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The Political Orphanage

Jun 10, 2026

What if your landlord was also your boss, mayor, bartender, and moral hall monitor? This week, Andrew Heaton talks with Brian Brushwood about the strange history of company towns—from industrial utopias to corporate feudalism—and the thin line between benevolent planning and creepy social engineering. Then they...


Jun 3, 2026

Mike is a twenty-year police officer and current sergeant supervising a squad of violent crime detectives. After Andrew’s recent conversation with Naomi Brockwell about surveillance, encryption, and the slow erosion of privacy in the digital age, he reached out to offer respectful pushback from the other side of...


May 27, 2026

“Leftwing” and “Rightwing” don’t mean the same thing anymore–the battle lines are redrawing. The twentieth century was about economics: low taxes or big government. The twenty-first century will be a fight over something else.

Historian and political theorist Stephen Davies joins to discuss his book “The...


May 13, 2026

How can we make America safer and save money to boot? What approaches don’t work and what can we steal from other countries? Jennifer Doleac is the executive vice president at Arnold Ventures in charge of criminal justice, and the author of “The Science of Second Chances, a Revolution in Criminal Justice.”


Apr 9, 2026

The World's Smartest Podcast Network returns to discuss:

  • Universities dumping peripheral majors in favor of practical ones

  • The trials, tribulations, and musical comeback of Afroman

  • Lindy West, and Millennial Feminism 

 

TURNER'S COMEDY SPECIAL, "Turner Sparks: Buttoned Up and Unhinged: