Fireside Breakdowns

Can you imagine working at the White House? Or on Capitol Hill? 

Well, thanks to an Instagram account called @Dear_White_Staffers - and the voices of many congressional staffers who are taking the opportunity to share their own stories - many of us can now get an idea of what it might be like. And the picture isn’t pretty.  In fact, it’s bad enough that they’ve announced their intentions to form a Congressional Workers Union. So, this week we’re taking some time to break down what’s happening on The Hill, and explore what unions have mean for workers in America. 

In this episode, Savannah mentioned a book called Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez.

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Okay okay, we’re jumping on the bandwagon here. You might have guessed from the clever episode title that we’re gonna talk about Joe Rogan here. But we solemnly swear that it won’t just be about Rogan - we’re only using him as an example of the mess that surrounds Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  

Turns out we have some opinions about Rogan’s show, so we start the episode with a discussion on where we think the ethical and social responsibility for podcast content should fall. Then, we talk about Section 230 itself - what it means for Spotify to be a “platform” not a “publisher” and how they’re trying to have the best of both worlds here. And then we close out with some bipartisan proposed changes to Section 230 that would amend or even repeal the legislation. 

As always, if you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

This week we're going to talk about the travesty of stopping for ice cream on a Tuesday, cussin' out reporters, and Supreme Court nominations. Even though Congress can't get its act together enough to pass some critical legislation to fulfill more of Biden's campaign promises, the ceaseless judgment of the media seems to be laser-focused solely on whatever Biden is (or isn't) doing at any given time. Fortunately for us, that provides a lot of headlines to highlight points of nuance and, you guessed it, the b-word. No! Not that one… bias.  The meat of this episode is Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, why folks like Ted Cruz are offended, and why this isn’t exactly Affirmative Action. Spoiler: We have opinions.

Also included in this episode: Violette N. Anderson, the first Black woman admitted to the Supreme Court Bar. Happy Black History Month!

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

We’re back after two expected weeks off, and one unexpected week of illness! This week, we’re breaking down something commonly referred to as “the death of expertise” - open antagonism toward established knowledge. How did we get to the point where people who have literal and actual college degrees in complicated fields are placed on the same level of authority as opinionated politicians or folks who are moderately competent Google searchers? 

That’s an excellent question. We would love to tell you. (Unashamed reference to Elyse Myers, who Robin thinks is very funny.)

Also included in this episode: the Dunning-Kruger effect, vaccine hesitancy, and Cliff Claven.

In this episode we mention a great series on vaccines, and the anti-vaccine movement, from a podcast called Endless Thread. The series is long, so we’re only linking to episode 3 (which is most relevant to this conversation) here, but we highly recommend the whole thing. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1pHujj1pFYQgPoZb1LGo15?si=7bbfe109cbd542cc

We also mentioned Dr. Noc, who we follow on Instagram for his stellar science communication. https://www.instagram.com/dr.noc/

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

Hello and welcome to the “all diversions, all the time” episode! This week, we’re taking a look back on 2021. We’ve got updates on a couple of episodes, a few “called it” moments, and plenty of bunny trails. We also took some time to talk through the issues we’re watching for 2022, like: voting legislation, redistricting, social media legislation, and - of course - this pandemic situation.

As always, if you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

Well we’re back here on this old saw: inflation.

As always, if you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

In November 2020, a poll by Monmouth University revealed that 32% of Americans polled believed that Joe Biden was president SOLELY because of voter fraud. That same poll, repeated in January and March, showed that the numbers held strong. Nearly one third of Americans believe that widespread fraud, rather than the will of the people, determined the outcome of our election.

Election results in all 50 states - even the most contentious - were certified, official electoral votes were cast and accepted.  The Department of Homeland Security called this the most secure election ever. So what is it that makes so many people believe that the election was a fraud? And is there any indication - after a year of looking now - that fraud was a factor?

Let’s chat about why we DON’T believe the 2020 Presidential election was stolen.

As always, if you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

Well there’s no two ways about this one, folks. Vaccines are currently radioactive.

Not… Not literally. Figuratively, metaphorically, and all that jazz.

This week we’re going to put on our hazmat suits and wade into the… inexplicably contentious world of vaccines to discuss one very, very small aspect of them: Mandates. 

This fight against COVID vaccine policy is just the latest in a long line of similar reactions as America has faced new diseases and the science of vaccination has progressed. So, we’ll talk about what the current “mandates” mean, and what’s happening with them. Then, since we’re essentially becoming a history podcast now we’ll rewind through some of the controversy around vaccine policy in our past - starting with some vaccine motivated terrorism, and including proof that maybe vaccine mandates are one of the most patriotic policy decisions we can make…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

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You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

Thanks for joining us for another From The Headlines episode! Just as a reminder about how these episodes work: Every other week, we take a break from our in-depth research to focus on a topic that’s currently making headlines. This week, we want to talk about the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. But we know that you can get the ins and outs of the case, and what’s happening each day in the trial, from pretty much any news source.  Instead, we want to focus on how we believe this case is being used to politicize the victimization of women and children through what social science researchers call a filter bubble. We also bring up our old friends bias and conspiracy theories along the way.

Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, we definitely understand if you need to skip through the episode to avoid discussion of suicide, abuse, and trafficking.  We did our level best to treat the topic with respect - no graphic explanations here. But, we know that these subjects can be hard to process, so we give a clear cue when we’re headed into the section that mentions those things.

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

We’ve spent several episodes now focused on the struggle and the hardship that Native Americans have faced because of European Colonialism and its consequences, but we definitely don’t want to close out this series without celebrating some of the outstanding accomplishments that have been made by Native American people. We really want to end this series on a high note. So today, we’re going to tell you about two Native American people whose stories and accomplishments we think you should know.

 If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!