Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for May 17, 2016. It’s the World’s Biggest Liar edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Here are our topics: 1) We discuss “This bathroom business,” as Mike puts it. Who should be able to use which bathroom and who should be upset about it. 2. Hillary uses a fake southern accent and pretends she didn’t show blatant disregard for confidential documents, Trump says he didn’t pretend to be Donald Trump even though he admitted to it in deposition. Who is the world’s biggest liar? 3. All of sudden, the TSA can’t keep up. What’s going on? WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, for our Hidden Gem – we skip it for this week because Todd has a cold and wants to finish up and start chugging NyQuil, the Wonder Drug? Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for May 10, 2016. It’s the Does Demography Trump Trump? edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Here are our topics: 1) The GOP power structure is splitting over Trump. Why are they still resisting? * Mike has encountered some business people who have arguments he finds compelling about why we can’t crack down on illegal immigration. We discuss. * We keep hearing how demographics are more powerful that Trump. Yet Donald keeps doing his thing, which includes “doubling down” on Muslims and the border, and he keeps offending women. Is there a method to his madness? WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem goes to Louis Armstrong, who became the oldest man to have his first number 1 single with Hello Dolly this week in 1964. Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for May 3, 2016. It’s the Lyin’ Ted is Dead edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Here are our topics: 1) Why was Mike’s brilliant spoof of the National Review’s stop Trump edition – “National Review to Endorse Hillary?” refused by his Ricochet partners but embraced by American Thinker? 2) With Trump’s victory in Indiana– or was it a Cruz victory – what happens next in the presidential race? 3) Herb London, co-author of the Encyclopedia of Militant Islam joins us to talk ISLAM and why he’s part of the Never Trump movement. WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem goes to Paul McCartney and a song from the Beatles’ White Album after Paul’s recent meeting with two women from the Little Rock Nine. Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook. @toddtalk #mikestopaMA

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for April 26, 2016. It’s the Dirty Harriet: Make My Day edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Here are our topics:   1) Big Breasts. Do women like them as much as men? Do men actually like them as much as they say?   2. What’s behind the “Tubman on the Twenty” movement? And why are some Democrats upset about her as a choice?   3. Kasich and Cruz join together to Stop Trump. Or do they? WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem we offer some variety for those tired of hearing Me & Mrs. Jones so much following the death of Billy Paul – I Think I’ll Stay Home Today.   Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for April 19, 2016. It’s the Trump Bandwagon’s Coming edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Here are our topics: 1) Should Georgetown University pay reparations for selling 272 slaves nearly 180 years ago?   2. The farce of Equal Pay for women – we explain why the constant claim that women are paid 79 cents on the dollar is simply untrue.   3. Will everyone cave and support Trump in the end? If Megyn and Roger and Karl can do it, why not everyone? WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem we go to Pink Floyd, whose Dark Side of the Moon went gold this week in 1973, having been released on 3/1/73.   Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.  

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for April 12, 2016. It’s The “Trump/Cruz Ticket” edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Here are our topics:   1) Mike wrote a very nice piece on Ricochet arguing that the GOP will turn to a Trump/Cruz ticket. And too be fair, others are suggesting the same outcome could happen. While it could happen, Todd says only at the point of a gun.   2. There is a difference in life expectancy between rich and poor people in the U.S. Maybe that’s why people prefer being rich. We break it down.   3. Mike, being a nanophysicist, will tell us about new water desalination nanotechnology. Todd will dispute most of his conclusions, no matter how sound.   WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem, we play a song from R&B singer Joss Stone, born this week in 1967, called Right to be Wrong.   Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for April 5, 2016. It’s the Trump’s Abortion edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online atharvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Here are our topics: 1) Last week, Trump’s War on Women escalated into a spontaneous, unsophisticated statement on abortion when the Donald told Chris Matthews he thinks a woman should be punished for having an abortion.  Does this hurt Trump, help him, or, maybe, start a death plunge that can’t be pulled out of? 2) Laws that will move the minimum wage to $15 an hour – eventually – are becoming law in states like New York and California. Isn’t this bad policy that really is a confession from the left that their education system is failing, their anti-poverty programs are permanent poverty programs and the Obama years are ones of economic malaise. 3) Are we suckers for manipulation because of the primitive effect of fear? We’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem, we remember that little band called the Beatles, who in this week in 1964 held the top five spots on the billboard charts with Can’t Buy Me Love at number 1. They had a total of 14 singles on the top 100. Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Mar 29, 2016. It’s “Is Trump Too Stupid to be President?” edition featuring Emily Bazelon of the Slate Gabfest and the New York Times Magazine who is also a fellow at Yale Law. Emily is an expert on the Supreme Court. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Here are our topics:   1) A recent United Nations report on Happiness shows that the United States is the 13th happiest country of the 157 nations rated. Does this mean anything? We discuss the nature of happiness and the nature of dumb-ass ratings and the nefarious plots of the internationalists.   2) Is Donald Trump too stupid to be president? Some of the things he has to say, like in his sit-down with the Washington Post last week, lead some to believe that’s the case. We try to figure out how dumb, or otherwise, he is.   3) Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine and the Slate Gabfest podcast joins us to discuss Trump’s ideas on banning Muslim immigrants and the nomination ofGarland to the Supreme Court. Fun to talk to E-Baz in person. We’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and for our Hidden Gem we pay tribute to the senior citizens who just went to Cuba to perform for old folks like Fidel and Raul… the Rolling Stones with Mother’s Little Helper.  Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @HLCpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Mar 21, 2016. It’s War on Trump edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Here are our topics:   1) Should Stopa and Feinburg join the War on Trump? Conservative Rob Long is here to convince us that we should. Rob is the co-founder of the conservative website Ricochet and is a host on the Ricochet podcast, he is a contributing writer for National Review as well as other esteemed organizations, and he is a Hollywood tycoon who was executive producer for the TV show Cheers.   2) The president has broken the embargo and gone to visit the spiritual center of the American left – Cuba. How has the world been changed?   3) What’s up with Trump and women? Some are suggesting that his apparent obsession with Megyn Kelly is a sign of deeper emotional issues. We ponder the idea.    We’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and out of respect for Rob Long, we turn today’s Hidden Gem over to the theme from Cheers.   Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

It Tuesday, Super-Tuesday Two, and a chance for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders voters to slap down the election riggers on the right and left. We discuss the results – great ones for Trump, bad ones for Bernie Sanders.  It’s the Super Tuesday: Ides of Trump edition of the #HLCpodcast for Wednesday, March 16, 2016. We are Nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Tuesday was a big night for Donald Trump, but not the maximum night, as John Kasich won Ohio, and Missouri looks like a victory, but only by a hair. Nevertheless, Trump is clearly the thing his party wanted least – a dominant candidate who has vanquished all the opposition. Bernie Sanders meanwhile got crushed – losing all 5 primaries to Hillary. Bummer. In Chicago on Friday, Donald Trump decided not to go ahead with his rally after a swarm of left-wing protesters, who’d been organizing for weeks, attacked the event with the goal of shutting it down. Is this what they call a win-win?   We’ll have our Shower Thoughts… and then wrap up with our… Hidden Gem: We’ll honor Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer who died this week at age 71, reportedly of a suicide.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Mar 7, 2016. It’s the Has Trump Been KKK-Oed edition. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Follow Mike @MikeStopaMA or Todd @toddtalk.   Here are our topics:   1) Cruz wins a split with Trump on Super-Saturday. After a less than expected Super Tuesday for Trump, we discuss if something has changed, has the tide turned against Donald? Especially after Mitt’s attacks this last week.   2) Hillary, the Love Machine. Hillary wants to make America a land of Love & Understanding. Todd says this shows how the culture wars really come down to a battle over whether we are a masculine or feminine culture. Mike has a different theory.   3) Is Islam compatibel with life in the United States. On the planet. Stopa has an axe to grind with Sharia.   WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem pays tribute to Hillary via Elvis Costello’s “What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding?”   Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Feb 29, 2016. It’s the Trump’s Got to Improve edition. Todd feels that Trump has shown a vulnerability for being oblivious to matters of policy, which hasn’t mattered in the primaries but will destroy him in the general if he isn’t ready to study. But will the guy who has survived on gut instincts for his entire adult life be ready to do the work to evolve from a brute force candidate to one of finesse? Isn’t this what it will take to beat Hillary? We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Here are our topics:   1) Hillary gets 84% of the black vote. Why are blacks, the voting block most failed by their elected officials, not share the sense of voter anger that drives the Feel the Bern and Trump movements?   2) Apple gets backup from Microsoft, Facebook and Bill Gates, plus word that this is not just a single phone that law enforcement wants to break into. Obviously. They want them all. Stopa is with the FBI, Todd is with the Founders.   3) Trump gets another endorsement, from Alabama Sen Jeff Sessions, but Mike & Todd discuss the possibility that Trump’s lack of interest and knowledge about the most superficial of political events – consider him getting stumped on the David Duke/KKK question, or not knowing what the Individual Mandate is – makes him a vulnerable candidate in the general election. What if he’s so used to shouting people down that he’s not prepared to do the work necessary to not be humiliated by Hillary the Wall Street Shark?   WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem pays tribute to Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill with You Oughta Know, which won a best song grammy twenty years ago this week.     Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Feb 22, 2016. It’s the Trump Vs Hillary edition. After Hillary’s win Saturday over Bernie Sanders in Nevada and Trump’s win in South Carolina, both are the likely nominees of their parties. But how inevitable are they? We’ll also talk about an odd comment from Jeb Bush and why some Republicans get so freaked over the idea of Trump as the nominee. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Here are our topics: 1) reaction to Hillary and Trump wins 2) We discuss a weird, ominous comment from the Jeb Bush concession/leaving the race speech. 3) The unhinged Republican establishment.   WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem is a further tribute to David Bowie, whose Young Americans single was released this week in 1975. It was the first song to reach number one posthumously. Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Feb 15, 2016. It’s the Are Trump & Scalia Both Dead? edition. We discuss the death of Justice Scalia, the angry attack on Jeb Bush by Donald Trump in Saturday’s debate along with his anti-Iraq war stance, and the failure of the chick card. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast. Here are our topics: We discuss the death of Antonin Scalia and it’s implications for the presidential race. The South Carolina primary is next for the GOP, with a vote next Saturday. We discuss the South Carolina debate last Saturday, including Trumps hostility toward the Iraq War and anger at Jeb Bush Maureen Dowd’s column from this weekend talks about Hillary’s assumption that she’d get the girl vote. What happened? WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem is related to the appearance of Frank Zappa on Miami Vice in 1986. We play his song Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter – @hlcpodcast. Go to iTunes and tell them how much you love us. We’re also on Facebook.

Welcome to the HCL Podcast for February 10, 2016 – It’s the “Trump Feels the Bern” edition, recorded the morning after the incredible New Hampshire Primary. We are Mike Stopa and Todd Feinburg, and we break down the big wins of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, and see if we can figure out what happens next. Join us, alright? Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, follow us on twitter @hclpodcast!!!