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Donald Trump is so crazy it seems like a waste of time to talk about him, except for one thing: according to the latest poll, he is way ahead in the race for the 2016 GOP nomination, with almost twice the support of his closest rival, Scott Walker. (Jeb Bush is third.) JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation will comment.

Plus: How the American South drives the low wage economy: HAROLD MEYERSON of The American Prospect explains that the Southern labor system–with low pay and no unions–is wending its way north.

And we’ll also talk about GORE VIDAL: we are featuring the DVD of the award-winning documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia as a fund drive premium on KPFK, along with my book of interviews with him, I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics. Please call and pledge during the hour: 818-985-5735.

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In the first half of the 20th century the Republicans were the party that most strongly supported scientific work—they thought it would advance economic progress and national security.  NAOMI ORESKES looks at what happened—she’s professor of the history of science at Harvard and wrote about “The Hoax of Climate Denial” for TomDispatch.

Plus: BERNIE SANDERS is in Madison tonight, and so is our man JOHN NICHOLS. He’ll talk about Bernie and Hillary–and also Lincoln Chaffee, one of the other guys running in the Dem. Primary–he says “it’s time to bring Edward Snowden home.”

Also: poverty in the former capital of the Confederacy: SASHA ABRAMSKY of The Nation reports from Richmond, Virginia, where the city’s leaders have begun reaching out to the poor and working-class people they have so long ignored.

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After Charleston: Taking down the Confederate flag at the South Carolina state capitol is a good idea, but a symbolic one – to move towards equality the state needs voting rights, health care, and education. JUAN COLE explains – his blog is Informed Comment.
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Meanwhile Muslims too have been targeted. MARGARET TALBOT reports on one hate crime: the murder of three young Muslim college students in February in Chapel Hill.  Police said the murders were motivated by “an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking.”  Margaret is a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Also: LA will begin police sweeps of homeless encampments under a new law passed by the city council yesterday: HEATHER JOHNSON of the ACLU of Southern California will explain what’s wrong with that approach to ending homelessness.

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Life and Death in the Red States: KAI WRIGHT reports from Kansas on the human toll of Republican refusal to expand Medicaid for millions of sick Americans. Kai is Features Editor of The Nation magazine and reported from Brownback’s Kansas.

Plus: The history of The Nation – the magazine, America’s oldest weekly, now celebrating its 150th anniversary.  Susan Sontag in 1982 said a person who read only the Reader’s Digest would have been “better informed about the realities of communism” than someone who read only The Nation.  Was she right?  D. D. GUTTENPLAN explains. His new book is The Nation: A Biography.
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Also: Vladimir Nabokov and American politics. The author of Lolita spent 20 years in the US in the forties and fifties, and drove through the West every summer. ROBERT ROPER analyzes Nabokov’s strange political profile: refugee from both Stalin and Hitler, enemy of racism and defender of free speech—but also a supporter of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon.
Roper’s new book is Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita.

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Today the LA City Council voted for a new city minimum wage of $15 an hour. But organized labor had asked for an exception for union workers, who could be paid less. What was behind this terrible proposal? HAROLD MEYERSON will comment; he writes for the Washington Post, the American Prospect, and the LA Times op-ed page.

Also: Banned in Abu Dhabi: ANDREW ROSS advocated rights for workers there, who are building a new Guggenheim museum and an NYU campus. He teaches at NYU, and will tell the story of how the United Arab Emirates barred him from entry.

Plus “Ready—and excited—for Hillary”: KATHA POLLITT, explains why: it’s because “Clinton is running as a feminist–and that matters for all women.”
Katha is a poet, essayist and columnist for The Nation; her most recent book is PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.

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Why Cuba Matters: TOM HAYDEN on the end of America’s 50-year campaign against the Cuban revolution. We’ll recall the tumultuous history of Cuba in American life, from the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis to the decades of the embargo. We’ll also talk about the prospects for democracy in Cuba–and the fears of capitalist restoration. Tom’s new book is Listen, Yankee! Why Cuba Matters.
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Also: Only one senator voted against the Patriot Act after 9/11; yesterday, 76 Senators voted to repeal the NSA’s collection of cell phone data on all Americans, and President Obama signed the bill. Thank you EDWARD SNOWDEN, for revealing what the NSA was doing. We’ll have comment from LIZA GOITEIN—she’s co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.