In Which We Discuss:

1. Carissa Byrne Hessick joins us to talk about her book Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal.

2. COVID is everywhere thanks to…teachers?

3. Jobs: You can now even do them with COVID!

4. Voting: What if we could protect your ability to do it

5. Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton chime in with a message from the bunker.

6. Madison Cawthorn ends his marriage to a Crossfit Influencer who may or may not be a Russian spy.

* Follow Carissa on Twitter: @CBHessick

* Buy Carissa's Book: Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal

* Buy Lila's Book: Some Kids Left Behind

Brain Trust Live is 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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Tatenda Musapatike talks voting, Real Housewives, and Dem strategy

2. Infrastructure Update: Just…what?

3. Voting rights is filibuster reform. Everything is filibuster reform.

4. Joe Biden wants you to want to pay your student loans

5. A sentence we never thought would be necessary to say: India Walton is not David Duke

6. Apparently the solution to zebras on the loose is…more zebras on the loose

Follow Tatenda on Twitter and Instagram: @TatendaCheryl

Follow Voter Formation Project: @VoterFormation

Brain Trust Live is 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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. 9/11 is over, but you can still buy Lila’s book, Some Kids Left Behind.

2. The main correct takeaway from the CA Recall is that money was wasted and there’s nothing to learn from it.

3. Everybody is trying to leave the Senate

4. Losing statewide office once is one of the ways to get yourself onto a ballot for statewide office in Texas.

5. Infrastructure season update: lol.

6. Joe Biden, just like last time he was in the Executive Branch, is not afraid to deport you.

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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Lila’s book is in stores now. You should buy it.

2. Hurricane Ida: Just the kind of disrespectful hurricane that chose to come in the middle of a pandemic as opposed to...literally any other time.

3. Recall update: Idiots abound. Vote no.

4. No one wants everyone to be evicted from their homes more than SCOTUS.

5. Covid is now a pandemic of the radio hosts

6. Infrastructure Season: Everybody has claimed victory and yet nobody has won anything yet.

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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Lila’s book comes out on TUESDAY AUGUST 24th. Get a copy.

2. If you’re in California, you already have your ballot and you only have to answer one question so voting NO on the recall couldn’t be easier.

3. Prop 22 is as illegal and ridiculous as it sounded.

4. Say it with us: Bush officials are not experts in Afghanistan, they are the opposite of that.

5. The COVID booster shots are coming.

6. Which is a good thing because there’s a post-vax Senate outbreak is in process.

Get a vaccine so you too can record a podcast in the same room as your co-host!

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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Definitely vote no on the Newsom recall but it’s okay to scream into the void while you do it

2. Democrats actively looking to lose the Senate with new slate of candidates

3. Turns out Democrats did understand the spirit of Trump’s infrastructure week after all.   

4. Andrew Cuomo becomes the latest victim of Andrew Cuomo

5. The world is completely falling apart, but at least white people are on the decline

6. Things not working out for 20 years in Afghanistan have surprisingly turned into a continuation of things not working out in Afghanistan

Get a vaccine so you too can record a podcast in the same room as your co-host!

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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. We’re starting with Britney. For the clicks.

2. The votes are in in the New York City mayor’s race. So we’ll tell you who won in one to two months!

3. Infrastructure. We’ve got nothing left on this one.

4. SCOTUS went so far to the dark side that Clarence Thomas had to speak up.

5. Don’t worry, you can still go to prison for longer than Derek Chauvin if you put your mind to it. Or if you just happen to be Black.

6. Apparently the funeral crashing circuit got boring.

Get a vaccine so you too can record a podcast in the same room as your co-host!

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!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Kat Calvin (@KatCalvinLA) is in the studio to tell you why we can’t have a Dem consensus on Voter ID that involves...having Voter ID. [Go share her twitter thread about it!]

2. Democrats are bad at power: an exposé

3. The latest on infrastructure season is that it is now infrastructure year. We will never have an infrastructure deal. Get a new hobby.

4. The NYC Mayor’s race is ending in the same chaotic fashion it started: with headlines about Andrew Yang

5. Rhode Island: A non-surprising place to find an all-white country club

6. Happy Father’s day to all, including the sad men crashing weddings and funerals just for the attention while they work as unpaid hotel concierges at tacky resorts in Florida!

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!

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!

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!