Author: Michael Baranowski

PG02: Funding Homeland Security, Dr. Seuss and Obamacare, Net Neutrality

This week’s stories:
– Why can’t Congress fund the Department of Homeland Security?
– What undersized red grouper & Dr. Seuss have to do with Obamacare.
– The FCC ruling that’s made Comcast and Time Warner very, very sad.
– Does the Obama administration really think Samoans are a ‘savage and alien’ race?

Links
Justice Kagan cites legal authority Dr. Seuss in Yates v. United States dissent (Slate)

John Oliver’s take on the FCC and net neutrality (YouTube)

American Samoa: Football Island (60 Minutes)

PG01: Is This Thing On?

The Politics Guys, Episode 01 (February 22, 2015)

Show Notes & Links
This wasn’t our first show – just the first one we’ve posted. (Yes, the unposted shows were worse. Some were much worse.) The site is still under development, and we’re not on iTunes or Stitcher (yet), but minor technical difficulties aside, it’s reasonably representative of the approach we plan on taking in our discussion of the week in American politics. We’ll be doing this every Sunday until we either get sick of it or tire of the threatening email.

If you listen to the episode, you’ll notice that there’s no intro – we just start talking. We’re currently in the process of looking for someone to do the show’s introduction. If you’d like to be part the Official Intro Voice of The Politics Guys, let us know.

We’d love to hear what you think – good and bad. We’re full of ourselves, but not so full of ourselves that we think this initial effort can’t be improved in many ways. Please email us with your thoughts – we really would appreciate the feedback.

What ISIS Really Wants (The Atlantic)
This long but absolutely worth reading article was the basis of our lead discussion this week.

The Simpsons: Much Apu About Nothing (Season 7, Episode 23, 1996)
In our discussion of immigration, Jay mentioned this classic Simpsons episode, which The Onion’s AV Club seems to really like. (We’d post a direct link to the episode itself if we could, but come on – if you can’t dredge it up somewhere in quasi-legal fashion, you don’t really want to watch it.)

The Monster of Monticello
Michael was happy to express his deep and abiding hatred for Thomas Jefferson in this episode. Among his reasons for hating our third president – in addition to his disturbing history with slavery: 1) George Washington hated him, 2) Alexander Hamilton really hated him, 3) He was a hypocritical jerk.

Jen Psaki and Marie Harf
We somehow ended up talking about State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki. Ostensibly this was due to her recent promotion to White House Communications Director, but it was mostly about Jay’s mega-crush on her. And since we were talking about State Department spokespeople, Marie Harf’s name came up.