Your Weekly Constitutional

The British Constitution may undergo some major changes in the next year or so. Law professors William Walton and James Gray from Northumbria University at Newcastle upon Tyne recently popped in to discuss several pressing issues facing our British cousins:

Will Britain leave the EU? Lots of Britons want to.

Will Scotland secede? It could happen -- many Scots want to chart a separate course. And don't forget: they've got the nuclear submarines. Even more significantly, perhaps, they've got Sean Connery on their side.

Join us!

Chris Phillips is at it again: rousing the rabble by collecting various declarations - starting with our own Declaration of Independence - and putting them online. Not only that, he invites all of us to post our own declarations, which Stewart has already done.

Chris, the author of Socrates Café and Constitution Café, has been on the show several times because he's always making trouble and we always have a good time when he tells us about it.

After we finish our rabble-rousing, we spend a few minutes at Montpelier, visiting the ongoing work at the slave quarters and the newly-refurbished library where Madison conceived the Virginia Plan.

Why Tennessee? Why did the ratification of the 19th Amendment in August, 1920, come down to a Southern state that is not particularly noted for its progressive politics?

Perhaps it had something to do with a little-known incident three years earlier, in 1917, when suffragist leader Maud Younger insisted upon her First Amendment right to speak at a courthouse in Knoxville. Tennessee lawyers didn't support her at first, but, inspired by her courage, the Tennessee Bar eventually came around. Knoxville attorney Wanda Sobieski tells us the tale.

Nazis! In America! A nightmare that could never happen?

Nope - it did happen once. And Arnie Bernstein, author of "Swastika Nation," is here to tell us about it.

PolitiFact is a nonpartisan, Pulitzer-Prize-winning organization that checks out various claims made by politicians and pundits. You may have seen its famous Truth-O-Meter in your local newspaper or on your favorite news website.

Some of those claims are constitutional. And we expect more of them as the country ramps up for the 2016 elections. So we've invited PolitiFact reporter Lauren Carroll to help us hook up some of those politicians and pundits to the Truth-O-Meter.

This episode is a lot of fun. Join us!

Join us as we finish our fascinating discussion on Magna Carta with A.E. "Dick" Howard, one of the world's leading experts on the subject.

Sorry - no Monty Python clips this week, but lots of other interesting stuff.

A.E. "Dick" Howard is among the world's leading authorities on constitutional law and the Magna Carta. He's also articulate, informative and funny. And timely -- after all, the Magna Carta just turned 800 years old.

So join us for a lively and wide-ranging conversation on this foundational constitutional document. It'll be 800 years before we can do this again.

Tavaana is an organization devoted to cracking open one of the most repressive regimes in the world: the theocracy that controls Iran.

One of Tavaana's founders, Mariam Memarsadeghi, will tell us how she's doing it - using a transformative tool called the Internet.

Join us!

We generally think of James Madison (and most of our Founders) as a bunch of old men carved from marble and placed on pedestals. But guess what? They started out like the rest of us: they were kids and young adults before they became gray-haired and venerable. And what they learned as young people often had a profound effect on what they accomplished as adults.

Michael Signer has written a fascinating book about the boyhood and youth of James Madison, which explores in detail how such a small, sickly, quiet man was able to take on powerful opponents like Patrick Henry and win. Preview: it took lots of hard work.

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Why Thomas Jefferson?

Specifically, why do we rely so much on T. Jeffy (and his buddy, Jemmy Madison) to speak for the Founders when it comes to religious freedom? Weren't there other Founders? Didn't they have different opinions? John Ragosta has done the research and written a book, and now he'll tell us all about it.