Make Me Smart

A Friday-afternoon story we couldn’t ignore: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new rules Friday afternoon that would effectively exclude trans people from protection against health care discrimination. The news  comes amid the pandemic, during LGBT Pride Month and at a time when America is in a fury over systemic oppression of a different sort… We discuss. But it’s not all dark on this Friday show. We’ll also journey back into the thicket of HBO’s sophisticated/weird branding.

As always, you can find links to everything we talked about today at makemesmart.org

A Friday-afternoon story we couldn’t ignore: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new rules Friday afternoon that would effectively exclude trans people from protection against health care discrimination. The news  comes amid the pandemic, during LGBT Pride Month and at a time when America is in a fury over systemic oppression of a different sort… We discuss. But it’s not all dark on this Friday show. We’ll also journey back into the thicket of HBO’s sophisticated/weird branding.

As always, you can find links to everything we talked about today at makemesmart.org

The Small Business Administration was supposed to release detailed information about who got hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed PPP loans. But at a hearing yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it’s “confidential information.” We’re going to talk a lot about the shredding of norms on today’s show … if Kai’s recording setup can make it through the end of the taping.

As always, you can find a list of everything we talked about today (including Kai’s “room rating”) on our episode page at makemesmart.org

Correction (June 12, 2020): A previous version of this podcast title and description misstated how much in PPP loans could be kept confidential. The title and text have been corrected.

The Small Business Administration was supposed to release detailed information about who got hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed PPP loans. But at a hearing yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it’s “confidential information.” We’re going to talk a lot about the shredding of norms on today’s show … if Kai’s recording setup can make it through the end of the taping.

As always, you can find a list of everything we talked about today (including Kai’s “room rating”) on our episode page at makemesmart.org

Correction (June 12, 2020): A previous version of this podcast title and description misstated how much in PPP loans could be kept confidential. The title and text have been corrected.

IBM’s stock price slumped this week after the company announced it would get out of the facial recognition business for fear that it could lead to racist, abusive surveillance. So what do we make of that? We’ll talk about this disconnect between our national moment and Wall Street on today’s Whadda Ya Wanna Know Wednesday.

IBM’s stock price slumped this week after the company announced it would get out of the facial recognition business for fear that it could lead to racist, abusive surveillance. So what do we make of that? We’ll talk about this disconnect between our national moment and Wall Street on today’s Whadda Ya Wanna Know Wednesday.

Following two weeks of sustained protest over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the City Council there voted to explore dismantling its Police Department. Minneapolis is among the few cities now seriously considering the work of activists and academics who’ve tracked the failure of police-reform efforts. It is looking at alternate systems, pledging to build new options for public safety.

As always, you can find links to everything we talked about today on our episode page at makemesmart.org

Following two weeks of sustained protest over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the City Council there voted to explore dismantling its Police Department. Minneapolis is among the few cities now seriously considering the work of activists and academics who’ve tracked the failure of police-reform efforts. It is looking at alternate systems, pledging to build new options for public safety.

As always, you can find links to everything we talked about today on our episode page at makemesmart.org

After a 128-month expansion, the U.S. economy entered a recession in February. Today, we’ll talk about what that means and where we go from here. Plus: Guest co-host Kimberly Adams talks about a #MeToo-style movement for Black journalists and why it really feels like this time racist media bosses are on notice.

As always, you can find links to everything we talked about on the episode page at makemesmart.org

After a 128-month expansion, the U.S. economy entered a recession in February. Today, we’ll talk about what that means and where we go from here. Plus: Guest co-host Kimberly Adams talks about a #MeToo-style movement for Black journalists and why it really feels like this time racist media bosses are on notice.

As always, you can find links to everything we talked about on the episode page at makemesmart.org