A Gentlemen’s Disagreement

We kick off 2023 by trying to get a handle on the current state of the economy and trying to figure out where it might head this year. We are joined for that discussion by Matthew Knych (3:44-1:00:53) who provides his knowledge of and experience in the business and housing spaces to our analysis. 

In our final episode of the year, we each give our top five stories that defined 2022.

We are joined this week by Rand Wilson, who has spent forty years working in the labor movement. We discuss how unions and the labor movement have evolved during his time in them and what recent developments in those areas mean. We also discuss how the long fall and recent rise in working class power has affected political dynamics in the United States over the past forty years. Finally, we look ahead to see how the domestic labor movement can intersect with global issues like climate change and immigration to affect positive change in each of these areas.

With so many subjects worth discussing this week, we went back to our six topics in sixty minutes format where we hit each topic in a (roughly) ten minute segment. Those topics were Senator Warnock's victory in the Georgia runoff election (5:30-15:48), Senator Sinema's change in party affiliation (15:53-23:32), the proposed shakeup in the Democratic Presidential Primary calendar (23:37-35:01), Congress passing the historic Respect for Marriage Bill (35:06-45:52), Brittney Griner's return from captivity (45:57-55:10), and President Trump's latest controversy (55:15-1:01:41). 

We begin this week by talking about the World Cup: our favorite storylines of the tournament and the multiple controversies that have surrounded it (5:36-42:26). We then discuss the protests that have roiled Iran (42:33-1:10:25) and China (1:10:34-1:24:50) over the past few weeks and months.

 

We are joined this week by lawyer and Boston Herald columnist Jeffrey Robbins to talk about the dual rises in antisemitism and political violence that we have seen in the United States over the past few years. We begin our conversation with Jeff by talking about the causes and effects of the increasing antisemitism that we've seen (5:06-36:05), then transition into discussing the rise of political violence (36:05-47:30), before briefly getting Jeff's reaction to the midterm elections (47:30-57:30).

We're back to analyze the midterms, where the projected red wave failed to materialize. But is it too early to bury Trumpism? We talk overall takeaways (4:36-22:05), individual winners & losers (22:14-59:46), and then engage in some Massachusetts-centric discussion (59:54:1:11:08).

We are joined this week by Caruso School of Law (Pepperdine) professor and constitutional law expert Barry McDonald to analyze the Supreme Court's fall docket. The Court is poised to hear a series of major cases this term, and Professor McDonald takes us through five of them: a free speech case (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis), a social media case (Gonzalez v. Google/Twitter v. Taamneh), an affirmative action case (Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard), a voting rights case (Moore v. Harper), and the independent state legislature case (Merrill v. Milligan).  

We are joined this week by longtime Globe columnist Joan Vennochi to discuss some of the trends we are seeing heading into the midterms with a focus on where the balance between the key issues of abortion and inflation currently stands. We also get Joan's views on a variety of other subjects, including Ukraine, crime, and the T.

We are joined this week by Samantha Gross of the Boston Globe to delve into the Massachusetts ballot. Sam gives us an overview of the statewide races in Massachusetts before giving us great insight into the four consequential ballot questions dealing with a "millionaires' tax", dental insurance, liquor licenses, and drivers' licenses for undocumented immigrants (4:42-34:30). We then discuss our opinions on those questions and explain which way we're currently leaning on each (34:38-1:04:13).