August 6 - Anticipating the First Republican Presidential Primary Debate; Voter Suppression on the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act; Nuclear Danger on the 70th Anniversary of Hiroshima

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the much-anticipated first Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News that features the top tier of 10 candidates with another debate between those who did not make the cut taking place earlier on Fox at what is being referred to as the “kids table”. A veteran Capitol Hill staffer, Mike Lofgren, the author of “The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted” joins us to discuss warnings by health officials against playing the GOP debate drinking game where contestants down a shot every time a candidate makes a ludicrous statement, leading the Surgeon General to suggest that a safer version of the debate drinking game would be to only consume alcohol when one of the candidates says something reasonable.

Part 2

Then, on the 50^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act we speak with Jessica Levinson, vice president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission and a Professor at Loyola Law School where she focuses on election law and campaign financing issues.  We discuss the federal appeals court decision to strike down a strict voter ID law in Texas that the justices ruled violated the 1965 Voting Right Act and assess whether, since the Supreme Court blocked the voting act’s most potent tool of pre-clearance by the federal government of states with a history of racial discrimination, this ruling will restore rights of minority voters.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the 70^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima with Tom Collina, Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund where he works to secure the Iran Nuclear deal, support non-proliferation and continue reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. We discuss which state poses the most danger in terms of using a nuclear weapon and examples of states that have given up nuclear weapons.