The Political Orphanage

Updated: 20 Nov 2025 • 595 episodes
www.mightyheaton.com

Politics minus bile plus jokes. Comedian and avowed independent Andrew Heaton interviews authors and thought leaders about policy and big thinky stuff.

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20 Nov 2025 • EN

Cash for Kidneys

Thousands of people need kidneys, right now. They are either on the precipice of death, or suffering through dialysis and low quality of life. Jeremiah Johnson of the New Liberal Podcast joins to discuss the End Kidney Deaths Act, introduced to the House by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, and Democratic

73 min
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Tim Sandefur joins to discuss individualism in American culture. In this fun (but weird) conversation, we go through zombie shows, Westerns, and Star Trek, while invoking Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Epicurus, the Stoics, Plato and Aristotle. He is the author of the new book "You Don't Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Lib

55 min
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05 Nov 2025 • EN

SHUTDOWN: The Musical

Theater critic Clive Kripson of BBC Bolton joins to review "Shutdown: The Musical" in what is now the longest-running revival of the landmark Broadway favorite.

49 min
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Legal and geographic quirks sometimes create "Terra Nullius"—land which no sovereign nation lays claim to. Literally, No Man's Land. In this weird geographic episode, we explore: Iceland, the Oklahoma Panhandle, Kowloon Walled City, Liberland, and the Kingdom of North Sudan.

51 min
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Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton offered two contrasting visions of what America should be and how the Constitution applies to it. Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar and the President of the National Constitution Center. He's the author "The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle

80 min
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Can comedians ethically perform standup for a despotic regime without endorsing it? Recently the Riyadh Comedy Festival invited furor when some comics schlepped to Saudi Arabia to perform–at great expense–while others declined in protest of supporting human rights abuses. Turner Sparks and Michael Ira Kaplan join to di

67 min
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