Episodes

Monday May 24, 2021
5/24/21 - 400th Episode Extravaganza
Monday May 24, 2021
Monday May 24, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. Having proved himself a terrible senator, we’re now seeing why Rand Paul didn’t hack it in the medical field either.
2. Joe Biden loves to compromise so much, he’s decided to do it with himself
3. The squad is finally coordinating with each other! Just maybe not in the way you’d hope
4. Turns out one way to end a war is for everybody to declare victory at once and avoid specifics.
5. Abortions: Men and Amy Coney Barrett don’t want you to have them.
6. In further proof that the space/time continuum is busted, it’s time to start talking about elections again!
Congrats to the winners of our anniversary trivia game, The Buttons!
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday May 16, 2021
5/17/21 - Embrace the Chaos
Sunday May 16, 2021
Sunday May 16, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. CDC’s new mask guidance is to just embrace the chaos. We all have to die sometime.
2. It’s finally okay to work in DC and not want to kill Palestinians! Baby steps.
3. NYC Mayoral Debate season is upon us! Lots of 2020 vibes.
4. Let the one lesson we learn from the pandemic be that you can extract more from your governors if you threaten to fire them.
5. Message to Joe Biden: Success isn’t measured by how many meetings you take with asshat Kevin McCarthy. It’s measured by whether you actually pass a bill.
6. Horse junkies are sweeping the horse races!
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday May 09, 2021
5/9/21 - What's in Giuliani's drag bag?
Sunday May 09, 2021
Sunday May 09, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. Biden speech to the Joint Session of Congress puts both Mitt Romney and Lila Nordstrom into a coma level sleep state
2. This week’s burning question: What’s in Rudy Giuliani’s drag bag? Will the feds tell us?
3. Arizona Republicans train fire on their newest enemy: Bamboo
4. India and the rest of the world thwart Biden’s plan to thwart his own plan to release the COVID vaccine patents.
5. Fearing the end of Florida's warring golf cart elder parades, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene take to The Villages to spread election lies.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday Apr 18, 2021
4/19/21 - Resident Public Health Experts
Sunday Apr 18, 2021
Sunday Apr 18, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. Afghanistan! We won in 2002. We’re finally leaving in 2021. Maybe…
2. We’ll tell you about some of the mass shootings this week, but not all of them because we lost track.
3. Rule #1 of the America First caucus is don’t talk about the America First caucus.
4. Biden tried his own hand at America First politics. Went as well as it did for Marjorie Taylor Greene.
5. Your resident public health experts are here with a creative list of how best to use the J&J vaccine.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Monday Apr 05, 2021
4/5/21 - The BTL Easter Spectacular
Monday Apr 05, 2021
Monday Apr 05, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. The BTL Easter story tradition continues...with a twist!
2. Attacking the Capitol is now more regular than perhaps we’d want
3. In a surprising turn of events, infrastructure week actually yields something of an infrastructure plan
4. The Matt Gaetz revelations are somehow both the most mind boggling, and least shocking things we’ve heard in ages
5. Quick! Get more progressive legislation in front of Andrew Cuomo while he’s still scandal-ridden
6. Turns out Amazon knew about the bottle peeing all along
Other than that, Happy Easter!
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday Mar 28, 2021
3/29/21 - Illegal Water
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. Now we all have to use all our disposable income to go to Georgia and hand out illegal water, an obligation absolutely nobody wanted.
2. Joe Biden has a surefire plan to ruin Kamala’s career in his first 100 days.
3. We will vaccinate 200 million people in Biden’s first 100 days, whether or not we plan for it.
4. Amazon workers in Alabama remind us that maybe we could unionize too.
5. Are boats too big? An exposé.
6. COVID is on the rise again.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Monday Mar 22, 2021
3/22/21 - Mild Competence
Monday Mar 22, 2021
Monday Mar 22, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. We once again found out what happens when a 21 year-old white guy with a gun has a “bad day.”
2. Ted Cruz could finally get his chance to share recipes and re-read his beloved Dr. Seuss from the Senate floor.
3. Mild competence was, as it turned out, all we needed to get vaccines into arms.
4. If smoking pot gets you kicked out of the Biden admin, Lila Nordstrom will be only person in American qualified to serve. Medicare-for-all, coming soon!
5. The CA recall is shaping up to be a...huge waste of money.
6. Mar a Lago has just as many germs as you’d expect.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday Mar 07, 2021
BTL #390 - Problem Causers Caucus - 3/8/21
Sunday Mar 07, 2021
Sunday Mar 07, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. Less than $2000 could be coming to a checking account near you very soon!
2. Joe Manchin formed the problem causers caucus, whose political ideology seems vaguely similar to the problem solvers caucus.
3. Marie Antoinette voted no on increasing the minimum wage
4. Neera Tandan. Goodbye forever. We wish you nothing but the worst.
5. For second week in a row: Do not run for a third term in NY state.
6. March 4th has come and gone and Donald Trump has no risen from the swamp.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday Feb 28, 2021
BTL #389 - Never Run For a Third Term In New York -3/1/21
Sunday Feb 28, 2021
Sunday Feb 28, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. The further right you get on the political scale, the more you should not be allowed to dance in public. And yet...CPAC still happened.
2. The House passed Biden’s stimulus bill, but was the less-than-$2000 really worth staying up all night for?
3. In classic Biden fashion, he figures out how to send bombs to Syria before checks to your bank account.
4. Kids in cages are being shuffled around to different cages under the Biden border plan.
5. Listen, kids, here’s some advice to live by: Never run for a third term in New York.
6. More vaccines are coming! So you can think about that while you continue to not be able to get an appointment.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

Sunday Feb 14, 2021
BTL #387 - No Defense - 2/15/21
Sunday Feb 14, 2021
Sunday Feb 14, 2021
In Which We Discuss:
1. We joked Donald Trump would not need an impeachment defense to get off scott free and he didn’t have one.
2. Blowback for GOP convictors. Not yet enough blowback for Mitch McConnell’s open hypocrisy.
3. Trump’s COVID was more serious than we were told. And yet, it was also less serious than it should have been.
4. I guess local GOP officials would be the ones to know if Antifa caused the Capitol riots because tons of them were active participants.
5. In the Biden administration, threatening the press gets you suspended, not promoted.
6. Weather. It’s everywhere. We’ll tell you what to do.
Also:
CALL YOUR REPS. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Make this number your profile picture. Tweet it every day. Add it to your phonebook:
Capitol Hill Main Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Brain Trust Live is (still) Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in electoral and political news. Join the millions of quarantiners, sirens, helicopters, barking dogs, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL! Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!