Month: June 2024

We begin with the Supreme Court’s most brazen display of how much it is out of step with the American people with a ruling overturning the Trump era ban on bump stocks that came about because of the slaughter of over 60 at a country music festival in Las Vegas where almost 500 were wounded because of the lone shooter’s ability to fire rapidly thanks to the bumpstocks on his assault rifles. Joining us to discuss how this rogue court has supplanted expert opinion with their own biases as more and more compelling evidence emerges about the ethical lapses of Thomas and Alito 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 3 judges division for the U.S. Courts.

The Message Versus the Messenger Conundrum Following Revelations in the Alito Tapes

Then we look into the message versus the messenger conundrum as many in the press question the methods of Lauren Windsor who secretly recorded Alito and his wife exposing their apparent sympathy for Christian nationalism while printing and broadcasting the explosive contents of her recordings. Joining us is Jane Kirtley, Professor of Media Ethics and Law and Director of The Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. She previously served as Executive Director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for 14 years and has written friend-of-the-court briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. She is the author of Media Ethics Today: Issues, Analysis, Solutions.

With Peace Talks Underway, Ukraine’s Future and the U.S. Military Industrial Complex

Then finally we speak with David Vine, a Professor of Anthropology at American University and the author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia, and, most recently, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, now out in paperback. We discuss his article at TomDispatch, “The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All: Freeing Ourselves from the Monster Destroying Our Planet and Our Futures.”