Shows / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastDDH | 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastOnce 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastNot 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastWitches, 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastRevolution, 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastDDH | 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast42 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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 - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastWHEN 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastConversations
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastFranklin 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastFentanyl, 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastWashington's Other War
We remember the American Revolution through its battlefields: Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown. We picture Washington…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastDDH | 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastDDH | 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastSeptember 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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastWho 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThoughts 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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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…
- Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast
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/
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe Proper Hecatombs
Our story begins on the island of Pharos, where Menelaus sat stranded with treasure in his hull and no wind in his sails. He discovered the reason for his…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe Cloture Curse
Today we are heading into the marble halls of the United States Senate to trace the long, tangled story of the filibuster and the rule that was supposed to…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe American Crises - Pt 5
Thomas Paine wasn’t what you’d call a religious man, but he couldn’t escape the language of faith. In The American Crisis, he wrote of Providence—the hand of…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe American Crises - Pt 4
In the darkest winter of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote words that stirred a struggling people back to life. His essays, known as The American…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe American Crises - Pt 3
In early 1776, Thomas Paine set fire to the old world with his pen. His pamphlet Common Sense didn’t just argue for American independence; it attacked the very…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe American Crises - Pt 2
In the winter of 1776, when the American Revolution seemed on the verge of collapse, a voice rose from the darkness. Thomas Paine, armed only with ink and…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe American Crises - Pt 1
In December of 1776, when the Revolutionary cause seemed all but broken, a pamphlet appeared that lit a spark across the colonies. Thomas Paine’s The American…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastRevolutionary Talk - The Quiet Before the Storm
It is October 10, 1775, and Norwich can feel the weight of the war pressing closer than ever. Prices rise, faith stretches thin, and the news from Boston and…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastRevolutionary Talk - Taking the War to Sea
Welcome to Revolutionary Talk on WREV 760 AM. It is October 9, 1775, and today the tide quite literally turns. In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress has…
Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show PodcastThe Army
Welcome to Revolutionary Talk on WREV 760AM. It is October 8, 1775, and General Washington has called a council of war in Cambridge to decide the future of the…