Sometimes, we just have to make a "101" episode of Civics 101. That is the case this week, in the wake of the arrest of Venezuela's sitting president by the United States. So, what's happening with...
This week Nick appears on The Middle, with Jeremy Hobson. The topic is civility in politics, and they're joined by former New Hampshire State Legislator Doug Teschner and Citizens Count Executive D...
Today we answer this question from a listener, "Is Santa a criminal?" We get to the bottom of the myriad actions of the jolly old elf, and whether he could reasonably be tried for civil and crimina...
Why does it take, in practice, 60 votes for a bill to pass in the Senate? Why doesn't it seem like anyone is up there talking for days anymore? And why do we even have it in the first place? Today ...
The lottery generates over $70 billion in revenue each year. Today on Civics 101 we explore how we got here; from failed lotteries in the Revolutionary War to the Golden Octopus to the Numbers Game...
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once upon a time called food stamps, helps nearly 42 million Americans every month. While the 2025 government shutdown showed us what happens when SNA...
Today we talk about the myriad procedures involved in getting the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed in record time. How do discharge petitions work? What did HR 581 do exactly? How did it get t...
Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein spent nearly a decade making a twelve-hour documentary on the American Revolution. This is what they learned from the thousands of stories and events that resulted in t...
In sixty years, we have gone from 2 billionaires in the United States to just under 2,000. How on earth did that happen? Today, Timothy Noah from the New Republic takes us all the way from our fram...
Off-year elections -- as in, not a presidential or a midterm -- have fairly dismal voter turnout. Yet they matter a great deal. Most of our lives are lived at the local, not the national, level. So...
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has published a Mandate for Leadership since 1981, making policy recommendations to the federal government. The latest edition is part of somethi...
This episode is a crossover with our sister NHPR podcast, Outside/In. What do pastries have to do with environmental justice? Cat butts with the climate crisis? And what US president ate a half-che...
In this episode, we give a brief explanation of what's behind the current government shutdown. The, we explain all the ins and outs of government shutdowns. Have they always been part of our legisl...
Today we’re bringing you an episode of What Could Go Right from our friends at The Progress Network. Each Wednesday on What Could Go Right, hosts Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas converse with...
Did you know cartoonists were on Nixon's enemies list? Or that LBJ prevented a cartoonist from getting a medal when he made a cartoon against the Vietnam War? Today we talk about the history of edi...
Click here to listen to part one of our airing of the grievances if you haven't yet! Today we tackle charges 13-27 against the King, as well as comparisons that have been made between George III an...
The American public has long been on the lookout for unsteadiness in the leader of the free world. It's important to us (or, historically, has been) that the president seems, well, well. If not rob...
"He" has done bad things. Twenty seven of them. And these things were so bad that the colonists used them to demonstrate that they had no choice but to become an independent nation. King George III...
Congress appropriates funds, the executive branch ensures those funds are spent and spent wisely. That is how it works. It is not, however, how it is working right now. The Trump Administration has...
It's another edition of Civics 101 Trivia! This time, it's also the swan song for one of our own. Senior Producer Christina Phillips, our mastermind of minutiae and all things related to taxes, joi...
