Podcast Episodes

How U.S. Unions Took Flight (Throwback)

Episode 307

Airline workers — pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, and more — represent a huge cross-section of the country. And for decades, they've used their unions to fight not just for be…

Published on 1 year, 3 months ago

Water in the West

Episode 306

What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number? When the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, it rerouted the Owens River from its natural path through an Eastern California valley…

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

We The People: Canary in the Coal Mine

Episode 305

The Third Amendment. Maybe you've heard it as part of a punchline. It's the one about quartering troops — two words you probably haven't heard side by side since about the late 1700s.

At first glance,…

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

We The People: Equal Protection

Episode 304

The Fourteenth Amendment. Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It's shaped all of our lives, whether we realize it or not: Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, …

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

We The People: Legal Representation

Episode 303

The Sixth Amendment. Most of us take it for granted that if we're ever in court and we can't afford a lawyer, the court will provide one for us. And in fact, the right to an attorney is written into …

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

Tested: Questions of a Physical Nature

In 1966, the governing body of the Olympic track and field event started mandatory examinations of all women athletes. These inspections would come to be known as "nude parades," and if you were a wo…

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

We the People: Gun Rights

Episode 302

The Second Amendment. In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines. The robber, Jack Miller, put forward a novel defense: that…

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

We The People: Free Speech

Episode 301

The First Amendment. Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, a…

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

The Creeping Coup

Episode 300

Sudan has been at the center of a deadly and brutal war for over a year. It's the site of the world's largest hunger crisis, and the world's largest displacement crisis.

On the surface, it's a story a…

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

The Roots of Poverty in America

Episode 299

The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet over 10 percent of people – nearly 40 million – live in poverty. It's something we see, say, if we live near a tent encampment. …

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago