It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Ben Burgis, columnist at Jacobin, host of Give Them An Argument and author of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by comedian Jena Friedman, host and director of Indefensible on AMCPlus! Sam, Emma, and Ben begin by – surprise – diving into the legacy of Christopher Hitchens, and how he went from anti-war activist to weirdly pro-US intervention in the Middle East, looking to his slow trickle over to the side of the elite and well-educated, seeing a difference between the Cold War imperialism against peasant armies and the counter-insurrection of the ‘90s and ‘00s. Next, they look to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the state of the Ukrainian separatists in the Donbas region, the absurd notion of debating false flags, and where the Biden administration actual stands, before they explore the Democratic establishment looking for any reason to blame the progressive agenda for their losses, even with all the money mismanagement, electoral failures, and policy choices stemming from themselves, all the while refusing to acknowledge the skyrocketing child poverty rates in the wake of them stepping away from progressive policy. Then, Jena Friedman tells the crew how she went from stand-up taking on the absurdity of the true-crime genre, to working on a more self-aware take on the category and its role in the hyper-punitive, racist, and sexist culture we live in. They also admire Charlie Kirk clinging to his childhood pediatrician to make fun of vaccines, and debate how comedy’s relationship to politics and progressivism has developed, before Sam and Emma also touch on the terrible Tommy Tuberville.

And in the Fun Half: Ronald Raygun calls in to explore canceling out cancel culture, aka getting back at Disney, Milo from Maine dives into the lack of union-focused education courses, and Sean from Coco Cali takes a crack at the Kennedy assassination and dives into a conversation on the draw of conspiracy theories. Eric Trump has one question for Jesus that boils down to, “so, what’s up with Biden?” and Andrew Yang wants everyone to pay a crypto lobby group to… solve poverty? Sam and Emma discuss the unsurprisingly bipartisan defense authorization bill, plus, your calls and IMs!

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