Taking Ship

The whole damn crew reunites to talk about how the UK elected a failed muppet as prime minister and what that means for_____ (you decide). With a swift shift, the crew calls out which fictional characters are Trump voters (you'll be surprised) and then - believe it or not - offering a take on current events, the crew of Salty Jason's Revenge offers thoughts on the five+ hours of hearings former FBI Director Mueller will be sitting through tomorrow (July 24th). PLUS at least one of the crew sounds like they're talking from a toilet stall. 

Frank Spring and Elie Jacobs take on the challenge of containing the wit and wisdom of Deadspin's David Roth to one podcast and fail miserably as they begin by appropriately tearing apart the very idea of NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio running for president before horrifically turning to a very technical conversation attempting to talk about today's NBA in terms of the 1990s. Thankfully no grunge was involved, although Roth was wearing plaid. 

THIS. This is what happens when Maggie Moore leaves us to our own devices.

Link here to the deep cut on Abdul Rauf's 50 point game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntvlsn7SMWo 

We're retooling our format a bit and introducing these mini "emergency" episodes, which you can expect to see relatively - for us - frequently. The impetus for this episode WAS the expected launch announcement of Joe Biden presidential campaign. That has apparently been pushed off yet again. So since we already had this on our schedules, we decided to yammer about some other stuff too.

Please be sure to subscribe and rate us, and follow us on Twitter at @TakingShip.

We mention this article in the episode: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/opinion/theres-a-bigger-prize-than-impeachment.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top 

Between schedules and Mayor Pete's launch announcement (and we guess Eric Swalwell's announcement too?) the mighty crew of Salty Jason's Revenge couldn't record a new episode, so we're reposting an episode with one of our all-time favorite guests: Chris Frates.

Chris Frates has spent his life telling stories. One of Washington’s top journalists, he has been on the front lines of the country’s biggest political and policy battles. A veteran journalist with 20 years of experience, Frates has worked at the highest levels of print, digital, radio and television.

Before founding Storyline, Frates was an award-winning on-air investigative correspondent for CNN. He also worked as a reporter for Politico, National Journal and The Denver Post, where he was part of the breaking news team that was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.

His work has appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic and Fast Company and his political analysis has been featured on networks including CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC.

Frates hosts the weekly, national SiriusXM radio show Politics Inside Out, which is broadcast to more than 30 million subscribers.

The entire crew is back aboard Salty Jason's Revenge. Maggie, Frank and Elie talk Brexit, and an update on the 2020 Democratic field of dreams. You wanna listen. You know you want to and get several of your friends to listen to.

Sans Frank, who's positioning himself to be the next PM of the UK and finally straighten out Brexit, Maggie and Elie do the impossible and go a full 30+ minutes without talking politics. It's a refreshing change for all of us aboard the Salty Jason's Revenge cruising through Dumbest Timeline America. Take a listen. Leave a review! Follow us on the Twitters:

@takingship

Maggie: @MaggieM012

Frank: @frankspring

Elie: @eliejacobs

Frank Spring and Maggie Moore are joined by the incredible Julie Zebrak, who served in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1997-2015, including as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General and agency counsel for the Criminal Division. From 2015-2016, she served as Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. We dig into how to get away with financial crimes, organizing for a candidate you love, and the reports around Amy Klobuchar. Follow her on Twitter @YesMomsCan.

Maggie and Frank discuss the latest in 2020 candidates coming and going, as well as digging into the reality TV level drama happening in UK Labour Party politics. 

Colin Kaepernick settled, Bob Kraft got in deep doodoo and this week may set the record for most dumb things in DumbestTimelineAmerica, so for all you sports ball fans out there, we're reposting our episode from March 2018 with David Roth. Also we go hella deep on politics. It's a good one. You should listen.

With Frank Spring possibly trying to fashion an axle out of guano, an iPhone charging cord and the wrapper from a rest stop microwavable burrito, Maggie Moore and Elie Jacobs celebrate National "Good Day" Day by speculating wildly (some may say irresponsibly) about the shutdown and then play everyone's favorite parlor game: "Who should play the democratic presidential candidates on SNL". 

Articles mentioned:

Buzzfeed: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation 

Special Counsel response: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/inside-the-mueller-teams-decision-to-dispute-buzzfeeds-explosive-story-on-trump-and-cohen/2019/01/19/d89dba5b-fa0f-445b-9fd3-72f0e911e28d_story.html?utm_term=.1a1678876087 

Kodiak, Alaska: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/us/politics/coast-guard-government-shutdown.html

Elizabeth (not Nancy) Drew: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/opinion/trump-impeachment-resign-drew.html

Taking the week off the high seas, the crew of Salty Jason's Revenge decided to repost an old interview with one of our incredible guests: Chris Lu.

Chris is currently a Practitioner Senior Fellow at the Miller Center and has been:

• Deputy secretary of labor in the Obama Administration
• White House cabinet secretary and assistant to President Obama
• Executive director, Obama-Biden Transition Project
• Deputy chief counsel, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Together for the last voyage of 2018, Frank, Maggie and Elie put forth their nominations for dumbest thing, dumbest person and dumbest enterprise in the year of our lord 2018. This year lasted so long, we've all aged multiples of what was though to be physically possible. Remember the torture device in The Princess Bride? Yea... kinda like that. 

Anywho, tweet back at us @takingship to give us your nominees. The only prize is the end of 2018 and the start of what is surely going to be an even dumber 2019.