texas

We spent some time this year talking about “It gets better.” The point of that campaign, of course, was to convince gay, lesbian, and transgender kids who might be experiencing bullying and threats, that life gets better and people will accept them. Distributed by Tubemogul.

The ongoing disaster in the Gulf, millions of barrels of oil now reaching shores and killing wildlife, might seem to have little in common with the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform. But one of the threads that connects the two is misleading media coverage. BP was able to control and spin their coverage, perhaps aided by their liberal advertising budgets, and meanwhile discussions of immigration and racial issues in general are constantly framed as a debate over whether racism is involved. Comedians and commentators W. Kamau Bell and Lizz Winstead join us in studio to break down the week in news and suggest ways to fix our ongoing problems. Some of their solutions may surprise you.

"The problem is us," says Jim Hightower, bestselling author, former editor of the Texas Observer, and America's #1 populist. The problem is progressives, weak-willed Democrats, and others who have forgotten that our politics is meant to serve the people. We've allowed conservative demagogues like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin to seize the title of "populist" from the left. Hightower joined Laura in studio recently to talk about the economy, populism, the Supreme Court and Citizens United, and more. Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, might have the reputation of being one of the world's glitziest, richest cities, but someone had to build the world's tallest building and the world's first seven-star hotel. Over one million workers have been brought into the city to work, often for less than a dollar an hour. Our Got Doc this week is "Dubai: A City of Dreams", which goes inside the labor camps and lives of the workers on the world's most expensive buildings. Finally, Danny Schechter, the News Dissector and the author of "Plunder: The Crime of Our Time," asks whether Goldman Sachs will be charged with any crimes.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing people judged "mentally retarded" qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, and thus unconstitutional. Yet for this ruling to apply, prisoners must be evaluated properly and fairly by professionals, whose medical opinion is unbiased. Multimedia investigative journalist Renee Feltz found several cases in Texas where inmates were kept on death row--and in some cases executed--despite clear evidence that they suffered the kind of mental disability that the Court described. She joins Laura in studio to share some of her video from her investigation, and explain why states are still managing to execute the mentally challenged.