On The Gist, Vladimir Putin’s “private citizen” excuse doesn’t hold water.
In the interview, philanthropic billionaires are better than villainous ones, but Anand Giridharadas argues they could do better. Instead of insisting on the superiority of private efforts, they ought to pay more taxes and leave some things to the government. Giridharadas’ book is Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.
In the Spiel, FiveThirtyEight currently says Republicans have a 1-in-6 chance of keeping the House. What else has that kind of odds?
On June 27, 2018, the Supreme Court decided Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, a case considering the forced subsidizing of unions by public employees, even if they choose not to join the union or strongly disagree with many positions the union takes in collective bargaining. Under Illinois law, public employees are permitted to unionize; and if a majority of employees in a particular bargaining union vote to unionize, then that union is designated as the exclusive representative of all the employees in collective bargaining, even those members who choose not to join the union. Non-members are required to pay an “agency fee,” which is a percentage of the full union dues and covers union expenses “germane” to the union’s collective bargaining activities, but cannot cover any political or ideological projects sponsored by the union. Mark Janus works at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. The employees in his unit are represented by American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 (“the union”). Janus did not join the union because he opposes many of its positions, including those taken in collective bargaining, but was required to pay 78.06% of full union dues as an “agency fee”--a fee resulting in a payment of $44.58 per month, and about $535 per year. Janus and two other state employees joined a lawsuit brought by the Governor of Illinois against the union in federal district court, seeking a declaration that the statutory imposition of agency fees was unconstitutional. The District Court dismissed the Governor for lack of standing, but proceeded to reject the claims of Janus and the other employees on the merits, finding their challenge foreclosed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, but the Supreme Court granted certiorari to reconsider whether public-sector agency-fee arrangements are constitutional. By a vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Seventh Circuit and remanded the case. In an opinion delivered by Justice Alito, the Court overruled Abood and held that state extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public-sector employees violates the First Amendment; thus states and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees. Justice Alito’s majority opinion was joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and Gorsuch. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion. Justice Kagan also filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. To discuss the case, we have Raymond LaJeunesse, Vice President & Legal Director, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The Ark of the Covenant is the legendary wooden chest said to hold Ten Commandments, engraved on stone tablets. For thousands of years people have searched for the Ark with little to no success. However, according to the guardians of The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, the ark itself has been hidden in Ethiopia for millennia.
Allie Rowbottom's life is built on a Jell-O fortune, just like it was for the lives of her mother and her grandmother. But along with the wealth from America's most famous dessert, there came a curse. Now the most recent heir to the Jell-O fortune, Allie tries to make sense of her family history, and all the strange ways Jell-O showed up in their lives. In the process, she learns what the curse means to her.
PLUS: Household Name Uncut on all the weird things we used to put in Jell-O molds.
Allie Rowbottom is the author of The Jell-O Girls, A family history, which you can find here, or at your favorite bookstore.
Dr. Sarah Baechle joins Glenn to talk about the notes in the manuscript margins of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Learn all about medieval manuscripts and book production, Middle English, and what we can learn from the notes on the sides of book pages.
Our first ever patron selected episode topic, and suspiciously Thomas's favorite. I'm sure that has nothing to do with it winning the tie vote over Aaron's choice, Minority Report. Kidding! We love all our topics equally. This is a really fun one and we cover several important ethical and philosophical issues relating to genetic programming.
Also, we're happy to announce the winners of our book raffle:
Impeachment of a President is a substantial power handed to Congress. How has it been used in the past and how should it be used? Gene Healy discusses his new paper on the history and meaning of impeachment.
On The Gist, Mike is thinking he’ll vote Andrew Cuomo—but he’s open to you changing his mind.
The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown upheaved many things in the U.S., including the career of DeRay Mckesson, who quit his job as an educator to become a full-time activist. Now he uses his podcast Pod Save the Peopleas a national platform to speak out against police violence and highlight news that flies under the radar. Mckesson’s new memoir is On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope.
In the Spiel, want to feel less anxious? Put the phone down.
