February 17 – The President’s License to Kill; Texas’s Reincarnation of Senator Joe McCarthy; Republicans Defend Crimes Against Native Women

Written by

Full Program	LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM
Part 1	We begin with an analysis of the extraordinary presidential powers to assassinate that are represented by the drone program and are at issue with the confirmation of John Brennan to head up the CIA. Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who was Assistant Deputy Attorney General in the Reagan Administration and helped write the articles of impeachment for both President Nixon and President Clinton, joins us to discuss the kill list and the unchecked powers of the president.
Part 2	Then we look into the efforts to block Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense and the incendiary but baseless accusations made by freshman Senator Ted Cruz that Hagel received money from North Korea and that the Iranian government is celebrating his nomination. Matt Angle, who directs the Lone Star Project and was the Executive Director of the House Democratic Caucus joins us to discuss the reincarnation of Senator Joseph McCarthy in Texas’s junior senator Ted Cruz and whether the nastiness of this Tea Party bomb-thrower represents the future of Texas politics.
Part 3	Then finally we examine the prosecutorial loophole that the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act seeks to close, which has 22 Republican Senators and a majority of House Republicans siding with the abusers of women as they defend the status quo that allows non-native Americans to rape and even murder Native American women on tribal land and get off Scott free. Sarah Deer, an expert on violence against Native women, where 86% of rapes reported by Native women on tribal lands are perpetrated by outsiders, joins us. She is the author of “Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Sex-Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota.