Political Gabfest - Empty Notepad
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2020
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emily, John and David discuss Barrett’s confirmation hearings; the First Amendment and disinformation; and the latest election machinations.
Here are some references from this week’s show:
Emily Bazelon for the New York Times: “The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation”
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore
The New York Times interactive: “How To Vote”
“Better Know A Ballot: Stephen Colbert's State-By-State Guide To Voting In The 2020 Election”
Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:
Emily: Angela Morris for Texas Lawyer: “Chief Justice's Election Bid Puts Spotlight on Texas' Mandatory Judicial Retirement”; Shtisel
John: “Learning in War-Time” by C. S. Lewis; Antonia Cundy for the Financial Times: “What Would a City Designed by Women Look Like?”; McDonald & Dodds
David: Dan Goodspeed’s data visualization of COVID cases state-by-state by date; Fighting With My Family; Ted Lasso
Listener chatter from Kevin O'Donnell @kevinodIRL: Patrick Blanchfield for The New Republic “The Town That Went Feral”
Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on the Gabfest each week, and access to special bonus episodes throughout the year. Sign up now to listen and support our show.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily, David, and John discuss their voting plans.
You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.
Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for October 15th, 2020, the Empty Notepad Edition. |
| 0:13.7 | I'm David Plotz. I am no one's pawn. I am joined from New Haven, Connecticut, the pawn of the New York Times Magazine and Yale |
| 0:23.4 | University Law School by Emily Bazelon. |
| 0:26.2 | Hello, pawn. |
| 0:27.1 | So when is it ever acceptable to say, yes, I'm someone's pawn? |
| 0:31.7 | Like, that's never, you never say, like, yeah, exactly. |
| 0:35.4 | Like, I mean, even with one's children, one would feel embarrassed to be like, yes, I am my children's |
| 0:40.9 | pawn. |
| 0:41.4 | Well, your children are your pawn, I think. |
| 0:44.2 | No, I think at this point, that's not true anymore. |
| 0:46.7 | And then from New York, definitely the pawn of Anne Dickerson is John Dickerson of CBS's |
| 0:53.0 | 60 minutes. |
| 0:59.1 | Hello, John. I won't, yes. I'm, I would, yeah, hi. |
| 1:09.5 | I was, there's, there's a, there's a pawn pun, uh, but I am can't be put upon to figure out what it is. So that's what caused my hiccup there. |
| 1:13.0 | Your Ponzi scheme. |
| 1:14.7 | On today's Gab Fest, Amy Coney-Barritt, again, also no-one's pawn, is racing, racing, |
| 1:20.2 | through her hearings on the way to her inevitable life tenure on the Supreme Court. |
| 1:24.8 | What have we learned about her? |
| 1:26.3 | What have we learned about our country? |
| 1:29.0 | What do these Potemkin hearings mean? Then the First Amendment, the Great Amendment, or is it a |
| 1:36.8 | great amendment? Emily Bazelon right here has a remarkable essay in the New York Times magazine this |
| 1:43.0 | week about how rampant disinformation |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.