Episode 222 - Beware Geeks Bearing Grifts
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen spend a little time talking about things like Iran and what’s going on now before getting into the most important topic of the year: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Spoiler alert - it’s a good movie and will win many awards. We discuss the movie itself and, of course, the extremely weird online reactions to the movie and its success. Just a good, old fashioned Ambitious Crossover Attempt episode, like we used to be able to make before everything went pear shaped.
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Episode 221 - The Mainechurian Candidate
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam record a day late because they were busy mourning the loss of Lindsey Graham. OK not really, but we did have to push back recording to make sure we could get a full headcount on current GOP leadership and their health status. Luckily Mitch McConnell also made an appearance (kinda) after being MIA for a month, but it’s fair to say we have a bit of an old man problem going on. As for the other Graham that left us last week, Graham Platner’s Senate run finally came down in flames after Politico ran the story the NYT wouldn’t detailing the sexual assault allegations...
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Episode 220 - Real Americans
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen finish up their America250 celebrations in time to record an episode this week, because woo boy last week was a doozy. SCOTUS handed down their long waited but predictable (kinda?) decision upholding birthright citizenship, along with a few other notable decisions involving executive power and campaign finance. Speaking of campaigns, Platner’s isn’t going so well now that he’s out of the primary, and the knives are starting to come out. For this week’s WAWC, Noam recommends the video game Cairn, which does a great job of simulating the stress of actual rock climbing....
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Episode 219 - Wiener Dogged
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam check in to discuss Scott Wiener’s bad week of being hounded in public over his very tepid support of Israel, the primary win of Darializa Chevalier in the NY-13 district and should we care, and what exactly is going on with the “ceasefire” with Iran and why it is that the US is needing bomb the same places we bombed back in April. For our WAWC, we go back to our roots and tell you to watch anime! Noam finished up Dr. Stone (and Dr. Stone finished up producing new episodes) and he gives a few thoughts on the series as a whole now that it’s over. Jen recommends the first...
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Episode 218 - Reflecting Poorly
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen reflect (heh) on the past week, starting with the reflecting pool and moving on to what exactly is going on with the US and Iran and the MOU. It’s all a bit murky, nobody is doing their best work, and everyone has someone to blame for the failure. For our WAWC, it’s time for season 3 of House of the Dragon! We finally get our big boat fight, some character deaths, and Jen pointing out that everyone in the show under the age of 30 needs to be locked away somewhere so they stop messing everything up.
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Episode 217 - Happy Birthday To Me
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam are celebrating the president’s birthday! No, we aren’t actually! But we are talking about Trump and his on-again, off-again affair with Iran. After we finished recording this week’s episode there was an announcement of an alleged deal between the US and Iran, which sounds more like Trump capitulating to try to give himself a birthday win. Needless to say, we’ve heard this one before so until there is a signed piece of paper we don’t believe you. We do believe, however, that the new era of drone warfare is here thanks to Ukraine and the success they have had...
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Episode 216 - The Platner Files
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen are on time this week, because there’s a lot to talk about. As we somewhat alluded to last week, the NYT dropped a story detailing Graham Platner’s past. While it is being slammed as a soft catch and kill, and the main named accuser Lindsey Fifield has said there was a lot more that wasn’t included in the article, what was included is pretty damning. Damning enough that, 20 years ago, Planer would have needed to drop out to keep his life from being a distraction. Alas, we don’t live in those times anymore. Earlier today, it was announced that Iran has fired missiles into...
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Episode 215 - Trump 250
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam are late again, but that’s Noam’s fault because he’s a Euphoria fan (?) now. But we don’t just discuss the season (series?) finale of Euphoria, we discuss the DC based America 250 events that are falling apart in real time because Trump can’t keep his hands off the celebrations. And yes, despite the feigned indignation on the topic, it’s a little hard to say Trump isn’t making this about Trump when there’s huge banners of his face on government buildings in DC. And he decides to cancel a concert in lieu of his making a speech. Primary season has officially...
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Episode 214 - Slush Fund Babies
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen make it back a day late. It’s ok, that's what a three day weekend means. We did have plenty to talk about though, seeing as Trump settled his lawsuit against his own IRS over something that happened during his last term and that means that there is now $17.76B of taxpayer money that can now be used for….well it’s not really been determined what for. What’s for certain is that all of the J6 participants think they have a check coming to them. Thomas Massie lost his primary to some MAGA dude nobody really knows, but he still can’t bring himself to say that Trump...
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Episode 213 - Little Trouble in Big China
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Surprise! Jen is visiting Boston, so we are podding in person, and we even watched a movie together to discuss (more on that later). We cover Trump's trip to China and his worrying comments on Taiwan, and transition to his domestic conflict with Thomas Massie and now Lauren Boebert. Will the Republican party become a Vancian Post-MAGA party or will Rubio symbolize some gradual retreat from maximalism? People are also still Big Mad about the Odyssey, so we talk some more about that, and about the anger that permeats pop culture debates. This leads us into What Are We Consuming, which was the...
info_outlineJen and Noam return to discuss the Supreme Court shooting down Trump’s “national emergency” tariffs, Jen’s hope for a restructuring of executive power, Tucker lying about his trip to Israel (well at least to the airport), lying for clout, America’s new figure skating darling Alysa Liu, journalists asking athletes dumb political questions, and being proud to be an American.
For our WAWC, Jen recommends the new Sam Raimi film Send Help, and Noam (probably because he got tired of Jen badgering him to watch more anime) starts watching Hell’s Paradise.