Decodedc

The status of the Supreme Court in American government has ebbed and flowed since the Constitution was ratified. But starting in the 1950s, the Court has had a long and unchallenged reign of extraordinary power and authority as the final guardian of the Constitution. In the sweep of history, this is a great aberration, not the norm. This week on the podcast, Larry Kramer, former Dean of the Stanford Law School and now head of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation says we have largely and regrettably forgotten or disregarded that history. Kramer thinks the Supreme Court is too supreme, that it has too much power. Confirmation fights, such as Merrick Garland now faces, have become so vicious and partisan because the court has so much power and because it is no longer considered legitimate for the other branches to challenge the Supreme Court’s authority and rulings. That, says Kramer, is not what the framers intended and it undermines the system’s democracy – the voice of the people. See omnystudio.com/list

Madeleine Albright describes herself as a late bloomer but boy, has she made something of that late push. After starting her political career as a Senate staffer at the age of 39, Albright went on to the National Security Council, before serving as UN ambassador and the country’s first female secretary of state. On the latest DecodeDC podcast, host Jimmy Williams sits down with the storied stateswoman as she describes her journey and how the she came to find her voice. As someone who’s been through wars overseas and on Capitol Hill, Madeleine Albright offers up her long-view on politics and the world, and what to make of it all. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Superdelegates. Maybe you’ve heard something about them, but might not know how they came to be, how they work, who they are and why they matter. But if you want to make sense of the delegate math in this year’s Democratic contest, you need to understand what a superdelegate is. Bob Shrum was there when superdelegates were created. The long time Democratic operative says if you trace the origins of this uniquely Democratic Party invention, you’ll see a battle between the people and their party where the power to select the nominee for president has swung back and forth and sort of back again. The idea behind the superdelegates is that "they would provide a balancing force in case the voters went off the rails in Democratic primaries and chose somebody the party establishment didn’t like,” Shrum says. On the latest DecodeDC podcast, host Jimmy Williams talks to Shrum about the secret world of super delegates and their potential to cause a train wreck in the Democratic Party. See omnystudio.com/listener for pr

Long ago in South Carolina, an unholy alliance was made to keep the races separate. In the second episode of our two-part series on the politics of race in the Palmetto State, we introduce you to two of the people who keep that pact going. And they hate it. So while all the talking heads and politicians turn their attention to this Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina, listen to our latest episode on the real problem down in Dixie: Race. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Right now, a battle is being waged between Apple and the government over encryption. A federal court has ordered the tech giant to unlock an iPhone used by one of the attackers in the San Bernardino shooting that left 14 people dead. Apple is fighting the order, and a huge public debate is going on about privacy and protection. A few months ago, right after the Paris terrorist attacks, we did a podcast about a Scripps News investigation into encryption. We've decided to repost that episode and take you inside the battle between law enforcement and encryption advocates. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From 2010-2014, more than 200,000 people moved to South Carolina. The South is the fastest growing region of the county but unlike its neighbors, the Palmetto state seems to be stuck in time. South Carolina’s schools rank 43rd in the nation. The median income in South Carolina is $44,000 dollars a year. That's nearly $10,000 dollars less than the national average. Democrats have been hoping that the influx of Latinos and African Americans, combined with the movement of retirees might turn the traditionally red state blue. But the old order has held firm – South Carolina is as Republican as ever. So, for the next two episodes, host Jimmy Williams is taking you to his birth state, where all the political attention is being focused right now because of the presidential primaries, to take a hard look at what’s happening and how race is still playing a predominant role in the politics of the state. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Americans view privacy as a fundamental civil liberty, a right that puts a boundary on what the government can do. Our ‘right to privacy’ has become part of the essential contract Americans make with their government, a system that protects individuals from the government’s ability to intrude into the private sphere. But it wasn’t so long ago that the very idea of a right to privacy, even of a right to one’s own thoughts, wasn’t such a foregone conclusion. This week on the podcast, we take you through a history of the right to privacy, where we got our ideas about privacy - specifically personal privacy - and then how that right to privacy has been applied in famous Supreme Court Cases like Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adams, Bush, Clinton, Kennedy. Somehow the same family names keep popping up in American politics. And that raises the question: Why, in a proudly democratic country, do we wind up with something that doesn’t feel very democratic? This week on the podcast, guest host Michelle Cottle speaks with historian Stephen Hess about our obsession with political dynasties. Hess, whose best seller “America’s Political Dynasties” was recently updated, says we will always have dynasties—but they won’t always be the same. Dynasty might be a dirty word in America but it turns out our politics have been a family business from the start. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beyoncé had it right. Who runs the world? Girls. Just ask Jay Newtown-Small, a Time magazine correspondent and author of the new book, “Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works.” This week on the podcast, Newton-Small speaks with host Jimmy Williams about her experience reporting her book and it’s key takeaway: once women make up between 20 and 30 percent of an institution, they begin to impact and change the way that institution works. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the outside looking in, Brian Sims seems to have it all. He’s young, energetic, well liked, and his political career’s on the rise. After becoming one of the first openly gay college football players in NCAA history, Sims went on to law school and embarked on a career as an LGBT activist before becoming the first openly gay candidate elected to Pennsylvania’s state legislature. Now he’s ready to take the next step: the US. House of Representatives. Is Sims crazy? No one seems to have a kind word or thought about Congress. It’s approval rating hovers around 13 percent and those running for president are actively running against Washington. This week on the podcast, why would someone like Brian Sims - who’s got a good job, good home, community, and reputation - run for Congress? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We thought you might enjoy a look at Scripps News' newest podcast, TrailMix 2016 - a weekly conversation about the state of the campaign. This week’s topics include: Is it time to take Bernie Sanders seriously? What about Bill Clinton and women? Do endorsements make a difference? And, what does Nickelback have to do with the campaign? Join Scripps politics reporter Miranda Green, Daily Beast social media editor Asawin Suebsaeng and Independent Journal politics editor Justin Green for insight, curiosity, a healthy dose of skepticism and some profanity. Oh, and get prepared for a rant. If you enjoy, make sure you subscribe to TrailMix 2016 on iTunes! There are new episodes every Wednesday. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Frimer, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg, teamed up with some other researchers in Canada and Germany and tried to answer this question: Why do the American people seem to hate Congress so much? And what they found was that it’s all about what Congress says, not what it does. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From members of Congress jockeying for the best tv spot, to constant interruptions of applause, the State of the Union address has become a primetime spectacle. On our latest podcast, former Capitol Hill staffer and current lobbyist Steve Moffitt offers up some advice on how to fix the State of the Union. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jimmy Williams is a veteran of Washington, D.C.'s political scene, engaging in nearly every facet of American politics, as a congressional staffer then lobbyist and now, as DecodeDC's new host. Podcasting is new to Jimmy, so he sought ought the advice of some experienced pros, including Gimlet Media CEO and Start-Up host Alex Blumberg , the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis, Adam Davidson, co-founder of Planet Money and co-host of Surprisingly Awesome, and Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers of Pantsuit Politics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a big year in politics - and an even bigger one is on its way. Before we dive into the coming year of campaigns, candidates, and conventions, host Jimmy Williams sits down with DecodeDC's producers and editors to talk about some of our best moments from the last year. From our deep dive into America's prison problem, to our explorations of racist government policies, and even to a Donald Trump rally in Dallas, you'll get some insight into what goes into producing and reporting a DecodeDC story. You'll even hear some bonus material that didn't make the original episodes. So sit back and enjoy a look back at an eventful 2015 before we dive head first into what's sure to be an interesting new year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tis the season of year-end lists – and so we offer our second annual Lie of the Year podcast thanks to our friends from PolitiFact, the fact-checking Website. PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic-Holan talks us through this year’s top 10. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Conservative media has gone through surprising changes in recent years, not that many people outside that orbit have noticed. There is a world of talk radio, podcasts and websites far bigger, a new breed like the commentator Steve Deace, who are more conservative and, surprisingly, more hostile to the Republican party than Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. And they're having a serious influence on Republican lawmakers. On this week's podcast, we speak with Jackie Calmes, a national correspondent for The New York Times, who recently published a study for Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media and Politics and Public Policy called, “’They Don’t Give a Damn about Governing’: Conservative Media’s Influence on the Republican Party.” Calmes, who's covered Congress and the White House since the 1980s, says that the conservative media has influenced the Republicans’ internal battles, especially in the House, far more than generally acknowledged. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today’s political atmosphere of partisan bickering and congressional dysfunction, there’s something reassuring about reflecting on a time when things actually worked on Capitol Hill. On the latest DecodeDC podcast, we’re traveling back to the 1940s to tell you a story about Congress at its very best. It’s a story about a little known senator named Harry Truman and the committee he led that investigated waste, fraud and abuse in the lead up to the United States entering World War II. “It really seemed to be, for this brief moment in history, the work of the Truman committee was about saving money, was about saving lives, and about winning the war, and they did it in a non partisan, or a bipartisan way,” said Steve Drummond, who wrote an essay on the committee and spent months researching its work. The Truman committee remains one example, perhaps a fleeting one, of when members of Congress really did work together across the aisle for a common cause. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on DecodeDC, Dick Meyer and Dr. Anthony King discuss American elections and how they're viewed abroad. King is a British professor of comparative government and the author of "Running Scared: Why America’s Politicians Campaign Too Much and Govern Too Little," He questions some of the fundamental assumptions Americans make about what an election is supposed to look like and how long it should last. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As you sit around the dining room table this week with family and friends, giving thanks and enjoying roasted turkey, creamy mashed potatoes and warm stuffing, here’s something to keep in mind: Some of that food you’re chowing down might have originated in a military lab. Every once in awhile we like to re-run one of our more popular episodes, and this is one of those occasions. Enjoy listening—or re-listening—to our conversation with Anastacia Marx de Salcedo about her book, “Combat Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.