Unf*cking The Republic

Here we are Unf*ckers. It’s our great hope that we contextualize the Chicago School of Economics and its high priest Milton Friedman by alternately expanding our view of the world and narrowing in on crucial moments that changed the course of history. As mentioned in the teaser last week, we’ll give credit where credit is due. At no point will we call into question the intellect or eve...

In this teaser episode we do a quick recap on why the fuck we're so mad at Milton Friedman and briefly summarize prior episodes that are useful primers on our upcoming blowout episode on The Chicago School of Economics. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: unftrpod.com/rate and follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at u...

Today we examine Conscious Capitalism™ as an organization (the trademarked entity) and Conscious Capitalism the movement characterized by the investment concepts of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). This is the final building block as we continue on our collision course with Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. The promise of Consc...

Since 1959, the island nation of Cuba has been giving the middle finger to the United States. Cuba has been in the control of a Castro through thirteen separate presidential administrations and they’ve made it in the most unlikely of ways under the most improbable circumstances. This is episode of UNFTR begins with a slightly different perspective on the 1959 Revolution that has evaded most retell...

The media has been hard at work lately trying to rehabilitate the image of three significant members of the Republican Party. So we’re not going to let them. In today’s Quickie we examine the legacy of George W. Bush, John Boehner and Rick Santorum and remind everyone of just how terrible they are as people and were as politicians. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Appl...

Assange is a complicated figure personally and historically. And he evokes pretty strong reactions on both sides. Mostly though we don’t think about him at all. With the exception of occasional reports whenever there’s an update on his charges or extradition attempts, Assange has been sort of back burnered. Considering the stakes at play for the U.S. media, this should be surprising or even troubl...

We briefly recap what we covered in Part I as a refresher then launch into some of the more egregious examples of how corporations have used their political leverage to create massive tax loopholes and that have left them flush with cash. This preposterous sum of cash has also given corporations the ability to flout regulations they have yet to rewrite by simply paying fines instead of complying w...

Mitch McTurtlefuck recently chastised Corporate America for butting into politics, which we all know is a joke. But it highlights the insidious nature of the relationship between American companies and the U.S. government. One of the biggest grifts of our time isn’t just the rapid rise of the billionaire class in this country, it’s the mechanisms that allow corporations to hide trillions of dollar...

In today’s Quickie we’re taking a look at a developing phenomenon related to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In reality it’s an age-old issue that all powerful women experience. The three separate things happening to AOC take the form of detractors from conservative, moderate and progressive circles. Related, because they all have one thing in common, which will become painfully clear. Pod...

And a good day to you my beloved Unf*ckers. We’re back with another blood-boiling, enraging episode of Unf*cking the Republic. Mass Incarceration: The War on Drugs . It’s a topic that has thankfully come further into the light thanks to the profound work of several organizations such as the Prison Policy Initiative, The Sentencing Project, Innocence Project and more. This episode features a specia...

Despite the occasional reference to poverty statistics or coverage of events like Standing Rock, the plight of Native Americans continues to be a blind spot in our politics. This episode frames the issue of economic justice by examining the historical relationship between sovereign Indian nations and the conquering governments of the U.S. and Canada. While the corporate media obsess over “cancel c...

The United States seems to have lost the ability to govern and has given itself over to the whims of corporations that are designing every inch of our lives, our economy, our domestic and foreign policies and ultimately our national priorities. In between busts in the boom and bust market cycles, we’re only capable of tinkering around the edges. As much as we desperately need another round of stim...

Hey Unf*ckers. We have a new “inter-episode” format - Unf*cking Quickies - meant to parachute into more current events by looking at three different, but related things happening in the world right now. In this inaugural Quickie we take a topical look at three members of the Democratic Party that are having very different experiences of late: embattled New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, failed O.M.B....

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” These are the nine words Ronald Reagan called “terrifying.” Just another brick in the wall of disdain and deflection politicians use to get elected to the government they hate so much. Cascading structural failures in the system appears to give credence to claims of government incompetence but how much of it is actually by design? This week we unfuck...

Congress is a quirky place. The rules are arcane. The people are diverse. The power struggle is real. We take a brief, and sometimes ridiculous journey through history to examine the beating heart of our democracy to find out whether or not Congress has always been this fucked up. We call out some of the best and worst actors in the 117th Congress, why it’s impossible to get anything done these da...

As we covered in our insurrection episode, it’s actually quite difficult to take down an Empire, particularly one as fortified as the United States. But that hasn’t stopped one family from trying. If you haven’t met them yet, it’s our pleasure to introduce you to the Mercer family. The patriarch Robert is a reclusive billionaire—we think—who uses his fortune to fund fun initiatives like, rolling b...

The minute the election was called, the GOP went into high gear reshaping its image for the next cycle. Because nostalgia is its single greatest weapon, they’ll be digging into the archives to revise history once again. Nixon’s still forever off the table. George W. Bush will have Iraq hanging over him for decades to come. Bush Sr. was so forgettable he couldn’t win a second term. So that leaves t...

Is he gone yet? I mean really gone? Okay. Wow. So that happened. Holy shit, what a four years. This episode of Unf*cking The Republic briefly encapsulates the utter shit show that was the Trump administration while pointing out that we ultimately dodged a massive bullet precisely because it was a shit show. But while Trump’s stupidity is ultimately what saved the republic, he left behind a playboo...

On this episode of UNFTR we unfuck the theory of “objectivism,” a movement inspired by novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s and talk about how it still influences our politics today. We’ll uncover how this little Russian chain smoking gnome garnered a massive American following from her crappy novels and inspired generations of politicians who see themselves as the embodiment of John Galt, the protagoni...

Prior to the 20th Century evangelical Christians were seen as the babbling mystics and frauds that they were. Then something happened in the 1920s to legitimize these maniacs. Since then, conservative Christians have been inserting their throbbing dogma into America’s policy womb and transforming the nation. In this episode we trace the journey of the Christian Fundamentalist movement from its ori...

The left claims America is proof that Capitalism is destroying the working class and the planet. The right claims America is proof that Capitalism is the most successful economic model in history. How much do we really understand about Capitalism? In this episode we unfuck Adam Smith’s chief contribution to the world and show how both sides are wrong because America is far from a capitalist econom...

This week in Unf*cking the Republic we dive into U.S. interventions in the post-Vietnam War era. Starting with our recent meddling in Bolivia we work our way through the past few decades to review how the United States has either directly invaded, bombed, helped overthrow the governments of Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Syria, Grenada, Haiti, Cuba, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran, Guatemala...

Greetings fellow unfuckers. A brief interlude to comment on the big election shitshow we just witnessed. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com . Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com . Subscribe to Unf*cking The Republic on Substack at u...

On this episode of Unf*cking the Republic we do a deep dive into the American system of propaganda and pull back the curtain on the tangled web of think tanks, lobbying groups, media organizations and corporations that live to fuck over the American people. We’ll demonstrate how dark money works its way through a labyrinth of special interest groups and emerges as public policy that looks and soun...

While the country wrestles with police brutality and protests, dividing between Black Lives Matter or Back the Blue, a bizarre phenomenon has been unfolding in policing under our noses for decades. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between domestic law enforcement and the military. That’s not by accident. In this episode we unfuck policing in America and find out how civil liberties ar...