Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for Feb 2, 2016. It’s the Hillary Wins Trump Loses edition, featuring our exclusive interview with Thomas Lifson, Founder, Editor and Publisher of the American Thinker. We also break down the Iowa caucus results and look forward to the New Hampshire Primary. We are nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast.   Note: Media file has been updated to repair audio editing error. 4am Wed Here are our topics:   We have a great conversation about Hillary (He hates her!) Trump (“I’m not gong to pull a National Review on him”) and Marco Rubio (He might be the guy!) with Thomas Lifson of American Thinker. WE talk Iowa and New Hamsphire and the state of American Politics.   Then we say goodbye to Lipson and Mike & Todd riff on the politics of the week – from Iowa to New Hampshire.    We’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem is related to the Iowa caucus and candidates singing “This Land is Your Land.”   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 January 25, 2016. It’s the National Review’s War on Trump edition, featuring our exclusive interview with Bill Kristol. 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 talk to Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol about presidential politics and the National Review’s (NRO) recent anti-trump front page  that included lots of short arguments against Trump from people like Glen Beck, Brent Bozell and Kristol.   We discuss our interview with Bill Kristol and if it’s not a mistake for conservatives to shun Trump given that he’s captured the imaginations of right leaning voters.   We also discuss Sarah Palin’s amazing performance with Trump last week.   We’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem is a Joe Cocker cover of Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman. Why? This week in 1986, Albert Grossman died of a heart attack while flying on Concorde from New York to London. He managed Bob Dylan (between 1962 and 1970), Peter, Paul and Mary, The Band, Janis Joplin and Todd Rundgren. Grossman built the Bearsville Recording Studio near Woodstock in 1969 and in 1970 he founded Bearsville Records.     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 January 19, 2015. It’s the Trump & the Pitbull edition, as Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump in Iowa. We are Nanophysicist Mike Stopa and radio talk host/newspaper editor Todd Feinburg. Find us online at HarvardLunchClub.com, follow us on Twitter @hlcpodcast and please go to iTunes and rate us with lots of stars. Here are our topics: Sarah Palin jumps on the Trump Shuttle with an endorsement in Iowa Tuesday. Does this help Trump. Hurt him, or what? The GOP is helping Bernie Sanders. Could this be bad for Bernie Sanders? The Donald’s New York values go to Virginia to confront Evangelical values, and evangelicals are like everyone else – they’re happy with Trump even when he gets it wrong. WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem comes from Black Oak Arkansas,; who played Kent State this week in 1974. The warm up act was….. 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 January 12, 2016 – It’s the Chauvinist Election Edition of the podcast that features Nano Physicist Mike Stopa and Radio Talk Host Todd Feinburg. This week:   1 – With the first election day nearing, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have the MO! in Iowa and  New Hampshire. Are things tilting anti-establishment on both sides? How much do Dems dislike Hillary? Are Trump’s attacks on Bill Clinton and Ted Cruz impacting?   2 – Did Bernie Sanders make a huge mistake by saying that police should handle campus rape investigations?  We’ll look at analysis of sex on campus and the hookup culture by Heather MacDonald for some answers.   3  – The left says women need to be compensated for making less than men, but some say men need reparations for paying more for everything – with money and their lives.    We’ll have our shower thoughts,   And our Hidden Gem is the latest single from David Bowie, the title track from his final album, BlackStar    

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for January 5, 2015. It’s the Pamela Geller Rocks edition.   Here are our topics:   Pamela Geller, spiritual leader of the war against radical Islam, inspires us with her lucid, educated and insightful analysis of what the enemy is up to, why the left wants to deny the what we’re up against, and what it will take to win. Geller was the organizer of the “Draw the Prophet” cartoon contest in Garland, Texas in May, 2015.    WE’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our Hidden Gem comes from Dire Straights.   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.   ABOUT PAMELA: Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of Atlas Shrugs.com and President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). She is the author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, with Robert Spencer (foreword by Ambassador John Bolton) (Simon & Schuster) and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance (WND Books). She is also a regular columnist for World Net Daily, the American Thinker, Breitbart.com and other publications. Geller’s activism on behalf of human rights has won international notice. She is a foremost defender of the freedom of speech against attempts to force the West to accept Sharia blasphemy laws, and against Sharia self-censorship by Western media outlets.  In May 2013, she was awarded the Guardian of Freedom award by the Nassau County Federation of Republican Women. The Queens Village Republican Club, the oldest Republican club in America, honored Pamela Geller as the “American Patriot of the Year” in February 2013.  Pamela Geller has been the subject of a profile on 60 Minutes, and of cover stories in the Sunday New York Times Metro section and the UK’s Independent. Pamela Geller has broken numerous important stories — notably the questionable and illegal foreign sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign , the anti-Semitic posts on Obama’s website, Obama’s political organizing in public school classrooms, ACORN’s destruction of Republican voter registrations, and many more, but perhaps she is best known for her leadership of the nationwide campaign against the Ground Zero mosque. Pamela Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. Visit pamelageller.com  

Welcome to the HLC Podcast for December 22, 2015. It’s the Trump’s Gotta Be Racist edition Here are our topics: 1) Trump leads by more in online polls than telephone polls. Why? Are you embarrassed to admit that you’re a Trump voter? 2. Bill O’Reilly has the top rated show on cable news for the 14th year in a row. What him so popular, and why for so long? 3. Trump is doing so well in the presidential race, he’s gotta be a racist. That’s what the president thinks, who went on NPR to pull out that canard once again. Does this mean the left is ready to give up? We’ll Share our Shower Thoughts Hidden Gem: We’re skipping due to technical issues. 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 HLCPodcast for December 8, 2015. It’s the Now Trump’s Really Done It edition with special guest Mickey Kaus. Here are our topics:  The firestorm over Donald Trump’s comments on temporarily blocking Muslim’s from entering the country is remarkable. We talk about the politics and the policy idea. The left repeats the claim that there are just a few bad apples in Islam over and over. But is it even vaguely true? Self-described neo-liberal Mickey Kaus, purveyor of Kausfiles.com, joins us to discuss his proposal that the GOP ruling class forget about trying to force immigration reform on the nation. @kausmickey We’ll have our Shower Thoughts, and our… Hidden Gem: This week in 1961 the Beach Boys first single, Surfin’ (a pretty unimpressive little song that you’ve got to hear) was released on a little unknown label and was successful enough to force the group into recording 3 more surfing songs, which were big hits. We bring you Surfin’! 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 Liz Warren Decides Black Lives Matter edition of the HLCPodcast for September 29, 2015. We are Mike Stopa, coming to us today from Sapporo Japan… and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online atharvardlunchclub.com and on twitter @hlcpodcast Today’s Topics: * Liz Warren talks Black Lives Matter, but forgets that Democrats are responsible for institutional racism and that she got to where she is by scamming the system of minority benefits. Here’s the news: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a speech on Sunday in which she drew a direct parallel between the current Black Lives Matter movement and the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, and called for comprehensive reform on every major issue directly affecting the black community: voting rights, the wage gap, policing, predatory lending, and the systemic violence against the black community. 2) Rand Paul attacks Ted Cruz for being a hack. In place of Shower Thoughts, Mike tells us about the nano technology behind his trip to Japan. Today’s Hidden Gem? It’s the Beatles from 1967. Goo Goo Ga Joob!      

Welcome to the to the Ben Carson Refugee edition of the HLC Podcast for Sept 15, 2015. We are Mike Stopa – nanophysicist and former congressional candidate and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, subscribe on itunes or any other podcasting platform. You can also find us on Facebook. Our twitter handle is @hlcpodcast On this week’s podcast  Donald Trump and Ben Carson are in a tight race all of a sudden – the latest national poll showing them at 27 and 23 percent of the vote. What does Carson’s success teach us about the Trump phenomenon? And Sanders too, for that matter. Todd thinks the president’s offer to take 10,000 refugees from Syria is pathetic – and that the US should make room for 100,000. We find out what Stopa has to say.  A Buddhist Monk from Louisiana has a gambling problem, so he embezzeled $150,000 to fund his blackjack. Can Monks be corrupt? We’ll have our shower thoughts… Todd encounters a mother who turns all power over to her son, and Mike talks about life on the battle field. Our Hidden Gem was supposed to come from Wilson Phillips, but it was so gross Todd panicked and threw on some Zep!  

Welcome to the to the NPR NFL TRMP edition of the HLC Podcast for Sept 10, 2015. We are Mike Stopa – nanophysicist and former congressional candidate and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, subscribe on itunes or any other podcasting platform. You can also find us on Facebook. Our twitter handle is @hlcpodcast On this week’s podcast: The NFL goes back to work with Deflategate over and Tom Brady on the field and, labor is claiming this as proof of why workers need unions.  NPR is for liberals. As is CNN, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the LA Times, ABC NBC CBS. Etc. Conservatives have? Fox. We discuss media bias. Trump insults Carly Fiorina by attacking her looks – then says he didn’t. Sounds a lot like a politician. How Trump may self-destruct. We’ll have our shower thoughts… Todd discusses Billie Jean King’s thought that Pressure is a Privilege and Mike shares his drunken conference of physicist conference. Our Hidden Gem comes from the Kinks, who released You Really Got Me in the UK on this date in 1964. It went to #1 inEngland, Number 7 in the US.  

Welcome to the to the Elite Donald Disdain or the General Gau for President edition of the HLC Podcast for Sept 2, 2015. Sorry, we’re a day late due to Todd’s vacay! We are Mike Stopa – nanophysicist and former congressional candidate and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, subscribe on itunes or any other podcasting platform. You can also find us on Facebook. Our twitter handle is @hlcpodcast On this week’s podcast:  A Chinese American complains that the food of her youth, once mocked, is now appreciated, but not the way she wants it to be appreciated. We consider and mock.  Harvard decides students need new gender pronouns to define their gender identities. Ze, hir, and hirs. They certainly deserve some new words for all their educations are costing them! The GOP cognoscenti continues to freak over Trump. What exactly is making them so crazy? We’ll have our shower thoughts…  And our Hidden Gem The song is Steely Dan’s Boddhisatva, which was on the album Countdown to Ecstasy released in July of 1973. We offer it up to get last week’s Steely Dan song dislodged from Todd’s brain – and yours.  

Welcome to the to the Trump Goes Bonkers edition of the HLC Podcast for August 18, 2015. We are Mike Stopa – nanophysicist and former congressional candidate and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, subscribe on itunes or any other podcasting platform. You can also find us on Facebook. Our twitter handle is @hlcpodcast On this week’s podcast Donald Trump gets specific on Immigration- Trump’s Plan Is Identity politics real? Will Will Latinos abandon GOP? Republicans? The rest of the race – what’s happening while we all stare at Donald Trump’s Hair? We’ll have our shower thoughts: Todd discusses vacation spot MaushopVillage, a planned community inside a much larger planned community on Cape Cod called New Seabury, while Mike vacations at a secret Maine location for nanophysicists and their families. Hidden Gem – A tribute to summer from 1963 and a British folk duo called Chad & Jeremy Yesterday’s Gone  

Welcome to the to the Trump Makes Nice edition of the HLC Podcast for August 11, 2015. We are Mike Stopa – nanophysicist and former congressional candidate and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, subscribe on itunes or any other podcasting platform. You can also find us on Facebook. Our twitter handle is @hlcpodcast On this week’s podcast Two part of Trump: Following his normal worst instincts, Donald Trump made a mess of his first debate, then made matters worse on Twitter. But this week, he’s doing a sort of apology tour. Is money in politics America’s big problem? Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig thinks so, and he’s launching a presidential run to make the point. If money is the problem, what’s the solution? Hillary Clinton rolled out her New College Compact, a proposal that seeks to fix the problems caused by government programs by making bigger, less affordable and more destructive programs. We’ll have our shower thoughts… and our Hidden Gem – The greatest rock band ever rehearsed together in London for the first time this week in 1968. We play one of their early live recordings!  

Mike Stopa and Todd Feinburg get together for a special Trump Implodes edition of the podcast to break down last night’s (August 6, 2015) Fox News Republican Debate! Todd thinks the debate hurt Donald Trump alot, Mike is not so sure, but both agree that almost everyone else did pretty well for themselves, except perhaps for Scott Walker or Rand Paul or John Kasich, depending on who you ask.

Welcome to the to the Uber Trump GOP Debate edition of the HLC Podcast for August 4, 2015. We are Mike Stopa – nanophysicist and former congressional candidate and radio talk host Todd Feinburg. Find us online at harvardlunchclub.com, subscribe on itunes or any other podcasting platform. You can also find us on Facebook. Our twitter handle is @hlcpodcast On this week’s podcast:  There is a worldwide war against Uber, the upstart monopoly that controls the ride share economy, which included a one day taxi strike in Cambridge, Mass, a center of the techonology economy (where Harvard and MIT are based!) Who’s right in this debate. There’s chatter about Joe Biden getting into the race for president. If he gets in, will Elizabeth Warren too? Who else? The first GOP presidential debate is Thursday in Cleveland, and it will be hosted by Chris Wallace and broadcast on fox News. We discuss who made the cut, and how will this debate change the race? We’ll have our Shower Thoughts – Todd talks car repair rip-offs and Mike discusses Yo Yo Ma and smelling the roses. Hidden Gem. We  revisit a Troggs song from 1966 that went to number 1 in England but only 29 in the US,  a nice alternative to their number 1 US hit Wild Thing. Troggs Factoid – original band name was The Troglodytes.