In the second episode of Citations Needed, Nima and Adam breakdown the history and present "crisis" on the Korean peninsula.

Episode 02: The North Korea Memory Hole

This week, Alex and Damiano take a trip. This is the conclusion of last week’s episode, Long Distance.

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#103 Long Distance, Part II

With the rise of Trump, Sanders, Corbyn and Brexit, hundreds of pundits, reporters, and talking heads have been warning about the problems of "populism" and its alleged attack on democracy over the past three years.

“Populism and immigration pose major threat to global democracy,” the Gates Foundation insists. “The Dangerous Rise of Populism - Global Attacks on Human Rights Values,“ wrote Human Rights Watch in 2017. “Trump's Rise Proves How Dangerous Populism Is for Democracy” NBC says. “Populism is still a threat to Europe,” The European University Institute tells us.

But what exactly is populism? How is a term that allegedly applies to Hugo Chávez and Bernie Sanders also casually used to describe fascists and far-right forces?

Under the thin, ideology-flattening definition of populism, the term is more often than not used as a euphemism for demagogic cults of personality and fascism and as the ultimate horseshoe theory reduction to lump together movements for equity and justice on the Left with those of revanchism, nationalism and explicit racism on the Right.

We are joined on this episode by writer and historian Thomas Frank.

Episode 42: 'Populism' - The Media’s Favorite Catch-All Smear for the Left

Live from The Bell House in Brooklyn we shovel dirt on Brett Kavanaugh and his many defenders and then from The Met in Pawtucket, RI we discuss the life and times of Providence native son, H.P. Lovecraft, aka the Poster Out of Time

MIDWEST WE'RE COMING FOR YOU

http://chapotraphouse.com/tour/

Chapo Trap House

Episode 246 - Best of New England Live, Part 2 (9/19/18)

Howdy pardners, it's hot as shit and i'm preparing a long episode with research and production and shit. Here's an hour of us riffing on Ghislane Maxwell, 00's television, and Herman Cain.

What If Clone High Still On The Air

The popularity of HGTV house-flipping TV shows can’t be overstated: In the second week of July, HGTV was the fourth highest rated cable network, behind only Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, making it the highest rated entertainment network in the United States. Its most prominent programming: the reliable, risk free formula of home flipping shows. All of these shows—Flip or Flop and its many regional spinoffs, Good Bones, Flipping 101, to name just a few—share a basic formula: house-flippers, usually a family business in the form of a husband and wife team or parent and child with a folksy rapport, buy a neglected house on the cheap—cue zoom-ins on mold, water damage, decaying wood, dust and dead bugs—that’s often in a relatively poor or gentrifying neighborhood.

They then turn it into something they describe as "beautiful", to be sold at a much higher price to, most likely, young white people looking for a "funky" home in an "up-and-coming" neighborhood. But at what cost do these glossy, get-rich-quick reality shows entertain us?  What ideologies do they promote, and how do they erase the working class black and brown families whose housing was condemned, and communities were systemically neglected, before the camera’s even began rolling?

On this episode—our  Season 3 finale—we take a look at these shows to understand how and why HGTV became a glorified commercial for house-flipping and gentrification, examining its indifference to housing instability and its dead-eyed cheerleading of “middle-class” bourgeois aspirationalism, no matter the social cost. 

Our guests are culture writer Ann-Derrick Gaillot and Atlanta-based community organizer Kamau Franklin.

Episode 116: The Pro-Gentrification Aspirationalism of HGTV's House-Flipping Shows

Another Summer

This week, PJ looks into a theory circling the internet about who might be behind QAnon. The investigation takes him back to the beginning of the QAnon scam, and to the message board trolls who started it.

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#166 Country of Liars

"Joe Biden Calls For ‘Immediate, Full And Transparent Investigation’ Into Jacob Blake Shooting," Forbes reports. "Obama Fraud Task Force Takes on the Big Banks," Bloomberg News proclaims. "Democratic lawmakers call for vote on bill to study reparations," announces CNN.

It seems that every time there’s a movement toward righting a historical or current wrong, whether police violence, corporate abuses, or climate change, policymakers muster the same tepid “solution”: initiate a committee, investigation, commission, study, or, if they want to sound super militaristic and Serious a “task force” to probe the issue. This type of rhetorical filler offers elites the best of both worlds: Creating the appearance of attentiveness and progressiveness without requiring any meaningful, overt ideological commitments.

Tethered to explicit political objectives, calls for investigations or studies can be a useful lobbying tool, but absent this, they are more often than not a political trick, psychological tools to compel activists and those outraged on social media to take a break, because now the professionals are handling it. The effect: the political equivalent of a five-day cooling off period, wait the outrage out and channel activist energy into Get Out the Vote fodder and superficial reform-ese that never truly upsets the existing order.

On this episode, we study the phenomenon of the liberal appeals for bare-minimum interventions in times of political crisis, looking at how vague and open-ended calls for studies, committees, task forces, and commissions are designed to elevate the reputations of spineless politicians while nullifying the social movements that actually seek racial, economic, and climate justice.

Our guest is Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.

Ep 123: How Liberal Meta-Demands for "Investigations" and "Studies" are Used to Silence Activists

Comedian David Spector comes back to discuss girl stuff

For even more content support the show @ Patreon.com/BOSPod

Z 045 - The Premiere Dragon Ball Podcast For Jewish Women w/ David Spector

Alex Goldman tackles his newest job: prophet of doom.

#170 A Song of Impotent Rage

A show about the internet, hosted by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman.  From Gimlet.