Beyond Politics

Our guest today may be the bravest woman in America, because she has the gumption to argue that we could all learn a thing or two from lawyers, and in fact, if YOU could think more like a lawyer, you’d make better decisions and be happier. Her new book is called “How to Think Like a Lawyer – and Why.” Kim Wehle is a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a former Assistant US Attorney and you may recognize her not only from her work as a CBS News legal analyst, but also her appearances on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, BBC, NPR and here as our previous guest on Beyond Politics. 

Matt joins legendary West Virginia radio host Howard Monroe to talk about the public hearings starting this week about the insurrection.  What can we expect, will evidence come out that leads to indicting Donald Trump, and if not, what will the committee actually accomplish when they take this to prime time?

Chris Hill, the host of Motley Fool Money, joins to explain why the market suddenly turned around for no apparent reason, what the success of Top Gun: Maverick means, and what he learned from his recent interview with famed author Michael Lewis about expertise and CEO pay. 

Prolific and insightful writer Anne Kim is a Washington Monthly contributing editor and the author of Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection. She does in her writing what we do on this show: dive down below the surface into areas we often don't think enough about.  We touch on the glib cruelty beneath Senator Rick Scott's plan for America, her in-depth report on women and minorities in STEM fields, and the lost generation of millions of young people in America neither working nor in school.

Aquick podcast bonus taken from Matt's recent radio interview with John Howell on WLS 890-AM in Chicago on why the usual question about the midterms -- "will Democrats lose" -- is the wrong thing to be asking. Check out the full Newsweek article here.

Former USA Today Contributing Editor Jason Sattler (known to legions of fans on Twitter as @LOLGOP) has a smart new article out this week on The Editorial Board explaining why if you want to understand what's happening in American politics -- if you want to save democracy itself -- look to Michigan.  Time and again, it all comes back there.  Matt and Jason take a closer look at why Michigan is so pivotal and how you can use it as a lens into winning in the critical upper Midwest swing states and the entire current political dynamic. Follow Jason on twitter at @LOLGOP and Matt at @MattLRobison. 

Like many people, we are still reeling from the mass shooting in Texas that killed 19 children and two adults and injured many others. Parents like me are raw with anger, despair, and hopelessness. And what feeds our hopelessness is that at the federal level, there is no prospect of doing even the slightest thing to stop more of this from happening again. Which is why an article caught my eye this morning that is about the real, achievable, practical things that counties and cities can do to curb gun violence. One of the authors of that article, Alex Barrio, is the Director for Advocacy for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress, and he joins us to talk about the very real prospect of making a difference on the local level even if our federal government won't.

This is a crossover episode of Great Ideas and Beyond Politics.

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

There's no shortage of virtual ink being spilled over the idea that Democrats are in Big Trouble in November.  As I point out in my new Newsweek article, the President’s party has almost always bled seats in midterms, and this year, even a handful of losses will mean a Republican majority. So for Democratic members of Congress desperately trying to hold on to the slimmest of majorities, the question becomes, what should they do and what can they do in the dwindling number of months before the election? We wanted to pose that question to one of our favorite guests, Ryan McConaghy, who was US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's former right-hand man on the connection between policy and politics. Now at Forbes Tate, Ryan continues to provide advice to advocacy groups across America, but we drag him in for some wisdom for Democrats right now. 

OK, there's no escaping the onslaught of eye-crossingly crappy news, but at least we can try to laugh about it. Andrew Heaton is a comedian, author, and political satirist, and the host of “The Political Orphanage” comedy and news podcast (plus the scifi deep dive podcast “Alienating the Audience” -- go ahead nerds, you know you wanna). Plus he’s the author of 3 best-selling political satire books including Los Angeles is Hideous: Poetry About An Ugly City. And he's a former congressional staffer too.  So Matt and Andrew dive in to how being a staffer ain't what it used to be, how hard and how important satire is these days, what William Shatner said about him, and why Los Angeles truly sucks. 

Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money walks through what the earnings from big retailers like Walmart says about how businesses, consumers, and the market are reacting to inflation...and what we can expect later this year.  Also, how companies are trying to keep their customers amid rising prices, and who is raising prices because they know they can keep their customers.