Full Program

Part 1

We be begin with the bills passed this weekend by the Tea Party Republican dominated Legislature in Texas, one that will allow students and faculty at public universities in Texas to carry concealed handguns into classrooms, and another that allows the open carry of firearms in the rest of the state. Robert Jensen, a Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, joins us to discuss how he might deal with armed students who are angry at the grades he gave them, and the irony that these bills will come into effect exactly 50 years to the day after the nation’s first mass shooting on campus, the 1966 massacre of 16 and the wounding of 32 at the University of Texas, in Austin.

Part 2

Then we speak with the co-author of a new report at the Washington Post “Fatal police shooting in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide”, a report that led to the introduction of a bill in the Senate Tuesday by Senators Boxer and Booker, the Police Reporting of Information, Data and Evidence Act. Steven Rich, the database editor for the investigations unit who was a member of the reporting team awarded the Pulitzer Prize who also won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for social justice reporting, joins us to discuss his alarming report that exposes the need for a national database on police shootings.

Part 3

Then finally Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Chris Hedgesjoins us to discuss his latest book “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt”, a powerful call to action that investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution and resistance and what it takes to be a rebel in modern times.

Full Program

Part 1

We be begin with the train wreck in the U.S. Senate where the Patriot Act expired on Sunday night after a special session called by Majority Leader McConnell failed to get any bill passed amid acrimony as Republican senators walked out on Senator Rand Paul’s stand on the Senate floor which McConnell denounced as “a campaign of demagoguery and disinformation”, with John McCain remarking later that Rand Paul “would be the worst candidate we could put forward” for the presidency. Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice joins us to discuss the next domestic spying bill and her article at CNN “The Battle Over the Patriot Act”.  

Part 2

Then we look into the eye-catching cover of the July issue of Vanity Fair magazine that features a glamorous pose of Caitlyn, formerly Bruce Jenner, with a caption “Call me Caitlyn”. Joe Wenke, a writer, social critic and LGBT rights activist and author of the new book “The Human Agenda: Conversations About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”, joins us. We discuss how Caitlyn and the Amazon TV series “Transparent” are opening up a conversation of acceptance about the transgender community and the transition that Bruce Jenner is undergoing.  

Part 3

Then finally we get a profile of Senator Lindsey Graham who announced his run for the presidency on Monday in front of the family restaurant and pool hall in Central, South Carolina which he inherited at the age of 22 when both parents died and he was left to bring up his younger sister on his parents Social Security death benefits. Corey Hutchins, who was twice named South Carolina’s journalist of the year and has followed the career of Lindsey Graham, joins us.