The Politics Guys

Mike talks with Jim Jonas, a founding director of the [National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers](https://nonpartisanreformers.org/) and co-founder of Colorado Independent Voters. Jim is an experienced political, public affairs and corporate communication consultant based in Denver, Colorado. For the last decade he's helped create and manage a wide variety of entrepreneurial, disruptive politi...

The show opens with Mike and Jay discussing the aftermath of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. Mike takes issue with the inflammatory rhetoric of NRA head Wayne LaPierre, and while Jay agrees, he points out that there are those on the left who are equally inflammatory. In terms of policy proposals, Mike points out how rare schools shootings are, the d...

Mike and Jay lead off the show with Mike arguing that in the aftermath of tragic events, like the recent school shooting in Florida, we're far too quick to rush to judgment and far too eager to believe that incompetence or malfeasance is the cause. He argues that we should look to institutional structures, incentives, and resources which are, in his view, more commonly at fault. After that, Mike a...

This week’s show opens with Trey introducing a new voice for the left: Ken Katkin, , a professor of law at Northern Kentucky University, who's stepping in to give Mike the week off (and to give listeners the week off from Mike ). The two then move into the tragedy in South Florida this week. The two open by talking about the FBI’s potential shortcomings as noted by Governor Rick Scott. They then m...

Mike talks with Ganesh Sitaraman, a professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School and a senior fellow at the [Center for American Progress](https://www.americanprogress.org/). He's a longtime advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren, serving as her policy director and senior counsel. Professor Sitaraman has commented on foreign and domestic policy in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Boston Globe,...

This week's show opens with Mike and Jay discussing President Trump's decision to not allow the release of the Democratic response to the memo released last week by House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes. While the FBI and Department of Justice voiced concerns with releasing the Democrats' response, Mike points out that they also raised concerns about the Republican memo, which the Preside...

Mike and Jay start the show by addressing listener comments, starting with a criticism of their recent discussion of reproductive rights, which several listeners said was sorely lacking in nuance. They also get into the extent to which they follow world politics, President Trump's racism, and podcasts they recommend (well, podcasts Mike recommends - Jay's pretty much a one podcast guy). After that...

This week's show opens with Mike and Jay's discussion of the 'Nunes Memo', in which the GOP majority of the House Intelligence Committee suggests that the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page using highly questionable evidence. Jay believes that it's important for this information to come out, while Mike argues that the GOP was wrong to release what he believe...

Mike talks with Susan Jacoby, an independent scholar specializing in the history of reason, atheism, secularism, and religious liberty. She's the bestselling author of 12 books, including '[Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism](http://amzn.to/2FnHx9T)' and 'The Age of American Unreason', which just came out in a new, updated edition titled ['The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of L...

This week, disaster struck The Politics Guys. Well, okay, maybe not disaster exactly, but a truly nasty flu bug felled Trey late in the week. We'd planned to have Trey run the show along with a special more far left than Mike guest co-host, but that all fell apart when Trey's thermometer hit 105 yesterday afternoon. (He got some good drugs and is feeling slightly better today.)  Mike and Jay had p...

Mike talks with University of Maryland sociology professor Dana R. Fisher about her research on activism and protests, the Women's March, who protests and why, whether protests can drive real political change, differences between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, and lots more.  [Follow Dr. Fisher on Twitter](https://twitter.com/Fisher_DanaR) ** Show Notes** [The Women's March](https://www.wom...

This week's show starts off with the story everyone's been talking about - the government shutdown. Mike and Jay largely stay away from the blame game consuming most of the media, and try to focus on why both parties did what they did and the role President Trumps leadership (or lack thereof) played. Next, Mike and Jay discuss the 2018 March for Life, as well as some recent actions taken by the Tr...

In this listener mail episode (really more of a listener mail, Facebook, Twitter, and politicsguys.com site comment episode) Mike and Jay respond to listener comments concerning: * Why Republicans like Jay aren't nearly as respectful of facts as Democrats are (Jay disagrees, as you might expect)  * Why The Politics Guys isn't more diverse, and whether or not the lack of a liberal further to the le...

Mike's back with his second food politics episode. This time, he reads [his post on the politics of farm labor](http://politicsguys.com/the-politics-of-farm-labor/) , getting into who works on America's farms (mostly immigrants), how willing Americans are to do farm labor (not very, for understandable reasons), why nearly half of all farm labor is done by undocumented immigrants, abuses of immigra...

Mike and Jay open the show with a discussion of everything that's been happening on the immigration front this week, including the Trump administration's decision to not extend temporary protected status to nearly 200,000 Salvadorians, a federal judge's ruling that DACA must continue until the courts rule on it, and the potential immigration deal that blew up amid President Trump's remarks about '...

Mike talks with attorney Scott Oswald, a managing principal at [The Employment Law Group](https://www.employmentlawgroup.com). Scott has extensive experience with whistleblower, employment discrimination, and wrongful termination cases, regularly lectures on employment and whistleblower law, and has authored numerous articles on federal and state whistleblower and employment law protections. Mike...

In our first show of 2018 Mike and Trey look at what they thought would be a quiet week in the news that quickly exploded. First they look at the unexpected offer by Kim Jong Un to talks between North and South Korea. Then the hosts turn their attention to the emergence of protests in Iran and look at the similarities and differences between the 2009 and 2018 protests. After this weeks foreign pol...

Mike talks with Josh Silver, Director and co-founder of [Represent. Us](https://represent.us/) , a nonprofit organization that brings together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to pass powerful anti-corruption laws that stop political bribery, end secret money, and fix our broken elections. Mike and Josh discuss why so many reformers take a left-wing approach, how big of a probl...

Mike and Jay aren't doing their regular Saturday show today, but instead of giving you nothing this weekend Mike thought he'd try an experiment. As you might know, [Mike started a blog](http://politicsguys.com/mike/) not too long ago. One reader suggested that he do it as a sort of mini-podcast as well. That sounded like a reasonable idea, and so he gave it a try. This is the result (for better or...

Mike, Jay, and Trey have been talking about the GOP tax bill since early November, and this week it finally became the GOP tax law, after President Trump signed the measure before departing for his Christmas vacation. Mike and Jay summarize their views on the legislation and make some predictions as to how it's likely to play out. After that they discuss the United Nations General Assembly's vote...

Mike talks with Dr. Bob Pendleton, Chief Medical Officer at University of Utah Health. They discuss the school's recently released 'Value in Health Care Survey' (https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/value/) which asked patients, doctors, and employers across the country about about their perceptions of value in health care and how they prioritize quality, service, and cost of health care services. Mike and...

This week Trey rejoins Michael after finishing the fall semester at Daytona State College. The first topic of conversation is the Alabama special Senate election. Trey and Michael discuss the implications of a Jones win, a Moore loss, and what the exit polling data tell us about the future. They then turn to Net Neutrality briefly before moving to the biggest week’s news: the GOP tax bill. With th...

Mike welcomes back to the show political scientist and American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Norman Ornstein. They talk about his latest book: One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported. Mike and Dr. Ornstein discuss why Donald Trump’s victory does and doesn’t mean, whether ‘presidential demeanor’ really matters, if Presid...

Today's show, which Mike does solo, is a radical departure from the normal format. That's not because Mike went renegade and ditched Jay's conservative counterweight or that Jay quit in disgust at Mike's liberalism. Mike and Jay actually did record a show, but due to a major issue that affected both the main and backup recording, Jay's end of the conversation was essentially unlistenable. (New equ...

Mike talks with historian Ray Raphael about his latest book, The U.S. Constitution: Explained - Clause by Clause - For Every American Today. Ray argues thatboth sides are wrong about the 2nd Amendment, explains why there's no such thing as an Constitutional Originalist, discusses whether or not the Constitution is outdated, and lots more. Ray Raphael on the web | http://www.rayraphael.com/ Listene...