"The trial revealed that CPD infiltrators Mehmet Uygun and Nadia Chikko, known to the activists as 'Mo' and 'Gloves,' helped plan and instigate the crimes. They plied the defendants with alcohol, getting them drunk on multiple occasions, helped purchase gasoline for the Molotov cocktails, and even cut up a bandanna to use as a wick."

"Unless you’re a southern Coloradan with roots in the area, or a union member well-versed in the hard-fought rights of fellow workers or a history buff who has delved into books on the topic, you could easily not know that in the height of the so-called Progressive Era, the state of Colorado killed scores of strikers at the behest of the world’s richest family. Most U.S. history schoolbooks don’t mention Ludlow. Those that do generally treat it as a blip."

"Although the call that led Texas investigators to the ranch was proven to be a hoax, CPS removed 439 children as a precaution. The subsequent litigation to reunite the children with their families and the prosecution of 11 church members, including leader Warren Jeffs, dragged on for years. Ten of the 11 were convicted on child sexual assault charges."

Judges, prosecutors, and police who invoke the fear of violence to commit their monstrous acts of violence are incredible hypocrites.

Here's an interesting fellow. Watt became the first British convert to Mormonism by winning a foot race, he was a writer of Pitman shorthand and took down and edited several volumes of Brigham Young's sermons, he invented a phonetic orthography called the Deseret alphabet, and he had six wives. He was excommunicated from the church after joining the Godbeites.

This sort of thing is tempting -- but it's also a lot like providing your identification before robbing a bank. Still, he's not in jail yet!

"And I was struck anew that this case was all talk, talk, talk. Church said this. Chase said that. Betterly said this (although not much.) Right up until at the prompting of the undercover officers they poured some gasoline in some beer bottles and stuffed a torn rag in the top, they hadn’t committed any crime.

"What they would have done with those “Molotov cocktails”— a scary word for a weapon that any dumb kid can make at home as many have — we’ll never know. But I will always believe the NATO 3 never posed as great a threat to the freedom of the people of Chicago as those who assigned police officers to infiltrate dissident political groups in search of potential “criminals”— and by those who chose to define those criminals as terrorists."

The late Peggy Pascoe is the author of "What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America," an award-winning history of miscegenation law. In this essay she points out some of the parallels between the fight for racial equality and the fight for sexual equality under marriage law:

"I would argue that it is virtually impossible to understand the current debate over same-sex marriage without first understanding the history of American miscegenation laws and the long legal fight against them, if only because both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage come to this debate, knowing or unknowingly, wielding rhetorical tools forged during the history of miscegenation law. The arguments white supremacists used to justify for miscegenation laws--that interracial marriages were contrary to God's will or somehow unnatural--are echoed today by the most conservative opponents of same-sex marriage."