Unf*cking The Republic

Action packed On The Record with midterm predictions and a look at the chaos unfolding all across Europe. Features include Haley Stephens revealing her true allegiance, Scott Bessent hiding from a legitimate question, the UK government encouraging citizens to stockpile for emergencies, and Christine Lagarde throwing in the towel. Killer Left Take of the Week goes to Adam McKay’s studio for its new mock infomercial on Exxon. We’ve got a snippet from our Phone A Friend with Pitchfork Economics co-host Nick Hanauer and a special Max Notes segment on the military budget.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:38

Quick Takes: 00:01:39

Memberships: 00:06:10

Phone A Friend: 00:08:04

Max Notes: 00:10:15

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:23:52

Chart of the Week: 00:25:05

Outro: 00:26:57

Resources

CNN: Multiple Stevens aides quit after she endorses MI GOP Senate candidate

AIPAC Tracker: Haley Stevens Sees Israel In Her Dreams

BBC News: Why is the UK telling people to stockpile?

Bloomberg Television: ECB’s Lagarde Says She Can’t Stay Neutral in Current Situation

KARE 11: Treasury Secretary asked about ICE paying for MN prison

The New York Times: Iran War Cost Rises to $47.1 Billion, Pentagon Told Lawmakers

SIPRI: Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2025

Head Start: About the Office of Head Start

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas: Market Humanism: A New Paradigm for a New Era

POGO: The True Total U.S. Military Budget

DefenseNews: Pentagon fails financial audit for 8th year in a row

Straight Arrow News: Pentagon’s failed audit obscures how taxpayer dollars are actually being used

npr: U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is complete

CNN: US troops complete Iraq exit, as Iran and its allies celebrate

Brown: Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths

A-Mark Foundation: Afghanistan War: U.S. Deaths and Costs

Task & Purpose: 2 airmen died in noncombat incidents while supporting Iran war operations

Polygraph: Over 110 US military aircraft lost or damaged in Iran War

Task & Purpose: US munition stockpile ‘especially problematic’ in a war with China, report warns

Forever Wars: No, The Navy’s Lasers Are Not Ready for Iranian Drones

Bloomberg: US Starts at ‘Basically Zero’ in Cheap Military Drones (Correct)

MarineLink: Inside Iran’s Precision Strikes on Port, Energy Infrastructure

Responsible Statecraft: 750 US Military bases remain around the planet

Yellow Dot Studios: New Exxon El Niño Commercial

270toWin

UNFTR Resources

Video: Phone A Friend: Nick Hanauer

Essay: The Duhpartment of Duhfense.

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Anand Giridharadas joins the show to discuss the fatal subway encounter involving Jordan Neely and what it says about America. We examine the death of Jordan Neely through the lens of Anand Giridharadas’ new book, Man in the Mirror. The conversation moves beyond the immediate headlines to explore how this tragedy functions as a national Rorschach test, forcing us to confront the divide between those who view such acts as necessary vigilante violence and those who recognize a systemic failure of care. This episode provides a critical look at modern American politics, analyzing how urban decay and inequality shape our collective reactions to public tragedy. By centering the lived experience of the victims, we gain a clearer understanding of how these events are framed by the media and what that framing reveals about our current social landscape.

Resources

Anand Giridharadas Website

Anand on Twitter

Anand on Instagram

Anand on Bluesky

Anand Giridharadas: Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City

Anand Giridharadas: The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas

Anand for The New York Times

UNFTR Resources

Video: Anand Giridharadas | What a Subway Murder says About America

Transcript: Phone A Friend: Anand Giridharadas

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus and kicking off the Fall Fund, Friend, and Hell Raiser. They cover some midterm predictions, and hit headlines on market humanism and how neoliberalism engineered oligarchy inside the shell of democracy, plus RFK Jr. unilaterally greenlighting unapproved peptide injections over FDA scientists’ objections. Then they tackle listener emails on whether the right really plays the long game, why Democrats abandoned the Biden agenda, and what Serbia’s student movement can teach us about non-negotiables. Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:16

Midterm Predictions: 00:23:55

Headlines: 00:38:24

Emails: 00:54:31

Beyond the Bullshit: 01:25:11

Memberships: 01:28:15

Outro: 01:28:42

Resources

Means Workwear: Mamdanistan Shirt

The New York Times: Kennedy to Allow Broad Use of Unapproved Peptide Injections

Democracy Journal: Market Humanism: A New Paradigm for a New Era

The Guardian: Trump says he asked Google CEO to rename Atlantic Ocean on Maps

UNFTR Resources

Video: Phone A Friend: Nick Hanauer

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

Become a member at https://www.unftr.com/memberships.

Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at https://shop.unftr.com/.

Visit our bookshop.org page at https://bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at https://bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations.

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The AI bubble is showing signs of a rapid collapse that investors are ignoring. We break down why the market is primed for a crash. Three major developments are signaling that the current AI craze is reaching a breaking point much faster than Wall Street anticipates. From structural risks in China to the accumulation of off-balance-sheet obligations, these warnings are being drowned out by the noise of election cycles and quarterly earnings reports. This analysis examines how major IPOs in the sector are masking underlying instability. By looking past the current hype, we identify the systemic vulnerabilities that suggest an economic correction is already underway for those willing to look at the data.

Resources

SEC: Anthropic S1

Reuters: In China, the AI bubble has already burst

The New York Times: Musk Pledges SpaceX Stock for ‘Every Kid in America’ as Billionaires Push Direct Donations

The Telegraph: China’s AI boom turns to bust: Stocks suffer $480 billion wipeout as ‘now we see the bubble bursting’

Fortune: Alphabet’s Google Cloud revenue doubles to $31 billion as cash flow stays deep red

CNBC: Alphabet sinks 10% as it holds 2026 capex unchanged, expects significant increase in 2027

Bloomberg: Microsoft’s Surging Cloud Sales Show AI Spending Paying Off

The Wall Street Journal: Why Big Tech’s AI Spending Is $3 Trillion Higher Than It Seems

InvestingLive: Big Tech’s AI spending is $3 trillion bigger than balance sheets show

The Noble Update: The credit market just cut off the weakest companies in America

SEC: SpaceX Prospectus

UNFTR Resources

Video: Don’t Buy the AI Hype Before Watching This

Essay: Don’t Buy the AI Hype Before Reading This

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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This week we celebrated 99 years of stubborn optimism with Max’s father-in-law, and took seriously his assessment that it’s 1932, with all the chaos and heartache that implies before something better emerges on the other side. Then we dug into the Anthropic prospectus, which confirms what we’ve been saying: it’s not the railroad or the internet, it’s an accelerant to monopolization, greasing the wheels for the companies that are already winning while the rest of the economy starves. The greatest misallocation of capital in history, right on schedule.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:45

Quick Takes: 00:01:26

Phone A Friend: 00:07:52

Memberships: 00:11:03

Max Notes: 00:12:41

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:26:13

Outro: 00:27:54

Resources

The Kiffness: Donald Trump BURP REMIX!

Matthew McConaughey On Instagram

CNN: What a photojournalist learned after being beaten by Jewish settlers

American Redact: Ethan Klein’s Cheating Scandal is Worse Than You Think

NBC News: Ramaswamy ad puts Acton’s estranged mother in spotlight as records reveal family’s troubled past

Reuters: France’s Le Pen launches presidential bid as protests rattle the nation

Mother Jones: Lula’s Surprise Win Blocks Trump’s Push for a Far-Right Brazil

Anand Giridharadas: Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City

Bloomberg: Anthropic Mum on Investment Grade as It Warns of More Debt

The Noble Update: This is going to be the biggest misallocation of capital in history

Bell System Memorial: A Capsule History of the Bell System

Enclyopedia.com: Surviving the Great Depression

Butler Eagle: How did there get to be a ‘Big 3’?

More Perfect Union: We Went To Rural Florida: The Healthcare Crisis Will Shock You

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 10-27-26 (What My 99 Year Old Father in Law Taught Me About Technological Revolutions.)

Essay: Anthropic’s IPO Is Very Silly.

Video: Phone A Friend: Anand Giridharadas

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Jared Yates Sexton joins Max to analyze the current state of progressive activism and how to effectively challenge the status quo. After years of audience requests, this conversation brings together two critical voices to discuss the mechanics of movement building. We examine how shaping political narratives remains the most vital tool for the Left, particularly when navigating the complexities of the current administration. The conversation moves beyond the typical punditry to address the practical realities of leftist organizing. We break down the necessity of coordinating ground-level efforts to ensure that progressive goals remain front and center in U.S. politics, rather than being sidelined by mainstream distractions.

Resources

Jared Yates Sexton Website

Jared on Bluesky

Dispatches From A Collapsing State Substack

The Muckrake Podcast

Jared Yates Sexton: The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making

Jared Yates Sexton: American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World But Failed Its People

Jared Yates Sexton: The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis

Jared for The New York Times

Jared for The New Republic

Jared for Salon

Dispatches From A Collapsing State: The Case of Hasan Piker: How to Avoid Having a Debate You Can’t Win

Dispatches From A Collapsing State: Descent Into Madness: The Ritualization of Death and Fascism

UNFTR Resources

Video: Phone A Friend: Jared Yates Sexton: Left Activism in the Age of Trump

Transcript: Phone A Friend: Jared Yates Sexton.

5 Non-Negotiables.

Max on Straight White American Jesus.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the French banlieues erupting and what the protests reveal about the global assault on social spending, and Elon Musk promising every American kid a SpaceX share while barely denting his holdings. Then they tackle listener emails on how lifelong Democratic voters find their footing in a movement that’s outpaced the party, Trump’s “we’re all going to die anyway” worldview, and whether the only options are capitalism or the DSA. Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:18

Headlines: 00:12:14

Emails: 00:26:50

Beyond the Bullshit: 00:58:37

Memberships: 01:05:02

Outro: 01:05:29

Resources

Anand Giridharadas: Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City

Fortune: Billionaire Elon Musk says he’ll give every kid in America shares of SpaceX next year—it’ll add up to over $10 billion in stock

The American Prospect: Is Paris Burning?

World Socialist Web Site: The bond markets, rearmament and the global assault on social spending

UNFTR Resources

Video: Phone A Friend: Jared Yates Sexton: Left Activism in the Age of Trump

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Reuters “leaked” information from the forthcoming Anthropic prospectus and the numbers were pretty brutal. But that isn’t stopping all of Wall Street from lining up to invest in yet another AI company (SpaceX) with no discernible path to profitability. In this episode, Max digs through what we learned from the Reuters release and pairs it with other publicly available information on Anthropic to paint a bleak picture of a five-year old company that loses a ton of money but is somehow asking to be valued at around $2 trillion. Max then leads a philosophical discussion about the future of AI and punching babies. (That last part will make more sense in context.)

Resources

Reuters: Anthropic’s IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costs

Perplexity Finance: AMZN

Perplexity Finance: XOM

Perplexity Finance: C

Reuters: Anthropic IPO valuation hinges on $190-200 billion 2028 revenue forecast, sources say

Yahoo! Finance: Anthropic IPO Filing Reveals a Major Vulnerability: Nearly 50% of Sales Flow Through Amazon and Google as Revenue Concentration Raises Risks: Report

AI: Reset to Zero: Anthropic Paces the Frontier, and Floors the IPO

Financial Times: Anthropic tells investors it will be profitable for second straight quarter

The New York Times: The Fallout From OpenAI’s Revenue Surprise

Bloomberg: Anthropic’s Annualized Revenue to Top $100 Billion in 2026, NYT Says

TechTarget: Report: Anthropic locks in $518B AI infrastructure commitments

Measured AI: Anthropic’s 15+ GW Data Center Build: Claude’s Compute, Campuses, and Chips

Fortune: The hidden menace behind Big Tech’s AI arms race: Meta, Amazon, and others are spending billions on hardware that’s worthless in as little as 3 years, says Research Affiliates partner

Investing.com: Earnings call transcript: Alphabet beats Q2 2026 estimates, shares fall on capex surge

Flowtivity: US vs China AI Models Compared: GPT-6 Astra, Fable 5.1, GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4, Qwen 3.8

BBC News: Amazon finally flows into profit

AEI: Who Should Antitrust Protect? The Case of Diapers.com

CNBC: SpaceX raises $25 billion in debt sale less than two weeks after IPO

Tech Times: Anthropic $15B Credit Line: Banks Commit $1B-Plus Each to Lock In IPO Roles

Yahoo! Finance: Wall Street tests lender appetite with $60 billion Broadcom-Anthropic deal

Dario Amodei: We Must Pace the Frontier

CSI Magazine: FCC says broadband competition is driving faster speeds and wider coverage

UNFTR Resources

Video: Anthropic, AI, and Why We Need to Talk About Punching Babies.

Essay: Mis(Anthropic).

Episode: The SpaceX IPO Fraud.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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This week we went deep on the structural argument that should underpin everything else—disaster privilege, capitalism as the constant, and why the real battle isn’t between the two parties but between the status quo and something that hasn’t been named loudly enough yet. DSA isn’t the radical fringe; it’s the only thing moving the conversation in the right direction, and the in-between days matter as much as Election Day.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:45

Housekeeping: 00:01:00

Max Notes: 00:03:13

Resources

F.D Signifier: Fallen Idols: How Black Leaders Fail Us

Cato Unbound: The Education of a Libertarian

Prison Policy Initiative: United States profile

Airmail: The View from Here

Al Jazeera English: Progressives, AIPAC & the future of the Democratic Party: Neera Tanden & Mehdi Hasan

The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder: James Carville Prays Dems Lose Midterms To GOP

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Share of Net Worth Held by the Bottom 50% (1st to 50th Wealth Percentiles)

Brad Onishi: American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 10/20/26 (Stupid Democrats, Evil Republicans and the Future King of America.)

Video: Phone A Friend: Jared Yates Sexton: Left Activism in the Age of Trump.

Episode: Russell Vought’s 7 Point Plan To Steal the Election.

Episode: The Economics of Racism.

Episode: Don’t Stop Agitating: A Treatise on Leftism.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Intro music by Hold Fast.

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Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They cover headlines on the SSI asset trap keeping 7.5 million Americans in poverty and the 2028 Democratic slate. Then they tackle listener emails on what AI utopia actually looks like for the rest of us, using credit rating agencies to stop data center buildouts, and Russ Vought’s post-midterm constitutional endgame. Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:32

Headlines: 00:12:49

Emails: 00:25:20

Memberships: 00:59:09

Outro: 01:00:28

Resources

Ken Klippenstein: Exclusive: How the Military Will Hack the Election

New Republic: This Is the U.S. Government’s Most Maddening Poverty Trap

Newsweek: Kamala Harris Leads Newsom in 2028 Democrat Front-Runners Poll

UNFTR Resources

Video: Francesca Fiorentini: Dems vs The Future

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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More than 20 years after his death, we’re still living in the neoliberal world Milton Friedman made. The arc of neoliberalism begins in 1947, gathers steam in the 1970s, and reaches its zenith in the 1990s before breaking into a million pieces and forever out of the control of its progenitors. The story of Milton Friedman rises and falls along with it, and it’s a complicated one of ego, ambition and academic notoriety; a confluence of factors and foibles that came to define the modern economic age. This is the story of Milton Friedman, one of the principal architects of the modern world.

Resources

Subscribe to Current Affairs Magazine

Current Affairs: We’re Living In the World That Milton Friedman Made

Mises Institute: Friedrich A. Hayek

The New York Times: The Great Liberator

Ancestry: Jeno Saul Friedman

Johan Van Overtveldt: The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business

Britannica Money: Classical Economics

International Adam Smith Society: About Adam Smith

Britannica Money: David Ricardo

Wikipedia: Jeremy Bentham

Wikipedia: Cesare Beccaria

Wikipedia: Laissez-faire

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Karl Marx

Competition and Appropriation: Retrospectives: The Origins of Neoclassical Microeconomics

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: William Stanley Jevons

Econlib: Leon Walras

Econlib: Alfred Marshall

Harvard University: Raising Keynes: A Twenty-First-Century General Theory

Jacobin: Right-Wing Populism Did Not Kill Neoliberalism

C.J. Polychroniou: Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists

Quinn Slobodian: Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, Iq, and the Capitalism of the Far Right

The Mont Pelerin Society: About

The Atlantic: The Heritage Foundation

Current Affairs: Why Libertarians Oppose Civil Rights

ProMarket: Aaron Director’s Legacy: The Beginning of Doubt is the Beginning of Wisdom

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Karl Popper

Econlib: Ludwig von Mises

Chicago Booth: George J. Stigler

Free to Choose Network: The Power of Choice - Mont Pelerin Society

Investopedia: Permanent Income Hypothesis: Definition, Function, and Effects

Wikipedia: Natural rate of unemployment

Investopedia: Monetarism Explained: Theory, Formula, and Keynesian Comparison

Harris School of Public Policy: Permanent Income

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: The Fed and the Dual Mandate

Bureau of Labor Statistics: The Employment Situation – September 2026

Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz: A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960

Binyamin Appelbaum: The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society

Freien Universität Berlin: The Methodology of Positive Economics

Social Science Encyclopedia: Milton Friedman On Economic Methodology

Economic Reform Australia: The F-twist – realism, economic policy analysis and climate change

CATO Institute: Who Said TANSTAAFL First?

Milton Friedman: The Free Lunch Myth

Milton Friedman: Taxation, Inflation, and the Role of Government

Investopedia: Market Definition: Economics, Types, and Key Features

Bernard Harcourt: The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order

Current Affairs: Ralph Nader

History: Auto safety crusader Ralph Nader testifies before Congress

The New York Times: A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits

Scholarly Commons: Powell Memorandum: Attack On American Free Enterprise System

The Heritage Foundation

The Cato Institute

The Manhattan Institute

The American Legislative Exchange Council

Brookings: What we learned from Reagan’s tax cuts

PBS News: Column: How Reaganomics, deregulation and bailouts led to the rise of Trump

Wikipedia: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996

Free To Choose: The Original 1980 TV Series

EdChoice: Milton Friedman on the Phil Donahue Show in 1979

Investopedia: Stagflation Explained: What We Learned From the 1970s Crisis

Investopedia: Understanding the Phillips Curve: Inflation and Unemployment Dynamics

Investopedia: Demand-Pull Inflation: Understanding Causes and Differences from Cost-Push

npr: Conservative Advocate

U.S. News: Repeal of Glass-Steagall Caused the Financial Crisis

C-SPAN: User Clip: Clinton: ‘Big Government Is Over’

ProMarket: The Complicated Legacy of the “Chicago Boys” in Chile

Center for the History of Political Economy: Slaves or Mercenaries: Milton Friedman and the Institution of the All-Volunteer Military

C-SPAN’S American History TV: Milton Friedman debates government intervention

Amnesty International: Chile: 50 years since the coup d’état, exercising historical memory is vital for the country’s future

The Guardian: Guess what? Self-interest is bad for the economy

The New York Times: What Would Keynes Have Done?

The New Yorker: Covert Operations

The Progressive: The Politics of Racial Resentment

Current Affairs: A Trillion Dollars Isn’t Worth It If You Have to Be Elon Musk

UNFTR Resources

Video: Why We’re Still Living in Milton Friedman’s Neoliberal World.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Visit our bookshop.org page at https://bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at https://bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations.

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The Bitchuation Room’s Francesca Fiorentini returns to UNFTR’s Phone A Friend to break down the midterms, what Democrats need to be focusing on next and how the current leadership isn’t up to the challenges ahead. Progressive politics often finds itself at a crossroads during election cycles. In this conversation, we look at how the establishment handles internal pressure and why the narrative surrounding the midterms remains so contentious. Francesca offers her perspective on the shifting dynamics of the left and what it means for the party base moving forward.

Resources

The Bitchuation Room (with Francesca Fiorentini)

UNFTR Resources

Video: Francesca Fiorentini: Dems vs The Future.

Transcript: Phone A Friend: Francesca Fiorentini.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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This week we connected some dots that should scare everyone—Russell Vought’s think tank’s 7 step playbook for refusing to seat elected members of Congress, a raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, and Trump name-dropping Vought as someone about to make history. Then we looked at France, where the eurozone’s version of our debt problem is playing out without the escape hatch of a sovereign currency (a useful reminder of exactly what we’d be dealing with if the dollar ever loses its privileged position).

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:38

Quick Takes: 00:01:34

Phone A Friend: 00:04:54

Max Notes: 00:07:19

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:30:53

Chart of the Week: 00:31:51

Outro: 00:33:25

Resources

Today: Pete Hegseth Vows to Livestream Execution of Fort Hood Shooter

ABC10: Why Trump is reopening his effort to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook

PBS NewsHour: Kimberly Guilfoyle’s full speech at the Republican National Convention | 2020 RNC Night 1

NewsNation: Kimberly Guilfoyle accuser speaks out: ’I paid her $300K’

Ziwe: Hasan Piker Is an Iconic Guest

The Bitchuation Room (with Francesca Fiorentini)

Common Dreams: Israel Has Demolished Majority of Villages in Southern Lebanon—Mostly After the Ceasefire

USA Today: Trump hints at ‘big surprises’ to come ahead of midterm election

The Hill: Trump teases diesel announcement, big move from Vought

The Wall Street Journal: What Might Russ Vought’s ‘Tremendous’ Surprise Actually Be?

Bradley Onishi: American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy

CRA: Can Congress Seat a Member-Elect Who Vows to Destroy our Constitution?

Politico: DHS agents search Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home

Vote In Or Out: The Project 2025 Progress Report

The Trump Tracker: What’s Been Implemented

The Hill: Bill to claw back public media, foreign aid funds clears key Senate hurdle with Vance breaking tie

Project 2025 Tracker

Ray Williams: Project 2025: The Architects Are Taking a Victory Lap

The Heritage Foundation: Project 2025 Publishes Comprehensive Policy Guide, ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise’

Aeroswift Legal: The Orchestration

ProPublica: “We Want the Bureaucrats to Be Traumatically Affected”

ProPublica: The Shadow President

CRA: Who We Are

CRA: Policy Brief: Assessing the Marxist-Muslim Alliance Aimed at America’s Heart

Library of Congress: Victor Berger: Topics in Chronicling America

Britannica: Victor Berger

Daniel Greenfield: The Constitutional Case for Keeping DSA Members Out of Office

FindLaw: U.S. Code - Unannotated Title 2. The Congress § 26. Roll of Representatives-elect

GovInfo: Enrolling Members; Administering the Oath

United States House of Representatives: The Honorable Kevin F. McCumber

Newsweek: Jeffrey Toobin on How Trump Could Intervene in Midterms

Wikipedia: Gregory Bovino

MPRnews: 24 hours after Bovino’s departure, ICE activity appears unchanged

The Latin Times: Homan Warns Larger ICE Crackdown During Doral Speech: “Wait Until You See What We Do in 2027”

The Latin Times: ICE Says It’s Deported 356,000 People This Year While 70% of Detainees Have No Conviction

The Latin Times: Homan Says ICE ‘Isn’t Going Anywhere’: What His Threat Means for 5 Immigrant Hubs

CBS News: Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. home searched by Homeland Security investigators

Reuters: US immigration authorities raid home of Democratic Trump critic Ilhan Omar

DailyWire: ICE Investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar, Homan Confirms

CNN: Rep. Ilhan Omar responds after federal officers search her home

Zeteo: How Many Israelis Were Killed BY ISRAEL on October 7th?

Paul Krugman: What’s the Matter With France?

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 10-13-26 (Trump’s Secret October Surprise: What Is He Planning?)

Episode: Project 2025.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on what comes after hyperpolitics and whether the DSA becomes a career vehicle or a disciplining force, and the botched Tennessee execution. Then they tackle listener emails on the historical case that federal spending was never tied to tax revenue, what you’d call a hybrid of social democracy and democratic socialism, and the real estate collapse accelerating the credit crunch. Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:35

Headlines: 00:05:33

Emails: 00:33:21

Beyond the Bullshit: 01:01:34

Memberships: 01:19:21

Outro: 01:19:40

Resources

The Guardian: Christa Pike is ‘up and walking’ for first time after failed execution, lawyer say

Jacobin: What Comes After Hyperpolitics?

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at https://shop.unftr.com/.

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Intro music by Hold Fast.

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This week we diagnosed the economy as a giant zit—good numbers on the surface, all of it concentrated in AI investment and stock market gains for the top 10%, while wages fall below inflation, consumer confidence hits a 12-year low, and the 10-year Treasury just blew past its 2007 peak. Then we looked at what the pop actually looks like: a private credit unwind that drags the banks with it, a Fed that can’t buy its way out this time, and Scott Bessent left holding the bag. The Buffett Indicator is sitting at 235%. Maybe that’s why he retired...

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:42

Quick Takes: 00:01:24

Max Notes: 00:06:35

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:21:10

Chart of the Week: 00:22:15

Outro: 00:23:16

Resources

CBS Sunday Morning: Alan Alda on fighting Parkinson’s with laughter

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von: Zohran Mamdani

NBC News: U.S. bombers scrambled out of U.K. airbase after threats

CNBC TV-18: Pete Hegseth’s ‘Just Warriors’ Speech: ‘No Fatties, No Wimps, No Radicals’

Bloomberg Television: Brazil Real Surges After Bolsonaro Takes Surprising Lead

ABC News: US monitoring reported fatal case of pneumonic plague in Russia

WSWS.org: With complicity of media and Democrats, Trump prepares major escalation of Iran war

ADP: National Employment Report

Bureau of Economic Analysis: Personal Income and Outlays, August 2026

The Conference Board: US Consumer Confidence

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employment Situation Summary

Steve Rattner on Substack

Schwab: Fed Hikes in 12-0 Vote, Commits to Inflation Fight

Bloomberg: Treasury 10-Year Yield Hits Highest Since 2002 on Rate Outlook

Squire Patton Boggs: The Private Credit Market: The Data Behind the Headlines

Federal Reserve: Monetary Policy Report – July 2026

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Remarks at 2026 U.S. Treasury Market Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City

CNBC: Fed meeting recap: Warsh says inflation is still too high as Fed hikes for the first time since 2023

Yahoo! Finance: Trump slams the Fed rate hike, says he told Warsh ‘you might as well vote with the board’

CNBC: Warsh’s regime change at the Fed pushes ahead – and meets resistance

CNBC: Warsh faces Fed independence test as Bessent moves in on central bank’s turf

PWC: Private credit’s next phase — growth under pressure

International Monetary Fund: Bank Lending to Nonbank Financial Institutions Continued To Increase Rapidly in 2025

Democracy! Now: Lula vs. Bolsonaro (Again): Brazil’s Presidential Race Goes to Runoff as Right Wing Makes Gains

MacroMicro: US - Total Market Cap (% of GDP)

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 10-06-26 (Trump’s Economy is a Giant Zit.)

Episode: Private Credit: Just Because We’re Not Talking About It Doesn’t Mean It’s Not a Problem.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Intro music by Hold Fast.

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Private credit headlines have calmed down in recent months. It could be because these debt markets are doing just fine...or it could be because we’re too distracted by wars, exploding bond yields, and gas prices. But just because there haven’t been high-profile bankruptcies like last year’s First Brands or Tricolor doesn’t mean there isn’t trouble brewing in the opaque private credit markets. Consternation about these portfolios is growing: redemption requests are outpacing inflows, reports of massive payment-in-kind adjustments keep surfacing, and credit default swaps on private credit-backed loans are popping up. This crisis may not be as concentrated as the 2008 meltdown, but the numbers are bigger. And at the center of it all is a market we can’t see.

Resources

Federal Reserve: The Rise in Mortgage Defaults

Bloomberg: SoftBank’s OpenAI Debt Gets Costlier, Riskier and Even Bigger

The Japan Times: Apollo mulls raising SoftBank loan to $9 billion for OpenAI bets

IFR: Trading frenzy builds in hyperscaler debt and CDS markets

LSEG: Get ahead of the September index roll

Yahoo! Finance: Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft Are Hiding $3 Trillion in Debt On the AI Boom’s Hidden Ledger

Yahoo! Finance: Blue Owl Capital (OWL) Ties Into Meta’s $50 Billion Hyperion Expansion

Reuters: Private credit bosses hit back at ‘misinformation’ over First Brands collapse

Reuters: Private credit roundup: Software marks and Blackstone’s backlog of redemptions

Bloomberg: Private Credit Defaults Are 1%, 6% or 19%, Depending Who You Ask

UNFTR Resources

Video: How AI Debt Could Blow Up Private Credit.

Essay: Private Credit: Just Because We’re Not Talking About It Doesn’t Mean It’s Not a Problem.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the Paramount-Warner merger as a preview of what oligarchs do when anyone tries to govern them, plastic fusing with coral reefs in a new phenomenon researchers are calling “plasticoral,” and rapid third-country deportations getting the Supreme Court’s temporary blessing. Then they tackle listener emails on whether this era is an aberration or just capitalism unmasked, DSA overreach and the pace of the left, and the real arguments against raising corporate taxes.

Chapters

Intro: 00:01:02

Headlines: 00:24:06

Emails: 00:34:33

Memberships: 00:55:30

Outro: 00:56:19

Resources

The New York Times: Supreme Court Allows Rapid Third-Country Deportations, for Now

Big by Matt Stoller: Paramount-WB Isn’t Just a Loss, It’s a Prelude

Wired: Plastic Is Melting Onto Corals

Instagram: Hermit Crab Conservation Project

UNFTR Resources

Episode: The Montreal Protocol.

Video: How AI Debt Could Blow Up Private Credit.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Visit our bookshop.org page at https://bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at https://bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations.

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Despite only having between 95,000 and 120,000 members nationwide, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has a hot political hand. To most Americans the DSA remains a mystery, but its impact is being felt in elections throughout the country. Conservatives are keeping one eye open but are largely dismissive. Establishment liberals are furious with the group. This episode puts the DSA in historical context and offers insight into how past challenges and current opposition present future opportunities for the social movement of record in the United States.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:44

Max Notes: 00:01:27

Outro: 00:28:47

Resources

Commentary: The Democratic Socialist Congregation

The Washington Post: Don’t fear a ‘Bolshevik revolution.’ It’s a DSA fairy tale.

Americans for Prosperity: On Constitution Day, here are the ways the DSA agenda undermines America’s founding

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 09-29-26 (The Rise Of The DSA: What You Need To Know.)

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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An original episode on how Trump will ultimately represent the final chapter of the American experiment. Empires don’t collapse. They crumble. But they’re reduced to a handful of chapters in history texts that depict them in stages with defined beginnings and ends. Donald Trump has already managed to set the stage for World War Three though it looks far different than prior great wars. He is the culmination of the hubris of empire. Here on my thoughts on how this goes down and what comes after.

Resources

Washington Post: How Four U.S. Presidents Unleashed Economic Warfare Across the Globe

UNFTR Resources

Video: The Final Chapter: Trump and the End of the American Experiment.

Essay: It’s Just Trump Against the World.

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If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at https://www.unftr.com/.

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Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on Carney’s airport privatization sellout and the Ebola outbreak in the DRC that’s on pace to be the worst the world has ever seen. Then they tackle listener emails on AI recursive self-improvement hype and the TESCREAL cult behind it, Greenland’s surrender of sovereignty to Trump, and why “regulation” is just a sanitized word for protection. Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:31

Headlines: 00:13:20

Emails: 00:28:40

Memberships: 01:03:21

Outro: 01:04:45

Resources

Subscribe to Current Affairs Magazine.

Wired: The World Forgot About Ebola. The Organization Fighting It Has Never Been More Worried

Canadian Dimension: Carney’s airport privatization is a looming disaster: ‘Highway 407 of the skies’

UNFTR Resources

Video: Why We’re Still Living in Milton Friedman’s Neoliberal World.

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