MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's Your Turn. You can start calling now, 800-433-8850. Your Turn but first some insight into an issue that's been in the news recently. In Overland Park, Kansas an interfaith memorial service began an hour ago for the three victims of a deadly shooting there Sunday outside a Jewish community center and a retirement home.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe outburst of violence shocked the local community but for those who knew the suspect the shooting fit his long history of virulent white supremacist activism. The suspect gunman Frazier Glenn Miller formed and ran a Ku Klux Klan chapter, spent three years in prison on weapons charges and was indicted for plotting robberies and an assassination.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama which sued him for operating an illegal paramilitary group describes him as a raging anti-Semite. It puts Sunday's shooting in the same category as the Oklahoma City bombing, domestic terrorism inspired by racial hatred. Joining me to talk about the dangerous posts by white supremacists groups in the white power movement today is Mark Potok, senior fellow and editor of Intelligence Report magazine at the Southern Poverty Law Center. He joins us by phone from Montgomery, Ala. Mark, thank you for joining us.

MR. MARK POTOKA real pleasure, Kojo. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIMark, the suspect in the Kansas shooting is a man named Frazier Glenn Miller. What is his background?

POTOKWell, he's a guy who's now 73 years old. He spent very close to 60 of those 73 years in the racist movement, in the real hard edge of the white supremacist movement. In fact, he was a very early member even of the National State's Rights party way, way, way back when. He, as you mentioned, in the '80s started a group called the Carolina Knights, the Ku Klux Klan and then went on to form another group called the White Patriot party. These are very similar groups, essentially the same group reconstituted.

POTOKAnd what was interesting about them was that they were paramilitary Klan groups. They were quite different from traditional Klan groups. They generally marched in fatigues, carried weapons and actually did those armed marches right through the streets of several North Carolina cities.

NNAMDIThe Southern Poverty Law Center has had a long history with Mr. Miller. You sued him in the 1980s and it's my understanding he tried to assassinate the founder of your organization.

POTOKThat's right. What happened is a little bit complicated but basically it was this. We sued him, as you said, for operating a paramilitary organization illegally and also for harassing and intimidating black North Carolinians where he was at the time. We filed for about a year of litigation. We reached an agreement with Miller. He then broke that agreement. The agreement was that he would stop doing those things, stop intimidating people and operating paramilitary organization.

POTOKWe were able to find photographic evidence that he had in fact, right up to that moment, been receiving stolen military weapons and military training from active duty marines and army soldiers at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg. When -- he was in trouble when that came out. He was convicted very quickly of criminal contempt and was looking at possibly very serious weapons charges at the same time.

POTOKAs a result, rather than stick around while his case was on appeal, he became a fugitive. He was found some months later by the FBI in a trailer in Missouri along with four other Klansmen and a very large amount of C-4 plastic explosive, a lot of hand grenades, machine guns and a whole array of other really deadly hardware, weaponry. And also the FBI discovered at that time he was planning to assassinate, as you said, Morris Dees, the man who founded the Southern Poverty Law Center back in 1973.

POTOKAt that point Miller was in trouble. He was charged with conspiracy, very serious federal charges and he might well have been expected to go to prison for 20 or 30 years or even the rest of his life. But in fact what happened at that moment was the federal government made a decision, in retrospect doesn't look very wise, to convince to offer Miller a deal wherein he would testify against his former comrades in the white supremacist movement at a particular trial, very famous trial, the sedition trial in 1988 in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

POTOKSo he did do that testimony. He got a mere five-year sentence and only served three years as a result. So in other words, had that bargain not been offered to him, he probably would never -- you know, he would've been in prison today. He never would've gotten close to the people he allegedly murdered.

NNAMDIWhich raises the question, did that deal involve a revocation of his beliefs, not simply in white supremacy but in his beliefs in white supremacy and violence?

POTOKWell, obviously not. I mean, I don't know that they ever ask you to sign a deal, you know, as to what your belief system's going to be in the future.

NNAMDINot the belief system but in his case the violence associated with the belief system. Did he ever renounce that at all?

POTOKNo, he really never did renounce it. And he spoke in incredibly violent terms for his entire life. I mean, his problem after the 1988 trial of course was not the fact that he didn't renounce violence. His problem was that almost everyone in the white supremacist world despised him. He was a snitch. He had caved in to ZOG the Zionist occupation government and on and on. So Miller has spent much of the 25 plus years since then essentially rehabilitating himself. He wasn't much heard of during the '90s.

POTOKBut in 2002 he published a autobiography depicting himself as, you know, an oppressed white man and all of that and all his troubles. And then starting in 2005 he began to publish a newspaper called The Aryan Alternative. So he became active. You know, right now or right up to the moment of the shooting there were basically two schools of thought within the movement about Miller. Some people believe that he was a good guy and he had simply had to make that deal and in fact never gave very damaging testimony.

POTOKAnd it is certainly true that the 1988 sedition trial was a wreck. Every defendant was acquitted of every charge. It was so bad that in fact one of the jurors later married one of the defendants, so in other words, a total meltdown. And then there are people -- quite a lot of people within the movement who still see Miller as, you know, an absolute traitor, a white race traitor.

NNAMDIYeah, but I'd like to know how law enforcement viewed him because if in 2005 he starts this activity again but he's nevertheless able to walk around Kansas and start shooting at people indicates that apparently he hadn't -- he was not under any -- apparently not under any kind of surveillance. And apparently law enforcement was not paying a great deal of attention to him.

POTOKYeah, I can't speak for how much attention they were paying to him, but, yes, I mean, it's certainly true that he was free as a bird. You know, I mean, the fact is that he technically met the terms of his plea agreement and they -- you know, part of the plea agreement was immunity from any prosecution related to anything that had gone before. So it covered quite a lot. We don't really have any evidence of criminality since that time up to of course the shootings in the Kansas City area.

NNAMDIBut you talked a little bit -- or we know a little bit about the fact that he spent a great deal of time in the military. Talk a little bit about why the white power movement seeks to recruit people in the military. He served 20 years in the army, two tours in Vietnam. What is that like?

POTOKAnd thirteen years with the green berets, which is very important. you know, it's an important thing. I mean, there is a very high level of interest among leaders in the radical right in recruiting people like Glenn Miller, in other words, people very high on military skills. At one point back in the '90s there was actually a group called the Special Forces Underground, very, very secret group that propagandized and sought to recruit people within the Special Forces. Eventually Fleeter Steven Barry was found out and he was tossed out of the military.

POTOKBut, you know, we have found -- we did a major report back in 2006 looking at the very large numbers of extremists who at that point were flooding into the military because, well, basically they were getting in because recruiters were issuing waivers for things like swastika tattoos and that sort of thing because they were having a hell of a time meeting the recruiting quotas for people to be sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.

POTOKIn any case, the interest of these groups and people like Glenn Miller is, you know, they think that these people have the skills that will be needed in the race war that they think is going to break out at any moment.

NNAMDIHow would you characterize the danger posed by these white power or white supremacy groups today?

POTOKWell, I think there's a very real danger out there. You know, to listen to the tone of the news coverage of the Kansas City area shootings, you get the feeling that this is a kind of uniquely horrible incident. You know, the attention of the nation is kind of riveted on it for the moment and how could such a thin happen. And it's really being treated as if it were highly unusual and that's not true.

POTOKJust in the last few years we've seen some very similar shootings, well-known neo-Nazis who carry out mass murders or try to. You know, I think for instance James von Brunn who in 2009 shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington and clearly intended to shoot a whole lot more people but was shot himself by police instead. Another neo-Nazi quite well known who tried to bomb a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Wash. He might well have killed hundreds of people had that bomb not been uncovered just before the parade started.

POTOKYet another well-known neo-Nazi Wade Page invaded, as I'm sure our listeners will remember, a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wis. on August 5 of 2012 and murdered six Sikhs. And it goes on and on and the list is very long. It's been -- the pace of these things has gone up in the last five years or so very clearly since Obama was elected. So, you know, I think that's an important point.

NNAMDIWhat would you like to see, Mark Potok, happen on a national level to address these white power groups? Is there a way the Kansas shooting might have been avoided? Are we focused so much on the possibility of radical Islamic terrorists that we're not paying attention to a significant domestic terror threat?

POTOKYes, there's something to that I think. What I think of when you ask that question in particular is the way the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 issued a very prescient and sober and careful report on right wing extremism. That report was supposed to be confidential and go to police departments only but in fact was almost instantly leaked to the right wing press where it was pilloried. It was -- the claim was made by people like the Drudge Report and so on that what the report really did was describe every conservative in America, so Timothy McVey or a potential Timothy McVey.

POTOKLet me say, in knowing the author and having read the report carefully, it's completely bogus. The report was cool, calm, collected, accurate. It was not in any way attacking veterans. And yet it caused such a hullabaloo on the right that the then Secretary of DHS, Janet Napolitano, an enact in my opinion of supreme political cowardice, withdrew the report, apologized for it and censored her own staff for writing it.

POTOKSince that time, the non-Islamic domestic terrorism intelligence unit within DHS has collapsed. It's essentially been gutted. The author of that report and virtually his entire team left after that, disgusted by what had happened and what had been done to them personally. And DHS to this day has not reconstituted that unit. So, I mean, that's one thing we can say is they ought to rebuild their non-Islamic domestic terrorism unit.

POTOKI don't know at all -- as a matter of fact, I quite doubt that anyone could've predicted the shooting in the Kansas City area. There doesn't seem to have been any sign. There was no manifesto posted. It's not like this man, you know, sent some email to his friends, you know, telling them he was about to go out in a blaze of glory. So I'm not sure that this one was stoppable, as really most lone wolf attacks aren't. Nevertheless more intelligence work from DHS on this matter rather than focusing so very heavily on the Jihadist threat would be useful, to be sure.

NNAMDIFinal question, Mark Potok, there's an email from Kathryn, "Is there any overlap between the groups associated with Miller and the militia groups forcing the standoff between the rancher and the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada? Do they have shared beliefs? I am concerned," writes Kathryn, "about the growing anti-law militia movement in the wild west."

POTOKI mean, there's something of an overlap. Obviously both sets of groups despise the government, see it as an enemy. But the groups that Miller was associated with, that whole movement was, you know, really -- I mean, it's a neo-Nazi movement. They believe that the "Jews," quote unquote, are destroying America, are carrying out a genocide of white people and on and on and on. And that is not at all part of the militia groups' view of the world.

POTOKThey think the federal government is engaged in a plot to sell out American liberties and to force America into a kind of socialistic one-world government. But they virtually never talk about the Jews. You know, many of them are not fond of people of color but that is, I think, not their main motivation at all. They're rather all wrapped up in conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, I mean, both sectors, the national socialist groups, the Nazi groups and the militia groups are very much a part of a larger radical right, which is very big and very dangerous.

NNAMDIMark Potok is senior fellow and editor of Intelligence Report magazine at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Thank you so much for joining us.

POTOKA real pleasure. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. It's still Your Turn. If you have called in connection with this issue, as you Mark, stay on the line. We will get to you after this short break. But it is Your Turn to speak on this or any other issue. The new SAT, the Silver Line, Ukraine. We're going to give you an update on that, 800-433-8850. It's Your Turn. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to Your Turn, when you can decide what we are discussing by calling 800-433-8850 or by sending email to kojo@wamu.org. You can send us a Tweet @kojoshow. Just a few suggestions, Ukraine, uncertainty continues to swirl there with Russian troops massing along the borders. A clash in the east of the country in which Ukrainian forces killed three pro-Russian separatists and wounded at least a dozen more after what the interior minister described as a siege of a military base there. And reports that more Ukrainians are backing a separatist movement as fears of economic hardship mount.

NNAMDIRussian President Vladimir Putin said he hopes not to have to exercise the right to use armed forced in Ukraine, the right granted him by his country's federal counselor. He participated in a television question and answer session in which he, according to the New York Times, repeatedly referred to Eastern Ukraine as new Russia. That area north of the Black Sea was known as that after it was conquered by the Russian Empire in the late 1970s.

NNAMDIHe admitted for the first time that Russian armed forces had been deployed in Crimea but he dismissed suggestions that Russian troops were behind the unrest in Ukraine. He said, quoting here, "I remind you that the federal counsel has given the president the right to use armed forced in Ukraine. I really hope that I do not have to exercise this right and that by political and diplomatic means we will be able to solve all the sharp problems. 800-433-8850.

NNAMDIIn that broadcast there was a startling moment because Mr. Putin was joined by Edward Snowden. He asked Mr. Putin about Russia's surveillance practices on camera asking him whether or not does Russia -- these are his exact words, "Does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals?" Obviously a swipe at the United States and the NSA. Mr. Putin replied, "Our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by law. You have to get a court's permission first."

NNAMDISo the plot thickens, as they say. What do you think of all of this? Give us a call at 800-433-8850. We'll start, because it's Your Turn, with Curt in -- no, we'll start with Mark in Herndon, Va. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARKHello, Kojo. So to the first caller's -- or Mark from Southern Poverty Law Center talked about this issue, and insists that we have a large problem in this country. We have a large and growing group of what I'd call really extreme conservatives. It's exemplified by groups I would say like Tea Party and individuals like the shooter in Kansas at the Jewish center. This groups is -- you know, it's fueled by hateful rhetoric, by, you know, this large group of right wing talk shows.

MARKIt's formed and cultivated or farmed and cultivated by certain politicians who, you know, say this is what we need to fight against and these people are the enemy who -- we're all fellow Americans as far as I know. It's funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers. It's armed to the tee by the NRA. And lately, you know, some of these policies, etcetera have been legitimized by the, you know, what really is a pretty far right Supreme Court.

MARKAnd these issues are going to continue and grow and we're going to have more problems. And really these are people who claim to be patriots and claim to be all about America, but they don't want people who have different opposing views and different angles that they take on government and people and how to act. Essentially it's -- they say it's not legitimate. So they really claim to be patriots, but they're not patriots. They're actually against what has traditionally been the American policy of let's all be together.

NNAMDIWell, allow me to -- Mark, allow me to interrupt for a second because one of the objections that was made to the Homeland Security report that Mark Potok referred to was that people who are conservatives felt that it made a link, if you will, between conservatives -- especially conservatives on the far right and these violent white supremacist militias. Are you making that same connection yourself?

MARKWell, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. And these people, you know, they know -- it's almost like their winking, right. They're saying, oh well, you're saying that we are those people. We're not those people. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And that -- they cultivate that rhetoric and that hate in this extreme point of view that we have. And really the time -- those people silence reports like that by saying, oh you're targeting us. You're saying these bad things about us. The time for talk in hoping that people will be reasonable quite honestly, you know, from the far right is over.

NNAMDIBut I will acknowledge that we have a significant divide in our country between conservative and liberal, between Republican and Democrat. But I frankly heard quite a few very conservative talk show hosts over the past few days denouncing what Mr. Miller had done in Kansas and seeking to separate themselves from it and objecting that people make that connection between him and them, when in fact they argue that there is no such connection. What would you say to that? You say -- I don't know that the Koch Brothers finance any militias, any right-wing militias at all. So what would you say to that?

MARKWell, I would say that the Koch Brothers -- and actually there was some large meeting in New York City reported recently, kind of a secret meeting where -- and I can't remember the founder of Papa John's was there and then a bunch of other people that this right wing group that's kind of this secret meeting. And these people, they can say, yes we clearly don't support and want people going around and shooting individuals. They, I think, genuinely disagree with that happening. But they fuel the flames that these people who are going to take that sort of action start believing that they're, in fact, backed by this large majority of people with a lot of money.

NNAMDIOkay. But what...

MARKSo there's a belief in that.

NNAMDIOne final issue though, Mark. A lot of people who are conservative listening to you hear this would say that you are suggesting that rather than targeting the violent militant extremists, you're suggesting that people -- that the people who should be targeted are anyone who espouses a conservative philosophy.

MARKNo. That is not true at all and there's -- what I'm talking about is what's been a rise and what I would call kind of the extreme conservatives. And I'm not -- there's always going to be a broad spectrum of beliefs and points of view. And I'm okay with that. But when you have people that continually fan the flames of antigovernment, anti, you know, establishments of, you know, any kind of rules except for what benefits them, it doesn't make sense.

MARKAnd they want to have it both ways. They say, I'm an American and this is what America is. I think the issue is, there's almost this belief that the country's changing and I'm losing some sort of status or power or something.

NNAMDIOkay.

MARKAnd I need to fight against it, but it's not that person's...

NNAMDII've got to move on, Mark, but it seems to me that you keep linking the people who you think are marginalized with the conservative mainstream. And I think that's kind of the problem that you may be having in trying to persuade people of your argument. But thank you very much for your call. This allows us to move on because it is Your Turn, Curt in Washington, D.C. Curt, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CURTWell, thanks for having me on your show, Kojo. I appreciate you taking my call. I wanted to bring up a much more local issue actually today, and that is, I live in the Truxton Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. And like many neighborhoods here in the city, we're seeing a lot of growth both with new construction but also with more dense construction. And we're noticing here, and I'm sure there's other listeners that are having this problem too, that with this new development that means there's a lot more people using electricity here. And we're starting to have, you know, a number of long-term multi-hour blackouts because they're transformers are blowing out.

CURTAnd I would love to have someone from PEPCO and DCRA and some of the other agencies that deal with this really come on your show or come on a local, you know, public forum and address how they -- or talk about how they might address this problem because clearly it's gonna get worse.

NNAMDIWell, I'll tell you, Curt, the neighborhood that you live in has advisory neighborhood commissioners. It has a council member, both of whom are authorized to call public meetings and public forums and invite all of those people that you think are related to this issue to attend and listen to the concerns of community members and address those concerns. I would suggest that that might be the road you may want to take.

CURTWell, and that's a great suggestion. I think sometimes a broader citywide forum like your show or others is another way to go.

NNAMDIAnd that's why we're here, yes. That's why we're here, yes. And as we normally say, we're taking all of these matters under advisement. So thank you very much for your call, Curt. It is Your Turn. You too can call us at 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org. The Silver Line. The plot thickened for metro's over-budget and behind-schedule Silver Line this week when the project's executive director said, well, basically this...

SAM COOKEThat's it, I quit, I'm moving on.

NNAMDIPat Nowakowski said, well, let's hear what he said again.

COOKEThat's it, I quit, I'm moving on. Yeah...

NNAMDILeaving for a new job, that's what Pat Nowakowski says. The nearly completed Silver Line will connect Tyson's Corner to Reston and could open for service this summer if all goes well. In February, the lead construction contractor submitted paperwork that was supposed to demonstrate substantial completion of the project. But no matter which way you look at it, this resignation is going to affect how people view the Silver Line. What do you think? Give us a call, 800-433-8850.

NNAMDIHow will the Silver Line affect your commute? Are you eager for that new rail option between Tyson's and Reston? Are you confident that it's now going to happen? Your Turn, 800-433-8850. You can also go to our website kojoshow.org and join the conversation there. Let us go now to Daniel in Arlington, Va. Daniel, you're on the air. Go ahead, please. Oh, that was my fault. Daniel, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DANIELHi, Kojo. How are you this afternoon?

NNAMDII'm well.

DANIELExcellent. Well, as per the discussion on the incident that happened out in Kansas, I do feel like we have a bad habit in this country of sort of over analyzing the individual situation and not necessarily looking at the broader view -- broader question, which was why was this man given access to firearms in the way that he was? And the answer pretty obviously is that we have very lax gun laws in this country. And I am wondering why it seems like it's taking longer and longer as you hear a larger -- I mean, we've certainly -- we're becoming more and more familiar with incidents like these.

DANIELAnd in this instance you have a very well-known racist with radical components of his life, with an arrest record, with a criminal record. So how he had access to these -- to firearms is baffling to me. And frankly, I think it's a little bit of a shame that it isn't essential talking -- point of conversation for the whole incident, and not so much what he's connected to or what his racist background is. There's always been that in this country and part of having free speech is that we have to tolerate that.

DANIELBut what we don't have to tolerate or at least we shouldn't tolerate is him having access to firearms and weapons and destructive implements throughout their lives and in every aspect of other people's lives as well.

NNAMDIWell, one of the reasons I don't think we're talking about it as much is that the opposing argument usually is that if the victims of this attack were themselves armed with firearms, they would have been able to protect themselves. And so the solution is to simply arm more Americans. What do you say?

DANIELMany retirement homes do have security personnel. In fact, a lot of institutions in our country now do have security personnel. And it doesn't seem to be slowing it down. And this is going to sound rather dark in a sense but you'll remember in the past few weeks there was an incident in a high school with...

NNAMDI...a knife.

DANIEL...a knife, if I recall correctly, a student wielding a knife.

NNAMDIAnd nobody died.

DANIELExactly. And it's certainly not a very good scenario, but the contrast is very clear. If that kid had had a gun in that situation, you would've heard about a killing. You know, I think it's odd that we don't sort of talk about this first as being the fact if this guy had had a knife -- if the 73-year-old had had a knife, maybe there would've been damaged but I certainly don't think it would've been as severe.

NNAMDIDaniel, thank you very much for your call. I'd like to go to Chris in Burg, Va. who seems to have a similar sentiment, but I'm not sure. Chris, your turn.

CHRISHi, Kojo. I don't want to get into my opinion on gun control, but I want to get into some of the realities that I think are not discussed often enough about gun control. The first thing is the divide between federal legislation and state legislation. One thing that people don't know, I think, is that many state constitutions, in fact most of them, have provisions for gun ownership that are very specific. And in terms of gun rights, it's much less ambiguous than the federal constitution.

CHRISHere's another thing. Passing state legislation is often easier than passing federal legislation. Look at the magazine size restriction and things like that that happened in Connecticut. On a federal level, you have the whole unstoppable force needed to move an object thing. The NRA is obscenely powerful, this sort of weird version of scaring people and hugely funded Wayne LaPierre's baby, that thing meets the liberals or the gun control people. It's totally stagnant. Legislation is not going to happen there.

CHRISAnd if we want to see real change on the federal level, we have to look at mental health. That is where it's going to happen because I guarantee you there won't be no sweeping fire on legislation coming from the federal government as long as things stay the way they are currently.

NNAMDIOkay. Thank you very much for your call. We're going to take a short break, but before that, high school freshmen bound for college got a peak this week at the new SAT test that debuts when they're ready to take it. Gone are definitions of obscure and seldom-used words like propinquity and lachrymose. Instead, students will define more familiar words based on their use in a sentence. The 88-year-old test has been retooled to assess what students learn in high school rather than their so-called aptitude to succeed in college. The change coming as the venerable SAT is losing ground to the more practically-oriented A-C-T or ACT test.

NNAMDIIn this era of pushback against standardized tests, do we even need the SAT test anymore? What do you think? It's 'your turn.' Give us a call. 800-433-8850. What do you think colleges should know about applicants beyond their high school transcripts? Shoot us an email to kojo@wamu.org. Send us a tweet @kojoshow. It's 'your turn.' I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIIt is 'your turn.' We're taking your calls, you're setting the agenda, at 800-433-8850 or by sending us an email to kojo@wamu.org. Tom in Washington, hang on for a while, and hear what Jerry in Washington has to say first. Jerri, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JERRIHi, Kojo. Good to talk to you. I think the first thing that comes to my mind is that Matt Taibbi has come out with a book now titled "The Divide: American Injustice," and that it's just getting worse and worse. I mean the Supreme Court decisions in support of oligarchs and that free speech -- money equals free speech. I don't get that one. And then we have here, what he said about, you know, on Democracy now Amy Goodman asked him who was tougher on corporate America, President Obama or President Bush? And Taibbi said, oh, Bush hands down.

JERRIAnd this is an important point to make because if you go -- so I won't read all that, but you can -- the point is no one has gone to jail under Obama -- no one on Wall Street, not Toyota, we're waiting to see what GM is going to happen. Senator McCaskill said someone might -- they might be prosecuted. I mean this is very bad when a judge in Texas says, well affluenzia -- someone should not be prosecuted -- should not be found guilty or go to jail because they -- of drunk driving and they kill somebody because they're affluent. That is what the judge said.

NNAMDIWell...

JERRII mean we have our hands full now to fight, America. This is really not good. Matt Taibbi's coming to AFT, American Federation of Teachers on...

NNAMDIWell, Jerri, I know you want to promote Matt Taibbi's appearance someplace. But we wanted to tell you that there's also a new study out by, I think, coming from Yale that we'll probably be discussing on a future broadcast here, that says that America is turning into a Oligarchy. That people who they describe as Oligarchs are exercising more and more control over society in general.

NNAMDIAnd, of course, when we see the gap between rich and poor, that is an issue of great concern to a lot of people. But thank you very much for your call. But I wanted to give Tom in Washington the opportunity to get in on this, because while he's talking about specifically another topic, he's really, in many ways, addressing the same subject. So, Tom, 'your turn.' You are on the air. Go ahead, please.

TOMHi, Kojo. Good afternoon. I'm an attorney. I just came out of court in Montgomery County District Court, the criminal traffic docket. And I found it very interesting. This is a pattern that I've seen before. But today was really quite noticeable. At least 30 or 40 defendants, all of them except for one white, older gentleman, were all African American or Hispanic. Now this is the criminal traffic docket, so it's very surprising to me that it's only African Americans and Hispanics that are committing traffic infractions. And even more surprising...

NNAMDIWhere was the courtroom?

TOMThe courtroom is in Silver Spring, Md. It's the District Court of Montgomery County. But I've seen this pattern throughout the region, including Virginia and Maryland.

NNAMDIAnd this was traffic court?

TOMYes, the criminal traffic court.

NNAMDIOkay.

TOMSo, for example, many of these people who were -- were being heard on charges, for example, such as driving without a license. And when the prosecution or the police stated how the stop came, you know, very interestingly, almost all of them had a taillight that wasn't working or something similar. And I really think that it's important for us to discuss as a society, that prosecutors and judges need to have a greater control over the court and how these cases are brought...

NNAMDIWell, Tom, let me cut to the chase. Do you think that racial profiling was taking place here?

TOMOh, I believe so, Kojo. How is it possible that it's only Hispanic and African American defendants? It's very puzzling and I think it's something that needs to be looked into, because if they're all being stopped for the same reasons, which are not speeding, not running through a red light, not running somebody over, you know, but because there's a taillight that, mysteriously, most of the time they can't prove that it hadn't worked...

NNAMDIOkay. But if it starts with a broken taillight, you were saying these were criminal charges being brought?

TOMSure, because sometimes what happened is that the driver may not be driving with a license. It'll be their second or third time without a -- with driving without a license, or some other infraction, going 20 miles over the limit.

NNAMDIAnd so what -- in the final analysis, Tom, what do you think needs to be done about this?

TOMI think that prosecutors and judges need to have a greater control over how these stops are done. And I think police departments need to have a look at when drivers that are stopped are actually given the infractions and made to go to court and when they're not. I mean the absence of white drivers as defendants is very noticeable. You know? And something needs to be looked into.

NNAMDIOkay, Tom. Thank you very much for your call. Who do you think should look into them?

TOMI think it's the state attorney's office should look into it and also the police departments themselves.

NNAMDIOkay.

TOMBecause what happens is that Hispanics -- and I deal with Hispanic clients most often -- are very fearful of the police. Right?

NNAMDIHow come you deal with Hispanic clients more often? Are you profiling?

TOMNo, no, no. I'm of Hispanic background.

NNAMDII'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

TOMOkay. Yes.

NNAMDIBut thank you very much for your call.

TOMThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIOn now to Jack in Woodbridge, Va. Jack, you're on the air. Go ahead, please. Hi, Jack, are you there?

JACKHi, yes. Hello?

NNAMDIGo right ahead, Jack.

JACKYeah, I'd like to comment back to a couple of the people who were bashing governors and conservatives and especially the Tea Party.

NNAMDIThey weren't bashing them, they were linking them to right -- to extreme right-wing violent white-power and...

JACKWell, I kind of see it as a...

NNAMDI...and militia...

JACK...well, hold on. I see it as the same thing for one reason. I am a registered Democrat and I'm also Jewish. And I'm also a member of the Tea Party. There are quite a few Democrats, there are quite a few blacks in the Tea Party. So what these guys are saying is that Democrats and blacks are also right-wing conservatives. And that is blatantly untrue. And I would ask those two guys to go to some Tea Party meetings and see what they're all about, number one.

NNAMDINo, no. But wait a minute, wait a minute. There are -- there are blacks and presumably some Democrats who are conservative and maybe even right-wing conservative. That doesn't make them...

JACKWell...

NNAMDI...that doesn't make them either violent or supremacist or potentially militia joiners.

JACKWell, true. This is the point that I'm making. I would ask those two guys to go to a couple of Tea Party meetings and see what it's all about. And then back to the first guy that commented about gun laws. He should take a look at how many gun laws are on the books. After he does that, he should look at the FBI reports on straw purchases over the last seven or eight years and ask, why is it that the Obama administration is not prosecuting straw purchasers of firearms? They are evidently just refusing to obey federal law. And this is happening all over the country with federal prosecutors.

NNAMDIOkay. You know, people make a lot of -- people make a lot of statements when we're doing 'your turn.' But to say that an administration -- any administration is refusing to prosecute straw purchases of firearms, I don't think that...

JACKBut that's what some of us have to believe at this point.

NNAMDI...I don't think that could possibly be an accurate statement.

JACKWell, then why aren't they prosecuting?

NNAMDIThat's a good question. Why aren't they prosecuting. But to say that they're consciously refusing to prosecute them -- what would be the reason for them consciously refusing to prosecute them?

JACKThat's the question we've been trying to ask. And nobody's giving a straight answer.

NNAMDIWell, the implied answer is that they want to foster criminality, that they want to have people running around who are purchasing guns for criminals, that they are some kind of pro-criminal lobby. Is that what you're suggesting?

JACKIt's possible. The more people...

NNAMDINo, it's not possible.

JACK...out there that are breaking bun laws, the more power...

NNAMDINo, it's not. It's not possible.

JACK...that the anti-gun people have.

NNAMDIAre you suggesting that the entire Obama administration is a pro-violent, illegal criminal lobby?

JACKI don't know. That's the question. Why aren't they prosecuting? And why aren't they giving straight answers about why they're not prosecuting?

NNAMDIWell, I know. And they're not. So let's move on. 800-433-8850. Let us go now to Ray, in Alexandria, Va. Ray, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

RAYHello, Kojo. I going to be brief. My comment is regarding to your show yesterday, regarding pictures of war. And you had a...

NNAMDIOh, that was a few days ago. Yes, go ahead.

RAYThe editorial at Washington Post was there and she was talking about graphic images of war. And I have totally different view. Let me just say that I'm a professional photographer. I never photograph war in action, but when I grow up and I've been educated. And I'm sure that you also going to resonate with this statement.

RAYIf you think about the pictures that we saw from Vietnam War, the ones that is still going to, you know, strike us and change maybe that the knowledge and judgment of American people toward Vietnam War are not very beautiful images. They are images of war when you going to see the Vietnam police officer is shooting the Vietcong people in the street in the head, or when they...

NNAMDIYeah, that was arguably the most graphic image coming out of the Vietnam War that appeared that was widely viewed in American media.

RAYExactly. And actually it was another picture. Let me just bring another one. And I can go on and on. It was the picture...

NNAMDIBut what's the -- okay, but what would be your point?

RAY...there's a picture a girl who is running naked from the, you know, the explosion...

NNAMDISure.

RAY...in the middle of the road. My point is that saying that the pictures of war could be graphic and as a result, you know, I didn't see any good pictures of the war, either side. I'm not talking about, you know, one side or the other...

NNAMDISure.

RAY...because I want to say the photographer job is going to be capturing the truth. And the truth of war is not the beautiful truth. It's just, you know, is gruesome and something that is going to talk about killing and devastation. And just by labeling the pictures that are graphic, so as a result not going to post them, I think that is wrong. Especially...

NNAMDIWell -- well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. If you have seen truly graphic pictures of war, much more explicit than somebody being shot in the head, where you can see somebody's entrails being exposed and pouring out, what that editor was saying is that these are newspapers that land on people's dining tables and their children have access to those photos. What you seem to be saying is that these children need to be confronted, regardless of what age they are, with the reality of war in its most graphic form.

RAYNo, that is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that because of labeling the pictures that is going to be graphical and you put it on the table, you know, is not going to be appealing to the little children, then what we had, as a good war image that is going to stick to our brain in the last two decades from Washington Post? None. And that is what I want to say. I want to say...

NNAMDIYou're saying that because the images are not graphic enough, they're not being effective?

RAYThat is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is graphical images also could be effective. It depends how it's going to be captured. I'm not going to see any beauty and I'm not going to put such a picture in front of my child, when somebody is shooting another person just a second before the shoot. That is also as (unintelligible)

NNAMDIWhat all of our panelists on that occasion seemed to agree on is that regardless of whether the images are graphic or not, while photographs can bring home the impact of a war, they don't ever change anybody's mind one way or the other. What do you think?

RAYI want to say also -- let's also look at it from another, you know, perspective.

NNAMDIOkay, Ray.

RAYIt is -- lots of websites online that we can or, you know, Washington Post could have, you know, verified the age of the people before letting them to watch the pictures. And then still the photographers could post the images that is going to just tell the truth of the war, rather than just, you know, being quiet, you know, about what's going on.

NNAMDIWell, I think -- I think what they would say is that that's exactly what they do.

RAYKojo, I disagree with you. I going to say the coverage of the Vietnam War was much more clear and honest compared to the -- any conflict happened in the last two decades.

NNAMDIOkay.

RAYAnd, as a result, I going to say the general opinion going to shape based on what they going to hear and what they going to see.

NNAMDIOkay.

RAYAnd think that the pictures are graphic, so we going to have -- we not going to publish them. There is a question, so then what is not going to be graphic.

NNAMDIWell, you -- we're running out of time, but you enter an interesting debate. And that is whether or not the graphic nature of photographs do have an impact on whether or not people's opinions about a war are different. And that's another conversation that we'll have to have on another occasion, because we're almost out of time. But time enough for Joe in Washington D.C. to get a word in. Joe, you have about one minute left. Hi, Joe, are you there?

JOEHi, how are you?

NNAMDIWe're well.

JOEGood, good. You brought up the question about the SAT and ACT?

NNAMDIYes, we did.

JOEI just want to tell you that I really enjoy your show and I like it. You brought up a good point. I don't think so, SAT really is a good measure for students, you know, for evaluation. For example, my daughter was in high school. You know, she did very well and she had, you know, very good point average. But she wasn't a very good big -- big test taker. Therefore, you know, and these colleges now, they evaluate based on that. I mean, they should not just emphasize on SAT. They should look at other status too, just like if you are (word?)

NNAMDII think you make a very good point. I had a son who, himself, was not a very good test taker, but somehow ended up going to college and doing very well.

JOEYes, they are not testing -- when they go to these big exams, they might freak out, you know? Therefore...

NNAMDIThey do get nervous. But I'm afraid that's all the time we have. Joe, thank you very much for your call. And thanks to all of you who participated in this edition of 'Your Turn,' "The Kojo Nnamdi Show." It's produced by Michael Martinez, Ingalisa Schrobsdorff, Tayla Burney, Kathy Goldgeier, Elizabeth Weinstein, and Stephanie Stokes. Brendan Sweeney is the managing producer. The engineer is Erin. When you're really famous, you don't need last names. Okay, Erin Stamper. Natalie Yuravlivker is on the phones. Podcasts of all shows, audio archives and free transcripts are available at our website, kojoshow.org. Thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIComing up tomorrow on The Politics Hour, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe is in studio to talk about ethics, Medicaid and transportation in the Old Dominion, plus the latest showdown over the D.C. budget and the new marijuana law in Maryland. The Politics Hour, tomorrow at Noon on WAMU 88.5 and streaming at kojoshow.org. And for listeners in Ocean City, Md., it's Coastal Connection, with Bryan Russo.