Comedy

The Political Orphanage

Politics minus bile plus jokes. Comedian and avowed independent Andrew Heaton interviews authors and thought leaders about policy and big thinky stuff.

Latest Episodes:

Brilliant Solutions for Pesky Statues (Friday Release Valve) Jul 10, 2020

Show notes

(NSFK) Comedians Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young join the show to go over the week's funniest, least-scrutinized headlines, including: *A Jeffrey Epstein statue *Fight over a wooden yard phallus *The Fembot actress *News from Russia

Daryl Davis Attends Klan Rallies Jul 08, 2020

Show notes

Daryl Davis is an African American musician responsible for de-radicalizing over 200 Klansmen and Neo-Nazis in his attempts to understand racism. He joins Heaton to talk about his experience, contact science, and the best ways to overcome bigotry.

This episode has been corrected for an audio error which previously occurred. If you see two episodes in your player, go with this one!

Italian Death Penalty Bear Courts (Friday Release Valve) Jul 03, 2020

Show notes

(NSFK) Who steals an 800 pound Canadian radar camera? How can we combine foliage with opera? Comedians Turner Sparks and Mike Kaplan of the Lost in America podcast join Heaton to make sense of the week's underserved headlines.

How To Not Think Religiously About Climate Change Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

How often do climate change discussions get sidetracked by doomsday porn or hoax talk? Sheril Kirshenbaum is the host of "Serving Up Science" at PBS Digital Studios, and a contributor at Scientific American. She joins Heaton to talk about tackling the subject of climate change scientifically, and coming up with rational policy objectives in response.

Don't Use Artillery Shells as Doorstops (Friday Release Valve) Jun 26, 2020

Show notes

(NSFK) Leo Kearse, Scottish Comedian of the Year 2018, rejoins the program to suss out the week's better underserved headlines, from British citizens asking New Zealand to invade it to even more things that can get you arrested in Cambodia. You can follow Leo on his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp1hRBGoDHKSn4HiHIzkXAw

So What Would Happen if We Legalized Heroin? Jun 24, 2020

Show notes

Jeffrey Miron is an economist at Harvard University, and joins Heaton to discuss the Drug War. If we legalized the hard stuff, would usage spike? Would overdoses? What's the balance of disruption to society against revenue reclaimed from law enforcement? Also: did Coca-Cola ever really contain cocaine?

Pneumatic Parrot Tubes & German Trains (Friday Release Valve) Jun 19, 2020

Show notes

(NSKF) Brian Sack and Jack Helmuth of the Questionable Material podcast join Heaton to go through the week's underserved headlines, from funeral planning involving elephants to an inexplicably nude death in Arizona.

Universal Basic Income vs. Sprawling Bureaucracy Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been advocated in various forms by Thomas Paine, Andrew Yang, Milton Friedman, and Richard Nixon: a minimum income floor available to all Americans. How does it stack up compared to our existing welfare state? How would it work, and can we afford it? Scott Santens is a UBI proponent who has advised Andrew Yang on UBI, and is now senior policy advisor to Mike Broihier. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Gerald Huff Fund For Humanity.

Bidding on Souls, and Australian Sex Mishaps (Friday Release Valve) Jun 12, 2020

Show notes

NSFK - Comedian Myq Kaplan and professor/humor scholar Dannagal Goldthwaite Young join the show to plumb the week's underserved headlines, from flying turtles to Outback sex work awkwardness to the going rate for human souls at an auction. The latest installment of Friday Release Valve.

What's all this "Defund the Police" stuff about? Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

"Defund the Police" is the rallying cry of protestors and social media this week. Does it mean abolishing the police, replacing them, or reforming them? Scott Shackford of Reason joins to explain what the phrase actually means, as well as the looming role of police unions in the status quo.

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