Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we're looking into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin on this Christmas Day as Christians celebrate the birth of the Prophet Jesus

with the country's foundation as a Christian nation and the legacy of settler freedom

that has the language of freedom in American culture claimed by the political right

and how it can be reclaimed.

Joining us is Aziz Rana, a professor of law at Boston College Law School, where his research

and teaching centers on American constitutional law and political development, as well as how

shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity

since the founding. He's the author of the two faces of American Freedom and the forthcoming

book, The Constitutional Bind, how Americans came to idolize a document that fails them. He

recently hosted a forum reclaiming freedom available in paperback and in print,

in the latest issue of the Boston Review.

Then we'll examine theocratic capture of our Supreme Court and the moral authoritarianism

that has brought about a reversal in women's reproductive rights by activist judges in the pockets

of plutocrats.

Joining us is Lisa Graves, the executive director of the new corporate watchdog group

True North Research.

She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government,

as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department,

as Chief Counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee

and as a Deputy Chief of the Article III Judges Division for the U.S. courts.

...