This is Sarah Stewart Holland and this is Beth Silverce.

Thank you for joining us for Pantsew Politics.

Welcome to Pantsew Politics where we try to take a different approach to the news.

A lot going on right now.

Tonight, President Biden will give his state of the Union address.

We'll process that together on Friday's episode.

As we're recording, we're learning about the devastating earthquakes that have caused

many deaths and so much suffering in Turkey and Syria and our hearts are with everyone

who is affected will continue to monitor the consequences of those earthquakes.

Today, we are going to talk about the Chinese surveillance balloon that was spotted in Montana

and destroyed off the coast of Myrtle Beach as one commoner on the internet observed the

most Myrtle Beach thing ever.

And then with Super Bowl Sunday coming up, we ask Ken Vogel the New York Times to talk

with us about his reporting on sports betting.

Even if you don't care at all about gambling on sports, I think this conversation reveals

so much about how our government works and about where the courts and Congress and state

legislators and lobbyists come in.

So we hope that you find it as fascinating as we did.

And then after we talk with Ken, we will share as we always do what's on our mind outside

of politics.

And today, that is finding some rest over the weekend somewhere in a kind of a structured way.

I do want to put a public service announcement out there around our conversation around sports

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