The Political Orphanage

How much do you have to pay to swing an ambassadorship? What is Citizens United and why do people loathe it? Heaton talks with Dave Levinthal, senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, about campaign finance and how money shapes politics.

It's that time of year again! The mistletoe is hanging in the doorway, all the snow has been shoveled, and there's a glass of wine just waiting on the kitchen counter for that special person. Snuffy's Diner is proud to sponsor this year's Mother's Day Special!

Comedian Lou Perez joins Heaton for a Friday Release Valve episode to discuss the silliest headlines of the week: Some sheep go to school, chicken nugget ice cream, a guy crossing the ocean in a barrel, and a lot more fun on this week's episode!

What if history isn't a string of great man biopics or a struggle between conservatives and progressives? What if it's a battle of disciplinarians against drunks and harlots? Thaddeus Russell comes on to talk about his book, "A Renegade History of the United States."

The market tumbled yesterday after Donald Trump threatened to double down on tariffs. Heaton explains Comparative Advantage with a brilliant scotch analogy, and is then joined by playwright and comedian Jeremy Kareken to rant about protectionism.

It's expensive maintaining the largest prison population on the entire planet, but we've managed to do it for several decades. German Lopez, senior correspondent at Vox, joins Heaton to talk about criminal justice reform and how the 2020 candidates stack up on drug policy and sentencing.

Comedian and primatologist Natalia Reagan joins Heaton to talk about hominids, the human family tree, and the time when Homo sapiens weren't the only smart bipedal hominids running around.

Comedy writer Brian Sack joins Heaton for a Friday Release Valve episode to sort the world's better headlines: from the worst use of parking spaces ever, to a great education game about cow tuberculosis, to an effortless but irritating way to get abs.

What's in the DNA of a conspiracy theory, and when does it go from benign to dangerous? Jesse Walker is author of "The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory," which identifies the different types of conspiracy theories and charts them from the Salem witch trials through Barack Obama's birth certificate.

People don't really like pointing to Venezuela, Cambodia, Cuba, or the Soviet Union when they talk about socialism. (What with the deaths.) They like to mention cute sweater-vest countries, like Denmark, that aren't actually socialist. Justin Haskins, executive editor at the Heartland Institute, joins Heaton to talk about what socialism is and isn't, and also when it occasionally gets out of hand and murders hundreds of millions of people.