Beyond Politics

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 rea...

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. 

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 disinform...

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.

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 rea...

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?

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, sed...

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 thousan...

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 righ...

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. 

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 c...

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 n...

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 oppo...

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.

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 “ P...

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 p...

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?

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...

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 fo...

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?

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 Ru...

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 scene...

In 2017 Congressman Steve Israel left Capitol Hill – unindicted and undefeated – at the very pinnacle of politics. He was one of the top ranking Democrats in Congress, widely respected, and on a path to even greater influence. President Bill Clinton called him “one of the most thoughtful Members of Congress.”  So why did he give it up? And how did the reality of Congressional fundraising fact...

Why this war? Why now? And are there fractures behind the scenes within the Kremlin? Sean Carberry served as NPR’s international correspondent based in Kabul, Afghanistan after reporting for NPR from more than two dozen middle eastern and African countries.  He shares what top analysts are thinking about the state of the war in Ukraine, what his colleagues on the ground are focusing on right...

I recently wrote an article for Newsweek in which I pleaded with Democrats to refocus. When we lost the effort to save American democracy in the Senate at the beginning of the month, it was demoralizing. And Democrats shouldn't give up on the federal level. But there's a lot more to government and making change in America than the federal level. Earlier this month when the Ohio Supreme Court threw...