podcasts for thought

Tamara Cofman Wittes is an American writer and public figure. She is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She directed the Center from March 2012 through March 2017. From November 2009 through January 2012, she was a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs at the United States Department of State. Wittes has written about U.S. foreign policy, democratic change in the Arab world and about the Arab–Israeli conflict. She is also a co-host of the Rational Security podcast.

She is President Joe Biden's nominee to be an Assistant Administrator for the United States Agency for International Development for the Middle East, after he announced her nomination on July 19, 2021.

Mueller, She Wrote is a political podcast hosted by Allison Gill, a military veteran who worked at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. It mixes comedy, legal commentary and political analysis, from a liberal perspective, and centers on the Mueller investigation. The original co-hosts were San Diego comedians Jordan Coburn and Jaleesa Johnson; the latter has since left the show due to a pay dispute.

Political podcasts are podcasts that focus on contemporary politics and current events. Most political podcasts maintain a connection with an existing media source such as a newspaper or magazine. They aim to inform or entertain or advocate a cause, usually for progressive causes, although there are some conservative podcasts. They are often cost-effective to produce, requiring minimal computer technology to operate. Their audiences are generally persons in interested in current events, and programs usually have a duration of a half hour to an hour.

The Rachel Maddow Show (also abbreviated TRMS) is an American liberal news and opinion television program that airs on MSNBC, running in the 9:00 pm ET timeslot Monday evenings. It is hosted by Rachel Maddow, who gained a public profile via her frequent appearances as a progressive pundit on programs aired by MSNBC. It is based on her former radio show of the same name. The show debuted on September 8, 2008.

Keith Olbermann, then host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was Maddow's first guest on her debut show, and has been given credit for pushing for Maddow to gain her own show. Prior to getting her own show, Maddow had served as regular guest host for Countdown when Olbermann was absent. The Rachel Maddow Show replaced Verdict with Dan Abrams.

The Bulwark is an American neoconservative news and opinion website launched in 2018 by Sarah Longwell, with the support of Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes. It initially launched as a news aggregator, but it was revamped into a news and opinion site using key staffers from the recently closed Weekly Standard.

Rosa Brooks (née Ehrenreich; born 1970) is an American law professor, journalist, author and commentator on foreign policy, U.S. politics and criminal justice. She is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center. Brooks is also an adjunct scholar at West Point's Modern War Institute and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. From April 2009 to July 2011, Brooks was a counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy.

Brooks is a commentator on politics and foreign policy. She served as a columnist and contributing editor for Foreign Policy and as a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Brooks authored the 2016 book How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything and the 2021 book Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City, which is based on her five years as a reserve police officer in Washington, D.C.

John Jurasek, better known online as Reviewbrah, is an American YouTube personality, food critic and radio host. Jurasek reviews fast food, frozen meals, and energy drinks on his YouTube channel TheReportOfTheWeek, and hosts a radio show on shortwave radio, Spotify, TuneIn, and SoundCloud. He has been featured by several media outlets, including CNN Money, New York Magazine, and Lenta.ru. Jurasek was also a guest on The Needle Drop Podcast in October 2015 and made an appearance on an episode of the television program Tosh.0 in March 2016.

Alan Stuart Franken is an American politician, comedian, writer, actor, and media personality who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. Franken first gained fame as a writer and performer on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where he worked for three stints. He first served as a writer for the show from 1977 to 1980, followed by a short return in 1986, and then a third and final stint from 1988 to 1995, where he served as a writer and, briefly, a member of the cast. After decades as an entertainer, he became a prominent liberal political activist, hosting The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.

Christopher Loffredo Hayes is an American political commentator, television news anchor, activist, and author. Hayes hosts All In with Chris Hayes, a weekday news and opinion television show on MSNBC. Hayes also hosts a weekly MSNBC podcast, Why Is This Happening? Hayes formerly hosted a weekend MSNBC show, Up with Chris Hayes. He is an editor-at-large of The Nation magazine.

Asset-based community development (ABCD) is a methodology for the sustainable development of communities based on their strengths and potentials. It involves assessing the resources, skills, and experience available in a community; organizing the community around issues that move its members into action; and then determining and taking appropriate action. This method uses the community's own assets and resources as the basis for development; it empowers the people of the community by encouraging them to use what they already possess.

Audio Up Media is a podcast studio and network in Los Angeles, California founded in 2020 by Jared Gutstadt, formerly of Jingle Punks. In its first two years of operation, Audio Up has produced more than 30 podcasts with artists and celebrities including Stephen King, James Ellroy, Machine Gun Kelly, Michael Cohen, Anthony Anderson, Miranda Lambert, JaVale McGee and Jason Alexander.

Harry P. Litman is an American lawyer, law professor and political commentator. He is a former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General. He has provided commentary in print and broadcast news and produces the Talking Feds podcast. He has taught in multiple law schools and schools of public policy.

Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company based in Washington, D.C., and New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass SB Nation (a sports blog network founded in 2005 by Tyler Bleszinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong) and The Verge (a technology news website launched alongside Vox Media). Bankoff had been the CEO for SB Nation since 2009.

Vox Media owns editorial brands, primarily The Verge, Vox, SB Nation, Eater, Polygon, and New York. New York further incorporates the websites Intelligencer, The Cut, Vulture, The Strategist, Curbed, and Grub Street. The former Recode was integrated into Vox, while Racked was shut down. Vox Media's brands are built on Concert, a marketplace for advertising, and Chorus, its proprietary content management system. The company's lines of business include the publishing platform Chorus, Concert, Vox Creative, Vox Entertainment, Vox Media Studios, and the Vox Media Podcast Network. As of 2020, the company operates additional offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, and London. In June 2010, the network featured over 300 sites with over 400 paid writers. As of April 2021, Comscore ranks Vox Media as the 33rd-most popular media company among users from the United States.

Stephen Edward Schmidt (born September 28, 1970) is an American communications and public affairs strategist who worked on Republican political campaigns, including those of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain. Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. He pushed McCain to select Sarah Palin as his running mate, a choice which Schmidt came to regret.

He was a vice chair at the public relations firm Edelman, where he advised CEOs and senior decision makers at Fortune 500 corporations, until he stepped down in July 2018, and became a political analyst for MSNBC.

Schmidt has been extremely critical of former President Donald Trump, and of the GOP for supporting him. In June 2018, Schmidt renounced the Republican Party as "fully the party of Trump". In early December 2020, he stated: "The Republican Party is an organized conspiracy for the purposes of maintaining power for self-interest, and the self-interest of its donor class ... It's no longer dedicated to American democracy."

A bagman or bag man is a collector of dirty money for organized crime.