Eli Lake, host of the Breaking History podcast, loves America. But what does that mean? We discuss the long unfinished experiment of our country, and the fashionable anti-semitism that’s swept colleges/the youngs, or as Eli calls them, “barista socialists.” We talk about how elite colleges fell apart, when the left becomes violent, and why valuing ideology over human lives is never a good look.

Also discussed:

* Eli’s July 4 AI song is a BOP

* Sarah tells Nancy she “looks older,” this goes over great

* We knew we’d made it on YouTube when …

* Commenter warns: DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO!!

* Eli explains how he makes his bangin’ AI songs

* Third rails and Gen Xers

* Spy Magazine!!!

* Sarah doesn’t want to make Eli the point-person on antisemitism but …

* “You suck, Bob Vylan!”

* How shockingly close boredom is to death lust

* “It goes back to the Books of the Maccabees…”

* NYC mayoral politics: “Vote for the felon or for the fedayeen.”

* The bill has come due for radical academics

* Does Bernadine Dohrn deserve eternal contempt? Let’s discuss!

* “Who is Menachem Begin?”

* What young actor should play Ted Bundy?

* Sarah has a FOURTH OF JULY SURPRISE!

Plus, heroes of the Texas floods, a Monica Lewinsky theory from the Middle East, Sarah falls asleep listening to serial killer narratives, and much more!

We’re PROUD to call you a paid subscriber. Now you just have to, umm, become one.

You can listen to Eli’s entire July 4 episode, but if you want to choke up and hear Eli’s bangin’ “If You Don’t Leave (We Gonna Fight),” start here (47:49)

Dan Savage: What better person to explain the mess that is the P Diddy trial? The “Savage Love” columnist/podcaster chats with Sarah and Nancy about the hip-hop mogul’s fetishes, OCD kinksters, the troubling statute of limitations on domestic abuse, and the dangerous elasticity of the term “sex trafficking.” This one is fascinating, fraught, and taught us a lot!

Also discussed:

* “It’s not RICO, it’s FREAK-O!”

* Dan stans Steve & Eydie

* Sarah is a little cinnamon, Nancy’s straight-up vanilla

* White parties started in gay culture?

* “A moment of silence for the staff of these hotels…”

* Clive Owens gets swapped with Clive Davis in a WILD WAY

* “There’s something Caligula about Combs …”

* It’s all about the glisten

* “Sex always wins.”

* Hotwifing??

* “I got cheated on, YAHTZEE!”

* “Pity sex is not rape”

* Men find their kinks at 15, women at 35

* Very tricky: Consent versus coercion

* “Good giving and game” might needs some corrections/clarifications

* The case for decriminalization of sex work

* The moral panic of “sex trafficking”

* The elasticity of the word “rape”

Plus, some (qualified) props for Monica Lewinsky, Sarah pouts because Nancy’s going on a date with another Sarah, New Orleans cops know all the lyrics to "Fairytale of New York,” and much more!

Nancy and Sarah debate a Modern Love column called, “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back.” Nancy is gagging. Sarah thinks it’s an imperfect swing in the right direction. Who will reign supreme? Eh, they both have a point. Also, the girls go deep on Karen Read, blackouts and causes celebre.

Also discussed:

* Nancy’s new nickname: Maidenform!

* New York, a socialist utopia?

* Be a YouTube subscriber, either because or despite our promise to only wear bras

* The Hepola trifecta: cops, excessive drinking, and blackouts

* Karen Read: Where to begin?

* No, really: Blackouts, blackouts, blackouts!!

* The defense lawyers are experts in… Kevin Spacey?!

* More people need jobs

* Are men “hiding” — if so, from what?

* Sarah gets rant-y about dating apps

* Nancy gets rant-y about female whining

* A male listener’s fraught text exchange with a woman

* “What is your role in this?”

* When heading to possible war, learn about previous wars

* William Langewiesche, revisited

* Osama bin Laden was a rich kid

Nancy and Sarah are joined by Katie Herzog, co-host of the Blocked and Reported podcast and author of an up-and-coming book on quitting booze, Drink Yourself Sober. They talk about getting canceled, navigating public backlash, and why Katie’s drinking tale is different from Sarah’s — she used Naltrexone, an opioid-blocker, to help quit. They discuss AA, the meaning of the word “alcoholic,” the nature of addiction, and why there’s no wrong way to get sober.

Also on tap:

* Jesse Singal, analyzed

* If you walk into the online arena, expect to get gored

* Helen Lewis, epic BARpod co-host

* Dan Savage is brilliant, but can he help us understand “freak offs”? (Please?)

* The Onion was once sold for $10,000?

* Andy Mills, top-tier man!

* Missing Twitter, pre-Elon

* Do NOT type your name into BlueSky

* When Katie realized she had a drinking problem

* “Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet”

* Sarah breastfed until what age?

* The Sinclair method

* Fun drunk v. sleepy drunk

* The tragic death of Jonathan Joss

* Sarah was Katie’s AA sensitivity reader

* Naltrexone, the Ozempic of booze

* Sarah learns a new phrase: “pharmacological extinction”

* “My life is monumentally better than when I was drinking”

* AA founder Bill Wilson = weirder than you think

* Writing a recovery book is a weird form of insurance

* GETTING FREE

* That Salon personal essay Katie can’t get off the Internet

* Piled on by Milo Yiannapoulos, oh the irony

* Katie is fine being cringe

* RIP, William Langewiesche

So much wisdom in this podcast, but the best parts are for paid subscribers

It’s hot, it’s June, and there’s mayhem in a major American city, this time Los Angeles. Nancy lived through the Rodney King riots, and though LA will hopefully not explode thusly, Nancy is heading there to cover the action. Want to help her? You can.

In other news, the Musk-Trump bromance imploded last week. Sarah has theories about the timing of certain tweets and deletions, in addition to what might come next. She catches us up on the Manhattan re-trial of Harvey Weinstein, who did not take the stand in his defense, though he did give a news interview. Verdict incoming — maybe this week!

Also discussed:

* SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE, especially if you’re a woman

* Nancy’s had it with the Trump nicknaming

* Looking for some conspiracy theories? We got ‘em

* “Green troll hair on the sour cream”

* No dramatic hyperbolic yelling, please, Sarah’s still waking up

* Jared Leto: Ick or hot?

* Citizen: Protect the World app sounds kinda cool

* Benjamin Franklin was a lot of things, but he was not a bangin’ father

* “Women with broken dreams …”

* Changing the names of battleships is hard, explained

* Please don’t mention Faces of Death

Plus, big love for The Dumb Zone, props to the brotherhood of the foxhole, another installment of “Let’s Be the Judge!” and more!

Our bromance only gets better when you become a paid subscriber.

Brooke Siem is the author of the 2022 memoir, May Cause Side Effects, about the decade and a half she spent on anti-depressants (prescribed after her father died when she was 15) and what happened when she ditched them. Sarah is currently on anti-depressants, though she wonders whether she needs them. Nancy is not on SSRIs, though she was part of a gentle brigade who nudged Sarah to increase her dosage last year. This is a complicated knot! The ladies talk about over-medication, how cultural taboos migrate, and the problem with treating sadness, anger, frustration — very human emotions — with a pill.

Also discussed:

* Nancy suddenly cares about the Navy; Sarah questions this

* That time Brooke wore a foxy denim jumper

* “Chemical imbalance” is a hoodwink

* The “Come Out of the Dark Campaign” meant to eradicate depression stigma leads to an explosion of SSRI prescriptions

* SSRIs and orgasm

* The opiate epidemic tracks with the anti-depressant era

* “Chemical castration” didn’t start with puberty blockers …

* 70s-80s Ritalin vogue

* Related: Does Ritalin suppress male growth?

* Hold up: a link between transitioning genders and SSRIs?

* Drinking and depression, a tangled saga

* “Headaches are caused by an Advil deficiency”

* Beware Wellbutrin

* Gothic SSRI withdrawal

* “I never boned a cabbie … that I’m aware of.”

* That time Sarah went hypomanic …

* 1 in 4 American women are on anti-depressants

* The hormones and menopause of it all

* “Fuck you, person at Whole Foods!”

* Big Pharma / Big Food = same playbook, different expression

* “Do you bake with yeast?”

* WTF with Pol Pot?

Plus, boozy cupcakes, a coyote sighting, was Tom Cruise right about pharmaceuticals — and much more!

This one’s a banger! Listen to the whole shebang when you become a paid subscriber.

REMINDER: Subscribe to our YouTube channel (it’s free). Even better: Watch it.

Happy Memorial Day! Nancy and Sarah discuss a Columbia Journalism Review bombshell about the alleged sexual misdeeds of journalist Wes Lowery, who shot to fame during the Black Lives Matter era and is perhaps best known for popularizing the idea of journalism guided by “moral certainty.”

This is hot one! Sarah gets kneejerk over blackout confusion, Nancy doesn’t understand “situationships,” and they argue over the definition of “glory hole.” Whether Lowery is guilty of these misdeeds we can’t say, but we both hope #metoo stories start to pivot away from “tearing someone down” to pointing to a better way to engage with people you love/bone/covet/teach/mentor/etc.

Also discussed:

* The latest Mission: Impossible — wanna guess who liked it?

* A blender full of stunts, frappéd

* When did we start celebrating Memorial Day?

* The smell of a nuclear submarine (let’s ask Sarah’s brother)

* SLEEP BUFFET!!!!

* Ken Burns’ theory on binary thinking shaped by computer code

* Fifth Column + Lowery = “exactly what you want from mega-minds”

* Buying a woman a drink: Predatory behavior — or kick-ass?

* Do people get roofied? Yes, but way less than hype suggests

* How dating fell apart

* Assholes vs. criminals / regret sex vs. rape

* The sad and endless hamster wheel of the compulsively sexual male

* When Sarah was a drunk bully …

* Slutdom during Nancy’s “Eddie Vedder years”

* Rise of violence on on the left: To be continued!

Plus, Nancy has a request for sociopaths, Sarah makes a hopeless pass at Douglas Murray — and much more!

Memorialize the day you became a paid subscriber…