The Gist

Birgitta Jónsdóttir has an unusual background for a politician: she’s a poet and a free speech activist. Since 2013, she’s been a member of the Icelandic parliament representing the anti-establishment Pirate Party. Jónsdóttir talks to Mike about what it’s like to work within a fledgling political party and why she’s disappointed with what Wikileaks has become. In the Spiel, how not to respond to a terrorist attack.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Was Dr. Seuss racist? Or did his books just not age well? And what is the appropriate response to a canonical work that seems to be littered with racially charged depictions? Philip Nel takes on all these questions and poses some more of his own in his latest book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black? In the Spiel, what if the office of the presidency were leveraged for the sake of constant distraction? We are finding out.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can you be scared to death? Can your hair go white from fear? This sounds like a job for “Is That Bullshit?” with Maria Konnikova, our favorite BS detector. Konnikova writes for the New Yorker and is the author of The Confidence Game.  In the Spiel, the never-ending baseball game and a bothersome T-Mobile ad.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has rolled out the kind of marijuana legalization bill progressives love to fawn over and libertarians love to ridicule. The plan would pressure states to legalize marijuana by withholding federal money. Booker cedes that the bill’s passage doesn’t seem imminent, but he likens marijuana legalization to gay marriage, another proposal that saw a rapid surge in popular support: “I’m believing in—I’m claiming a sea change coming in the future.” In the Spiel, what is justice for Bowe Bergdahl? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Talking about sex makes some people squirm. For everyone else there’s Guys We Fucked, a podcast hosted by Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson that started off as a series of interviews with their old partners. Now it’s more of a coffee klatsch between two raunchy feminists.Their new book is F*cked: Being Sexually Explorative and Self-Confident in a World That’s Screwed. And in the Spiel, Bannon, Bulgarian mutiny, and beluga whales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jacob Weisberg says the Clinton campaign’s links to the Steele dossier matters, but not as much as the veracity of the oppo research itself. Weisberg is host of Trumpcast and editor in chief of the Slate Group. In the Spiel, the death of Fats Domino. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shareholder returns aren’t the only barometer of CEO success anymore, or else Jeff Bezos would be on top. In recent years, sustainability and diversity have gained importance—and in those areas, European CEOs are lapping their American competitors. Adi Ignatius, editor in chief of the Harvard Business Review, joins us to discuss the metrics for CEO success and how businesses struggle to diversify. The Harvard Business Review just published its rankings of the best-performing CEOs in the world of 2017. And a discursive Spiel about President Trump’s chances of passing tax reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kathleen Horan writes obituaries for the living. Her Audible original series, Mortal City, is an anthology of lesser-known New York characters: Douglas the sanitation worker, Serge the barman, Rocky the ambulance commandant. “I just kept feeling like there were people that I was missing,” says Horan. She prefers to talk to people who live and work on the city’s margins: “They just can’t help but show you higher up on the thigh of their story.” In the Spiel, the latest page in the very long scrapbook on President Trump’s communication catastrophes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Marc Maron says he “didn’t know anything about anything” when he began working in radio. But producer Brendan McDonald can tell you the moment he knew Maron could be a radio star. It was during a morning show on the ill-fated Air America network, and then-host Maron was ranting about overcooked lentils. “The phones lit up,” said McDonald. The two went on to create WTF With Marc Maron, the podcast now known for intense interviews with comedians, many of whom Maron quarreled with in the past. Maron’s latest book, Waiting for the Punch, is a collection of interview excerpts. In the Spiel, a few things Mike doesn’t understand about other people.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some national flags are created to unify nations, but others are simply based on myths. The Danes believe God threw theirs from heaven, and the Catalonians tell the story of a severed arm dragged across a shield. Vexilloligist and author Tim Marshall joins us to explain these myths and the complex politics of national flags. Marshall’s new book is A Flag Worth Dying For. In the Spiel, a right-wing provocateur provokes often, but not well.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If the roulette wheel keeps stopping on green, it’s bound to stop on red soon, right? It must be time for another round of “Is That Bullshit?” Maria Konnikova returns to debunk our ideas about probability and gambling. Konnikova writes for the New Yorker and is the author of The Confidence Game.   In the Spiel, the Russian connection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thought-leaders build careers out of TED talks, inspirational quotes, and branded products. Dexter Guff is a big player in that space, teaching his listeners how to crush it every day. But Dexter Guff is not a real guy. His podcast, Dexter Guff Is Smarter Than You, is a satirical show starring actor Peter Oldring. Oldring explains the origins of the Dexter Guff character and the difficulties of executing dry humor. In the Spiel, Slate contributor Seth Stevenson sizes up Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can’t get away from Obamacare news, and with each repeal effort there are familiar, wild-eyed claims from the law’s supporters and detractors. Will chipping away at the Affordable Care Act cause people to die? Did the health care law “bend” the cost curve? Did your taxes go up to pay for healthcare for the poor and the sick? Mike interrogates some of these pronouncements with Vox’s Sarah Kliff. Listen to her new weekly podcast, Impact. Pitchforks down, please: a Spiel about why New York Times op-ed columnist Mayim Bialik isn’t a monster.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why did it take years of reporting before any news organizations could nail down the Harvey Weinstein story? NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik says previously, the allegations received only “twilight” coverage. He considers why NBC might have whiffed on the Weinstein story, and how the network’s hard pass is being recast in conservative circles. Folkenflik is the author of Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires.  In the Spiel, who was the star of the New York City mayoral debate? It wasn’t Oxford-style discourse.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does it mean to be Muslim in the U.S. right now? Slate’s Aymann Ismail set out to understand, interviewing the founder of right-wing website Gateway Pundit, a former Muslim extremist, and his own family members, among others. What Aymann has learned so far has surprised him. His Slate video series is “Who’s Afraid of Aymann Ismail?”  In the Spiel, jokes didn’t take down Harvey Weinstein.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Things are looking bleak in Oklahoma. Low taxes and slashed state spending mean schools, prisons, and even the state capitol building itself are failing. Russell Cobb, a native Okie, explains how his home state came to be so screwed up.  In the Spiel, what’s so wrong with a gun registry?   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Comedian Jason Kravits can write a Broadway hit, on the spot. That’s the premise of his improv cabaret show, where he invents tunes based on audience suggestions, such as “Yom Kippur” or “a Victorian sewer.” The show, Off the Top, is on the second Saturday of every month at the Duplex in Manhattan. His next show is Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. In the Spiel, the Environmental Protection Agency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Masha Gessen returns to The Gist, this time to talk about her latest work, The Future Is History. Gessen uses the book to examine the ways in which post-Soviet Russia failed to process the traumas of totalitarianism. In failing to reckon with its past, did Russia doom itself to a bleak future?  In the Spiel, the dearth of details in the Trump administration’s tax plan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we learned that Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted swing states during the 2016 election. Initially hesitant about sharing information with the government, Facebook finally gave in to avoid a deeper discussion on regulation, but tech companies have grown so big that it might be time for the government to step in. Journalist Franklin Foer explains how tech has become so powerful, and why it’s essential to be skeptical of technological innovation. Foer’s new book is World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech. In the Spiel, gun-control regulations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Has the military become more tolerant of collateral damage under President Trump? Why are there no good military options in North Korea? And who does it hurt when the president goes off-script about Kim Jong-un? Retired Maj. Gen. James “Spider” Marks has the answers.  In the Spiel, the cost of paying constant attention to the president’s myriad sins and insults. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices