The United States is the largest art market in the world, and with its unique combination of rich people and light oversight, Florida is a natural nexus for art-related fraud. This week, Tess Davis, Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition, guides us through this new and foreign world of art, antiquities, and the fraudsters who bring their chaotic energy to Art Basel Miami each year. Come for the interview about daring art heists, stay for a rousing game of Baseled in Miami!You can learn more about the Antiquities Coalition at theantiquitiescoalition.org and across all the social networks. (Also, while Picasso’s Visage aux Mans has not been recovered according to the Internet, it does appear to be for sale on Sotheby’s website!)

Billy Corben, director of hit documentaries like Cocaine Cowboys, The U, and most recently HULU’s God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down A Dynasty, joins us to talk about Miami’s undisputed status as the capital of crypto scams and million-dollar ape jpegs. Come for the crypto convo where we dissect Art Basel’s role in supporting the wheezing, dying collection of scams that we consider the “crypto industry” and stay for a rousing game of Guess The Grifter, the new quiz show that was made just for Miami. You can follow Billy on Twitter @BillyCorben and you can stream God Forbid now on HULU and Disney+.

A bit of a palette cleanser from politics and midterm elections this week. It’s Thanksgiving week, and we’ve pulled a story from the annals of Florida’s violent recent past that centers on one family’s tragic holiday, a salacious story that may have retreated from public memory but one that we hope to use as a backdoor to talk about the state of mental healthcare in Florida. But first, we kick off the week with three big stories from Florida that will make you, too, ask the question, "Why Are We Like This?" Follow Thomas Kennedy @Tomaskenn. Follow David Quiñones @david_quinones. Follow Gerald Doherty @TostoneSopran. Music in this episode is by David Rosen.

(Ok, you'll probably notice that we recorded this shortly after the midterm elections, as various races that are now settled were still up in the air. But we turned out to be right so stick a sock in it.)With the midterm elections a week in the rearview and a bit of perspective, we talked with Kartik Krishnaiyer (@kkfla) of the Florida Squeeze (@Flasqueeze) about the disastrous failures of the Florida Democratic Party to mount anything resembling a fight in the recent cycle and what that portends for the future. We got into the shambolic Party leadership, weak candidates, corrupt consultant class, and other variables that diminished Democrat outcomes in Florida. Can it be reversed? What would that look like? Listen to find out!

Following yet another crushing defeat for Florida Democrats, we caught up with Danny Rivero (@TooMuchMe), a Miami journalist at NPR affiliate WLRN to figure out exactly why our politics are like this.One issue that Democrats ceded ground on was immigration, where conservative narratives dominated, centering around crime, demonization, and midnight flights to Martha’s Vineyard. Danny talked with us about the contemporary landscape of immigration as a political football, and about his limited podcast series Detention By Design, exploring the dark history of the US’s use of prisons to detain tens of thousands of immigrants today. 

We talked with Ida V. Eskamani (@ida_v_e) about Florida's place in the war on LGBTQ+ rights, and the moving target that is straight-cisgendered hate for nonbinary people. Schools and scholastic sports are the new battlegrounds, and it all comes to a head with the passage of the "Don't Say Gay" bill in 2022.

There’s machine politics, and there’s micro-machine politics. In Florida’s state capital, you can find both right across the street from each other. Ryan Ray, Aide to Tallahassee city commissioner Jeremy Matlow, stopped by to discuss his boss’s efforts to address rampant corruption that has seen high-profile prosecutions and indictments. We got into the push to take Tallahassee back from a powerful group of political elites and a class of consultants who see public service as little more than their own personal ATM. We also veered into the topic of how the City of Tallahassee's proximity to state power can be a toxic pollutant for municipal governance and the culture at city hall.You can follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanRay_Fla. Ryan is also helping Josh Johnson in Johnson's run for Leon County Commission, so check out voteforjosh.org and lend a hand if you can.You can follow WAWLT on Twitter @WAWLTShow.This episode features music by David Rosen, @ByDavidRosen.

“I want you to make his life a living hell. Seriously.”  The quote is from a 2019 email the chief executive of Florida Power & Light, Eric Silagy, about Florida State Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, who had been a thorn in the side of the utility monopoly. Rodriguez was pushing policy reforms that would allow Florida consumers to more easily access solar power outside the confines of FPL’s monopoly. One year later, Rodriguez was out of a job, the victim of an actual election fraud, where dark money operatives funded a ghost candidate with the same last name. In an election that featured more than 200,000 votes, the difference came down to 32 votes. In this case file, we talk with Alissa Jean Schafer (@alissajean) about how FPL has affected political outcomes via media and elections to further their own interests at the expense of their customers. It goes deeper and gets dirtier than you can imagine. You can follow WAWLT on Twitter @WAWLTShow. This episode features music by David Rosen, @ByDavidRosen.

With our guest Jordan Zakarin from More Perfect Union, we dive into the enigma that is Florida’s Governor and his myriad scandals, missteps and misadventures. You can follow Jordan @jordanzakarin and subscribe to Progress Report here. You can follow WAWLT on Twitter @WAWLTShow. This episode features music by David Rosen, @ByDavidRosen.

Following last week’s conversation and exploration of education, we talked with Jennifer Berkshire, a journalist and podcaster who covers education policy and politics. Along with her co-host Jack Schneider, she co-authored “A Wolf At The Schoolhouse Door” in 2020. Her podcast — Have You Heard — has helped many a parent like me navigate the recent acrimony and decline of public education in a post-COVID world. You can follow her on Twitter @BisForBerkshire, and you can subscribe to her show’s Patreon on patreon.com/haveyouheardpodcast. You can follow WAWLT on Twitter @WAWLTShow. This episode features music by David Rosen, @ByDavidRosen.