Podcast appearances and mentions of Jesse Helms

Tune in here to this Tuesday's edition of the Brett Winterble Show! Brett kicks off the program by talking about Ghislaine Maxwell's interview transcript and the Department of Justice potentially releasing it, urging full transparency and calling for the public release of all related materials. He expresses confidence that the truth will implicate several high-profile figures, particularly on the political left We're joined by Brett Jensen to talk about the rising threat of organized crime and the evolving tactics used by international gangs in the Charlotte area. Brett shares highlights from his in-depth interview with U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson, who oversees the Western District of North Carolina. Ferguson revealed that roughly 70% of the gang-related crime they deal with involves groups from Central and South America, many of whom are becoming more sophisticated—eschewing tattoos and graffiti to avoid RICO charges. They also discussed international burglary crews flying into the U.S., robbing homes, and flying out the same day. Bo Thompson from Good Morning BT is also here for this Tuesday’s episode of Crossing the Streams. Brett and Bo talk about the ongoing legal drama surrounding the Epstein case, including Ghislaine Maxwell’s efforts to block the release of testimony transcripts, as well as the political standoff in Texas over redistricting and its potential to influence national politics. Bo draws parallels between the Texas situation and North Carolina’s long history of gerrymandering battles, noting how similar tactics could spread to other states. The two also discuss the high-stakes 2026 U.S. Senate race between Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley, and just how massive the spending and attention could be. Bo reflects on the historical significance of the Senate seat once held by Jesse Helms and its legacy of intense campaigns. Bo also shares what he and Beth Troutman have coming up Wednesday on Good Morning BT, including cybersecurity expert Teresa Payton and political analyst Scott Huffman Listen here for all of this and more on The Brett Winterble Show! For more from Brett Winterble check out his YouTube channel. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've covered the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, pretty consistently on Statecraft, since our first interview on PEPFAR, the flagship anti-AIDS program, in 2023. When DOGE came to USAID, I was extremely critical of the cuts to lifesaving aid, and the abrupt, pointlessly harmful ways in which they were enacted. In March, I wrote, “The DOGE team has axed the most effective and efficient programs at USAID, and forced out the chief economist, who was brought in to oversee a more aggressive push toward efficiency.”Today, we're talking to that forced-out chief economist, Dean Karlan. Dean spent two and a half years at the helm of the first-ever Office of the Chief Economist at USAID. In that role, he tried to help USAID get better value from its foreign aid spending. His office shifted $1.7 billion of spending towards programs with stronger evidence of effectiveness. He explains how he achieved this, building a start-up within a massive bureaucracy. I should note that Dean is one of the titans of development economics, leading some of the most important initiatives in the field (I won't list them, but see here for details), and I think there's a plausible case he deserves a Nobel.Throughout this conversation, Dean makes a point much better than I could: the status quo at USAID needed a lot of improvement. The same political mechanisms that get foreign aid funded by Congress also created major vulnerabilities for foreign aid, vulnerabilities that DOGE seized on. Dean believes foreign aid is hugely valuable, a good thing for us to spend our time, money, and resources on. But there's a lot USAID could do differently to make its marginal dollar spent more efficient.DOGE could have made USAID much more accountable and efficient by listening to people like Dean, and reformers of foreign aid should think carefully about Dean's criticisms of USAID, and his points for how to make foreign aid not just resilient but politically popular in the long term.We discuss* What does the Chief Economist do?* Why does 170% percent of USAID funds come already earmarked by Congress?* Why is evaluating program effectiveness institutionally difficult?* Why don't we just do cash transfers for everything?* Why institutions like USAID have trouble prioritizing* Should USAID get rid of gender/environment/fairness in procurement rules?* Did it rely too much on a small group of contractors?* What's changed in development economics over the last 20 years?* Should USAID spend more on governance and less on other forms of aid? * How DOGE killed USAID — and how to bring it back better* Is depoliticizing foreign aid even possible?* Did USAID build “soft power” for the United States?This is a long conversation: you can jump to a specific section with the index above. If you just want to hear about Dean's experience with DOGE, you can click here or go to the 45-minute mark in the audio. And if you want my abbreviated summary of the conversation, see these two Twitter threads. But I think the full conversation is enlightening, especially if you want to understand the American foreign aid system. Thanks to Harry Fletcher-Wood for his judicious edits.Our past coverage of USAIDDean, I'm curious about the limits of your authority. What can the Chief Economist of USAID do? What can they make people do?There had never been an Office of the Chief Economist before. In a sense, I was running a startup, within a 13,000-employee agency that had fairly baked-in, decentralized processes for doing things.Congress would say, "This is how much to spend on this sector and these countries." What you actually fund was decided by missions in the individual countries. It was exciting to have that purview across the world and across many areas, not just economic development, but also education, social protection, agriculture. But the reality is, we were running a consulting unit within USAID, trying to advise others on how to use evidence more effectively in order to maximize impact for every dollar spent.We were able to make some institutional changes, focused on basically a two-pronged strategy. One, what are the institutional enablers — the rules and the processes for how things get done — that are changeable? And two, let's get our hands dirty working with the budget holders who say, "I would love to use the evidence that's out there, please help guide us to be more effective with what we're doing."There were a lot of willing and eager people within USAID. We did not lack support to make that happen. We never would've achieved anything, had there not been an eager workforce who heard our mission and knocked on our door to say, "Please come help us do that."What do you mean when you say USAID has decentralized processes for doing things?Earmarks and directives come down from Congress. [Some are] about sector: $1 billion dollars to spend on primary school education to improve children's learning outcomes, for instance. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) [See our interview with former PEPFAR lead Mark Dybul] is one of the biggest earmarks to spend money specifically on specific diseases. Then there's directives that come down about how to allocate across countries.Those are two conversations I have very little engagement on, because some of that comes from Congress. It's a very complicated, intertwined set of constraints that are then adhered to and allocated to the different countries. Then what ends up happening is — this is the decentralized part — you might be a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) working in a country, your focus is education, and you're given a budget for that year from the earmark for education and told, "Go spend $80 million on a new award in education." You're working to figure out, “How should we spend that?” There might be some technical support from headquarters, but ultimately, you're responsible for making those decisions. Part of our role was to help guide those FSOs towards programs that had more evidence of effectiveness.Could you talk more about these earmarks? There's a popular perception that USAID decides what it wants to fund. But these big categories of humanitarian aid, or health, or governance, are all decided in Congress. Often it's specific congressmen or congresswomen who really want particular pet projects to be funded.That's right. And the number that I heard is that something in the ballpark of 150-170% of USAID funds were earmarked. That might sound horrible, but it's not.How is that possible?Congress double-dips, in a sense: we have two different demands. You must spend money on these two things. If the same dollar can satisfy both, that was completely legitimate. There was no hiding of that fact. It's all public record, and it all comes from congressional acts that create these earmarks. There's nothing hidden underneath the hood.Will you give me examples of double earmarking in practice? What kinds of goals could you satisfy with the same dollar?There's an earmark for Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) to do research, and an earmark for education. If DIV is going to fund an evaluation of something in the education space, there's a possibility that that can satisfy a dual earmark requirement. That's the kind of thing that would happen. One is an earmark for a process: “Do really careful, rigorous evaluations of interventions, so that we learn more about what works and what doesn't." And another is, "Here's money that has to be spent on education." That would be an example of a double dip on an earmark.And within those categories, the job of Chief Economist was to help USAID optimize the funding? If you're spending $2 billion on education, “Let's be as effective with that money as possible.”That's exactly right. We had two teams, Evidence Use and Evidence Generation. It was exactly what it sounds like. If there was an earmark for $1 billion dollars on education, the Evidence Use team worked to do systematic analysis: “What is the best evidence out there for what works for education for primary school learning outcomes?” Then, “How can we map that evidence to the kinds of things that USAID funds? What are the kinds of questions that need to be figured out?”It's not a cookie-cutter answer. A systematic review doesn't say, "Here's the intervention. Now just roll it out everywhere." We had to work with the missions — with people who know the local area — to understand, “What is the local context? How do you appropriately adapt this program in a procurement and contextualize it to that country, so that you can hire people to use that evidence?”Our Evidence Generation team was trying to identify knowledge gaps where the agency could lead in producing more knowledge about what works and what doesn't. If there was something innovative that USAID was funding, we were huge advocates of, "Great, let's contribute to the global public good of knowledge, so that we can learn more in the future about what to do, and so others can learn from us. So let's do good, careful evaluations."Being able to demonstrate what good came of an intervention also serves the purpose of accountability. But I've never been a fan of doing really rigorous evaluations just for the sake of accountability. It could discourage innovation and risk-taking, because if you fail, you'd be seen as a failure, rather than as a win for learning that an idea people thought was reasonable didn't turn out to work. It also probably leads to overspending on research, rather than doing programs. If you're doing something just for accountability purposes, you're better off with audits. "Did you actually deliver the program that you said you would deliver, or not?"Awards over $100 million dollars did go through the front office of USAID for approval. We added a process — it was actually a revamped old process — where they stopped off in my office. We were able to provide guidance on the cost-effectiveness of proposals that would then be factored into the decision on whether to proceed. When I was first trying to understand Project 2025, because we saw that as a blueprint for what changes to expect, one of the changes they proposed was actually that process. I remember thinking to myself, "We just did that. Hopefully this change that they had in mind when they wrote that was what we actually put in place." But I thought of it as a healthy process that had an impact, not just on that one award, but also in helping set an example for smaller awards of, “This is how to be more evidence-based in what you're doing.”[Further reading: Here's a position paper Karlan's office at USAID put out in 2024 on how USAID should evaluate cost-effectiveness.]You've also argued that USAID should take into account more research that has already been done on global development and humanitarian aid. Your ideal wouldn't be for USAID to do really rigorous research on every single thing it does. You can get a lot better just by incorporating things that other people have learned.That's absolutely right. I can say this as a researcher: to no one's surprise, it's more bureaucratic to work with the government as a research funder than it is to work with foundations and nimble NGOs. If I want to evaluate a particular program, and you give me a choice of who the funder should be, the only reason I would choose government is if it had a faster on-ramp to policy by being inside.The people who are setting policy should not be putting more weight on evidence that they paid for. In fact, one of the slogans that I often used at USAID is, "Evidence doesn't care who pays for it." We shouldn't be, as an agency, putting more weight on the things that we evaluated vs. things that others evaluated without us, and that we can learn from, mimic, replicate, and scale.We — and the we here is everyone, researchers and policymakers — put too much weight on individual studies, in a horrible way. The first to publish on something gets more accolades than the second, third and fourth. That's not healthy when it comes to policy. If we put too much weight on our own evidence, we end up putting too much weight on individual studies we happen to do. That's not healthy either.That was one of the big pieces of culture change that we tried to push internally at USAID. We had this one slide that we used repeatedly that showed the plethora of evidence out there in the world compared to 20 years ago. A lot more studies are now usable. You can aggregate that evidence and form much better policies.You had political support to innovate that not everybody going into government has. On the other hand, USAID is a big, bureaucratic entity. There are all kinds of cross-pressures against being super-effective per dollar spent. In doing culture change, what kinds of roadblocks did you run into internally?We had a lot of support and political cover, in the sense that the political appointees — I was not a political appointee — were huge fans. But political appointees under Republicans have also been huge fans of what we were doing. Disagreements are more about what to do and what causes to choose. But the basic idea of being effective with your dollars to push your policy agenda is something that cuts across both sides.In the days leading up to the inauguration, we were expecting to continue the work we were doing. Being more cost-effective was something some of the people who were coming in were huge advocates for. They did make progress under Trump I in pushing USAID in that direction. We saw ourselves as able to help further that goal. Obviously, that's not the way it played out, but there isn't really anything political about being more cost-effective.We'll come back to that, but I do want to talk about the 2.5 years you spent in the Biden administration. USAID is full of people with all kinds of incentives, including some folks who were fully on board and supportive. What kinds of challenges did you have in trying to change the culture to be more focused on evidence and effectiveness?There was a fairly large contingent of people who welcomed us, were eager, understood the space that we were coming from and the things that we wanted, and greeted us with open arms. There's no way we would've accomplished what we accomplished without that. We had a bean counter within the Office of the Chief Economist of moving about $1.7 billion towards programs that were more effective or had strong evaluations. That would've been $0 had there not been some individuals who were already eager and just didn't have the path for doing it.People can see economists as people who are going to come in negative and a bit dismal — the dismal science, so to speak. I got into economics for a positive reason. We tried as often as possible to show that with an economic lens, we can help people achieve their goals better, period. We would say repeatedly to people, "We're not here to actually make the difficult choices: to say whether health, education, or food security is the better use of money. We're here to accept your goal and help you achieve more of it for your dollar spent.” We always send a very disarming message: we're there simply to help people achieve their goals and to illuminate the trade-offs that naturally exist.Within USAID, you have a consensus-type organization. When you have 10 people sitting around a room trying to decide how to spend money towards a common goal, if you don't crystallize the trade-offs between the various ideas being put forward, you end up seeing a consensus built: that everybody gets a piece of the pie. Our way of trying to shift the culture is to take those moments and say, "Wait a second. All 10 might be good ideas relative to doing nothing, but they can't all be good relative to each other. We all share a common goal, so let's be clear about the trade-offs between these different programs. Let's identify the ones that are actually getting you the most bang for your buck."Can you give me an example of what those trade-offs might be in a given sector?Sure. Let's take social protection, what we would call the Humanitarian Nexus development space. It might be working in a refugee area — not dealing with the immediate crisis, but one, two, five, or ten years later — trying to help bring the refugees into a more stable environment and into economic activities. Sometimes, you would see some cash or food provided to households. The programs would all have the common goal of helping to build a sustainable livelihood for households, so that they can be more integrated into the local economy. There might be programs providing water, financial instruments like savings vehicles, and supporting vocational education. It'd be a myriad of things, all on this focused goal of income-generating activity for the households to make them more stable in the long run.Often, those kinds of programs doing 10 different things did not actually lead to an observable impact over five years. But a more focused approach has gone through evaluations: cash transfers. That's a good example where “reducing” doesn't always mean reduce your programs just to one thing, but there is this default option of starting with a base case: “What does a cash transfer generate?"And to clarify for people who don't follow development economics, the cash transfer is just, “What if we gave people money?”Sometimes it is just that. Sometimes it's thinking strategically, “Maybe we should do it as a lump sum so that it goes into investments. Maybe we should do it with a planning exercise to make those investments.” Let's just call it “cash-plus,” or “cash-with-a-little-plus,” then variations of that nature. There's a different model, maybe call it, “cash-plus-plus,” called the graduation model. That has gone through about 30 randomized trials, showing pretty striking impacts on long-run income-generating activity for households. At its core is a cash transfer, usually along with some training about income-generating activity — ideally one that is producing and exporting in some way, even a local export to the capital — and access to some form of savings. In some cases, that's an informal savings group, with a community that comes and saves together. In some cases, it's mobile money that's the core. It's a much simpler program, and it's easier to do it at scale. It has generated considerable, measured, repeatedly positive impacts, but not always. There's a lot more that needs to be learned about how to do it more effectively.[Further reading: Here's another position paper from Karlan's team at USAID on benchmarking against cash transfers.]One of your recurring refrains is, “If we're not sure that these other ideas have an impact, let's benchmark: would a cash-transfer model likely give us more bang for our buck than this panoply of other programs that we're trying to run?”The idea of having a benchmark is a great approach in general. You should always be able to beat X. X might be different in different contexts. In a lot of cases, cash is the right benchmark.Go back to education. What's your benchmark for improving learning outcomes for a primary school? Cash transfer is not the right benchmark. The evidence that cash transfers will single-handedly move the needle on learning outcomes is not that strong. On the other hand, a couple of different programs — one called Teaching at the Right Level, another called structured pedagogy — have proven repeatedly to generate very strong impacts at a fairly modest cost. In education, those should be the benchmark. If you want to innovate, great, innovate. But your goal is to beat those. If you can beat them consistently, you become the benchmark. That's a great process for the long run. It's very much part of our thinking about what the future of foreign aid should look like: to be structured around that benchmark.Let's go back to those roundtables you described, where you're trying to figure out what the intervention should be for a group of refugees in a foreign country. What were the responses when you'd say, “Look, if we're all pulling in the same direction, we have to toss out the three worst ideas”?One of the challenges is the psychology of ethics. There's probably a word for this, but one of the objections we would often get was about the scale of a program for an individual. Someone would argue, "But this won't work unless you do this one extra thing." That extra thing might be providing water to the household, along with a cash transfer for income-generating activity, financial support, and bank accounts. Another objection would be that, "You also have to provide consumption and food up to a certain level."These are things that individually might be good, relative to nothing, or maybe even relative to other water approaches or cash transfers. But if you're focused on whether to satisfy the household's food needs, or provide half of what's needed — if all you're thinking about is the trade-off between full and half — you immediately jump to this idea that, "No, we have to go full. That's what's needed to help this household." But if you go to half, you can help more people. There's an actual trade-off: 10,000 people will receive nothing because you're giving more to the people in your program.The same is true for nutritional supplements. Should you provide 2,000 calories a day, or 1,000 calories a day to more people? It's a very difficult conversation on the psychology of ethics. There's this idea that people in a program are sacrosanct, and you must do everything you can for them. But that ignores all the people who are not being reached at all.I would find myself in conversations where that's exactly the way I would try to put it. I would say, "Okay, wait, we have the 2,000,000 people that are eligible for this program in this context. Our program is only going to reach 250,000. That's the reality. Now, let's talk about how many people we're willing to leave untouched and unhelped whatsoever." That was, at least to me, the right way to frame this question. Do you go very intense for fewer people or broader support for more people?Did that help these roundtables reach consensus, or at least have a better sense of what things are trading off against each other?I definitely saw movement for some. I wouldn't say it was uniform, and these are difficult conversations. But there was a lot of appetite for this recognition that, as big as USAID was, it was still small, relative to the problems being approached. There were a lot of people in any given crisis who were being left unhelped. The minute you're able to help people focus more on those big numbers, as daunting as they are, I would see more openness to looking at the evidence to figure out how to do the most good with the resources we have?” We must recognize these inherent trade-offs, whether we like it or not.Back in 2023, you talked to Dylan Matthews at Vox — it's a great interview — about how it's hard to push people to measure cost-effectiveness, when it means adding another step to a big, complicated bureaucratic process of getting aid out the door. You said,"There are also bandwidth issues. There's a lot of competing demands. Some of these demands relate to important issues on gender environment, fairness in the procurement process. These add steps to the process that need to be adhered to. What you end up with is a lot of overworked people. And then you're saying, ‘Here's one more thing to do.'”Looking back, what do you think of those demands on, say, fairness in the procurement process?Given that we're going to be facing a new environment, there probably are some steps in the process that — hopefully, when things are put back in place in some form — someone can be thinking more carefully about. It's easier to put in a cleaner process that avoids some of these hiccups when you start with a blank slate.Having said that, it's also going to be fewer people to dole out less money. There's definitely a challenge that we're going to be facing as a country, to push out money in an effective way with many fewer people for oversight. I don't think it would be accurate to say we achieved this goal yet, but my goal was to make it so that adding cost-effectiveness was actually a negative-cost addition to the process. [We wanted] to do it in a way that successfully recognized that it wasn't a cookie-cutter solution from up top for every country. But [our goal was that] the work to contextualize in a country actually simplified the process for whoever's putting together the procurement docs and deciding what to put in them. I stand by that belief that if it's done well, we can make this a negative-cost process change.I just want to push a little bit. Would you be supportive of a USAID procurement and contracting process that stripped out a bunch of these requirements about gender, environment, or fairness in contracting? Would that make USAID a more effective institution?Some of those types of things did serve an important purpose for some areas and not others. The tricky thing is, how do you set up a process to decide when to do it, when not? There's definitely cases where you would see an environmental review of something that really had absolutely nothing to do with the environment. It was just a cog in the process, but you have to have a process for deciding the process. I don't know enough about the legislation that was put in place on each of these to say, “Was there a better way of deciding when to do them, when not to do them?” That is not something that I was involved in in a direct way. "Let's think about redoing how we introduce gender in our procurement process" was never put on the table.On gender, there's a fair amount of evidence in different contexts that says the way of dealing with a gender inequity is not to just take the same old program and say, "We're now going to do this for women." You need to understand something more about the local context. If all you do is take programs and say, "Add a gender component," you end up with a lot of false attribution, and you don't end up being effective at the very thing that the person [leading the program] cares to do.In that Vox interview, your host says, "USAID relies heavily on a small number of well-connected contractors to deliver most aid, while other groups are often deterred from even applying by the process's complexity." He goes on to say that the use of rigorous evaluation methods like randomized controlled trials is the exception, not the norm.On Statecraft, we talked to Kyle Newkirk, who ran USAID procurement in Afghanistan in the late 2000s, about the small set of well-connected contractors that took most of the contracts in Afghanistan. Often, there was very little oversight from USAID, either because it was hard to get out to those locations in a war-torn environment, or because the system of accountability wasn't built there. Did you talk to people about lessons learned from USAID operating in Afghanistan?No. I mean, only to the following extent: The lesson learned there, as I understand it, wasn't so much about the choice on what intervention to fund, it was procurement: the local politics and engagement with the governments or lack thereof. And dealing with the challenge of doing work in a context like that, where there's more risk of fraud and issues of that nature.Our emphasis was about the design of programs to say, “What are you actually going to try to fund?” Dealing with whether there's fraud in the execution would fall more under the Inspector General and other units. That's not an area that we engaged in when we would do evaluation.This actually gets to a key difference between impact evaluations and accountability. It's one of the areas where we see a lot of loosey-goosey language in the media reporting and Twitter. My office focused on impact evaluation. What changed in the world because of this intervention, that wouldn't otherwise have changed? By “change in the world,” we are making a causal statement. That's setting up things like randomized controlled trials to find out, “What was the impact of this program?” It does provide some accountability, but it really should be done to look forward, in order to know, “Does this help achieve the goals we have in mind?” If so, let's learn that, and replicate it, scale it, do it again.If you're going to deliver books to schools, medicine to health clinics, or cash to people, and you're concerned about fraud, then you need to audit that process and see, “Did the books get to the schools, the medicine to the people, the cash to the people?” You don't need to ask, "Did the medicine solve the disease?" There's been studies already. There's a reason that medicine was being prescribed. Once it's proven to be an effective drug, you don't run randomized trials for decades to learn what you already know. If it's the prescribed drug, you just prescribe the drug, and do accountability exercises to make sure that the drugs are getting into the right hands and there isn't theft or corruption along the way.I think it's a very intuitive thing. There's a confusion that often takes place in social science, in economic or education interventions. They somehow forget that once we know that a certain program generates a certain positive impact, we no longer need to track continuously to find out what happens. Instead, we just need to do accountability to make sure that the program is being delivered as it was designed, tested, and shown to work.There are all these criticisms — from the waste, fraud, and corruption perspective — of USAID working with a couple of big contractors. USAID works largely through these big development organizations like Chemonics. Would USAID dollars be more effective if it worked through a larger base of contractors?I don't think we know. There's probably a few different operating models that can deliver the same basic intervention. We need to focus on, ”What actually are we doing on the ground? What is it that we want the recipients of the program to receive, hear, or do?” and then think backwards from there: "Who's the right implementer for this?" If there's an implementer who is much more expensive for delivering the same product, let's find someone who's more cost-effective.It's helpful to break cost-effective programming into two things: the intervention itself and what benefits it accrues, and the cost for delivering that. Sometimes the improvement is not about the intervention, it's about the delivery model. Maybe that's what you're saying: “These players were too few, too large, and they had a grab on the market, so that they were able to charge too much money to deliver something that others were equally able to do at lower cost." If that's the case, that says, "We should reform our procurement process,” because the reason you would see that happen is they were really good at complying with requirements that came at USAID from Congress. You had an overworked workforce [within USAID] that had to comply with all these requirements. If you had a bid between two groups, one of which repeatedly delivered on the paperwork to get a good performance evaluation, and a new group that doesn't have that track record, who are you going to choose? That's how we ended up where we are.My understanding of the history is that it comes from a push from Republicans in the ‘80s, from [Senator] Jesse Helms, to outsource USAID efforts to contractors. So this is not a left-leaning thing. I wouldn't say it is right-leaning either. It was just a decision made decades ago. You combine that with the bureaucratic requirements of working with USAID, and you end up with a few firms and nonprofits skilled at dealing with it.It's definitely my impression that at various points in American history, different partisans are calling for insourcing or for outsourcing. But definitely, I think you're right that the NGO cluster around USAID does spring up out of a Republican push in the eighties.We talked to John Kamensky recently, who was on Al Gore's predecessor to DOGE in the ‘90s.I listened to this, yeah.I'm glad to hear it! I'm thinking of it because they also pushed to cut the workforce in the mid-90s and outsource federal functions.Earlier, you mentioned a slide that showed what we've learned in the field of development economics over the past 20 years. Will you narrate that slide for me?Let me do two slides for you. The slide that I was picturing was a count of randomized controlled trials in development that shows a fairly exponential growth. The movement started in the mid-to-late 1990s, but really took off in the 2000s. Even just in the past 10 years, it's seen a considerable increase. There's about 4-5,000 randomized controlled trials evaluating various programs of the kind USAID funds.That doesn't tell you the substance of what was learned. Here's an example of substance, which is cash transfers: probably the most studied intervention out there. We have a meta-analysis that counted 115 studies. That's where you start having a preponderance of evidence to be able to say something concrete. There's some variation: you get different results in different places; targeting and ways of doing it vary. A good systematic analysis can help tease out what we can say, not just about the effect of cash, but also how to do it and what to expect, depending on how it's done. Fifteen years ago, when we saw the first few come out, you just had, "Oh, that's interesting. But it's a couple of studies, how do you form policy around that?” With 115, we can say so much more.What else have we learned about development that USAID operators in the year 2000 would not have been able to act upon?Think about the development process in two steps. One is choosing good interventions; the other is implementing them well. The study of implementation is historically underdone. The challenge that we face — this is an area I was hoping USAID could make inroads on — was, studying a new intervention might be of high reward from an academic perspective. But it's a lot less interesting to an academic to do much more granular work to say, "That was an interesting program that created these groups [of aid recipients]; now let's do some further knock-on research to find out whether those groups should be made of four, six, or ten people.” It's going to have a lower reward for the researcher, but it's incredibly important.It's equivalent to the color of the envelope in direct marketing. You might run tests — if this were old-style direct marketing — as to whether the envelope should be blue or red. You might find that blue works better. Great, but that's not interesting to an academic. But if you run 50 of these, on a myriad of topics about how to implement better, you end up with a collection of knowledge that is moving the needle on how to achieve more impact per dollar.That collection is not just important for policy: it also helps us learn more about the development process and the bottlenecks for implementing good programs. As we're seeing more digital platforms and data being used, [refining implementation] is more possible compared to 20 years ago, where most of the research was at the intervention level: does this intervention work? That's an exciting transition. It's also a path to seeing how foreign aid can help in individual contexts, [as we] work with local governments to integrate evidence into their operations and be more efficient with their own resources.There's an argument I've seen a lot recently: we under-invest in governance relative to other foreign aid goals. If we care about economic growth and humanitarian outcomes, we should spend a lot more on supporting local governance. What do you make of that claim?I agree with it actually, but there's a big difference between recognizing the problem and seeing what the tool is to address it. It's one thing to say, “Politics matters, institutions matter.” There's lots of evidence to support that, including the recent Nobel Prize. It's another beast to say, “This particular intervention will improve institutions and governance.”The challenge is, “What do we do about this? What is working to improve this? What is resilient to the political process?” The minute you get into those kinds of questions, it's the other end of the spectrum from a cash transfer. A cash transfer has a kind of universality: Not to say you're going to get the same impact everywhere, but it's a bit easier to think about the design of a program. You have fewer parameters to decide. When you think about efforts to improve governance, you need bespoke thinking in every single place.As you point out, it's something of a meme to say “institutions matter” and to leave it at that, but the devil is in all of those details.In my younger years — I feel old saying that — I used to do a lot of work on financial inclusion, and financial literacy was always my go-to example. On a household level, it's really easy to show a correlation: people who are more financially literate make better financial decisions and have more wealth, etc. It's much harder to say, “How do you move the needle on financial literacy in a way that actually helps people make better decisions, absorb shocks better, build investment better, save better?” It's easy to show that the correlation is there. It's much harder to say this program, here, will actually move the needle. That same exact problem is much more complicated when thinking about governance and institutions.Let's talk about USAID as it stands today. You left USAID when it became clear to you that a lot of the work you were doing was not of interest to the people now running it. How did the agency end up so disconnected from a political base of support? There's still plenty of people who support USAID and would like it to be reinstated, but it was at least vulnerable enough to be tipped over by DOGE in a matter of weeks. How did that happen?I don't know that I would agree with the premise. I'm not sure that public support of foreign aid actually changed, I'd be curious to see that. I think aid has always been misunderstood. There are public opinion polls that show people thought 25% of the US budget was spent on foreign aid. One said, "What, do you think it should be?" People said 10%. The right answer is about 0.6%. You could say fine, people are bad at statistics, but those numbers are pretty dauntingly off. I don't know that that's changed. I heard numbers like that years ago.I think there was a vulnerability to an effort that doesn't create a visible impact to people's lives in America, the way that Social Security, Medicare, and roads do. Foreign aid just doesn't have that luxury. I think it's always been vulnerable. It has always had some bipartisan support, because of the understanding of the bigger picture and the soft power that's gained from it. And the recognition that we are a nation built on the idea of generosity and being good to others. That was always there, but it required Congress to step in and say, "Let's go spend this money on foreign aid." I don't think that changed. What changed was that you ended up with an administration that just did not share those values.There's this issue in foreign aid: Congress picks its priorities, but those priorities are not a ranked list of what Congress cares about. It's the combination of different interests and pressures in Congress that generates the list of things USAID is going to fund.You could say doing it that way is necessary to build buy-in from a bunch of different political interests for the work of foreign aid. On the other hand, maybe the emergent list from that process is not the things that are most important to fund. And clearly, that congressional buy-in wasn't enough to protect USAID from DOGE or from other political pressures.How should people who care about foreign aid reason about building a version of USAID that's more effective and less vulnerable at the same time?Fair question. Look, I have thoughts, but by no means do I think of myself as the most knowledgeable person to say, here's the answer in the way forward. One reality is, even if Congress did object, they didn't have a mechanism in place to actually object. They can control the power of the purse the next round, but we're probably going to be facing a constitutional crisis over the Impoundment Act, to see if the executive branch can impound money that Congress spent. We'll see how this plays out. Aside from taking that to court, all Congress could do was complain.I would like what comes back to have two things done that will help, but they don't make foreign aid immune. One is to be more evidence-based, because then attacks on being ineffective are less strong. But the reality is, some of the attacks on its “effectiveness,” and the examples used, had nothing to do with poorly-chosen interventions. There was a slipperiness of language, calling something that they don't like “fraud” and “waste” because they didn't like its purpose. That is very different than saying, “We actually agreed on the purpose of something, but then you implemented it in such a bad way that there was fraud and waste.” There were really no examples given of that second part. So I don't know that being more evidence-based will actually protect it, given that that wasn't the way it was really genuinely taken down.The second is some boundaries. There is a core set of activities that have bipartisan support. How do we structure a foreign aid that is just focused on that? We need to find a way to put the things that are more controversial — whether it's the left or right that wants it — in a separate bucket. Let the team that wins the election turn that off and on as they wish, without adulterating the core part that has bipartisan support. That's the key question: can we set up a process that partitions those, so that they don't have that vulnerability? [I wrote about this problem earlier this year.]My counter-example is PEPFAR, which had a broad base of bipartisan support. PEPFAR consistently got long-term reauthorizations from Congress, I think precisely because of the dynamic you're talking about: It was a focused, specific intervention that folks all over the political spectrum could get behind and save lives. But in government programs, if something has a big base of support, you have an incentive to stuff your pet partisan issues in there, for the same reason that “must-pass” bills get stuffed with everybody's little thing. [In 2024, before DOGE, PEPFAR's original Republican co-sponsor came out against a long-term reauthorization, on the grounds that the Biden administration was using the program to promote abortion. Congress reauthorized PEPFAR for only one year, and that reauthorization lapsed in 2025.]You want to carve out the things that are truly bipartisan. But does that idea have a timer attached? What if, on a long enough timeline, everything becomes politicized?There are economic theorems about the nature of a repeated game. You can get many different equilibria in the long run. I'd like to think there's a world in which that is the answer. But we have seen an erosion of other things, like the filibuster regarding judges. Each team makes a little move in some direction, and then you change the equilibrium. We always have that risk. The goal is, how can you establish something where that doesn't happen?It might be that what's happened is helpful, in an unintended way, to build equilibrium in the future that keeps things focused on the bipartisan aspect. Whether it's the left or the right that wants to do something that they know the other side will object to, they hold back and say, "Maybe we shouldn't do that. Because when we do, the whole thing gets blown up."Let's imagine you're back at USAID a couple of years from now, with a broader latitude to organize our foreign aid apparatus around impact and effectiveness. What other things might we want to do — beyond measuring programs and keeping trade-offs in mind — if we really wanted to focus on effectiveness? Would we do fewer interventions and do them at larger scale?I think we would do fewer things simpler and bigger, but I also think we need to recognize that even at our biggest, we were tiny compared to the budget of the local government. If we can do more to use our money to help them be more effective with their money, that's the biggest win to go for. That starts looking a lot like things Mark Green was putting in place [as administrator of USAID] under Trump I, under the Journey to Self-Reliance [a reorganization of USAID to help countries address development challenges themselves].Sometimes that's done in the context of, "Let's do that for five or ten years, and then we can stop giving aid to that country." That was the way the Millennium Challenge Corporation talked about their country selection initially. Eventually, they stopped doing that, because they realized that that was never happening. I think that's okay. As much as we might help make some changes, even if we succeed in helping the poorest country in the world use their resources better, they're still going to be poor. We're still going to be rich. There's still maybe going to be the poorest, because if we do that in the 10 poorest countries and they all move up, maybe the 11th becomes the poorest, and then we can work there. I don't think getting off of aid is necessarily the objective.But if that was clearly the right answer, that's a huge win if we've done that by helping to prove the institutions and governance of that country so that it is rolling out better policies, helping its people better, and collecting their own tax revenue. If we can have an eye on that, then that's a huge win for foreign aid in general.How are we supposed to be measuring the impact of soft power? I think that's a term that's not now much in vogue in DC.There's no one answer to how to measure soft power. It's described as the influence that we gain in the world in terms of geopolitics, everything from treaties and the United Nations to access to markets; trade policy, labor policy. The basic idea of soft power manifests itself in all those different ways.It's a more extreme version of the challenge of measuring the impact of cash transfers. You want to measure the impact of a pill that is intended to deal with disease: you measure the disease, and you have a direct measure. You want to measure the impact of cash: you have to measure a lot of different things, because you don't know how people are going to use the cash. Soft power is even further down the spectrum: you don't know exactly how aid is helping build our partnership with a country's people and leaders. How is that going to manifest itself in the future? That becomes that much harder to do.Having said that, there's academic studies that document everything from attitudes about America to votes at the United Nations that follow aid, and things of that nature. But it's not like there's one core set: that's part of what makes it a challenge.I will put my cards on the table here: I have been skeptical of the idea that USAID is a really valuable tool for American soft power, for maintaining American hegemony, etc. It seems much easier to defend USAID by simply saying that it does excellent humanitarian work, and that's valuable. The national security argument for USAID seems harder to substantiate.I think we agree on this. You have such a wide set of things to look at, it's not hard to imagine a bias from a researcher might lead to selection of outcomes, and of the context. It's not a well-defined enough concept to be able to say, "It worked 20% of the time, and it did not in these, and the net average…" Average over what? Even though there's good case studies that show various paths where it has mattered, there's case studies that show it doesn't.I also get nervous about an entire system that's built around [attempts to measure soft power]. It turns foreign aid into too much of a transactional process, instead of a relationship that is built on the Golden Rule, “There's people in this country that we can actually help.” Sure, there's this hope that it'll help further our national interests. But if they're suffering from drought and famine, and we can provide support and save some lives, or we can do longer term developments and save tomorrow's lives, we ought to do that. That is a good thing for our country to do.Yet the conversation does often come back to this question of soft power. The problem with transactional is you get exactly what you contract on: nothing more, nothing less. There's too many unknowns here, when we're dealing with country-level interactions, and engagements between countries. It needs to be about relationships, and that means supporting even if there isn't a contract that itemizes the exact quid pro quo we are getting for something.I want to talk about what you observed in the administration change and the DOGE-ing of USAID. I think plenty of observers looked at this in the beginning and thought, “It's high time that a lot of these institutions were cleaned up and that someone took a hard look at how we spend money there.”There was not really any looking at any of the impact of anything. That was never in the cards. There was a 90-day review that was supposed to be done, but there were no questions asked, there was no data being collected. There was nothing whatsoever being looked at that had anything to do with, “Was this award actually accomplishing what it set out to accomplish?” There was no process in which they made those kinds of evaluations on what's actually working.You can see this very clearly when you think about what their bean counter was at DOGE: the spending that they cut. It's like me saying, "I'm going to do something beneficial for my household by stopping all expenditures on food." But we were getting something for that. Maybe we could have bought more cheaply, switched grocery stores, made a change there that got us the same food for less money. That would be a positive change. But you can't cut all your food expenditures, call that a saving, and then not have anything to eat. That's just bad math, bad economics.But that's exactly what they were doing. Throughout the entire government, that bean counter never once said, “benefits foregone.” It was always just “lowered spending.” Some of that probably did actually have a net loss, maybe it was $100 million spent on something that only created $10 million of benefits to Americans. That's a $90 million gain. But it was recorded as $100 million. And the point is, they never once looked at what benefits were being generated from the spending. What was being asked, within USAID, had nothing to do with what was actually being accomplished by any of the money that was being spent. It was never even asked.How do you think about risky bets in a place like USAID? It would be nice for USAID to take lots of high-risk, high-reward bets, and to be willing to spend money that will be “wasted” in the pursuit of high-impact interventions. But that approach is hard for government programs, politically, because the misses are much more salient than the successes.This is a very real issue. I saw this the very first time I did any sort of briefing with Congress when I was Chief Economist. The question came at me, "Why doesn't USAID show us more failures?" I remember thinking to myself, "Are you willing to promise that when they show the failure, you won't punish them for the failure — that you'll reward them for documenting and learning from the failure and not doing it again?" That's a very difficult nut to crack.There's an important distinction to make. You can have a portfolio of evidence generation, some things work and some don't, that can collectively contribute towards knowledge and scaling of effective programs. USAID actually had something like this called Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), and was in an earmark from Congress. It was so good that they raised money from the effective altruist community to further augment their pot of money. This was strong because a lot of it was not evaluating USAID interventions. It was just funding a portfolio of evidence generation about what works, implemented by other parties. The failures aren't as devastating, because you're showing a failure of some other party: it wasn't USAID money paying for an intervention. That was a strong model for how USAID can take on some risks and do some evidence generation that is immune to the issue you just described.If you're going to do evaluations of USAID money, the issue is very real. My overly simplistic view is that a lot of what USAID does should not be getting a highly rigorous impact evaluation. USAID should be rolling out, simple and at scale, things that have already been shown elsewhere. Let the innovation take place pre-USAID, funded elsewhere, maybe by DIV. Let smaller and more nimble nonprofits be the innovators and the documenters of what works. Then, USAID can adopt the things that are more effective and be more immune to this issue.So yeah, there is a world that is not first-best where USAID does the things that have strong evidence already. When it comes to actual innovation, where we do need to take risks that things won't work, let that be done in a way that may be supported by USAID, but partitioned away.I'm looking at a chart of USAID program funding in Fiscal Year 2022: the three big buckets are humanitarian, health, and governance, all on the order of $10–12 billion. Way down at the bottom, there's $500 million for “economic growth.” What's in that bucket that USAID funds, and should that piece of the pie chart be larger?I do think that should be larger, but it depends on how you define it. I don't say that just because I'm an economist. It goes back to the comment earlier about things that we can do to help improve local governance, and how they're using their resources. The kinds of things that might be funded would be efforts to work with local government to improve their ability to collect taxes. Or to set up efficient regulations for the banking industry, so it can grow and provide access to credit and savings. These are things that can help move the needle on macroeconomic outcomes. With that, you have more resources. That helps health and education, you have these downstream impacts. As you pointed out, the earmark on that was tiny. It did not have quite the same heartstring tug. But the logical link is huge and strong: if you strengthen the local government's financial stability, the benefits very much accrue to the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Social Protection, etc.Fighting your way out of poverty through growth is unambiguously good. You can look at many countries around the world that have grown economically, and through that, reduced poverty. But it's one thing to say that growth will alleviate poverty. It's another to say, "Here's aid money that will trigger growth." If we knew how to do that, we would've done it long ago, in a snap.Last question. Let's say it's a clean slate at USAID in a couple years, and you have wide latitude to do things your way. I want the Dean Karlan vision for the future of USAID.It needs to have, at the high level, a recognition that the Golden Rule is an important principle that guides our thinking on foreign aid and that we want to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Being generous as a people is something that we pride ourselves in, our nation represents us as people, so we shouldn't be in any way shy to use foreign aid to further that aspiration of being a generous nation.The actual way of delivering aid, I would say, three things. Simpler. Let's focus on the evidence of what works, but recognize the boundaries of that evidence and how to contextualize it. There is a strong need to understand what it means to be simpler, and how to identify what that means in specific countries and contexts.The second is about leveraging local government, and working more to recognize that, as big as we may be, we're still going to be tiny relative to local government. If we can do more to improve how local government is using its resources, we've won.The third is about finding common ground. There's a lot. That's one of the reasons why I've started working on a consortium with Republicans and Democrats. The things I care about are generally non-partisan. The goal is to take the aspirations that foreign aid has — about improving health, education, economic outcomes, food security, agricultural productivity, jobs, trade, whatever the case is — and how do we use the evidence that's out there to move the needle as much as we can towards those goals? A lot of topics have common ground. How do we set up a foreign aid system that stays true to the common ground? I'd like to think it's not that hard. That's what I think would be great to see happen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, Congressman Pat Harrigan joins Chuck and Sam to discuss his new bill cracking down on foreign espionage from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, his national security wins in the NDAA, and why young Americans should consider joining the military. He also weighs in on U.S. support for Ukraine and removing Chinese influence from defense infrastructure. Next, Zach Fletcher stops by in studio to highlight the America 250 Tour, a patriotic celebration traveling to all 50 states in honor of the nation's 250th anniversary. Then, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley outlines ongoing election integrity efforts across key states like Arizona and Michigan, including lawsuits to clean up voter rolls and defend ballot deadlines. Finally, financial analyst Gary Gygi breaks down the pros and cons of passive versus active investing. And as always, stay tuned for Kiley's Corner, where she gives an update on Bryan Kohberger and the Idaho 4 case and discusses the verdict of the five hockey players accused of sexual assault after winning the 2018 World Junior Championship.www.breakingbattlegrounds.voteTwitter: www.twitter.com/Breaking_BattleFacebook: www.facebook.com/breakingbattlegroundsInstagram: www.instagram.com/breakingbattlegroundsLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breakingbattlegroundsTruth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@breakingbattlegroundsShow sponsors:Invest Yrefy - investyrefy.comOld Glory DepotSupport American jobs while standing up for your values. OldGloryDepot.com brings you conservative pride on premium, made-in-USA gear. Don't settle—wear your patriotism proudly.Learn more at: OldGloryDepot.comDot VoteWith a .VOTE website, you ensure your political campaign stands out among the competition while simplifying how you reach voters.Learn more at: dotvote.vote4Freedom MobileExperience true freedom with 4Freedom Mobile, the exclusive provider offering nationwide coverage on all three major US networks (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile) with just one SIM card. Our service not only connects you but also shields you from data collection by network operators, social media platforms, government agencies, and more.Use code ‘Battleground' to get your first month for $9 and save $10 a month every month after.Learn more at: 4FreedomMobile.comAbout our guest:Congressman Pat Harrigan brings a lifetime of service, leadership, and innovation to the U.S. House of Representatives. A combat-decorated Green Beret and a successful entrepreneur, Congressman Harrigan has dedicated his career to tackling challenges—on the battlefield, in business, and now in Congress.After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a degree in Nuclear Engineering, Congressman Harrigan commissioned as an Infantry officer and was stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He deployed to Afghanistan as a young Platoon Leader, commanding a remote combat outpost in the heart of the Arghandab Valley. At just 23 years old, Congressman Harrigan managed over 350 personnel and $100 million in infrastructure and equipment, gaining invaluable experience in high-pressure leadership.Recognizing the need for even greater expertise in unconventional warfare, Congressman Harrigan volunteered for and earned the Green Beret. As a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, he returned to Afghanistan to lead operations in increasingly complex and volatile environments. For his service, he was awarded two Bronze Stars in recognition of his leadership and effectiveness in combat. These experiences shaped his understanding of the critical connection between accountability, mission success, and guiding teams under pressure.While serving in the military, Congressman Harrigan and his wife Rocky launched a small firearms business out of their home. Rooted in North Carolinian values of hard work and ingenuity, the company grew rapidly. What began in their living room quickly scaled into a thriving enterprise, producing American-made defense products that support national security. Today, the company operates out of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Western North Carolina, creating jobs and fostering innovation for the region.The fall of Afghanistan marked a turning point for Congressman Harrigan. Watching the consequences of failed leadership unfold, he knew he had to act. Motivated by his dedication to his country and a desire to restore strength and accountability to Washington, Congressman Harrigan stepped forward to serve in Congress.Now, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Harrigan applies the same principles that guided him in the Army and in business: bold leadership, unshakable integrity, and a commitment to delivering results.Congressman Harrigan and his wife Rocky have been married for 13 years and are the proud parents of two daughters, Reagan and McKinley. As North Carolina's voice in Congress, Pat is dedicated to serving the hardworking families and communities of the Tenth District. In every role—whether leading soldiers, growing a business, or serving his constituents—Congressman Harrigan remains dedicated to building a stronger, more secure America.-Zachary Fletcher's love for America runs deep. With over 12 years of marketing experience – including leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies – he now directs the America 250 Tour, overseeing national marketing and operations for this historic, state-by-state celebration of our nation's founding.Inspired by his mother, Kimberly Fletcher, founder of Moms for America, Zachary joined the movement to uplift mothers and preserve America's core values. He lives in Branson, Missouri, with his wife and two children, and is passionate about faith, freedom, and raising the next generation to love their country.-Michael Whatley has been a Republican activist for 40 years. He has served as the Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party where he has led our Republican Candidates to unprecedented victories in each of the last two election cycles and has been named as General Counsel for the Republican National Committee where he will oversee all national election integrity programs.Since volunteering for Jesse Helms and President Ronald Reagan in 1984 as a sophomore at Watauga High School, Michael has knocked on doors, worked on phone banks, put out yard signs, recruited & trained volunteers and raised money for Republicans in Local, Legislative, Congressional, Senatorial and Presidential races from one end of North Carolina to the other.As a member of the Florida Recount Team, Michael fought to protect George W. Bush's historically close win and then served President Bush as a Senior Official at the Department of Energy.Michael got to see first-hand how important winning elections is for helping the citizens of North Carolina serving as Chief of Staff for Senator Elizabeth Dole.In 2015, Michael answered the call to help Donald J. Trump in North Carolina and helped deliver the Old North State for President Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 election cycles.Michael has earned a Bachelor's Degree in History from the University of North Carolina–Charlotte, a Master's Degree in Religion from Wake Forest University, a Master's Degree in Theology from the University of Notre Dame and a Law Degree from the Notre Dame Law School. He served as a Federal Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert Potter in Charlotte.Michael lives in Gaston County with his wife and three children and serves as a member of the vestry for his church.-Mr. Gary Gygi was hired by the Investment firm Dean Witter (became Morgan Stanley) after college and worked for the firm for about 15 years. During this time he achieved the position of First Vice President, Investment and branch manager of the Midvale, Utah office. Mr. Gygi won numerous sales awards and held the position of Branch Managed Money Coordinator and Branch Insurance Coordinator. Mr. Gygi left Morgan Stanley in 2003 to join the Investment management firm of Smoot Miller Cheney (later became SMC Capital) as a Senior Vice President. Mr. Gygi holds a dual registration so while affiliating with Smoot Miller Cheney; he also was a registered rep with Independent broker/dealer WBB Securities, LLC. In 2008, Mr. Gygi left SMC Capital to found Gygi Capital Management as President and CEO. Gygi Capital serves the Institutional and individual marketplace with investment management solutions. Gygi Capital is a State regulated Registered Investment Advisory firm located in Cedar Hills, Utah. Gygi affiliates with Union Capital Co. which is an independent broker/dealer firm.Contact Gary at Gygi Capital Management: (801) 649-3879 Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comPaul is a writer, an editor, and an old friend. He's a regular contributor to The New Yorker and a senior fellow in Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He's the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Reinventing Bach, and his new book is The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s.For two clips of our convo — on Martin Scorsese's extraordinary religious films, and the strikingly resilient Catholicism of Andy Warhol — head to our YouTube page.Other topics: Paul raised in upstate NY as a child of Vatican II; his great-uncle was the bishop of Burlington who attended the 2nd Council; Thomas Merton and Flannery O'Connor as formative influences; working in publishing with McPhee and Wolfe; Cullen Murphy on the historical Christ; Jesus as tetchy; Czesław Miłosz; Leonard Cohen making it cool to be religious; the row over The Last Temptation of Christ and Scorsese's response with Silence; Bill Donahue the South Park caricature; Bono and U2; The Smiths; The Velvet Underground; Madonna and her Catholic upbringing; “Like A Prayer” and “Papa Don't Preach”; her campaign for condom use; when I accidentally met her at a party; Camille Paglia; Warhol the iconographer; his near-death experience that led to churchgoing; Robert Mapplethorpe; S&M culture in NYC; Andres Serrano's “Piss Christ”; Jesse Helms' crusade against the NEA; Sinead O'Connor's refusal to get an abortion; tearing up the JP II photo on SNL; the sex-abuse crisis; Cardinal O'Connor; the AIDS crisis; ACT-UP's antics at St. Patrick's Cathedral; the AIDS quilt as a cathedral; and Paul's gobsmacking omission of the Pet Shop Boys.Coming up: Edward Luce on the war with Iran, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, Tara Zahra on the revolt against globalization after WWI, Thomas Mallon on the AIDS crisis, and Johann Hari turning the tables to interview me. (NS Lyons indefinitely postponed a pod appearance — and his own substack — because he just accepted an appointment at the State Department; and the Arthur Brooks pod is postponed because of calendar conflicts.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

In this special recess episode, Skye and Brian sit down with Jimmy Broughton, former Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, for a rare and candid conversation about his time working for one of the most important and controversial political figures in North Carolina and American politics. Broughton shares behind-the-scenes stories from Capitol Hill, offers personal insights into Helms' style and friendships, and reflects on the senator's legacy. Whether you admired Sen. Helms or were turned off by him, this episode offers a firsthand look at the man behind the headlines and political cartoons, told by someone who knew him best. The Do Politics Better podcast is sponsored by New Frame, the NC Travel Industry Association, the NC Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association, the NC Pork Council, and the NC Healthcare Association.  

Looking back at the first round of the Culture Wars, with Jesse Helms discussing a crucifix submerged in urine on the floor of the senate, one figure remains misunderstood: Thomas Kinkade. The "Painter of Light." The guy your alcoholic grandmother who would never admit she terrorized you really loved. Kinkade's career combines the worst of American culture -- multi-level marketing schemes, Jesus Christ kitsch, and televangelism -- into one product. Jessa and Nico discuss Art for Everybody, the new documentary seeking to rehabilitate Kinkade's image, and whether if Kinkade were alive today he would be appointed the new head of the NEA or Kennedy Center (yes).  Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Raleigh-based Republican consultant Carter Wrenn has had a front-row seat to decades of political history. He's worked for the campaigns of U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and Ronald Reagan starting in the 1970s.He's now written a book on his experience that offers an inside look at some key moments and controversial figures in politics. He spoke with WUNC's Colin Campbell about the book, “The Trail of the Serpent: Stories from the Smoke-Filled Rooms of Politics,” and on some aspects of his political work that he's come to regret.

Longtime Republican consultant Carter Wrenn, who spent decades shaping North Carolina politics, has witnessed a dramatic shift in the political landscape since he began his career in the 1970s. Wrenn, a senior advisor to the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, helped build the National Congressional Club, a fundraising powerhouse that revolutionized political outreach and advertising.In a recent interview on The Charlotte Ledger Podcast, Wrenn noted that while politics has always been “rough and tumble,” a key difference today is the public's tolerance for dishonesty. “Politicians were afraid to tell lies because they paid a price,” Wrenn said. “People didn't approve of that, and that's changed today. You hear politicians telling tales all the time, and a lot of times, people cheer them.”In this episode, Wrenn — who recently authored “The Trail of the Serpent: Stories from the Smoke-Filled Rooms of Politics,” a book recounting his political career — talks with retired N.C. political reporter Jim Morrill about his front-row seat in North Carolina politics and shares stories and perspectives from the 1970s through today.They discuss Wrenn's work with Sen. Jesse Helms and their eventual falling out, how the political landscape has changed since the 1970s and the use of race in political campaigns — including the famout "white hands" commercial Helms ran against former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt in the 1990 Senate race.For more information about The Charlotte Ledger, or to sign up for our newsletters, visit TheCharlotteLedger.com.This episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast was produced by Lindsey Banks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit charlotteledger.substack.com/subscribe

A figure in conservative politics in North Carolina, he helped Ronald Reagan win the Republican presidential primary here in 1976, and worked closely with U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. But Helms' legacy is tied to his support for racial segregation, and his “White Hands” TV ad is infamous in political history. In a new book, Wrenn gives an inside perspective into decades of conservative politics.

Senior Strategist Morgan Jackson & Campaign Manager Jeff Allen helped guide Democrat Josh Stein to a historic win in the 2024 open-seat North Carolina Governor's Race over GOP lighting rod Mark Robinson. In this conversation, they both discuss how Stein went from trailing in many of the early polls to winning on Election Day by a historic 15-point margin. They talk the initial phase of the race with Robinson leading the polls, the Stein strategy to define Robinson early, the power of using Robinson's own words against him, the infamous "Nude Africa" scandal, the impact of storms and massive damage in Western NC, what is replicable for other campaigns from Josh Stein's victory, & much more digging into the signature gubernatorial race of the 2024 election.IN THIS EPISODEThe political origin stories of both Morgan and Jeff...How NC politics has completely transformed over the past 20 years...The early machinations that led to a Josh Stein vs. Mark Robinson '24 campaign...What led to Jeff managing the '24 Stein campaign...The potential political strengths of Mark Robinson...The initial core strategy and approach of the Stein campaign...The story behind the impactful first TV ad showing voters Mark Robinson in his own words... (link to ad)The Stein strategy to prioritize communications to Black voters...The story & fallout of the "Nude Africa" disclosures that forced national GOP donors to cut Robinson loose...The impact of the Hurricane Helene storms that hit Western NC...How the big Stein margin helped NC Dems win other races downballot...Their expectations heading into Election Day and reactions from the 15-point Stein victory...Both Jeff and Morgan share some of their favorite spots around The Tarheel State...AND...Roy Cooper, crazy uncles, the DCCC, Scott Falmlen, Pete Giangreco, Bill Graham, Bill Hefner, Jesse Helms, Jim Hunt, I-95, Jesse-crats, Mt. Rushmore, Pat McCrory, Myspace, Trey Nix, Barack Obama, Stephanie Pigues, RLG Media, shithouse rats, storm machines, Thom Tillis, Trump-proofing, visceral reactions, Mark Warner, water jets, Kathleen Williams & more!

It's bathroom bigotry all over again.  We remember just how racist Jesse Helms was, and how perfectly okay the Republican Party was with all of that bigotry.  There's likely to be lots of Cabinet-appointment drama in the next little bit, but please keep your eyes on the corruption and grift.  What music is Bluegal listening to? Link for this episode:  "Franciscan Blessing"  More at proleftpod.com. You can help us pay for DG's eye doctor expenses athttps://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ease-dgs-medical-financial-burdenBlue Gal's knitting podcast!  https://www.youtube.com/@flangumOur podcast YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessionalLeftSupport the show:PayPal |  https://paypal.me/proleftpodcastPatreon | https://patreon.com/proleftpodSupport the show

TO WATCH ALL FLYOVER CONTENT: www.flyover.liveTO WATCH ALL FLYOVER CONTENT: www.flyover.liveCarter WrenCarter WrenTWITTER: https://x.com/carterwrenn TWITTER: https://x.com/carterwrennhttps://x.com/carterwrenn WEBSITE: https://talkingaboutpolitics.com/ WEBSITE: https://talkingaboutpolitics.com/https://talkingaboutpolitics.com/ BOOK: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Trail-of-the-Serpent/Carter-Wrenn/9781645720942 BOOK: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Trail-of-the-Serpent/Carter-Wrenn/9781645720942https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Trail-of-the-Serpent/Carter-Wrenn/9781645720942 In 1976, Carter Wrenn managed Ronald Reagan's campaign in North Carolina's Republican Presidential Primary. For twenty years, along with respected Raleigh Attorney Tom Ellis, he led Senator Jesse Helms' national political organization – leading two national independent campaigns to elect Reagan, and supporting Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes in their campaigns for President.In 1976, Carter Wrenn managed Ronald Reagan's campaign in North Carolina's Republican Presidential Primary. For twenty years, along with respected Raleigh Attorney Tom Ellis, he led Senator Jesse Helms' national politicalSend us a message... we can't reply, but we read them all!Support the show► ReAwaken America- text the word FLYOVER to 918-851-0102 (Message and data rates may apply. Terms/privacy: 40509-info.com) ► Kirk Elliott PHD - http://FlyoverGold.com ► My Pillow - https://MyPillow.com/Flyover ► ALL LINKS: https://sociatap.com/FlyoverConservatives

On this week's episode of Tying it Together, Carter Wrenn joins host Tim Boyum to talk about his new book “The Trail of the Serpent”. Carter has been a fixture in Republican circles for over four decades, starting with Ronald Reagan's 1976 campaign in North Carolina. His most famous work follows the path and career of U.S. Senator Jesse Helms in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Carter transports listeners back in time with his extraordinary accounts of North Carolina's historic campaigns.

In this episode of "No Fair Remembering Stuff," we embark on a fascinating journey into the complex and evolving history of acceptance and resistance towards Martin Luther King Day as a state and national holiday.We remember the declaration of Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday in South Carolina and unravel the factors (really only one factor, ahem) that led it to become the last state to recognize the occasion as a paid holiday for all state employees.We also talk about Jesse Helms and his claims that Martin Luther King Jr's opposition to the Vietnam War and insistence on equal rights for Black people made him a  communist. We also confront the legacy of the Confederacy and the southern states which, and we are not making this up, posed an alternative choice to celebrate a Confederate holiday instead of MLK Day.  Again, we are not making that up. And then we discuss Arizona's resistance to an MLK day and what finally got them to relent (hint: the NFL sure is WOKE). And if you think we're past all of this nonsense wait until you hear what Charlie Kirk is up to in 2024. Tune in to "No Fair Remembering Stuff" for this captivating exploration of the history of acceptance and resistance to Martin Luther King Day.Support the show:PayPal |  https://paypal.me/proleftpodcastPatreon | https://patreon.com/proleftpodOur YouTube ChannelOpening and Closing Music:Jumpin Boogie Woogie by Audionautix | http://audionautix.com/|Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jumpin-boogie-woogieMusic promoted by Audio Library | https://youtu.be/S2wYQlC0UswCreative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.comSupport the show

Meg explores the discreet gay bars of Sutton Place and finds a Staten Island interloper, Richard Rogers, The Last Call Killer. Jessica remembers the establishment of MLK Jr. Day and the proud New Yorkers who helped make it so.Please check out our website, follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, and...WRITE US A REVIEW HEREWe'd LOVE to hear from you! Let us know if you have any ideas for stories HEREThank you for listening!Love,Meg and Jessica

In this episode of the podcast, I talk to and Gary Kornblau about the 30th anniversary edition of Dave Hickey's seminal 1993 book The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty. Blake is currently a fellow with the Center for Advanced Study in Sofia, Bulgaria, as well as the author a great (which is to say, very flattering) review of my 2021 book on Hickey, and he was a stalwart participant in the Substack “book club” I organized on the new edition of Dragon. Gary is faculty at the ArtCenter College of Design. More pertinently, he was Dave's great editor, having plucked him out of obscurity to write for art Issues, the small LA-based journal that Gary founded and edited. He was the one who gave Dave just the right amount of rein to do his best work, and also the one who conceptualized and edited both Invisible Dragon and Dave's subsequent book Air Guitar. The episode covers a lot of ground, including the impact of the original version of the book, the reasons why Gary decided to put out a 30th anniversary edition, and Gary's decision to use the opportunity to try to “queer” Dave. It's a blast. I hope you listen. I also wanted to take the opportunity to run the below excerpt from my book on Dave. It covers the background to the writing and reception of Invisible Dragon, and is, IMO, a mighty fine piece of writing in its own right. Hope you enjoy.On June 12, 1989, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, announced that it was cancelling Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, its scheduled exhibition of photographs by the celebrated American photographer, who had died of AIDS in March. The Corcoran's primary motive in cancelling was fear.Only a few months before, a long-simmering debate about the role of the federal government in funding the arts had boiled over in response to Piss Christ, a photograph of a small icon of Jesus on the cross floating in a vitrine of urine. Its creator, Andres Serrano, had received a small chunk of a larger grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the offending photograph had been included in a touring exhibition that was also funded by federal money. During that tour, the photograph caught the eye of the American Family Association, a conservative Chris­tian advocacy group dedicated to fighting what it saw as anti-Christian values in entertainment and the arts. They rang the alarm.Soon after, New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato called out Piss Christ from the floor of the Senate. He tore up a reproduction of the photo and denounced it as a “deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity.” North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who would soon lead the charge against Mapplethorpe, added: “I do not know Mr. Andres Serrano, and I hope I never meet him. Because he is not an artist, he is a jerk. . . . Let him be a jerk on his own time and with his own resources. Do not dishonor our Lord.” Patrick Trueman, president of the American Family Association, testified to Congress that governmental support of work like Piss Christ would make it less likely that prosecutors would pursue or win cases against child pornographers.The ensuing congressional battle, over funding for the NEA, became the first in a series of broader cultural and political battles that would come to be known, in retrospect, as the “culture wars” of the 1990s. These battles would range not just over sex and politics in the arts, but also over issues like gays in the military, federal funding for abor­tion, and control over history and social studies curricula in the public schools. It was “a war for the soul of America,” as Pat Buchanan framed it at the 1992 Republican Party convention, a contest over whether the nation would continue to secularize and liberalize or would return to a more conservative social equilibrium.The full contours of the conflict weren't immediately evident in the aftermath of the Serrano affair, but it was very clear, right away, that the Mapplethorpe exhibit was another grenade ready to go off. Its orga­nizers at the University of Pennsylvania had received NEA money, and the Corcoran Gallery, walking distance from the White House, was too visible an institution to slide by the notice of people like Helms and D'Amato. So the Corcoran begged off, hoping to shield themselves from the shrapnel and avoid giving conservatives another opportunity to question the value of federal funding for the arts.Instead, they got fragged by all sides. By fellow curators and museum administrators, who believed the Corcoran's appeasement would only encourage more aggression from haters of contemporary art. By civil lib­ertarians, who saw the Corcoran's actions as an example of how expres­sive speech was being chilled by the culture war rhetoric of the right. By a major donor, a friend of Mapplethorpe, who angrily withdrew a promised bequest to the museum of millions of dollars. And, of course, by the conservatives they had been hoping to appease, who accurately recognized the blasphemy in Mapplethorpe's federally funded portraits of sodomites doing naughty things to each other and themselves.Piss Christ had been useful to the conservative cultural cause as an example of how homosexual artists were taking taxpayer money to spit on the values that decent Americans held dear, but it wasn't ideal. How blasphemed could a good Christian really feel, after all, by an image of Jesus as reverential as what Serrano had in fact made? His Christ was bathed in glowing red-orange-yellow light, the image scored by dots and lines of tiny bubbles that come off almost like traces of exhumation, as if the whole thing has been recently, lovingly removed from the reliquary in which it's been preserved for thousands of years.“I think if the Vatican is smart,” Serrano later said, “someday they'll collect my work. I am not a heretic. I like to believe that rather than destroy icons, I make new ones.”Mapplethorpe's pictures, though, were something else entirely, a real cannon blast against the battlements of heterosexual normativity. Where Serrano was mostly using new means to say some very old things about the mystery of the incarnation and the corporeality of Christ, Mapplethorpe was using orthodox pictorial techniques to bring to light a world of pleasure, pain, male-male sex, bondage, power, trust, desire, control, violation, submission, love, and self-love that had been ban­ished to the dark alleyways, boudoirs, bathhouses, and rest stops of the West since the decline of Athens. And he was doing so masterfully, in the language of fine art, in the high houses of American culture.There was Lou, for instance, which could have been a photograph of a detail from an ancient bronze of Poseidon except that the detail in question is of Poseidon's muscled arm holding his cock firmly in one hand while the pinky finger of his other hand probes its hole. In Helmut and Brooks, a fist disappearing up an anus plays like an academic exercise in shape and shadow. And in the now iconic Self-Portrait, Mapplethorpe has the handle of a bullwhip up his own rectum, his balls dangling in shadow beneath, his legs sheathed in leather chaps, his eyes staring back over his shoulder at the camera with a gaze so full of intelligence and vitality that it almost steals the show from the bullwhip.In response to these kinds of beautiful provocations, the outrage, which had been largely performative vis-à-vis Serrano, became rather genuine, and the whole thing escalated. By July, a month after the exhibition at the Corcoran had been cancelled, Congress was debating whether to eliminate entirely the $171 million budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. By October, a compromise was reached. The NEA and its sister fund, the National Endowment for the Humanities, would get their usual rounds of funding, minus a symbolic $45,000 for the cost of the Serrano and Mapplethorpe grants. They would be pro­hibited, however, from using the monies to support work that was too gay, too creepy in depicting children, or just too kinky. Exceptions were made for art that violated these taboos but had “serious literary, artis­tic, political, or scientific value.” But the point had been made, and the enforcement mechanism, in any case, wasn't really the articulated rules. It was the threat of more hay-making from the right and, ultimately, the implied promise that if NEA-supported institutions kept sticking their noses (or fists) where they didn't belong then it wouldn't be too long before there wouldn't be any NEA left.A few months later, in April 1990, the Contemporary Arts Cen­ter in Cincinnati, Ohio, took up the Mapplethorpe baton by opening their own exhibition of The Perfect Moment. Hoping to head off trouble, they segregated the most scandalous of the photos in a side room, with appropriate signage to warn off the young and the delicate. They also filed a motion in county court asking that the photographs be preemp­tively designated as not obscene. But the motion was denied, and the separate room proved insufficient buffer. When the exhibit opened to the public, on April 7, its attendees included members of a grand jury that had been impaneled by Hamilton County prosecutors to indict the museum and its director for violating Ohio obscenity law. Of the more than 150 images in the exhibit, seven were selected out by the grand jury for being obscene. Five depicted men engaged in homoerotic and/ or sado-masochistic acts, and two were of naked children.The trial that followed was symbolically thick. Motions were filed that forced the judge to rule on fundamental questions about the mean­ing and political status of art. Art critics and curators were called in to witness, before the largely working-class members of the jury, to the artistic merit of Mapplethorpe's photography. The indictment read like an update of the Scopes trial, captioned by Larry Flynt, in which “the peace and dignity of the State of Ohio” was being ravaged by bands of cavorting homosexuals.The jury issued its verdict in October 1990, acquitting the museum and its director. It was a victory for the forces of high art and free expres­sion, but a complicated one. The exhibition could go on. And Map­plethorpe's photographs—indeed, the most outrageous of them—had been designated as art by the State of Ohio and by a group of decent, law-abiding, presumably-not-gay-sex-having American citizens. But the cost had been high. Museums and galleries everywhere had been warned, and not all of them would be as willing as the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati to risk indictment and the threat of defunding for the sake of showing dangerous art.Perhaps most significantly, the National Endowment for the Arts, and its new director, announced a shift in funding priorities in order to take the institution out of the crossfire of the culture wars. Less and less of their money, it was decided, would go to individual artists and exhibitions, and more of it would go to support arts enrichment—to schools, outreach programs, arts camps, and educational campaigns. Mapplethorpe and Serrano were out. Sesame Street was in.For Dave Hickey, a critic and ex-gallery owner, it was, finally, all too much. Not the opportunism of the Hamilton County sheriff and his allies. Not the predictable huffing from the bow-tied brigades, who took to the pages of their tweedy magazines to bellyache, as always, about what a precipitous decline there had been in cultural standards since the 1960s ruined everything. Not even the rednecking of the senator from North Carolina was the problem for Hickey.Each of these parties was performing its assigned role in the passion play of American cultural politics. Narrow-minded prosecutors would always try to run dirty pictures out of town. New Criterion-ites would avert their eyes from new art. Senators from North Carolina would dem­agogue about queers from New York City. You could be angry at having to contend with these actors, but you couldn't genuinely feel betrayed. You knew where they stood from the get-go, and half the joy of art, and of the artistic life, lay in trying to figure out how to shock, outwit, or seduce them.The betrayal, for Hickey, came from his colleagues, from the crit­ics, curators, gallerists, professors, and arts administrators with whom he had been uneasily mixing since the late 1960s when he dropped out of his doctoral program in linguistics to open an art gallery in Austin, Texas. They had been handed a rare opportunity to represent for all that was queer and decadent and artsy-fartsy in American life, to make the case that this—beautiful pictures of men seeing what it felt like to shove things up their asses—wasn't the worst of America but the best of it. And they had whiffed.“The American art community, at the apogee of its power and privi­lege, chose to play the ravaged virgin,” wrote Hickey, “to fling itself pros­trate across the front pages of America and fairly dare the fascist heel to crush its outraged innocence. . . . [H]ardly anyone considered for a moment what an incredible rhetorical triumph the entire affair signi­fied. A single artist with a single group of images had somehow managed to overcome the aura of moral isolation, gentrification, and mystifica­tion that surrounds the practice of contemporary art in this nation and directly threaten those in actual power with the celebration of margin­ality. It was a fine moment, I thought . . . and, in this area, I think, you have to credit Senator Jesse Helms, who, in his antediluvian innocence, at least saw what was there, understood what Robert was proposing, and took it, correctly, as a direct challenge to everything he believed in.”The Corcoran had been bad enough, throwing in the towel before an opponent had even stepped into the ring. But far worse, for Hickey, were the ones who had shown up to fight but had misread the aesthet­ical-political map so badly that they had gone to the wrong arena. The fight, he believed, should have been over whether it was okay or not in our culture to make beautiful the behaviors that Mapplethorpe had made beautiful. The fight should have been over what Mapplethorpe had done with his art. Instead, the public got bromides about free expression and puritanical lectures about the civilizing function of arts in society. Worst of all, in Hickey's eyes, was how quickly the art experts ran away from the rawness of Mapplethorpe's work, characterizing him as though he were a philosopher of aesthetics, rather than an artist, as though he chose and framed his subjects for the sake of what they allowed him to say, propositionally, about the nature of light and beauty and other such things.“Mapplethorpe uses the medium of photography to translate flowers, stamens, stares, limbs, as well as erect sexual organs, into objet d'art,” wrote curator Janet Kardon in her catalogue essay for the exhibition. “Dramatic lighting and precise composition democratically pulverize their diversities and convert them into homogeneous statements.””When it came to it on the witness stand in Cincinnati, even the folks who had curated the exhibition, who surely knew that Mapplethorpe would bring the people in precisely because he was so titillating—Look at the dicks! Hey, even the flowers look like dicks!—couldn't allow them­selves even a flicker of a leer. So Hickey called them out.In a series of four essays written between 1989 and 1993, which were assembled into the sixty-four-page volume The Invisible Dragon, he launched a lacerating critique of American art critical and art historical practice. It was so unexpected, and so potent, that by the time he was done, his own intervention—a slim, impossibly cool, small-batch edi­tion from Art issues Press—would be as transformative in the art critical realm as Mapplethorpe's photographs had been in the photographic.The Invisible Dragon began with a story. It wasn't necessarily a true story, but it was a good one. So good, in fact, that it has conditioned and, in significant ways, distorted perceptions of Hickey ever since.“I was drifting, daydreaming really,” wrote Hickey, “through the wan­ing moments of a panel discussion on the subject of ‘What's Happening Now,' drawing cartoon daggers on a yellow pad and vaguely formulating strategies for avoiding punch and cookies, when I realized I was being addressed from the audience. A lanky graduate student had risen to his feet and was soliciting my opinion as to what ‘The Issue of the Nine­ties' would be. Snatched from my reverie, I said, ‘Beauty,' and then, more firmly, ‘The issue of the nineties will be beauty'—a total improvisatory goof—an off-the-wall, jump-start, free association that rose unbidden to my lips from God knows where. Or perhaps I was being ironic; wishing it so but not believing it likely? I don't know, but the total, uncompre­hending silence that greeted this modest proposal lent it immediate cre­dence for me.”Hickey, an experienced provocateur, had been expecting some kind of pushback. (Beauty?! That old thing? The issue of the '90s? You gotta be kidding me.) When he got none, he was intrigued. His fellow panelists hadn't jumped in to tussle. The moderator didn't seem ruffled. No one from the audience harangued him after he stepped down from the dais. Rather than setting off sparks, he had soft-shoed into a vacuum, which meant he had misjudged something, and in that misjudgment, he sensed, there lay potential. (“I was overcome by this strange Holme­sian elation. The game was afoot.”) He began interrogating friends and colleagues, students and faculty, critics and curators for their thoughts on beauty and its role in the production, assessment, and consump­tion of art. What he got back, again and again, was a simple and rather befuddling response: When asked about beauty, everyone talked about money. “Beauty” was the surface glitz that sold pictures in the bourgeois art market to people who lacked an appreciation for the deeper qualities of good art. It was a branding scheme of capitalism and the province of schmoozy art dealers, rich people, and high-end corporate lobby deco­rators. Artists themselves, and critics and scholars, were more properly concerned with other qualities: truth, meaning, discourse, language, ideology, form, justice. There were high-brow versions of this argument in journals like Art Forum and October, and there were less sophisticated versions, but the angle of incidence was the same.Hickey was stunned. Not by the content of such an argument— he knew his Marx and was familiar with left cultural criticism more broadly—but by the completeness of its triumph. He hadn't realized the extent, almost total, to which beauty had been vanquished from the sphere of discursive concern.“I had assumed,” he wrote, “that from the beginning of the sixteenth century until just last week artists had been persistently and effectively employing the rough vernacular of pleasure and beauty to interrogate our totalizing concepts ‘the good' and ‘the beautiful'; and now this was over? Evidently. At any rate, its critical vocabulary seemed to have evap­orated overnight, and I found myself muttering detective questions like: Who wins? Who loses?”The quest to reconstruct what had happened to beauty soon evolved for Hickey into a more fundamental effort to understand what even he meant by the term. What was he defending? What was he trying to res­cue or redeem? The critical vocabulary and community he had assumed were there, perhaps fighting a rearguard battle but still yet on the field, had winked out of existence without even a good-bye note. It was left to him, in the absence of anyone else, to reconstitute its concepts and arguments, restock its supply chain and armament.So he did, and he called it The Invisible Dragon. The issue, he wrote, is not beauty but the beautiful. The beautiful is the visual language through which art excites interest and pleasure and attention in an observer. It is a form of rhetoric, a quiver of rhetorical maneuvers. Artists enchant us through their beautiful assemblages of color, shape, effects, reference, and imagery, as a writer ensnares us with words and sentences and para­graphs, as a dancer enthralls us with legs and leaps, as a rock star cap­tures us with hips and lips and voice. The more mastery an artist has of the rhetoric of the beautiful, the more effectively he can rewire how our brains process and perceive visual sense data. It is an awesome power.Beauty, in this equation, is the sum of the charge that an artist, deploy­ing the language of the beautiful, can generate. It is a spark that begins in the intelligence and insight of the artist, is instantiated into material being by her command of the techniques of the beautiful, and is crystal­lized in the world by its capacity to elicit passion and loyalty and detes­tation in its beholders, to rally around itself constituencies and against itself enemies. Like all arks and arenas of human value, beauty is his­torically grounded but also historically contingent. In the Renaissance, where The Invisible Dragon begins its modern history of beauty, masters like Caravaggio were negotiating and reconstructing the relations among the Church, God, man, and society. They were deploying the tools of the beautiful to hook into and renovate primarily theological systems of meaning and human relation. In a liberal, pluralistic, commerce-driven democracy like America, the primary terrain on which beauty was medi­ated, and in some respects generated, was the art market.To dismiss beauty as just another lubricant of modern capitalism, then, was to miss the point in a succession of catastrophic ways. It was to mistake the last part of that equation, the creation and negotiation of value on and through the art market, for the entirety of it. It was to mistake the exchange of art for other currencies of value, which was a human activity that preceded and would persist after capitalism, for capitalism. It was to believe that the buying and selling of art in modern art markets was a problem at all, when, in fact, it was the only available solution in our given historical configuration of forces. And it was to radically underestimate the capacity of beauty to destabilize and reorder precisely the relations of politics, economy, and culture that its vulgar critics believed it was propping up.Beauty had consequences. Beautiful images could change the world. In America, risking money or status for the sake of what you found beautiful—by buying or selling that which you found beautiful or by arguing about which objects should be bought or sold on account of their beauty—was a way of risking yourself for the sake of the vision of the good life you would like to see realized.The good guys in Hickey's story were those who put themselves on the line for objects that deployed the beautiful in ways they found per­suasive and pleasure-inducing. They were the artists themselves, whose livelihoods depended on participation in the art market, who risked poverty, rejection, incomprehension, and obscurity if their work wasn't beautiful enough to attract buyers. They were the dealers, who risked their money and reputation for objects they wagered were beautiful enough to bring them more money and status. They were the buyers, who risked money and ridicule in the hopes of acquiring more status and pleasure. They were the critics, like Hickey, who risked their rep­utations and careers on behalf of the art that struck them as beautiful and on behalf of the artists whose idiosyncratic visions they found per­suasive or undeniable. And finally they were the fans, who desperately wanted to see that which they loved loved by others and to exist in com­munity with their fellow enthusiasts. The good guys were the ones who cared a lot, and specifically.The villains were the blob of curators, academics, review boards, arts organizations, governmental agencies, museum boards, and fund­ing institutions that had claimed for themselves almost total control of the assignment and negotiation of value to art, severing art's ties to the messy democratic marketplace, which was the proper incubator of artis­tic value in a free society. The blob cared a lot, too, but about the wrong things.“I characterize this cloud of bureaucracies generally,” wrote Hickey, “as the ‘therapeutic institution.'”In the great mystery of the disappeared beauty, the whodunnit that fueled The Invisible Dragon, it turned out that it was the therapeutic institution that dunnit. It had squirted so many trillions of gallons of obfuscating ink into the ocean over so many decades that beauty, and the delicate social ecosystems that fostered its coalescence, could barely aspirate. Why the therapeutic institution did this, for Hickey, was simple. Power. Control. Fear of freedom and pleasure and undisciplined feeling. It was the eternally recurring revenge of the dour old Patriarch who had been haunting our dreams since we came up from the desert with his schemas of logic, strength, autonomy, and abstraction, asserting control against the wiles and seductions of the feminine and her emanations of care, vulnerability, delicacy, dependence, joy, and decoration. It was the expression of God's anger in the Garden of Eden when Eve and Adam defied Him to bite from the juicy apple of knowledge and freedom.In one of the most extraordinary passages in the book, Hickey turned Michel Foucault, a favorite of the blob, back on the blob. It was Fou­cault, he wrote, who drew back the curtain on the hidden authoritarian impulse at work in so many of the modern institutions of social order, particularly those systems most committed to the tending of our souls. Such systems weren't content with establishing regimes of dominance and submission that were merely or primarily external. Appearances canbe too deceiving. Too much wildness can course beneath the facade of compliance. It was inner consent, cultivated therapeutically through the benevolent grooming of the institutions, that mattered. Thus the disciplined intensity with which the therapeutic institution had fought its multi-generational war to crowd out and delegitimize the market, where appearance was almost everything and where desire, which is too unpredictably correlated with virtue, was so operative.“For nearly 70 years, during the adolescence of modernity, profes­sors, curators, and academicians could only wring their hands and weep at the spectacle of an exploding culture in the sway of painters, dealers, critics, shopkeepers, second sons, Russian epicures, Spanish parvenus, and American expatriates. Jews abounded, as did homosexuals, bisex­uals, Bolsheviks, and women in sensible shoes. Vulgar people in manu­facture and trade who knew naught but romance and real estate bought sticky Impressionist landscapes and swooning pre-Raphaelite bimbos from guys with monocles who, in their spare time, were shipping the treasures of European civilization across the Atlantic to railroad barons. And most disturbingly for those who felt they ought to be in control— or that someone should be—‘beauties' proliferated, each finding an audience, each bearing its own little rhetorical load of psycho-political permission.”After getting knocked back on their heels so thoroughly, wrote Hickey, the bureaucrats began to get their act together around 1920. They have been expanding and entrenching their hegemony ever since, developing the ideologies, building the institutions, and corralling the funding to effectively counter, control, and homogenize all the unruly little beauties. There had been setbacks to their campaign along the way, most notably in the 1960s, but the trend line was clear.In this dialectic, Mapplethorpe proves an interesting and illustra­tive figure. He was so brilliant in making his world beautiful that the therapeutic institution had no choice but to gather him in, to celebrate him in order to neutralize him, to pulverize his diversities and convert them into homogeneous statements. But it turned out that he was too quicksilver a talent to be so easily caged, and the blob was overconfident in its capacity to domesticate him. It/they missed something with Map­plethorpe and made the mistake of exposing him to the senator from North Carolina and the prosecutor from Hamilton County, who saw through the scrim of institutional mediation. All the therapeutic testi­mony that followed, in the case of Cincinnati v. Contemporary Arts Center, wasn't really about defending Mapplethorpe or fending off conservative tyranny. It was about reasserting the blob's hegemony. In truth, Senator Helms and the therapeutic institution were destabilized by complemen­tary aspects of the same thing, which was pleasure and desire rendered beautiful and specific.“It was not that men were making it then,” wrote Hickey, “but that Robert was ‘making it beautiful.' More precisely, he was appropriating a Baroque vernacular of beauty that predated and, clearly, outperformed the puritanical canon of visual appeal espoused by the therapeutic institution.”Confronted by this beautiful provocation, the conservative and art establishments, whatever they thought they were doing, were, in fact, collaborating to put Mapplethorpe back in his place. The ostensible tri­umph of one side was the secret triumph for both. It was beauty that lost. The Invisible Dragon was a howl of frustration at this outcome. It was also a guerrilla whistle. Not so fast . . .Eminent Americans is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Eminent Americans at danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

If you're an American of a certain age, you undoubtedly remember Jesse Helms. Helms was a North Carolina U.S. Senator from 1973 to 2003 – a period in which he was widely recognized as America's best known and most outspoken arch-conservative politician. On a long and sobering list of issues – race, reproductive freedom, equality […] The post Dr. Ellen Gaddy, granddaughter of NC's famously reactionary U.S. Senator, the late Jesse Helms appeared first on NC Newsline.

Chris Mottola is in his fifth decade as a Republican media consultant, with nearly 400 campaigns under his belt - including seven presidential campaigns and working with eleven US Seantors and six governors. His client list includes the highest echelons of GOP names like Bush, Dole, McCain, Giuliani, Specter, Rubio, Pataki, Sununu, Frist & many more. In this conversation, we talk his nearly lifelong passion for film, the non-political techniques he's brought to his political work, what drew him into campaigns, lessons learned from some of the smartest operatives who preceded him, and the stories behind some of his most memorable campaigns and effective TV ads.IN THIS EPISODEChris's roots as a Philly kid…The movie that ignited Chris's passion for film at age 7…Chris breaks down his embrace of “formalism” in filmmaking…A memorable first press conference in his first real political job…Handling over 50 spots in one cycle as a young NRCC production staffer…Chris tells lessons learned from legendary admakers Bob Goodman and Charles Guggenheim…Chris on the influence of “his favorite person on campaigns" , pollster Arthur Finkelstein…Chris talks some of his signature wins in Wisconsin and Florida as he establishes himself as a media consultant…Chis explains how a narrow loss to Patty Murray in the 1992 Washington Senate race that spurred his growth as a consultant…Chris's work for longtime PA Senator Arlen Specter and the drama around his 2009 party switch…Chris's time riding the campaign bus with Bob Dole in 1996…Chris on his work for colorful Montana Senator Conrad Burns…The story behind Chris's creation of the first gay rights spot for a Republican Senator…Three techniques that make Chris's spots a little different…Chris's 1970s moonlighting as an offensive football guru…How Chris embraced women voiceover artists…Why Philadelphia over-indexes on political media consultants and production talent… AND 80/20 questions, Adagio for Strings, JJ Balaban, the barbers' union, Brian Bellick, Ed Blakely, Don Bonker, Bertolt Brecht, Tom Brokaw, Buckely v. Valeo, the C&S Club, the Capitol Hill Club, Jimmy Carter, Alex Castellanos, Ronald Castille, Rod Chandler, commuter schools, Gary Cooper, Earl Cox, Mouse Davis, Dickens' novels, Fund for a Conservative Majority, David Garth, Tony Earl, Wilson Goode, Rod Goodwin, Bill Green, Gary Hart, Jesse Helms, Bernard Herrman, Edward Hopper, the Houston Gamblers, Asa Hutchinson, Peter Jennings, Andi Johnson, Ted Kennedy, laundry lists of grievances, Connie Mack, Buddy MacKay, Joseph Mankiewicz, David Marsden, George McGovern, Sally Mercer, Michealangelo's Pieta, Jack Mudd, Mike Murphy, Patty Murray, Neil Newhouse, old auctioneers, Neil Oxman, George Pataki, pearl clutching, potato peelers, Hester Prynne, Jerry Rafshoon, Dan Rather, Resonance Theory, the run-and-shoot, Tony Schwartz, Doc Schweitzer, seersucker suits, Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard, Saul Shorr, Don Sipple, Gordon Smith, Bob Squier, Greg Stevens, stick time, Temple University, Tommy Thompson, Pat Toomey, the Voight-Kampff test, Bill Walsh, the World Football League, you bet....& more!

People widely loved — and hated — legendary U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, not only here in North Carolina, but around the world. Much of that hate centered on his stances on the issues of race and the gay community. However, Senator Helms never knew that he had a gay granddaughter. Fifteen years after his death, his granddaughter, Jennifer Knox, has chosen to speak about it publicly for the first time. It was first reported in The Assembly by John Drescher. Both Drescher and Knox join host Tim Boyum to talk more about this incredible story.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit public.substack.comThis morning, Matt Taibbi asked a question that we've long been struggling with ourselves here at Public: Where have all the liberals gone?The old-school leftists who protested Tipper Gore's parental advisory warnings on records and CDs in the 1980s, the ones that were outraged by the efforts of the late Senator Jesse Helms and then-Congressman Al D'Amato in 1989 to pull funding for the artist who created “Piss Christ,” those that stood with the Dixie Chicks when they became the prototypical victims of cancel culture for their opposition to the Iraq War: Where are all these people now as the government forms an unholy cabal with the social media platforms to censor regular Americans' views on everything from public health to the war in Ukraine?Ruy Teixeira, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributor at The Liberal Patriot, has an answer to this question. The Democratic Party, he argues, has abandoned its traditional working-class base and become a party of college-educated elites. For decades, the party has been hemorrhaging white working-class voters. But in recent election cycles, it has suffered big losses among Latinos without a college education, and has started to slide with non-college-educated Asian and even black Americans as well. The Republicans have capitalized on that loss by embracing these exiled voters, creating an inverted political dynamic that has left those of us old enough to remember the traditional pro-worker, anti-war left with our heads spinning.

Legendary North Carolina journalist Steve Crump joins the show. He talks about not only his incredible fight against colon cancer but also his incredible career.  Crump recounts funny stories of interviewing Mother Teresa, Paul McCartney and a visit to South Africa to cover former Gov. Jim Hunt. He also talks about covering one of North Carolina's most famous Senate races between Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt when race played a big role.

In this week's North American Ag Spotlight Chrissy Wozniak gets an update from Congressman David Rouzer on the #WOTUS ruling and President Biden's recent veto. Congressman David Rouzer proudly represents North Carolina's 7th Congressional District, stretching from the beautiful coastline of Southeastern North Carolina west to the small-town, agricultural communities around Lumberton and Fayetteville.  Elected to the United States Congress in 2014, David is beginning his 5th term in the U.S. House of Representatives. David serves on the House Agriculture Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee where he currently serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.  He has served as a ranking member or chairman of a subcommittee on both since his first day in office, which has enabled him to better address the unique needs of his district and state.  He is a member of a number of caucuses in Congress including as a founding member of the Primary Care Caucus and the Supply Chain Caucus, as well as co-chairing the United Kingdom Caucus.Prior to Congress, David formed his own business doing consulting and sales work, predominately in the agricultural arena.  His public service includes two terms in the North Carolina Senate representing Johnston and Wayne counties (2009-2012) where he was consistently ranked as one of the most effective pro-business legislators.  David also served as assistant to the dean and director of commodity relations for the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences at NC State University in between two stints with U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, where he started out as a legislative assistant and later served as senior policy advisor.  He was also senior advisor for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole.  In 2005, he took a senior level appointment at USDA Rural Development and helped manage a program level budget of more than $1.2 billion and a loan portfolio of more than $5 billion in investments in rural America.  David has garnered a number of awards during his career for his work in each of these capacities as well as a Member of Congress. David, a Southern Baptist, was raised in Durham and spent his summers working on the family farm just outside of Four Oaks, N.C.  The money he earned those summers enabled him to pay his tuition at N.C. State University where he graduated with three degrees in Agricultural Business Management, Agricultural Economics, and Chemistry.  He is also a graduate of The Fund for American Studies.  David resides in Wilmington, N.C. Learn more about the issue at https://rouzer.house.gov#farm #farming #agricultureNorth American Ag is devoted to highlighting the people & companies in agriculture who impact our industry and help feed the world. Subscribe at https://northamericanag.comWant to hear the stories of the ag brands you love and the ag brands you love to hate? Hear them at https://whatcolorisyourtractor.comNeed help with your agriculture based company's marketing plan? Visit https://chrissywozniak.comDon't just thank a farmer, pray Why you should not miss FIRA USA 2023!Join the experts during 3 days of autonomous and robotics farming solutions in action!FIRA USA, the traveling AgTech event is back from September 19-21, 2023 at the Salinas Sports Complex, Home of the California Rodeo SalinasRegister at - https://fira-usa.com/ Sponsored by Tractors and Troubadours:Your weekly connection to agriculture industry newsmakers, hot-button industry issues, educational topics, rural lifestyle features and the best in true country music. Brought to you by Rural Strong Media.Listen now at https://ruralstrongmedia.com/tractors-and-troubadours/Subscribe to North American Ag at https://northamericanag.com

Richard Norton Smith is a renowned historian, a former director of five presidential libraries, & author whose latest work - Ordinary Man - chronicles the life and career of Gerald Ford. In this conversation, we talk the insurgent rise of Ford as he takes on the local GOP machine, his ascent through the House GOP of the 50s and 60s, the fortuitous events that led him to become Vice President and then President upon Nixon's resignation, his very narrow loss in 1976, & why the Ford Presidency and his enduring impact on America is much more consequential than often realized.(To donate to support The Pro Politics Podcast, you may use this venmo link or inquire by email at mccrary.zachary@gmail.com)IN THIS EPISODEWhat made Ford the “first post-New Deal President”...One of the rare times Ford lost his temper in politics...Ford's “political father figure”, Senator Arthur Vandenberg…The story behind Ford's first insurgent bid for Congress…The secret society within the House that helped propel Ford's career…The story behind Ford's attempt to become Richard Nixon's running mate in 1960…The never before disclosed “deal” that nearly gave House Republicans the majority in the early 1970s…The one politician who could've disrupted Ford's path to become Nixon's VP in 1974…The proposed “constitutional coup” that could have replaced Richard Nixon with a Democratic President…Two meetings with the same influential senator only days apart demonstrate Ford's quick growth in office…The political damage done to Ford by his pardon of Richard Nixon…Two late factors that might have cost Ford in his narrow loss to Jimmy Carter…The political impact of First Lady Betty Ford in the 1976 campaign…Ford's leftward drift after he left the White House…Richard reads a bit of what he feels is Ford's best speech as President…Two of Richard's favorite recommendations for off-the-beaten-path historical sites around DC… AND Bella Abzug, Sprio Agnew, Carl Albert, apartheid, asterisks, Doug Bailey, bar stools, the Bicentennial, Phil Buchen, butcher knives, the CIA, Chevy Chase, Dick Cheney, concealed resentments, John Connally, docile acceptance, Bob Dole, Tom Dewey, English muffins, Barry Goldwater, grizzly bears, Jesse Helms, the Helsinki Accords, Leon Jaworski, Billy Kidd, Leslie King, Henry Kissinger, Tom Korologos, Mel Laird, Henry Cabot Lodge, Russell Long, The Marshall Plan, Sara Jane Moore, non-descript committee rooms, OSHA, Old Bulls, John Rankin, Ronald Reagan, the road to Damascus, Nelson Rockefeller, John Rhodes, Rhodesia, the Rules Committee, Bob Schieffer, Phyllis Schlafly, Hugh Scott, scoundrels, George Shultz, ski chalets, Oliver Sipple, Ted Sorensen, Robert Taft, transitional figures, Harry Truman, the UAW, the Warren Commission & more!

For 30 years in United State politics, North Carolina US Senator Jesse Helms set the bar for this country's social conservatism. Helms was unabashed in his opposition to civil rights, gay rights, disability rights, environmentalism, feminism, affirmative action and access to abortion. Today, one of his granddaughters lives in Asheville and is doing what she can to rebuke his legacy.Ellen Gaddy is using the Helms lineage as a pulpit to fight for causes her grandfather opposed—chiefly women's bodily autonomy and their access to abortion. Matt Peiken talks with her about growing up under the spectre of Jesse Helms' rhetoric and the price she has paid within her family for speaking against the late senator's views.Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!Advertise your event on The Overlook.Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlookListen and Subscribe: All episodes of The OverlookThe Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.Podcast Asheville © 2023

A guy named Zed brings guests to his planet so he can chase them to a resting log and then mount their dome on his wall. Free slave bikinis and expensive lingerie for attendees though. Oh boy, where do I even begin with "Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity"? This movie is a wild and bizarre ride from start to finish, and I mean that in the best way possible. From the cheesy special effects to the over-the-top acting, this sci-fi adventure flick is a non-stop riff ride that will keep you laughing and entertained the whole way through. Now, I know what you might be thinking: "But Stinker Madness, isn't this movie just a cheap knockoff of 'The Most Dangerous Game'?" And to that, I say, yes, it definitely is. But it's a cheap knockoff with heart, damn it. The two lead actresses, Elizabeth Kaitan and Cindy Beal, fully commit to their roles as two stranded space adventurers who are forced to fight for their lives against a lusty hunty madman who likes to hang heads...up. Their chemistry is dripping with cheesy deliveries, and their performances are so corny that you can't help but root for them. And let's not forget about the villain of the piece, Zed, played by Don Scribner. His creepy performance as "some dude who has a tractor-beam castle" definitely adds to the corn, and his scenes with the "slave girls" are dubious and oddly philosophical. I mean, who doesn't love a good villain monologue about what man and women's base natures are while wearing slave bikinis? In fact, "Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity" was so bikini-laden that it even was referenced as part of an amendment of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which was introduced by Senator Jesse Helms to crack down on sexually explicit content on cable TV. Why on Zed's Green Earth would a US Senator be talking about this very mild flesh film is beyond me. Well it was beyond infinity for Helms too as the amendment was struck down as ludicriously stupid and a violation of the First Amendment. Go back to....uh...well I guess we are still fighting these battles... "Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity" is a hilarious, campy, and surprisingly fun sci-fi adventure that is sure to entertain even the most jaded moviegoer. So if you're in the mood for some old-school B-movie fun, give this one a watch.

Ellen Gaddy, Ph.D., a graduate of Saybrook University, discusses her journey to Saybrook, including her conservative upbringing as the granddaughter of former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms and growing up in a “traditional values” family, and how she began questioning traditional belief systems for transformative change and social justice.Ellen Gaddy has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is a political activist and justice-oriented philanthropist.Visit Saybrook University at https://www.saybrook.edu/Catch up on past episodes of UNBOUND: Saybrook Insights on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you download your favorite shows. Visit https://linktr.ee/saybrookinsights to learn more.#humanisticpsychology #transformativechange #socialjustice

Politics really do make strange bedfellows. Witness here, the odd couple of Bono and Senator Jesse Helms, people so far apart on any political graph that you'd need more than one page to represent the gap between them. Yet somehow, Bono talked Helms into helping him secure money to educate and treat victims of AIDS in Africa. Here's a short piece on division and coming together inspire of it. I hope you'll listen.

Congressman David Price served 34 years representing North Carolina's Research Triangle, leaving the House just this January. Beyond his time as an institution in the House, he's lived a remarkable political life...present on the Washington Mall during the MLK "I Have A Dream" speech...a Senate staffer witnessing key civil rights votes in the mid 1960s...a leading political scientist at Duke University...a Democratic Party leader who helped devise the primary reforms now known as "super delegates"...and an influential House member who's served across parts of five decades in the House and been a witness to - and a part of - some of the most important political moments of the past half century.IN THIS EPISODE...Growing up in the unique political culture of small-town East Tennessee...The Civil Rights Movement inspires an awakening for public service...Memories of being on The Mall during the March on Washington and the MLK "I Have A Dream" Speech...His time as a Senate staffer during the critical 1964 vote to break the filibuster on civil rights... How he merged teaching Political Science at Duke with activity in real-world politics...His time in state party leadership and as part of The Hunt Commission reforming the Democratic Presidential Primary process...The political skill and legacy of North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt...North Carolina's legacy as a progressive Southern state...Remembering the 1984 Senate "race of the century" of Jesse Helms vs. Jim Hunt...His path to running and winning his first race for Congress in 1986...Memories of his first few terms in the House...The story of his loss in the 1994 GOP wave and comeback win in 1996...His thoughts on the legacy of the Newt Gingrich Revolution of the 1990s...His proudest accomplishments from 30+ years in the House...The toughest two votes he took...His analysis on the leadership success of Speaker Nancy Pelosi...The closest Congressman Price came to a statewide race...The advice he gives to new House members...His current work and focuses in his post-House career...AND Lamar Alexander, Howard Baker, Bob Bartlett, Joe Biden, Jack Brooks, C-Span after hours, cabals, Tom Carper, Chapel Hill, church suppers, Joe Clark, Bill Clinton, Jim Clyburn, committee barons, the Confederate Cause, the Contract with America, Harold Cooley, Thomas Dewey, John Dingell, down-home types, Clair Engle, existential questions, Bill Ford, the Gang of Eight, Albert Gore Sr., Jerry Grinstein, Phil Hart, Helms' proteges, Hope VI, Steny Hoyer, inherited Republicanism, inner clubs, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, Jacob Javits, Warren Magnuson, Mars Hill, Kevin McCarthy, the McGovern Commission, metal aprons, Bob Michel, midterm effects, moral suasion, Morehead Scholarships, Mountain Republicans, Ed Muskie, Bill Nelson, Barack Obama, PLEOs, peer pressure, pep talks, Mike Pertschuk, the Political Science Caucus, Edward Pugh, Ronald Reagan, Dan Rostenkowski, rump conventions, Terry Sanford, the Sanford School of Public Policy, Saul Shorr, shouting matches on the House floor, sit-ins, Sputnik, Freddy St. Germain, super-delegates, talk radio, the Tea Party, Donald Trump, turbulent townhall meetings, turnaround artists, Jamie Whitten, Jim Wright, Yale Divinity School, yeoman farmers & more!

Tom Davis served seven terms in the House from Northern Virginia, including 2 cycles as NRCC Chair and as Chair of the House Government Reform Committee. In this conversation, he talks becoming obsessed with politics at an early age, working as a Senate page in the 1960s, playing a small role in the political operation of Richard Nixon, 15 years on the Fairfax County Board, 14 years in Congress, protecting the GOP majority in 2000 and 2002 while helming NRCC, why he left elected politics, the work he's most passionate about now, and his expectations ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. IN THIS EPISODE..One early moment when the lifelong political obsession started to click for a 6-year old Tom Davis…Working as a teenage U.S. Senate page…Tom spends 30 minutes in the Oval Office with President Nixon…Tom's early stint as part of the Nixon political operation…Tom talks the political legacy of Virginia's famed Byrd Machine…Tom remembers his 14+ years on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors…Tom on the excitement as part of the 1994 House GOP wave…Tom talks the political skills (and flaws) of Newt Gingrich…Early impressions and surprises on his first term in the House…Memories of tough votes surrounding the impeachment of President Clinton…Tom's path to running the NRCC in both the 2000 and 2002 cycles…Inside the candidate-recruitment process of the Tom Davis-led NRCC…Highlights of his tenure as Chair of the House Government Reform Committee…The tough decision to pass on an open 2008 Senate race and ultimately forgo re-election altogether…The two types of lobbyists in Washington…Tom breaks down lessons for Republicans in Glenn Youngkin's 2021 Virginia win…How Tom is thinking about the 2022 midterms…AND Amherst, Appalachian State University, appendages, John Boehner, Harry Byrd, Eldridge Cleaver, Bill Clinger, Carl Curtis, Tom Delay, Harry Dent, Everett Dirksen, David Dreier, Dulles Airport, David Eisenhower, Martin Frost, gay newspapers, George Mason University, Jim Gilmore, Barry Goldwater, Bart Gordon, Bob Haldeman, Jesse Helms, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Jim Holshouser, Rush Holt, Linwood Holton, John Hostettler, Steny Hoyer, Roman Hruska, Hubert Humphrey, Andrew Jackson, Jacob Javits, Nancy Johnson, Kent State, V.O. Key, lifelong teetotalers, John Linder, Louisiana Smart, Malibu, Mike Mansfield, Terry McAuliffe, Wayne Morse, the Mountain Valley Group, no confidence votes, Oliver North, Barack Obama, Dick Obenshain, Bill Paxon, perfecting amendments, Colin Peterson, Jeffrey Pine, George Rawlings, rental seats, Tom Reynolds, Alice Rivlin, Willis Robertson, Win Rockefeller, the Rotary Club, Antonin Scalia, Chris Shays, slackers, Howard Smith, Billy Tauzin, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Charles Thone, Strom Thurmond, Tulane, Fred Upton, Bob Walker, John Warner, Mark Warner, the Washington Post, Watauga County, Roger Wicker, wiffle ball, Frank Wolf, Jim Wright, Dick Zimmer, Elmo Zumwalt & more!

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Ann Lewis has had a legendary career as a Democratic strategist...from her time as Communications Director in the Clinton White House...as a Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run and both 08 & 16 Presidentials...to her time as a Senate Chief of Staff and working at institutions like Planned Parenthood, the DNC, ADA, & more. In this conversation...Ann talks growing up in New Jersey in the shadow of the Hudson County Democratic machine, key moments in her career path as a woman in politics in the 1970s and 80s, intersecting with Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 80s, her work in both the Clinton White House and Clinton campaigns for 20+ years, and her best practices for smart communication strategies.IN THIS EPISODE…Ann grows up in New Jersey in a family who instilled in her the importance of politics…Ann's early political memories of Harry Truman's upset win in 1948…Ann talks the Hudson County, NJ political machine of her youth…A political light-bulb goes off for Ann when canvassing for JFK…Ann talks the challenges of working up the political ladder as a woman in the 1970s and 80s…Ann goes deep on the her time working for Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race…Ann on the importance of Americans for Democratic Action…Ann talks her time as campaign manager and Chief of Staff for Senator Barbara Mikulski…Ann first crosses path with Bill & Hillary Clinton in the early 1980s…Ann gets to know then-First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1994…Ann gets pulled into the 1996 Clinton Presidential…Ann's time as Communication Directions in the White House, including during the Clinton Impeachment saga…Ann's communications best practices…Ann's involvement in the '08 and '16 Hillary Clinton Presidentials…Ann talks Bill Clinton's legendary retail skills and Hillary Clinton's intellect…Ann talks growing up with her brother, and fellow legendary political figure, Congressman Barney Frank…Ann's advice to the next generation of political operatives…AND Aunt Fanny, the Baltimore Museum of Art, basement offices, battlefield promotions, Bayonne, blankety-blank campaigns, George H.W. Bush, chattering classes, childish bullies, the Clinton Library, cocktail parties, the Colossus of Rhodes, Democratic Majority for Israel, Thomas Dewey, Bob Dole, Facebook, Fells Point, flaming parachutes, Boss Hague, the George Washington Bridge, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Margaret Hague, Jesse Helms, Harold Ickes, Jewish Women for Hillary, Junior Advisors, John Kennedy, Rick Lazio, Nita Lowey, Chuck Manatt, Mac Mathias, moderate ethnics, Pat Moynihan, the New York Post, Richard Nixon, NOW, one-and-a-half computers, Norm Ornstein, George Pataki, Planned Parenthood, Charlie Rangel, Joe Rauh, Walter Reuther, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, sturdy women, third wives, tugboats, the Unpleasantness, upstate winegrowers, Henry Wallace, Anne Wexler, Maggie Williams, the Women's Political Caucus & more!

Charlie Black is a legendary figure in Republican politics, working his first presidential campaign with Ronald Reagan in 1976 and being involved at a high level with both Presidents Bush and names like Kemp, Dole, McCain, Romney, Kasich and more. In this conversation, Charlie talks his roots in the conservative movement of the 1970s, his work as a political consultant in some of the most famous races of the era, and offers stories, insight, and lessons learned from one of the most impactful political lives of his generation.IN THIS EPISODE                                                    Charlie's roots in Wilmington North Carolina…Barry Goldwater draws Charlie to the GOP…How his early Republican activism leads to his first real campaign job with Jesse Helms first Senate race in 1972…Charlie talks the political strength of Jesse Helms that led to a 30-year Senate career, including the titanic '84 race between Helms and Democratic heavyweight Governor Jim Hunt…Charlie talks the rise of direct mail fundraising, Independent Expenditures, and the development of the conservative movement throughout the 1970s…Charlie's role running several states in the insurgent Reagan '76 primary challenge to Gerald Ford…Charlie talks the strategic decisions that led to Reagan winning the GOP nomination in 1980…Charlie goes into political consulting, working for scores of Senators, Governors, and House members…The question Ronald Reagan asked himself every morning in the White House…Charlie helps George H.W. Bush turn a 17-point deficit in 1988 into a landslide win…Charlie's longtime friendship with George W. Bush…The Charlie Black 101 on effective campaign management…Charlie talks his relationship with Lee Atwater, one of his best friends…Charlie manages Jack Kemp's 1988 Presidential campaign…Charlie on the Democratic politicians who've most impressed him…Charlie talks his work in government relations and former business partners Roger Stone and Paul Manafort…Charlie's take on how the Republican Establishment lost control of the party to the Trump wing…Charlie's best practices for crisis-communication…AND 80% friends, the ACLU, Roger Ailes, American University, John Anderson, Howard Baker, Jim Baker, Bigness, Boston Harbor, Bill Brock, Pat Buchanan, Buckley v. Valeo, the California guys, Bill Clinton, John Connolly, the Conscience of a Conservative, courtroom lawyers, Phil Crane, Michael Deaver, Terry Dolan, Kitty Dukakis, Michael Dukakis, John East, Jim Ely, Newt Gingrich, Bob Graham, the greatest Senate race ever run, Pete Hannaford, Paula Hawkins, the Hill newspaper, Willie Horton, Peter Kelly, Kemp-Roth tax cuts, Jim Lake, the League of Women Voters, C.S. Lewis, little bastards, Trent Lott, Mac Mathias, George McGovern, Ed Meese, Walter Mondale, Nashua, nativists, negative advertising, Nixon's coattails, noblesse oblige, Lyn Nofziger, Scott Pastrick, Pauley Pavillion, Ross Perot, Prime Policy Group, the RNC, Reaganites,  Karl Rove, John Sears, Richard Schweiker, Bernie Shaw, Arlen Specter, Stu Spencer, Bob Strauss, Donald Trump, Tom Turnipseed, University of Florida, Richard Viguerie, Paul Volcker, Paul Weyrich, YAF, Young Republicans…& more!

Robby Mook has managed races at all levels of politics - from state legislative races to the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential. In this conversation, Robby talks cutting his teeth in Vermont politics, the importance of field work, his time running the DCCC, managing successful races for Jeanne Shaheen and Terry McAuliffe, a deep dive on the 2016 campaign, & much more with one of the smartest thinkers in politics. IN THIS EPISODERobby cuts his teeth in Vermont politics and in the shadow of the next door New Hampshire Primary…The big name politician Robby rung up as a cashier…Robby's memories of Bernie Sanders from the 1990s…Robby's time in the US Senate page program…Robby talks the importance of his background in political field work…The piece of advice from David Plouffe that has really stuck with Robby…The Robby Mook 101 for effective campaign managing…Robby manages the 2008 Senate race for Jeanne Shaheen…Lessons Robby learned atop the DCCC in 2010 and 2012…Robby manages Terry McAuliffe's winning race in 2013…Robby's path to managing the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign in 2016…How the Clinton campaign almost ended up based out of Buffalo…The two big decisions in the campaign that took up more of his time than he anticipated…Robby weighs in on what the Clinton campaign got right in 2016…Robby talks the political strengths of Trump 2016…Robby rebuts some of the unfair criticisms lodged against the Clinton campaign…Robby clarifies how the campaign used analytics down the stretch…Robby's advice to other campaign operatives facing adversity after an election…Robby's current role at House Majority PAC…AND airport logistics, Kate Bedingfield, Paul Begala, Joe Biden, James Carville, change elections, DC desk jockeys, easy narratives, Facebook, fast cashiers, New Gingrich, the glue between the bricks, U.S. Grant, Jesse Helms, Pat Leahy, mush, Nancy Pelosi, the Roman Republic, Patti Solis Doyle, the Sununus, Syracuse, third terms, Strom Thurmond, Harry Truman, the US Naval Reserves, the Vermont Democratic Party, Paul Wellstone, White Plains, word clouds, & more!

The President of the Jesse Helms Center, Brian Rogers, discusses how the late US Senator from North Carolina entered public office fighting against the abortion industry and the controversial ruling. Get exclusive content here!: https://thepetekalinershow.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hillary and Tina cover AIDS activist Larry Kramer and anti-gay activist George Rekers. Hillary's Story Larry Kramer started his career as a writer. BUT when the government failed to act, he sounded the alarm on the AIDS crisis. Tina's Story George Rekers made a name for himself through his controversial theories and studies on homosexuality. BUT when he returns from vacation in 2010 with a young man in tow, he's got some explaining to do. Hillary's Story ACT UP "Larry--The WORD" (https://actupny.com/post-your-remembrances-of-larry-kramer/)--by Timothy Lunceford-Stevens Biography Larry Kramer Captured His Seemingly Hopeless Fight for HIV/AIDS Victims in 'The Normal Heart' (https://www.biography.com/news/larry-kramer-the-normal-heart)--by Rachel Chang Britannica Larry Kramer (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Larry-Kramer) Brooklyn Museum In Conversation: Larry Kramer and Jonathan Katz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avITb-TZWOQ)--via YouTube History AIDS activists unfurl a giant condom over Senator Jesse Helms' home (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aids-activists-unfurl-giant-condom-senator-jesse-helms-home-act-up) Los Angeles Times Letters to the Editor: Larry Kramer, the gay community's ‘Old Testament figure wrapped in righteous fury' (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-02/larry-kramer-the-gay-communitys-old-testament-prophet)--by Steve Martin Making Gay History Larry Kramer (https://makinggayhistory.com/podcast/larry-kramer/) The New Yorker The Benevolent Rage of Larry Kramer--by Michael Specter (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-benevolent-rage-of-larry-kramer) The New York Times Larry Kramer, Playwright and Outspoken AIDS Activist, Dies at 84 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/larry-kramer-dead.html)--by Daniel Lewis NPR Larry Kramer, Pioneering AIDS Activist And Writer, Dies At 84 (https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/512714500/larry-kramer-pioneering-aids-activist-and-writer-dies-at-84) Vanity Fair In One of His Final Interviews Larry Kramer, 84 and Infirm, Still Roared (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/05/in-one-of-his-final-interviews-larry-kramer-still-roared)--by Michael Shnayerson Wikimedia Larry Kramer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kramer) Photos Larry Kramer (https://makinggayhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/KRAMER-1-1989-Ph-Robert-Giard-NYPL.jpg)--by Robert Giard, via Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs at NYPL Larry Kramer at podium (https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7743f1a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1270+0+0/resize/840x521!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F32%2F04%2F135df13ef3b9e68582093eca5bdc%2Fla-ca-cm-larry-kramer-20150628-002)--by Ellen Shub/HBO via Los Angeles Times Condom on Jesse Helms Home (https://scontent-mia3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.18172-8/14231223_894749393990379_557753539184204595_o.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=9267fe&_nc_ohc=fdqSHeAMDAsAX-L8DQq&_nc_ht=scontent-mia3-2.xx&oh=00_AT_gCrElBXPrfENXFBbwbycWCJWux-m4lq3YVhEVyK54vA&oe=62D32155)--via LGBT_History Facebook Page Tina's Story ACLU HOWARD V. ARKANSAS - GEORGE REKERS FACT SHEET (https://www.aclu.org/other/howard-v-arkansas-george-rekers-fact-sheet) The Advocate Escort Revealed in Rekers Scandal (https://www.advocate.com/news/daily-news/2010/05/05/escort-rekers-scandal-revealed) BuzzFeed News George Alan Rekers' Rent-Boy Scandal (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/expresident/george-alan-rekers-rent-boy-scandal)--by Jack Shepherd CNN Reporters find tragic story amid embarrassing scandal (http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/08/rekers.sissy.boy.experiment/index.html)--By Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp Therapy to change 'feminine' boy created a troubled man, family says (http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/07/sissy.boy.experiment/)--by Scott Bronstein and Jessi Joseph Constantine Report Second "Rent Boy" Emerges in Prof. George Rekers (Family Research Council) Gay Sex Scandal (https://constantinereport.com/second-rent-boy-emerges-in-prof-george-rekers-family-research-council-gay-sex-scandal/) Daily News Anti-gay activist, Christian minister George Rekers caught in gay escort scandal resigns from NARTH (https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/anti-gay-activist-christian-minister-george-rekers-caught-gay-escort-scandal-resigns-narth-article-1.449343)--By Michael Sheridan Dangerous Minds DR. GEORGE REKERS: AMERICAN MENGELE? (https://dangerousminds.net/comments/dr._george_rekers_american_mengele) Equality Florida Bill McCollum Still Paying for George Rekers (https://www.eqfl.org/how-rent-boy-scandal-brought-down-far-right-favorite) Falls Church News Press George Rekers Delusional Downfall Is A Familiar Tale (https://www.fcnp.com/2010/05/06/george-rekers-delusional-downfall-is-a-familiar-tale/)--by Wayne Besen GLADD "Ex-gay" group NARTH rebrands with dangerous mission (https://www.glaad.org/blog/ex-gay-group-narth-rebrands-dangerous-mission)--by By Joeli Katz Go Pride Chicago George Rekers steps down from ex-gay board (https://chicago.gopride.com/news/article.cfm/articleid/10574644) Miami New Times Christian right leader George Rekers takes vacation with "rent boy" (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/christian-right-leader-george-rekers-takes-vacation-with-rent-boy-6377933)--by PENN BULLOCK AND BRANDON K. THORP The New York Times Scandal Stirs Legal Questions in Anti-Gay Cases (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/us/19rekers.html)--by John Schwartz Newsweek Left Wing: When Gay Bashers Are Gay, Why Do People Just Mock and Turn Away? (https://www.newsweek.com/left-wing-when-gay-bashers-are-gay-why-do-people-just-mock-and-turn-away-214204)--BY EVE CONANT PFLAG Ex-Gay Leader's Male Escort: Actually, We Did Have Sex (https://pflag.com/focus-on-family-leader-scandal/)--by Rachel Slajda Queerty The Gay Rentboy Scandal That Should Sink Bigot Baptist Minister George Alan Rekers (https://www.queerty.com/the-gay-rentboy-scandal-that-should-sink-bigot-baptist-minister-george-alan-rekers-20100504) Sacramento Post (Gay Escort Scandal) George Rekers (a gay Tiger Woods?) Second Man has come forward (https://sacratomatovillepost.com/2010/05/11/gay-escort-scandal-george-rekers-a-gay-tiger-woods-second-man-has-come-forward/) Sun Sentinel Male escort says he gave 'sexual' massages to anti-gay leader (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2010-05-08-mi-rentboy-escort-i-gave-sexual-massa20100508-story.html)--By Steve Rothaus and The Miami Herald Think Progress How The Rekers ‘Rent Boy' Scandal Could Undermine Prop. 8 Supporters' Court Battle (https://archive.thinkprogress.org/how-the-rekers-rent-boy-scandal-could-undermine-prop-8-supporters-court-battle-3099987a55db/)--by AMANDA TERKEL Towleroad Florida AG Bill McCollum Paid George ‘Rentboy' Rekers $87,000 to Be Star Witness for State's Gay Adoption Ban (https://www.towleroad.com/2010/05/florida-ag-bill-mccollum-paid-george-rentboy-rekers-87000-to-be-star-witness-for-states-adoption-ban/)--by Andy Towle The Week Rekers rentboy scandal: The fallout continues (https://theweek.com/articles/494639/rekers-rentboy-scandal-fallout-continues) Wikipedia George Rekers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Rekers) Howard v. Arkansas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_v._Arkansas#:~:text=Howard%2C%20367%20Ark.,housemates%20from%20being%20foster%20parents.) Photos George Rekers (https://www.advocate.com/sites/default/files/2012/04/25/roman_rekersx390.jpg)--screenshot via The Advocate Jo-Vanni Roman (https://www.advocate.com/sites/default/files/2012/04/25/roman_rekersx390.jpg)--screenshot via The Advocate Rekers caught at airport (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/06/08/t1larg.rekers.thorp.jpg)--via CNN

There are few more historic political figures than former Senator & Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun - the first Black womzn elected to the US Senate and the first ever Black Democratic Senator. In this conversation, she talks growing up on Chicago's South Side, marching with Martin Luther King at age 16, memories of figures like Richard J. Daley and Harold Washington, the start of her own political career, her history-making underdog Senate win in 1992, memorable moments and lessons learned during her time in the Senate, her tenure as Ambassador to New Zealand, & much more from a truly iconic political life.IN THIS EPISODE…Memories of growing up on Chicago's South Side…Early memories of Chicago politics and the local labor movement…Growing up in the Chicago of Richard J. Daley…A 16-year-old Carol Moseley Braun marches next to Martin Luther King Jr…Memories of her long relationship with the iconic Harold Washington…How Harold Washington “saved” her political career…The college classmate (and now DC uber lobbyist) who jumpstarted her first political race…Recollections of the Illinois legislature of the 1970s and 80s…How being the target of the Chicago Machine actually helped her career…The amazing story of her history-making underdog US Senate race in 1992…Surprises and difficulties in the early days after being elected to the US Senate…The Senators who served as her mentors…The story of facing down Jesse Helms over the Confederate Flag…Her relationship with then-Senator Joe Biden…Her proudest accomplishment in the Senate…Memories of her tenure as Ambassador to New Zealand…The definitive Carol Moseley Braun advice for visitors to Chicago…AND 98-2, the Action Party, Al the Pal, apolitical medical technicians, Bob Bennett, the Black Belt, Barbara Boxer, brickbats, Brown vs Board, George HW Bush, Robert Byrd, Jane Byrne, carveouts, the civil rights imperative, Bill Clinton, Michael Corleone, cumulative voting, the Cutback Amendment, the Daley Machine, demigods, dirty tricks, Alan Dixon, the Dream Team, the DuSable Museum of African American History, Diane Feinstein, Gage Park, Hansberry vs Lee, Howell Heflin, Anita Hill, Independent Democrats, Nancy Kassebaum, Ted Kennedy, Kiwis, Celinda Lake, Landslide Washington, Pat Leahy, Thurgood Marshall, John McCain, Pat Moynihan, Dick Neuhaus, nuclear submarines, Barack Obama, old bulls, Claiborne Pell, Tony Podesta, Michael Shakman, semi-humans, Paul Simon, Clarence Thomas, Transcendentalists, welfare reform, the WWI Memorial, the Willard Hotel, the Year of the Woman… & more!

Hillary and Tina cover US Senator Jesse Helms and Oregon Department of Corrections Director Michael Franke. Hillary's Story Jesse Helms was known for his racism and bigotry. BUT despite that, he maintained his seat for over 30 years allowing him to pass harmful legislation impacting marginalized communities in the US. Tina's Story Michael Francke had a solid legal career in the criminal justice system in New Mexico and was appointed as director of the Oregon department of corrections in 1987. BUT when he's found dead at work, it sparks decades of conspiracy theories. Hillary's Story 60 Minutes From the "60 Minutes" archives: Sen. Fritz Hollings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvwjRAmGFMg)--via YouTube ABC News BTS joins Karine Jean-Pierre at the White House press briefing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4bVDQd15-k)--via YouTube Britannica Jesse Helms (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesse-Helms) CNN Commentary: Don't sanitize Helms' racist past (https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/09/roland.martin/index.html)--by Roland Martin History AIDS activists unfurl a giant condom over Senator Jesse Helms' home (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aids-activists-unfurl-giant-condom-senator-jesse-helms-home-act-up) The Jesse Helms Center Home Page (https://jessehelmscenter.org/) Los Angeles Times Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies at 86 (https://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-helms5-2008jul05-story.html)--by Johanna Neuman Mother Jones On the Record (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/05/record/)--by Eric Bates The Nation Jesse Helms, American Bigot (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/jesse-helms-american-bigot/)--by Lisa Duggan NPR Remembering Sen. Jesse Holms (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92241277) The New York Times Jesse Helms Dies at 86; Conservative Force in the Senate (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/us/politics/00helms.html?hp)--by Steven Holmes Richard Burr Senate Approves Resolution Honoring Jesse Helms (https://www.burr.senate.gov/2008/7/senate-approves-resolution-honoring-jesse-helms) Wikipedia Helms AIDS Amendments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_AIDS_Amendments) Jesse Helms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Helms) National Congressional Club (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Congressional_Club) Photos Jesse Helms (https://media.npr.org/news/images/2008/jul/04/helmscons200-09413be193e1fae758447f0c3c43d9066d68b26e-s1600-c85.webp)--by Manny Ceneta via NPR Helms and Bono (https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4e4b09a9db09ee8c3a75fe/1517867709500-8E23OXZYIRXMKC81K5HJ/Compassionate-Conservative.gif?format=750w)--via Jesse Helms Center Screenshot from Helms' Racist Ad (https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/09/10/160885683/political-pro-with-race-baiting-past-doesnt-see-it-in-romneys-welfare-charge)--from YouTube via NPR Tina's Story CaseText Gable v. Williams, Civil No. 3:07-cv-00413-AC (https://casetext.com/case/gable-v-williams) Coffee or Die Who Killed Michael Francke? (https://coffeeordie.com/michael-francke/) Correctional Leaders Association Francke Award (https://www.correctionalleaders.com/francke-award) KOIN 6 Interactive: Who's who in the Francke-Gable case (https://www.koin.com/francke-gable/interactive-whos-who-in-the-francke-gable-case/) Oregon DOJ makes case to re-jail Frank Gable (https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/oregon-doj-makes-case-to-re-jail-frank-gable/) MotherJones What You Need to Know about Jesse Helms (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/05/what-you-need-know-about-jesse-helms/) The New York Times PRISONS' DIRECTOR IS SLAIN IN OREGON (https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/19/us/prisons-director-is-slain-in-oregon.html) The Oregonian Brothers of slain Oregon prisons chief both want release of man convicted in case, but disagree on next step (https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/04/brothers-of-slain-oregon-prisons-chief-both-want-release-of-man-convicted-in-case-but-disagree-on-next-step.html) Portland Tribune Pamplin Media Group - Francke murder: Gable's attorneys fight to keep him free (https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/457355-372856-francke-murder-gables-attorneys-fight-to-keep-him-free) Pamplin Media Group - Oregon tries to re-jail Gable on Monday (https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/535396-428563-oregon-tries-to-re-jail-gable-on-monday-pwoff) Prison Legal News Wrongfully Convicted Man Freed for Murder of Oregon DOC Director, But State Wants Him Back In Prison (https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2021/nov/1/wrongfully-convicted-man-freed-murder-oregon-doc-director-state-wants-him-back-prison/) Statesman Journal Judge orders Frank Gable released from prison Friday in Oregon murder (https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/crime/2019/06/27/frank-gable-released-oregon-prison-judge-orders-directors-murder-michael-franke/1584683001/) Timeline of Michael Francke's murder, Frank Gable's possible release (https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2019/04/19/oregon-michael-franckes-murder-case-frank-gables-possible-release/3525387002/) United States District Court for the District of Oregon Microsoft Word - JUSTICE-#6912532-v1-Gable0413PLDRESPONSE(ALLPARTSCOMPILED).doc (http://media.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/other/Response11.9.2015.frankgablepetition.pdf) University of Virginia Francke, J. Michael, 1971 - Our History: Featured Alumni/ae (https://libguides.law.virginia.edu/c.php?g=39996&p=254223) - Law Library Guides at University of Virginia Arthur J. Morris Law Library Unsolved Mysteries Michael Francke (https://unsolved.com/gallery/michael-francke/) Unsolved Mysteries Wiki Michael Francke (https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Michael_Francke) Wikipedia Michael Francke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Francke) Willamette Week Should You Believe This Man? (https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-7724-should-you-believe-this-man.html) For Years, the Murder of Michael Francke Has Been Oregon's Biggest Mystery. Last Week, It Took a New Twist. (https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2019/04/25/for-years-the-murder-of-michael-francke-has-been-oregons-biggest-mystery-last-week-it-took-a-new-twist/) Photos: Micheal Francke (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Michael_Francke_photo.jpg)—via Wikipedia (fair use) The Dome Building (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/ODCDomeBuilding1.JPG)—by Katr67 Map of Francke's Attack (https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2019/04/19/oregon-michael-franckes-murder-case-frank-gables-possible-release/3525387002/)--screenshot via Statesman Journal Frank Gable, alleged killer (https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2019/04/19/oregon-michael-franckes-murder-case-frank-gables-possible-release/3525387002/)--screenshot from KWO8

Donate to Mercy Corps: Helping with Humanitarian Response in Ukraine and Poland Mike Tyson does his best Will Smith imitation, CNN puts the minus to plus, The Masked Singer, Jesse Helms and the Republican hatred towards the LGBTQ community, the WAR AGAINST DISNEY continues Donate via PayPal: @bradandbritt Venmo: @BBCast Cash App: $bdub336

Dennis connects via Zoom with actor-writer-performance artist John Fleck whose musical satire It's Alive, It's ALIVE! is showing at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles through March 20. John talks about the show's central idea; that COVID is here to save us, not hurt us, where the original idea came from and where he got the inflatable COVID headress he wears through much of the show. He also recalls his experience, along with Tim Miller, Karen Finley, Tim Miller and Holly Hughes, as one of the NEA Four, the four artists who had received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and whose grants were challenged by conservatives like Jesse Helms and others and whose case went all the way to Supreme Court. He talks about how the notoriety led to his first TV job, as a gay secretary in Steven Bochco's Murder One and how he regrets not being present at the Supreme Court hearing because he was working on TV show. John also recalls his early days in Los Angeles in the 1970's, the "radical change" he made that brought him here and opening for Edith Massey, John Waters' Egg Lady, at the One Way punk bar in Silverlake in 1983. Other topics include: embracing imperfection, how having his own shows makes the Hollywood acting hustle less soul-crushing, being an "age pioneer" at 71, the torture and glory of doing alien makeup for multiple Star Trek series and most recently Orville, appearing on projects like Tales of the City, Weeds, Seinfeld, Waterworld and the upcoming Tina Town, vamping in the dark when the power went out during a performance, and the late, great screenwriter who always came to his shows. 

It was not so very long ago that Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina led the charge against this MLK holiday that we now celebrate. Today, that congressional fight has largely faded from memory as we celebrate the powerful words Dr. King spoke. In Selma. In Detroit. In Washington. From the many great speeches: I have a dream...; Now is time to make real the promise of democracy... so many great words flood our social media threads on this day. We remember the greatness but forget what he fought for. Dr. King's marches began because of segregation and voting rights. This past year, the rights he fought for have been under attack like no time since he began the fight. From Brennancenter.org In 2021, the state legislative push to restrict access to voting was not only aggressive — it was also successful. Between January 1 and December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting. More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions. These numbers are extraordinary: state legislatures enacted far more restrictive voting laws in 2021 than in any year since the Brennan Center began tracking voting legislation in 2011. More than a third of all restrictive voting laws enacted since then were passed this year. And in a new trend this year, legislators introduced bills to allow partisan actors to interfere with election processes or even reject election results entirely. Unfortunately, the momentum around this legislation continues. So far, at least 13 bills restricting access to voting have been pre-filed for the 2022 legislative session in four states. In addition, at least 152 restrictive voting bills in 18 states will carry over from 2021. Who are we? Are we really who our founding documents say we are, or are we only patriots when it serves us? Gerrymandering, redrawing districts and attempted coups make me afraid of what that answer might be. How will you honor the memory of a man who believed in the America we could be? My ask this week is that you spend some time reading the article linked from the Brennan Center and that you contact your congressional representatives. After that, ask at least 3 friends to do the same. If you'd like additional information on voting rights and redistricting (wtheck do we do that for anyway??), head to Ballotpedia and use the dropdown menu on the left. MLK was not just a Nobel prize winner, not just a man of great words. He was a man of action, arrested 29 times and finally assassinated, shot in the face at the age of 39 for leading the nation into the constitutional promiseland of liberty and justice for all. If you want to honor his legacy, skip the quote post and instead, post a copy of your protest letter. That would be a celebration worthy of a King. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hedreich/message

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 325, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Celebrity Alma Maters 1: She dropped out of Sarah Lawrence College in 1957 and married John Lennon in 1969. Yoko Ono. 2: This "ramblin' kind of guy" pulled straight A's in philosophy at Long Beach State. Steve Martin. 3: His wife Jane, who he met at the U. of MD., was his 1st partner in puppetry, or shall we say muppetry. Jim Henson. 4: Child star who appeared in her 1st film in 1972 and graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 1985. Jodie Foster. 5: In 1903 future president F. Roosevelt was elected editor of this school paper at Harvard. "The Crimson". Round 2. Category: The "Right" Stuff 1: Cartoon mountie who could "do no wrong". Dudley Do-Right. 2: Opposing the "pro-choice" group, they're anti-abortion activists. right to lifers. 3: A 90° bend, or an appropriate sales technique. right angle. 4: It has only 10 amendments, since 2 on representatives' apportionment and compensation weren't ratified. Bill of Rights. 5: Position shared by Jesse Helms in the political spectrum and Tim Kerr at the Philadelphia Spectrum. right wing. Round 3. Category: Nfl Rules 1: (Hi, I'm Brian Mitchell) A punt returner who waves his hand over his head isn't swatting for flies, he's signaling for this. a fair catch. 2: (I'm Dan Fouts, Hall of Famer) As it should be, there's an automatic 15-yard penalty for roughing the kicker or this person. the quarterback. 3: (Hi, I'm Keyshawn Johnson) This infraction includes but is not limited to hooking the receiver, grabbing my arm, etcetera. pass interference. 4: (Hi, I'm Hall of Famer Dan Hampton) Also a hockey penalty, it's called for using the hands illegally -- hey, it was the only way to stop me. holding. 5: (Hi, I'm Joey Galloway) Only one player at a time may do this, run parallel to the line to confuse the defense. go in motion. Round 4. Category: Merriam-Webster's New Words For 2007 1: This huge new entry is a blending of "gigantic" and "enormous". ginormous. 2: This packing material that's fun to pop is another new addition. Bubble Wrap. 3: Ready, set... It's an event where participants converse briefly with one another to find partners to go out with. speed dating. 4: Hooray for this popular term for India's motion picture industry. Bollywood. 5: Definitions for this compound word include a decisive defeat and a contest in entertainment wrestling. smackdown. Round 5. Category: Quotable Women 1: In "You Learn By Living", this First Lady of the 1940s challenged, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do". Eleanor Roosevelt. 2: This Bronte sister revealed in an 1840s letter, "I am neither a man nor a woman but an author". Charlotte Bronte. 3: This country star said she's not offended by dumb blonde jokes: "I know...I'm not dumb...I also know I'm not blonde". Dolly Parton. 4: While San Francisco mayor, this Calif. senator remarked, "Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit". Dianne Feinstein. 5: In "The Second Sex", this French author declared, "One is not born a woman, one becomes one". Simone de Beauvoir. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Emily Barr is the President and CEO of Graham Media Group and oversees seven local market media hubs/television stations in six cities including 1000 employees. Her experience with male-dominated environments started early as she attended the prestigious boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy during the early days of allowing young women to attend. Emily shares several stories of her career experience involving Oprah, Margaret Thatcher and Senator Jesse Helms. She believes not only in employment diversity yet also fostering feelings of engagement and belonging. What a fascinating podcast with Emily Barr! LeadingShe.com Instagram.com/LeadingShe Facebook.com/LeadingShe https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadingshe/

This is "The Leading Voices in Food" podcast but today we're speaking with a leading voice in tobacco control. "How come," you might ask, "why?" So I believe for many years that the parallels between the tobacco industry and food industry practices are nothing short of stunning, and that our field would do very well to learn lessons learned from the pioneers in the tobacco wars. Our guest today is Dr. Kenneth Warner, Distinguished Emeritus Professor and former Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. Ken's research focuses on the economic and policy aspects of tobacco and health. Interview Summary   So Ken, you and I have a long history, and I thought it might be instructive to mention just a little bit of it because you really helped shape some of the ways I think about addressing food policy. So I first became familiar with your work long before I met you in person, when I was teaching classes at Yale. I was assigning papers you wrote on tobacco control and I was especially interested in work that you'd done on tobacco taxes. It really gave me the idea of pushing ahead with food-related taxes. Then finally I got a chance to meet you in person at a meeting that was hosted by the first President George Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, on cancer control. You and I got to talking about similarities between the tobacco industry behavior and the way the food industry was behaving. We were both struck by the similarities. That led us to write a paper together that was published in 2009 in "The Milbank Quarterly." And I have to say, of all the papers I've published over my career, this was one of my favorites because I really enjoyed working with you. I learned a ton from it, and it really, I thought, made some very important points. And I'd just like to mention the title of that paper because it pretty much summarizes what it found. So the title was, "The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?" In my mind, the playbooks are still very similar, and that's why it's really interesting to talk to you today, get a little sense of what's happening more recently, and importantly, think about what lessons are learned from tobacco control. I wanted to bring up one thing from that paper that I always found fascinating, which was the discussion about something called "The Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers." Could you describe what that was and what role you think it played in history?   Sure. Just to give you some context for it, the first two major papers that implicated smoking in lung cancer were published in major medical journals in 1950. In December of 1952 there was an article in the "Reader's Digest," which incidentally was the only major magazine that did not accept cigarette advertising, that was entitled, "Cancer by the Carton." And this was the American public's first real exposure to the risks associated with smoking, and it led to a two-year decline in cigarette smoking, a very sharp decline, something that was unprecedented in the history of the cigarette. Following that there was some research published on mice and cancer. And needless to say, the tobacco industry was getting pretty nervous about this. So the executives of all the major tobacco firms met in New York City in December of 1953, and they collaborated on what became a public relations strategy, which drove their behavior for many years thereafter. The first thing they did was to publish "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" in January of 1954. This "Frank Statement" was published in over 400 magazines and newspapers, and it reached an estimated audience of some 80 million Americans, which would be a very good percentage of all Americans in those years. And they talked about the fact that there was this evidence out there, but they said, "We feel it is in the public interest," this is a quote, "to call attention to the fact that eminent doctors and research scientists have publicly questioned the claimed significance of this research." Then they went on to say, and I quote again, "We accept an interest in people's health as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business. We believe the products we make are not injurious to health and," and this is the kicker, "we always have and always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public health," end quote. They went on to say that they would support research on smoking and health, and, of course, that they would always be the good guys in this story. This was designed as part of a strategy to obfuscate, to deceive the public, basically, to lie about what they already knew about the health hazards associated with smoking. And it was essentially a first very public step in a campaign that, one could argue, in many ways has persisted ever since, although, obviously, now the tobacco companies admit that they're killing their customers and they admit that smoking causes cancer and heart disease and lung disease and so on. But that was kind of the beginning of the strategy that drove their behavior for decades.   You know, that was one of the issues we raised in our paper. How similar were the big food companies in talking about concern for the health of their customers, planting doubt with the science, pledging to make changes that were in the interest of public health, agreeing to collaborate with public health officials? All those things played out in the food arena as well. And that's just one of many places where the food industry behave very, very similar to what the tobacco industry has done. But boy, is it interesting to hear that particular anecdote and to learn of the cynical behavior of the industry. So fast forward from there, and you think about the tobacco industry executives testifying before Congress that nicotine wasn't addictive, and you have that same process playing out many years later. These similarities are really remarkable.   So let's talk about your work and some of the issues that I think apply to the food area, and let's talk about taxes at the beginning. So I worked for years on the issue of soda taxes, and these taxes now exist in more than 50 countries around the world and in a number of major cities in the US, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Oakland. And these taxes have been shown to have really positive effects, and they seem to be growing around the world. And I'd like to understand what you see as the overall findings from the work on tobacco taxes. But before we do that, you have a very interesting story to tell about how the tobacco control community responded when you first began speaking about taxes. It turns out to be taxes on tobacco have had whopping effects. But what was the initial reaction to people in that field?   Yeah, it is kind of an interesting story. So around 1980, when I first started writing and talking about tobacco taxation as a method of reducing smoking, I used to have public health audiences booing me. If they had rotten tomatoes with them, they would have been throwing them.   You know, Ken, it's hard to imagine because now these taxes are completely routine and accepted.   Yes, they're not only routine and accepted, they are a first principle of tobacco control. They are enshrined in the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. So they really are kind of the first thing we turn to because we know that they work. We know that they reduce smoking.   But let me give you a story about how I learned that this is not only a phenomenon with people smoking. It's a phenomenon with people using all other drugs, and it turns out it's a trans-species law, the Law of Demand. And that law says, basically, that if you increase price, the demand for the commodity will decrease. Well, in the beginning, the public health audiences believed two things. They believed that smokers were so addicted that they would not be affected by price, so it was ridiculous to even think about it. And they said, you have to have intrinsic motivators to get people to quit smoking. They have to care about their kids. They want to see their kids grow up, their spouses, and so on, and not extrinsic forces like a tax. So those were their two objections. So the story that I think is really kind of fun. I was on a plane flying to a small conference in Kansas City. This is sometime in the early '80s. And I happened to be seated next to Jack Henningfield, who is probably the preeminent psychopharmacologist dealing with nicotine, maybe in the world. And we were talking about price response, the fact that cigarette taxes work. And he said, "You know, I've got something I want to show you here." And he pulled out some what are called response cost curves from the psychology literature. And this is where you take a laboratory animal, in this instance addicted to narcotics or other addictive substances, and you give them a challenge to get their drugs. So first, I should note that these animals are so addicted that if they're given the choice between food and their drug, they will choose their drug, and they will in fact end up dying because they place a preference for the drug over food. But it turns out that when you increase the price of the drug to them, they decrease the amount that they consume. So what do I mean by that? If they have to push a lever, a bar, a certain number of times to get a dose of their drug, and you raise the number of bar pushes per dose, they will dose themselves with fewer doses. I took a look at these curves, and basically, a response cost curve for these lab animals is essentially a demand curve as we economists see it. And I calculated the price elasticity of demand, which is our standard measure of the responsiveness to price. And it turns out that addicted laboratory rats have essentially the same price elasticity of demand, the same price responsiveness that human beings do to cigarettes.   That's an absolutely fascinating story. And, you know, I know Jack, and have admired his work, as you have, and it's amazing to think about that conversation on a plane, and what sort of scientific work it led to, and how that, in turn, found its way into policies that exist around the world. So tell us then about tobacco taxes, and how high do they have to be in order to affect consumption in an appreciable way, and have they worked in reducing tobacco use, and what's your overall take on that?   So we have, quite literally, hundreds of studies in countries around the world, and we know a lot but we don't know everything. So we don't know, for example, if there's a particular price above which, you know, nobody will use the product. We don't have even really good data suggesting of, you know, what's the minimum increase in price that you have to have to have a noticeable impact. Overall, the literature suggests that if you increase the price of cigarettes by 10%, you will decrease the quantity demanded by 3 to 4%. Now, what this means is that roughly half of that decreased demand reflects decreases in the number of cigarettes that continuing smokers use, while the other half represents decreases in smoking, people quitting or kids not starting. So the demand is what we call price inelastic. The price change itself is larger, proportionately, than the decrease in consumption. But that decrease in consumption is still substantial and it's enough to have a large impact.   Now, cigarette prices vary all over the world, and cigarette prices vary primarily because of taxation differences. So if you go to the Scandinavian countries, you'll find that a pack of cigarettes will run $15 or more. If you go to Australia, you're looking at $30 or more a pack. In the US, currently, we're looking at an average price in the range of about 7 to $8. In some jurisdictions, like New York City, it's $10 or more. But the prices in the US are actually relatively low among the more developed nations in the world. Any tax increase will have an impact but obviously the larger tax increases will have larger impacts. And there's some good and bad news in tobacco taxation, particularly in a country like ours, and this is, again, true for most of the developed world. Smoking is now concentrated in marginalized populations. I'm talking about low socioeconomic groups, the LGBTQ community, and racial minorities, in particular. If you think of this as an economic phenomenon, when you raise the price on cigarettes, you're going to hit the worst-off economically segments of the population hard. That's the bad news. The good news is that those people, precisely because they are poor, tend to be much more price responsive than high-income smokers, and more of them will quit. So we have this problem that the tax is regressive, it imposes a larger burden on the poor, but the health effect is progressive. It will reduce the gap between the rich and poor in terms of smoking rates. And of great importance, there's an enormous gap between the rich and poor in this country in life expectancy, and as much as half of that may be differences in smoking rates.   Ken, there's a hundred follow-up questions I could ask, and I find this discussion absolutely fascinating. One thing that came into my mind was that some years ago I looked at the relationship of taxes, state by state in the US, and rates of disease like lung cancer and heart disease. And there was plenty of data because there was a huge range in tobacco taxes. Places like New York and Rhode Island had very high taxes, and the tobacco Southern states, like North Carolina, had very low taxes. But what's the sort of recent take on that, and the relationship between taxes and actual disease?   Well, it's still true. And there are, in fact, what you suggest, the southeastern block of tobacco states have unusually low rates of taxation. And I haven't seen any recent data but one presumes that they are suffering more from smoking-related diseases because their smoking rates are higher. I mean, that has to be true. So I don't know that we have any particularly good data recently, but there have been studies that clearly relate tobacco or cigarette prices to health outcomes associated with smoking.   I'm assuming US scientists have played a prominent role in producing the literature showing the negative health consequences of using cigarettes, and yet you said the United States has relatively low taxes compared to other developed countries. Why, do you think?   I think we're going to get into a very philosophical discussion about the US right here. It has to do with individual responsibility. We know for sure that the initial reason the taxes were so low was that the tobacco block was so influential in the Senate, particularly in the days when Jesse Helms, the senator from North Carolina, was in the Senate. He was the most feared senator by the other senators, and if you wanted to get anything done for your cause, you had to go along with his cause, which was keeping cigarette prices low and doing everything they could to support smoking. So there's clearly been a built-in bias in the Senate, and basically in the Congress as a whole, against tobacco policy. You see a huge variation from state to state in tobacco policies, and it's reflective of basically their political leanings in general.   You brought up this issue of personal responsibility, and boy, does that apply in the food area. You know, the food companies are saying: if you have one sugar beverage every once in a while, it's not going to be harmful. And it's not use of the products but it is overuse of the products. Thereby saying, it's not corporate responsibility we're talking about here, it's personal responsibility. That same argument was made by the tobacco industry, wasn't it?   It was. They would be less inclined to do that today, for a couple of reasons. One is that we know that even low levels of smoking are harmful and indeed cause many of the diseases that we were referring to earlier. And I think all the companies have now admitted publicly that smoking does cause all of these diseases that we've long known it causes. And all of them are claiming that they would like to move away from a society with smoking to one that has alternative products that would give people choices and ways to get their nicotine without exposing themselves to so much risk. I mean, we have to remember, the fact that cigarettes kill their consumers is a real drawback as far as the industry is concerned because they're losing a lot of their consumers, you know, 10, 20 years before they normally would, and they have to deal with all these lawsuits. So it's unfortunate for them. Having said that, cigarettes are the goose that lays the golden egg. They cost very little to manufacture. The industry is sufficiently oligopolistic that the profits are enormous, and their profitability has continued even while smoking has dropped rather precipitously ever since the mid-1960s.   Is that because the markets outside the US have been growing?   They certainly have helped. Although now, and this is only true within the last few years, the aggregate cigarette sales in the world are declining. They've actually started dropping. So we were seeing a relatively stable situation as smoking decreased in the developed world and was rising in the developing world. The only place now where we're seeing increases in smoking are areas in Africa, which, by the way, is the one place in the world where we might be able to forego the tobacco epidemic because smoking rates are still quite low in most of the countries, not all of them, and also parts of the Middle East. But elsewhere we've been seeing smoking declining all over the world. That doesn't mean the profits have to drop because one thing that the companies can do, is, they can raise their prices. Now, if prices go up because of taxes that hurts the companies. But if they raise their own prices because demand is inelastic, what that means is that the percentage increase in the price is larger than the percentage decline in the demand for cigarettes. So they're actually adding to their profitability by doing that. They've always played this very interesting game for years of keeping price below what we would think to be the profit-maximizing price. And I think the reason for that has to do with addiction because they know that they have to have what are called replacement smokers, kids coming in to take the place of the smokers who are dying or quitting. And for years, I think, they kept their prices down because they didn't want to discourage young people from smoking. Now, I think they see the writing on the wall. Smoking is declining very rapidly. Smoking prevalence, which was 45% in the mid, early-1960s, is now a little over 12% in the US, and I think they're raising their prices with the understanding that they want to take as much advantage of the opportunity with the addicted smokers, the adults, as they possibly can, even though smoking among kids is becoming vanishingly small.   I think of so many parallels with the soda taxes that now exists in a number of places, and the companies have responded somewhat differently. And perhaps it's the level of addiction issue that kicks in here, and the need to have replacement customers. Maybe that's another key difference. But with the soda taxes, the companies have not increased prices beyond the level of the tax. You know, to delight of public health experts, the companies have tended to pass along the entire tax so the companies are not eating that difference in order to keep prices the same. Higher tax gets reflected in the ultimate price that they charge, but they're not increasing prices beyond that. Do you think it might be the addiction issue that's different here?   I don't know. I mean, that certainly could be an element of it. The other thing is that they're manufacturing other drinks that are being used in place of some of the sodas. So they've got waters, they've got juices. I mean, obviously these sugary juices are no better, but they do make other products. They make the diet drinks. And to the extent that they can find substitutes for those products within their own companies, it may be that they're content to allow people to make those substitutions.   Interesting comment. The results so far on the soda tax suggest that the most common substitution as people drink less soda, is water, which is of course better than a lot of the alternatives that people might be consuming, so that's a bit of really good news. Even though the companies do sell water, Coke and Pepsi have Aquafina and Dasani, for example, they face a basic problem. Number one is that these companies are the biggest sellers of sugary beverages but not bottled water. That happens to be Nestle. So if people migrate to bottled water, they're likely to migrate from the big companies, like Coke and Pepsi, to Nestle. Also, people tend not to be very brand-loyal to water. They tend to buy whatever is on sale or whatever they find available to them, and that creates a problem for these companies like Coke and Pepsi that do rely on brand loyalty for their marketing. So it's very interesting. And also, I wonder, based on the research on food and addiction, if the companies don't take a hit if people switch from full sugar beverages even to diet beverages that they might sell because there wouldn't be as much addictive potential, and therefore the customers wouldn't have to have as much just to keep the habit going. So it's really interesting to think this through.   That's certainly very plausible. The whole thing would also depend on the price elasticity of demand for sodas, and specifically for the brands that they're concerned about. If there is greater elasticity there than what we observe for cigarettes, then raising those prices aren't necessarily going to help them all that much.   You mentioned that the elasticity estimates for tobacco suggested that a 10% increase in price led to a 3 to 4% reduction in consumption, and the numbers are even more positive in the case of the sugar beverages, where if you get a 10%, 15% increase in price, you end up with 10, 15% reduction in consumption. So that's good news in the food arena.   That's good news but it also means that they can't do as easily what the tobacco industry can do, which is to raise their prices and expect to see profits rise. Because if they're losing as much in sales as they're gaining in price, it's no win.   So Ken, let's talk about product formulation because you mentioned that earlier, and this is a really interesting issue that, again, connects tobacco and food products. So you think about the tobacco companies mainly selling cigarettes, but now there's vaping, there's cigarettes with things like menthol and other flavors, or low-fat foods, or artificial sweeteners. The list of product reformulations in order to attract customers goes on and on and on. So I know a controversial topic in your field has been e-cigarettes. Can you explain what these are?   E-cigarettes have been around now for about a decade, let's say. Basically, they're devices that allow people to inhale nicotine and other substances, but the purpose is to give them their nicotine without combustion. And we know that the major problem associated with smoking is the products of combustion. There's 7,000 chemical compounds in cigarette smoke. 70 of them are known human carcinogens, causes of cancer in humans. Many of them are cardiotoxic. They cause lung disease and so on. The e-cigarettes have about two orders of magnitude fewer toxins in their emissions than do cigarettes. And it turns out that the amount of the comparable toxins, when they are in fact comparable, that you find in the e-cigarette emissions is much lower, usually a 10th to a 400th, of what you find in cigarette smoke.   So logically, and based on a fair body of evidence at this point, vaping, use of e-cigarettes to get nicotine, is substantially less dangerous than is cigarette smoking. However, the controversy here is incredible. This is the most divisive issue that I have witnessed in my 45 years of working in the tobacco control field. It has torn the field asunder. The mainstream of public health, and by that I'm including governmental agencies, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Truth Initiative, the American Cancer Society, heart and lung associations, all of mainstream public health is strongly opposed to e-cigarettes, and for one reason. They're concerned about kids' uptake of e-cigarettes, which has been substantial. It's been decreasing the last couple of years, but it has been substantial. And there are a number of things they're concerned about in that regard, and they're completely ignoring the fact that there's pretty good evidence that e-cigarettes are increasing smoking cessation for a subset of smokers. And a number of us on the science side of this, believe that the net effect of e-cigarettes is beneficial, that it's actually, possibly, a tool to add to the armamentarium of things like cigarette taxation, like smoke-free workplaces, like restrictions on advertising, and that it will help a group of inveterate smokers, those who either can't quit nicotine or don't want to, to move to a less dangerous alternative to smoking. I am not saying that e-cigarettes have no risk associated with them. They almost certainly do. But it is substantially lower.   Now, historically, this is divisive within the field in part because all of the earlier attempts at, quote-unquote, tobacco harm reduction have been produced by the major cigarette companies, and they've been fraudulent. So cigarette filters were manufactured and sold, starting in the 1950s, in response to the scare that I referred to earlier about cancer. And they were sold with a message that the filters block the dangerous stuff but let the flavor through. And people bought this. That decrease in smoking in the early 1950s reversed, smoking went up sharply, as sales of filtered cigarettes went up. By the way, the first successful filtered cigarette was Kent, and it used what it referred to as the miracle Micronite filter. Well, that miracle Micronite filter turns out to have been made of asbestos. And there are lawsuits continuing to the present day by workers in the factories that made the filter tips for Kent cigarettes, who themselves ended up with lung cancer or other diseases due to the asbestos. Then came low-tar and nicotine cigarettes, and we actually have ample evidence from the documents that had been revealed by lawsuits, that the industry knew that this was a public relations device. It was not a harm reduction device. And in fact, because people believed that low-tar and nicotine cigarettes were less dangerous, it's likely that it actually increased the toll of smoking because people who would have quit, switched to low-tar and nicotine cigarettes instead. So there's some pretty awful history here that makes people legitimately concerned about alternative products. A critical element of this story is that the alternative products, in this case, the e-cigarettes were introduced by non-cigarette, non-tobacco companies, and their goal was to replace smoking. Now the major companies are all making their own e-cigarettes as well because they have to do it from a defensive point of view, but basically they don't have any great interest in slowing up the sale of cigarettes. They want to benefit from that as long as they can.   So I should know the answer to this but I don't, but are e-cigarettes taxed? And wouldn't it be optimal to tax e-cigarettes but less than regular cigarettes so you discourage use of both but discourage the use of regular cigarettes more?   That is very insightful. Two colleagues and I actually published a paper saying that in 2015 in "The New England Journal of Medicine," that we should be taxing e-cigarettes modestly, the reason being that we want to discourage kids from using them, and kids are far more price-sensitive than our adults. Kids have a very elastic response to cigarette prices. Adults do not, and in particular, older adults have even lower price responsiveness. So yes, there should be some taxation of e-cigarettes to discourage youth use of it but that taxation should be dramatically lower than the taxation of cigarettes. Some states are now taxing e-cigarettes. Not all of them. The federal government is actually looking into a proposal to double the tax, the federal tax, on cigarettes, which would take it up to $2.01 a pack, and at the same time, to establish an equivalent tax, similar to the $2 tax, on all vaping products. This would be a disaster because it would definitely discourage kids from vaping, but it would also discourage adults from using e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking, and the most addicted, the inveterate smokers, those are the ones that need these alternatives. So that's a bad policy proposal. A much better one would be to increase the cigarette tax by more than a dollar, raise it to 3 or $4 or something, and impose a modest tax on e-cigarettes. This would discourage people from smoking, both adults and kids, but especially kids. It would discourage kids from using e-cigarettes but it would create a price differential that would encourage the inveterate smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. Now, part of the problem, and this has gotten worse over time, is that the American public believes that e-cigarettes, that vaping, is as dangerous and even maybe more dangerous than cigarette smoking. Nothing could be further from the truth but so far the mainstream of public health has sold that message to the public, and the public, including smokers, believe it.   That's a fascinating story about how the public health field might be getting in its own way with this.   And maybe doing damage to public health.   So let's loop back a little bit to the behavior of the tobacco industry. So in 2017, the Phillip Morris Company funded and launched an organization called Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. So I think, hmm, a tobacco company saying they want less smoking, and one could view this with pretty high cynicism but what do you think about it?   I've always shared your sense of cynicism about it. There's an interesting anecdote related to this. The individual who negotiated the deal by which Phillip Morris offered $1 billion over a 12-year period to establish this foundation, that individual was the main actor in the World Health Organization during the development of the global treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He also became director of the organization and served in that capacity until just the other day. He has stepped down from being director. But let me give you a little context for it. Philip Morris International that needs to be distinguished from Altria and Philip Morris Domestic, but Philip Morris International sells the leading brand of what is known as heated tobacco products, HTPs. These are products that actually have tobacco in them. E-cigarettes have no tobacco in them but these products actually have tobacco in them. But instead of burning the tobacco, they heat it. They volatilize it, and the nicotine is inhaled. Like e-cigarettes, they appear to be substantially less dangerous than smoking, although it's not clear that they're as less dangerous as, than, e-cigarettes. But they're produced only by the major cigarette companies. Philip Morris is now selling these products successfully in many countries, many cities around the world. While they actually have the authorization to sell an older version of the product in the US, it's not very popular at this point. But in Japan, over the last four years there's been a drop in cigarettes sold of about a third at the same time that there's been this great increase in the use of these heated tobacco products manufactured by Philip Morris International and by Japan Tobacco. They have a product called Ploom. Philip Morris' product is called IQOS, I-Q-O-S, which, I was told, originally stood for I Quit Ordinary Smoking. So they are the leader of the theme song that the industry is singing these days about how they want a smoke-free world and they want to move toward one. But the only way they're ever going to do that, willingly, is if they can sell other products like these heated tobacco products and make large sums of money on them. Philip Morris has a good start at that. They claim that about a third of their revenue now is coming from IQOS, this heated tobacco product.   So whether that foundation ultimately has beneficial effects or not, forget corporate beneficial effects but on the public good, would pretty much depend on who's choosing to use these e-cigarettes, I'm imagining. That if it's people switching from normal cigarettes to them, or using them instead of normal cigarettes, it's one thing. But if they're recruiting new people who otherwise wouldn't smoke, then it would be a bad thing. So how do you think that'll all play out?   That's actually a critically important question, Kelly. And one of the great concerns that the opposition to e-cigarettes has, is that they're addicting lots of kids to nicotine, and that many of them will go on to smoke, and that that will reverse the progress that we made on smoking. Now, it turns out that there is no evidence to support the latter contention. And in fact, there's evidence to the contrary. I think it's entirely possible that some kids who would not have touched a cigarette otherwise are vaping and then trying cigarettes in the future. Whether they become regular smokers, remains to be seen. But I think there certainly are some kids like that. But what we do know is that the rate of smoking among kids, what we call current smoking, and smoking among kids means that they've had at least one puff on a cigarette in the last 30 days, that number has plummeted over the last quarter century, and, and this is the interesting thing, it has gone down at its fastest rate precisely during the period in which vaping has been popular among kids.   So one theory is that vaping is displacing smoking to some extent. That kids who would've smoked are vaping instead. It's a very complicated area and we don't know the answer. Among adults who vape, and they are relatively few in number except for very young adults, we observe mostly dual use, but the question is how much of this is a transition to vaping only, and then, maybe, a transition to nothing after that. In the UK, where vaping has been advertised by the health organizations as a way to quit smoking, and they have encouraged its use, and they use it in their smoking cessation clinics, and you'll even find it in hospitals, in the UK we have seen that more than half of the people who have quit smoking by using e-cigarettes have also quit vaping. So it is no longer the case in the UK that a majority of the people who vape are also currently smoking.   In the US, the data have been moving in that direction but it's still a majority who are dual users rather than vaping only. But we have evidence of four or five completely different kinds of studies, commercial data, other products in other countries, that all lead to the conclusion that vaping is already increasing the rate of smoking cessation in the US and in the UK by probably 10 to 15%. That's a hard thing to see in the data but it is something that, if you dig into the data, you will see it, and as I say, we see it all over the place. Let me give you one example of the tobacco harm reduction story that's fabulous. 40 to 50 years ago, large numbers of Swedish males started using a smokeless tobacco product called snus, S-N-U-S. It's a relatively low nitrosamine product, nitrosamine being a carcinogenic element, and they substituted it for cigarettes largely because cigarette taxes were going way up and there weren't any significant taxes on snus. So what you observe today, some three, four decades or more later, is that Swedish males have the lowest male smoking rate of any country in Europe, and maybe in the world. They do not have a low tobacco use rate. Their tobacco use rate is pretty typical but it consists mostly of snus. And they also have by far the lowest rate of tobacco-related diseases, like lung cancer, of men in all of the European Union countries, and the second lowest is typically a rate twice or more that of what you see in the Swedish males. Swedish females, who did not quit smoking in large numbers and did not take up snus until fairly recently, have rates of lung cancer and other diseases that are average or above-average for the European Union. So that's a great example of tobacco harm reduction in action, and it's one that's been around now, as I say, for decades.   Ken, this is a remarkable history and you're just bringing it alive beautifully. But let me ask you one final question. So given that you've been working in this field for more than four decades now, and have really been a pioneer, a leader, a warrior, and a hero, all those things could be applied to you and your work, if I asked you to sum up what's been learned from all these decades of work on tobacco, what would you say?   There are a lot of lesson. Certainly, we have learned specific kinds of interventions that really matter. You and I spoke about tax at some length. That's the preeminent one. Smoke-free workplaces, including smoke-free restaurants and bars, have not only themselves had a direct impact on health but have also set the tone for a more smoke-free society. So we have seen quite dramatic changes. I mentioned we're going from a 45% rate of smoking for the nation as a whole down to a little over 12%. That, however, has taken us six to seven decades. So it's kind of a good news, bad news story. It's a very complicated area. Tobacco control was ranked by CDC as one of the 10 most important public health measures of the 20th century, and also the first decade of the 21st century. And I think that's completely legitimate, and it is something about which all of us who care about public health can feel very proud about. The problem still remains. It is an enormous problem, as you alluded earlier, in many parts of the developing world, the low- and middle-income countries, and it's a growing problem in some of those countries, and it's just not going to disappear real fast. The lesson that I've taken most recently has been a discouraging one, and that's how divisive our field has become. We really have a chasm between the people who are opposed to tobacco harm reduction and those who are supportive of it. They're good people on both sides, they believe what they're saying, but they can't talk to each other civilly at this point. I hope that that will not become the case for those of you who are fighting the good fight in dealing with unhealthy foods.   Bio   Kenneth E. Warner is the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Public Health and Dean Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. A member of the faculty from 1972-2017, he served as Dean from 2005-2010. Presented in over 275 professional publications, Dr. Warner's research has focused on economic and policy aspects of tobacco and health. Dr. Warner served as the World Bank's representative to negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, WHO's first global health treaty. He also served as the Senior Scientific Editor of the 25th anniversary Surgeon General's report on smoking and health. From 2004-2005 he was President of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT). He currently serves on the FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee. In 1996 Dr. Warner was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He is a recipient of the Surgeon General's Medallion, the Luther Terry Award for Exemplary Achievement in Tobacco Control, and the Doll-Wynder Award from SRNT. Dr. Warner earned his AB from Dartmouth College and MPhil and PhD in economics from Yale University.  

LaMelo Ball flexed his scoring muscle against Indiana but it was the turnovers that have Doug and Walker's eyebrows raised. Was the Hornets loss against the Atlanta Hawks a schedule loss? Wait, is Terry Rozier actually back or not? Enes Kanter makes a BIG allegation against Hornets owner Michael Jordan on national television, was it a fair one?**Correction: In the 3rd segment, the political race between Harvey Gantt and Jesse Helms is referred to as a "mayoral race." It was a race for a U.S. Senate seat.**Follow & Subscribe to the Locked On Hornets Podcast on these platforms

LaMelo Ball flexed his scoring muscle against Indiana but it was the turnovers that have Doug and Walker's eyebrows raised. Was the Hornets loss against the Atlanta Hawks a schedule loss? Wait, is Terry Rozier actually back or not? Enes Kanter makes a BIG allegation against Hornets owner Michael Jordan on national television, was it a fair one? **Correction: In the 3rd segment, the political race between Harvey Gantt and Jesse Helms is referred to as a "mayoral race." It was a race for a U.S. Senate seat.** Follow & Subscribe to the Locked On Hornets Podcast on these platforms

by Scotty Reid The research company Statista reported recently that the 2020 revenue for the global athletic shoe market or sneaker market was valued at around 70 billion U.S. dollars annually, and it reports that the market is forecast to reach a value of 102 billion U.S. dollars in four years. Sneakers as they're popularly known in the United States became a fashion staple in the Black community around the late 1970s and 1980s owing to their growing popularity in part to the early interactions of hip-hop culture. Not only did break dancers, an athletic form of dancing that included elements of gymnastics, need comfortable shoes to perform but matching the shoes to an outfit, a fashion statement was just as important to the performers. Then in the mid-80s came along one Michael Jeffrey Jordan, who had one of the best NBA careers of his era, and became arguably the first global influencer long before the age of social media. Nike's media campaigns really leaned into a proud Black Identity without overtly showing their hand, by telling everyone to Just Be Like Mike, a Black man in a white-dominated society! It helped that Jordan the man was not one to wade into the social-political sphere once quipping that “republicans buy shoes too” when asked to endorse the Black Democrat Harvey Gannt, the former mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, who hope to defeat the lifelong white supremacist, Senator Jesse Helms. Another bonus for Nike was that Jordan the man would likely not be raising any issues with Nike's labor practices let alone concern himself about where the Jordans sneakers were manufactured. Nike's iconic commercials, one starring, directed, and produced by famed Black film director Spike Lee at the peak of his popularity, somewhat of a Black cultural icon and a basketball fan in his own right, the media campaigns made Nike's Jordans brand its signature shoe driving the majority of its sales and thus profits. Sneakers are still a foundation of Black fashion t

One morning in 1991, Senator Jesse Helms' house was covered with a giant fake condom in an act of protest. Helms had been a vocal opponent of funding AIDS research and he had introduced an infamous and popular bill amendment that prevented federal money from being spent on AIDS research. There were few treatments available at the time, and with no help from the government, HIV was actively spreading across the country. In 1991 alone, nearly 30,000 American died of AIDS, and the numbers would keep rising until the late nineties. The condom on Helms' house was courtesy of the protest group ACT UP, which led a number of high profile direct actions meant to call attention to the AIDS crisis and get people angry. UnTextbooked's Jordan Pettiford was curious about queer history. She came out to her family around the same time the Covid-19 pandemic began. While the context of Covid felt different, she noticed some strange similarities between the present day and the history of AIDS—especially the way in which viruses become political. In this episode, Jordan interviews David France, author of How to Survive a Plague. David France was a first-hand witness to the AIDS epidemic in New York City. He covered the unique actions of the protest movement that called out the government's inaction and discrimination. Book: How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AidsGuest: David France, writer and filmmakerProducer: Jordan PettifordMusic: Silas Bohen and Coleman HamiltonEditors: Bethany Denton and Jeff Emtman

Episode Notes A romp through the memory-holed times following 9/11 and the American war machine on auto-pilot. The American Service Members Protection Act is a direct refutation of the UN's institution of the International Criminal Court. This 2002 Bill sponsored by Jesse Helms in the Senate and Tom DeLay in the House authorized the President to send forces to invade the Hague in the Netherlands if any American is brought before the ICC for war crimes. We also discuss the end of one specific AUMF, the one for Iraq. The Biden Administration has signaled their approval of the repeal because "...repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations." If you have any thoughts, suggestions, angry emotes, or whatever that you'd like to send us, please reach out at UnsociablistPod@gmail.com. I recognize posting this will bring us spam and I dare you to do it. Phil and Kyle would also like to give a shout out to those of us still in the streets fighting for the rights of Palestinians and those fighting for justice and abolition of the American police state. The best way to show solidarity with those struggling against the American empire is to struggle against the empire at home. https://free-palestine.carrd.co/#donations https://www.phillybailfund.org/ https://bailproject.org/

Charlie Cook is a political icon of his generation. Charlie broke ground in the early days of the race-rating and political newsletter industry, starting the Cook Political Report from scratch in 1984 – and he and his newsletter are still going strong.Charlie talks through his fascinating career and is generous with insights as to how politics and campaigns have changed over the years – with plenty of practical tips to help anyone better understand and better navigate our political system.Podcast Website Twitter: @ProPoliticsPod Twitter: @ZacMcCrary Facebook: The Pro Politics PodcastIN THIS EPISODEThe one political book Charlie remembers being in his house as a kid…High-school Charlie helps out on an underdog Louisiana Senate race…How high school debate helped prepare Charlie for a job in elections analysis..Charlie breaks down the politics of his youth in Louisiana of the 60s and 70s…Charlie remembers his first DC job as an elevator operator in the Russell Senate office building…A young Charlie has a memorable encounter with Senator Jesse Helms…Charlie gives the history of the election newsletter industry…Charlie's background in polling and campaigns comes in handy…Charlie learns an important lesson from the infamous "bloody" IN-08 congressional race of 1984…Charlie talks about how he started his newsletter in the mid 80s…The important media break Charlie got that helped put his newsletter on the map…The dramatically different subscriber base today from how the Cook Report started…Charlie and Stu Rothenberg meet with VP Cheney before the 2006 elections…Charlies waxes poetic about the Almanac of American Politics…Which committee staffer (and future Governor) was one of Charlie's best sources of leaks…Charlie gives tips for candidates to prep for meetings with DC handicappers…Charlie's cryptic comment about a 2004 meeting with then candidate Barack Obama…The one Senate committee chair who talked through races with Charlie independent of committee staff…Charlies talks about the responsibility of knowing his analysis is responsible for impacting races…The recent race result that surprised Charlie the most…Charlie talks about “the worst thing” that can happen in his line of work…Charlie's tips for TV appearances…The highest compliment Charlie can get from a reader…Charlie's must-read political books…Charlie talks about the “lost art” of positive political ads…ALSO…Johnny Apple, The Atlantic, Alan Baron, David Broder, Ron Brownstein, Edward Brooke, Bernadette Budde, C-SPAN, CNN, Eric Cantor, Mitch Daniels, Tom Davis, Bob Dole, Jennifer Duffy, Edwin Edwards, Allen Ellender, Rahm Emanuel, Evans and Novak, Vic Fazio, Martin Frost, Cory Gardner, Newt Gingrich, Nathan Gonzales, Phil Gramm, Charles Guggenheim, Bill Hamilton, Peter Hart, Paula Hawkins, F. Edward Hebert, Jesse Helms, Hubert Humphrey, Al Hunt, Laura Ingraham, Bennett Johnston, Gillis Long, Huey Long, Dick Lugar, Sid McMath, George McGovern, Bob Michel, Otto Passman, Kevin Phillips, Roll Call, Stu Rothenberg, Tim Russert, David Sawyer, Bernard Shaw, Bob Squier, Jessica Taylor, Amy Walter, Dave Wasserman, Paul Weyrich, Judy Woodruff, and MORE…!Podcast WebsiteTwitter: @ProPoliticsPodTwitter: @ZacMcCraryFacebook: The Pro Politics Podcast

Danielle Pletka is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-host of What the Hell Is Going On, having served as the SVP for foreign and defense policy studies there, and is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. Prior to joining AEI, Danielle was a senior staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as the point person on Middle East, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.  Dany discusses how she formed her conservative views, developing an expertise in foreign policy, her experience working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee including with firebrand Senator Jesse Helms, her candid and nuanced assessment of the Trump Admin's Middle East policy, her concerns about the Democratic Party's "lurch to the left," and what happened leading up to and since January 6th.