November 4, 2007

Broadcast Date: 
Nov 4 2007

A look at Michael Mukasey on the eve of a vote over his confirmation as attorney general; the controversy surrounding distribution by University of Michigan Press of Joel Kovel's Overcoming Zionism; and a victory in the 20-year-old LA 8 case.

Episode segments
  • Michael Mukasey
    Torture
    Barbara Olshansky is the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor on Human Rights at Stanford University Law School and the former deputy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    A look at attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey's positions on torture, wiretapping, "enemy combatants," and executive power--as well as the announced plans of Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein to send his nomination to the Senate floor.

  • Pluto Press in the Crosshairs
    American Politics
    Roger van Zwanenberg is the managing director and publisher of Pluto Press.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Back in August, a right-wing Jewish group in Michigan, Stand With Us, attacked University of Michigan Press for distributing a Pluto Press title, Joel Kovel's Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, calling it "anti-Israel propaganda." The press suspended distribution, but when hundreds of protest letters poured in, they reconsidered.

  • LA 8 Case Dismissed
    Civil Rights
    Phyllis Bennis is a fellow in Middle East affairs at the Institute for Policy Studies and a consultant for the LA 8 defense team since the case began.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    This past week the Board of Immigration Appeal dismissed all charges against the last two remained defendents in the notorious 20-year-old LA 8 case, an effort to deport eight activists, seven Palestinians and one Kenyan,  for distributing literature and raising money for a Palestinian organization.