Month: July 2020

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The Daily Signal - Why Mail-In Voting Is a Bad Idea, Even During a Pandemic

There is currently a debate raging over how elections are to be held in the fall amid the coronavirus. Is a pandemic reason to hold an election by mail? Would widespread mail-in voting lead to voter fraud and skew election results?


Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a former member of the Federal Election Commission, joins the podcast to discuss how states across America can hold a free and fair election while also protecting individuals' health. 


We also cover these stories:

  • Former Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., passed away July 17 and is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
  • Robert O’Brien, national security adviser to President Trump has been diagnosed with COVID-19. 
  • Google announced its employees will work from home through 2021.


Enjoy the show!


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The Stack Overflow Podcast - You down with GPT-3? Yeah you know me!

If you're wondering why GPT-3 matters and how it compares to prior efforts in this area, here is a good summary.

If you want to dive deeper into the effect anxiety has on the interview process and hiring in tech, you can read up on the research here.

This week's lifeboat badge goes to PerformanceDBA, who left an incredbily long and detailed answer, complete with charts and code snippets, on the following question: how to organize a relational data model for double entry accounting? 

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Read Me a Poem - “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Amanda Holmes reads Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “A Psalm of Life.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.


This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.


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Opening Arguments - OA407: Trump’s Illegal DHS Secretary

The very person in charge of Homeland Security is essentially "here illegally." The upside is, though, there is a one weird trick to undo everything he has done while overstaying his tenure! And by "trick" we mean a lengthy A. Torrez deep dive, so tune in!

Before that, we talk about updates in the Flynn case and how the government is LYING about a Federal Rule.

Links: DOJFlynnEnBancReply, 5 US Code § 3346 - Time limitation, 6 US Code § 551 - Transitional authorities, 22 US Code § 9685 - Transitional authorities, 5 US Code § 3348 - Vacant office, National Labor Relations Board v. SW General, The Vacancies Act: A Legal Overview, DHS Under Boss, Trump's New Acting AG Unconstitutional?, Acting Officers and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, List of Bailfunds

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Chapo Trap House - 440 – Arm the Emus (7/27/20)

We start off this week looking at the roll of bullying in Massachusetts politics & the inauspicious beginning of the MLB season. From there we kind of transition into the ongoing normalization of COVID and Trump’s federal police goon squad in America. Then, after TTRPG’ing contested 2020 election scenarios, we kind of take a left turn towards Brazil’s Looney Tunes fascism, and stick the landing by reflecting on Mormons as the Perfect Americans.
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The Gist - Ignoring the Need Economy

On the Gist, the Republicans are misers.

In the interview, Zephyr Teachout is here to discuss her new book Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ad, Big Tech, and Big Money. She and Mike discuss how monopolies have come to dominate so many of our industries, the work that needs to be done to break them up, and why it’s a multi-pronged solution. They also touch on Gov. Cuomo’s response to the pandemic and how her team might have been different if she’d won office. 

In the spiel, baseball tried.

Email us at thegist@slate.com

Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Margaret Kelley.

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Pod Save America - “99 days to the election (with Mehdi Hasan).”

The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan joins to discuss the state of the presidential campaign now that we’re less than 100 days out, how COVID reached deep into the White House and forced major changes to Trump’s campaign, the latest with COVID relief in Congress, how Trump’s message went from calling Biden soft on China to member of Antifa, and how the media can learn from the mistakes of 2016. Then Jon F. interviews Mother Jones' Ari Berman about voting during the pandemic.


Make sure you're registered, request an absentee ballot, and get involved at votesaveamerica.com/everylastvote.

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Consider This from NPR - First Phase III Vaccine Trial Underway, Government Seeks Thousands Of Volunteers

This morning in Savannah, Georgia, the first volunteer was injected in a phase-three vaccine trial administered by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. Dr Anthony Fauci hopes that up to 15,000 volunteers will be in place by the end of the week. (Tens of thousands more will be needed for additional vaccine trials.)

It will take months to learn if the vaccine produces an effective immune response. Scientists who've studied antibody reactions in coronavirus patients have reason to be optimistic, at least in the short-term.

And Dr Elke Webber, psychology professor at Princeton University, explains why the pandemic may be getting too big to wrap our heads around.

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - BREAKDOWN: SPACs 101… A Bubble, the Future or Both?

A primer on, and critical look at, one of Wall Street’s hottest trends: special purpose acquisition companies. 

This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Crypto.com.

Special purpose acquisition companies have been around since the 1990s, but have seen a significant uptick in popularity in recent years. Companies like Virgin Galactic, Draft Kings and Nikola have changed SPAC’s reputation from a tool for second- and third-tier private equity shops to win fees to a legitimate alternative to initial public offerings. In 2020, SPACs have made up roughly 40% of the IPO market.

Recently, chatter around SPACs reached a fever pitch with the listing of Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Tontine Holdings - the largest-ever SPAC. 

In this episode, NLW breaks down:

  • What a SPAC is
  • Standard SPAC terms 
  • Why the traditional IPO process has generated growing discontent, especially from Silicon Valley
  • The benefits of SPACs for companies and investors
  • The downsides of SPACs for companies and investors 
  • A number of reasons explaining why SPAC popularity is surging now
  • How Robinhood retail traders are creating an important bridge buyer for SPACs
  • Why Ackman’s Tontine Holdings SPAC could change how we think about SPACs in the future 
  • Are SPACs a bubble?


Cited resources:

SPAC Man Begins - Alex Danco

SPACs as a Call Option on Hype - Bryne Hobart

SPACs: the most ludicrous bubble we’ll ever see… why not $IAC? - Yet Another Value Blog

Return of the SPAC - John Street Capital

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