It should bother you more than it seems to that doing so via PSA would involve first taking your political opponents out of a big shiny box with "Your Political Allies" stamped on it in glitter.

I tried Chapo Trap House today. Some funny bits, but not sure I can sustain listening long term. I like their unrestrained vitriol, but their reliance on analogies for humor gets old.

Anytime someone goes for a comedic dunk:

“It’s like [insert politician] is the new [insert obscure corrupt 3rd world dictator from the 1960’s!”
“I know RIGHT?!”
*Chuckles*
“No no no, it’s more like [insert politician]...”
*roaring laughter*

Don’t get me wrong they are smart and articulate, I just feel they overly rely on a few comedic devices.

I find the CTH variance immense. I listened to an old one today, “A Muellers Tale,” that was phenomenal. Extended discussion of some resistance grifter brothers that had me laughing my ass off. When they really get going they can be 10/10. But the bad stuff is unlistenable.

This.

Not all of their best episodes are political. One of my favorite episodes involves discussing 'hot couch guys' for 45 minutes. Damn near crying at the end.

Yeah it's not all vitriol. It's a bit like 2+2. Lot of vitriol in the comments threads but some useful stuff as well. The most recent ep (#264) they have some trans woman on called Natalie Wynn who apparently is a big deal on YouTube (ContraPoints), doing videos debunking right-wing cranks, basically. There's a fairly vitriol-free discussion of the incel phenomenon, talking about the dynamics that play into it, among other things. I thought it was insightful. I don't think anyone was called a "ghoul" or "piece of ****" all episode

couldnt agree more. that episode was uncensored, highly relevant and just fun. great interview.

link? totes agree that the episode quality has a Huge variance compared to other podcasts.

tl:dr. top 5 podcasts i should listen to?

I should give chapo another chance

Overall or politically? Very different response depending thereon

In no particular order: Chapo, Citations Needed, Delete Your Account, Struggle Session, Champagne Sharks, Pod Damn America, Trillbilly Worker's Party, Trashfuture.

The weeds, Trumpcast, opening arguments, the gist, chris hayes' podcast, Trump, inc., Ezra Klein show, on the media, fresh air when there's a good guest.

Chapo, Current Affairs, Opening Arguments, The Weeds, Why Is This Happening w/ Chris Hayes

+1 to Chris Hayes's podcast.

RIP Tim on the PSA

One wonders how they could have fired someone they didn't employ, or -- charitably, assuming Tim Miller wasn't an employee, what their statement even means.

Again, worth repeating: the number of Republican operatives who aren't doing hit jobs about (((Soros))) or taking down ACORN or being generally garbage people who are pariahs on society for money is effectively a null set. There is no token Republican who can effectively be sincere NeverTrumper but not have been a cheer leader for the Iraq War or rile up racist idiots for money or harass and shame poor people. Such people do not exist, PSA were not born yesterday, they know this. The whole great reckoning, the whole great spiritual awakening of the Obama Administration was supposed to be that they discovered the Republicans were radicalized and rotted to the core after years and years of failed bipartisan overtures and ultimately folly when Republicans didn't reciprocate and instead flattered the insanity in their midst.

The PSA crew knows that. Remember that they actively don't really care. The wonderful "lessons learned, mistakes were made, so sorry for squandering all that time we had in power" was just to mollify angry leftists that the ultimately milquetoast centrist-y Obama and his band of dudebro staffers were more or less not naive stooges for Republican intransigence, but instead effectively partners in subverting public will for more leftist outcomes, and they co-opted by larger political, social and economic forces into stasis and protecting the status quo, if we can even grant them co-option. That's a pretty favorable interpretation.

And they will not care about any of the pretensive social justice issues they champion, that's just red meat for their more leftist listeners, up until the NYT makes it so transparent and (to their credit) their audience makes a stink about it. But do not for one moment -- and this is the most important -- don't for one moment believe Cooked Media went on a Vision Quest for a week to get to the bottom of what their Republicans friends do in their professional lives. Do not grant them such naivete. They are not raised by wolves. They went away for a week to see if the public furor would die down. It didn't. So they release some vague public statements.

The root of all of this is described more fully above, but just remember Crooked Media sells you virtue, they do not embody it, and that elite white dudes control everything is why you find so little virtue embodied in public life.

Man, I've given Chapo a try like four times and I can't get past the 5-minute mark

The comments on the thread with the statement regarding Tim Millers dismissal are a pretty great window into like how ****ed up the PSA audience is, really:

https://twitter.com/crookedmedia/sta...2242130030592/

- "I want my viewpoint challenged at all times, it is critical to give voice to Tim Miller types!": uh, OK, why not Richard Spencer? Well, I'm sure he's beyond the pale, right? Or what about more leftist voices? Uh oh, not those populist radicals, right? Liberals love this "I want to be challenged at all times" nonsense but is ultimately and ironically a demand for an incredibly narrow range of white guy sensibilities they will tolerate and want to hear from. If you want your viewpoint challenged by ****ty people, there's a whole internet waiting for you.

- "Tim Miller isn't responsible for his work": that's curious removal of agency but it's basically "don't hold Donald Trump responsible for anti-Semitism, he loves his Jewish daughter, shame all the dead bodies in the synagogue" take

- "Kudos PSA, you were obviously great friends with Tim, it was hard to axe your friend but it had to be done!": huh, curious, strange that you weren't even vaguely aware of what your great Republican friend does in his professional life, too bad it turns out he does anti-semitism for money. Who among us, right?

- "It's refreshing it took a week of soul-searching and fact-finding": again, curious that the whole story erupted when the PSA crew was stirring up outrage and donations over Facebook's use of corporate funded antisemitism but then needed weeks to figure out what's bad and what's good once they were shown their friend's company was in the middle of it. Instant outrage over Facebook peddling Soros conspiracies! YES, great public advocacy. Woah, our friend is doing the peddling? Hold on there, we need to make some careful and thoughtful considerations, so nice to be so civil and thoughtful.

- the related "people are so reactionary, it's wonderful you're not": wonder what exactly made our political culture so reactionary? Maybe one day we'll get around to our giant tech oligarchs paying professional PR people to spread rumors Jewish dark wizard George Soros is funding opposition to giant tech oligarchs. That's downstream somewhere, for now let us commend the PSA dudes for their 'thoughtfulness' here in employing the guy paid to smear Jews and then thoughtfully taking a different direction after much consideration.

Also various other suggestions for NeverTrumpers (Rick Wilson, etc.) to be contributors, because we really need a Republican on the pod!

These peoples' brains are so broken, just fried to bits, I will say it before and I'll say it again but we should really consider post-hoc regulating The West Wing and burning all DVDs and deleting all digital copies of it, this should not have been allowed for public consumption.

1. Chapo Trap House
2. Hardcore History
3. Citations Needed
4. Caliphate
5. Revolutions

Chapo is really high variance stuff. If you aren't into their reading series episodes, then don't bother with anything else.

They want to believe that there is a good Republican out there when the truth is that there isn't.

I wonder if the guys at Crooked Media have learned that or if they'll still bring in some wishy-washy Republicans using Trump's sins to cover up their own misdeeds.

Today Explained is a nice TLDR breakdown of the latest headline. It's got a clear liberal bent, but doesn't try to hide it and most of the time doesn't color the explanation of what's happening.

Stay Tuned, with Preet Bharara is a good spot for more in-depth legal analysis. Preet was the New York US Attorney who was fired by Trump last year. It's also liberal, and decidedly Anti-Trump, but the guy is a great conversationalist and interviewer, and has a good sense of humor on top o his A-level understanding of US law.

For a more historical podcast, Radiolab has an offshoot called "More Perfect" which focuses on Supreme Court decisions. It doesn't release episodes often, but it's phenomenal.

Chapos Trap House is good, but is exhausting to listen to. The fact that they consider themselves a comedy show first is probably what annoys me the most. Even though they're quite funny and sharp, the race to fire off as many reference packed witticisms as possible is tiring. It's like having 3 Dennis Millers all trying to out Dennis Milller one another.

This is well put.

I plugged Reply All a few pages back but haven't seen anybody else mention it. You guys are seriously missing out if you haven't listened to it before.

I’ve listened to about a dozen replyall episodes and while they tend to be good and informative, it always feels like they’re missing a bunch of context in the stories.

Ones from CTH that i've listened to ( thanks bob ) The cheesecake factory was funny disturbing at the same time, omg these folks from alabama.
The Villages was also good, dam these gated community's lol. Conservative cartoons is up soon.

I need to listen to Chris Hayes & The weeds.. thanks Simplicitus.

Is this the Trump inc.....

The Weeds is probably the podcast I most like to listen to from a new knowledge perspective. Every time I've listened I've feel like they're given me a good handle on whatever the topic is and they're usually have some new insights on the topic that that I hadn't come across before.