A Gentlemen’s Disagreement

Given the events of the past several weeks, Ricky felt it was high time to talk about guns, so we do that for the bulk of this episode (27:43-1:07:02). We bookend that talk with discussions on the House January 6th Committee public hearings (0:30-27:36) and the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh (1:07:11-1:21:33).

We are joined by Austin Jackson this week to discuss the rise of Ron DeSantis, first as Governor of Florida and then as a national figure. We talk about his legislative record in Florida, how that record has been received both in Florida and nationally, and about the potential for a future run for President.

In a rather somber episode, we discuss the mass shooting in Buffalo (5:58-42:30), the U.S.'s role in the continuing war in Ukraine (42:39-1:16:25), and the U.S. hitting a grim COVID milestone (1:16:34-1:32:34).

We're back to talk about Elon taking over Twitter and what it means for the platform, for free speech, and for Elon himself (11:20-34:02). We then spend some time on one of our favorite recurring topics: examining the current state of the Republican party as we head into primary season here in the United States. We pair that discussion with the results of recent elections in Europe, including those in France and Hungary to see if there are any common transatlantic trends we can see (34:10-1:13:11).

We're back to talk about a bunch of things that have been in the news over the past couple of weeks including the first unionization of an Amazon facility (14:12-31:05), immigration being back in the headlines (31:06-52:39), and the latest developments in Ukraine (52:48-1:06:40).

This week we use the Roman Abramovich/Chelsea/Russia/UK saga as a jumping off point to delve a little more deeply into how global politics have increasingly become intertwined with sports in our increasingly interconnected world. How do we, as fans and global citizens, reckon with the influx of money into our teams and leagues from sources who the West generally doesn't think are good? And, do we, as the West, really have the moral authority to judge who is and isn't good? And, even if we do have that authority, how should we want to handle cases in which those sources want to get involved in our sports? It's all very complicated. (0:30-46:58)

We then conclude by talking about Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination and confirmation hearings. (47:07-58:44).

This week we finally discuss the situation in Ukraine. We look at what is currently happening on the ground, wonder about Putin's endgame, and talk about how the situation is playing out here in the United States. In a bit of a role-reversal, Ricky forces us to think about the current prevailing narrative in the United States and how this conflict might be benefitting the Biden Administration, while Brendan defends the prevailing narrative and how the Biden Administration has handled the conflict thus far.

We are joined this week by Maureen "Mo" McInerney from the Women's Public Leadership Network to talk about the work that she does to support women in politics. We talk about Mo's personal journey into politics, why we need more women in all levels of government, unique challenges that women face in the political arena, and much more. 

We brought back our friends Dan Gonzalez and Joe Webster for our second annual snake draft. This year, we did a four round draft of the most influential non-presidential 20th century Americans. Chaos and controversy ensued.

We finally sit down to talk about three somewhat related events of the past few weeks: Brian Flores filing a lawsuit against the NFL alleging discriminatory hiring practices, Justice Breyer's retirement and President Biden's promise to nominate a Black woman to the Court, and the Court deciding to hear the affirmative action cases against Harvard and North Carolina.