Hello and welcome to this late political gab fest for the 22nd of October.

I'm John Dickerson, Washington with David Plotz.

Emily Bazelon is in New Haven.

We're sorry she's not with us.

We enjoyed last week being together in New York.

But today we are going to talk about politics, our first topic. Then our second

topic is going to be Ginny Thomas, the dialing wife of Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice.

Then we'll also talk about Juan Williams, his departure, forced departure from National Public Radio,

and finally European austerity in Britain and in France,

and what it may or may not tell us about our own politics.

But before we get into all of that, either David or Emily has a message from our new sponsor.

It's such great news.

I have two messages, in fact, listen closely.

We have a new sponsor.

It's TIA CREF and TIACREF, helping people create a plan for their financial future for over 90 years.

And you can look for information online at become your future you.org.

And one of the things we love about TIACREF is that TIACREF is sponsoring a live political gab fest in Ann Arbor on November 10th. We've talked about that

live show before, and we haven't given you details because we've been trying to confirm our date,

and we have now confirmed it. Everything's confirmed. November 10th, 6 p.m. at the University of Michigan

Law School. If you go to slate.com slash Michigan, they will give you

information about how to sign up thanks to TIACraft sponsorship. Tickets are free, but you do need to

register. And please come, bring friends. And it's going to be great. We're going to try to have

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