Happy Mayday. Today’s Fucked-up Friday guest was Julie Roginsky from The Mayday Network, because how could we resist that?
We spent a good chunk of the hour on Devil Wears Prada 2, Emily Blunt’s deeply disconnected advice to people in miserable jobs, Sex and the City, Bridgerton (Julie hates it), and somehow — seamlessly — medieval English literature, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, and Pete Hegseth. There is a through-line. Julie found it. We were delighted.
Then we got to the Fucked-up Friday stories.
Lawrence brought the Trump boys’ grift: Don and Eric have quietly stacked the boards of robotics and drone companies that are now receiving massive Pentagon contracts. Their family ventures have gained four billion dollars in value since the re-election. It is brazen and boring at the same time, which is exactly how they get away with it.
Julie came in with Melania. She has done the Slovenian deep dive—actual Slovenian press, a biography, receipts—and the picture it paints of who Melania was before she ever met Trump is nothing like what the New York Times and New Yorker sold America. Julie’s full piece drops Sunday. Watch for it.
I brought a story reported by Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day: the EPA is now recommending that states test drinking water for abortion medication and birth control pills, listing them as potential “contaminants.” The anti-abortion organization behind the campaign admitted on the record that environmental law is just the most effective weapon they currently have. It’s a clean water campaign. There’s abortion in your water. You’re welcome.
I won the vote. It wasn’t even close.
Thank you Amy Gabrielle, Cat: Poli-Psych, Beth Cruz, Kelly Winsa, Dr. Mary M. Marshall, LeftieProf, Noble Blend, Courtney, and many others for tuning in, and huge thanks as always to our amazing moderators, Karen Marie Shelton and Yanni Hamburger.
We love you, mean it!
