Sirens: A Bombshell production

Radha and Loren welcome Margaret Mullins (Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator) to discuss her new report proposal new models for organizing federal hiring and talent maangement (it's extremely cool, trust us). We have just way too much fun in it's a drill between Iranian Lego meme wars, the Pentagon's threats to the Pope, the FY27 budget, and the extreme drama that is our tech overlords. For Dumpster Fires, we consider just what Anthropic actually meant when they said their latest AI model is simply too scary and what response we can expect from the Trump administration. And for Gong Show - Artemis!

Radha and Loren welcome the glorious Dr. Kori Schake to the podcast for a discussion of her new book, The State and the Soldier:A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States; hurray! As we hopefully welcome spring, we grapple with chaotic management of military promotions, the globally economy, and the Iran war in It's a Drill. And for Dumpster Fires, we wade into the political crisis + administrative burden burden + totally out of sync funding system that is federal science grantmaking, just for fun. Also: Devil Wears Prada 2, anyone? That's All.

Radha and Loren are so excited to welcome the Co-Director of the Yale Budget Lab, Martha Gimbel, to explore her team's work and her fantastic recent testimony exploring how the the national debt and tariffs show up in the lived experience of Americans. For It's a Drill, we note that the SAVE Act doesn't really save anyone, except maybe people who want to be saved from women's votes, and give you the long extended analogy of how the dynamics Straits of Hormuz is actually the movie He's Just Not That Into You. For Dumpster Fires, we use the recent court ruling on reinstating Voice of America staff to consider the role of government in the information space. Also: the Oscars!

Radha and Loren are so excited to welcome special guest Dana Stroul to help us understand this war, er, special military operation in Iran, but first we wade through cocktail party gossip on the end of the endangerment finding, forced ranking for civil servants, and like a lot of things going on in the western hemisphere. If you've ever wanted to know about the systems challenges of security clearances, our discussion on NBIS and its woes are for you; plus, of course we couldn't avoid getting into the messiness of the DOD-Anthropic situationship. Plus: do you have an Irish soda bread recipe? We don't.

Radha and Loren are very excited about a range of important things, starting with Radha's purse, which is the same as the newly supermajoritied Japanese PM (yes, that's a word, we made it one). Also in the cocktail circuit we have DHS shutdown and a new administration intervention on defense primes. We welcome (ok not really) schedule policy / career (schedule F) back to Dumpster Fires with a deep explainer on what this new policy means for civil servants and the American people, and then explore Munich Security Conference: Rubio, AOC, the weird civilizational dialgoue and the tired tropes. Finally we are so jazzed to welcome Dr. Rebecca Lissner to discuss her research on American sentiment on AI and data centers. Also, you get our extremely non-expert Olympic commentary.

Loren and Radha reminisce about wintry memories and Benedict Cumberbatch before a cocktail parties worth of gossip on Fed rates, tariffs, and appropriations politics. In dumpster fires, they explore the strange ways the federal government shapes higher education, including event moves to change accreditation. And we're delighted to welcome CNAS's Carrie Cordero to discuss what we SHOULD expect of federal law enforcement and how to think about reforms to DHS, near and long term.

Sirens welcomes the tremendous Dr. Mara Karlin as a guest to first determine which current buzzwords we'd ban but more importantly to assess this moment of US and allied relationships: what allies should be planning, how US chaos shakes up more than just NATO meetings, and signals to watch. For dumpster fires, we talk through what's new and what's unfortunate de ja vu as the Trump Administration pressures the Iranian regime amid increasingly violent protest crackdowns, as well as what the transition at the GAO means for oversight (yes, we do the sexy topics!). Finally: what delights and baffles you about the Jane Austen-verse?

Happy 2026 to all friends of Sirens! Loren, Radha, and Erin are truly astonished at the pace of news in their mid-winters nap and gab for an extended drill to cover new Hatch Act procedures, protests in Iran, the thwarted terrorist attack on NYE, the drastic decrease in financial crime fines in 2026, and Netanyahu's visit (also, Andy and Anderson's NYE, of course). While Venezuela could be an entire episode series unto itself, we augment with another dumpster fire: what exactly the daycare funding fraud allegations mean in Minnesota and how they may impact the entire theory of change of federalism. For Warning Signs, we offer what we're looking for and at ain 2026, and suggest some resolutions for American institutions in 2026.

Yes - it's a mouthful of acronyms! And yes, it's hard to focus on anything besides the new national security strategy, but Sirens manages to open with our favorite holiday reads, merry and bright and dark and twisty. For dumpster fires, we explore the tragic shooting of two WV National Guardsmen through the lens of the evacuation of several thousand Afghans in 2021 and the complex and often limited support system they met in the US. Also, we reluctantly return to counter drug strikes in the Caribbean and exactly what we should expect of the military when it comes to unlawful orders. Finally; what holiday movie would you pitch to Hallmark?

Were you left wanting more economist talk after last week's Sirens? Joint Loren and Radha for the full, uncut interview with the Optimist Economy's Kathryn Edwards helps us navigate where we are (or not) on the highway to recession and what the government should be doing about it.