This episode features several clips: Pete Buttigieg on the NYT Ezra Klein Show talking about people’s trust in government. Kamala Harris’ campaign debut ad: Freedom. Bill Maher talking about the young people who founded America and contrasting the US to her enemies who young people today seem to think are preferable. The AI-generated song “Fucking My Couch” (Spotify, Amazon) by AI Larry Bob.

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This episode features a clip from The Local's podcast Sweden in Focus where Richard Orange talks about the country's generous paternity leave and the effect it has on families. There's also a clip from Bill Maher's not-so-great podcast Club Random where Penn Jillette talks about evolutionary love for one's children. Nick Cave also reads a response he wrote to a fan who was concerned about bringing a child into the world in its current state on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. There are also birthday greetings to September babies from Tiktoker Soupy Garbage Juice (he’s released the full song but I didn’t realize it until too late to include the whole song on the show, also Ansel didn't turn out to be born in September. Doh!). And while not mentioned in the episode, I highly recommend Ric Burns' documentary about Ansel Adams.

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This episode features a couple of clips from recent VP candidate Tim Walz contrasting his modest lifestyle to other political figures and talking about the Trump agenda vs. his and Kamala Harris’.

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This episode features a couple of clips from a really fun episode of Tyler Cowan’s podcast Conversations with Tyler. The guest is a favorite of mine, Paul Bloom, a psychologist who specializes in moral psychology, particularly in children. I pulled clips of them discussing at what age a child can truly believe in God, and another where they discuss the relative value of dogs, cats, pigs, and humans. The whole hour is great.

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This episode features a clip from Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech at the DNC followed by Steven “Destiny” Bonnell on how effectively the Democrats usurped the Republican's historic talking points (cause they have forfeited them in favor of lunacy). Later he describes why it’s harder for MAGA to break free from their idiocy than for leftist to do the same.

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This episode features a clip from The New York Times podcast The Interview where host Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviewed US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and he mentioned one of the most-compelling potential promises of a Kamala Harris presidency: Wresting control of the Republican Party back to some kind of normalcy and away from the MAGA clown car of conspiracy theorist know-nothings.

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This episode features two clips from the David Pakman Show. First, from 8 months ago, here he lays out a partial list of Joe Biden’s accomplishments, observing that he was the most effective and consequential president of the last 50 years. Then a clip of Joe Biden’s address where he bows out of the presidential race for the good of the country.

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This episode features a clip of Bill Hicks' in 1988 talking about how all the good people always get murdered, but mediocre hacks live forever no matter what. I was reminded of this routine over the weekend when Trump was shot at but they just grazed him. This isn't the version I remember listening to, but I couldn't find the version from my memory.

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This episode features a clip of an essay by John Cleese about The Advantages of Extremism. It’s an old clip from the late 1980s and targeted a British audience but it feels tailor-made for contemporary America.

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This episode features a clip of TikToker Handren Seavey talking about how the track record of college aged kids being right about things is, um, mixed. It’s not their fault, they’re just the dumbest adults. Also, commentator Destiny talks about the problem of letting groups like Hamas leverage asymmetric warfare and human shields to gain support from the international community and the risk that giving into that poses for a world order based on international law.

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This episode features a clip of Jim Gaffigan talking about Weddings from his Obsessed album (Netflix, Amazon). The whole routine is hilarious but I only included a bit of it.

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This episode features a clip from Saturday Night Live where dinner party guests debate Weezer fandom. It’s the 30th anniversary of the blue album which I intended to mention, but failed to. Also, for the closing I talked over the 8-Bit Misfits awesome version of "Buddy Holly" (Amazon, Spotify, YouTube) but didn't say so.

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This episode features some edited down clips of Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on Radio X talking to John Kennedy about the origins of the two songs I played in the episode. The Paul Simon documentary I mentioned is called In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon by Alex Gibney.

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This episode features a clip from the Blocked and Reported podcast with Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal talk about the confusing shake out on who supports which side in the Israeli vs Palestinian/Hamas war. Also Benjamin of @holylandspeaks opines about the fixation on Palestinian suffering by people who completely ignore Ukrainian or other suffering.

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This episode features a condensed clip from The Big Conversation podcast where Alex O’Connor talks about how religious people try to take credit for the progress made at dismantling all of the awful stuff their religious traditions got wrong historically. Also, a clip from Christmas Vacation about Ruby Sue.

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This episode features a somewhat heavily truncated clip of the ceremony marking Sweden’s official membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson speaking about the importance of a unified Europe in light of global instability caused by Russian aggression and it’s invasion of Ukraine.

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This episode features a clip from comedian Sam Morril’s 2022 Netflix special Same Time Tomorrow where he talks about the addictive nature of TikTok, and also a PSA from comedian Daniel-Ryan Spaulding on the uncanny similarities between Trump supporters and “leftist” “Free Palestine” activists—neither care or know what is true or false or what words mean, it’s all just about how they feel.