Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show

Star Trek has been part of Dave Bowman’s life since childhood. Remembering Walter Koenig and Patrick Stewart brings him back to the characters, stories, and lessons that stayed with him through Navy service, fatherhood, and decades of watching the Enterprise explore the unknown. A conversation with his son Ben opens a personal reflection on Chekov, Captain Kirk, and Jean-Luc Picard, from the humor...

Did somebody mistake an Eddie Murphy comedy for a campaign manual? Dave Bowman opens with The Distinguished Gentleman and Alaska’s two Dan Sullivans, examining an alleged election spoiler scheme, Trump’s demands for prosecution, and a similar namesake stunt in Washington state. Deliberately confusing voters deserves scrutiny regardless of which party tries it. Then, baseball’s looming labor showdo...

What does government by the people mean when voters approve an initiative and the fight immediately moves to court? On this episode of Plausibly Live: The Dave Bowman Show , Dave examines Washington’s battles over natural gas policy, taxes, girls’ sports, and the possibility of public power in Kitsap County. He explains why election coverage finally drove him to turn off the morning news, while ar...

By Christmas 1776, George Washington’s army was running out of men and time. Months of defeat had driven the Americans across New Jersey, enlistments were about to expire, and Washington feared the Revolution was nearing its end. His response was an attack that depended on crossing an ice-choked river in a winter storm. In this episode of Dave Does History , Dave Bowman follows Washington’s crossi...

Doctors warned that Bowman’s newborn sister might not survive. Deanna lived for 49 years, becoming a Special Olympian, an enthusiastic storyteller, and a beloved presence whose friendships reached far beyond her family. On this deeply personal episode of Plausibly Live, The Dave Bowman Show, Dave remembers his sister and reflects on Down syndrome, disability, faith, and the worth of every human li...

Ilhan Omar says “Not to my knowledge,” a Scottish museum needs a mummy’s consent, and somebody in Los Angeles thought feeding a coyote was a good idea. Dave Bowman has questions, coffee, and very little patience for the explanations. On this episode of Plausibly Live – The Dave Bowman Show , Dave takes a skeptical look at Omar’s interview, disputed marriage allegations, financial disclosure questi...

When religious conviction meets political ambition, wheredoes faith end and constitutional responsibility begin? On this October 22, 2026, episode of Plausibly Live ,Dave Bowman examines religious liberty, Washington politics, transgenderathletes in girls' sports, and the uncomfortable questions that arise whenpersonal beliefs collide with public policy. The Preacher and the Witch: Washington...

Plausibly Live | The Dave Bowman Show | October 21, 2026 France is erupting in violence. North Korea's dictator may be dead. And somehow, the NFL has managed to turn the national anthem into a musical disaster. It's another perfectly ordinary day on Plausibly Live . In France, what began as student protests over education funding has escalated into widespread riots, thousands of arrests, a...

Thomas Paine's The American Crisis : The Words That Helped Save the American Revolution | Dave Does History “These are the times that try men's souls.” In December 1776, the American Revolution was on the verge of collapse. George Washington's Continental Army had been driven from New York, British forces dominated New Jersey, enlistments were expiring, and Americans were beginning to...

What happens when one political party has occupied the governor's office for more than four decades, the state keeps demanding more money, and even the Republican party starts telling voters to elect Democrats? Welcome to Washington State politics. On this episode of Plausibly Live , Dave Bowman begins with a simple question prompted by a handful of campaign flyers and his morning coffee: Afte...

Plausibly Live with Dave Bowman | October 16, 2026 What do a high school cross-country protest, the search forNoah's Ark, and the Los Angeles Dodgers' playoff elimination have in common? They're all raising questions about fairness, tradition, and what we choose tobelieve. On this episode of Plausibly Live , Dave Bowman beginsin Washington State, where female athletes from Camas and Ba...

Who decides what's best for your children: You or Ron DeSantis? And why does a man who walked on the Moon believe UFOs are actually demons? On today's Plausibly Live , Dave Bowman examines Florida's controversial social media restrictions for minors and the growing conflict between parental rights, government authority, and personal liberty. Protecting children matters, but shouldn&#39...

Has the Heisman Trophy Become Meaningless? What happens when two interceptions become more important than an entire football season? Following Oklahoma's 27–24 victory over Texas, Dave Bowman takes aim at the media frenzy surrounding Arch Manning and the Heisman Trophy. Has college football's most prestigious individual award become little more than a publicity contest driven by television...

Two Ships Against an Empire: 251 Years of the United States Navy On October 13, 1981, Dave Bowman reported to Navy boot camp in San Diego, California, exactly 206 years after the Continental Congress authorized the first vessels of the United States Navy. Forty-five years later, that personal anniversary provides the starting point for a special Navy birthday edition of Dave Does History on The Bi...

Was Christopher Columbus a hero, a villain, or something farmore complicated? On Columbus Day 2026, Dave Bowman challenges the popularmythology surrounding the voyage of 1492 and asks whether modern culture hasforgotten how to recognize human achievement without ignoring human failure. Columbus didn't prove the Earth was round. EducatedEuropeans already knew that. His mathematics weren't n...

What existed before there was light? And what does Genesis really mean when it describes the Earth as "without form and void"? For thousands of years, the opening words of Genesis have shaped humanity's understanding of Creation. But buried within the familiar English translation of Genesis 1:2 are two extraordinary Hebrew words: Tohu va-Vohu . In this episode of Plausibly Live: The...

Stephen A. Smith has built a career on outrageous opinions, confrontational sports commentary, and an ego large enough to fill an ESPN studio. But his remarks about Philadelphia Eagles star Lane Johnson's retirement crossed a line that even sports entertainment shouldn't cross. After Johnson announced his retirement, citing family priorities and mental health concerns, Smith mocked his exp...

A conversation between a father and his son begins with a deceptively simple question: What do you think about banning books? The answer turns out to have very little to do with books and almost everything to do with liberty. On this episode of Plausibly Live , Dave Bowman considers what it really means to believe in self-determination when the people we love, including our own children, may reach...

In October 1776, the American Revolution was in serious trouble. Washington was retreating, New York had fallen, the Continental Army was struggling to survive, and Congress desperately needed money, weapons, ships, and international support. So it entrusted an extraordinary mission to a seventy-year-old Benjamin Franklin: cross the Atlantic and persuade France to gamble on the United States. In t...

There is an old Yes, Minister observation that it can be more expensive to do things cheaply. Government seems unusually talented at proving the point. When voters demand that government spend less, eliminate a perk, lower a tax, or change a policy, the result doesn't always resemble what they thought they were buying. Take away California legislators' taxpayer-funded cars and another expe...

A listener asks a surprisingly reasonable question: If fentanyl kills thousands of Americans, why isn’t it used for executions? From there, we follow fifty cents through a convenience-store cash register and ask what happens when an overcharge isn’t just taking money from a customer, but from taxpayers and SNAP recipients. Then there’s AI medicine. Can artificial intelligence really provide a “sec...

Tennessee tried to execute Christa Gail Pike, administered every dose permitted by its protocol, and failed. Whatever one thinks of Pike’s brutal murder of Colleen Slemmer or of capital punishment itself, the state claimed the ultimate governmental power and demonstrated that it could not exercise that power competently. Dave examines the Eighth Amendment, the staggering cost and inconsistency of...

Sometimes you need a break from everything you're supposed to be angry about. For Dave, one of those escapes has always been Two and a Half Men , or more precisely, the Charlie Sheen years. The first eight seasons worked because Charlie Harper was more than the drunken womanizer the jokes made him out to be. Beneath the booze, women and complete absence of responsibility was a man who repeated...

We remember the American Revolution through its battlefields: Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown. We picture Washington crossing the Delaware, Continental soldiers enduring brutal winters, and British redcoats marching across the colonies. But George Washington was fighting another war at the same time. Smallpox was moving through North America, and the Continental...

What happens when something sounds so absurd that we stop checking whether it’s actually true? On today’s Plausibly Live , a viral headline claims a Columbia professor won an award for a book arguing that white paint is racist. There really is a book called A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint , but the headline leaves out some rather important details. That opens a larger question about...