The Reason Roundtable

What comes next in the Virginia governor scandal, why "Medicare for All" ain't happening, and how Baby Boomers are a fatberg clogging America's cultural sewers

José Ignacio Guédez, a member of the oppostion party La Causa R, says economic sanctions and political pressure will help restore democracy.

Desperate after years of economic disaster and political repression, Venezuelans are protesting in ever-greater numbers against the regime of President Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected to a second six-year term last year in elections widely denounced as fraudulent.

In January, the Lima Group, an ad hoc consortium of 11 Latin American countries and Canada, refused to recognize Maduro as president. At the same time, Juan Guaidó, the president of the National Assembly, took an oath to serve as interim president of the country. His government has been recognized by members of the Lima Group as well as the Trump administration, which also levied sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector. At the same time, The Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump administration is also pursuing an ambitious "a plan to reshape Latin America," causing many to wonder if a return to a historically disastrous gunboat diplomacy is in the offing.

For today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie spoke with José Ignacio Guédez, a member of the opposition party La Causa R, about the dire state of economic and political disaster in Venezuela, why it's important to remove Maduro from power and have a free and fair election, and why the troubled history of American intervention into Latin America complicates the way forward to a peaceful transition of power.

Post Malone meets post-apocalyptic socialism.

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch talk about the deep and ever-changing political and cultural meaning of football's biggest game.

On Sunday, February 3, the New England Patriots will play the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII, one of the year's biggest sporting events.

For today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with fellow Editor at Large Matt Welch, who has written in depth about how the cultural, political, and economic aspects of sports often mirror and influence the direction of society. In a wide-ranging conversation, Gillespie and Welch speak about how the Super Bowl has changed since its first iteration in 1967, how the relationship between fans and athletes in many sports developed since free agency, why politicians and team owners remain remarkably successful in bilking taxpayers out of money for stadiums, the gender dynamics of a sports-crazy father raising two daughters, and more.

Reason editors Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch assess Elizabeth Warren’s ‘tippy-top’ tax, Howard Schultz’s presidential candicacy, Donald Trump’s shutdown-shutdown, and more.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

'The 3rd' by Anitek is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Assessing Elizabeth Warren's "tippy-top" tax, Howard Schultz's presidential candidacy, Donald Trump's shutdown-shutdown, and more

Assessing Elizabeth Warren's "tippy-top" tax, Howard Schultz's presidential candidacy, Donald Trump's shutdown-shutdown, and more

National School Choice Week, an annual event that coordinates thousands of events nationwide designed to bring attention to alternatives to traditional public K-12 education, runs through Saturday, January 26 (go here for more information). For today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie spoke with the group's president, Andrew Campanella, about the remarkable growth of school choice over the past few decades, especially since the introduction of charter schools in the mid-1990s.

About 10 percent of the nation's 50 million K-12 students attend a school they choose rather than the traditional method of residential assignment, says Campanella, who notes that the trend is getting stronger every year. In a wide-ranging conversation about the different forms of school choice, he argues that school choice is part of a wider societal movement toward increasing personalization in many goods and services and a reflection of the recognition that education is one of the central ways for people to realize their potential.