Episode 171 - Dropping The Midnight Hammer
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam discuss the war thing that happened last week, including (well, mostly) the US strike on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. Was it a good idea? What is the state of the Iranian nuclear program now? What happens next? Are we getting a ceasefire? Will Trump get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize? What really happened in the lead-up to the US strike? Is MAGA going to forgive and forget if this all turns out to be a success?
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Episode 170 - War Comes To Iran
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen spend most of the episode discussing the current escalation of the Israel—Iran conflict and our various thoughts about it. Noam also teaches you how to make a nuclear bomb, kind of. Neither of us is sure where things will go from here, since so far, this attack and counterattack have not gone the way everyone expected. We also discuss Trump’s comments on immigrants and the new directive not to perform workplace raids in specific well-connected industries. To finish it up, we discuss what we know about the assassination and attempted assassination of two Democratic...
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Episode 169 - ICE Capades
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam discuss…all of the things. We unpack the Trump - Musk breakup (for now), Terry Moran being suspended over a tweet that was correct but not nice, the Trump administration getting involved in places it shouldn’t, Alex Thompson outing a source for lying to him in the past, Karine Jean-Pierre’s new book (and political affiliation), and of course the LA riots and not believing everything you see on social media.
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Episode 168 - The Post-Consequence Era
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen start out by discussing the Glenn Greenwald sex tape, because those are words that go together now. From there we move into discussing the Western media uncritically repeating a Hamas lie that Israel attacked Gazans who were in line for humanitarian aid, since the connective tissue between the stories is Israel being accused of things it did not do. We take some time to nerd out over Ukraine’s surprise attack on Russian airfields using Trojan trucks full of cheap drones, and how the war is showing the next phase of warfare will not rely on money and brute force but tech...
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Episode 167 - Globalizing The Intifada
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam discuss Biden’s big cancer announcement, the timing, the susness, how people can be very weird when it comes to cancer, and some of the revelations in the book Original Sin. We also talk about the tragic murder of two Israeli embassy employees outside of the Capital Jewish Museum and the difficulty of extending grace to those who never return the favor. Jen also gives her Grand Theory Of Engagement Slop and how it is driving political violence, and Noam gushes about The Rehearsal (again).
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Episode 166 - Abundantly Dumb
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen discuss the mind numbing amount of stupid that took place last week, like people pretending to be very upset about James Comey’s dumb 86 47 post, the umpteenth news cycle about Joe Biden’s mental state (not his cancer diagnosis thought, that was announced after the recording), and Sam Seder running into the brick wall that is Ezra Klein and the Abundance plan for making housing more affordable. Not everything is stupid, though! We give our final thoughts on Andor and the portrayal of the Empire as a soul sucking bureaucratic grind that is both evil and banal. Also,...
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Episode 165 - In Plane Sight
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jean and Noam discuss the audacity of Trump accepting a “gift” of a luxury jet from Qatar, how we still have no idea what is going on with the tariffs, the ongoing saga of the media vs John Fetterman, staking one’s reputation on defending someone you don’t personally know, the flare up in tensions between India and Pakistan, and whos ceasefire is it anyway.
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Episode 164 - Politics And Sinners
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen discuss a politician with alleged mental impairments that would keep him from being able to do his job. No, not Trump, John Fetterman. Also, the tariffs are coming, but the first rule is you don’t talk about the tariffs. To wrap up the politics part of the pod, we spend some time talking about the Karmelo Anthony - Shiloh Hendrix dueling GiveSendGo campaigns and the new fad of taking absolute strangers and making them the avatar for you weird online wars. And because we are cool kids we saw the movie all the cool kids are seeing, Sinners. We give our thoughts on the movie,...
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Episode 163 - Crisis Of Uncertainty
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam are not certain what is going on. Businesses are not certain what is going on. The president seems certain about what is going on but is he really? All of this uncertainty is certainly not making the market or voters happy. We do our best to try to figure it out, from tariffs to immigration policy to the bizarre Time interview with Trump. In keeping with the spirit of the show (and because Noam finds the current news cycles to be anxiety inducing) we do a bit of a dive into the controversies surrounding the new seasons of The Last Of Us and Andor. We will be back on...
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Episode 162 - ...And Process For All
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen the ongoing immigration saga involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration's refusal to bring him back to the US despite a unanimous SCOTUS ruling to do so, Senator Van Hollen’s very odd trip to check in on Garcia, the virtues of just doing things correctly the first time, another SCOTUS ruling against Trump’s immigration policy, and what happens from here. We also spend a little time talking about how nobody is talking about Governor Josh Shapiro’s home being firebombed on the first night of Passover, and Noam does his best to lighten the mood by giving...
info_outlineJen and Noam once again try to shove a week’s worth of events into one pod episode, which is getting harder and harder because everyone refuses to just be normal. We start off by discussing the unexpected news that Elon Musk has indeed welcomed (?) his 13th child, this time with tradgirl influencer Ashley St. Clair. Question mark because Elon does not seem to want to acknowledge the child or its mother. While we try not to have too much fun at Ashley’s expense, we do discuss the realities of trad influencers not living their message, a new name for baby mamas, showing feet in a NYP photo spread, and the hypocrisy of it all.
After thoroughly discussing all of that we move on to actual news, such as the possible upcoming negotiations to end the Ukrainian war. Considering we can’t figure out who’s on first, let alone who is going to be invited to the negotiations and what exactly will be negotiated and what the US’s role will be in any negotiated ceasefire, it’s a little hard to say if this is a good idea. Also not at all certain is how the Ukrainian people feel about a potential deal, whatever that may end up being.
We also talk about the Department of Justice dropping its corruption case against NYC mayor Eric Adams and the extreme fallout from it, both in people quitting their jobs and reactions in the online sphere. Given that the quid pro quo is a bit hard to miss, and conservative lawyers resigning over being asked to sign off on dropping the case, how does this square with the whole draining the swamp ethos Trump promised?
Finally we get to the big news that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. And if you don’t call it that, you’ll get kicked out of the White House. Obviously this is peak stupidity and nobody asked for it but what were Trump voters asking for exactly? And speaking of Trump, what’s up with him lately? He seems a bit disinterested in the whole being president thing.
We will be back on Twitch this week, discussing all of the TV we’ve been watching over the past few weeks. Click below to subscribe!
https://www.twitch.tv/ambitiousxover