Brain Trust Live

BTL #136 - CONCEDING TO GOOD IDEAS - 12/22/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. Obama establishes full diplomatic relations with Cuba, angering conservative Floridians everywhere.  Because nothing says “conceding to tyranny” like diplomatic relations!

2. Governor Andrew Cuomo finally confirms what everyone with flammable drinking water has known for ages, bans fracking in New York

3. Remember that movie that you weren’t going to see with your family on Christmas, The Interview?  You can now carry on with that plan guilt-free after Sony pulls it over possible North Korean terrorist threats. 

4. NY Mag follows in Rolling Stone’s lazy footsteps by not checking any sources in Stuyvesant student’s fake $72 million dollar stock market fortune.

5. Mitt Romney still leads republican presidential polls?  Thankfully Donald Trump looks to challenge him in a battle for the nomination, and title of most out of touch uber-rich old white man in America.

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BTL #133 - SHOP TO VOTE - 12/2/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. Serious question: Should we move election day to Black Friday?  At least that’s a day 

people like to leave their houses.

2. Ferguson non-indictment rightly leads to the opposite of hugs and rainbows.

3. Chuck Hagel glowers through most aggressively awkward resignation ceremony in history.

4. Republican panic over their own Benghazi report proves that even they know what they don’t know, but facts are so boring.

5. Who is Jim Webb?  Answer: Not the president.  Also, not anybody.

6. Teen criminal turned GOP know-it-all implores Obama daughters to act classier, forgets that she’s the one who’s been arrested for stealing from a Belk department store.

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BTL #132 - SHUTDOWN, THE REMIX - 11/17/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. Obama enters a “gives no fucks” zone and promises executive action on #Immigration, his support for #NetNeutrality, and a major climate deal with #China.  Let the lame duck games begin!

2. The GOP’s only strategy is the one thing they strategized to not do again.  All hail #shutdown2015, the remix.

3. Centrists and Liberals are about to throw down Tea Party style as Democrats reckon with how to not get shitstomped in future elections.

4. Still don’t have healthcare?  What are you thinking?!  (Also, open enrollment is in session!  You could totally fix this!)

5. ISIS still in the business of producing exceptionally long, disgusting videos.  We’re starting to doubt their much-touted social media savvy.  16 minutes is too long, guys!

6. Well we landed on a comet.  (Yay?)  But besides causing a real #shirtstorm, we might not have accomplished much.  Turns out that sunlight is a really important ingredient in launching a successful solar energy space probe.

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BTL #131 - NOTHING CAN'T BE UNDONE - 11/10/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. As far as elections go, we’re not going to say everything is hopeless, but we are going to say that you need to do better next time, America!  We’ve blogged about how: Post-Election Blues: 14 Ways To Get Even

2. Voters everywhere voted both for and against everything they stand for this election day.  Hey voters,  you don’t get to have two opinions on the same issue!

3. The Lame Duck session is shaping up to look more like a healthy and virile duck session.

4. SCOTUS invites a serious case of deja vu with a slate of new, high-profile cases that suspiciously like the old ones.

5. We now have 3,000 troops in Iraq, but don’t worry, they aren’t “one the ground.”  The are just soldiers deployed to a war-torn region who have no particular mandate or agenda...nothing to see here.

6. Goodbye Michele Bachmann and Steve Stockman, hello Glen Grothman, who will carry on your tradition of rhyming last names and insane agendas.

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*We apologize for the audio issue at the very end of the podcast.  Audio geniuses we are not, but hilarity geniuses?  That you can count on!

BTL #128 - SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS - 10/21/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. If @LenaDunham’s book and Lila Nordstrom’s memory are any any guide, mock slavery social experiments were how history got taught to a generation of NYC kids in the 90s.

2. Newly appointed Ebola czar is not the czar John McCain would have picked if he was in favor of appointing czars which he’s not so stop asking him about it.

3. U.S. practices favorite kind of armchair diplomacy - air-dropping “lethal aid” on rebels with ambiguous goals.

4. Politico poll proves that it’s easy to be panicked about everything when you know nothing about anything.

5. This week in #HillaryPillory  - Thought-crime strikes again, this time care of @Harpers 

6. #SCOTUS faces their biggest gender divide yet...and not over gender issues.  #VoterID

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BTL #127 - ARMED WITH A SANDWICH - 10/13/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. New revelations in the case of #PalinBrawl2014.  Apparently the Palins rented that stretch hummer just to drunkenly crash a stranger’s birthday party.

2. As of this week, Ebola is a disease you can get without having gone to Liberia or Sierra Leone.  Time to stop making out with strangers!

3. We know the Middle East is confusing, but are we sure we’ve gotten our geography right with the whole ISIS airstrike campaign?

4. St. Louis cops and residents disagree on whether you can be armed with a deadly sandwich.

5. This week in Senate election news, Independent candidates are rousing the electorate’s weirdest rabble.

6.  Dick Morris is still in the business of making totally wacko, inaccurate predictions.

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BTL #126 - DISCOMFORT SAGA - 10/6/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. You might as well continue to peddle your crazy Ebola conspiracy theory.  It’s certainly not going to get unproven this week.

2. Teenager-led Hong Kong pro-democracy rallies are the most mature thing that’s happening in Chinese politics right now.

3. In the midst of the Dear Leader “discomfort” saga of 2014, three senior North Korean officials took a journey to the land of the Choco-Pie for a weekend of cookie gluttony and peace talks.

4. Secret Service still roughly as capable as Lila’s last run-in with them would suggest

5. Mitt Romney continues to “not” run for President by being in Iowa and stumping with wingnut conspiracy theorist Joni Ernst.

6. Russian bank hackers might have ties to the Russian government, which might be the most Russian story ever told.

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BTL #125 - TOWNS WITH DOORS - 9/29/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. A couple of ISIS bombings and Republicans are already excited about the prospect of boots on the ground in unnecessary war.

2. Thanks to Senate discord, Eric Holder’s resignation might end up just being for show.

3. After Obama’s fake #lattesalute gaffe, how long will we have to wait for a pumpkin spice latte salute campaign from Starbucks (#PSL).

4. The struggle is real for would-be murderers who just happen to be Muslim.  It’s hard to be notorious when Al Qaeda gets all the credit for your crimes. 

5. Value Voters can’t decide whether gay marriage is just boring or a scourge on society, but they all seem to know who Ben Carson is.

6. Self-appointed Real-Life Disney Princess sues Disney for stealing her tale of having a sister and living in a village with doors.

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BTL #124 - WATCH OUT WORLD - 8/22/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. What do Ban Ki Moon, Bernie Sanders, and Sting all have in common?  They all went a’ climate marching this weekend!

2. We finally figured out what it takes to make GOP-ers fund the government: war resolutions.  Watch out world!

3. In Obamacare news, despite GOP scare-mongering, people can be trusted to pay for products they’ve purchased, just like has always worked in the past.  Hooray capitalism!

4. Secret Service combat training and sniper rifles are not enough to stop one Texas man with an important message about the sci-fi apocalypse

5. J.K. Rowling wins the day in an uber-expensive campaign against two obese Scottish lottery winners looking to buy a nation

6. Shonda Rhimes takes on the New York Times TV critic over a super un-clever play on words

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BTL #123 - LIPSTICK ON A TRACK - 9/15/14

In Which We Discuss:

1. The Palin family’s extracurriculars prove that you can put lipstick on a drunk shirtless man giving the finger to everybody, but it’s still a Track Palin

2. The US may or may not be at war with ISIS, but it’s definitely at war with itself over foreign policy semantics

3. Left-wing “money for schools, not for war” demand takes on bizarrely literal meaning

4. America learns an important lesson: refusing to acknowledge a political opponent named Zephyr Teachout is a fool’s errand

5. Hillary Clinton proves she’s running for president by pretending to believe “steak frys” are a real thing

6. CNN was right all along- you definitely will die of ebola

7. Like your 13 year-old cousin, Mark Sanford breaks up with his girlfriend on Facebook.

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