Immigrants
• ‘Bro Culture’ on Top at the Pentagon
• Here’s What Project 2025 Has Planned for the Military
• Trump Tells Military Brass ‘We’re Under Invasion From Within’ and US Cities Should Be ‘Training Grounds for Our Military’
• Using Black Hawk Helicopters and Chemical Agents, ICE Agents Turn Chicago Into a ‘War Zone’
• How the Trump Administration Turned Immigration Courts Into Deportation Traps for ICE

ALSO LISTEN TO:

• Is Donald Trump Mentally Unfit to Be Commander in Chief? An Interview with Military Veteran and Mental Health Professional Steve Nolan
• American Carnage: An Officer’s Duty to Warn, with Steve Nolan
• Former FBI Agent Who Once Infiltrated Neo-Nazi Groups and Militias Explains Why Law Enforcement Fails to Take Far-Right Extremism Seriously
• How Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement Will Legalize and Deploy Vigilantes to Push Their Agenda, with David Noll

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Malcolm Burnley is a staff writer for The Philadelphia Citizen. He has been a journalist in Philadelphia since 2013, contributing to outlets such as Philly Mag, WHYY, and Politico Magazine. Five days before the election he published, “What a Bucks County Sheriff's Race Can Tell Us about U.S. Politics.” He joins us today to talk about that race which Democratic challenger Danny Ceisler won handily, the Blue Wave that washed away so many other Republican officeholders in Bucks County on Election Day, and what this may signal for the midterms in 2026.

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ALSO LISTEN TO:

• From Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Bucks County’s Fred Harran: Why ICE 287(g) Partnerships Are So Dangerous, with Jessica Pishko
• ‘A Fight Fails Without A Dream’: DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta on How The Democratic Party Will Meet This Dangerous Trumpian Moment
• Fighting to Finally Raise the Minimum Wage in Pennsylvania: A Conversation With State Rep. Roni Green
• Kadida Kenner on Defending Democracy and Voting Rights in Pennsylvania

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Megan Goodwin is senior editor for Religion Dispatches, nerd-in-chief at Feral Nerd Consulting, and media & tech consultant for The Crossroads Project. Goodwin is the author of Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions (Rutgers 2020). With Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, she cohosted Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion Podcast; and their first co-authored book, Religion Is Not Done With You, is now available through Beacon Press. Her next project is tentatively entitled Cults Incorporated: The Business of Bad Religion.

Megan, who grew up in Yardley where she attended St. John the Evangelist Grade School and later graduated from Archbishop Egan High School, joins The Signal to talk about her scholarly and journalistic work covering religion. She explains why religion – and specifically white Christian Nationalism – are topics each of you should care about, whether you are religious or not.

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ALSO LISTEN TO:

• The History of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in America, with Bill Mullen and Christopher Vials
• Katherine Stewart Discusses Her New Book ‘Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy’
• Kristin Kobes Du Mez on Evangelical Support for Trump and Project 2025’s Christian Nationalist and Authoritarian Designs for the Nation
• A Conversation with André Gagné About His Book ‘American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times’
• The New Apostolic Reformation: A Revolutionary Theocratic Movement Coming For Pennsylvania, The Nation, And The World

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Garen Meguerian is a civil rights, free speech lawyer, with 30 years of experience, practicing in the state and federal courts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Since 2016, Garen has volunteered with grassroots groups, primarily in Chester County, to preserve democratic institutions. He joins us today to raise the alarm about the threats against Pennsylvania's independent judiciary and the importance of the PA Supreme Court’s retention election on Nov. 4. In this conversation, Garen explores the implications of misinformation, gerrymandering, and the role of the judiciary in protecting voting rights, reproductive rights, and environmental protections in the commonwealth.

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READ:

• Stand up for Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, by Colin Coyle
• League of Women Voters of PA Warns of Right-Wing Disinformation Campaign Targeting Pennsylvania Supreme Court Retention Election, by Melinda Rizzo.
• The Makeup of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court Hangs in the Balance in November. Here’s What’s at Stake, by Melinda Rizzo
• Judicial Elections Key to Protecting Pennsylvania’s Democracy and Our Environment, by Molly Parzen
• How Pennsylvania Judges Facing Retention Ruled on Key Election Cases, by Carter Walker, Votebeat

ALSO LISTEN TO:

• Kadida Kenner on Defending Democracy and Voting Rights in Pennsylvania

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“In 2025, book censorship in the United States is rampant and common. Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.”

This is the introduction to PEN America’s Banned in the USA 2024-2025 report “The Normalization of Book Banning.” As part of the Bucks County Beacon’s Banned Books Week coverage, we speak with one of the author’s of this report – Sabrina Baêta.

Sabrina is a senior program manager with Freedom to Read at PEN America. She engages in research and awareness-building around censorship attacks on public K-12 education, especially as it relates to literature accessibility in libraries and classrooms.

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READ:

• The Quiet Creep of Censorship: How ‘Everyday Banning’ Is Reshaping American Schools, by Tabitha Dell’Angelo
• We Must Continue to Defend the Freedom to Read in Central Bucks School District, by Karen Smith
• Banned Books Week: A Local Reflection From a Pennridge School District Dad, by Darren Laustsen
• ‘This Book Won’t Burn’ Celebrates Student Resistance in This New Era of Book Banning, by Lauren Bradley

ALSO LISTEN TO:

• The History of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in America, with Bill Mullen and Christopher Vials
• This Bucks County Dad Took His Child’s School District to Court to Uncover a Secret Book Banning Scheme
• Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider on Their New Book ‘The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual’
• Black History Is a History of Resistance and Liberation, with Rann Miller
• Fighting for Students’ and Teachers’ Rights in Central Bucks School District, with ACLU’s Witold Walczak
• Unmasking Moms for Liberty’s Extremism, with Olivia Little and Diana Leygerman

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On this week's episode of The Signal I welcome two guests: Bill V. Mullen, Professor of English and American Studies at Purdue University and Christopher Vials, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where he also serves as Director of American Studies. Together they co-edited the book The U.S. Anti-Fascism Reader. Today we talk about their book, the history of fascism and anti-fascism in America, and lessons we can learn to help us navigate through this moment where President Trump has just designated anti-fascism as domestic terrorism and on Tuesday told top military generals and admirals that the country faces an enemy from within (namely his political opponents) and that US cities should become training grounds for the military.

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READ:

• The U.S. Anti-Fascism Reader, by Bill Mullen and Christopher Vials
• Haunted by Hitler: Liberals, the Left, and the Fight against Fascism in the United States, by Christopher Vials
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, by Jason Stanley
• The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, by Jeff Sharlet
• Trump Tells Military Brass ‘We’re Under Invasion From Within’ and US Cities Should Be ‘Training Grounds for Our Military’
• ‘Rubber Glue Fascism’: A Close Reading of Trump’s ‘Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence’ Memo
• Why Journalists Are Reluctant to Call Trump an Authoritarian – and Why That Matters for Democracy

ALSO LISTEN TO:

• Journalist Jordan Green on Why the Neo-Nazi Movement Is an Escalating Threat to US Democracy
• From Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Bucks County’s Fred Harran: Why ICE 287(g) Partnerships Are So Dangerous, with Jessica Pishko
• How Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement Will Legalize and Deploy Vigilantes to Push Their Agenda, with David Noll
• Former FBI Agent Who Once Infiltrated Neo-Nazi Groups and Militias Explains Why Law Enforcement Fails to Take Far-Right Extremism Seriously

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Cyril Mychalejko is the Editor-in-Chief of the Bucks County Beacon. He has over two decades of journalistic experience. His work has appeared in The Bucks County Courier Times, The Intelligencer, Upside Down World, Common Dreams, TruthOut, and other publications.

Today, Cyril joins The Signal as a guest to reflect on the week that Charlie Kirk was killed, the disturbing history of Turning Point USA, the failure of the mainstream media to meet our authoritarian moment, and the role of The Beacon in these turbulent times.

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READ:

• Why Journalists Are Reluctant to Call Trump an Authoritarian – and Why That Matters for Democracy
• Why Some People Are Pretending About Charlie Kirk’s History and the Truth About This Dangerous Moment
• White House Working to Criminalize Left-Wing Dissent as ‘Domestic Terror’ in Wake of Charlie Kirk Murder
• Right-Wing Extremist Violence Is More Frequent and More Deadly Than Left-Wing Violence, Data Shows
• State Senator Steve Santarsiero: American Democracy Is the Frog and the Water Is Starting to Boil
• Jimmy Kimmel’s Cancellation Is the Latest Sign We’re Witnessing the End of US Democracy
• Democracy Requires Our Attention, All The Time
• Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro Says US Must ‘Turn the Tide’ Against Political Violence, Reject Vengeance
• Trump Administration Uses Tragic Minneapolis School Shooting to Target Transgender Community Rather Than Strengthen Student Safety

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Jordan Green is an investigative correspondent based in Greensboro, N.C., who covers right-wing extremism for Raw Story. His work has been featured in a host of publications, including the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, The Nation, In These Times and Sojourners. Today he joins us to talk about his recent article in The Assembly “I’ve Seen How the Neo-Nazi Movement Is Escalating. You Should Worry,” and to talk about covering, and being stalked and threatened by neo-Nazi groups, and the threat militant far-right accelerationism poses for the country.

Read Jordan’s reporting at the Raw Story here.

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ALSO LISTEN TO:

• Interview: Solidarity Journalism Can Help the Mainstream Media Restore Public Trust and Strengthen Democracy, with Dr. Anita Varma
• From Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Bucks County’s Fred Harran: Why ICE 287(g) Partnerships Are So Dangerous, with Jessica Pishko
• How Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement Will Legalize and Deploy Vigilantes to Push Their Agenda, with David Noll
• Former FBI Agent Who Once Infiltrated Neo-Nazi Groups and Militias Explains Why Law Enforcement Fails to Take Far-Right Extremism Seriously

Music by Maf é Tulà and Cartas a Felice, "La Loca." Panela Music.

Follow us on BlueSky:

• @buckscountybeacon.bsky.social
• @cmychalejko.bsky.social
• @rcpress.bsky.social