Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Minnesota Viking Kicker and straight ally Chris Kluwe calls in at 7:30pm to talk about Jason Collins, the first gay professional athlete to come out

• Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast calls in at 8pm to talk about why the GOP is doing even worse with African Americans

• Australian Rugby Star turned Actor Ian Roberts calls in at 8:30pm to talk about how coming out in 1995 changed his life and where he is at 18 years later

• President Barack Obama on Tuesday forcefully defended his policy toward Syria, his handling of the Boston Marathon bombing, the future of Obamacare and even his political relevance in a wide-ranging press conference 100 days into his second term. He also again promised to close Gitmo.

• Massachusetts primary voters on Tuesday picked Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Gabriel Gomez as their candidates in the June 25 special election, the second such race the state has seen in three years

• Relatives of the dead suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it, an uncle said as officials in both Washington and Russia deepened their investigations into him and his ties.

• A new Kaiser Foundation poll indicates many Americans are still unclear about the details of Affordable Care Actand, in some cases, unaware it’s actually law of the land.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Gay P.R. guru Howard Bragman calls in at 8pm to talk about NBA player Jason Collins coming out and making history at the first openly gay pro athlete

• Charlie Pierce of Esquire’s Politics Blog calls in at 8:30pm to talk about diluted gun control, and Jason Collins’ historic announcement

• Investigators have found female DNA on at least one of the bombs used in the Boston Marathon attacks. FBI agents have removed bags of evidence including DNA samples from the home where Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow has been living.

• Prosecutors and lawyers for surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have begun very early discussions about a possible deal, in which he would cooperate in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, legal sources said Monday.

• Jason Collins received an outpouring of support and admiration from the sporting world and many other influential voices on Monday after announcing he was gay. The 12-year NBA veteran became the first active player in a major men’s North American team sport to announce his homosexuality.

• Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expressed doubts that the nation’s highest court should have ruled on the controversial Bush v. Gore case that decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• The Rude Pundit calls in at 7:30pm to talk about the latest in gun control and the Boston Bombings

• Eric Boehlert, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, calls in at 8pm to talk about media coverage in the Boston Bombings

• Rev. Jim Wallis, CEO of Sojourners, joins us in the Los Angeles Bureau at 9pm to talk about his new book, “On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good”

• The Boston Bombings suspects’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son.

• President Barack Obama chided Republicans on Saturday for approving a plan to ease air-traffic delays caused by federal spending cuts while leaving budget cuts that affect children and the elderly untouched.

• A national group of prominent GOP donors that supports gay marriage is pouring new money into lobbying efforts to get Republican lawmakers to vote to make it legal.

• Journalists, celebrities, and politicos converged in D.C. Saturday night for the 2013 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, laughing along as President Obama and Conan O’Brien took the stage to skewer targets in Washington, Hollywood, and beyond.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Darren Criss (Blaine on “Glee”) calls in at 7:50pm to talk about his upcoming 16-city North American tour

• Comedian and author Richard Belzer calls in at 9pm to talk about the Boston Bombings and about the gun control controversy

• Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was transferred to prison Friday from the hospital where he had been held since his arrest by police a week ago.

• New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters Thursday that the surviving suspect in last week’s marathon blasts that killed three and wounded scores more told investigators that he and his brother were targeting New York next.

• President Obama, standing before a line of flag-draped coffins, consoled family and friends on Thursday at a memorial service for firefighters killed in a massive explosion last week at a Texas fertilizer plant.

• The Senate moved quickly Thursday evening to help ease the Federal Aviation Administration’s ability to handle automatic spending cuts set forth in the sequester. The House takes up the bill today.

• President Obama and the other four living presidents along with other dignitaries gathered in Dallas to mark the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library on the campus of Southern Methodist University.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Karl Frisch of Bullfight Strategies calls in at 7pm to talk about the Far Right’s response to the Boston Bombings

• The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings acknowledged to the FBI his role in the attacks but did so before he was advised of his constitutional right to keep quiet and seek a lawyer, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

• With deep federal spending cuts known as the sequester beginning to affect air travel and forcing some public-sector layoffs, the White House on Wednesday seemed to offer public support for Sen. Harry Reid’s proposal to temporarily pay down the sequester without generating new tax revenue.

• The number of U.S. states allowing gay marriage is set to enter double digits now that Rhode Island’s state Senate has taken a landmark vote. Legislation allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed passed Wednesday evening by a comfortable 26-12 margin. Gov. Lincoln Chafee said he will sign it into law.

• All the living American presidents past and present are gathering in Dallas, a rare reunion to salute one of their own at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center today.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Lawmakers are asking tough questions about how the government tracked suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev when he traveled to Russia last year, renewing criticism from after the Sept. 11 attacks that failure to share intelligence may have contributed to last week’s deadly assault.

• A man accused of plotting with al-Qaida members in Iran to derail a train in Canada was due to appear in a Toronto court Wednesday after declaring at his initial court appearance that the charges against him are unfair. Law enforcement officials in the U.S. said the target was a train that runs between New York City and Canada.

• Charges were dropped Tuesday against the Mississippi man suspected of mailing ricin-laced letters to President Obama and other public officials — as authorities searched the home of another man hoping to find clues in the expanding investigation.

• On Tuesday, hackers took over the Associated Press Twitter account and falsely claimed that there had been explosions at the White House and that the president was hurt. The tweet was up for a few minutes before Twitter took the account offline.

• The Justice Department late Tuesday formally filed its case against Lance Armstrong and his company Tailwind Sports for millions of dollars that the U.S. Postal Service spent to sponsor the cycling team.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Charlie Pierce of Esquire’s Politics Blog calls in at 8:30pm to talk about the politicization of the Boston Marathon Bombings

• Matthew Breen, Editor-In-Chief of “The Advocate”, joins us in the Los Angeles Bureau at 9:30pm to talk about the Boy Scouts’ movement on allowing gays

• The hospitalized Boston Marathon bombing suspect charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction has told investigators that he and his brother were motivated by religion but were not in contact with overseas terrorists or groups, officials said.

• Two men face a bail hearing today after their arrest on charges of plotting a terrorist attack against a Canadian passenger train with support from al-Qaida elements in Iran, authorities said. The case has raised questions about Shiite-led Iran’s murky relationship with the predominantly Sunni Arab terrorist network.

• Flight delays piled up all along the East Coast Monday as thousands of air traffic controllers were forced to take an unpaid day off because of federal sequester budget cuts.

• River flooding that’s already swamping part of the Midwest from Oklahoma to Michigan could get worse today and Wednesday with more rain and snow spreading over the region.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• The Rude Pundit calls in at 7:30pm to talk about what he missed during last week’s busy news week

• Eric Boehlert, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, calls in at 8pm to talk about media coverage of last week’s Boston Marathon bombings

• The legendary Lily Tomlin calls in at 9:30pm to talk about the debut of her new HBO documentary, “An Apology To Elephants”

• Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is awake and “responding sporadically in writing to questions … about other cell members and other unexploded bombs, ” law enforcement sources told ABC News on Sunday evening.

• President Barack Obama late Friday praised Boston police and law enforcement cooperation for their week-long response to the Boston Marathon bombings and acknowledged “many unanswered questions” about what drove the suspects to violence.

• The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Source: stephaniemiller.com

• Sexy Liberal John Fugelsang joins us in the New York Bureau at 9pm for Fridays With Fugelsang

• A late-night police chase and shootout has ended with one Boston Marathon bombing suspect dead and another on the run, police said early Friday morning. One police officer was killed and another was seriously wounded during the violent spree.

• President Barack Obama on Thursday delivered a message in Boston to those in the city touched by Monday’s deadly bombings, as well as to individuals worldwide watching the country’s response: We will persevere.

• Blocked by Congress from expanding gun sale background checks, President Barack Obama is turning to actions within his own power to keep people from buying a gun who are prohibited for mental health reasons.

• Members of the “Gang of Eight” promoted their 844-page immigration bill, which was released earlier in the week, on Capitol Hill Thursday. It’s the product of months of intense private negotiations that supporters say will secure the borders and provide a path to legality for nearly 12 million people currently living in the nation illegally.

• Rescuers searched on Thursday for survivors in the rubble of homes destroyed by a fiery fertilizer plant explosionin a rural Texas town that the mayor said had killed at least 14 people.