Show Notes
In the first episode of season two, Karpf and Loge talk about what it would take to pass meaningful, or any, gun control legislation. Plus it's good news the White House is paying its interns, but the rest of the news is bad and Paris Hilton wants to be Queen of the Metaverse.
Links to support for Karpf and Loge’s arguments (and links to other miscellany) are below.
Guns
A mass shootings database.
Karpf’s Substack piece on the gun debate.
Loge’s Medium piece on the gun debate.
The N.R.A.s Lobbyist Behind Florida’s Pro-Gun Policies from The New Yorker.
Polling can be misleading and a critique of that position.
A Republican Congressman in New York who supported assault weapon ban is being chased out of Congress (NYT).
A thoughtful “yes/and” take by Isaac Saul.
Not Guns
The White House is paying interns — this is a big deal.
DeSantis vs the Special Olympics. Having successfully raised taxes on Florida homeowners by beating a pretend mouse, the Florida governor bravely put kids’ health at risk by tackling the Special Olympics.
Christian Pulisic on US fans and here ($80 tickets didn’t help). His comments pale in comparison to French officials and UEFA after the Champions League final.
The House January 6 Commission hearings are starting(Just Security).
Paris Hilton wants to be the queen of the metaverse.
More from Office Hours with Karpf and Loge
Why do elephants inspire more trust than engineers, and what do chicken carcasses have to do with safer airplanes? We discuss Dave Karpf and Nina Hall’s piece on Turning Point USA and MoveOn, make the case against the Paramount merger, and ask when Peter Loge last read a book.
On this week's episode of Office Hours, Loge is somehow still talking about bat ecologist certifications and Karpf is too busy marathon training to play D&D. They break down how Trump's $5,000 pledge to voters went viral on prediction markets and discuss the difference between moderate politics as a rhetorical style versus an actionable ideology. Also, Karpf and Loge read the pod's first AI-generated listener email!
Office Hours is back for the semester, and just in time, because Loge is getting a little too fascinated by bat ecologists. As a record high number of Americans say that government corruption is widespread, Karpf and Loge discuss why political elites get away with bad behavior, when voters will punish them and how political actors can effectively push back. Also, our hosts respond to their first listener email!
As summer ends and classes begin, Washington is offering plenty of material for a lesson in political theater: from Natalie Harp's expanding West Wing role to James Talarico turning Ken Paxton’s $1,000 pen into a campaign prop. Karpf and Loge dissect these stories, as well as why Trump's picks keep losing their primaries. They also discuss why a Peter Loge Bot is a terrible business idea, how an alien garbage can won 10,000 votes in Clacton, and their political predictions for this fall.
It's hot enough outside to make Karpf wear shorts on camera, inspiring a deluge of water metaphors. Karpf and Loge dive into the President's insistence through the Reflecting Pool debacle and the war in Iran, even as voters reward politicians focused on making government work. They also break down the latest midterm primaries, the lost DNC Autopsy chapter, and the lessons behind them: democracy is messy, local politics matter, and a good plan means nothing if you can’t execute it.