The video version of the Project 2025 podcast is finally up after a brief delay. Make sure to give it a like and to share it if you have a moment. The YouTube algorithm continues to be a fickle beast so any support to help us break through to the next level would be wonderful.
Also, we’re in the middle of moving our office and studio! Exciting, but stressful. As a result, I’m a little scattered so the timing of our content releases (other than the newsletters) might be a little funky over the next couple of weeks.
Dublin Daze
I’m back from a quick jaunt across the pond to Dublin and I have to say... Wow. What an amazing city. While it was a personal occasion to mark a very special day for our family, Mrs. Max and I were able to peel off to meet the one and only Bobby McD in person. He and his brilliant and wonderful wife were kind enough to break bread with us and show us about. One of the earliest and most devoted Unf*ckers in our beloved network, Bobby (no one calls him that) is as advertised. We talked music, politics, education and Irish heritage over a couple of beers and whiskeys and toasted the Unf*cker community with pride. It’s difficult for me to express just how much this community means to me and I’ll be forever grateful for the McD family hospitality.
Palestine
One of the more substantive resources on Palestine that I referenced in our multi-part series is called Palestine Nexus. It’s led by Zachary Foster, a historian of Palestine who received his Ph.D in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. It’s a treasure trove of resources and artifacts made available to the public to better understand the history of the region. For those interested in learning more about the history of the region and the conflict, they just announced a virtual course for $119 with the following course description:
Master the history of the Palestine-Israel question, 1870-present
Understand the origins & underlying causes of violence
Debunk common myths on Israel-Palestine
Develop a view on the US role in solving the Palestine-Israel conflict
Become a more effective human rights advocate
Shape the narrative & public discourse around Israel-Palestine
Trump
He wins again. And I’ll have a lot more to say about this bullshit in the coming days. Suffice to say, Trump merged his social media company with something called a “SPAC,” one of the dumbest Wall Street inventions of all time. And that’s saying a lot. What it did was enable Trump to attach his hemorrhaging Truth Social platform with an existing cash-rich holding company so it can access the public markets. It’s an interesting move that only Wall Street thieves can pull off and it won’t end well for investors. But what it does is increase Trump’s net worth by $3 billion. Scandalous and absurd but the timing couldn’t be better for Trump who is struggling to meet his bond obligation in his civil case. It’s important to note that he can’t actually touch this money for six months, though he’ll likely get a waiver for this prohibition and plunder this new entity for cash.
Several years ago a friend of mine was talking about investing in the stock market. He built a successful business over two decades and had enough savings to really start thinking about investing. Our conversation was during a particularly difficult economic environment where the Dow Jones Industrial Average seemed to be way outperforming the real economy. And he said something that stuck with me: “This can’t last. It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, what’s it gonna do, hit 40,000?”
I called him today to remind him of this conversation.
Soooooooo close. (He did wind up investing, so he’s fine.)
Headlines
Nathan For You
Our good friend Nathan Robinson sparked a brief “X” feud with popular streamer Destiny recently. The two managed to schedule an online debate regarding Israel/Palestine and generally came to an understanding. If you’re not used to tuning into these debates, it can be somewhat strange and many of them are pure nonsense. But there’s some value to be had here and it’s always good to check in with a friend of the pod. Watch the Debate:
This is one of the best pieces on the tension that exists within the U.S. Jewish community that I’ve read. It speaks to the historic liberalism among American Jews being threatened by the uncomfortable alliance between far right Republicans and staunch Zionists. I cannot recommend this highly enough to understand the difficulty Jewish people face in reconciling their faith and history with political realities and war.
From the article:
“The American Jews who are making a different choice — jettisoning Zionism because they can’t reconcile it with the liberal principle of equality under the law — garner less attention because they remain further from political power. But their numbers are larger than many recognize, especially among millennials and Generation Z. And they face their own dilemmas. They are joining a Palestine solidarity movement that is growing larger, but also more radical, in response to Israel’s destruction of Gaza. That growing radicalism has produced a paradox: A movement that welcomes more and more American Jews finds it harder to explain where Israeli Jews fit into its vision of Palestinian liberation.”
We unpacked the Republican plan from the Heritage Foundation titled “Project 2025” last week and it’s a fucking nightmare. This, of course, begs the question as to what exactly Democrats propose. In These Times offers a clinical glimpse into the Biden budget for a second term, which truly amounts to a “more of the same” with a few more credits along the way to support the “bottom up, middle out” strategy that has yet to bolster the optimism of many in the electorate.
From the article:
“Democrats would be smart to take a cue from recent data from the Congressional Budget Office which illustrates how immigration is expanding the economy. The negative impact on the labor force level from an aging population is more than offset by the addition of prime-age, foreign-born workers. From a narrow economic standpoint, more people are good for the nation. Among other things, people are a resource (not to mention humans deserving of dignity). We certainly acknowledge that about babies born in the United States. The fact that, for certain Americans, views differ according to the ethnicity of additions to the population speaks for itself.”
NYC Mayor Eric Adams loves a good photo op. He gladhands his way around the city with a human touch that eluded his predecessor Bill de Blasio, one of the most reviled politicians in New York’s history. But de Blasio did one thing right, at least as far as New Yorkers are concerned: Early childhood education. But Adams is having trouble managing the ever increasing expenses of a city that hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic and is saddled with new expenses from the migrant crisis. As a result, beloved programs are increasingly on the chopping block.
From the article:
“According to New Yorkers United for Child Care, this mayor has cut almost $400 million from the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs since 2022, and has been proposing to gouge them by another 14 percent next year. The vast majority of New York City parents can’t afford childcare, according to a report last month from the 5BORO Institute, which found that a family would have to make over $300,000 a year to comfortably swing the cost. (New York isn’t alone, or even the costliest of cities for parents seeking day care: internal data from the Bank of America last fall found that the cost was even higher in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Los Angeles).”
Silly season is in full swing so politicians take center stage. But it's important to remember who really pulls the strings and runs the show. This week is an overdue flashback to our Corporate (Ir)Responsibility episodes that have been combined for the first time by the great Manny Faces for your listening pleasure. It's a good refresh on the bad actors that came together to rig the system. We'll be back next week with more original content as we plug away at the border crisis and other pressing issues. For now, enjoy!
Here’s a snippet from the pod:
Max: “One of most overplayed tropes is the idea that taxes kill job creation. So let’s get that bullshit out of the way too. It’s one of those fucking concepts that lingers and feels too hard to explain why it’s bullshit. So here you go. Over a 30 year period between 1950 and 1980, the average corporate tax rate was about 50%. Over this same period, unemployment ranged from a low of 2.5% in the ’50s, to a brief spike of 9% during the oil and inflation crisis, but the trend line hovered around an average of about 5%. In other words, zero statistical correlation between corporate tax rates and employment. Let’s close the fucking door on this already.”
The veteran journalist and political commentator has long warned about the corporate takeover of American institutions and the related erosion of civil liberties.
“The National Coalition for the Homeless is made up of staff, volunteers, Board Members, Individual and Organizational Members, and concerned citizens who all share the view that everyone should have a home. Most importantly, we are led by people who themselves have experienced homelessness in some form, and have lived expertise on how to solve the root causes of homelessness.”
“141 years ago this week, Karl Marx—the founder of scientific socialism and one of the greatest revolutionaries in history—died. In this episode, Josh Holroyd explores the theories and events that inspired and shaped the young Karl Marx.”
“In fifteen short chapters, Chris Hedges astonishes us with his clear and cogent argument against war, not on philosophical grounds or through moral arguments, but in an irrefutable stream of personal encounters with the victims of war, from veterans and parents to gravely wounded American serviceman who served in the Iraq War, to survivors of the Holocaust, to soldiers in the Falklands War, among others. Hedges reported from Sarajevo, and was in the Balkans to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“Today it is important again to be reminded who are the victors of the spoils of war and of other unerring truths, not only in this war but in all modern wars, where civilians are always the main victims, and the tools and methods of war are capable of so much destruction it boggles the mind.”
“I am glad you are finally balancing your criticism of Biden with the absolute terror of the other option. I know you like to point out that the democrats are just as bad. But the difference is the democrats are not as passionate about it and lack the organization to do the damage that Trump will reap.”
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