Breaking: the Supreme Court just sided with the Trump administration, reviving DHS's flawed SAVE database and letting states use it to challenge and purge voters — including naturalized citizens — right as early voting is already underway in contested Senate races across North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, and Kansas. Julie Roginsky and Michelle Kinney break down what just happened, why it's timed for maximum midterm chaos, and the one thing you need to know if you show up to vote and get told you're not eligible: ask for a provisional ballot, and do not leave until you get it.

The Dispatch airs live — new episodes every week on The Mayday Network YouTube channel, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Timestamps: 0:00 Breaking: SCOTUS sides with Trump admin on voter database 1:56 What the SAVE database ruling actually allows 3:06 Why the timing hits swing-state Senate races right now 4:29 Julie: the Court is "the in-house general counsel for the Republican National Committee" 8:29 What to do if you're told you're not eligible to vote: demand a provisional ballot

Ellie Leonard joins The Mayday Network to discuss latest scoop from The Guardian on Brendan Carr's Sex Cult past. https://substack.com/@redpencilscript

Per The Guardian, Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr — who is only 47, despite looking like he's been drafting broadcast regulations since the Reagan administration — spent nearly a decade, starting at age 17, inside a rogue Washington D.C. Alcoholics Anonymous group called Midtown. At the center of it was Michael Quinones, described by one former member as "the Epstein of AA."

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/22/fcc-chair-brendan-carr-midtown-aa-group

Brendan Carr, a MAGA extremist, has famously threatened to withdraw broadcasters’ licenses over news coverage that he finds "unfair" to Donald Trump. One former member of the cult said “A man who has the power to control what types of stories the mainstream public have access to is a man who should expect the narrative of his own life to fall under scrutiny.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 – Intro +Welcome Ellie Leonard 0:46 – Setting up Brendan Carr and why the FCC chair matters 1:25 – The "Midtown" AA group: sex cult allegations 4:00 – The French fry story: Carr as the group's "safe space" 4:32 – Parallels to Scientology and other high-control groups 9:41 – The real issue: sneaking fries treated as heroism, not complicity 10:38 – Epstein parallel: staff who saw abuse and stayed silent 14:33 – How addiction, isolation, and coercion made girls vulnerable 22:35 – Quinones's own words: the group leader's predatory quote 24:38 – Age-of-consent loophole allegedly exploited across state lines 27:44 – The moral case against Carr: sin of omission 29:32 – Carr's need for approval and his LSAT breakdown story 31:53 – MAGA as a replacement structure for his cult past 36:32 – Why community/belonging drives cult and MAGA adjacency 44:11 – Trump's naming obsession as a parallel authoritarian pattern 50:33 – Why this story isn't over — more accusers likely 55:16 – Personal stories: Ellie and Julie on normalized abuse growing up 59:16 – The arts/modeling pipeline and how predators used access as bait 1:11:07 – Christine Blasey Ford and the cost of speaking first 1:14:38 – Closing: Ellie's Substack, sign-off

The FBI just got hacked. Kash Patel's in Moscow doing shots. And Macron just told the world "no one is safe." We break it all down.

To this community we've built here — especially today, thank you. Times like these are heavy, and having a place to process it with people who actually get it means more than you know. This show exists entirely because of you — no network, no corporate backing, just an audience that shows up, chips in, and believes independent media covering this moment matters. Every tip and subscription goes straight back into keeping this thing running: the tools, the platforms, the unglamorous stuff it takes to put a show up every single day. We built this with you, and we're so grateful you're here.

The FBI got hacked — and not by a nation-state looking for money. A group called ShinyHunters (usually financially motivated, but not this time) breached the Bureau and is now sitting on agents' names, home addresses, phone numbers, and their spouses' information. No ransom demand, no clear ask — just full exposure of the people investigating everyone from the mob to Russian and Iranian sleeper cells, while Director Kash Patel is off doing shots and chugging beer with hockey players, headed to Moscow two weeks before an election, having previously taken $25K to star in a Kremlin-friendly documentary calling the Russia investigation a hoax.

We trace how the US ended up this exposed: the early-2025 gutting of CISA, a week that included a DOJ-charged Russian assassination network on American soil, NATO shooting down a drone over Lithuania, a Russian warship flaring a Danish military helicopter, Emmanuel Macron warning the world "no one is safe," and drones shutting down Luxembourg's airport — home to NATO's Ukraine supply hub.

Then: Trump's full UN General Assembly speech — confronting CNN's Kaitlan Collins on arrival, rebranding "artificial intelligence" to "Super Intelligence," threatening to "annihilate" Iran, and getting stone silence where he expected applause.

The Mayday Network is fully independent and listener-funded — every subscription and tip covers the real cost of putting this show out every single day. Thank you for making that possible.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 – Intro 1:08 – FBI hacked by ShinyHunters: agents' homes, families exposed 4:00 – "Completely incompetent": Cory Booker's exchange with Kash Patel 11:38 – Kash Patel's $25K Kremlin-friendly documentary payment 15:50 – Trump TV launches; CNN, MSNBC, Politico banned from WH 17:20 – How this admin gutted cybersecurity from day one (CISA breakdown) 19:45 – Why this matters: power grids, water systems, "Leave the World Behind" 20:40 – Newark & Philly airports grounded — coincidence? 22:00 – NATO, Poland, Lithuania warn of Russian hybrid war 25:00 – DOJ charges Russian assassination network operating in the US 32:00 – NATO shoots down drone over Lithuania; Russian frigate flares Danish chopper 36:00 – Germany's Merz: "Russia is waging war against the West" 41:00 – Poland's Tusk warns of false-flag attacks testing NATO 43:00 – Macron's classified briefing: "No one is safe" 48:00 – Switzerland overhauls its security strategy 50:00 – Drones shut down Luxembourg's airport — NATO's Ukraine supply hub 53:00 – Undersea cables: the vulnerability nobody's talking about 1:00:00 – Trump's DC "Arc": storing weapons and snipers, because sure 1:08:20 – Trump at the UN: confronts Kaitlan Collins on arrival 1:09:00 – Trump rebrands "AI" to "Super Intelligence" 1:12:00 – Trump on Iran: "annihilate" vs. rebuild 1:15:00 – Trump vs. the ICC 1:21:00 – Cuba delegation walks out of UN speech 1:27:00 – "I have made peace": the room that didn't applaud 1:30:00 – Closing thoughts: Gaia art installation at St. John the Divine

JD Vance, Peter Thiel, and the Hillary Clinton backchannel nobody knew about — breaking down Chris Whipple's bombshell Vanity Fair piece "God and Vance at Yale."

Michelle Kinney digs into the new reporting on JD Vance's Yale Law years, his relationship with mentor Amy Chua, how his wife Usha outshone him academically at every turn, the shocking revelation that Vance privately tried to help Hillary Clinton beat Trump in 2016, and how Peter Thiel engineered Vance's entire political rise. Plus: why Trump may not let Vance survive to 2028.

TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 – Intro, welcome back from Breaking the News 00:43 – Topic intro: JD Vance 01:26 – Whipple's "God and Vance at Yale" (Vanity Fair) introduced 02:56 – Michelle's take: "very cynical about JD Vance" 03:27 – Why Yale sources were afraid to speak on record 04:20 – Amy Chua closeness (WHCD text story) 04:58 – Chua background (Tiger Mom, Yale mentor, immigrant parallel) 06:57 – "Empty shell" / Talented Mr. Ripley comparison 07:25 – "Craven opportunist? Yes" verdict; Chua "full of shit" 08:07 – Usha introduced, compared to Hillary Clinton 08:26 – Julie joins 09:52 – "Chilly fish" quote 10:15 – "Doesn't believe in anything" / Marine Corps PR background 10:42 – Peter Thiel enters the story 12:32 – "Daddy" / Thiel as the seminal figure in his life 17:25 – Hillary Clinton backchannel story setup 18:06 – "I hate Hillary, but I hate Trump more" quote 19:03 – Prediction: Trump will destroy him before he can be nominee 19:21 – Trump 2028 gift-shop hat anecdote 20:33 – Deep dive: Silicon Valley–DC–Hungary–Kremlin network 21:00 – Peter Thiel background (PayPal, 2016 RNC, "Antichrist") 23:12 – Rockbridge Network and Chris Buskirk introduced 27:01 – Buskirk's backstory (debt, dry cleaner lawsuits) 31:10 – 2019 Rockbridge summit attendees 32:09 – Catholic conversion / Opus Dei ties 33:10 – Ad clip #1: "JD Vance thinks you are stupid" (opioid/Purdue Pharma ad) 34:10 – Reflection on that ad, four years later 36:57 – "Empty shell" theme revisited — attaching to powerful people 38:07 – Usha's liberal family background; Vance's Yale friendship with a trans woman 39:57 – Setup for the grandparents'/domestic violence controversy 42:47 – Ad clip #2: "Abuser" ad (domestic violence comments) 44:07 – Susie Wiles quote: Vance's conversion "purely political" vs. Rubio's 49:56 – Ad clip #3: "Give us another chance" 55:56 – Wrap-up 56:44 – Sign-off begins (Big Internet Upgrades for Mayday, NY1, Curb Your Enthusiasm)

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Michelle Kinney breaks down the Kennedy Center fiasco solo: the AI-generated mockup of the building reading "DEMOLISH" that a photographer caught Trump studying through the window of Air Force One, Rep. Joyce Beatty's blistering MSNBC and CNN interviews describing how Trump "threw a tantrum" and berated her on a call before the board voted to shut the building down, and the sworn declaration from a legal observer who watched a forklift repeatedly ram the Kennedy Center's pillars the very next day. She walks through the full history — the bipartisan 1958 founding, the boycott wave, the renaming fight, and DOJ's threat to demolish the building outright — and makes the case that this was never about a building: it's about a man who's spent his entire life taking what he can't earn and leaving the wreckage behind when it won't give itself to him willingly.

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Chapters:

00:00 – Cold open 01:20 – The Kennedy Center takeover, explained 04:04 – "It's a dump" — Trump's ultimatum 06:07 – Founding history: the 1958 bipartisan idea 10:07 – Nine presidents, no drama — until now 12:56 – The boycott wave: artists who walked away 17:56 – The renaming fight and the June court order 18:47 – DOJ's demolition threat 20:44 – The AI mockup photo on Air Force One 22:07 – Joyce Beatty on MSNBC: "I told him I knew he was incompetent" 30:07 – Joyce Beatty on CNN: Trump's tantrum, explained 34:07 – Analyzing the staged "falling ceiling" photo 37:44 – The sworn affidavit: the forklift and the pillars 41:07 – Comparing this to the East Wing demolition 43:11 – Why the arts world never accepted him 50:07 – Vance, DeSantis, and Trump's pattern of destroying his own 53:07 – Closing thoughts

#KennedyCenter #JoyceBeatty #DonaldTrump #ArtsAndCulture #washington

A special emergency crossover episode of Pax Americana and The Dispatch — Olga Lautman and Julie Roginsky cover a single day's worth of escalation: a Belarus-launched explosive drone entering Lithuania, a Russian frigate firing flares at a Danish military helicopter in international waters, Russian strategic bombers with cruise missiles buzzing Norway, a suspected Russian drone found near a German military base, sabotage on Dutch rail lines, and a Russian drone strike on a Ukrainian train station minutes after Boris Johnson's diplomatic train passed through — with former CIA Director David Petraeus's train still there. They also break down new reporting on Jared Kushner's Russia-linked business dealings and the New Yorker's report on a Kremlin-tied deal list, and the ProPublica investigation into Donald Trump Jr.'s Bahamas wedding, secretly bankrolled by a Russian oligarch with direct ties to Putin's security detail and Russian military intelligence.

Chapters: 00:00 – Cold open: "Late August 1939" 01:52 – Belarus-launched drone enters Lithuania 04:37 – Russian frigate fires flares at Danish military helicopter 08:52 – The undersea cables: why they're critical infrastructure 10:57 – Britain's airport shutdown: incompetence or sabotage? 12:52 – Why Trump isn't saying anything 13:59 – Two straits shut down: Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb 17:33 – Poland reinforces its border after train station bombings 18:05 – Petraeus and Boris Johnson's near-miss 20:47 – Russian strategic bombers with cruise missiles buzz Norway 25:19 – Could Russia actually invade Europe? 27:47 – Suspected Russian drone near German military base 29:44 – Why NATO won't invoke Article 5 31:56 – Trump's 2024 comments encouraging Russia to attack NATO 32:57 – Sabotage on Dutch rail lines 34:30 – The New Yorker: Kushner's Russia-linked business deals 41:30 – Kushner and Witkoff's Moscow trip, the "win-win" comments 44:07 – Jared Kushner and the 2016 back-channel history 47:00 – Don Jr.'s Bahamas wedding, funded by Umar Kremlev 53:00 – Who is Umar Kremlev? The Night Wolves and GRU ties 1:02:00 – The IBA boxing corruption and Olympic ban 1:04:30 – Don Jr.'s "friendship" with Kremlev 1:07:00 – Bettina Anderson's Instagram statement 1:09:30 – Fireworks in the Bahamas, drones over Kyiv 1:10:40 – The other GRU-linked guest: Lagutin 1:12:30 – Melania's statement and the stolen-children irony 1:14:00 – AG Todd Blanche's non-answer 1:19:00 – Russia's Matryoshka bot network targeting the midterms 1:21:00 – Alex Ovechkin's Kremlin ties 1:23:00 – Closing thoughts

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Recorded live Tuesday September 15, 2026 -- Michelle Kinney and Julie Roginsky dig deeper into the DHS inspector general's report on Alligator Alcatraz — the metal cages, the "calming areas" cover story, and how DeSantis and the Trump administration are each trying to pass the blame. They trace the facility's origins back to Trump's Alcatraz obsession, break down the Ron DeSantis/Hope Florida corruption scandal tied to the same key players, and widen the lens to what's happening far closer to home: an ICE beating of a U.S. citizen teenager on his way to enlist in the Marines, white-supremacist flyers posted across Brooklyn, and NYC's new lawsuit against the Trump administration's immigration public charge rule.

Chapters: 00:00 – Cold open 00:10 – Show open: introducing the story 01:00 – Comparing this to Japanese American internment 02:38 – What Alligator Alcatraz actually is: timeline and conditions 05:36 – The "calming areas" cover story and DHS's blame-shifting 07:40 – DeSantis's response: "we'd make the cages even smaller if we could" 08:32 – Julie's 2020 focus group story: the cages precedent 11:35 – Why this isn't "either/or" with Gaza 13:56 – Alligator Alcatraz vs. Delaney Hall: it's on us 14:38 – The origin story: Trump's Alcatraz obsession and the PBS movie 19:53 – Trump's border "moat" idea and the Epstein files tie-in 23:35 – James Uthmeier and the DeSantis/Hope Florida corruption scandal 29:35 – Were detainees actually violent criminals? The Miami Herald numbers 32:12 – Forcing people into hiding: ICE raids and due process 34:19 – The photo: Americans posing outside the facility 36:41 – Comparing this to Dachau and Auschwitz 39:41 – Kerry Kennedy's tweets and the box cell diagram 41:35 – Reading The Gulag Archipelago in this moment 44:34 – The ICE beating of a U.S. citizen teen headed to enlist 47:07 – Mayor Mamdani's speech on the public charge rule and NYC's lawsuit 51:11 – A personal story: feeding a migrant family outside the supermarket 55:11 – White supremacist flyers posted across Brooklyn 58:32 – Closing thoughts: what's coming up next

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Recorded live Monday September 14, 2026 -- Michelle Kinney breaks down tonight's 7-2 Supreme Court decision rejecting the Trump administration's mail-in voting restrictions ahead of the midterms, plus why it's not time to celebrate too hard: a new DHS whistleblower report alleging officers were directed to break state laws in an unlawful "voter fraud" hunt, Judge Michael Luttig's warning about what January 3rd could bring, and Mike Johnson's own words about what happens if Democrats take the House.

Chapters:

00:00 – Cold open 00:11 – Show open: internet upgrade, drink jokes 00:22 – SCOTUS blocks Trump's mail-in voting restrictions 02:22 – Reactions: Gabriel Sterling, Kyle Cheney, David French 04:26 – Trump's "we're going to cheat" comment at the RNC 05:37 – AI leaders begging for regulation, Trump's response 09:41 – Judge Michael Luttig's warning: "The Final Battle for America's Democracy" 15:07 – Luttig on House Republicans' loyalty oath to Trump 20:59 – AG Todd Blanche's Rose Garden briefing 21:32 – Padilla/Schumer: DHS whistleblower on illegal voter fraud hunt 25:56 – Register to vote, check your registration 26:31 – Mike Johnson's warnings: "I run the protection program" 33:19 – Flashback: election night reaction clips from November 37:19 – Closing: stay in the fight, take breaks

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