It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Alex Pareene, Contributing Editor at the New Republic and proprietor of the AP newsletter on Substack, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by comedian Sarah Silverman to discuss her recent Off-Broadway musical The Bedwetter! First, Emma and Sam walk through the news, including NYC tightening their stringent gun laws, the social security trust getting extended by at least a year, Florida ending gender-affirming healthcare… for adults on medicaid, and Biden visiting Saudi Arabia as OPEC announces a production boost. Alex Pareene then joins as they dive into his article on the “unanswered question,” addressing an entire generation’s recognition of our political system as completely broken, before they walk through the weirdness of the state of our economy, including an incredibly strong employment rate and wages on the rise, while the media and government are fear-mongering about gas prices and inflation, and ignoring soaring rent and the inaccessibility of homeownership. Alex then dives into how democratic leadership is viewing this economic moment, as their property value skyrockets but corporations are finding it difficult to higher people an unlivable wages, and looks to the pandemic as a massive cause of the booming housing prices, with the “work from home” economy allowing white wealthier folks to move to lower-rent areas (thus driving up prices), and the stoppage in building production and a collapse of the supply line making the price of creating accessibility sky high. Next, Alex, Emma, and Sam look to the political divide between discussing inflation and gas prices, and refusing to address the inability of Americans to afford a roof over their heads, as representative of the democratic leadership’s ideological commitment to corporate neoliberalism even as their polling numbers continue to dwindle. They wrap up the interview with an extended conversation on policing, and how, in the wake of the Uvalde massacre, the media and government have to readdress their relationship to policing, and why Biden refuses to initiate such a political movement. Then, Emma and Sam are joined by comedian, author, playwright, and just all-around creative talent that is Sarah Silverman, as they unpack her work with the late-great Adam Schlesinger to convert her memoir into a critically-celebrated (by Sam, at least) musical, how Sam connects to these stories (obviously important), and the beautiful influence she had on one Emma Vigeland.