Today on AirTalk we'll be discussing the political motivations behind the NRA versus AG Eric Holder, in Houston officials have voted to impose a five dollar tax on strip-club patrons to help fund rape case investigations, President Obama visits Colorado while the state deals with its largest forest fires in its history, TGI Filmweek with Larry and the critics and the 100 greatest cars of film and television with Scott Oldham of Edmunds.com.
The NRA’s role in the Fast and Furious investigation
Yesterday’s House vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to turn over sensitive documents in the ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal sparked a walkout by Democratic lawmakers, who characterized the effort as a partisan “witch hunt.”
The 108 Dems who abstained were joined by one Republican, and the vote easily passed with 255 ‘ayes’ to 67 ‘nays.’ The Holder investigation has spiraled into a political firestorm, with President Obama invoking executive privilege to protect Holder’s position and Republicans pushing back with the contempt charge.
The powerful National Rifle Association has been involved also – putting pressure on members of Congress to vote in favor of the contempt charge. The NRA charges that Holder’s anti-gun bias is a factor in Fast and Furious, a botched gun-running scheme conducted by the Department of Justice in which DOJ guns ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and one U.S. border patrol agent was killed.
The NRA has characterized Fast and Furious as a back-door conspiracy effort by DOJ to escalate cross-border violence and thus galvanize public support for gun control. Do you think its accusations hold water? Should Holder be forced to turn over the documents? What’s the truth behind Fast and Furious?
GUESTS
Dennis Wagner, reporter for the Arizona Republic
Alan Gottlieb, Founder, Second Amendment Foundation
Adam Winkler, Constitutional law professor at University of California, Los Angeles; author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America (2011) and contributor to The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast
Houston passes $5 strip club tax to fund rape case investigations
A night of pleasure at a Houston, Texas strip club just got a little more expensive. City council officials voted in favor of a five dollar 'pole tax' to help speed up the analysis of crime scene evidence in rape cases.
"There's a nexus between the combination of alcohol and these establishments, on violence, rape in general. So we feel that it is important in an age of constrained budgets to fund these vital services for women that arrive out of violent situations," said Democratic Assemblyman Das Williams, who authored a similar proposal for Los Angeles. He added that aside from the thousands of rape kits go unprocessed in California police departments, funding for services is lacking.
"Rape crisis centers across the state are closing because of a lack of funding. The state only provides a miniscule amount of money – about $42,000 – for all rape crisis centers in the entire state," he said.
Williams clarified that the bill is meant to target only the strip clubs that serve alcohol. "If you look at the rates of violence in and around strip clubs that also serve alcohol, there is a large spike in violence in general, and that costs society money, and I think it's fine for society to ask for recovery of those costs," he continued.
Williams' bill would introduce a $10 strip club tax, but it stalled at the appropriations committee stage.
Houston's ordinance is expected to generate up to three million dollars a year for the scheme, similar to a statewide pole tax introduced in 2008. Critics are unhappy with the fee, saying it creates an uneasy connection between the adult entertainment industry and rape.
John Weston, Los Angeles-based attorney representing the Association of Club Executives of Houston, said he's concerned Houston's legislation will affect to narrow a group of adult entertainment venues.
"To focus exclusively on a very, very tiny segment of the alcohol world – those which present some sort of adult entertainment – strikes us as terribly bad public policy, but ... it's ineffective because it's not going to generate enough money for the unquestioned, valuable recipient of these funds," he explained.
Weston said the tax is unnecessary when the city has the money to support services the bill calls for help on.
"It's really kind of a scandalous situation in Houston, which is a city that has a $3.8 billion budget, and they with straight faces are saying, 'Well we don't have any funding on this,'" he went on to say.
According to Weston, the bills mirror legislation coming from anti-sexually oriented expression groups nationwide, who have other motives.
"Their true purpose is the elimination of this form of entertainment, not trying to get money into the coffers of the legislatures ... but rather to use the tax to close the businesses," he said.
Should strip club patrons be expected to fund rape kit testing? Would you prefer a more universal 'vice tax' on alcohol and tobacco to raise money for testing? Do you feel uneasy linking adult entertainment and sexual assault?
Guest:
Das Williams, Democratic Assembly-member for California’s 35th Assembly District, including Santa Barbara, Ventura, Oxnard and Santa Ynez
John Weston, Los Angeles-based attorney, Weston, Garrou & Mooney who represents the Association of Club Executives of Houston
President Obama visits Colorado as fires rage on
President Obama visits Colorado today, after declaring the state a federal disaster area with multiple wildfires raging.
In Colorado Springs, the Waldo Canyon fire has turned deadly, killing one person and burning over three hundred homes. Local authorities say they’re hopeful that weather conditions today allow them to advance on that fire, which is 15% contained. The cost of fighting these fires has topped $5 million.
How much federal funding will be required to get the wildfires under control? And how will residents – and the tourism industry – recover?
GUEST
Megan Verlee, reporter for Colorado Public Radio. (She’s in a small partly evacuated town on the Western Side of the Rockies)
FilmWeek: The Amazing Spider-Man, Magic Mike, Ted, People Like Us, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Neil Young Journeys and more
Larry is joined by KPCC film critics Peter Rainer and Henry Sheehan to discuss the week’s new films, including The Amazing Spider-Man, Magic Mike, Ted, People Like Us, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Neil Young Journeys and more. TGI-FilmWeek!
GUESTS
Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor
Henry Sheehan, film critic for KPCC and dearhenrysheehan.com
Trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man
Trailer for Magic Mike
Trailer for Ted (Warning: Explicit Content)
Trailer for People Like Us
Trailer for Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Trailer for The Last Ride
Trailer for Unforgivable
Trailer for Neil Young Journeys
The 100 greatest cars of film and television
Move over, starlets and hunks, it’s time to focus on another form of Hollywood beauty. Automobiles have played a very large role on the large and small screens, and it’s time to give credit where credit is due.
Today on FilmWeek, Larry is joined once again by our friend Scott Oldham over at Edmunds.com to pore over their list of the 100 greatest movie and TV cars of all time. Where did Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino land on the list? What about Speed Racer’s Mach 5? What car would have topped your list?
Guest:
Scott Oldham, Edmunds.com