Mychal Denzel Smith is covering the George Zimmerman trial for The Nation magazine. We all know Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, now it’s up to a jury of six women to determine whether or not he’ll get off. Mychal Denzel Smith’s work on race, politics, social justice, pop culture, hip hop, mental health, feminism and black male identity has appeared in various publications, including The Guardian, Ebony, theGrio, the Root, Huffington Post and GOOD. Today’s show features Mike MacRae, Mark Thompson, Janie Haddad Tompkins, Jeremy S. Kramer and Chris Pina. Portions of our show were written by Mike MacRae, Dylan Brody and David Feldman.
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Click this photo to read more about this from Think Progress.
What kind of country is this? We’re the only industrialized nation that still uses capital punishment. Now we’re killing the “mentally retarded?” Ian Millhiser from Think Progress…
even mental health professionals have evaluated Warren Lee Hill, a Georgia inmate scheduled to be executed next Monday, and all seven have determined that Hill is intellectually disabled, the clinical term for the disability that was known as “mental retardation” at the time Atkins was decided. Yet, thanks to several legal loopholes that effectively cut Hill off from the Constitution, it is likely that his execution will proceed.
On today’s show we talk about Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote, the guy everybody has to please with constitutional scholar and author Ian Millhiser. Plus Robin Williams, Martin Short And Will Ryan and The Cactus County Cowboys.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Justice Kennedy, remember back in October of 2012 when Romney and Obama were courting the undecideds? Remember how annoying the undecideds were? Everyone had already made up their minds months earlier, but roughly three percent of the country claimed they just didn’t know, when in fact they wanted the attention. Well, that’s who Justice Anthony Kennedy is. He just doesn’t know. We talk with Ian Milhiser who just wrote a great piece for Think Progress entitled “Ten Reasons No One Should Lionize Justice Kennedy.” Ian Millhiser is a Senior Constitutional Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. And through the prism of Anthony Kennedy we’ll get to see how liberal, or just how conservative the John Roberts court is turning out to be.
Also on the show remember Rick Perry, the governor of Texas? Remember he ran for president last year and it turns out he was actually dumber than Michele Bachmann? Well, today, he’s going to announce whether or not he’s running for reelection as governor of Texas, and he also might announce whether or not he’s running for president again, even though his last campaign by all measures was a complete disaster. So, we’re running a sketch we did last year with Robin Williams playing Governor Perry, it still holds up.
And how about this? Marty Short and Will Ryan together on the same stage, how great is that?
Ray James, Will Ryan and David Feldman wrote portions of today’s show. Alicia Cordova produces us.
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Click on this picture and start reading Howie Klein.
Howie Klein has a great post today on his Down With Tyranny blog which is a must read for everybody.
The best freshman and the worst freshman each comes from Florida. Overall best is Alan Grayson, more than just a good voter– a real leader and organizer. And please do watch that video up top. Ironically, the worst freshman, Patrick Murphy, is also a leader and an organizer– he’s leading other freshmen, really dumb ones, astray and organizing to help push through Boehner’s toxic agenda. But let’s get to the roll calls that we counted in assessing each freshman.
State Sen. Dan Patrick (R): Defending his party’s chaotic effort to force through a vote as the session was ending, the founder of the state’s tea party caucus told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his radio show that lawmakers had an obligation to ignore proper Senate rules and procedure if it meant saving fetuses: “I spoke to my colleagues and said, when Jesus criticized the Pharisees, he criticized them because their laws and their rules were more important than actually taking care of people. And in my view, stopping a debate to save thousands of lives, well, saving the thousands of lives is more important than our tradition of, well, you should never stop someone.”
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