Background Briefing: April 23, 2023
Tensions Within the Supreme Court As Its Popularity and Credibility Suffers While Justice Thomas Flouts Ethics
We begin with the Supreme Court stay on the abortion pill case keeping medication abortion legal for a while which brought a blistering dissent from Justices Alito and Thomas and will eventually go back to the conservative 5th Circuit and likely the Supreme Court. With both Alito and Thomas having the opposite of a judicial temperament as both are bitter and angry men, we will look into the tensions within the highest court faced with growing unpopularity and diminishing credibility as well as unanswered questions about Justice Thomas’s disregard for ethics and the Supreme Court’s lack of a code of ethics. Joining us is James Zirin, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and the host of the critically acclaimed television talk show, Conversations with Jim Zirin, which airs on PBS. He is the author of Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court and Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits. A contributing editor at The Washington Monthly, his latest article is “Clarence Thomas’s Vacation Scandal Shouldn’t Fade From Memory.”
More Guns and No Restrictions For the Few Or Safety in Schools, Churches, Malls and Theaters For the Many?
Then we assess the change in the public’s support away from the well-funded, politically-connected, vocal and often fanatical minority wanting more guns and no restrictions in favor of the rights of the majority of Americans to be free from gun massacres happening almost daily in schools, churches, malls and theaters. Joining us is Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive who helped build one of the world’s most iconic gun companies, and was nominated multiple times by industry colleagues for the prestigious Shooting Industry Person of The Year Award. He is an environmental advocate who served in many leadership roles for conservation organizations, including as an advisor for the United States Senate Sportsmen’s Caucus and the Biden Presidential Campaign. Currently he provides consulting services to progressive organizations with the aim to undo the country’s dangerous radicalization. He is the author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America.
While Foreigners Evacuate, Sudanese Face Starvation, Bombs and Bullets as Two Warlords Fight For Power
Then finally, with the focus now on getting US, European and Chinese nationals out of Sudan while average Sudanese citizens face starvation and bombs and bullets from a fratricidal war between two warlords tearing the country apart to grab all the spoils, we speak with Lako Tongun, who is a professor of International and Intercultural Studies and Political Studies at Pitzer College. He was born and raised in Sudan now South Sudan, and his publications include Pan-Africanism and Apartheid: African-American Influence on US Foreign Policy and The Political Economy of National Planning in the Sudan: Determinants of Choices and Priorities. He is working on a book titled Planning the Tragedies: Political Economy of Development Policies, Genocides, and the Break-up of Sudan.