5 April 2026
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Oct 1, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Reconstructing Pelosi’s infrastructure dealmaking
- Does Biden actually need both infrastructure bills to pass?
- Time for some game theory (to explain infrastructure negotiations)
- Positive pandemic news: Declining US case rates, Merck’s new drug
- Is Havana Syndrome real?
- Mickey: We should have empathy for whites who fear being replaced by foreigners
- What the Guinean coup shows us about the GWOT
- Was there political motivation behind the botched Kabul drone strike?
- Why were there 12,000 Haitians in Del Rio, Texas?
- Parrot Room preview: The demise of Ozy, Mickey’s stolen joke, a The Best and the Brightest anecdote, Mickey’s bad newsletter advice, why Bob doesn’t like Tommy Vietor, Bob explains why Mickey triggered him last week, a nominee for a Parrot Room guest, the mystery of the cloned horse, and the legal definition of “reckless disregard”
Sep 28, 2021 —
The Age of Secular Gurus (Robert Wright, Matthew Browne, and Christopher Kavanagh)
- Matt and Chris’s podcast, Decoding the Gurus
- What makes a guru a guru?
- Are we living in an age of secular gurus?
- Chris: I have an issue with “unevenly applied” skepticism
- Scott Adams’s selectively “pro-science” stance
- Eric and Bret Weinstein’s grievance-based worldviews
- Is self-aggrandizement a Weinstein family trait?
- The sinister forces supposedly closing in on Eric Weinstein
- Does social media’s emphasis on “followers” encourage the creation of gurus?
Sep 24, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Pelosi preps for infrastructure vote with trouble all around
- The cost of zero sum politics: the wrath of the voters
- Throwing Biden into the ash heap of history
- What do Manchin & Sinema really want?
- Is Mickey feeling schadenfreude over Biden’s Haitian immigrant debacle?
- Bob worries that Biden seems vibrant enough to run for re-election
- Is America heading toward a cold war with China?
- What Bob Woodward’s version of the Mark Milley story missed
- Mickey no longer sure Rocking the Casbah in Saudi was a good idea
- Mickey vs Bob on Ezra Klein’s supply-side progressivism column
- Quick covid update
- Hunter Biden in the Parrot Room
Sep 17, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Mickey proposes a parking garage-based theory of everything
- Bob’s plan for passing Biden’s “soft infrastructure” bill
- Mickey does some Monday morning quarterbacking for Larry Elder
- Bob’s near-death experience with British food
- Was Mickey truly “in it to win it” in his Senate race?
- Were Mark Milley’s calls to China justified?
- The perverse incentives of the anti-China nuclear sub deal
- Mickey’s exhaustion-induced supermarket hallucination
- Would Biden’s budget really transform American life?
- Parrot Room preview: Facebook’s whitelist, the Dixie Chicks “cancellation,” loneliness, a Las Vegas shooting rabbit hole, Bob’s push to get Mickey on a dating app, the US Open, Elizabeth Holmes on trial, the mystery of Trump’s attraction to Putin, and that Nicki Minaj tweet (you know the one)
Sep 10, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Mickey: Biden’s weakness is his strength
- Is Biden’s vaccine mandate constitutional? And will it work?
- A reason to root for the Delta variant?
- JD Vance urges people to resist the vaccine mandate
- Looking back at 9/11-inspired fears
- Did the Iraq War give a critical boost to 9/11 Trutherism?
- We may actually see a vote on the hard infrastructure bill soon
- Mickey complains about Ezra Klein, Bob pushes back
- Parrot Room preview: Why Bob has been talking about the Weinsteins so much, The Chair, Bob tries to talk Mickey into using a dating app (or maybe the Parrot Room itself is a dating app?), the US Open, is rock dead?, Mickey’s Fred Barnes Crossfire story, and a general theory of inflation derived from staying in crappy hotels
Sep 3, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Bob and Mickey’s most erotic cold open yet
- Mickey mildly critiques Bob’s latest Afghanistan piece
- Eight ways Biden messed up the Afghanistan withdrawal (according to Mickey)
- Will Pelosi get the infrastructure bill she wants?
- Will the Texas abortion law backfire on pro-lifers?
- Mickey: If Newsom loses his recall vote, it could tank the infrastructure bill
- The jury’s still out on the lab leak hypothesis
- Bob: The jury’s still out on Ivermectin but not on Bret Weinstein
- Parrot Room preview: A hit piece on JD Vance, crime rates among Afghan refugees, the NYT’s editorial practice, the (possible) millennial conspiracy to oust boomers, wokeness at Princeton, an Ivermectin tweet storm, Pierre Kory, the possible postmodernism of the Weinsteins, how Mickey turned Bob into Led Tasso, Bob gets the Ezra Klein bump, and Ed Asner
Aug 31, 2021 —
Robert Wright & John Mearsheimer
- What is “realism” in international relations?
- How John predicted the disastrous outcome of the Iraq invasion
- How to convince neocons to respect international law
- John: Sometimes nations just have to break the law
- Bob: The US should establish a norm of strict compliance with international law
- John’s Hobbesian view of international relations
- Is China an existential threat to the US?
- International law’s evolutionary trajectory
Aug 26, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Bob and Mickey’s vaccination vacation
- American cluelessness persists in Afghanistan
- Can the Taliban be incorporated into the global community?
- Radicalized by Microsoft
- Bret Weinstein’s ivermectin crusade (cont’d)
- Has Pelosi outmaneuvered House moderates?
- Are Millennials and Zoomers the new beatniks?
- Bob: We could benefit from a slower rate of technological change
- Parrot Room preview: ESPN literally cancels Rachel Nichols, the Weinstein Rosetta Stone, a traumatic Wieseltier anecdote, Bob’s appearance on Ezra Klein’s podcast, the lawyer-lab rat joke, Ted Lasso, and a controversial Parrot Room fan mash-up
Aug 20, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus
- Unmasked liberals in their natural environment
- The sharply rising Covid-related death rate in the US
- Should the US send vaccine doses abroad before giving boosters at home?
- Bob: The Afghanistan withdrawal could reduce the risk of domestic terrorism
- Is there political logic behind Biden’s position on Afghan refugees?
- Bob: We could have won the Cold War with much less military intervention
- Is “authoritarianism” the new “international communism”?
- Is there an anti-American terrorist threat lurking in Syria?
- The military’s institutional bias against bad news
- Will Biden reinstitute Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy?
- Parrot Room preview: The Kamala problem, JD Vance, the case against Ghislaine, Twitter lets users flag misinformation, a new Larry Elder scandal, the Atlantic’s supposed prosperousness, Nanci Griffith, the backstory on Bob and Mickey’s teetotaling, the Weinsteins, Ted Lasso, and some inspiration for Mickey
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