• Senator Lindsey Graham dying and the vast conspiracies and revelations therein; also, this incredible ABC News story from 2016 that auto-plays a video from The View where Whoopi Goldberg is wearing a Rudolph nose:

• Jack’s blog on the slobbery remembrance of Graham on Meet the Press

• Senator Mitch McConnell’s alleged “proof of life” pic, which, hmmmmm

• The Cyclospora outbreak rocking the nation, and what role it did (or did not) play in Lindsey Graham’s death

• And in our subscribers-only After Dark segment, we recap all the people who lost their damn minds following Graham Platner dropping out of the Maine Senate race. Caitlin also finds out that Michael Barbaro left his husband for his now-wife. Never forget!

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends the audiobook of Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s The Odyssey, as read by Claire Danes

• Caitlin recommends the audiobook of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, as read by the author

• Aleks recommends Widow’s Bay, on Apple TV

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

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Did you know that Discourse Blog has a podcast? It’s true! It’s called Discourse Pod and it comes out every single week—and paid subscribers get access to exclusive bonus episodes and our special After Dark segments. Tune in here or wherever you get your podcasts!

The death of Senator Lindsey Graham this weekend was a surprise. The outpouring of nauseating memorializing that greeted his death was mostly not a surprise.

By now, we all know how this stuff goes. First, a bad person dies. Lindsey Graham definitely checks that box. He was an awful human being whose most pleasurable experience in life was watching people getting bombed to smithereens overseas. You can go elsewhere for longer rundowns of his many horrible deeds; for the purposes of this blog, I’m going to assume we’re on the same page here.

Second, a bunch of prominent people fall over themselves to share the most bootlicking remembrances of their beloved monster. That box has also most definitely been checked. Here’s Senator Adam Schiff gushing about how funny Lindsey was! Here’s Cory Booker in a stupid shirt reminiscing about all the good times he and Lindsey used to have! Here’s actor and activist Jesse James Rose talking about how Graham once “paid a twinky pre-transition college student a fat stack of cash to do unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie!” (In case it wasn’t clear, Rose was the aforementioned pre-transition twink.) OK, maybe that one doesn’t quite fit the bill, but it’s too good not to include here. Is it true? Not true? One thing is certain: you can’t libel the dead. Let a thousand of these flowers bloom, folks—the time to dish is now.

By now, this type of discourse cycle has mostly dulled into predictable tedium. Everyone’s playing their part, either maligning the dead or being mad about maligning the dead or being mad about not maligning the dead, yada yada yada. Normally, I’d just leave things there. I’m tired!

But. BUT! But. That was before the world was graced with one of the most hall-of-fame, EGOT, Triple Crown, Olympic gold medal-level revolting examples in the history of this particular genre. It came from Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, and it is just—well, we’d better go through it piece by piece. That’s right—there are multiple parts to this thing, and each one gets worse than the last.

OK, enough dancing around it—let’s, sigh, dive in.

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• Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner cancelling a bunch of events this week

• The new, explosive exposé from Politico in which a former girlfriend of Platner accuses him of sexual assault

• Platner’s video statement almost, but not quite, suspending his campaign

• The pundits heralding Platner’s campaign as a straight bro savior of the left (surprise! it’s not)

• Trump meddling in the World Cup to get a U.S. player reinstated and it going exactly as you’d expect (we lost, brutally)

• Mitch McConnell reportedly being on death’s door

• And in our subscribers-only After Dark segment, a review of every cursed detail of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding at Madison Square Garden

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends John Early’s Maddie’s Secret, now in theaters

• Sam recommends The Studio, on Apple TV

• Aleks recommends Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, now in theaters

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

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This is a Subscriber-Only Special Edition. Join us at discourseblog.com.

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This piece originally appeared in The Nation.

As the 2026 election cycle unfolds, the Republican Party and its allies are honing strategies to malign their Democratic opponents. In Texas, this mission has taken on a pointedly homophobic and transphobic tone, meant to humiliate Democratic state Representative James Talarico in his campaign for the US Senate.

The attacks span from merely disturbing to fully deranged. We’ve had Stephen Miller calling Talarico the Democrats’ “first transgender Senate candidate who is clearly transitioning into a female.” A joke about Talarico needing to paint on his facial hair. An image of Talarico’s face superimposed on New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s head. An AI-generated deepfake video showing Talarico dressed as Maria from The Sound of Music, singing a transgender reassignment surgery–obsessed parody of “My Favorite Things.”

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It’s all part of a familiar playbook for Republican men, denigrating an opponent by aligning his performance of masculinity with femininity and queerness, and plotting it outside this grid of gendered expectations in which he’s expected to perform.

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• Ranking New York City’s avenues and the darkness of Eighth Avenue

• Zohran Mamdani going three for three with this Congressional primary endorsements

• Some people who are mad about Tuesday: Democratic leadership, major loser Jaime Harrison, and Meghan McCain

• Jack’s interview with Darializa Avila Chevalier in The Nation

• What Tuesday’s wins mean for shifting power centers in New York, the strength of Mamdani’s political prowess, and what it says (and doesn’t say) about the Midterms and beyond

• And in our subscribers-only After Dark segment, we dive into the FIVE-bylined enterprise reporting conducted by the New York Times on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s alleged wedding at Madison Square Garden next week

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends the AIPAC-funded Darializa Avila Chevalier oppo-mailer, “Fuck Kamala Harris”

• Cros recommends Love Island UK

• Aleks recommends Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, now in theaters

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

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• The would-be Iran Peace Deal, aka “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran”

• Everyone’s mad about it! Mostly neocons, including: Ben Shapiro, Bret Stephens, and congr…

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• Trump attending Game Three of NBA Finals (they lost)

• Are rumors of Taylor and Travis holding their wedding at Madison Square Garden a false flag by Tree Paine?

• Scott Pelley’s tearful exit interview from 60 Minutes and CBS News with the New York Times

• Remembering how Lady Gaga once said she wanted to be a combat journalist

• There is unfortunately another goddamn scandal surrounding Maine Democratic Senate Graham Platner, this time involving some of his ex-girlfriends

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, a follow-up on the California primaries and Spencer Pratt’s implosion

This week’s cultural recs:

• Jack recommends Kyle Balda’s The Sheep Detectives, now in theaters

• Caitlin recommends Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men

• Aleks recommends the music video for Britney Spears and Madonna’s “Me Against the Music” (inspired by seeing Kane Parsons’ Backrooms)

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

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• Sid Rosenberg is looking…well toasted? Let’s just say, when you make Trump’s skin look normal, then you might have a problem. Everyone, please wear sunscreen (EVERY DAY).

• Bari cleans house at 60 Minutes and installs a new crony, Nick Bilton, one of media’s least essential voices, as the new executive producer

• Scott Pelley? He’s not happy about this news, babe, and ripped Bilton a new one in his first staff meeting. (Note: This episode was recorded before Pelley was fired from CBS News)

• Trump’s failed “Freedom 250” concert series, which apparently involves Vanilla Ice, Martina McBride, half of Milli Vanilli (???), and Flo Rida

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, Jack gives us a helpful rundown of the California gubernatorial primary, starring Xavier Bacerra, Tom Steyer, and Steve Hilton

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends the Amazon Prime series, Kevin

• Sam recommends Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear and the Summer House reunion on Bravo

• Aleks recommends the new season of The Four Seasons on Netflix and Daniel Roher’s Tuner, now in theaters

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

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• Jack doing a tight 10 on the Strait of Hormuz

• Boots Riley’s latest film, I Love Boosters (we’re not fans)

• Trump’s very convincing excuse for missing Don Jr.’s wedding to Bettina Anderson

• Trump describing his son as “a person who I’ve known for a long time”

• The DNC 2024 election autopsy is finally here (sort of) and everyone is mad at DNC Chair Ken Martin

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, we chat about the recent reporting alleging that Bari Weiss’ reign over CBS News might be curtailed after the merger between Warner Bros.-Discovery and Paramount

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends the DEBUT LP from Discourse Blog’s own Paul Blest and his band Long Relief, Win Some, Lose Some

• Aleks recommends Charli XCX’s new songs, “Rock Music” and “SS26”

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

Apple Podcasts & Others: Go to Settings in Substack > select Discourse Blog > scroll to the “private podcast feed” section > select “set up podcast” > then copy and paste the link it generates into your preferred app.

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This is a Subscriber-Only Special Edition. Join us at discourseblog.com.

Want to listen on your preferred podcast app? Follow these instructions:

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• New York State is eying banning potassium bromate, AKA the chemical that makes bagels taste so damn good

• Speaking of chemicals worth dying for, you can pry Katherine’s vape from her cold, dead hands

• Remembering Some Blogs (or the time Katherine tweeted about her “personal 9/11” and it caused a lot of drama at work)

• Protests outside the New York Times building demanding the paper retract Nicholas Kristof’s piece, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians”

• Benjamin Netanyahu? Mad

• The Free Press? Mad

• The overuse and misuse of “blood libel”

• CBS Evening News anchor Tony Du-poop-il didn’t plan for his reporting trip to China very well

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, Sam unpacks the BIG DRAMA involving Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, Barack Obama, and breakfast tacos

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Katherine recommends Ben Lerner’s new book, Transcription

• Sam recommends Curry Barker’s new movie, Obsession

• Jack recommends prescription sunglasses

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

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• How having a W2 job can make you a little bit (or a lot of bit) libertarian

• Trump saying he doesn’t care at all about the impact of the Iran war on Americans’ finances

• A quick aside about The Devil Wears Prada 2 (listen/watch our subscribers-only ep!)

• A chat about how Spencer Pratt opened his run for mayor of Los Angeles with an incredible AI slop video depicting himself as Batman that Republicans are absolutely eating up, munch munch crunch crunch

• Cros’ theory on why MAGA loves these hyper-stylized fake videos and images so damn much

• A detour into how badly the Bush family is aging

• How evil is like IBS

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, we talk FBI Director Kash Patel going ballistic in a Senate hearing about his alleged drinking on the job

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This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends Cats: The Jellicle Ball, now on Broadway

• Cros recommends the second seasons of Running Point and Beef, both on Netflix

• Aleks recommends Veronica Mars, newly on Netflix

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

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MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! We get into all the major plot points of the film, so if that’s something you care about, you’ve been warned!

We get into:

• What the hell this movie is trying to say about The State of Media

• The ouroboros of legacy sequels

• Whether Andy Sachs is supposed to be a good journalist

• If this movie hates women

• The specter of Anna Wintour haunting this movie

• The uncanny valley of Justin Theroux’s prosthetics

• Who the Real Villain of the original Devil Wears Prada was

This is a Subscriber-Only Special Edition. Join us at discourseblog.com.

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The Week’s Rafi Schwartz returns to the third chair to discuss:

• What foods are better soggy

• Kelsey Grammer’s 2021 collaboration with Gristedes??

• Was the shooting a FALSE FLAG OP to speed up the construction of the White House ballroom?????????

• Kash Patel reportedly being cucked mid-shooting :(

• Suspected WHCD shooter Cole Allen’s blog-worthy manifesto

• The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold going straight-to-cam

• The bleak conditions under which Trump assassination attempts keep happening

• A deep-dive on the mentalist Oz Pearlman, the entertainment at the WHCD

• This photo of Stephen Miller; this video of RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines

• Our excitement for TMZ opening a DC bureau

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, we get into the very funny Vanity Fair profile of CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil (or as we call him, Du-poop-ul)

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (and NOT!!! the Jonathan Demme remake)

• Rafi recommends Judd Apatow’s The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling

• Aleks recommends AMC Lincoln Square in New York City

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

Apple Podcasts & Others: Go to Settings in Substack > select Discourse Blog > scroll to the “private podcast feed” section > select “set up podcast” > then copy and paste the link it generates into your preferred app.

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• Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigns; Tim Apple said, “Also, me”

• Checking in on Ellen DeGeneres (she’s back in America! sort of)

• Speaking of problematic lesbians, Rosie O’Donnell is MAD at disgraced former Congressman Eric Swalwell

• Also Producer Sam has been sitting on a Rosie O’Donnell impression???

• FBI Director Kash Patel is suing The Atlantic $250 million for alleging he is drunk on the job

• We remember who was on the various CSIs. Did you remember that Gary Sinise was the star of CSI: NY? (And randomly Sela Ward was on it????)

• The great reconsideration of Lena Dunham upon the release of her new memoir, Famesick

• Which reminded us of the uh, not so thinly veiled rumors of Jack Antonoff’s affair with a teenage Lorde

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, Jack finally saw Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama and we had to get into it!

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends Canada Dry seltzer

• Sam recommends the Blowback podcast

• Aleks recommends the fifth and final season of Hacks on HBO Max

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

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Pop quiz, hotshot: Who has the best, most inspiring anti-war message in the United States today? Is a faith leader? A labor organizer? A rock star? No? What if I told you it was a high-profile, unapologetic bigot? Or the other one? Or the other other one, if you really want to collect the full regressive set?

Weird as it sounds, that’s the subtext of some of the messages we’ve been getting from the liberal side of the aisle these days. If you’ve spent more than a minute on social media this past week, odds are good that you have noticed an uptick in presumably liberal-leaning media figures online encouraging you to engage with a growing list of MAGA notables who can’t wait to tell you how offended they are by Trump’s war in Iran. Just for fun, try logging onto your social media platform of choice, search some iteration of “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Carlson,” and watch your browser sizzle up and crash. Be careful you don’t find yourself buried under an avalanche of “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point” JPGs while you’re at it.

The “entire,” 43-minute-long anti-Iran War monologue of Carlson’s April 6th episode is “worth watching,” former Obama speechwriter-turned-podcaster Jon Favreau told his 1.3 million followers, sharing a more than two-hour-long episode of Carlson’s eponymous show.

Headquarters Newsroom, the liberal media outlet built from the ignominious remains of Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign, has been similarly enthusiastic whenever MAGA media oprichniks voice rare, and often conspicuously tempered dissatisfaction with the regime’s Iranian adventurism; “Candace Owens cites our post while shredding Donald Trump in new video,” bragged a recent Bluesky message, preceded by three other Owens-centric posts. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna went even further, crediting Owens, Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—and nobody else—by name, along with other anonymous “progressive activists & anti-war conservative voices” he claimed pushed Trump back from an atomic Iranian brink. To date, his message has around 2.3 million views.

So what’s going on? Should we welcome these previously verboten figures into our lives now? Should we make a space for them in the anti-war vanguard?

The answer to those questions is no. Here’s why.

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• Sid Rosenberg’s beef with Mr. and Mrs. Met

• Eric Swalwell’s resignation from Congress

• Jack’s first bylines as an intern at The San Francisco Chronicle

• Those photos of Justin Trudeau and and Katy Perry at Coachella, which reminded us of that photo of Orlando Bloom and Selena Gomez

• Trump claiming he didn’t the AI slop he posted was of him depicted as Jesus

• Speaking of Jesus, Trump is now feuding with the Pope lol

• Doordash Grandma, welcome to the Resistance, with a side quest where we remember Ken Bone

• J.D. Vance’s 21-hour negotiations with Iran didn’t go well

• The double-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and how Trump is leading the speedrun of American decline on a global stage

• Vance’s weird analogy about his wife skydiving

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, we get into the alleged attack on Sam Altman’s house

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends Steven Sodebergh’s The Christophers

• Katherine recommends Jason Molina’s Songs: Ohia

• Aleks recommends Rooster, on HBO

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

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• Whether werewolf astronauts would permanently be in wolf form due to their proximity to the moon

• Trump’s chaotic Easter Sunday post and his promise of war crimes (note: this episode was recorded before Trump threatened on Tuesday that a “whole civilization will die tonight”)

• Why Iran reminds Jack of how Trump handled COVID

• Pam Bondi was shitcanned as Attorney General—who’s next??

• This episode was recorded the same day Savannah Guthrie returned to the Today Show, which naturally led to a discussion about Jenna Bush Hager’s highly influential book club

• We took a quick scan of some current Kalshi bets

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, we discuss the scandal involving Kristi Noem’s husband and correct the record on Timothée Chalamet’s Jewish identity

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends the pro-shot of Maria Friedman’s Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, on Netflix

• Rafi recommends Karthik Subbaraj’s Pizza Movie on Hulu

• Aleks recommends Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, now in theaters

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

Apple Podcasts & Others: Go to Settings in Substack > select Discourse Blog > scroll to the “private podcast feed” section > select “set up podcast” > then copy and paste the link it generates into your preferred app.

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• A very silly Politico magazine story about Rahm Emanuel that opens with an inane lede about how he eats a salad and how we’ll be slurping down countless stories like this in the lead-up to the 2028 Democratic primary

• We Remember Some Salads and each rank our top three office worker nutrient bowl chains (R.I.P. Hale and Hearty). What are yours????

• Also, remember when someone allegedly found a DEAD RAT in a Chopt salad???

• The Rahm story led us to this absolutely cursed YouGov ranking of Democrats’ “fame” and “popularity,” so of course we made Jack guess who was in the top five

• We also remember how Kelsey Grammer and Jennifer Aniston were great on 30 Rock

• There was also this goofy Axios story about how some (anonymous) Dems are wringing their hands about 2028 and whether they should nominate a straight, white, Christian man

• Did you know Grimes joined LinkedIn?

• And in our After Dark segment available only to subscribers, we discuss Ryan Gosling’s career, the sad state of movie promotional tours, and the ways we make celebrities humiliate themselves to make us watch their little shows and movies. We also touch on The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Drama, and seeing movies in 4DX lol.

This week’s cultural recommendations:

• Jack recommends Jeopardy! (Ken Jennings ONLY!!!)

• Caitlin recommends Jury Duty: Company Retreat on Amazon Prime Video

• Aleks recommends Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Project Hail Mary, in theaters now

Want to hear the full, extended episode on your favorite podcast app? First, subscribe to Discourse Blog here. Then, follow these instructions:

Spotify: Tap the “Play” button and select “Link Account” to sync your Substack subscription and unlock it instantly.

Apple Podcasts & Others: Go to Settings in Substack > select Discourse Blog > scroll to the “private podcast feed” section > select “set up podcast” > then copy and paste the link it generates into your preferred app.

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