On a recent trip to New Orleans, I happened upon musicians playing on Royal Street in the Quarter. To say it's worth sharing is an understatement. The experience reminded me of some of the profound thoughts I've heard from the great jazz virtuoso and ambassador Wynton Marsalis and the renowned theologian J. Kameron Carter. Jazz is what democracy and religion sound like when at their best: Faithfulness to the composition, brilliance of the individual players, within the context of playing amongst each other, negotiating with each other, lifting each other up, picking up where their partners left off, sometimes keeping rhythm, sometimes taking the lead, sometimes just listening - all for the music, all for each other.

As a continuation of our series "The Folks of Our Town," Mayor Bill Miranda talks to us about growing up in New York City; how a kid from NYC became the Mayor of Santa Clarita; going to military school; his time in the business world; how, as a Latino, he was often the only person of color at school or work; and taking that experience to help Latino owned small businesses. We also talk about plenty of politics, including local politics. With Bill being a moderate Republican and Ronnie being a Democrat, we still manage to find plenty of common ground. Go figure!

Ryan Meeks might be best known for being the pastor of a megachurch who became one of the first evangelical churches in the country to support full inclusion of LGBTQ people. Ryan founded and led Eastlake Community Church, a very different, evolutionary, transformative church community for 16 years. Now, one can simply say Ryan’s lifework is to “help people feel alive.” Having endured everything from the scrutiny of the entire Evangelical movement to beating cancer, Ryan now provides spiritual direction and holistic coaching, wilderness retreats and psychedelic integration.

Today’s episode is the 1st installment of our series “The Folks of Our Town.” In this series, we get to hear from the “The Folks of Our Town” that have really interesting stories to tell and whose voices deserve to be heard.
One of these folks is Aron Bender. Aron is a recently widowed father of two daughters. He is the host of the Santa Clarita Valley Signal’s first podcast, “The Signal News” and "The Aron Bender Podcast," a news anchor at PasadenaNow.com and a Digital and Broadcast Journalism Professor at his alma mater, Cal State Northridge. Aron is also a 20 year veteran of the news business having worked at KFI in Los Angeles, WIOD in Miami and KMPH in Fresno.

(Originally aired 1/3/21, but that was a weird week as you might recall. Plus, Julie's wicked awesome!)
Julie Mason, a White House correspondent with the Houston Chronicle, Washington Examiner and Politico, has been the host of The Press Pool on SiriusXM's POTUS channel since 2011 and will now have a new show called Julie Mason Mornings @MasonMornings. What's it like to be in the WH press corps? How different is it from one administration to another? Are politicians and Press Secretaries different on camera vs. off camera? Which tv show is most accurate: West Wing, House of Cards or Veep? And of course, isn't the entirety of the "MSM" completely in the tank for Hugo Chavez's zombie army that took over the election? Some of the answers may shock you!

Reed Galen, Co-Founder of The Lincoln Project talks about his background from growing up as the kid of a political strategist to his time as an intern on George W. Bush's Texas gubernatorial re-election campaign. We learn what it's like to be an Advanceman for a presidential campaign, working in an administration and all that led to his role with TLP. We dive in to what they knew about Trump and how they got to him. He also opens up about mistakes that were made, what they're doing to "get their act together" and getting back to work.
https://lincolnproject.us/
@ProjectLincoln

It's been one year since the first shelter-in-place orders were implemented. So this episode is dedicated to frontline and essential workers. One group in particular that hasn’t had nearly as much applause but certainly deserves it is truckers: The men and women who move everything from face masks to fresh food, toothpaste to toilet paper.
One of those truckers who’s been on the frontlines the entire time is my very own brother, Eddie Nathan. Eddie has an interesting trajectory that brought him to this career. He spent about 20-25 years at all levels of education including as a teacher as well as administration in both main stream public schools and charter schools. So not only does he have a broad range of experience in education, when he decided to transition to trucking a couple years ago, he was arguably one of the most highly credentialed individuals in the history of the trucking industry! 
And just so no one misses their healthy dose of politics and religion, we definitely get into it along with our dear old dad Ronnie. In fact, we get to hear all about Eddie's very refined, erudite analysis he calls "the a55h0le theory."

Danielle Pletka is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-host of What the Hell Is Going On, having served as the SVP for foreign and defense policy studies there, and is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Prior to joining AEI, Danielle was a senior staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as the point person on Middle East, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. 
Dany discusses how she formed her conservative views, developing an expertise in foreign policy, her experience working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee including with firebrand Senator Jesse Helms, her candid and nuanced assessment of the Trump Admin's Middle East policy, her concerns about the Democratic Party's "lurch to the left," and what happened leading up to and since January 6th.