Noam and Jen discuss a little attack on Iran you might have heard about over the weekend, now that Noam is not on Emergency Pod duty for Commentary. Much like our discussion in the wake of the Maduro extraction, we talk about how you can be happy that something happened but have concerns about how it happened and what exactly will happen next. Obviously, this situation is both more extreme and more volatile than Venezuela, so we really hope someone knows what they're doing (we don't have much hope of that however)

We also talk about the fight between the DOD and Anthropic over the DOD (allegedly) wanting to make killbots and spy on everyone effortlessly. There is a discussion to be had not just on the metis of this case, but on the use of AI in a battlefield or a criminal investigation.

For our WAWC, Noam has two Korean reality shows produced by Jeong Jong-yeon, Devil's Plan and Agents of Mystery. Jen recommends the anime Ninja Scroll (which, to settle a discussion on the pod, the movie came out in 1993 and the show was released in 2003).

Jen and Noam return to discuss the Supreme Court shooting down Trump's "national emergency" tariffs, Jen's hope for a restructuring of executive power, Tucker lying about his trip to Israel (well at least to the airport), lying for clout, America's new figure skating darling Alysa Liu, journalists asking athletes dumb political questions, and being proud to be an American.

For our WAWC, Jen recommends the new Sam Raimi film Send Help, and Noam (probably because he got tired of Jen badgering him to watch more anime) starts watching Hell's Paradise.

Noam and Jen record a special Presidents' Day episode where we discuss important things, like Olympic controversies around fingering and penile enhancements.

OK, we also discuss actual important things, like the fact that Jeremy Carl is for some reason nominated to a position in the State Department and how he can't define white culture despite having written a whole book on the topic. This of course kicked off a whole debate on the internet about "white culture", which in Carl's defense nobody else can define either. At any rate, it's a dumb concept that makes no sense.

We spend a little time discussing ICE being pulled out of Minneapolis, but we got sidetracked by the WSJ article on the chaos within Kristi Noem's DHS.

And of course, we had to spend some time talking about how everyone hates Hasan Piker now, after his comments that Democrats are not better than Republicans on the topic of trans rights. Progressives overall are having a fit over the idea of Newsom being the candidate in 2028, but we agree he could totally mog Vance in a debate.

Foe our WAWC, Noam pitches everyone on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms again (really he just wants Jen to start watching it), and Jen explains how everyone is trashing the new BookTok'd version of Wuthering Heights.