University of Tennessee
William Davenport Mercer is a professor of history at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and author of Diminishing the Bill of Rights: Barron v. Baltimore and the Foundations of American Liberty.
PROFILE
William Davenport Mercer
Guest
FROM William Davenport Mercer
To the Point
The US Supreme Court is back in business Justice Neil Gorsuch has the US Supreme Court at full strength after more than a year with just eight members: four conservatives and four tending liberal. After avoiding important cases that might have produced tie votes, the Court is expected to come up with some blockbuster decisions in its next term. Partisan gerrymandering, gay rights, free speech, religion and immigration are all on the docket… after the court takes three months off. Is Gorsuch even more to the right than Antonin Scalia, the man he replaced? And…how come the court gets such a long vacation?
Recommended
To the Point
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.
Left, Right & Center
The week that wouldn't quit Will next week get even weirder? (Special one-hour episode)
To the Point
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.