Whiskey Is for Drinking, Water Is for Fighting: Arizona Water Politics and Citizen Advocacy in Defense of the Verde River. Democratic Perspective welcomes Chip Norton, President of the Friends of the Verde River Greenway, and Kathy Davis, Secretary of the Verde River Basin Partnership for a discussion of local advocacy groups and their impact on the struggle to preserve the Verde River and its watershed. The pressure of commercial and residential development on our natural resources makes for complex political struggles among competing interest groups, particularly in Arizona, where the climate-driven scarcity of water and the pressures of population growth threaten the sustainability of our natural rivers and watersheds. Hear how citizen advocacy groups, and the alliances they have formed, are helping to ensure that the future viability of our natural environment is well defended.

Are State-Sponsored Religious Freedom Restoration Acts Simply a Fig Leaf for Anti-Gay Discrimination? Democratic Perspective reconsiders the Establishment Clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment, the history of religious conflicts in Europe and elsewhere in the world, and more generally, the relationship of religion and the state in theory and in practice. Fundamentalists may believe that some people are more equal than others, but history suggests that a democratic state which enacts such beliefs into law risks civil conflict, even civil war. Is this what we really want?

Police Violence: a Statistical Black Hole. Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster and Steve Williamson review the shocking lack of statistical information on the frequency of unprovoked police violence against a citizenry they’re sworn to protect and to serve. Our cellphone cameras have now given us a clear warning about what the police do when they think we aren’t watching. The questions we need to ask are simple enough: what don’t we know about police violence, and why don’t we know it? The answers, such as they are so far, are anything but reassuring.

On the Backs of the Poor: The Great Recession and the Criminalization of Debt. Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster and Steve Williamson analyze the effect on the poor, especially minorities, of the disturbing recent trend toward financing hard-pressed local governments through exorbitant fines for minor offenses, and the even more disturbing trend toward jailing people who can’t pay the fines or the interest on them, then charging them fees for their own incarceration. Whose American Dream is that supposed to be? The answer may shock you.

The ACLU in Arizona, 2014/15: Some Good News for a Change. Democratic Perspective’s Gary LaMaster and Steve Williamson discuss some recent civil liberties litigation victories with Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU for Arizona. Dreamers got their driver’s licenses, Joe Arpaio was enjoined from conducting raids for the sole purpose of rounding up undocumented immigrants, and Chuck Ryan from the Arizona Department of Corrections agreed to a federally approved settlement to improve the health care of Arizona prison inmates. Much has been accomplished, much remains to be done, and the ACLU — as ever — is on the job.

Does Military Intervention in Other Countries Really Advance U.S. Interests? Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster and Steve Williamson  discuss the long list of American military interventions in the affairs of other countries, and the consequences to date. The balance sheet is far from positive, yet critics of our foreign policy have yet to make much headway against an entrenched foreign policy establishment which insists in the face of consistent failure that force and the threat of force are the key to favorable outcomes in foreign affairs.

Binyamin Netanyahu and the Republicans Hate It: Will the Historic Nuclear Framework Agreement with Iran Survive the Meddling of Congressional Warmongers? Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster and Steve Williamson  discuss the framework plan agreed upon between Iran and the Six Powers for the final stages of negotiations toward a comprehensive treaty on Iran’s nuclear program. What are the elements of the framework, and why are they opposed by the Israeli government and by Congressional hawks? If they succeed in blocking the deal, are there any other alternatives short of war?

The March of Ideology and Incompetence Continues in Phoenix: Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino and Gary LaMaster take a detailed look at the Arizona Republic’s recently published docket of bills pending in the Legislature. Listen as our intrepid analysts subject the moderately acceptable, the irredeemably awful, and the crazy ugly to the test of common sense.

The Quality of Our Mercy: Peg Bowden Speaks from Experience on the Militarization of the U.S.-Mexican Border. Democratic Perspective’s Mike Cosentino, Gary LaMaster, and Steve Williamson talk to Peg Bowden about the experiences that impelled her to write her 2014 book, A Land of Hard Edges. Why do we treat impoverished refugees from Central America and Mexico as criminals? Why is it a felony to aid people in distress in the Sonoran desert which spans the border? Why are tourists who take pictures on the border detained, and their cameras confiscated by ICE in the same way that the East German Volkspolizei once did in Europe? The ugly politics of immigration, and its human costs, as seen by someone who lives in the midst of our current madness on the border.

The Payback for Dark Money in Arizona: More Corporate Tax Cuts, Continued Defunding of Public Education, and Yahoo! a Secessionist Republican Legislature. Gary LaMaster and Steve Williamson dissect the results of the 2014 election in Arizona: a seemingly endless stream of bills from both houses of the legislature which would reduce the state’s tax base, impoverish its universities and community colleges, and assert for Arizona the right to ignore the U.S. Constitution in theory, if not in practice. This tawdry little drama, starring Doug Ducey as Jefferson Davis, and Bob Thorpe as John C. Calhoun, is apparently destined, in the absence of U.S. Supreme Court intervention, for a long run on the capitol stage in Phoenix. As someone who shall  remain forever nameless* once remarked, history does indeed repeat itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

*Karl Marx in Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon, 1852