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A reliable, honest and entertaining podcast about Washington D.C’s people, culture and politics.
A weekly podcast about the 2016 campaign. Produced by the folks at DecodeDC out of the Scripps Washington Bureau, it offers insight, a healthy dose of skepticism and some profanity. Hosted by Scripps politics reporter Miranda Green, Daily Beast social media editor Asawin Suebsaeng and Independent Journal politics editor Justin Green. Tune in Wednesdays.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee Podcast takes you inside a cherished American tradition, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Your guide to this world of words is Paul Loeffler, former Spelling Bee contestant and current ESPN spelling commentator. He'll take you behind the scenes of the Spelling Bee and speak with authors, celebrities and some of the young spellers in the spotlight.
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225: Where's the line between religious freedom and civil rights?
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The clash of two American values -- religious freedom and freedom from discrimination –- didn’t seem so huge when a broad coalition of religious and civil rights representatives got together in a room in 1993. While starting from different ends of the political spectrum, this group came together to push for a new law, The Religious Freedom Restorat…
Our friends at PolitiFact have sorted through a year of lies, fibs, exaggerations, fabrications and outright falsehoods to find the worst of the worst. PolitiFact’s Editor Angie Drobnic Holan joins us to reveal the 2017 lie of the year.By DecodeDC
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223: This is what happens when Congress polices itself
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Congress is considering changes to the way it handles sexual harassment complaints after its current rules have been called onerous by critics. We take stock of what might change with Patrick Terpstra of the Scripps Washington Bureau, and we speak with the lawmaker who helped shape the system, retired Rep. Chris Shays, who says it’s imperfect but i…
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222: The Changing Race of Immigration in America
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America has long sold itself as "the nation of immigrants." But when you look at our history -- even the halcyon Ellis Island days -- that branding has always come with an asterisk. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... especially if they’ll work for cheap. Our guests on this episode are Hiroshi Motomura of the University of Califor…
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221: What happens when the DOJ defies the courts?
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Judges in a legal stand-off. A power struggle between two branches of the federal government has left potentially thousands of undocumented immigrants stuck in detention centers with no idea how long they'll be there. Are some immigration judges defying the law? Jimmy speaks to Scripps' senior national investigative correspondent Mark Greenblatt ab…
With Republicans pushing ahead on their plan to overhaul taxes for the first time in 30 years, we revisit an episode of DeocdeDC that explained how that reform 30 years ago actually came together. Jimmy speaks with two major players in that effort - Pam Olsen of Pricewaterhouse Coopers and former Congressman Bill Archer.…
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220: A Republican has some advice for the GOP
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Phyllis Henderson is a state representative in South Carolina, and she is worn out by the state of political discourse. We spoke with her right after the 2016 election, and she had some reservations. Now we check back in with her to see how she thinks the GOP is doing -- and what she thinks about the tone of American politics.…
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219: Fact checking the link between mental illness and mass shootings
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Last Sunday, a gunman walked into a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas and opened fire on the congregation -- killing more than two dozen people. The next day, President Donald Trump told reporters the mass shooting wasn't a "guns situation," and instead blamed it on "mental health." Politicians have linked mental illness and mass shootings after …
It seems like for every winner in tax reform, there’s a loser. As the House beings its push for huge changes to how American people and companies pay their taxes, we explain the basics and dig into the intended and unintended consequences of it all. Think of it as Tax Reform 101, with guests Bernie Becker of Politico and Steve Taylor of the United …
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217: When politicians scream "bailout," what do they really mean?
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From the beginning of American politics, politicians have been using the term "bailout" as a political cudgel. In this week's podcast, Jimmy speaks with two experts who explain the what, when, why, where, and how of government bailouts.By DecodeDC
Residents of coal country are getting sick, but not everyone is convinced of the cause. Our Newsy colleague Zach Toombs explains what the science says and what the government is — or is not — doing about it.By DecodeDC
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215: No one knows how big the opioid epidemic really is
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Local law enforcement and national politicians are struggling to deal with the opioid epidemic gripping American communities, in large part because no one can figure out just how big the problem is. We speak with Angela Hill, who led a Scripps News investigation into a synthetic opioid called carfentanil.…
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214: Why can’t Congress get anything done on guns?
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Americans are once again mourning after another mass shooting. We explain why elected leaders fail — despite broad public support — to pass measures like additional background checks on firearm purchases. We speak with filmmaker Michael Kirk, who made the FRONTLINE documentary Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA.…
What does the government have to do with the price of milk? Turns out – everything. For decades, government subsidies have tried to balance supply and demand for a commodity that is produced every day, at least twice day, everywhere – and has only hours to go from the cow to the store shelf. This week, Amy Mayer of Iowa Public Radio and Harvest Pub…
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212: What if the government gave everyone free money?
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A universal basic income isn't a new idea, but it's getting traction in politics today. It's a different type of safety net: free cash from the government, with absolutely no strings attached. It's never been tried in the US in a pure form, but we have had experiments that came close. Ioana Marinescu, a professor of economics at the University of P…
The Federal Emergency Management Agency maps flood plains across the country. The maps are intended to show which areas are likely to flood so that local governments can better plan for disasters. They also determine who must buy flood insurance, and at what rates. But there are problems: Many of them are outdated and don’t take into account the an…
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Bonus: Jeff Sessions spins the facts on DACA
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions made some questionable statements to justify ending, DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shielded 800,000 people who were brought to the US illegally as children. In this bonus episode, we fact-check some of those claims with the editor of PolitiFact, Angie Drobnic-Holan.…
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210: Why Washington isn’t ready for the next hurricane
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Hurricane Harvey caused billions of dollars of damage, and Hurricane Irma will likely cost even more. But how will the federal government pay for all of it, and is it possible that Washington had a hand in making the destruction worse? This week we take a look at the National Flood Insurance Program with Michael Grunwald of Politico.…
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209: The Texas town with no drinking water
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Contaminated drinking water is coming into the homes of tens of millions of Americans, especially in smaller, lower income communities, from aging, under-funded water treatment plant and distribution systems, poorly maintained private wells, and groundwater sources polluted by industrial dumping and agricultural waste. Experts and the GAO say it wi…
The military spent decades contaminating the drinking and ground water at bases across the country and has spent billions to contain the mess. But the veterans and families who lived on those bases are still struggling with the long legacy of that toxic water and feel abandoned and betrayed by their government. Host Jimmy Williams speaks with Adrie…
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207: The most important Senate job you’ve never heard of
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You may think the Senators have all the say -- but there's one person in the Senate who may have even more power. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough complicated the repeal-and-replace plan that Senate Republicans were pursuing when she said parts of the bill would need 60 votes instead of a simple majority. But that's not all she can do, a…
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206: How protest movements can actually change peoples' lives
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Researchers Leah Wright Rigueur and Megan Ming Francis talk about where the social movements that have been so important to our politics in the last decade are going from here.By DecodeDC
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205: How the Tea Party, Occupy and Black Lives Matter shaped our election
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By DecodeDC
Harvard Kennedy School professor Moshik Temkin says historians must do a better job in comparing our present to our past, and he argues why in a recent New York Times piece titled “Historians Shouldn’t Be Pundits.” He talks with Jimmy — a history lover and regular cable pundit — about the limits in the analogies between Donald Trump and previous hi…
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203: What you should know about Trump's voter fraud commission
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President Trump believes he would have won the popular vote -- if it weren't for the 3 million people that voted illegally. Even though there's no evidence to support his claim, he put together a commission to look into the issue, and their first meeting is today. They've already been pretty active, asking for voter data from all 50 states. But wha…
