The Blood and Treasure Gabfest
Listen to Slate's show about President Obama's Afghanistan troop decision, the Wal-Mart class-action suit, and one illegal immigrant's story.
Posted Friday, June 24, 2011, at 4:19 PM
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On this week's Slate Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss President Obama's Afghanistan troop decision, the Supreme Court's decision in a Wal-Mart class-action suit brought by female employees, and the story of journalist and illegal immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas.
Here are some of the links and references mentioned during this week's show:
A Politico piece on President Obama's Afghanistan speech, in which he announced a 30,000 drop in troop levels.
A New York Times piece on the history of President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan.
An ABC News piece on Jon Huntsman's call to "get American troops out faster."
A Pew Research Center poll showing that the majority of Americans think we should leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.
A New York Times Magazine piece on this week's Supreme Court decision to throw out a huge employment discrimination class-action suit against Wal-Mart.
Dahlia Lithwick's Slate piece on the legal repercussions of the Wal-Mart decision.
Nelson Lichtenstein's New York Times op-ed on Wal-Mart's "authoritarian culture" of squeezing as much work as possible out of its employees.
Jose Antonio Vargas' New York Times Magazine piece on his life as an undocumented immigrant.
A Washington Post slide show about Vargas.
Vargas' New Yorker profile of Mark Zuckerberg,
Chris Suellentrop's New York Times blog post on how Vargas' story landed at the magazine.
John chatters on Eric Cantor's decision to withdraw from the debt negotiations.
Emily has two cocktail chatters this week. Her first is a BBC piece on why U.S crime rates have dropped over the past 20 years. Her second is a statement from Wimbledon official Ian Ritchie objecting to excessive grunting during tennis matches.
David chatters on the photo blog dearphotograph.com.
The e-mail address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by John Griffith.
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David Plotz is the Editor of Slate. He's the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank and Good Book. He appears on Slate's Political Gabfest.
Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and writes about law, family, and kids. Her forthcoming book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Empathy and Character. Find her at emilybazelon@gmail.com or on Facebook or Twitter.
John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at slatepolitics@gmail.com. Read his series on the presidency and his series on risk. Follow him on Twitter.
Illustration by Robert Neubecker.