Author: Slate Podcasts

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. forces scoured Afghanistan for Taliban fighters. They weren’t expecting to find John Walker Lindh, a young man from California who had converted to Islam and moved abroad to study the Quran. Lindh was dubbed the “American Taliban,” but his case ended in a plea deal, leaving his treatment while in custody a secret. At the time, Lindh’s story seemed uncomplicated: He was associating with extremists. Now, years later, his case feels like a missed opportunity. How did it happen that he went through our criminal justice system, but we learned so little about extremism and the nation’s treatment of detainees?

Guest: Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law. Her book is Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State. 

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Last week, Georgia joined the wave of states passing stringent anti-abortion laws in a bid to topple Roe v. Wade. One Democratic state senator says she hasn’t lost her resolve to fight for women’s bodily autonomy.

Guest: Georgia state Sen. Jen Jordan, representing parts of Atlanta and its northwestern suburbs

Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Ethan Brooks. 

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Sheriff’s offices across the country are signing up to beta-test a facial recognition tool made by Amazon. Law enforcement proponents say the technology helps find perpetrators who otherwise may go free. But civil liberties advocates have questions about the accuracy —and the constitutionality—of these tools.

Guest: Reporter Drew Harwell. Read his latest in the Washington Post.

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Over the weekend, billionaire Robert F. Smith ended his commencement address to the Morehouse Class of 2019 with an extraordinary pledge: He would pay off the entire class’s student debt. Smith’s pledge will undoubtedly transform the lives of those students, but what about everyone else? What does student debt relief look like on a national scale? And what can we learn from studying the Morehouse Class of 2019? 

Guest: Jordan Weissmann, Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent.

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When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he would run for president, the mockery was swift. City tabloids were typically disdainful (New York Post: “Everyone Hates Bill!”). New York’s attorney general quipped, “Why?” Even de Blasio’s former staffers have declined to voice support for their old boss’s presidential bid. Here, now, an explanation for why New Yorkers are so sure their mayor would be a bad fit for the White House. 

Guest: Henry Grabar, Slate staff writer. 

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For the past couple years, politicians in Florida have been raising concerns about election security and making vague allusions to Russian hackers gaining access to voter databases. With the Mueller report, we finally got confirmation—but that’s about all we got. Are voters ever going to get the full picture of how Florida election information networks might have been compromised in 2016? And, if we want our systems to remain secure … should we want the full picture to be available, even to our enemies?

Guests: Politico reporter Gary Fineout, and Leon County Elections Supervisor Mark Earley.

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Ronald Sullivan joined Harvey Weinstein’s defense team in January. This set off a wave of protests and sit-ins across the Harvard campus asking for the removal of Sullivan as faculty dean at the university. And those student protests worked. On Saturday, Harvard University announced that it was declining to renew the appointments of Ronald Sullivan and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, as faculty deans of Winthrop House. What precedent does this decision set? And is it fair for the university to strip them of their positions?

Guest: Lara Bazelon, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Ethan Brooks.

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If the U.S. stumbles into a war with Iran, it’ll be largely one of John Bolton’s making. The national security adviser appears to be running the foreign policy show at the White House and has a taste for regime change in several countries, including Iran. Who’s the surprising person inside the administration reining him in? And can the U.S. recover from four years of antagonizing our allies and expanding our enemies list?

Guest: Dexter Filkins, staff writer at the New Yorker

Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Ethan Brooks

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Monday marked another escalation in the trade war with China. And yes, even by the academic definition, our guest says this is a full-blown trade war. Who’s feeling the effect most, and how is the administration handling the fight it began with the world’s second biggest economy? Plus, how are the politics of tariffs playing out for Trump?

Guest: Jordan Weissmann, senior writer at Slate

Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Ethan Brooks.

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Anti-abortion activists in Alabama are rushing to topple Roe v. Wade. But have they crafted an abortion ban that’s too extreme, even for Alabama’s Republicans?

Guest: Brian Lyman, reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser. 

Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Anna Martin.

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