court

"The real issue is who was actually at Guantanamo, how were they treated, and this revelation gives us another chance to look at that," says Vince Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who joins Laura in studio to discuss the latest disclosures from WikiLeaks--nearly 800 files on the detainees at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Though President Obama promised to close the prison when he was elected, it remains open and 172 people remain imprisoned there, Warren notes, and argues that this disclosure could be another opportunity to rethink that policy. Shirin Ebadi was the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first woman to serve as a Chief Justice in her native Iran--a right taken away from her with the 1979 Islamic revolution. Since then, she has fought for human rights, particularly those of women and children, and has campaigned to restore the rights of women in Iran. While visiting New York, Ms. Ebadi took time out to sit down with Laura and discuss the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the struggle for civil rights in Iran, and why the revolutions will be incomplete without democracy and rights for women. Michele Bachmann and Nikki Haley joined a Tea Party crowd in Columbia, South Carolina to talk politics--and a Democratic consultant was in the crowd, talking to rally attendees. And finally, Laura points out some differences between US and overseas media coverage of the WikiLeaks Guantanamo documents--and why it matters, even if the complete documents are available online for all to see. Distributed by Tubemogul.

The news today from Japan is that the leak at the Fukushima Daichii nuclear power plant has been stopped but the crisis is far from over. Radiation levels remain high even outside the evacuation zone, contaminated fish are turning up, and the government seems to be insisting on business as usual, according to Aileen Mioko Smith. Aileen is executive director of Green Action Japan, and spent time studying the impact of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, and she joins us via Skype to give us the latest on Japan's crisis. "Paul Ryan's roadmap, which I call the roadmap to ruin, is really an astonishing document that really doubles down on pretty much every single one of the negative economic decisions of the past thirty years that have gotten us into the mess we're in today," says Heather McGhee, Washington bureau director of Demos. Laura caught up with Heather at Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West's Fight Back Teach-In on April 5 to talk budget concerns. Keep an eye out for our in-depth interview with Frances and Cornel later this week! "We intend in this moment when diversity is increasing and prosperity is decreasing, to ensure that our country makes the right choice. There are indeed two choices. One choice is that you attack diversity and you distract people from the economy. Some folks have made that choice. The other is that you embrace diversity and you attack poverty," says Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP. Laura spoke with Ben at the We Are One rally in Newark, New Jersey and discussed the way conservative attacks on women, unions, immigrants, and more are all part of the same strategy, as well as the settlement of a lawsuit the NAACP filed against Wells Fargo. Distributed by Tubemogul.

“Do we want to live in a place where the U.S. government can torture and kill people at will? Or do we not?” asks Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. A new Amnesty International report says that thousands of detainees in Iraq, many recently transferred from U.S. custody, are still at risk of torture, and back in the U.S. the Obama administration continues to use "national security" as justification for everything from dismissing lawsuits to searching laptops. Vince joins Laura in studio to discuss all this and more, and he points out that he is free to discuss all these issues publicly on GRITtv, while the only place the accusations cannot be discussed is in a court of law.

Barack Obama and 47 world leaders have agreed to lower the amount of nuclear weapons on hand and work in common to lower the threat of nuclear attack. Cause for celebration? Not quite yet, says Bruce Gagnon of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. Gagnon joins us via Skype to discuss the Obama administration's nuclear plans, and notes that we still maintain an arsenal far larger than even what the Air Force itself has said is an effective deterrent. The buzz is still heavy about Obama's next move regarding the second vacancy on the Supreme Court since his inauguration. Will his next appointment be someone who is capable of shaping the Court, pushing it in a more progressive direction? This question is of particular importance in the wake of the recent decision in the Citizens United case to allow corporations the unfettered ability to spend money to influence elections. John Bonifaz of Voter Action joins us in studio to discuss the ongoing efforts to fight corporate-controlled elections. The Village Voice reported recently on one of New York's best-kept secrets: its public schools are some of the most segregated public schools in the country. The schools have two tiers: one for affluent white families who pump private funds into THEIR kids classrooms, and another for largely minority, poor communities-- underfunded, underserved and overcrowded. About 43% of these have severe space problems, and the recession ensures that no help is in sight. GRITtv went to Donna Nevel, an advocate for fairer schools in New York, for her take. Finally, it's tax time again, and Laura takes a look at what all the tea partiers are really in a twist about.