Podcasts I just listened to

If the True, Constitutional, Conservatives want to rid themselves of the traitorous presence of John “lawless” Roberts: they have the votes in the House to impeach, if they have the courage and integrity and balls to stand up for their principles.

And they’d probably pick up some Dem votes, to make it bipartisan. But no, they don’t even bother trying.

The only conclusion is that they’re a bunch of whiny little cowardly self-castrated wussies, that just want to bitch and moan and complain, while doing NOTHING.

Melvyn Bragg “In our time”
Matthew Parris “Great Lives”
both BBC radio 4

toward the center but in a leftward direction

The only time I visited the website of the Federalist was when someone recently linked an article about Switzerland. The thesis was that Switzerland was a low-welfare capitalist paradise, it was written by a college junior, who used as her evidence bawlderised quotes from The Economist.

I assume the rest of the site displays similar levels of intellectual rigor.

in the graphic here it looks like roberts is moving to the left

Perhaps more important than Roberts’s (putative) drift to the left “based on Martin-Quinn scores” is how he has voted in important, or at least highly publicized, cases. And there my impression is that w the exception of a couple of his ACA-related votes, conservatives don’t have that much to complain about w/r/t Roberts. Shelby County alone must be worth about a zillion pts in their column, I wd think.

Speaking of SCOTUS, Sotomayor’s recent dissent in Utah v. Strieff is definitely worth a look. The (overworked) word “impassioned” applies.

John H: “Dale Carnegie would suggest that the way to work the refs effectively is not this.”

But maybe Dale Carnegie is wrong. Barnett is someone a lot of conservatives — including, I would think, John Roberts — respect. The whole focus on economic inactivity in the Obamacare case, which Roberts entirely accepted (it was his embrace of the tax argument that saved Obamacare), was pretty much Barnett’s baby. Despite the fact that it was born so late in the arguments over Obamacare (not to mention the history of constitutional litigation), didn’t stop Roberts from embracing it. So that tells you something about Barnett’s stature, not just in the Federalist Society, but on the Court itself, including with Roberts. It might piss Roberts off to hear this kind of talk now from Barnett. But it might also make him think twice and wonder whether, in his drive to be the conservative Court’s steward and statesman, he’s not in fact betraying the values and vision he came on the Court to pursue.

Hrishikesh Hirway’s Song Exploder, which reminds me of the late, great Schickele Mix. “A podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.” Like “The Sound of Sports,” Song Exploder goes well with my favorite book of 2014, Greg Milner’s Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music. In a similar vein, the “The Sound of Sports” episode of 99 Percent Invisible.

Startup from Gimlet Media, about the behind-the-scenes perils and processes of starting a business. The different seasons are very different; if you don’t like one, try another.

Wolf 359: radio drama that, by the end of the second season, feels like the more dire bits of the recent Battlestar Galactica.

I listen to a podcast called Filmspotting, available on iTunes and a shortened-for-radio version from WBEZ in Chicago. It features intelligent amateurs discussing recent and classic films, high production values, and it’s perhaps the best source I’ve found for new independent film recommendations. Their marathons on more-or-less obscure directors and genres (e.g. Elaine May, Satyajit Ray, and contemporary Nordic cinema) have been revelatory.

Roberts won’t be chief for long if Trump wins. Trump will need a pliable SCOTUS in order to rule (and he’s going to have to rule and not just preside to get anything done, and he has to get things done if he wins), because he needs a free hand to prosecute legislators for bribery in order to rule. His best handle to control or get rid of Roberts and Alito will be their involvement with the Federalist Society, which was in turn involved in Dubya’s packing the DoJ with Republican apparatchiks.

The Society seems to have vetted the lawyers that Dubya violated civil service laws to place in DoJ. Even if Roberts and Alito didn’t participate in this vetting, or if their participation wasn’t transparently illegal to them at the time, the right set of prosecutors, judges and juries won’t have a problem convicting them. If Trump wins he controls the prosecutors and gets to venue shop for the right judges. Juries willing to convict won’t be a problem at all.

There are all sorts of obvious problems created by the wide ethical latitude we have come to allow our public officials. We allow bribery as our means of financing political campaigns. We then tolerate these public officials who win by accepting money from business interests setting up programs whose sole effect is to enrich the campaign donors (If they feel the PR need to refer to any program as a “public-private partnership”, that’s a sure sign that it’s a boondoggle. Any govt contract, even for long-standing and obviously real needs, can be corrupted, but anything they call a public-private partnership is a program that is always and essentially corrupt.). The problem with this system that gets all the attention — not undeservedly, it is a problem — is that it results in the 1% having undue influence over public policy. Crony capitalism, regulatory capture, etc. — all very real problems. But the biggest problem created by this systematic tolerance of public bribery, this knee-jerk “looking forward not backward”, is that we have a political system in which almost every actor has committed prosecutable crimes.

We’re just waiting for some person to come along who is willing to look backward not forward, and able to launch the prosecutions, and the whole system comes under this person’s thumb. The actors are either carted off to jail or start cooperating.

Is Trump this person? If he is, can he win the power to start the prosecutions? The answers to those questions are not at all clear. Let’s hope that Trump is just an incompetent clown whose campaign will soon implode. But the vulnerability that a competent would-be dictator could exploit, that seems quite clear to me.

JH: “I think the psychological answer is that Roberts cares pretty deeply about being remembered as a good Chief Justice.”

If it matters at all, I think that’s totally unprincipled. Justices are either supposed to be concerned about the law or concerned about other people or concerned about the good of the country, depending on whether they have a legalistic, human rights, or “activist” orientation. Being concerned about your personal reputation or about your institution’s reputation as an extension of yours is not following any principle that I can see.

RP
Being concerned about your personal reputation or about your institution’s reputation as an extension of yours is not following any principle that I can see.

The institution’s reputation is something I think most Chief Justices think about. Whether it’s a “principled” concern or not, it is practical: the Court has no v. direct power to enforce its decisions, so its perceived legitimacy is important from that standpoint.

Rich@19: Being concerned about the institution’s reputation might not count as a “principle”, but I can see how it could be beneficial. Justices who don’t want the Court’s legitimacy in the eyes of the general public to diminish would avoid deciding cases on a nakedly* partisan basis, for instance.

*Sure you can dress up a partisan decision in legal arguments, but even the need to dress it up imposes some constraints.

I do think calling the reasons “psychological” implies they aren’t principled. I suppose there are alternative possibilities for the definition but those are technical.

“New Sounds” from WNYC is interesting.
I also liked “Movie Night” but there haven’t been any new episodes since New Years’.

I think John Holbo listens to kidneystones and kidneystones listens to John Holbo.

@RNB
I’m not sure exactly what prompted that comment, but maybe, on balance, I shouldn’t ask. I don’t read Holbo as defending most of Roberts’s substantive views but rather as noting that Roberts has some concern for how the Court is perceived, which sort of goes w/o saying since it’s part of being a Chief Justice, istm. (Though whether *all* Chief Justices have had that concern I guess might be debatable, and IAN a historian of the Ct.)

Trump is getting some complacent ridicule, today (from, as always, the people whom Trump is not talking to), over saying that if Scalia were still alive, the Texas decision would have come out the other way.

He has a (sort-of, backwards) point. Scalia punched above his weight. What we are seeing since his departure is that he was good for about three and a half votes. He is still good for one: Thomas will remain on autopilot for the rest of his career. Scalia was usually able to swing Kennedy, and Roberts about half the time. In Scalia’s absence, Kennedy has gone back to expressing his inner self, which is like a napkin at a picnic in March; and Roberts mostly displays too much situational awareness to be a True Conservative (a low bar, as we know).

If you’re interested in the politics of abortion in the 70s, and why they reversed course from this earlier 50s/60s stance, you might like the comment written up by yours truly a few years ago on this:
https://crookedtimber.org/2009/06/18/you-start-a-conversation-you-cant-even-finish-it/#comment-279953

31, 32, well WHICH Texas case? Affirmative Action would have been a tie instead of a 4-3 decision in favour of UT, which would have upheld the lower court decision that UT was in the clear, but not set new law. The abortion case would have come out as a 5-4 instead of a 5-3, same decision. United State vs Texas (the immigration DAPA/DACA case) would probably have been decided against the federal government with Scalia, but the effect for the moment is the same.

“Barnett isn’t just some guy. He’s like the brain and soul of the Federalist Society, these days. A bit of on-again, off-again grousing about Roberts’ ‘bad’ decisions is one thing. But Roberts is shaping up to be this consistent, vile Judas in the conservative imaginary. Roberts is going to be Chief for a while, I expect. Dale Carnegie would suggest that the way to work the refs effectively is not this. If Roberts actually turns into some flaming Living Constitutionalist slave-to-the-democratic-mob in 20 years, maybe you can give Barnett half credit.”

Barnett is a guy who came of age during a time when SCOTUS was right-wing. He’s likely never had to deal with even a tied Democratic-Republican court, let alone a 5-4 or 6-3 court with a Democratic majority.

He’s got a lot of learning to do, and I for one hopes that he just breaks down crying on right-wing publications.

Chapo Trap House is great fun for a crude leftist take on American Politics.

As for podcasts, I’ll have to check with my husband for specifics. Most he wants to play in the car are out of Boston. Also, there’s a New Yorker thing. All good, but I prefer silence, or rather, the sounds of the car, the road, the world outside the car. So I am always insisting we delay the podcasts or turn them off after a while. I associate podcasts with car trips. (When I am driving alone on a long car trip, I do appreciate the company of the radio. I want music, mostly, or news, but enjoy the weird talkers the radio gives me.)

As for SCOTUS, enough of that elsewhere. I’m more interested in abortion. The politics of it, well, maybe rubella and thalydomide played a role — plausible. More was up, though (and Reagan may go into this). It’s not like women hadn’t been getting surgical abortions, illegally, for decades and decades in the 50’s and 60’s. Safely, even, when they were prosperous enough. My own grandmother (b. 1898) had several, and her husband my grandmother probably arranged others for friends, family, and his own paramours. In my own pre-Roe v. Wade world , safe abortion could be got, though the energy and money spent in finding how was certainly exhausting. More often, people “had to get married” (and then, more often than not, got divorced). So many things went into the mix of change. Birth control (not just the pill, but condoms way back, in the early 20th century). Desire all around for smaller families (why my grandmother got her abortions in 1920’s NYC). Women’s suffrage and a zillion issues associated with it, like women’s entry into “the work place” in an industrialized world. Just so many things. These so many things convince me: most opposition to abortion really is grounded in men’s desire to control women. It’s pretty simple.

Radio Open Source (http://radioopensource.org/), hosted by the former New York Times journalist Christopher Lydon, is just about the best podcast out there, in my opinion. My favourite episodes have tended to be the arts ones – for instance on Knausgard, Ferrante, Toibin, Bach’s St John Passion, Schubert’s Winterreise and Louis Armstrong. But some of the episodes discussing politics have been very good too: Mark Blyth on the Eurozone crisis, for instance, or the interview with Arundhati Roy on modern India.

Thanks! I’m imagining that new instances of your content are available on the “new” platform in connection with later semester offerings? But they did say they were eliminating access to the older discussion forums, assignments, etc. I wanted to make sure I retrieved my comments in fora and my final “Agony Aunt” essay… :)

Following on Anderson’s comment: it will be interesting to see how Roberts deals w the situation following what I’ll assume, for purposes of this comment, will be HRC’s election in Nov. and the subsequent replacement of Scalia w someone who may not be a liberal but will prob be a ‘moderate’ in the Garland mode (if it’s not Garland himself). Obvs. the changed alignment on the Ct will make this more partisan aspect of Roberts’ project, or ‘game’, more difficult. I also think he may have, as JHolbo suggests, an ‘institutional’ concern about not wanting to see the Ct too fractured or obvs divided along political lines, but achieving that may also become more difficult.

This thread has had some fantastic recommendations in it so far. I was unaware of 99% Invisible, Radiolab More Perfect, Wolf 359, and Song Exploder, but they look fantastic. Lydon is a bit too hit or miss for me – too many of his episodes are duds.

Here’s an unfashionable opinion: Roberts voted for the government in the Affordable Care Act case because he decided that the mandate-is-a-tax argument was right on the merits. The fact that he appears to have changed his mind doesn’t make his ultimate position unprincipled. (Is the principled thing to never change your position?)

I am not convinced that Roberts has ever voted contrary to his merits view in an important case in the interest of protecting his own reputation or that of the Court. For an example of a case where he clearly did vote his merits view despite the likely damage to his reputation and the Court, see Obergefell v. Hodges. The real difference between Roberts and some other conservatives, both on and off the Court, is that while Roberts is solidly ideologically conservative, he is not a deeply partisan guy. He is not driven by the particular short-term desire to thwart the Obama Administration. And he is more likely to be offended than persuaded by criticism whose clear subtext (or, sometimes, just text) is that he ought to have helped destroy the Affordable Care Act simply because it is the Affordable Care Act.

I just (yesterday) started listening to and loving the new W. Kamau Bell & Hari Kondabolu podcast, Politically Reactive, which is indeed funny.

And I am loving the History of Philosophy in India podcast, a collaboration between Jonardon Ganeri and Peter Adamson. It’s so clear and kind and thoughtful and explanatory!

merian: some of the episodes of Popaganda have been pretty good.

Just want to put in an anti-plug for the New Yorker poetry podcast which has been made unbearable due to incessant, annoying ads

@60
Thks for mention of the hist. of philosophy podcast (listened to a couple of ‘episodes’; not in the India sequence, though might do that too).

Anderson: Lots of smart people sincerely believe, in good faith, foolish and wrong things. Shelby County is a case where that is especially likely (for reasons pretty far afield from this discussion). For a contrast, note that no one on the Court, not even Alito, voted to support the Evenwell v. Abbott challenge to apportionment of electoral districts by total population rather than voting-eligible population, which was a pretty blatant example of attempting to use constitutional law to boost Republican electoral prospects.

@RNB
The piece I linked to, is worth a read.

noted (and bookmarked) — thanks.

p.s. have special interest in Bangladesh for personal reasons I won’t go into here. Recent events there distressing.

Really tragic in Bangladesh.
Kaushik Basu ‏@kaushikcbasu Jul 1
Sad what a few people do. A year ago Bangladesh graduated from a low to a lower middle income economy, a country friendly & full of hope.

Here favourites of mine, in no order:

– The Cracked podcast is smart and funny, and covers some interesting topics. Good for mixed audiences, say on a road trip, when everyone gets bored of music.

– The Nostalgia Trap is David Parsons interviewing American leftists. Often entertaining. Corey’s been on a couple of times.

– Futility Closet is a great little show about weird history, worldly oddities and unsolved questions.

– Reuters War College covers some interesting stuff about (obviously) war, but the interviews are sometimes extended sales pitches for a guest’s new book. Plus it’s Reuters, so everything starts from the position that neoliberal interventionism is wise and just.

– The Slate Working Podcast does day-in-the-life-of stuff about people in unusual professions. Quality depends on the interviewee, but often engaging.

– The Joe Rogan podcast sometimes has interesting guests, but it always has Joe Rogan. Weigh up the cost:benefit on any given episode before downloading.

– Tank Riot updates infrequently, but it’s a fun beer-and-chips show that covers interesting cultural and political stuff.

– The Life of Caesar podcast is a fun and thorough treatment of its topic, though the presenters try a bit too hard sometimes (IMO). The hosts have separately done podcast histories of Napoleon And WW2, which I haven’t tried but could be good.

– Maybe not a CT topic of interest, but Heavy Hands is the most analytical and cerebral MMA podcast out there.

– Oh, and Welcome to Nightvale probably needs a better description than I can give, but well worth a listen.

Podcasts:
Agree with Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, 99% Invisible, Song Exploder (although I feel like it could be better, pushing more into the technical stuff); Radiolab and Radiolab More Perfect; Untold.

I would add: 2 Dope Queens (standup comedy); You Must Remember This (great old-Hollywood history, gossip, insight); The Frame (excellent daily culture podcast from Los Angeles); Stop Podcasting Yourself (great wittering from two Vancouver comedians and changing comedian guest); and finally, my absolute favourite these days, Our Debut Album. Same hosts as Stop Podcasting Yourself (Dave Shumka and Graham Clark), and they have set the task of composing a hit song in under an hour. The process is hilarious and the results surprisingly hit-song-like. Now onto their third song; I think the whole album will be killer.