Nineteen 4th graders gunned down in yet another mass school shooting in America. The shooter used the mass shooters' weapon of choice, an AR-15, which is notable for the way the bullets shred whatever they hit on impact. Families trying to find out the fate of their children were asked to provide DNA samples because many of the bodies were so horribly destroyed that the faces are unidentifiable. But the Republicans in Congress don't think an assault weapons ban is a good idea. Today on the show, another group therapy session, because we need it. We'll check in at the top of the show with Tyler Pager who's leading the Washington Post's coverage of the White House response to yesterday's massacre in Texas. Then I'll open the phones for your thoughts on what we do now. 954-889-6410 or Skype to nicolesandler. I'm out of answers. And I already played Cheryl Wheeler's "If It Were Up To Me" at the end of yesterday's show...when I looked at my email and saw the death toll had been raised from 1 student (as it was when the show started yesterday) to 14. Sadly, when I awoke this morning, the number was 19. Nineteen kids and two adults, dead for no reason at all... We are seriously broken.

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When Laffy is here on Tuesdays, the mood is much lighter than it will be today in her absence. I have two guests lined up who promise to be fascinating. But I don't think we'll be doing much laughing today. First up: Lev Golinkin, an author/journalist who was a child refugee from Ukraine, writes in The Nation about the ill-fated Disinformation Board the Biden administration first announced, then abandoned, seemingly being derailed by right wing attacks and propaganda. The thing is, I booked Mr. Golinkin before reading his stuff, and it turns out that I vehemently disagree with him -- not on this story, but on his view of the war that Russia is waging on Ukraine. I'm going to talk to him today to try to figure out why he's elevating Putin's bullshit Ukrainian Nazi propaganda and why so many otherwise smart people are falling through that crack in reality. And we'll talk about the strange story surrounding that agency and the woman hired to run it, then fired from the sinking ship. Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hand (knee, more accurately) of a Minneapolis police officer, sparking the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement. A new book is out this week, "His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Live and the Struggle for Racial Justice". I'll talk with one of the two authors, Toluse Olorunnipa.

And we learned that a shooter entered a Texas elementary school and killed 14 kids and a teacher. No words...

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We're starting the week off running with two great guests, so don't be late today. We'll begin the week with an old friend of the show, John Fugelsang! He used to come on with me weekly, but then got too busy... We hadn't spoken in a while when I reached out this morning, and he said Yes. So, we have about 7 years to catch up on. Of course, I think I want to talk to him about the perversion of religion that's exploded during that time... In today's news, I noted that President Biden this morning in Japan announced a new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEFP) trade deal! Was I asleep at the wheel? Why didn't I know this was coming? We closely scrutinized past trade deals like the TPP, NAFTA, CAFTA, USMCA etc... why am I just now hearing about IPEFP and what should we know about it? There's only one person to ask. Lori Wallach is now Director of Rethink Trade, and will tell us all we need to know...

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Today's Republican Party is many things that would take me too long to list and raise my blood pressure too much. But one word that comes to mind every time I cover a story about their latest insanity is hypocrisy. They scream about the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, yet they insist on following those directives only when it correlates with their perverted sense of morality. Again, the biggie here has to do with church and state and the separation that the founders espoused. This latest push to outlaw our rights when it comes to carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term are frightening enough, but the fringe groups of zealots are rising to positions of greater power inside the Republican party, threatening our freedoms, all while they claim to be protecting your freedoms. Today, I'm joined by Rev. Barry W. Lynn, former executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State to help me make sense of it all, including the creepy beliefs of PA's Republican nominee for Governor and others in his orbit. We'll begin the show with a visit from David B. Wheeler, the guy behind the leak of the Madison Cawthorn video that probably was the reason he was defeated in his primary this week... Their next target is Lauren Boebert!

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Finally! Tuesday was a great primary day for progressives, so we've got that going for us. Today is Thursday, so Howie Klein is here, and we finally have some progressive primary success stories to tell and build upon. And other big primary races are coming up that we can and should also win. But, shenanigans are afoot-- especially in NY where, for some reason, the redistricting maps are being drawn to inflict pain on the Democrats. We'll try to get to the bottom of that, as we examine leadership stacking the deck against two Black freshmen members of the caucus.

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