Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
by Dave Bowman
Plausibly Live is where history, politics, culture, and the day’s absurdities collide. Veteran submariner, historian, and longtime radio host Dave Bowman brings sharp analysis, dry humor, and an independent perspective to the stories everyone is discussing, along with a few they ought to be. No slogans, no party-line talking points, and no manufactured outrage. Just thoughtful conversation, historical context, and the occasional rabbit hole.
Episodes
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Alaska Goes Full Eddie Murphy
Did somebody mistake an Eddie Murphy comedy for a campaign manual? Dave Bowman opens with The Distinguished Gentleman and Alaska’s two Dan Sullivans, examining an alleged election spoiler scheme, Trump’s demands for prosecution, and a similar namesake stunt in Washington state. Deliberately...
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We the People... Pending Court Approval
What does government by the people mean when voters approve an initiative and the fight immediately moves to court? On this episode of Plausibly Live: The Dave Bowman Show, Dave examines Washington’s battles over natural gas policy, taxes, girls’ sports, and the possibility of public power in...
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DDH | Trenton
By Christmas 1776, George Washington’s army was running out of men and time. Months of defeat had driven the Americans across New Jersey, enlistments were about to expire, and Washington feared the Revolution was nearing its end. His response was an attack that depended on crossing an ice-choked...
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Once Upon a Time (There Was Deanna)
Doctors warned that Bowman’s newborn sister might not survive. Deanna lived for 49 years, becoming a Special Olympian, an enthusiastic storyteller, and a beloved presence whose friendships reached far beyond her family. On this deeply personal episode of Plausibly Live, The Dave Bowman Show, Dave...
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Not to My Knowledge: Mummies, Money & Missing Common Sense
Ilhan Omar says “Not to my knowledge,” a Scottish museum needs a mummy’s consent, and somebody in Los Angeles thought feeding a coyote was a good idea. Dave Bowman has questions, coffee, and very little patience for the explanations. On this episode of Plausibly Live – The Dave Bowman Show, Dave...
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Witches, Women's Sports, and the First Amendment | Plausibly Live with Dave Bowman
When religious conviction meets political ambition, wheredoes faith end and constitutional responsibility begin? On this October 22, 2026, episode of Plausibly Live,Dave Bowman examines religious liberty, Washington politics, transgenderathletes in girls' sports, and the uncomfortable questions...
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Revolution, Rumors, and a Really Bad National Anthem
Plausibly Live | The Dave Bowman Show | October 21, 2026 France is erupting in violence. North Korea's dictator may be dead. And somehow, the NFL has managed to turn the national anthem into a musical disaster. It's another perfectly ordinary day on Plausibly Live. In France, what began as…
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DDH | The American Crises
Thomas Paine's The American Crisis: The Words That Helped Save the American Revolution | Dave Does History “These are the times that try men's souls.” In December 1776, the American Revolution was on the verge of collapse. George Washington's Continental Army had been driven from New York…
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42 Years, Higher Taxes, and the Seattle SuperSonics: Who's Accountable?
What happens when one political party has occupied the governor's office for more than four decades, the state keeps demanding more money, and even the Republican party starts telling voters to elect Democrats? Welcome to Washington State politics. On this episode of Plausibly Live, Dave Bowman...
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Girls' Sports, Noah's Ark, and the Dodgers' Defeat
Plausibly Live with Dave Bowman | October 16, 2026 What do a high school cross-country protest, the search forNoah's Ark, and the Los Angeles Dodgers' playoff elimination have in common?They're all raising questions about fairness, tradition, and what we choose tobelieve. On this episode of...
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Who's Raising Your Kids? Parental Rights, Social Media & Demonic UFOs
Who decides what's best for your children: You or Ron DeSantis? And why does a man who walked on the Moon believe UFOs are actually demons? On today's Plausibly Live, Dave Bowman examines Florida's controversial social media restrictions for minors and the growing conflict between parental…
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College Football & Iranian Election Interference
Has the Heisman Trophy Become Meaningless? What happens when two interceptions become more important than an entire football season? Following Oklahoma's 27–24 victory over Texas, Dave Bowman takes aim at the media frenzy surrounding Arch Manning and the Heisman Trophy. Has college football's…
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DDH | The US Navy
Two Ships Against an Empire: 251 Years of the United States Navy On October 13, 1981, Dave Bowman reported to Navy boot camp in San Diego, California, exactly 206 years after the Continental Congress authorized the first vessels of the United States Navy. Forty-five years later, that personal...
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Landings: Heroes or Villains?
Was Christopher Columbus a hero, a villain, or something farmore complicated? On Columbus Day 2026, Dave Bowman challenges the popularmythology surrounding the voyage of 1492 and asks whether modern culture hasforgotten how to recognize human achievement without ignoring human failure. Columbus...
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Before There Was Light: The Astonishing Mystery of Creation
What existed before there was light? And what does Genesis really mean when it describes the Earth as "without form and void"? For thousands of years, the opening words of Genesis have shaped humanity's understanding of Creation. But buried within the familiar English translation of Genesis 1:2…
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WHEN EGO OVERLOADS COMMON SENSE
Stephen A. Smith has built a career on outrageous opinions, confrontational sports commentary, and an ego large enough to fill an ESPN studio. But his remarks about Philadelphia Eagles star Lane Johnson's retirement crossed a line that even sports entertainment shouldn't cross. After Johnson...
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Conversations
A conversation between a father and his son begins with a deceptively simple question: What do you think about banning books? The answer turns out to have very little to do with books and almost everything to do with liberty. On this episode of Plausibly Live, Dave Bowman considers what it really...
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Franklin in Paris: The Diplomat Who Made the Revolution a World War
In October 1776, the American Revolution was in serious trouble. Washington was retreating, New York had fallen, the Continental Army was struggling to survive, and Congress desperately needed money, weapons, ships, and international support. So it entrusted an extraordinary mission to a...
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The Government Always Gets It's Money
There is an old Yes, Minister observation that it can be more expensive to do things cheaply. Government seems unusually talented at proving the point. When voters demand that government spend less, eliminate a perk, lower a tax, or change a policy, the result doesn't always resemble what they...
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Fentanyl, Fifty Cents & Dr. AI
A listener asks a surprisingly reasonable question: If fentanyl kills thousands of Americans, why isn’t it used for executions? From there, we follow fifty cents through a convenience-store cash register and ask what happens when an overcharge isn’t just taking money from a customer, but from...
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The Pain We Don’t Talk About
Tennessee tried to execute Christa Gail Pike, administered every dose permitted by its protocol, and failed. Whatever one thinks of Pike’s brutal murder of Colleen Slemmer or of capital punishment itself, the state claimed the ultimate governmental power and demonstrated that it could not…
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Second Acts
Sometimes you need a break from everything you're supposed to be angry about. For Dave, one of those escapes has always been Two and a Half Men, or more precisely, the Charlie Sheen years. The first eight seasons worked because Charlie Harper was more than the drunken womanizer the jokes made him...
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Washington's Other War
We remember the American Revolution through its battlefields: Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown. We picture Washington crossing the Delaware, Continental soldiers enduring brutal winters, and British redcoats marching across the colonies. But George Washington…
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Slow White Quarterbacks
What happens when something sounds so absurd that we stop checking whether it’s actually true? On today’s Plausibly Live, a viral headline claims a Columbia professor won an award for a book arguing that white paint is racist. There really is a book called A Dead White: An Argument Against White...
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Thunderclappers and Hornets: The Strange Places History Survives
History does not always survive where we expect to find it. Sometimes it is preserved in a journal or an archive. Sometimes it is buried in the dirt. And sometimes it is sitting right in front of us on a professional basketball jersey. On this edition of Plausibly Live – The Dave Bowman Show…
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The Final Frontier
The United States says it has a weapon in orbit, but has revealed little about what it does. Could the announcement deter an adversary, or could uncertainty make a confrontation in space more dangerous? On this episode of Plausibly Live, I look at the possibilities behind that announcement, from...
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Don’t Feed the Alligator, Do Adopt the Cat
What do a fiercely progressive lesbian bar, an angry online mob, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and my wife’s desire for a cat have in common? They all demonstrate what happens when you believe you are in control of the situation. In Greenfield, Massachusetts, the Last Ditch Bar built its identity around...
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The First Salute: Eleven Guns That Announced a New Nation
On November 16, 1776, the American Revolution suffered one of its worst disasters. Fort Washington fell, and nearly 3,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. That same day, almost 1,800 miles away, the Continental Navy brig Andrew Doria entered the harbor at St. Eustatius and…
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Can Presidents Throw Reporters Out of the White House?
Can a president revoke White House press credentials simply because he believes a news organization is dishonest or unfair? The First Amendment protects the freedom to publish, but it does not guarantee any reporter a seat in the White House briefing room. Once the government creates a...
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I Don't Write the Headlines
A newspaper headline I didn’t write introduced me to Bill Mick in 2006. What began as an awkward invitation onto his radio show became a friendship, a career in broadcasting, and, years later, the history segments we still share. Bill retired today after 25 years in radio. His last day has me...
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Constitutions, Republics and Costs
On Constitution Day, Dave asks whether the Senate still works as the Framers intended. The Seventeenth Amendment gave voters the power to elect senators directly, ending a system troubled by deadlocks and corruption. It also removed state legislatures’ direct voice in Congress. What did the…
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McWar
I find Macklemore’s rhetoric about Israel repellent. I also defend his right to say it. Those convictions can coexist, even when doing so is uncomfortable. After Macklemore used Ed Sheeran’s tour to advocate for Palestinians, venue owners refused to host concerts with him on the bill. His removal...
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DDH | The Last Off Ramp
There are moments when diplomacy does not prevent a war. It merely reveals what the war is actually about. On September 11, 1776, three representatives of the Continental Congress crossed under a flag of truce to Staten Island. Benjamin Franklin,John Adams, and Edward Rutledge came to hear what...
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The Tribble with Technology
Technology is wonderful right up until it begins decidingwho deserves to be watched, tracked, exposed, transported, or accidentally reduced to a screaming cloud of subatomic regret. In San Jose, a woman’s offensive public behavior became thejustification for an extraordinary digital manhunt....
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What Have We Learned?
Twenty-five years after September 11, remembrance remains important, but it cannot be the end of the conversation. What have we learned about liberty, security, citizenship, and the responsibilities entrusted to us? Today’s show considers how we teach 9/11 to a generation with no memory of it…
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The HIgh Price of Saying What You Think
Free speech rarely disappears with a dramatic announcement. More often, it retreats quietly as people calculate the possible cost of saying what they think. They worry about an employer, a university administrator, an online mob, or someone willing to turn disagreement into a threat. Nothing has...
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Echos of OJ?
We like to blame algorithms for trapping us inside echo chambers. Facebook feeds us what we already believe. YouTube recommends another video that confirms our suspicions. News organizations learn which stories keep their preferred audiences angry and coming back for more. Yet the machines are…
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DDH | The American Crises
In September 1776, New York newspapers carried a mocking letter from a supposed eyewitness who claimed that George Washington and his “dirty pack of New England long faces” were losing the war. The author did not exist. The letter was British propaganda, part of an organized effort to ridicule…
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Loma
Over the weekend, I discovered a great-aunt whom nobody in our family knew had ever existed. Her name was Loma M. Bowman. She lived for only two days before being buried in an unmarked potter’s field in Missouri. More than a century later, her brief life has emerged from the silence of the family...
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Is This Still College Football?
College football has always meant more to me than the final score. It carries memories of Saturdays with my father, Navy playing Air Force in Colorado Springs, regional rivalries, marching bands and traditions inherited across generations. My father once enlivened a college performance of “The...
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Taproom Tribbles in Tacoma and Thailand
The Thought Police Are Watching the Taproom There was once a useful boundary between public conduct and private conviction. You could buy bread, order coffee, or enjoy a pint without first demanding a political confession from the person behind the counter. That boundary is rapidly disappearing,...
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Down With Socialism!!!
Congress has managed to discover socialism. This might seem encouraging until you remember that the national debt has reached $40 trillion, the federal government still lacks a genuine budget, and lawmakers apparently have plenty of time for nonbinding resolutions designed to produce campaign...
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Oil, Cellphones and Craziness
Washington has always been skilled at confusing an announcement with an accomplishment. President Trump’s new Venezuelan oil agreement sounds impressive: American control over billions of barrels, lower gasoline prices, and new supplies for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Then reality intrudes....
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September 1, 2026 - The Jewish Question?
Government loves a list. It loves categories, identification numbers, demographic boxes, databases and tracking systems, each created with assurances that the information will be used responsibly and only for its stated purpose. Sometimes those systems genuinely improve accountability. Sometimes...
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Who Killed Radio? How Podcasts Set the Personalities Free
Radio has been dying for so long that one might wonder whether anyone has bothered to notify the corpse. The towers still stand. The signals still hum through the air. Millions of people still turn it on every day, often without making a decision to do so. Yet something has changed, and it…
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Canadian Lakes... and Terrorists
Canada renamed streets, universities, and landmarks while insisting that history was not being erased. Then Trump called Lake Ontario “Lake America,” and suddenly historical names became sacred. Dave examines Canada’s curious double standard. #Canada #LakeAmerica #CanadianPolitics #PlausiblyLive
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The Polling Game
Polls tell us who's ahead. Until they don't. Pollsters sample voters, weight responses, model turnout, account for undecideds, and then confidently tell us what Election Day is going to look like. There's just one problem: Election Day hasn't happened yet. There is only one poll that actually...
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Thoughts on Sportsball
Why are you a fan of the teams you love? It sounds like a simple question, but the answer may reveal more about America than sports. For generations, loyalty to a team was rooted in geography. You cheered for the local club because it represented your city, your neighborhood, and your community....
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A New Recorder and The Highway
There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about thisepisode. Not old in the sense of worn out, but old in the way a good highway diner is old, or the way a favorite ball cap becomes part of a man’s identity. This is not a polished studio production wrapped in synthetic perfection. It is one…
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FLASHBACK - Icebergs Are No Danger
Afternoons Live with Dave and John from December 27, 2011 https://davidraybowman.com/2026/03/23/icebergs-are-no-danger/
About this show
Plausibly Live is where history, politics, culture, and the day’s absurdities collide. Veteran submariner, historian, and longtime radio host Dave Bowman brings sharp analysis, dry humor, and an independent perspective to the stories everyone is discussing, along with a few they ought to be. No slogans, no party-line talking points, and no manufactured outrage. Just thoughtful conversation, historical context, and the occasional rabbit hole.
Hosted by
Dave Bowman
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