The Bob Zadek Show

On any given night, television audiences can tune into an elaborate unscripted reality show in which the stakes are high, the stars are hungry, and the stage is global. No, this program is not *The Amazing Race* – it’s whatever happens to be on C-SPAN, MSNBC, or any other politically-focused news network, and politicians and pundits are its stars. The theater of politics is its own specialized arena, with jargon to match. David Mark and his co-author Chuck McCutcheon have been professional spectators (aka political journalists) of this show for decades, and have documented an elaborate vocabulary in their new political dictionary, “Dog-Whistles, Walk-backs and Washington Handshakes.”  Much like a modern-day translation is needed to fully understand Shakespearean plays and sonnets, Mark and McCutcheon’s book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what’s really being said in political speeches, debates and interviews. David Mark is a San Francisco writer, and former senior editor of Politico. He joins Bob in the studio, just in time for the start of election season, to discuss his new book.

On any given night, television audiences can tune into an elaborate unscripted reality show in which the stakes are high, the stars are hungry, and the stage is global. No, this program is not *The Amazing Race* – it’s whatever happens to be on C-SPAN, MSNBC, or any other politically-focused news network, and politicians and pundits are its stars. The theater of politics is its own specialized arena, with jargon to match. David Mark and his co-author Chuck McCutcheon have been professional spectators (aka political journalists) of this show for decades, and have documented an elaborate vocabulary in their new political dictionary, “Dog-Whistles, Walk-backs and Washington Handshakes.”  Much like a modern-day translation is needed to fully understand Shakespearean plays and sonnets, Mark and McCutcheon’s book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what’s really being said in political speeches, debates and interviews. David Mark is a San Francisco writer, and former senior editor of Politico. He joins Bob in the studio, just in time for the start of election season, to discuss his new book.

If Rand Paul makes it past the Republican primaries, criticisms are sure to resurface regarding an obscure comment he made on CNN in 2010 about the libertarian principle of free association. Specifically, Paul took issue with the portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act limiting business owners’ freedom to discriminate (against their own economic interest) – a comment he has since walked back. Alas, pure libertarian principle often dictates seemingly indefensible positions, such as the right of bigots to refuse customers on a superficial basis. One man, however, has had the courage to consistently argue that the principle of freedom involved in these cases should trump our uneasiness about specific outcomes. That man is Professor Walter Block. Block has caused many a stir with his iconoclastic defenses of the seemingly indefensible. He joins Bob to discuss his recent endorsement of Rand Paul for President, in spite of the Republican candidate’s recent moves away from the principled libertarian positions of his father. Should libertarians get behind a lesser of two evils? Find out where you lie on Professor Block’s scale of libertarianism (where 100 is a “Perfect Block”).

If Rand Paul makes it past the Republican primaries, criticisms are sure to resurface regarding an obscure comment he made on CNN in 2010 about the libertarian principle of free association. Specifically, Paul took issue with the portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act limiting business owners’ freedom to discriminate (against their own economic interest) – a comment he has since walked back. Alas, pure libertarian principle often dictates seemingly indefensible positions, such as the right of bigots to refuse customers on a superficial basis. One man, however, has had the courage to consistently argue that the principle of freedom involved in these cases should trump our uneasiness about specific outcomes. That man is Professor Walter Block. Block has caused many a stir with his iconoclastic defenses of the seemingly indefensible. He joins Bob to discuss his recent endorsement of Rand Paul for President, in spite of the Republican candidate’s recent moves away from the principled libertarian positions of his father. Should libertarians get behind a lesser of two evils? Find out where you lie on Professor Block’s scale of libertarianism (where 100 is a “Perfect Block”).

One of the most controversial features of ObamaCare is “the individual mandate,” which requires the uninsured to obtain coverage. But there was another health care mandate buried in the 2009 stimulus act that should not be overlooked – this one for doctors. Starting this year, doctors who don’t adopt the federal government’s standardized electronic health records (EHR) system will be fined – and that fine will increase every year for the next decade. While modernizing records may seem like an important step toward reducing health care costs, people like Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer are paying the fine and ignoring the mandate. Don’t worry, technophiles – Dr. Singer is all in favor of going digital when physicians contract with private firms to build systems to match their personal practices. Dr. Singer, a general surgeon and adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute, joins Bob to discuss how the record-keeping mandate translates into longer wait times, less face time for patients with doctors, and an all-around less responsive and less humane health care system.

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One of the most controversial features of ObamaCare is “the individual mandate,” which requires the uninsured to obtain coverage. But there was another health care mandate buried in the 2009 stimulus act that should not be overlooked – this one for doctors. Starting this year, doctors who don’t adopt the federal government’s standardized electronic health records (EHR) system will be fined – and that fine will increase every year for the next decade. While modernizing records may seem like an important step toward reducing health care costs, people like Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer are paying the fine and ignoring the mandate. Don’t worry, technophiles – Dr. Singer is all in favor of going digital when physicians contract with private firms to build systems to match their personal practices. Dr. Singer, a general surgeon and adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute, joins Bob to discuss how the record-keeping mandate translates into longer wait times, less face time for patients with doctors, and an all-around less responsive and less humane health care system.

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Bob does a regular show with a very special guest – a walking embodiment of the libertarian ethos: David Boaz. Since joining the Cato Institute in 1981, Boaz has been pivotal in transforming the once-obscure think tank into a powerhouse – setting the gold standard for libertarian public policy analysis. More than 15 years ago, at a time when far fewer people had even heard of libertarianism, Boaz wrote and edited a volume titled Libertarianism: A Primer. Today, most voters know the contours of what a libertarian is, but a majority still do not identify along said lines. Clearly, given the iron-clad moral and logical reasoning behind libertarian ideas, the message clearly has not gotten far enough. But we may be near a tipping point if Boaz is correct about the "Libertarian Moment," to which he synced the arrival of his revised version of his Primer, The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom. Tune in for the full hour, this Sunday at 9am Pacific to hear Boaz's evidence that the iron is now hot for the movement to strike with bold free-market solutions.

Bob does a regular show with a very special guest – a walking embodiment of the libertarian ethos: David Boaz. Since joining the Cato Institute in 1981, Boaz has been pivotal in transforming the once-obscure think tank into a powerhouse – setting the gold standard for libertarian public policy analysis. More than 15 years ago, at a time when far fewer people had even heard of libertarianism, Boaz wrote and edited a volume titled Libertarianism: A Primer. Today, most voters know the contours of what a libertarian is, but a majority still do not identify along said lines. Clearly, given the iron-clad moral and logical reasoning behind libertarian ideas, the message clearly has not gotten far enough. But we may be near a tipping point if Boaz is correct about the "Libertarian Moment," to which he synced the arrival of his revised version of his Primer, The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom. Tune in for the full hour, this Sunday at 9am Pacific to hear Boaz's evidence that the iron is now hot for the movement to strike with bold free-market solutions.

Speak the words "private prison" to the wrong person and you are liable to get an earful about market fundamentalism run amok. Indeed, government's law-and-order functions seem to be among the most difficult to transition to the private sector. But is such alarmism over privately-run prisons really warranted? After all, it was the public sector corrections officers union in California that spent millions in 2004 to defeat an initiative that would have limited the number of life sentences handed down under the three strikes law, ensuring a steady supply of "customers" for their industry. Private prisons only account for a fraction of total corrections facilities in the U.S., so how can we account for the real injustice – the massive increase in the prison population over the last several decades?

To dissect this complicated issue, Bob is joined by prolific writer and podcast host Lucy Steigerwald. Steigerwald, a libertarian "millennial" and frequent contributor to VICE.com on issues of criminal justice, recently wrote an article on private prisons for The Daily Beast, which may straighten out some of the priorities of those who are still focused on the wrong injustices. Steigerwald is also a representative of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance, the premiere ladies organization serving the liberty movement.