Jack's discovery that his stepfather Chuckie was illegally surveilled by the feds ... J. Edgar Hoover and the origins of FBI surveillance ... Robert F. Kennedy's war on Jimmy Hoffa ... Jack: Prosecutorial discretion is one of the government's most dangerous powers ... Jack's challenge to Bush's post-9/11 surveillance program ... How Chuckie's experience weighed on Jack's conscience ... Did the Bush administration fan the flames of fear to accomplish its goals? ... Jack offers some praise and criticism for Edward Snowden ...

Buzzwords vs. the power of reason ... College students stay silent instead of saying the wrong thing ... Why cultural appropriation is such a flashpoint ... John: "It's hard to be an individual" ... Cosmopolitanism and fearing the cops ... The sense of belonging that comes from being oppressed ...

Bill: FDR's "I welcome their hatred" line has been misunderstood ... Buttigieg runs as an anti-populist ... Dueling polls show either only Biden or every Dem defeating Trump ... Matt: Mayor Pete is the Obama in the race ... The meaning of the upset Dem victory in Kentucky ... Why Virginia is now solid blue ...

The story behind Heather's Expos hat ... Trump's failed, reality TV–esque, fatal car crash reconciliation ... Will impeachment cause US foreign policy to improve? ... Is the era of grand strategy over? ... Why a US–EU entente is coming post-Trump ... Dan: Climate change can't be ignored in foreign policy any more ...

Jack's new book, In Hoffa's Shadow ... Jimmy Hoffa's real accomplishments as a labor leader ... Chuckie O'Brien, Jack's stepfather and Hoffa's right-hand man ... The conventional story: Chuckie delivered Hoffa to his killers ... Jack's early belief in Chuckie's innocence and later estrangement from him ... Why Hoffa was killed ... Reasons to think Chuckie was falsely accused ... Why Chuckie has kept the code of omertà ... The mafia and moral relativism ...

DC celebrates as the Nats win the World Series! ... Trump's brazen impeachment strategy ... Bill: "The crime is in real time" ... Matt puts himself in the shoes of a Trump supporter ... Matt criticizes Brit Hume's recent defense of Trump ... Biden remains the weak frontrunner ... Bill doubts that Tulsi will run third party ... Why late entries into the primary always flop ...

The strange trend of using asterisks to talk shit on Twitter ... Nicole Cliffe alleges (without evidence) that Jeff Goldblum is a bad man ... "Oh no, not him!" vs. "I always knew!" ... Why is Cliffe so powerful on Twitter? ... Kat: Cancel culture is about the erosion of trust ...

HBO's very strange Watchmen sequel ... Why is race the show's central theme? ... What is the show trying to say about cops? ... Martin Scorsese disses comic book movies, nerds go nuts ... Milton reviews Joker, the most chattered about movie of the year ... Why so many people prejudged the film ... Milton's graphic novel Kickstarter project about Orson Welles ... Milton's documentary about comic conventions, Tabling ...

Sarah explains Human Rights Watch's mission ... Is Turkey’s Erdogan engaging in ethnic cleansing? ... Sarah: A "safe zone" along Syria's Turkish border won’t work ... Why armed proxy groups are always unaccountable ... The imminent humanitarian crisis in Idlib, Syria ... Other human rights concerns in the Middle East ... Sarah: The building of Israeli settlements is a war crime ... The failure of the "responsibility to protect" in Libya ...

Aryeh asks Micah to convince him to vote for Bernie Sanders ... Could Bernie lead a mass movement for progressive change? ... Micah: There's a hunger in America for transformative politics ... What does Bernie mean when he calls himself a socialist? ... Bernie is old, angry, and he yells—does that matter? ... The meaning of the AOC and Ilhan Omar endorsements ... Why do people still complain about BernieBros? ... How lefties view Warren ...