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Q&A: Lee Hawkins, "I Am Nobody's Slave" Apr 07, 2025

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Journalist and musician Lee Hawkins, author of "I Am Nobody's Slave," talks about the impact that slavery and Jim Crow have had on his family through multiple generations. Mr. Hawkins examines the relationship between the past violence experienced by family members, often at the hands of white people, and the way his parents raised and severely disciplined him.

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AW: David Enrich, "Murder the Truth" Apr 06, 2025

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New York Times investigative journalist David Enrich argues that the rich & powerful are using free speech laws to suppress dissent. He's interviewed by author and George Washington Law School professor Mary Anne Franks.

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BN+: Dennis Hutchinson, "The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox" Apr 01, 2025

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As a follow on to Stuart Banner's history of the Supreme Court, this week's Booknotes+ podcast features a 2002 interview with Dennis Hutchinson, a University of Chicago law professor emeritus. The subject matter: the forgotten memoir of John Knox, a law clerk to former justice James McReynolds, a native of Kentucky. Knox's year was the term beginning October 1936. In history, it is very rare that a law clerk at the Supreme Court has published an insider's view of the court or of a justice. Professor Hutchinson gives the background on where he found the memoir, which hadn't been published before. Justice McReynolds, as you will hear, was, according to historians, arguably one of the most disagreeable justices ever to sit on the bench.

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Q&A: Syndicated Columnist George Will on His Life & Career Mar 31, 2025

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Author and writer George Will, whose nationally syndicated column has been running since 1974, discusses his life and career in the opinion business. Mr. Will talks about the impact of his work on U.S. politics over the past 50 years, conservatism in the age of Donald Trump, his love of baseball, and other topics.

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AW: Paul Blustein, "King Dollar - The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency"' Mar 30, 2025

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Writer Paul Blustein made the case for why he believes the dollar will remain the world's dominant currency. He was interviewed by author and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Zongyuan Zoe Liu.

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BN+: Stuart Banner, "The Most Powerful Court in the World" Mar 25, 2025

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UCLA law professor Stuart Banner's book, "The Most Powerful Court in the World," is a history of the United States Supreme Court from the founding era to the present. In his introduction, Stuart Banner writes that: "Today, critics on the left accuse the justices of deciding cases on political rather than legal grounds. This book shows that the Court's critics have always leveled this criticism at decisions they did not like. These attacks have usually come from the left because the court has usually been a conservative institution." Author Stuart Banner has a law degree from Stanford and clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 1991.

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Q&A: Loretta Ross, "Calling In" Mar 24, 2025

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Activist and professor Loretta Ross, author of "Calling In," discusses the excesses of cancel culture and the need for a more inclusive way to hold people accountable in the age of social media. Prof. Ross, who was sexually abused as a child, also talks about her past work with convicted rapists and white supremacists.

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AW: Michael Lewis, "Who is Government?" Mar 23, 2025

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Bestselling author Michael Lewis posed the question, who works for the government and why does their work matter? He's interviewed by Harvard Kennedy School of Government Public Policy & Management Professor Elizabeth Linos.

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The C-SPAN Story Mar 20, 2025

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C-SPAN Founder Brian Lamb is in conversation with Sam Feist, the network's CEO, and Susan Swain, C-SPAN's former co-CEO, about his quest to bring live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of Congress into every American home.

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BN+: Steven Gillon, "Presidents at War" Mar 18, 2025

Show notes

Steven Gillon was a scholar in residence at the History Channel for more than 20 years. He has written 12 books on subjects including a history of the United States, the Kerner Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. His latest book is titled "Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush." Steven Gillon closes his book saying: "Ironically, the threats facing America in the third decade of the 21st century are very real and, in many ways, similar to the challenges the nation confronted in the 1930s."

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