Tired of "Republican primary politics, misogyny and greed?" This video is for you.
On the panel today:
Bill Burton, Executive Vice President, Global Strategy Group/former senior advisor to Priorities USA Action (@billburton)
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine (@jonathanchait)
Bob Herbert, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos (@bobherbert)
First up, the Zimmerman trial: day 22. Perhaps Defense attorney Don West summed it up best on Tuesday, when he pleaded with the judge: "I'm not physically able to keep up this pace much longer...We've had full days every day, weekends, depositions at night." Indeed we have, Mr. West.
Next up, a big day for immigration reform, as Speaker John Boehner meets with his caucus to discuss the bill's fate in the House. While the bipartisan bill passed in the Senate provides $30 billion for border security, 700 miles of fence and 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, evidently this is still not enough to satisfy the House GOP. Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) has been a vocal critic of the Senate bill, but, on Sunday's Meet the Press, predicted "If we don't do [immigration reform] right, politically it's going to be the death of the Republican Party..." He will be joining Alex live to discuss the prospects for immigration reform in the House. What, if anything, would they be willing to support? You won't want to miss this one.
Finally, was John Wilkes Booth's "heart was in the right place" when he shot Lincoln? So says one Rand Paul aide, whose controversial views have landed the potential 2016 Presidential candidate in a firestorm of controversy. In a 2004 editorial titled "John Wilkes Booth was Right," Jack Hunter, aka "The Southern Avenger", argues:
If you are a patriotic American who believes in the ideals of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and George Washington – then you cannot at the same time honor Abraham Lincoln. That’s like praising Jesus and worshipping Satan simultaneously. In fact, the Founding Fathers most likely would have snatched Lincoln up by his beard and hung him from the nearest tree...
Jonathan Chait joins Alex to discuss his must-read piece for New York Magazine in which he questions how it is that racists keep popping up in Ron and Rand Paul's world "for no apparent reason." In light of the instantaneous flurry of voter suppression activity in the South, literally within hours of the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Right's Act, has the country really changed as much as John Roberts would have us believe?