On last night’s podcast, I announced that CAIVN will be running a series on in-depth articles on the California prison mess. The series kicks off on Monday with an introductory article (I’ll repost it here) discussing the multitude of issues. Â These includes the Supreme Court ruling that California prisons are cruel and unusual punishment because of overcrowding, how the Three Strikes sentencing creates overcrowded prisons, unfunded federal mandates, health care concerns and rising costs for aging inmates, the power of the prison guards union, drugs and rehabilitation, the prison-industrial complex, privatization of prisons, and more.
Steve Hynd detailed how Obama’s announced troop reduction in Afghanistan will actually mean that more troops will be there at the end of his first term than at the start. This is progress? Worse, the plan is for the remaining tens of thousands of troops to be in a “support” role by 2014. That’s right, 2014. This doesn’t sound like the war will be ending any time soon.
We both discussed Huntsman, and agreed that he seems to have considerable hidden support from powerful business interests, along with a telegenic persona, and the ability to move through multiple levels of political strata without riling the waters. In short, he reminds of Obama in early 2008. So, who is backing him?
Finally, while many of the listeners of the podcast are lefties, most of the subscribers on BlogTalkradio are sharply right-wing, and while we often favor libertarian views, are baffled as to why this is. Ideas, anyone?
With Steve Hynd of Newshoggers and myself. Josh Mull (@joshmull) couldn’t make it tonight.
Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio or on iTunes.