WGA is negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers today, but if no deal is reached, how would a potential strike impact Angelenos? We'll also cover the NRA's lawsuit over the assault weapons ban and implications surrounding the newest SCOTUS justice; whether California can resume lethal injections by next year; and more.
Hollywood reacts to the WGA strike authorization
Movie and TV writers have overwhelmingly authorized a strike.
The Writers Guild of America is negotiating today with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The current contract expires the end of this weekend. If there's no deal and writers walk, what would be the effects across the industry?
AirTalk talks Angelenos about how a potential strike might impact their lives.
Guest:
Jonathan Handel, an attorney and a contributing editor to the Hollywood Reporter who’s been following the WGA labor talks
After CA NRA affiliate files lawsuit over assault weapons ban, a look at chances to succeed and how SCOTUS could fit in
Arguing that California’s Assault Weapons Control Act infringes on the Second Amendment, the state’s NRA affiliate filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging the ban’s constitutionality.
Attorneys for the NRA say they’re planning to file a number of lawsuits against gun control laws in California, including one that could come down as soon as next week challenging the ban on ammo magazines that hold more than 10 bullets.
The move is seen by many as having a two-fold purpose: the challenge itself to the California law as well as a play at the long game. With newly-installed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch bringing a conservative majority back to the High Court, it would seem the NRA is taking its chances that one or more of these lawsuits would make it to the Supreme Court level, where they feel they’d have a better chance of succeeding than in the lower-level California courts.
What are the chances of success for this lawsuit? If one or more of the lawsuits against California’s gun control laws were to make it to the Supreme Court, what would the outcome be?
Guests:
Chuck Michel, CEO and senior partner at the Long Beach-based law firm Michel & Associates
Amanda Wilcox, legislative advocate of the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence
Occidental College psychologist on why people resist science
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world joined the “March for Science” around the world over the weekend to call attention to the detrimental effects the defunding of scientific research might pose.
Evidence-based science is more important than ever, particularly with the amount of misinformation out in the world. Many have blamed political or religious ideology behind some people’s reluctance to accept proven scientific knowledge.
But as Occidental College’s cognitive psychologist Andrew Shtulman explains in his new book, “Scienceblind,” the reason is more complex, and goes back to theories about the world that are constructed in childhood. Shtulman argues that these “intuitive theories: are so ingrained in how we see and understand that world that they are almost impossible to upend with knowledge that we later learn in life.
Guest:
Andrew Shtulman, an associate professor of psychology and cognitive science at Occidental College. He is the author of the new book, “Scienceblind: Why our intuitive theories about the world are so often wrong” (Basic Books, 2017)
Legal experts make case for whether California could resume executions by next year
The year 2006 was the last time the state of California executed an inmate condemned to death by lethal injection.
Today, there are more than 700 men on California’s death row waiting to see what happens as the state continues to try and figure out the future of its defunct death penalty system.
On Wednesday, California corrections officials are expected to submit updated guidelines for lethal injection use that are based on a one-drug policy that the U.S. Supreme Court has already approved in what many see as the first step on the road to resuming executions in California as early as next year. This comes after a previous attempt to revise the rules in December of last year was rejected by the state. Since the moratorium on executions was called for in 2006, one of the major issues keeping them from resuming has been finding a drug or combination of drugs that is effective but doesn’t subject the inmate to cruel and unusual punishment. Some legal experts are concerned that even the revised guidelines won’t do enough to prevent botched executions.
California’s Supreme Court is expected to rule over the summer on challenges to Prop 66, the ballot measure that voters passed which would reform the state’s death penalty system by reducing the time allowed for appeals and widening the pool of lawyers available to take death penalty cases.
Do you think California will be able to resume executions by next year? Why or why not? What do we know about the status of the legal challenges to Prop 66? Could executions resume even if Prop 66 is rejected completely?
Guests:
Robert Weisberg, professor of law at Stanford University and faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center
Justin Brooks, project director at the California Innocence Project and professor of law at California Western School of Law in San Diego
A history and current happenings of what could be the West’s populist movement
Trump, LePen, Brexit. The masses are looking in less conventional places for leadership these days.
Anti-establishment sentiments have prompted the public to buck traditional leaders. While populism isn’t a new phenomenon, recent years have brought the subject back to the fore. But what is populism? The term means different things, both good and bad, to different people. Larry talks to guests today about what’s sparked the recent movement.
Guests:
John Fonte, senior fellow and director of the Center for American Common Culture at Hudson Institute, a conservative non-profit think tank based in Washington D.C.; he also authored, “Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others?” (Encounter Books, September 2011)
Michael Kazin, history professor at Georgetown University focusing on U.S. politics and social movements; he is also editor of “Dissent,” a political and cultural criticism magazine; he also authored, “The Populist Persuasion: An American History” (Cornell University Press, 1998)
Student group sues UC Berkeley over Ann Coulter event
A lawsuit against UC Berkeley has been filed this week as response to Ann Coulter’s speaking engagement cancellation.
The suit, brought by the Berkeley College Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation claim the university was unconstitutional in its actions. Coulter, who was re-invited to speak at a later date, declined as she believed there would be less students on campus that day.
The conservative author and commentator said she would speak at the originally scheduled time. Was UC Berkeley’s move unconstitutional?
AirTalk reached out to the University of California, Berkeley, for comment but no one was available.
Guests:
Harmeet Dhillon, civil rights and business litigation attorney, representing the Berkeley student group suing the university
Scott Lewis, J.D., partner with The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management Group, a law and consulting firm that offers systems-levels solutions for safer schools and campuses; he is also co-founder and advisory board member of the Association for Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) and the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association (NaBITA)