Rabbit Rescue with Mara Hurwitt

28 March 2016 – In the interest of full disclosure, as a Rabbit American I admit a bias on the topic of rabbit welfare. Toward that end Will and I were able to have attorney Mara Hurwitt join the show to talk about the legal complexities and issues related to rabbits. Mara is a long-time educator for the House Rabbit Society, a leading international rabbit rescue organization. Mara has provided pro bono legal support for a variety of animal welfare organizations and has worked at the Federal level to protect wild horse herds (which, in my opinion should be considered a national treasure). Rabbits are the third most abandoned domestic animal in the nation yet few municipal facilities or private rescue organizations are both equipped and knowledgable enough to meet their special needs. Rabbit abuse is rampant and seems to be on the increase but things are changing and Mara is a part of making that happen.

Will begins the show with the newest in crazy from North Carolina. Later in the show he brings the history with an overview of the Irish Easter Rising. I start out with, of all things, graffiti in Cairo. I draw almost exclusively from an article in The Guardian but you absolutely must take a moment to look at photos of this fragile, moving and significant art here and here. My main segment is on 21st Century Glass-Steagall legislation and this is the last of my banking regulation series. Next week I get back to modern monetary theory. Yippie!

We have no Extra Mad extended interview this week. It’s the busiest weekend of the year for rabbits – so many eggs and too little time. – Carrots! Arliss

Psst – from top to bottom, the rabbits in the photo are my office crew: David (age 3), Neo (age 3) and Bethy (age 12).

Download Here

2016 Politics with Jesse LaGreca

8 February 2016 – I love political detail. The nitty gritty, pixel level parts that combine to render something one can only see fully by stepping back. Jesse LaGreca (@JesseLaGreca on Twitter and MinistryOfTruth on Daily Kos) gave us some excellent, granular information on the seats most likely to help Democrats to flip the Senate. He also got into gerrymandering, the GOP Presidential nominees and why running away from Obama and the word “liberal” doesn’t fly with the Democratic Party base.

Will reminded us that Trayvon Martin would have turned 21 this week. Will also gave a nod to the Sanders campaign for policing their Reddit and banning attacks on Hillary. Will then goes on to compare the Scottish YES campaign to the current Sanders campaign. (“You say you want a revolution….”)

I start out the show with an update on the rapid changes coming for the Iranian economy and the real challenges faced by Iranian banks. Later in the show I try to answer listener Peter’s questions about how to talk about deficits and taxes.

We love hearing from you here and via Twitter @IMHoppingMad. You can always catch our podcasts on Stitcher and iTunes or download there here. – Carrots! Arliss

[Note: if you are interested in the behind the lettuce leaf scoop about why we have not been on the air consistently since mid-December, check out the previous blog post. We should be much more steady for the foreseeable future.]

Download Here.

Roundtable of Podcasters

14 December 2015 – We were so fortunate this week. Instead of our usual show, we decided to invite some other lefty podcasters to join us and we just opened it cup for a free-range discussion. JM Bell, of The LEFT Show, was with us from Utah along with Travis Rosen and Rachel Hutcheson, from Irreverent Testimony. The LEFT Show and Irreverent Testimony are both podcasts I never miss and are wildly different from one another. Please check them out as they are examples of smart, well-informed and funny people doing good work.

Many Hoppy Carrots of the Season! – Arliss

Modern Policing, Climate Change & More on Taxes

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.

I 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!

Carrots! – Arliss

Download MP3 Here.

ISIS, Taxes & Strategy

23 November 2015 – The news just doesn’t ever seem to get any easier to watch, does it? With the horror of terrorism and the insanity of our nation quaking in fear at the prospect of extending our hearts to the very people who have fled the terrorists we so despise, it has been a long week. So much for that whole “…home of the brave…” thing, right! Maybe it’s just me but I do find it helps me to be able to cope when I can put it all into political, historical, economic and religious context. Middle East expert Landon Shroder (@LandonShroder on Twitter) is back again this week to help us with that. The on-air interview is just the beginning. There is more than an hour of additional insight in the Extra Mad (extended) podcast version. Having lived in Iraq for a number of years, Landon has lived with this war and his personal experience and expertise is exceptional.

This week, as promised, I am talking about taxes – how they work, what they can do and what they really, truly, factually do not do. I should provide a warning however. If you are into drinking games, please do not take a drink every time I say “drive” or some version thereof. I’ve had alcohol poisoning and the combination of the hospital bill and embarrassment are absolutely not worth it.

This week Will talked about how our enemies strategize to exploit our weaknesses and failures to hurt us. He began by highlighting the history of the British Empire’s maneuvering over slavery, first banning it, then later providing the Confederacy with warships. Will evidenced this as an example of long-game diplomacy. Then he compared that to how DAESH/ISIS/ISIL is doing the same thing when it comes to exploiting the poverty and racism which have harmed working class Muslims in France for decades.

At the top of the show I touch on the recently released Global Terrorism Index and Will covers the latest from…wait for it…Scotland. I know. Just when you thought you were out he pulled you back in – or something like that. (LOL.) We all know that Will’s heart is in Scotland and he watches developments there very closely but, frankly, the politics in Scotland and the UK really have been fascinating, especially these past two years, and I’m glad to have Will to keep me up to date on all the goings-on.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday we will not be recording a show next week. We will be back bright eyed and fluffy tailed on Monday, 7 December. Carrots & Yams! – Arliss

Paris & ISIS – Backgrounder

21 November 2015 (for 16 November show) – I should begin by apologizing for not having posted here this past Monday. My family experienced a serious (and ongoing) family emergency. My husband and I are fine but I’m reading everything I can find on traumatic brain injury so that I can be of assistance to other family members. As we all learned again this week, be it via media or in person, life can be completely and utterly changed in just a moment.

That being said and in the lee of the attacks in Egypt, Beirut and Paris, Will was left to handle the podcast alone with no notice so he soberly took a look at world events and ran our first interview with Middle East expert, Landon Shroder (@landonshroder on Twitter). When we ran it initially, the first part of the interview was on-air and the rest was available only via the Extra Mad (extended) podcast version. This past week Will ran the full interview on-air.

Will also took a moment to pull some rumor weeds out by the roots. Post-Paris attacks separating fact from fiction is essential and something you can be sure will not be the natural default of the GOP.

For anyone who expected me to be talking about taxes in this podcast, since I said I would last week, that IS my topic for the next show. Thanks in advance for sticking with me.

The upcoming show, for 23 November, will be our second interview with Landon. Given the attacks in Egypt, Beirut and Paris, it seemed (sadly) appropriate. ~~Carrots!~~ Escarole!- Arliss

The “U” in “UK,” Fiscal Spending and Iraq Expert, Landon Shroder

26 October 2015 – This week we were fortunate enough to have Landon Shroder (@LandonShroder on Twitter) join us for the interview. Landon spent seven years living in Iraq representing Royal Dutch Shell, the last five of which as Shell’s head of intelligence and assessment. Now he is writing for Vice News and continuing to cover the region as a journalist. Landon gave us an incisive interview for the broadcast show but the podcast version, below, contains the additional Extra Mad portion of the interview and it is exceptional. Truly.

In his block Will covered the new version of crazy in the UK which is so poorly conceived that it may actually lead to the devolution of the UK itself. It’s called English Votes for English Laws or EVEL (pronounced “evil”). You can make of that acronym what you will. I’m going back to do the first of what will be several segments on basic concepts. This week I’m talking about how fiscal policy comes in to being.

Also, in response to multiple requests from loyal fans, we finally found the problem in the RSS feed we had submitted to Stitcher and to iTunes. We have resubmitted the new information and really should be up on those services soon. To tide you over we have also added in an mp3 download button below each podcast player below so that you can grab the full Extra Mad Hopping Mad from there in the meantime. The encouraging thing is that for the first time we had no major technical crisis during the actual recording process. This is a big step and an even bigger relief for us both. I’m celebrating with carrot cake. Carrots to you and yours! – Arliss

Download MP3

Subscribe via RSS