Ellen Schrecker, author of "No Ivory Tower" and other books about the McCarthy era, and a widely acclaimed expert on that subject, talks about similarities -- and differences -- between that era of anti-communist witch-hunts and our own era of official hounding of government critics, immigrants and "pro-Russian" leftists.
Sometimes "This Can't Be Happening!" can refer to a bit of unbelievably good news and today's show is one of those times. As Bret Grote, legal director of the Abolitionist Law Center, a Pennsylvania prisoner advocacy legal service and one of two attorneys fighting to force the state's Corrections Dept. to provide effective anti-viral medication to inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal to treat his raging Hepatitis C infection, reports, a federal judge yesterday issued an injunction ordering the prison system to begin treating the internationally known prisoner within 14 days. This is a huge victory, even if the state tries to appeal it and it offers hope that Abu-Jamal, whose death sentence was overturned and replaced with life without parole, will not end up being medically executed by the state through willful neglect.
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