Charges Dismissed Against Guantanamo Detainees; State Legislature to Vote on Hundreds of Bills by Friday; Carl Bernstein on Hillary Clinton
Charges Dismissed Against Guantanamo Detainees
Military judges have dismissed charges against two detainees at Guantanamo: Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen and Canadian Omar Khadr. The judges said the military's cases dissolved because the government failed to establish jurisdiction. Under the new Military Commissions Act only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried by the military, but Khadr and Hamdan had been identified as enemy combatants, lacking the "unlawful" designation. Larry and guest Ronald Meister of the Board of the National Institute of Military Justice discuss the rulings that stand to complicate efforts by the United States to try the nearly 380 other suspected Al-Qaida and Taliban members being held at Guantanamo Bay.
State Legislature to Vote on Hundreds of Bills by Friday
The state Assembly and Senate will vote "yea" or "nay" on close to 600 bills this week. Among them is a bill that would require most California businesses to provide health insurance to their employees. Another bill, AB 1634, would require that most cats and dogs in the state be spayed or neutered. A bill proposing the legalization of gay marriage in the state is also up for a vote, as is a bill that would allow the terminally ill to obtain life-ending drugs. Larry talks with Julie Small, KPCC's State Capital reporter, John Stites of the Professional Peace Officers Association, and Tom Newton of the California Newspaper Publishers Association about some of the pending bills.
Carl Bernstein on Hillary Clinton
Pulitzer Prize winning author Carl Bernstein has written a biography of Hillary Clinton that reveals her personal growth and character through both private and political struggles. In A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Knopf), Bernstein takes us through Clinton's childhood years, to her time as a student at Wellesley and Yale Law, up to her emotional strength during the Lewinsky scandal as well as her recent years in the Senate. Larry talks to Bernstein about his new book, and about the woman behind the various political, personal and career decisions that have shaped Clinton's life. Later, talks with Christopher Lehane, former political counsel to Hilary Clinton.