Thank you to everyone who tuned in live! 43 days until midterm voting ends, and we are unhinged as ever, trying to make sense of Pete Hegseth’s testosterone obsession (morning wood, wtf?!), Trump acting like a big baby and following through on his promise to ban CNN, Politico, and MS(we’re still calling it)NBC, Logan and Jake Paul at the Pentagon, and the fact that even though men have led us into this ditch and are still digging, they keep asking us to let them lead.

And we keep letting them??! We want to believe that we got this, but we have some work to do in the coming weeks. Which leads me to our first point Lauren Lehman Carter needs to write a parenting book.

1. Three Douchebags and You’re Out: Lauren has a rule for raising two white suburban boys. Do three douchebag things, and you’re hit with the ultimate teen punishment. She takes your phone. I think it should be national policy.

2. The Converse Curse: Are we chucking our chucks??! You’ll have to watch the episode to find out, but we have theories, and they may be conversepiratorial. Yeah, we’re just making up words now.

3. We’re the Lube of Politics (A Response to an audience comment): Someone asked why we talk about pop culture if we’re supposed to be locking in. And the main reason is that nobody wants to jump right into politics at 10:00am on a Monday. WE don’t even want to talk policy at 10am on a Monday. We ease you in…like lu…ok you get it.

4. America, F*ck It?: I have a list on my dry erase board of the shit we are up against: bots, lying politicians, Elon Musk’s money, deepfakes, billionaires, defeatism, a culture that rewards assholes. It’s enough for us to want to say America, F*ck It! But we’re not giving up, and in the episode we talk about why, and it’s, dare I say, heartwarming.

Lauren’s early voting in Illinois starts THIS WEEK. Mine starts October 17 in Nevada, and I’m flying in to vote in person.

See you Monday.

Maya & Lauren

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live! For those who couldn’t, we hit on our usual range of topics but with the main focus being…LOCK THE F*CK IN! Election season is upon us.

* Stop saying the election is ON November 3: That’s the LAST day to vote. Lauren found out that voting in Illinois starts in 10 days! I’m flying back to the States to cast my ballot because I’m paranoid. The election is EVERY day starting from when early voting begins near you. Check the chart!

* A Russian Oligarch Paid for Don Jr.’s Wedding on a Private Island: Who knew that Lauren’s background as a high-end wedding planner would come in so useful in analyzing the state of our current politics? Someone doesn’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for someone else’s wedding without getting something in return. The question is what???

* Words Matter. Republicans aren’t “Rigging” the Election. They're suppressing the vote, changing polling places, and purging voter rolls. But that’s not an excuse to NOT vote; it’s the main reason to vote early. That way, if you do run into an issue, you have plenty of time to correct it. And when you talk to people, don't ask if they're voting. Tell them EVERYONE’S voting.

* WTF Jasmine Crockett Honored Chris Brown 50 Days Before the Midterms: Yah, we’re confused about it too. And when we say confused, we mean angry. Watch the video for more on that…

* Voting Is Self-Care! And Community Care! And Mutual Aid! Lauren proposed that voting is a form of self-care, and I agree! Our lives and nervous systems depend on the policies enacted by the people we put into office. So…here’s that chart. What’s your voting plan?

Lauren texted me before the show and said she was showing up in a robe and eye gels. I said, “do itttttt.” I’ve been sprinting around all day; she’s coming off of 1000 Miles to Memphis, and when Mike Fanone popped into the comments to ask what the hell is going on here, I wrote something like: “we’re keeping it together!” I hadn’t showered. Lauren fell asleep in her contacts two nights running. This is what we actually look like while doomscrolling, and we’re done pretending otherwise (at least through the midterms).

Quick preview of what we got into in between a lot of laughs:

1. Perfectionism is a function of white supremacy. It’s also a function of authoritarianism and ain’t nobody got time for that. We barely had time to eat breakfast. Ok, we didn’t eat breakfast.

2. Lake Ontario being Lake America will not distract us from measles and deadly groceries. We are MapQuest girlies now.

3. There are soybeans rotting in fields right now and US farm debt just hit $625 billion. Farmers backing Trump? Big mistake. HUGE.

4. Dolly Parton is who Taylor Swift thinks she is. Yes, I know these are fighting words. Just watch the episode and get back to us.*

5. In Elaine, Arkansas, they took the polling place. Folks were already driving 30 minutes. Now it’s an hour each way. They want to make voting hard, so our response is “vote harder.”

*Not totally irrelevant…Singer Olivia Rodrigo put on a Lilith Fairesque festival that raised $10 million for women’s organizations. MacKenzie Scott matched it. Melinda Gates added $10 million more. Thirty million dollars, ten organizations. Apparently women are just gonna have to take care of ourselves because the men are too busy going to war and making deportation p*rn, WTF.

Check your registration at Vote.org. Vote early. Vote hard. Hydrate.

Watch the full episode for the rest, including how close we are to being AARP eligible and getting the Denny’s senior discount.

See you Monday.

Maya & Lauren

We got BIG questions. Are we adapting ourselves to death???

Thank you to all who tuned into our live! We have no shortage of solutions to the crises America is facing, but they all seem to be aimed at profiting off the problem rather than actually solving it.

ICYMI, here’s some of what we got into.

* Shock gloves. In schools. Alongside Flock cameras pointed at children and $200 bulletproof backpacks. Lauren challenges us to reframe how we measure the economy; not by gas and eggs (which we also can’t afford) but by the cost of staying alive: clean water, breathable air, and a kid who comes home from school. By that measure, America is becoming unattainable for many.

* Climate change ranks 3% among issues most important to voters during the hottest summer on record. WTAF. We cannot emphasize enough how much of a problem this is. Meteorologist Chris Gloninger is back to explain what that 3% costs: homeowners insurance is up as much as $650 a year in 95% of zip codes. We gotta do better than 3% or else it’s going to be “managed retreat” for all of us. Watch the show to find out what that phrase means!

* Rage is the appropriate response. I’m angry AF and Lauren agrees that I shouldn’t have to fight fascist f*ckery with a smile. There’s a whole “good vibes only” culture built to enforce the smile, but historian Heather Cox Richardson, one of the most measured people speaking to this moment, just flat out said we have a fascist government. You cannot smile at fascism.

* The blood is still on the driveway. As part of the 1000 Miles to Memphis March, Lauren walked to Medgar Evers’ home this morning, where the blood is still visible in the driveway. They want people to see it because looking away has never solved anything. If we don’t address white supremacy head-on, the powerful will continue to oppress us all.

This wasn’t a light episode, but we did manage to get some genuine laughs in. Watch the full episode to hear what’s giving us hope. Spoiler alert: it’s us. We’re giving ourselves hope, damnit.

See you Monday.

Maya & Lauren

Thank you to all who tuned into our live. ICYMI, here is just a tiny sampling of what we got into this week.

1. Taylor Swift finally told Trump to kick rocks. If you remember, Lauren went viral and pissed off the Swifties for her take on this. The question we address in this episode is whether or not Taylor Swift has a responsibility to take a stand. (spoiler alert: f*ck yeah she does).

2. The DNC ran a Megan Thee Stallion song under a video of Abdul El-Sayed. Unbleeped. Like zeroooo censoring. As you now know, El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary and everyone from Fox News anchors to the DNC thinks he’s hot. Is this the new angle? In a Love Islandized America, do platforms even matter anymore?

3. Enes Kanter Freedom declared for the WNBA draft. He’s a former NBA player who legally changed his surname to Freedom. The irony is strong with this one. Our producer Joshua Friday came on camera to share how he went into a group chat of 20-something athletes to gently challenge their thinking on fairness in sports. When I say gently, I mean he (correctly IMO) invoked Jim Crow.

4. The avocado cartel won’t tell you this. YOU CAN REFRIGERATE AVOCADOS. I repeat: you can refrigerate avocados but don’t do it too soon. Also, Lauren and I learned we have both created content about avocados because we are the same kind of weird.

More primaries this week, Tuesday, August 11: Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, and four special congressional primaries in Alabama.

As always, check sites like Ballotpedia for your race and be sure to check your polling locations because those seem to have a funny habit of changing. Watch the full episode for the rest, including Tim Scott on live TV telling voters to stop Talarico in Michigan.

Talarico is running in Texas.

See you next Monday.

Maya & Lauren

The world is on fire. You know that meme about the disaster getting closer until you’re the one filming it? Last year I was filming it. 40% of my daughter’s school was damaged by the Palisades Fire, and while the school has been repaired, she lost her senior year to climate change, and many of her friends lost their homes. A billion-dollar climate disaster hits the US every two and a half weeks. And mainstream news coverage of the climate crisis has gone down three years in a row.

This week we sat down with Chris Gloninger, my friend and former co-anchor on the very short-lived Climate Report (find out why in the episode). Chris is the meteorologist who left his Iowa broadcast TV job after death threats for reporting on climate change. Because we’re all literally feeling the heat, we thought it would be great to have Chris on to talk about what’s actually happening and why you’re not hearing about it on the news.

Chris is now a recurring segment! We’re calling it the Dystopian Weather Report or something like that. Help us name it in the comments!

Lauren called in from a van on day 10 of the 1000 Miles to Memphis March, somewhere between Nashville and Atlanta, with Bri Woodson driving.

Watch the full episode and let us know what you think in the comments. See you Monday!

Maya & Lauren

We just had our first show at our new time! Monday mornings! We figured it would be a fun way to start the week… obviously, we had no idea that Lindsey Graham would go and die. He did. So we cover that in this episode (the reactions to his death and ours), but we also talk about lipstick, religion, and what might happen to Lauren’s toenails on the 1000 Miles to Memphis March that her nonprofit The Good Work is helping to organize.

You can get involved by donating or signing up to march or join any of the events along the way.

For everyone who is new here, our format is a little bit of news, hot takes that might get us canceled, tips/tools/tricks on how to stay sane, and a lot of laughter.

We hope you’ll join us every Monday morning!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Maya & Lauren