President Obama has granted clemency to 46 inmates who faced prison time for drug offenses. Also, a first of it's kind in California, a trial starting this week will determine the future of five frozen embryos a divorced couple is embattled over. Then, a look at an "underground railroad" operation in Northern Iraq that rescues women and children who have been taken captive by the self-declared Islamic State.
Obama calls for drug policy changes, reduces sentences for drug related crimes
President Obama has granted clemency to 46 inmates who faced prison time for drug offenses.
In a video announcement Monday Obama said that "Their punishments didn't fit the crime, and if they had been sentenced under today's laws, nearly all of them would have already served their time.” This announcement is significant as it is the most drug offenders granted clemency by a president in a single day since the 1960s.
However, this is not Obama’s first time granting such releases. Last year the President established a clemency initiative to encourage individuals sentenced under outdated laws and policies to petition for commutation. The President has since granted 89 commutations to individuals serving time in federal prison.
Obama argues that the U.S. is spending too much money imprisoning individuals who are serving long sentences for minor non-violent drug crimes. Should these prisoners be released? What more could be done to improve drug policies in the U.S.?
Obama will be outlining the future of drug policy today at the NAACP annual convention in Philadelphia. The President is expected to address sentencing reform, steps to reduce repeat offenders and ways to reform the juvenile justice system to make the criminal justice system more fair.
Guests:
John Malcolm, Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation
Sarah Wheaton, Reporter for Politico; Politico: President Obama commutes sentences of 46 prisoners
In Harper Lee’s long-awaited sequel, a changed Atticus Finch
Few novels have had the kind of cultural impact as Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Its sequel, “Go Set a Watchman,” comes out in bookstores today.
The release of the follow-up has been shrouded in controversy, with friends of the author questioning whether the 88-year-old Lee is healthy enough to authorize the new work.
Fans of the original work are in for a big surprise, as reviews of the sequel show that the incorruptible Atticus Finch, the paragon of righteousness, has become a bigot and a supporter of segregation.
How does this new depiction change the way you read “To Kill a Mockingbird”?
Guests:
Dana Williams, professor of English at Howard University, where she specializes in contemporary African American literature
Former speechwriter on navigating politics, monotony and rancor to find a politician's 'voice'
Writing in a political office can be difficult. Writing in a political office for an angry, rambling politician can be nearly impossible.
Speechwriting for a prominent politician is not all it's cracked up to be. The everyday slog of writing thank you letters, statements on the quotidian and random topics of the day, and responding to reporters and constituents becomes monotonous to the point of apathy.
For every prominent speech that rings true in the ears of the voters, there are dozens of blithe pronouncements and perennial addresses that give more feeling than they do content.
Moreover, a speechwriter must capture the "voice" of the politician for whom he or she writes. When the politician attacks your style, demands complete rewrites, and demeans everyone in the office, that job becomes particularly difficult, and even depressing.
Have you ever thought about the writers behind the speeches you love? What is your favorite political speech, and does it make you think any differently when you consider that someone else wrote it?
Guest:
Barton Swaim, former speechwriter for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and author of the new book, "The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics" (Simon & Schuster, 2015)
What Greece and Iran have in common: Negotiating with very little sleep
Some people tolerate sleep deprivation better than others. But is it responsible to negotiate deals that will affect millions of people with little to no sleep?
Monday after all-night talks between Greek and European political leaders the decision was made that Greece will remain in Eurozone. Studies show that sleep deprivation can impair a person’s decision making, it causes memory loss, and is associated with impulsivity and a lack of empathy and to make matters worse this kind of foggy decision making is not uncommon when it comes to politics.
All-night talks occurred during the banking crisis in 2008 and most recently during the Iran nuclear talks. Should political leaders be able to make such important decisions under these kinds of circumstances? Is this a deliberate tactic in reaching agreements?
Guest:
Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience and the Head of Department of Ophthalmology at the Brasenose College at the University of Oxford
As Jade Helm military exercise approaches, here’s your guide to all its inspired conspiracy theories
It’s been accused of being a dry run for the apocalypse, an international operation to seize people's guns and a military plan to round up key political figures who may oppose martial law, and tomorrow, we might all find out what it’s really about.
Jade Helm 15, one of the largest military Special Operations exercises ever, will span the Southwest from Texas to New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado over the course of two months and involve 1,200 troops.
In a statement the military says the training will “further develop tactics, techniques, and procedures for emerging concepts in Special Operations warfare,” but what started out in March as yet another conspiracy riff by radio show host Alex Jones has since garnered the attention of Governors, congressmen and mainstream media.
What is it about the human psyche and these conspiracy theories that makes them so satisfying?
Guest:
R.G. Ratcliffe, freelance writer who’s been tracking Jade Helm conspiracy theories for the Texas Monthly
Ethicist and legal scholar debate divorced couple’s fight over fate of frozen embryos
A trial starting this week in San Francisco will determine the future of five frozen embryos. The case is the first of its kind in California.
The embryos belong to a couple that had stored them at UCSF after the woman was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo treatment that would likely make her infertile. The couple signed a contract stating that the embryos would be destroyed in the case of a divorce.
In 2013, the husband filed for a divorce, and for the embryos to be disposed of, but the woman wants them implanted in a surrogate, saying that the frozen embryos represent her only chance at having a genetic child.
Guests:
Judith Daar, Professor at Whittier Law School, Clinical Professor at UCI School of Medicine and current Chair of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Ethics Committee
Art Caplan, professor of bioethics and founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center
On the front lines of ISIS territory, PBS Frontline reveals rescues of enslaved woman
A new documentary airing tonight on Frontline follows the leader of an "underground railroad" operation in Northern Iraq that rescues women and children who have been taken captive by the self-declared Islamic State.
Khalil al-Dakhi was a lawyer before his town was overrun by ISIS fighters. Now he and his network are approached by his fellow Yazidis, a religious minority group, to organize rescues of abducted relatives. The filmmakers interviewed women who were raped repeatedly by their abductors. Frontline also shows found video of ISIS fighters bragging about their plans to capture women to use as slaves.
Foreign affairs analysts deem sexual violence a common "weapon of war," but some scholars worry focusing on rape as a weapon can blind people to the more common and complex patterns of sexual violence associated with war. Writing in "The Washington Post," Kerry Crawford, assistant professor of political science at James Madison University, says refugees fleeing Syria have experienced sexual assault by landlords and employers who exploit economic vulnerability. Crawford and her co-writers also write that during war, intimate partner sexual violence is more common than rape by combatants. They warn that "graphic, selective narratives about patterns of sexual violence carry weighty foreign policy implications.... Yet wars fought partially in the name of 'saving women' in the Middle East have produced disastrous results for those very women – and for civilians in general."
Guests:
Evan Williams, Reporter for PBS Frontline's "Escaping ISIS"
Kerry Crawford, Assistant Professor of Political Science, James Madison University; Crawford is completing a book focused on how the international community first came to understand sexual violence as a weapon of war; "Wartime sexual violence is not just a ‘weapon of war’" in The Washington Post