OK, there's no escaping the onslaught of eye-crossingly crappy news, but at least we can try to laugh about it. Andrew Heaton is a comedian, author, and political satirist, and the host of “The Political Orphanage” comedy and news podcast (plus the scifi deep dive podcast “Alienating the Audience” -- go ahead nerds, you know you wanna). Plus he’s the author of 3 best-selling political satire books including Los Angeles is Hideous: Poetry About An Ugly City . And he's a former congressional staff...
May 19, 2022•43 min
Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money walks through what the earnings from big retailers like Walmart says about how businesses, consumers, and the market are reacting to inflation...and what we can expect later this year. Also, how companies are trying to keep their customers amid rising prices, and who is raising prices because they know they can keep their customers.
May 18, 2022•25 min
After we finished recording a really terrific, eye-opening episode with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on how dark money drives Republican candidates and conservative judges to the hard right on issues like guns and abortion, former Congressman Paul Hodes and Matt Robison had a short follow up conversation to digest what we had just heard, why it matters so much, and to provide a little insight from Paul into what goes on behind the scenes in Congress on an issue like this. Photo by Sivani B on Unsp...
May 17, 2022•20 min
The right wing takeover of the Supreme Court by hand-picked ideologues -- who are now on the cusp of overturning Roe v. Wade -- was a carefully orchestrated effort funded by a flood of "dark money." In just the last 8 years, investigators have identified at least $580 million of those hidden funds, channeled through a tangled network of right wing groups. But even more disturbing is what we don't know: where these funds come from, whose interests both foreign and domestic they represent, and how...
May 16, 2022•25 min
The draft opinion that would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling has led to a torrent of analysis about how this moment culminates a five decade-long quest for the religious and ideological right wing in this country to accomplish their most cherished goal. But that history is wrong. Dr. Randall Balmer of Dartmouth College has written extensively about the religious right and he says that under closer examination, the real driver of the story over the last five decades was not really aborti...
May 09, 2022•43 min
Even though it was widely anticipated, the release of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade sent a jolt through America. But the opinion itself is a maze of choppy logic, invented legal tests, and cherry picked precedents - an exercise in stretching an argument to reach a preordained conclusion. To understand what is going on and the impact it could have, we turn to Kimberly Whele , a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a former Assistant US Att...
May 05, 2022•42 min
What is up with the market falling off a cliff? The NASDAQ is off to its worst start of any year this century . Netflix is way down. Tesla shareholders are nervous about Elon's Twitter adventure. And yet the"aristocrats" of American industry keep delivering. Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money explains.
May 04, 2022•20 min
Why does it seem like so many Republicans are trying to be Tucker Carlson these days? Because consciously or not, they are. Imitating Carlson's playbook of explosive provocation has become the go-to move for aspiring politicians on the right. Jason Zengerle, the outstanding New York Times Magazine Writer at Large and author of the recent analysis The Rise of the Tucker Carlson Politician , explains why this is happening and what it says about how the Republican party and media landscape has chan...
May 02, 2022•42 min
When I read the news that longtime US senator Orrin Hatch at passed away at the age of 88, I thought of only one person: Eric Loomis (@ErikLoomis) Associate Professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. Eric just wrote a deep dive on The Editorial Board on Hatch's complicated legacy, one that was at times surprising for someone with a reputation of being a relative moderate with some real bipartisan accomplishments. Senator Hatch's career provides a lens into the evolution of the Repub...
Apr 28, 2022•41 min
Matt Robison joins AJ Kierstead on WKXL's The New England Take to break down why the Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post Vs. "Libs of Tiktok" story became such a fact-free partisan spin cycle of stupid. Also, Matt defends his take on President Biden's first year grade (yep, the grade was A+) in light of continuing revelations about the end of the Trump presidency....
Apr 27, 2022•43 min
Today, in America, the system is blinking red. Experts are sounding increasingly dire alarms that our politics have become so distorted by anger, partisanship, lies, manipulation, and disinformation – not to mention deliberate steps to subvert American elections – that American democracy itself is in real peril. There may be no more widely respected expert on election law and the role of disinformation that Rick Hasen. He's a Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California...
Apr 25, 2022•44 min
Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money, the #1 stock investing radio show in America, joins to look at the biggest business and financial stories including Elon Musk vs. Twitter, the clever things Amazon is doing to position itself, the end of mask mandates on airlines, and the big storylines coming out of earnings season.
Apr 22, 2022•25 min
Recently, it's been clear that we’ve entered a new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s just not clear exactly what this phase is, or where we’re going from here. Are we in even worse shape than we thought on Covid, or for the next pandemic that is inevitably coming? Whenever we wonder about questions like this, we think of Donald G. McNeil, Jr. Throughout much of the pandemic, for millions of readers and podcast listeners in the US and around the world, he has been one of the most trusted, thou...
Apr 21, 2022•40 min
Also, even more texts to Mark Meadows come out...how many people were texting this guy about the insurrection?!? The end of mask mandates, but forever? And why are Republicans holding off on Senator Maggie Hassan?
Apr 20, 2022•44 min
With so much legal news, we're thrilled to finally bring you one of the really bright minds in legal and political commentary, Kimberly Atkins Stohr. She's a senior opinion writer and columnist for the Boston Globe, an MSNBC contributor, and co-host of the podcast #SistersInLaw (with our previous guest Joyce Vance). We tackle the true impact of Kentanji Brown Jackson, insurrection texts, seditious conspiracy, Merrick Garland, pulling out all the available legal tools on guns, the CROWN Act, and ...
Apr 18, 2022•41 min
It's time for one of the most fun, refreshing, and mind-bending recurring segments on this show, where Matt talks with the SKYGUY, John S. Gianforte, an astronomer and Director of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Observatory. In this episode, we cover the furthest (and oldest) galaxy ever seen which is right at the very edge of the observable universe, the oldest known star, the thousands of new planets that we have discovered, and much more.
Apr 14, 2022•42 min
Michaeleen Crowell was Chief of Staff to US Senator Bernard Sanders, Legislative Director for civil rights icon John Lewis (GA-5) for 8 years and is now Principal at S-3 Group , a bipartisan consulting and communications firm in DC. We dive in to whether Dems are getting a lot more done than people realize, what the family of Martin Luther King wants people to understand about the civil rights leader, and what the prospects are for voting protection, a BBB successor bill, and getting anything el...
Apr 11, 2022•43 min
Yes! This idea seemed a little...out there...when I saw the headline for an article on The Editorial Board. Then I read it, and I was halfway convinced. So I had writer Noah Berlatsky on the show today to explain, and he got me fully convinced. Listen to the episode, and let me know what you think at @MattLRobison on Twitter.
Apr 08, 2022•18 min
In the past two weeks, we've learned a lot more about the role of Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, behind the scenes in the runup to the January 6 insurrection. Matt joins West Virginia broadcasting legend Howard Monroe to talk about just how deep this goes. Also, Howard and Matt discuss a congressional ethics scandal and where to draw the line on how members of congress use their staff and their campaign funds.
Apr 07, 2022•25 min
Neil Levesque oversees the Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll, one of the most respected polls in any swing state in the country. Their newest survey shows an uptick in voter mood over the past two months, creating some hopeful signs for Democratic incumbents facing re-election, including in the most-watched Senate race in the country. So what's going on here, how much further do Dems need to go to pull things out in 2022, and what issues are driving the discussion heading into the summer? ...
Apr 04, 2022•43 min
According to Jason Sattler, better known to his army of Twitter followers as @LOLGOP and a former columnist and member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, "Marjorie Taylor Greene could marry Hunter Biden, put her pronouns on her Twitter bio and give herself a real-time abortion on Tucker Carlson’s desk while wearing a rainbow-colored N95 mask – she’d still win." So why are Dems giving her opponent so much darn money? This question, which he posed in a great article on The Editorial Board , p...
Mar 31, 2022•43 min
Matt catches up with Chris Hill, host of Motley Fool Money, and what's going on in business: an unsettled market that might be finding its footing, what the CODA Oscar win means for the big streamers, the future of Uber, and the wild story of what Fred Smith did for the shipping business.
Mar 30, 2022•25 min
In the summer of 2014, Washington Post Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian and his wife were arrested and held as hostages in order for the Iranian government to be able to exert leverage in its negotiations with the US. Ultimately imprisoned for 544 days, 100 longer than the US hostages seized in 1979, Jason has since continued his reporting and analysis on similar cases, including in his book “ Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison .” Recently, he teamed with producer Kate Woodsome to crea...
Mar 28, 2022•44 min
Isaac Saul left a career writing for some of the biggest media outlets - including Time Magazine, Vox, and The New York Daily News - to found Tangle , an independent, ad-free, nonpartisan newsletter that has been recognized by The New York Times, Forbes, and Substack as one of the most successful political newsletters on the internet with over 35,000 daily readers. Tangle breaks out of the usual partisan mold by giving readers a summary and the strongest arguments from each side of an issue, alo...
Mar 24, 2022•46 min
In a rare host-only episode, Paul and Matt dive into what's going on with Dem's maneuvers to boot Iowa from the early presidential nominating process, and whether the entire system should be blown up. Also, are we fighting a war against autocrats both abroad and at home? Remembering colorful Congressman Don Young. And should we make Daylight Savings Time permanent?
Mar 21, 2022•43 min
What happens to people who were deeply enmeshed in politics once they move "beyond politics?" What perspective do they gain working in our government and political system that applies to the normie world, and how does living in the rest of the world change their perspective on politics? Cicely Simpson served as the Legislative Director for two Congressmen on Capitol Hill, and then became Executive Vice President of Public Affairs at the National Restaurant Association, where she was recognized b...
Mar 17, 2022•44 min
In 1989, Elaine Kamarck wrote a blunt wake-up call to Democrats, saying: “Too many Americans have come to see the party as inattentive to their economic interests, indifferent if not hostile to their moral sentiments, and ineffective in defense of their national security.” That missive helped steer the party back Presidential success. She has now published a widely circulated and much discussed follow-up called “The New Politics of Evasion: How Ignoring Swing Voters Could Reopen the Door for Don...
Mar 14, 2022•43 min
Chris Hill, host of Motley Fool Money, the #1 stock investing radio show in America, explains why the down market won't be like March 2020 this time around. Also, why is Disney+ adding a subscription with ads, and are baseball owners the dumbest business leaders in America?
Mar 11, 2022•25 min
Max Bergmann (@maxbergmann) is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former senior State Department official who is an expert on US-Europe-Russia relations. He takes us inside what is probably going on in the State Department, the White House, and other agencies right now as they make major decisions on issues like the Russian oil ban, no fly zone, and other moves to counter Russia in its war with Ukraine. How does the process work, who does what, and how much more have gover...
Mar 10, 2022•53 min
Jim Clyburn is the Majority Whip in the United States House of Representatives, the third-ranking Democrat, and one of the top leaders of our country. In 2020, his decision to endorse then-candidate Joe Biden was probably more responsible than any other single act for Biden winning the nomination, defeating Donald Trump, and saving America. Congressman Clyburn takes us behind the scenes of that dramatic moment and through some other great stories that you've never heard before.
Mar 07, 2022•40 min
