The Gist

Updated: 14 Dec 2024 • 2580 episodes
www.mikepesca.com

For thirty minutes each day, Pesca challenges himself and his audience, in a responsibly provocative style, and gets beyond the rigidity and dogma. The Gist is surprising, reasonable, and willing to critique the left, the right, either party, or any idea.

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Each weekend on Best Of The Gist, we revisit an archival segment from the past and pair it with a replay of something from the past week. This weekend, we revisit Mike’s 2018 interview with cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand, who challenges us to think of societies not along the traditional “liberal to conservative”

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Comedian Roy Wood Jr., host of CNN’s Have I Got News for You and former Daily Show correspondent, joins this episode of Funny You Should Mention. We delve into topics like a near-DUI incident in South Dakota, why the police should occasionally let a criminal go free, and the responsibility comedians have to challenge h

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Acts of violence have promoted discussions of self-defense, corporate greed, national healthcare, homeless funding, and political will. The Gist rejects being thrust into that discussion at the point of a gun, but has some insights to offer to the current debate. Plus, the return of Washington Post columnist Shadi Hami

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Shadi Hamid, Washington Post columnist and co-host of the Wisdom Of Crowds podcast, discusses Israel's regard for innocent lives and if the United States would conduct a war in the way the Israelis do. Plus, the island nation of Nauru gets paid off by the Australians not the play footsy with China. And the Syrian navy

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The acquittal of Daniel Penny, who choked a mentally ill homeless man to death on the New York City Subway, ends the criminal exposure of the former Marine. The charge of "lynching" trails him and the incident, however. But Mike argues the term, as applied to this incident, is both ahistorical and less-resonant with th

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In an Assad-free Syria, the population is elated, the rebels have expelled a tyrant, and the region has the breathing room to create a better environment for democratic rule. So why is the foreign policy establishment wringing its hands? And we're joined by two prime-time TV greats, The Office's Brian Baumgartner (he p

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