Month: November 2022

The Connection Between the Killings of Gay and Trans Americans and the 300 Anti-LGBTQ Republican Bills in 36 States This Year

We begin with the horrific shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs that left 5 people dead and 19 injured and discuss the obvious connection between the demonization of gay and trans people by Republican politicians and lawmakers who have passed more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills across 36 states in the past year. Joining us is Joe, now Josephine Wenke, a writer, social critic and LGBTQ rights activist. She is the founder and publisher of Trans Über, a publishing company with a focus on promoting LGBTQ rights, free thought and equality for all people. In addition to The Talk Show: A Novel, Wenke is the author of Free Air: Poems; Papal Bull: An Ex-Catholic Calls Out the Catholic Church; You Got To Be Kidding! A Radical Satire of the Bible; and Mailer’s America. Her latest book is The Human Agenda: Conversations About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. 

The Special Counsel in Private on a Parallel Track With the Media and Radical Right House in Public

Then we look into the two parallel tracks the January 6 and Mar a Lago trials will be on, one led by Special Counsel Jack Smith at the DOJ in private and the other in the media and at the radical right House of Representatives now controlled by extremists and Trump cult members. Joining us is Laurie Levenson, who holds the David W. Burcham Chair in Ethical Advocacy at the Loyola University School of Law. Prior to joining Loyola Law School, she served for eight years as an Assistant US Attorney in Los Angeles and has written widely on criminal law, focusing both on criminal procedure and on the relationship between the law and the media.

An Assessment of the World Cup Underway in Qatar

Then finally we assess how the soccer World Cup is going after much criticism of why Qatar was chosen in the first place, the thousands of migrant workers who died constructing the stadiums and the banning of beer for fans and armbands for players supporting LGBTQ rights. Joining us is Andrei Markovits, a Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies, Professor of Political Science, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures as well as a professor of Sociology at the The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His books include Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism, Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture, and Women in American Soccer and European Football: Different Roads to Shared Glory.