23 June 2018 – We are back (and trying to stay that way.) This is a grab bag show covering a number of international issues which are getting only cursory coverage by US media (for obvious reasons.) Will has news about currency plans for Scotland which, for MMT folk, is especially frustrating. On another front, remember all those times, pre-Brexit vote, when we said that the problem was going to be the Irish border. Well, the problem is the Irish border and it is both threatening to bring down the May government and cause the UK to “crash” out of the EU instead of Brexit in an orderly manner. Tune in to find out about the “Irish Backstop.”
In Extra Mad, Michele LeSure, our show editor, joins us to raise an important jobs issue which is just starting to break in Gainesville but could well spread to universities across the nation. Then we go back overseas to the Israeli Nation-State law and finally, to Iranfor the changes which are happening as a result of Trump pulling the US out of the Iranian Nuclear Agreement. So, obviously, it’s a light show this week. đ
Along those lines, things have not been light for me this summer and that is why the show has been off-air so much. My actual job had a number of really wonderful things happen but all of them have involved a huge and unexpected time commitment accompanied by a larger than ordinary amount of stress. But that’s not all, the announcement that Justice Kennedy was retiring really flipped a switch for me. I just had to stop on-boarding news, Twitter, podcasts…all of it. Kennedy was just, somehow, one hop too far. I have had to take a break. I’m getting back to the real world slowly, starting by concentrating overseas. I’ll get back stateside soon and, hopefully, will be refreshed and ready to plow forward to the election. Many carrots! – Arliss
4 April 2018 – Due to the holiday weekend we do not have a new show this week. This is a rebroadcast of a special mid-week combined Hopping Mad and Irreverent Testimony entirely focused on trade. Travis Rosen and Rachel Hutcheson of Irreverent Testimony joined Will and I to talk about the domestic and international implications of the Trump Trade Tariffs and the basics of what international trade really means. This is a deep dive into what we should all really be messaging about trade and “why trade deficit” matters not at all.
Will and I have already recorded the interview for next week, with an election law expert, and we have a lot stored-up to add to the fire. Carrots! – Arliss
8 March 2018 – This is a special combined Hopping Mad and Irreverent Testimony entirely focused on trade. Travis Rosen and Rachel Hutcheson of Irreverent Testimony joined Will and I to talk about the domestic and international implications of the Trump Trade Tariffs and the basics of what international trade really means. This is a dive into what we should all really be messaging about trade and why “trade deficit” matters not at all.
Will and I will be back on Monday for our regular show. Carrots! – Arliss
30 January 2017 – Armando Llorens, attorney and Daily Kos front pager, cleared-up all the questions I had about the emoluments clause of the Constitution and standing. Plus, typical of Armando’s frequent contributions to David Waldman’s Kagro in the Morning, Armando lead us merrily off track and onto the subject of NAFTA and how Trump’s special brand of crazy (literally) can significantly damage the US economy in the area of trade. Happily, there were many other brief side tracks too. There’s a reason so many of us follow Armando on DKos and on David’s show.
Will spoke about his visit with both anarchists and Trump voters on Inauguration Day. It was easy for Will to get from his apartment in DC to the Mall that day but not so the next. The difference in crowd size and sensibility during the Women’s March was immense and it’s great to hear Will’s first hand account. See below for video and more detail on Will’s experience at the Women’s March.
We started the show by talking about two new segments we plan to regularly include in future shows. First, we invite you to email us at ImHoppingMad@gmail.com with your submission for The Lying Liar Lie of the Week. Pick the Trump administration lie you think is the most egregious and let us know what it is and why you selected it. If we can (and if you want to) we will even arrange to record a brief segment with you. We give extra points if you bring the funny. The other new segment is Damage Report in which we will call attention to the most dangerous Trump administration action of the week.
We will be back with an all-new show next week and then we will go dark for a few weeks while I have major surgery and deal with the not insubstantial recovery. We will definitely be back as soon as we possibly can. Carrots! – Arliss
I took a few videos when I was  at the women’s march. I’m including a map below which shows where the videos were taken to give you an idea of just how large the march was.
This first video was taken at D & 7th, two blocks north of the mall. This is what almost all of the side streets looked like on the 21st. We couldn’t even get to the south side of the mall. There were just too many people.
This next video was taken at the Gallery Place metro. There was an endless crowd streaming out of the station. So many people arrived throughout the day that they were having to temporarily close stations for safety, in order to clear the platform that the next group of people could exit or board trains safely. It took hours to get people home.
When waiting for my wife to arrive, we grabbed a cup of coffee near the ellipse. Our thinking was that we’d march south on 15th, join the marchers just as they entered the ellipse, and be part of the march there. That plan was foiled. This was the picket outside of the White House near 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue.
After my wife arrived, we headed south on 14th street. And then we ran into this. A wall of people heading north on 15th street. There was no way we’d be able to get to the march route on Constitution Avenue. We had to go east.
15 minutes and a block later, we found 14th street just as choked with people. There was still no way to get to the march route. So we decided to take side streets to the ellipse.
There we were, at the very northern edge of the ellipse, just south of the White House. By this time, the march was supposed to be over, but most of the march hadn’t even reached the ellipse yet.
At this point, it was time to go home. We’d marched. We’d reached the ellipse. We’d temporarily joined people in the mall (though unfortunately, that video was corrupted so I can’t share it with you.) This was the site of people leaving the mall two whole hours after the march was supposed to have ended. We’d spent about an hour fighting our way through the crowd so that we could head home. In this video, you can hear one of the rolling roars that routinely tore through the crowd. You’d hear it in the distance, and then people near you would take up the cheer. Every few minutes, the entire center of our federal government shook, as more than half a million people raised their voices together.
I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Being there was an absolute privilege.
I hope we can all do this again on Tax Day (April 15th) and literally shake the foundations of this government with our voices once again. Some people laugh at protests.
Remember Spicer’s fearful, shaky press conference? Remember the lies that the Trump team attempted to tell during the match? They’d spent all day cowering in a building, listening to the roars of the crowd outside. The windows of their offices had literally shook with the discontent outside. Their building was surrounded all day – to the point that staffers weren’t able to make it to the entrances.
The crowd was peaceful. But for a group of paranoid conservatives who had spent years dreaming of leading a crowd like this against Obama, who had just driven a wave of populism, to discover this level of opposition on their first day was chilling.
We didn’t just make our voices heard. We scared them.
3 October 2016 – We are fortunate again to have back on the show progressive political pundit Jesse LaGreca (@JesseLaGreca) to talk about the efforts by Democrats to flip the Senate. Something we were once so sure of has become seriously imperiled and Jesse takes us through the top targeted Red to Blue Senate races step by step. It matters that we are about to put a Democrat in the White House but without the Senate President Clinton will not be able to accomplish many of our goals, including appointing decent human beings to the Supreme Court. We can not roll-back Citizens United or restore the weakened Voting Rights Act or wisely protect the environment or be sure that women are free to make their own decisions without securing the Supreme Court. This is a more than critical election. We cannot allow GOP money to shut out our voices again.
Will gets into detail with the horror that is the AltRight and the ties of the Trump campaign to openly racist groups. He discussed the ideological backing of the fascist branch of the alt right, rooted in conspiracy theories, and shows how the Trump campaign and the alt right is moving from covert, dog-whistle racism, to overt antisemitism,including this death threat sent to Jewish Politico journalist Julia Ioffe, which is fairly representative of the way Trump’s supporters have been attacking Jewish journalists. Next week, He’ll talk about the misogynistic “Manosphere” component of the Alt-Right.
I dive into dissecting the morass of lies Trump told about economic issues during the first debate. In fact, there are so many that I will be back next week with even more. (How sad is that?) This week I get into the fact that China is NOT manipulating their currency, factories in Mexico are NOT more sophisticated than those in the US and Mexico is NOT the “8th wonder of the world” as claimed by Trump. Then I go after his lies related to jobs and Ford Motor Company. Ford is NOT putting workers in Michigan out of work in order to move manufacturing to Mexico and the US is NOT shedding manufacturing jobs. In fact, the Obama Administration (or Obama/Clinton Administration, as Trump puts it) has added 800,000 new manufacturing jobs in the last five years.
At the top of the show Will tells us that Jeremy Corbyn still can’t lead his Labour Party out of a paper bag, much less to Downing Street. I get into it over Trump’s lie about the condition of the US nuclear arsenal.
If you haven’t seen them yet, Team Arliss, on Instagram at ImHoppingMad, has their own take on the recent Presidential debate. Carrots! – Arliss
29 August 2016 –Â Will is out of town on business this week and I have finally managed to struggle back up onto my paws after six days in the hospital and way too many more in recovery at home. Under normal conditions Will and I would have tried to prepare a show in advance but it was impossible to predict that I would be hospitalized and he would have a concussion at the same time almost immediately followed by an emergency business trip. Obviously, fate is snickering at us.
Hopping Mad is a show which requires considerable preparation and, because Will and I both have âdayâ jobs, we fit all that in around already full days. His travel this week and my short days (work, nap, work, nap, work, nap….) made thorough preparation impossible. I have to say that when I am too exhausted to read about financial news or economics, I am one seriously pissed off rabbit. After all, who doesnât love reading about economics at 3AM!
Will and I solemnly promise a terrific new show next week. So much has happened and we have a LOT to say about it. Seriously, last week Donald Trump had former UKIP leader Nigel Farage at one of his rally extravaganzas!!! There was Farage, âHello MississippiâŚ.â I think we can all safely anticipate a rant from Will on that subject.
This week we are going back to our 7th show, from last November, when Will first started talking to us about South Sudan and the Spratly Islands and I was on the so-called âbudget dealâ and the difference between fiscal and monetary spending. The interview was with a California educator who was intimately involved in developing Common Core standards and she is absolutely fascinating on the subject. We hope you enjoy this and we will be back with you next week. Carrots to you and yours! – Arliss
25 July 2016 – Jesse LaGreca (@JesseLaGreca), political activist and commentor, manages to be both incisive and hilarious with his jackhammer-pounding, nailgun-fast insight into the underlying structure of the current election cycle. In the first half of the interview Jesse both breaks down the structural problems with the GOP and brings true thoughtful analysis to the pick of Tim Kaine. In Extra Mad he gets into more detail and provides some of the sharpest wit I have heard on these topics to date.
At the top of the show I round-up the latest developments in court rulings on voting rights summarizing the Wisconsin, Texas and Virginia decisions. I also take a moment out to remind everyone that, (to paraphrase James Carville), “It’s the Supreme Court, stupid!” Will , then, takes a few minutes to talk about just how dangerous the GOP has become and concludes by quoting Professor Halford E. Luccock, of the Yale Divinity School, who said during World War II,
When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called ‘fascism;’ it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.’
If you did not hear Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, the word “Americanism” features prominently. No joke.
In Will’s block he brings us all up to date on the ruling handed down addressing the conflict between the Phillippines and China over the Spratly Islands and, more importantly, the surrounding sea lanes. What is especially interesting about the ruling really comes down to how international law will be enforced in the foreseeable future.
In my block I get into the Italian banking crisis and talk about the difference between a bail-out and a bail-in. Just when you were thinking that Italian banks can’t possibly be a big deal for you personally, I explain why the new bail-in regime Italy is fighting will likely cost you money when you go to buy a car or a house.
We had fun this week and I hope you do too. – Carrots! Arliss
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27 June 2016 – Well, THAT happened. Brexit basically ate the news cycle of much of the world this past week. Who knew so many people could find legitimate use for the word “gobsmacked.” We were lucky to be guided through the chaos by Scottish National Party Councilor Math Campbell-Sturgess. Will has been wanting to have the Inverclyde Council representative on for a quite a while and this seemed like the moment. In fact, the timing was so good that Will trimmed down his block and I ditched mine completely because there was just too much ground to cover. I am especially interested by the way austerity is playing in elections and politics around the world. It’s insidious. We also talked about the upcoming Scottish referendum on leaving the UK, the terrific leadership of Nichola Sturgeon, the mess that is trying to pass as the Labour Party, the horror that is the Conservative party, commonalities between current UK and US politics, land reform and the general future of Scotland. Also, I think Angela Merkel joined Nichola Sturgeon on a very short list of people who managed to look like world leaders this week.
I began the show with a short tribute to Amjad Sabri, the sublimely talented Sufi Qawwalis singer and musician who was killed on Thursday in Karachi, Pakistan. He was a man who had devoted his life to a message of peace and love. His loss is unspeakably great. In tribute to Amjad, all of our interstitial music this week is his.
Will took a few minutes to hit the highlights of the ruling by the Hague on the case being brought by the Philippines against China over the Spratly Islands. The Philippines won. Enforcement is another matter entirely. *sigh*
It was a big week and I don’t think anyone knows what comes next. Hang on to your ears! Â Carrots! – Arliss
11 January 2016 – Ever since the Black Lives Matter hashtag rose to prominence I have found myself on a steep learning curve. Our guest for this show is Dr. Lawrence Brown an Assistant Professor at Baltimore’s  Morgan State University School of Community Health and Policy. Dr. Brown is a rising national voice spreading the word that Jim Crow never died and the kind of hyper-segregation seen in Black communities, like that in Baltimore, has shocking and far reaching public health and societal consequences far more pervasive than are initially apparent. Dr. Brown clearly conveys the implications of policies, both historical and current, which have been imposed on Black communities.
In doing my pre-show research I read many of Dr. Brown’s articles but the one that really knocked me back is one I recommend that you read as well. Down to the Wire: Displacement and Disinvestment in Baltimore City encapsulates many of Dr. Brown’s points and should be required reading for everyone seeking greater understanding of the underlying causes behind the current racial crisis. Really. Read it. This is what you will be talking about for a long time after you make the investment.
We open the show with Will talking about polls in the Democratic race and I try to put the precipitous drop in the Chinese stock market (and ours) into perspective. Then Will goes on to talk about policing as it relates to terrorism and I get deeper into the way money flows through the US economy.
It’s good to be back! Carrots! – Arliss
On another note, three polls were published AFTER we recorded this, putting Bernie neck-and-neck with Hillary in Iowa. So my analysis in the first five needs amendment. All polls in Iowa now put Clinton and Sanders within the margin of error of each other, so it’s anyone’s guess. It just goes to show you how fast things can change. I’m excited to see what happens next, and I’m looking forward to the general election. – Will
7 December 2015 – We are back with an all new show including a first-rate interview with Police Chief David Hewitt. For eleven years Chief Hewitt has been running a small town, Midwest department which is known for its considered approach to law enforcement. His thinking on social justice, the militarization of policing, use of force and the pressures being placed on law enforcement to fill gaps which are not being met at the source are all well worth hearing. Listen to him saying “You can’t arrest your way to” a solution. If he could tell all departments across the nation one thing he said, “You can’t take that bullet back.” Every department is not Chicago or Ferguson. It’s important to hear from a Chief who thinks deeply about the challenges and solutions in modern policing.
Will reassures us that Turkey and Russia are very unlikely to go to war no matter what all the various talking heads are saying. These are nations which do not now and have not ever had an alignment of purpose but it is not in their interest to battle one another at this time. In his longer segment Will tries to make climate change more real to us all be describing what is happening in Florida already.
IÂ continue on the subject of taxes. Though I usually pull from many sources while I cover a topic, this time I lifted virtually my entire presentation from one given by Dr. Stephanie Kelton (now the Chief Economist for the Minority, Senate Budget Committee). If you have time you can view her entire presentation here. I promise that it is an hour well spent. At the beginning of the show I briefly update the decision by the International Monetary Fund to include the Chinese renminbi as part of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency basket. Since that will be entirely unintelligible to most people (and with good reason) I refer you back to a segment I did on The After Show on 6 August 2015. (My segment begins about half way through the show.) There I explain SDR, the basket and China’s desire for inclusion.
To all those who have been communicating with us via a variety of channels, we LOVE hearing from you. You push us and for that we are grateful. An extra big helping of thanks goes out to Peter who always listens so closely and asks wonderful questions. It will take me a few weeks to get through them all but I’m on it!
