The Gist - Phoebe Robinson Will Teach You How to Bae

Phoebe Robinson recounts the tributes and trolling her book has prompted with its title, You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain.

On The Gist, Robinson wonders whether dreadlocks have really entered the mainstream (and are they ever acceptable on white guys?), and gives Mike a lesson in cultural sensitivity. Robinson is the goofball complement to her co-host Jessica Williams’ deadpan delivery on the 2 Dope Queens podcast. She is also the host of the interview podcast, Sooo Many White Guys

For the Spiel, the West Virginia governor race pits a wealthy Democrat against both coal and Cole.

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Money Mind, a new podcast from Prudential. Learn how to financially plan for every stage of life. Download and subscribe to Money Mind wherever you find your podcasts, and learn more at Slate.com/MoneyMind. 

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The Gist - Fact-Checking Won’t Stop Trump

On The Gist, we look at the proliferation of fact-checking in the 2016 campaign. One empirical analysis found that Donald Trump is telling a falsehood every five minutes during his speeches. But why isn’t the aggressive fact-checking of the Republican making a difference? We called up Brendan Nyhan, a professor in the department of government at Dartmouth College and the former editor of Spinsanity, a nonpartisan watchdog site focused on political messaging.   

In The Spiel, the faltering cease-fire in Syria.  

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The Gist - Why Do We Use BMI to Measure Health?

On The Gist, dig into body mass index with our resident bulls--t debunker Maria Konnikova. Does a healthy BMI actually mean anything? The question came up after Donald Trump’s recent appearance on The Dr. Oz Show, in which his weight and height were revealed—if his numbers are to be believed, his BMI is 30.3, which qualifies as obese. But does BMI actually tell us anything meaningful about health? Or is it an arcane measurement that needs to be phased out?

Also, more on Tuesday’s testy vice presidential debate.

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Get quality shaving products delivered right to your door with Harry’s. Sign up for a shave plan at Harrys.com and use promo code gist at checkout to claim your Free Trial Set and post-shave balm.

iBooks is the place to find the books that people are talking about right now, including Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen’s memoir. It's a mix of beautiful nostalgia and straight talk about family, fame, and music. Get it on apple.co/brucespringsteen, where you’ll find all his music too.

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The Gist - Investigating Long Island’s Not-Deplorables

In The Gist, Arun Venugopal looks at a place that could stand in for America as a whole during this election: Long Island, New York, home to high levels of taxation, opioid addiction, and support for Donald Trump. Venugopal walks us through some of the stories that help explain the psychology of this year’s campaign.

For the Spiel, Mike takes a look at the closest Senate races. 

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The Gist - How Bad Is the Trump Tax Leak?

In The Gist, what can we really find out from the Donald Trump tax leak? As Philip Hackney argues, not a lot. Hackney is a professor of tax law at Louisiana State University and formerly worked as counsel at the Internal Revenue Service. He says that Trump’s returns don’t indicate any wrongdoing per se. But there’s lots of ways he might have used the tax system to his advantage to save money. For the Spiel, even more on Trump, taxes, and hypocrisy. Panoply survey: We want you to tell us about the podcasts you enjoy and how often you listen to them. So we created a survey that takes just a couple of minutes to complete. If you fill it out, you’ll help Panoply to make great podcasts about the things you love—and things you didn’t even know you loved. To fill out the survey, just go to megaphone.fm/survey. Today’s sponsors: Indochino, the company that’s reinventing men’s fashion. Go to Indochino.com to get any premium suit for just $389, plus free shipping, when you use promo code gist at checkout.

Rocket Mortgage from Quicken Loans. Rocket Mortgage brings the mortgage process into the 21st-century with an easy online process. Check out Rocket Mortgage today at QuickenLoans.com/gist.

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The Gist - The Rules According to Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell’s career has been all about ideas—but what he really specializes in is their packaging and delivery. On The Gist, Gladwell tells the story behind his earliest obsessions and explains what he’s learned trafficking in unconventional theories. He is working on the second season of his hit Panoply podcast, Revisionist History.

For the Spiel, a contrarian take on Donald Trump’s comments about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. 

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