Ian Millhiser on Supreme Court Trump Protection, Alfredo Lopez on Radical Elders

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240308.mp3   Vox (3/4/24) This week on CounterSpin: Among the multitude of harms that could rain on this country should Donald Trump become president again, he could order the Department of Justice to drop any charges against him stemming from his fomenting of an insurrection aimed at overturning by violence the results of the 2020 election. Not to put too fine a point on it, Trump could declare himself above the law—and that’s just been enabled by the Supreme Court, which put off until April the legal case wherein Trump declares himself immune to criminal prosecution. The Court can move quickly; they hopped right to the decision that Trump can’t be removed from presidential ballots in the states. But this, we’re to understand, will take, huh, maybe until after the election, to mull. Vox Court-watcher Ian Millhiser says he tries to reserve his “this is an exceptionally alarming decision” voice, but this occasion calls for it. We hear from him this week. Transcript: ‘This Court Is Not Going to Protect Us From Donald Trump’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240308Millhiser.mp3   Also on the show: Corporate news media have an anti-elder narrative that’s as stupid as it is cruel. “Keep up or you’re in the way,” the line goes, “if you aren’t working 40 to 60 hours a week, you’re a societal drain.” It’s a weird position, erasing and marginalizing elderly people, given that the elderly are a sizable portion of the population, and a community we all get to join if we’re lucky. Alfredo Lopez is a longtime organizer and activist, and a founder of the new group Radical Elders. We talk with him about the space the group seeks to fill. Transcript: ‘That’s What US Capitalism Does Right Now. It Jettisons Its Elders.’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240308Lopez.mp3