r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1h ago
r/FriendsofthePod • u/slickwilly83 • 19h ago
Still Counting Min/Maxing the next two years
I suppose this is kind of a "Still Counting" question, but I'm open to any approaches really.
I'm so curious about how we should think about the upper limit of what is possible from the Dems during the next two years. It seems like there are basically two prongs to focus on:
Messaging bills for Trump to veto
Some kind of accountability through investigations and impeachments.
So how do we determine the upper limit of what is possible? Or what is effective? Like, impeaching Hegseth doesn't take zero time and zero staffers. Sending a bill to Trump's desk for DC statehood doesn't take zero time and zero staffers.
So how do we think about what the upper limit is of what is actually possible? And as a subquestion: is maximizing that good?
I'm basically wondering how we min/max the next two years for those RPG players out there.
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1d ago
Hysteria LIVE REACTIONS To Melania Trump’s Cringey New Docuseries | Hysteria (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1d ago
Offline with Jon Favreau [Discussion] Offline with Jon Favreau - "The 2028 Primary Has Begun (with Ezra Klein)" (11/14/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1d ago
What A Day! [Discussion] What A Day - "Democrats Don’t Need a Rebrand, They Need To Act" (11/13/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1d ago
What A Day! What A Day: Chuck Chuck Goose by Matt Berg & Crooked Media (11/13/26)
"I'm a piece of shit." - Jensen Huang, talking about himself.
Ok Schumer
Will Senate Democrats kick Chuck Schumer to the curb? Progressives are lining up behind a challenger to the party’s longtime head honcho in the Senate.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) isn’t exactly keeping it humble about the likelihood he’ll become the Senate majority leader once Democrats seize power in January. “I have the votes,” he tweeted yesterday. Translation: Don’t challenge me, because it’s in the bag!
One senator didn’t get the message: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). At Crooked Con last weekend, Van Hollen told me that Senate Democrats shouldn’t stage a “coronation.” They should get a choice. So, it wasn’t too shocking when the Maryland senator announced last night that, yes, he’s throwing his own crab cakes down on the table.
Schumer remains the obvious favorite to win. But Van Hollen’s challenge speaks to a larger debate consuming Democrats: How far left should the party move after its sweeping victory in the midterms? And who should be trusted to shepherd the rank and file through the final era of Donald Trump?
“We should not be preserving our institutions if they are not delivering for the American people,” Van Hollen said at the What’s Next political conference today. “We should be making delivering for the American people the single mission of our government, even when that means shaking things up. And that is why I’m running.”
More Democrats currently support Schumer’s bid than Van Hollen’s — at least publicly. The vote for majority leader is a secret ballot, which is exactly what it sounds like: We won’t know who votes for who, unless that information leaks. The vote is scheduled for December 1.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) is weighing the arguments for and against re-electing Schumer, he told What A Day.
Schumer deserves credit for helping to recruit winning Senate candidates, said Kaine, a longtime Schumer ally. Schumer can claim a central role in convincing Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, and Alaska’s Mary Peltola to run. (Notably, Schumer didn’t initially support Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, and he also called the wrong shots in Maine.)
Schumer’s experience handling Trump could also be valuable over the next two years, Kaine added.
“Chuck probably knows Trump better than anybody else in our caucus,” the senator said, noting Schumer’s Oval Office meetings with Trump during the first term. “That knowledge is not a minor thing when you’re dealing with a super unpredictable guy like President Trump.”
The chief argument against Schumer (aside from the fact that he’s 75 years young) is that he’s synonymous with the Democratic establishment. After all, Democrats found themselves stuck with Trump for an entire decade, while Schumer manned the ship.
While Van Hollen isn’t exactly a spring chicken himself, he has made a name for himself as a staunch progressive. He was willing to fly to El Salvador to challenge Trump’s deportation policies, and has repeatedly called out the Israeli government for its violence against Palestinians and voted to restrict arms sales to its military.
The need for change isn’t lost on moderate senators like Kaine. “We’re hearing overwhelmingly from folks that they want to see change, and change generally. I mean, it isn’t just about Chuck,” he said. “We have to respect what we’re hearing and factor it all in.”
Watch: Pod Save America: Will Dems Chuck Chuck?
Meanwhile On The Pod...
Scott Colom Saw A Path To Victory In Mississippi When Other’s Didn’t (11/12/26)
Look No Further Than Crooked Media
LEIGH MCGOWAN is co-host of HYSTERIA!
You might know Leigh McGowan as Politics Girl on social, but now she's got a new title: co-host of Hysteria! Yes, that's right! Leigh is joining Erin Ryan on your fav podcast for people who love democracy, culture, and not losing their minds while keeping up with it all. This week, Erin and Leigh cover a LOT of ground— they're digging into the aftermath of the blue Tsunami and so much more. Listen to Hysteria every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
I Spy...
Donald Trump has long insisted that humanity has nothing to fear from artificial intelligence. His own administration may not be so lucky.
The raucous scandal that brought down Jensen Huang, former head of chipmaker Nvidia, is now rattling the windows of Trump’s White House.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent slammed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for failing to restrict Megaspeed, the Singapore-based company at the heart of the Nvidia imbroglio, from buying semiconductors from the tech giant.
Multiple departments, including Treasury, favored putting restrictions on Megaspeed for months, Bessent told CNBC this morning. “But Commerce … has the pen. And you will have to ask them about their internal processes.”
In simpler terms: If Commerce had blacklisted the company, this crisis — which threatens to put a dent in the AI industry — could’ve been averted. The president and other top officials actually knew about Huang’s affair months ago, according to recent press reports.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned yesterday after reports of affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy who led Megaspeed. (Donald Trump reportedly urged Huang to fight for his job earlier this week.)
It’s unclear whether China gained any valuable intel from the suspected fatale’s efforts. But lawmakers fear that Huang’s affair could have national security implications. The U.S. has tried to stop China from accessing Nvidia’s chips, which are critical for developing advanced AI technologies.
Huang’s affair with the spy is “potentially very damaging,” Sen. Kaine told me. When Democrats take control in January, “we will have very robust investigative tools at our disposal,” Kaine said. “And this Nvidia scandal is probably one of the first that will come up.”
Lutnick agreed to testify in front of the Senate about the Nvidia scandal next month.
What Else?
The FAA issued a nationwide groundstop to all airports across the country this afternoon, citing “extraordinary circumstances.” The extremely rare directive followed “communication issues” that impacted air route traffic control centers, the agency said in a statement.
Former President Joe Biden doesn’t have any regrets about running for re-election, he writes in his new memoir. “Today there is no shortage of people who think I blindly raced to run again. Driven by ambition. Selfishness. Unaware of the concerns about my age,” Biden wrote. “I knew better than anyone how old I was. I knew what I was — and wasn’t — capable of doing. I carefully monitored how I was meeting the demands of the job. And there is not a single example of me failing to handle my responsibilities.”
Trump praised Senator-elect Scott Colom (D-MS) for courting MAGA supporters at one of the president’s rallies in Mississippi. “We had lines that went 10 miles long, and he campaigned on that line, telling everybody on the line what a good job he did,” Trump said on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast. “I give him a lot of credit for that.”
Vice President JD Vance hasn’t made up his mind on whether he wants to run for president, especially after the GOP’s devastating loss in the midterms, CNN reports. Former Vice President Mike Pence, however, is thinking about running again. “We’ve been hearing from a lot of people around the country,” Pence told Fox News.
Microsoft’s email service was “approaching normal levels” this afternoon, as the company scrambled to fix a global outage that affected millions of users around the world. One think tank estimated that the outage caused a loss of productivity equivalent to $7 billion. Did the think tank factor in the people who resorted to using fax machines??? The funniest line I saw about this online: “Windows 364.”
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Light At The End...
Cybertruck fans are lashing out at Elon Musk and Tesla for discontinuing their ugly dumpster-esque vehicles. An administrator of a popular Cybertruck Facebook group told Wired: “I’ve had people reaching out to me through the group, asking me, like, ‘What are you going to do?’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t know.’”
Pope Leo visited the town in Peru where he served as a local bishop for years. Residents remember Leo as a humble, compassionate community leader, and some still call him “monseñor” or “Padre Robert.” He’s something of a mascot: One restaurant has a cutout of the pope lifting his right hand, and holding a sandwich in his left. Where can I get one of those?
U2 released a new song that celebrates Rosalía, the 34-year-old genre-bending singer. Why? Because she’s just that amazing, Bono said. “We normally just write songs about people in jail or dead people. You know, dead heroes, or trying to get them out of jail,” Bono told Rolling Stone. “This is just celebrating somebody just because they’re an extraordinary artist.” Here’s the U2 song, and one of Rosalía’s operatic bangers.
Production of Rubik’s Cubes is moving back to Hungary, where the beloved (and often frustrating, at least for me) toy was invented in 1974. Hungary “is the home of the cube. The cube was born here,” Ernő Rubik said at the new production facility. Yes, that’s the guy it’s named after.
Researchers discovered that male franciscana dolphins, which live off the coast of South America, babysit their little ones. It’s extremely rare for male mammals to be caretakers, but the mother dolphins are the primary hunters among this type of dolphin. Someone’s gotta watch the kids! A potential reason for the behavior “is that they’re trying to impress the females,” one researcher told the New York Times. “‘I’m a nice guy, wouldn’t you like to mate with me?’ kind of thing.”
This is the best news I’ve heard all year: Punch the Monkey has made new friends at his zoo and is even caring for a baby monkey, months after heartbreaking accounts of his social isolation. Look at Punch cuddle with another buddy! 😭
Enjoy
Meet Kaia! She’s a 5-year-old rottweiler.
“Kaia is a beautiful girl who loves to eat and bark.”
— Donna
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1d ago
YouTube Exclusive Trump Admin TURNS ON EACH OTHER While Trump Gives Low Energy Interviews | YouTube Exclusives | Pod Save America (11/13/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 1d ago
Lovett or Leave It [Discussion] Lovett Or Leave It - "These Gays, They’re Trying To Investigate Me!" (11/13/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 2d ago
Hysteria Why Russell Brand Used Conservative Evangelism to Avoid Jail Time | Hysteria (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 2d ago
Still Counting Drafting the Republicans Most Likely to Run for President in 2028 | Still Counting (11/11/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 2d ago
Pod Save America [Discussion] Pod Save America - "Will Dems Chuck Chuck?" (11/13/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 2d ago
What A Day! [Discussion] What A Day - "Colom Reminds Dems, Mississippi Matters" (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 2d ago
What A Day! What A Day: Southern Alarm Belles by Matt Berg & Crooked Media (11/12/26)
"Congratulations, you're stupid." - Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), on Republicans who downplay Dems' midterms victory.
(Not) Seeing Red
Republicans are freaking out about a once-unimaginable political reality: The GOP is losing its grip on the South.
Democrats popped bottles after Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico won Texas, which the left spent the last decade trying, and painfully failing, to flip. They looked on in awe as The Lone Star State voted in a Democratic governor, lieutenant governor, state House of Representatives majority, attorney general and comptroller. And you can’t forget Kansas! Pastor Adam Hamilton will become the first Democratic senator from The Sunflower State in nearly a century.
Amazingly, that’s not the end of Democratic wins in the South, in a series of victories that is shaking up a region that Republicans have taken for granted as their home turf for over a generation.
After a drawn-out ballot count, Democrat Scott Colom defeated Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), becoming the first Black person elected to the Senate from Mississippi since the Reconstruction era following the Civil War. North Carolina is now just a few hundred votes away from seeing Democratic control of its entire state legislature, with one state senate seat still too close to call. And Republicans still can’t believe that Democrat Annie Andrews will take * checks notes * the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) old seat in South Carolina.
Polls predicted that Texas and Kansas could turn blue. But even the most tuned-in political nerds were stunned by wins in Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Charles Taylor, executive director of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP, told the What A Day podcast while discussing Colom’s victory. “Mississippi was always on a trajectory to get here, but there’s something still unreal about it.”
Some Republicans blame their own side for the historic losses.
One Republican operative in South Carolina said that his party deserved to lose. “Quite frankly, I think we got the ass-kicking we needed,” Trey Walker, who served as Gov. Henry McMaster’s (R-SC) chief of staff, told the Wall Street Journal. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) struck a similar tone on Fox News: “This was not a normal midterm election loss,” Kennedy said. “If you think that, congratulations, you’re stupid.”
This election “wasn’t just a rout. It was a reckoning,” former Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News today.
How do Democrats keep power in the South? It’s all about making it easier for Americans to vote, said Kate Barr, a North Carolina-based activist who founded YALLvote. (Barr once ran as a “fake Republican” in North Carolina to bring attention to the state’s gerrymandering.)
“I think a lot of the Democratic Party writ large has written the South off as just being Republican. But we aren’t,” Barr told What A Day. “We’re just suppressed. Whether that’s through gerrymandering, a lack of investment, or intentional voter suppression policies, like voter ID laws.”
After the midterms, Senate Democratic leadership faced criticism for failing to invest enough (or at all) in states where the left almost posted major upsets, such as Louisiana and Florida. Colom’s campaign received $500,000 from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in late October — after the group skipped him in their initial $40 million batch of contributions to battleground states.
Activists in the South hope this election serves as a wake-up call for the party’s leaders. “We did this ourselves,” Barr said. “It’s such an opportunity to get some cool stuff done that actually makes people’s lives better.”
Read: Message Box: How Republicans Are Choosing to Lose Again by Crooked’s Dan Pfeiffer
Meanwhile On The Pod...
Will We See Republicans Join Democrats Against Trump? (w/ Jake Sherman) (11/11/26)
Look No Further Than Crooked Media
Starting now, if you become a Friends of the Pod subscriber, you can get ad-free episodes of What a Day! Plus all your favorite Crooked podcasts, including Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, and Offline with Jon Favreau.
You'll also get bonus content, breaking news episodes that feature real-time analysis, and so much more.
Subscribe today at https://crooked.com/friends.
What Else?
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned today, after the New York Times reported that he had an affair with a company executive who reported to him. The Times bombshell followed news of his other affair with an alleged Chinese spy two weeks ago. Reuters just reported that Huang had yet another affair with an employee. The tech company’s stock tumbled as a result, roiling the AI industry.
The suspect who shot and killed one person in a gym before fleeing and wounding four others in Washington D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood this morning was an emergency physician, who had an active lawsuit against his building’s condo association for alleged water leaks into his penthouse apartment, City Cast DC reports. After the shooting, the man fled to a nearby apartment and spoke with officers for about an hour before fatally shooting himself, according to local police. (This piece by a Washington Sun reporter who spoke with the shooter last year is unbelievable.)
Israel killed at least six people and wounded dozens of others in a strike on a hospital in southern Gaza overnight, according to local health officials. Israel’s military said it was targeting Hamas militants. But the victims included healthcare workers and patients, the health officials said.
Donald Trump crashed out on social media today, saying that “we don’t need a deal with Iran.” He also instructed Vice President JD Vance to focus on “Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States” instead of ending the war. One day, Trump says he wants to work with Democrats. The next day, he attacks them. I’m getting tired of his lame-duck shtick already.
ICE deported more than 480,000 people during the fiscal year ending in September, according to DHS data obtained by CBS News. The record number of deportations came despite Americans’ souring on Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, which likely contributed to Republicans’ walloping in the midterms.
A man who died months ago while campaigning is expected to win his race for a seat on the board of supervisors in Calaveras County, California. One candidate who lost in the primary said that he planned to vote for the deceased man: “I’m still going to vote for him because he’s going to be on the ballot,” the former candidate told a local paper. “He’s the best guy for the job, even in this situation, unfortunately.”
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Light At The End...
Pete Hegseth awarded a Joint Service Commendation Medal to the U.S. Army sentinel who yelled at the defense secretary’s giggling entourage at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. “We love soldiers. We love standards. Well done, Specialist,” Hegseth tweeted. “Carry on Patriots.”
Rep.-elect Matt Little (D-MN) had to shut down rumors that he’s actually comedian Nathan Fielder in disguise. He has also been compared to Adam Scott’s and Ben Schwartz’s characters in “Parks and Recreation.” “I am a real person,” Little asserted.
A Virginia animal shelter has raised $290,000 by selling merch inspired by a local raccoon who broke into a liquor store and helped itself to some booze (before passing out on the bathroom floor). I need one of these “Trashed Panda” shirts. The Halloween-themed “Trick-or-Trashed” shirt is also pretty awesome.
A family falafel shop in Beirut that’s been serving customers since before Lebanon’s founding has no plans to close its doors, as it successfully weathers wars and conflicts in the region. “I have clients spread all over the world,” the 82-year-old owner, who is passing down the tradition to his 40-year-old son, told the Associated Press. “They all come to eat falafel because they know the flavor and the taste.” Brb, booking my flight to Beirut.
Pop star Dua Lipa brought together some of her favorite authors — including Douglas Stuart, Brit Bennett, Patti Smith, Roxane Gay, Jennifer Clement, Patrick Radden Keefe, and Min Jin Lee — to talk about their love of reading, the future of AI in books, and her incredibly popular Service95 book club. Here are some recommendations from those authors, and Dua herself.
Enjoy
AF Media on Instagram: "Non-denominational ways to respond to a sneeze: -stop -that was really annoying -I hate when you do that - WOW"
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 2d ago
Pod Save The World Israeli Leader Gets Racist in Insane Hate-Filled Speech | Pod Save The World (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/Aware_Raspberry_5956 • 2d ago
Pod Save America [MS NOW] Van Hollen launches challenge to Schumer for Senate majority leader
Very timely given the two interviews he did this weekend at CrookedCon! Including the one that dropped today. Go Chris!
r/FriendsofthePod • u/wutsinthetrees • 3d ago
Pod Save America Pollercoaster on SuperCast
I got the SuperCast subscription since it seems to include everything together, videos, ad free pods, etc. They don't have Pollercoaster listed as a podcast so I have to scroll through the list of all episodes to even find the most recent. At first I thought it didn't have any Pollercoaster episodes and as data girlie I was about riot. Honestly, the only reason I have a subscription is to access this series. Also, Pollercoaster isn't a flair option either. Justice for Pollercoaster!! Anyone else having this issue with SuperCast?

Edit: I see Pollercoaster flair on other posts but I don't have access womp womp
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
Pollercoaster New Data Reveals How the Blue Tsunami Wiped Out Trump | Pollercoaster with Dan Pfeiffer (Sneak Peek) (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
Keep It! Amanda Seyfried DOES NOT Deserve An Oscar Nomination For This | Keep It! (11/11/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
Assembly Required Heather Cox Richardson on the Women Who Just CHANGED American Politics | Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams (11/10/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
Runaway Country [Discussion] Runaway Country with Alex Wagner - "How the Hell Did Democrats Win In Mississippi?" (11/12/26)
audioboom.comr/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
Pod Save The UK [Discussion] Pod Save The UK - "Russell Brand, David Walliams: Media’s Misogyny Problem. Plus, ‘Pragmatism’ And Climate Villains w/ Greenpeace" (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
Hysteria [Discussion] Hysteria - "DJT Double Down" (11/12/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
What A Day! [Discussion] What A Day - "White House Threatens Congressional Oversight" (11/11/26)
r/FriendsofthePod • u/kittehgoesmeow • 3d ago
What A Day! What A Day: Oversight For Sore Eyes by Matt Berg & Crooked Media (11/11/26)
"Silence and respect!" - A U.S. Army sentinel, to Pete Hegseth at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
House of Pain
Democrats pledged investigations into the Trump administration. The White House and Republicans are fighting back as if their political future depends on it.
Democrats spent the past two years promising Americans that, if they won back power in Congress, they’d do everything they could to investigate President Donald Trump and his administration’s corruption. With Democrats poised to take control of both chambers in January, Trump’s team is officially in full-blown panic mode — and trying to stop probes before they even begin.
Today, the White House rolled out a new threat: Aggressively investigating the Trump administration “may cross the line into blatant criminality,” the top White House lawyer wrote in a letter to Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the man now poised to take over the powerful House Oversight Committee.
Although experts called the threat flimsy, and even “legally repulsive,” the move shows just how aggressively the Trump team is preparing to fight to stop any unflattering information from ever seeing the light of day.
The letter referenced a string of statements by Democrats, including an offhand remark Garcia made when chatting with Crooked’s Jane Coaston at Crooked Con last weekend. “We can’t forget about these folks that are causing harm,” Garcia said. “Maybe it’s because I’m gay, but, like, pettiness is a thing,” he quipped, to a big round of laughter.
“Bizarrely, you have chalked your motives up to nothing more than ‘gay’ ‘pettiness’ rather than any legislative purpose,” the letter reads.
Trump, of course, seized the White House by campaigning on “Lock Her Up!” His administration has since waged an aggressive campaign to bring criminal charges against his political opponents. Those cases have often collapsed, sometimes before skeptical grand juries.
House Republicans are also preparing for battle in the new year.
The warning is unlikely to change Garcia’s behavior. “We are a co-equal branch of government and will not be deterred by baseless threats from a weaponized DOJ or from the President’s lawyers,” Garcia wrote in a statement today.
The White House’s threat comes as House Republicans double down on their own strategy to battle Democrats. The House GOP elected Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) — one of MAGA’s most aggressive loyalists — as their leader this week. In recent years, Jordan made a name for himself by launching dubious investigations against Democrats while leading the House Judiciary Committee and serving as the ranking Republican on Oversight.
The first sign of Jordan’s iron grip over House Republicans came last night, when he successfully killed Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Not a single House Republican joined Massie. (The effort also failed by a margin of seven votes, with 11 Dems missing — including several who got stuck in D.C. traffic and missed the vote. Sigh.)
The White House’s behavior proves something we’ve known all along: Trump’s team can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
Meanwhile On The Pod...
Trump’s War On DEI BACKFIRES With Black Voters (11/10/26)
Look No Further Than Crooked Media
It's great to have a moment to celebrate! And when you're ready, it's also important to prep for the work ahead. Because the fascists will not take this historic moment lying down. This week on Assembly Required, voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams is joined by writer and historian Heather Cox Richardson to celebrate this historic change and chat about next steps.
New episodes of the Assembly Required drop every Tuesday—check it out for actionable, fascist-fighting steps.
What Else?
Heating costs are expected to jump more than 7 percent across U.S. homes this winter, according to a new report. “The typical household that uses oil — almost five million nationwide — could pay as much as 70 percent more than last winter or about $2,977 for the season,” the New York Times writes.
A U.S. Army sentinel guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier reprimanded Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s entourage for laughing. “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times,” yelled the sentinel, who paused his patrol. Hegseth glanced at the soldier before walking away. You gotta hear this guy’s voice!
Donald Trump reiterated his intent to build his massive arch in the nation’s capital today, saying that veterans have been “waiting for it for 200 years.” (Side note: What?) A judge has temporarily blocked the construction. Nine members of the Kennedy family are also suing to stop the arch, which would occasionally cast a shadow over John F. Kennedy’s eternal flame.
The ICE agent who gunned down a Colombian migrant in Maine over the summer has a history of anti-migrant rhetoric, as well as allegations of domestic violence, the New York Times reports. “He can takes his non citizen ass back to his country and enjoy his third world luxuries,” the agent once wrote in a typo-filled email thread.
The U.S. needs to receive Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin’s “blessing” before they can invite Europeans to take part in Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Trump envoy Jared Kushner told reporters, before his trip with Steve Witkoff to Moscow on Thursday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio rarely misses his son’s University of Florida football games. Wow, cool dad! But there’s a less-cool part: He uses an expensive, taxpayer-funded government jet to get there, the Washington Post reports. Rubio’s personal and mixed-use trips on the plane have cost an estimated $1.2 million, according to an analysis by the outlet. “I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” Rubio said in a statement to the Post. Fun fact: His son barely plays.
Former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary accused Trump’s team of siding with corporate interests at the expense of Americans’ health. “A lot of pressure from White House and HHS aides was not on medical cures or healthy food but instead on getting more vapes approved and catering to lobbyists,” Makary told Politico. “Americans don’t want their kids smoking strawberry banana vapes — they want a government that stands up to corruption.”
You know how Pete Buttigieg is releasing a book, i.e., taking a big step toward another possible presidential run? Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) is about to publish one, too. “This book is about how we can rediscover our common humanity and relearn our common purpose,” Moore said in a statement. The title: “Repair.”
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Light At The End...
The Coming Home Project, a nonprofit that works to prevent veteran suicides by using psychedelic-assisted therapy, recently flew dozens of vets to Costa Rica for an ayahuasca retreat. Proponents of the therapy say the drug can help treat depression and allows users to revisit traumatic experiences in a productive way. “I felt like the medicine was a teammate,” one veteran told the Washington Post. “We were working together on a common goal.”
Two oceanic atolls in the Marshall Islands have been largely untouched by the effects of climate change and, y’know, destructive human behavior, according to a new study. The area is one of the most intact ecosystems that researchers have discovered, with 266 groups of fish, over a dozen bird colonies, and a variety of predators lurking in the waters.
The “Batman of forgotten pop music” spends his free time trying to convince record labels to revive singles, B-sides, remixes and other old tracks from popular artists, from Sheryl Crow tunes to the Smurfs Greatest Hits. At his day job, he works at a law firm. How does he do it? “I draft the [email] requests, wait until it’s an appropriate point of the working day and send them out,” he told the Wall Street Journal. I didn’t know that email could be a skill.
Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, and Amanda Seyfried sat down for their first interview together since releasing the hit documentary “You Can See Everything.” If you haven’t seen this movie yet, definitely don’t read this! If you have, this piece is an absolute joy.
Ina Garten, the queen of home cooking, doesn’t think pies should cost more than one hundred bucks, which is apparently a trend right now. “Unless it’s filled with lobster and caviar, I don’t understand it,” Garten told the Times. “But then, I’ve also never tried one.” Honestly, Garten is the only person whose pie I would pay $150 for.
Enjoy
Matty McMeme on Instagram: "No one knows how to spell beef borbingbong. But I am cooking it. Delicious beef boingyboinggon."