This week offers a stunningly sad contrast in America. We recorded on Thursday, just hours after the funeral of a good and humble man, President Jimmy Carter. The humanitarian from Plains was praised by a parade of family and friends, led by President Biden. In contrast (unless he gets a last-second reprieve from his puppets on the Supreme Court) our next President — a narcissist who can’t even spell “humble” — will be formally sentenced on 34 felony counts. Donald Trump will go down in history as the only convicted criminal to occupy the Oval Office. He’s not happy about it and made that clear at another of his patent-pending bananas news conferences, events sounding like a Festivus-style airing of grievances and feats of “strength” (a.k.a. threatening anyone who disagrees with him).

In Michigan, the new Legislature has convened with Republicans in control of the House … and the new Speaker giving his oversight committee broad subpoena power. Will Matt Hall bring us a revival of the infamous Rudy Guiliani farts-and-lies hearing he hosted in 2021? Republicans in Michigan and across the nation have targeted transgender women, especially the handful participating in sports, as their culture war of the year project. This week the attacks extended to the U.S. House of Representatives where a new rule was added to ban newly elected Representative Sarah McBride, the first transgender House member, from using the women’s bathroom. We are joined by someone who is helping lead the fight in the 2025 Civil Rights battle: Emme Zanotti, director of advocacy and civic engagement at Equality Michigan.

A programming note: in the near future we’ll be adding a video version of the podcast. Stay with us for details as we get it together in the next few weeks.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,