The Podcast list

I cranked this out as a "filler" post, while I keep working on a few posts I have in queue.  I thought it might be fun and interesting to see what podcasts I listen to regularly, for news/current events and analysis.  I don't listen to every episode - that would be way too time-consuming - but these are the ones I listen to most often.  So, in no particular order, here they are.

• Deep State Radio is a twice-a-week roundtable discussion of significant political events.  The show's four regulars consist of two journalists (one from the Washington Post and the other from the New York Times), and a pair of academics.  There's also a steady series of guest commentators popping in and out.  Bonus points for the clever show name, too.
• Congressional Dish is a one-woman weekly podcast.  Jen Briney, the host, puts a lot of research into every episode.  I agree with 80-90% of what she says, depending on the episode, and I really commend her for producing a podcast that delivers a lot of useful information about Congressional bills that may affect all of us.
• Common Sense is a unique animal.  The host, (Dan Carlin, someone I've mentioned on the blog before)  is a self-described "political martian", but while his ideas are outside the mainstream, they're not really that farfetched.  Dan likes to take the long view, as in envisioning what things will look like if current trends continue for years or decades; and he's also a big history buff, so he's usually quick to say "Hey, we've done something like this before, and it didn't really work out well." He's a bit slow in getting out new episodes because his audio engineer is always sick (inside joke for people who remember the early episodes), but the wait is worth it.  EDIT (10/14): I just wanted to add a short postscript to this bullet point.  Since I published this post, I've learned that Dan Carlin will probably be discontinuing Common Sense - almost certainly for the short-term, and maybe even indefinitely.  This means we could be losing a popular political commentator with a unique perspective, and that's a huge loss.
• Ken Rudin's Political Junkie also comes out weekly, and is filled with arcane and obscure bits of trivia.  It usually compares current events to analogous historical events.  I think it's a bit dry and too technical even for political wonks like me, but it's good for looking at current events under a microscope.
• Left, Right, and Center is another weekly podcast, and it uses the roundtable discussion format as well.  You probably guessed from the title, but this podcast features discussions from people representing opposite ends of the political spectrum, as well as a centrist thrown in to keep things interesting.  It seems to have gotten livelier over the past few years, and maybe a bit more contentious or polarized (I thought a shouting match was going to break out two weeks ago), but the participants still manage to have thought-provoking debates. 
• FiveThirtyEight is another excellent podcast.  Nate Silver and his crew have lost a step since correctly predicting the 2012 election, but they're still very well-informed and insightful.  I only started listening to this one over the summer, but have been listening more often in the last month or so.

Those are the Big 6.  I'd also like to give honorable mentions to Arms Control Wonk, NPR Politics, Vox's The Weeds, and Power, Politics, and Preventive Action.  I listen to the first three sporadically, and the last one is kind of a weird podcast.  It released twenty episodes on July 20th & 21st, and hasn't released a new episode since.  It's content is dated, but still worth a listen.

All these podcasts are on iTunes, by the way.  Okay, that's a quick and easy post until my next one comes out (hopefully in a day or two.)