This spring, Mayor Eric Garcetti launched plans to spend at least $20 million on new shelters and cleanups to stop homeless encampments. We also recap the latest on the Trump admin family separation policy; examine the legal parameters of ‘the right to refuse service’ in light of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' incident; and more
Week in politics: Explaining the latest on Trump admin family separation policy, trade war back-and-forth continues and more
AirTalk’s weekly political roundup recaps the headlines you might have missed over the weekend and the stories to watch for this week in Washington, D.C.
Latest on Trump admin handling of migrant families at border & call for expedited removal (POTUS says skip due process for those who cross border illegally, legislation latest, POTUS issues order to stop indefinite separation of families at border, says GOP should wait on immigration, Time and New Yorker covers, FLOTUS’ trip to border and controversial jacket)
Trade latest (Harley Davidson to shift production to Europe, POTUS threatens Europe with 20% tariffs on cars)
Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked to leave D.C. restaurant because she works for Trump admin
Guests:
Jack Pitney, professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College; he tweets
Bill Burton, Democratic political strategist with the firm SKD Knickerbocker and former deputy White House press secretary for Barack Obama; he tweets
After Sarah Huckabee Sanders gets kicked out of restaurant, we discuss legal parameters of ‘the right to refuse service’
On Friday, the owner of Virginia restaurant Red Hen asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, because of her role in defending the Trump administration.
Was the restaurant legally justified in refusing service? Over the weekend, there have been parallels drawn between Sanders’ incident and the Masterpiece Cakeshop SCOTUS case, in which a baker refused to custom-make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
But sexual orientation is a protected class in Colorado, and political ideology is not in most places (the only exceptions being the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands and Seattle). Even if this incident took place in, say, D.C., the question remains whether the Red Hen discriminates towards Republicans as a class or just toward Sanders.
We discuss the legal parameters of the right to refuse service.
GUEST:
Elizabeth Sepper, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis; her areas of expertise include antidiscrimination and public accommodations law
Is it time for LA to start arresting people living on the street once again?
More than a decade ago, Los Angeles officials agreed to allow people to spend the night on streets until the city builds enough homeless housing.
This spring, Mayor Eric Garcetti launched plans to spend at least $20 million on new shelters and cleanups to stop homeless encampments. The city’s efforts seemed to have paid off. Reports show enough housing has been built to clean up tent cities and move homeless people off the streets.
But Mayor Garcetti says even though the city has had the legal right to arrest people living on the street since 2015, still it has no plans to use that right and enforce the law.
So what do you think, should Los Angeles start removing people off the streets? Call us at 866-893-5722.
Guests:
Carol Sobel, a civil rights attorney who has represented LA's homeless in federal courts
Christian Wrede, a founding member of Fight Back Venice, a neighborhood group
Come at meme, bro: How a proposed European copyright law could drastically change internet meme culture
European Parliament is currently considering a sweeping new copyright law that many prominent technologists and open internet advocates are claiming could change the way memes are shared across the internet.
An EU Parliament committee voted in favor of the E.U. Copyright Directive Article 13 of the proposed law says that websites and platforms that host content would be responsible for upholding copyright law as opposed to the users who post the content. Websites and platforms would be required to implement algorithms that would filter out any content being uploaded that contains copyrighted images or videos.
Another piece of the legislation, Article 11, would require companies like Microsoft and Google to pay to show links to news content or excerpts from news articles published by outside news organizations.
Regulators say the law is targeted at preventing piracy and copyright infringement in music, film, video gaming, and other areas that are prone to illicit sharing. But open internet advocates and technology industry groups are speaking out against the proposal, arguing that it could severely limit internet users’ freedom to share content like memes, humorous photos, videos, or bits of culturally-significant or recognizable text that are often altered and shared by internet users.
They say that computer learning is not yet advanced enough that the algorithms that websites use to filter out copyrighted content will be intelligent enough to accurately decide what is copyrighted content and what isn’t.
Guest:
Klint Finley, reporter for WIRED Business who has been covering the story; he tweets