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What’s Next for American Democracy? — William Kristol & María Teresa Kumar moderated by Judy Woodruff — at Conn Ave
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About This Event
Join us for a special conversation with three of the nation's most compelling voices on democracy—a leading conservative commentator, a pioneering advocate for voting rights, and one of the most respected leaders in American journalism—as they come together for a candid conversation about American democracy.The stakes for American democracy are high. What can we expect over the next weeks and months? Can our institutions hold? What sort of pro-democracy coalition is required to meet this moment? What are the compromises such a coalition might need to make? What are the sacrifices?There could not be a more important time for this conversation. Kristol, Kumar, and Woodruff all come to this moment along different paths yet share a conviction that democracy is imperiled, must be preserved, and ultimately will require people power, working together in ways large and small.Kristol and Kumar are Senior Fellows, and Woodruff is the Kay Fanning Fellow in Journalism and Democracy, at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, a nonpartisan operating foundation with a mission to advance inclusive democracies worldwide.William Kristol is editor-at-large of The Bulwark, where he’s lead author of the must-read daily newsletter, Morning Shots. Kristol is also founding director of Defending Democracy Together, an educational and advocacy organization dedicated to defending America’s liberal democratic norms, principles, and institutions, and a Charles F. Kettering Foundation senior fellow.Kristol has long been recognized as a leading participant in and analyst of American politics and has helped shape the national debate on issues ranging from American foreign policy to the meaning of American conservatism. He founded The Weekly Standard in 1995 and edited the influential conservative magazine for over two decades. Before that, he served in senior positions in the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.Prior to coming to Washington, DC, in 1985, Kristol taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. He received his undergraduate degree and doctorate from Harvard University.María Teresa Kumar is the founding President and Co-Founder of Voto Latino and Voto Latino Foundation, the nation's premier Latino youth advocacy and voter registration organizations, which together have registered nearly 1.8 million voters.An Emmy-nominated MSNOW analyst and Senior Fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Kumar serves on the boards of Steve Madden, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. She previously served on President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing and currently serves on the National Task Force on Election Crises. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Her honors include Forbes' 50 Over 50: Impact, TIME's 13 Latinos Reshaping the Country, Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and recognition as one of Carnegie Corporation's Great Immigrants.Raised in Sonoma, California, Kumar is a first-generation college graduate of UC Davis and holds a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School.Moderating the discussion will be Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent and former anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. A distinguished journalist for more than five decades, Woodruff is nationally recognized for her integrity, reporting, and media leadership. She is the recipient of numerous awards, among them a Peabody Journalistic Integrity Award and an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. Woodruff is the Charles F. Kettering’s Katherine W. Fanning Fellow in Journalism and Democracy.In early 2023, Woodruff stepped away from her anchor duties to devote her time to a new reporting project, “Judy Woodruff Presents: America at a Crossroads,” trying to understand our country and its people better and probing why Americans seem so divided. She has also continued to report on challenges facing people with disabilities.The first 100 attendees to visit our registers before the event will receive a complimentary Kettering Foundation tote bag and a copy of Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.This event is free with first come, first served seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
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Saira Mohamed — What a Country Owes Its Soldiers - with Darin Johnson — at Conn Ave
A clarion call to recognize soldiers' rights, arguing that volunteering to fight and die for one's country does not mean consenting to exploitation in the process.American leaders endlessly profess their admiration for military service members. But these effusive declarations hardly comport with reality. Soldiers receive shoddy equipment and inadequate medical care; they are ordered to commit crimes and deployed to illegal wars. Such treatment is rarely recognized for what it is: a violation of the duty owed to soldiers by their government. When American service members are injured or killed during training, for example, they and their families are barred from suing the military for negligence or malfeasance. And when the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib came to light, the subsequent proceedings focused just on low-ranking perpetrators. The psychological harm done to the soldiers themselves by commanders who ordered them to commit torture in the first place went unacknowledged.Examining statutes, treaties, court cases, and congressional hearings, Saira Mohamed shows how the law encourages the treatment of soldiers as mere instruments, to be used and abused however the government wishes. She also unearths overlooked laws that point in the other direction, suggesting the possibility of robust protections for service members. Paradoxically, these get ignored in part because of the popular adulation of the military--the vision of service members as heroes who selflessly endure unlimited sacrifice. The all-volunteer nature of the force also promotes the misguided notion that soldiers have willingly accepted whatever mistreatment they might endure.What a Country Owes Its Soldiers shows how laws and mindsets can change, enabling genuine respect for soldiers' humanity. Acknowledging their rights can transform our understanding of those who fight America's wars, and of American warmaking itself.Saira Mohamed is Agnes Roddy Robb Chair in Jurisprudence, Ethics, and Social Responsibility and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.Mohamed will be joined in conversation with Darin Johnson, who has served in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House. He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School. A professor of law at Howard University, he is a scholar and commentator on international law, national security, foreign affairs, and human rights. He is the author of Digital Coup: The Conspiracy to Thwart Global Democracy (Broadleaf Books 2026). He lives in Washington, DC.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
D.C. Frost — A Shadow of Jaguars (Detective DJ Arias Mystery #2) / Melanie S. Hatter — All the Pain We Endure - with Saul Gonzalez — at Conn Ave
A Shadow of JaguarsA Shadow of Jaguars by D.C. Frost is a gripping cross-border noir thriller that follows Detective DJ Arias as he navigates murder, Hollywood intrigue, and immigrant struggles across Mexico City and Los Angeles, blending fast-paced suspense and richly drawn characters.In Mexico City for a family funeral, Detective DJ Arias encounters a group of Robin Hood-style thieves who call themselves the Jaguars. Their activities reach across the border into Los Angeles with a Hollywood murder that entangles LA's elite and the nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners who serve them, and threatens DJ's own loved ones. A sequel to the mystery A Punishing Breed, A Shadow of Jaguars finds DJ and partner Bobby Talbot struggling to untangle a murder where Hollywood, wealthy powerbrokers, and an immigrant population struggle to coexist and survive. Throughout it all, his faithful dog Evidence is by his side.-All the Pain We EndureSet in Washington, D.C., All the Pain We Endure follows Raebelle “Rae” Johnson, a biracial massage therapist with an extraordinary ability to glimpse the pain carried by others—but who struggles to confront her own. Haunted by a volatile relationship with her father, Rae finds herself drawn to Kai, a martial artist with his own troubled past. As family tensions and buried wounds resurface, Rae must confront the ways trauma travels across generations and decide whether the pain she has inherited will define her future. Blending psychological realism with an imaginative exploration of empathy, Hatter's novel asks how we break cycles of suffering without losing our capacity for love and connection.-D.C. Frost is a second-generation Angeleno whose debut novel, A Punishing Breed (2024), was reviewed by The New York Times. She has also published several literary short stories in journals including Westwind, UCLA's literary magazine. Before turning to writing full-time, DC had a long career in nonprofit fundraising. She draws inspiration from Southern California's rich blend of class, culture, and natural beauty. Frost lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a pack of rescue dogs.Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi’s Sisters, which was selected by Edwidge Danticat as the winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and published by Four Way Books in 2019. Her debut novel, The Color of My Soul, won the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss was released in 2015. Melanie was a licensed massage therapist for fourteen years and currently serves on the Development team at My Sister’s Place, the first domestic violence shelter in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the writing faculty of New Directions in Writing training program and serves on the board of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. When she’s not working, she enjoys spending time in nature with her dog, Roo.Frost and Hatter will be in conversation with Saul Gonzalez, a veteran television, radio, podcast host, reporter and producer covering local, national and international topics. Winner of multiple Emmy awards, RTNA Golden Mikes, and other journalism honors. Saul was the Los Angeles Radio Reporter of the Year two years in a row by the Los Angeles Press Club.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
Judith Bowles — They Spoke of the River - with David Keplinger — at Conn Ave
Drawing from narrative traditions and influences such as Mary Oliver and James Wright—two beloved poets of Ohio—as well as the ghazals of Rumi and the plain-spoken wisdom of Robert Frost and William Stafford, poet Judith Bowles traces back the voices and oral histories of her Ohio roots, following the river of their words. Her third collection of poetry, They Spoke of the River is less memoir-in-verse than reliquary of the American experience, one which uses history, childhood, marriage, and elegy as rite and container. In the manner of Thornton Wilder’s stage manager in Our Town, here the past, present, and future fold over each other, as Bowles offers tough attention, all culminating in a volume that feels a bit like myth, a bit like news, and a bit like the dream of a life, experienced by one Ohioan, whose whole vocation has been this act of listening.Judith Bowles is the author of two earlier collections of poetry, The Gatherer (2014) and Unlocatable Source (2019). She has been a resident at Bloedel Reserve, Breadloaf, and the Kenyon Summer Writers Retreat, and she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from American University in 1986, studying under poet Myra Sklarew and novelist Kermit Moyer, later teaching creative writing in the department of English. From 1978 until 1985 Bowles was the poetry program director of the then Iona House, producing three anthologies featuring the work of participants. Her poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, Innisfree Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Delmarva Review, and other journals.Bowles will be in conversation with David Keplinger, poet, translator, professor, and certified teacher of mindfulness.David is the author of Ice (Milkweed Editions, 2023) and seven other collections of poetry, including The World to Come (Conduit Books, 2021), winner of the 2020 Minds on Fire Prize and Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which was awarded the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. He has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 2007.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.