Government & Politics

Alien, illegal, undocumentated, immigrant — the debate over immigration policy is also about the words used by the various sides. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says the language of immigration has been controversial for as long as immigration has been an issue in American life.

DVDs have enabled us to see movies from some unlikely places. Our critic at large says some of the best films he's seen come from South Korea: the crime drama Memories of Murder and the political thriller The President's Last Bang are two examples, based on true stories.

Barry Werth talks about the tumultuous transition between the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford chronicled in his book 31 Days. Among those who played roles were Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Film director Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell McCraney both grew up in the same housing project in Miami, and both were raised by mothers who were addicted to crack. Their new film Moonlight draws on their experiences.

Greenberg, who died Wednesday, was the last surviving attorney to argue the cases that led to the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Originally broadcast in 1994 and 2004.

Eric Newman, the executive producer of Narcos, the netflix series about drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Columbian drug wars tells us about the series which is told in part from the point of view of an American DEA agent.

Enter Me

Stone's new film presents the exiled former NSA contractor as a heroic whistle-blower. Critic David Edelstein says movie's take on Snowden is entertaining — but also a bit one-sided.

Robert Walker, a retired congressman from Pennsylvania who served as chairman of the Science Committee, responds to allegations that the Bush administration has mishandled scientific issues. Walker now serves as chairman of Wexler & Walker, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.

In 1912, white mobs set fire to black churches and black-owned businesses. Eventually the entire black population of Forsyth County was driven out, says Blood at the Root author Patrick Phillips.

In his new book The Republican War on Science, journalist Chris Mooney contends that the Bush administration has distorted research and misinformed the public on issues ranging from stem-cell research to global warming. The motivation, Mooney argues, is political power.

Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen discusses the Soviet effort, in 1929, to create an autonomous Jewish state in the country's far eastern region. Gessen is the author of Where The Jews Aren't.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the derogative words used to describe many of Donald Trump's supporters - words like hillbilly, white trash, and redneck, and what those words say about class conflict.

Paulson, who has been nominated for an Emmy for her role in the FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson, says she set out to portray Marcia Clark in a "truthful way."Originally broadcast March 10, 2016.

Richard Tanne's new film is a dramatization of Barack and Michelle Obama's first date in 1989. Critic David Edelstein says the movie's mix of politics and romance has a "naive kind of charm."

Seth Freed Wessler reported on substandard medical care in privately-run prisons in the federal corrections system for The Nation, which may have led the Justice Department to phase out their use.

Journalists Michael Kranish and his Washington Post colleague Marc Fisher are the authors of Trump Revealed, a biography about Trump's life and career that is based on the work of more than 20 of the Post's reporters, editors and fact-checkers.

Author Frederick Clarkson wrote the book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy And Democracy, on the growing religious movement to influence government. Clarkson has written articles on the religious right's plans to take over the Republican Party, and how elements of the right encouraged citizen militias.

Political analysts have been dividing the country into red states and blue states for several elections now, but it's only in the last year or two that the distinction has really caught on with the media and the public. As our linguist Geoff Nunberg points out, the odd thing is that the new usage seems to reverse the traditional political meanings of red and blue.

Journalist Rukmini Callimachi on what she's learned about ISIS tactics from her conversations with a German man who joined ISIS and became disillusioned, and from monitoring the organization's own encrypted social media channels.