Sam and Emma host Maurice Chammah, staff writer at The Marshall Project, and author of Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty joins the show to discuss his new book and how America might move beyond its shameful history of capital punishment. Sam and Chammah explore how the death penalty took hold through American culture, particularly Texas, and its relationship to reconstruction and lynchings in the south. Chammah continues to describe the mythology of Texas, frontier justice, and how it impacted the continuation of the death penalty. The two continue their conversation considering how state governments made capital punishment operational from the 1970s onward, and how Bill Clinton used it to secure his political future. Sam, Emma, and Chammah conclude their conversation by examining the future of the death penalty and how a Democratic administration could work around states' efforts to uphold their capital punishment. Chammah closes the discussion by talking about changing punitive carceral reform and the incremental changes needed to provide a more humane society.

And in the Fun Half: Reaching out to Christians with left talking points, will Dems repeal GOP tax cuts, why the fever will not break for the GOP, dispatches from George Floyd Park in Minneapolis, the disturbing footage of Rochester NY cops pepper-spraying a black child in the back of their squad car, plus your calls and IMs!

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Check out Joshua Kahn Russell's friend, activist and organizer Casey Harrell who is raising money to treat his ALS diagnosis.

Check out DSA Emerge presents: Asad Haider on Communist Politics in Our Time, a teach-in hosted by Jamie Peck, TONIGHT, January 28, at 7pm ET! RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/emerge-presents-asaid-haider-on-communist-politics-in-our-time

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