Crude and Unusual Punishment

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on the Iran war flaring back up after a month of quiet, with new strikes exchanged, a missile wiping out a base in Jordan, and Trump posting AI-generated videos of Kharg Island being obliterated while the real military runs out of interceptors. Meanwhile, leaked Pentagon documents reveal six four-star generals filed formal dissent against extending the campaign, and Defense Secretary Hegseth's response to the worst military crisis in a generation is to start visiting Iowa and South Carolina for a 2028 presidential run. They trace the Venezuela oil grab for what it is: the U.S. overthrew a government, installed a puppet, and that puppet just signed over 100 years of oil rights to an unnamed private company while 80% of Venezuelan households live in poverty. From there they connect the collapsing food supply, where blueberries are killing people and Trump is deregulating meat processing live on Glenn Beck's radio show, to the Project 2025 blueprint that laid all of this out in black and white. They close on Jim Clyburn going on Meet the Press to announce that impeachment is not a Democratic priority, which tells you everything about why Hakeem Jeffries was meeting with Jared Kushner last week: the captured resistance has no plans and no platform two months before the midterms. Support the show by signing up to our Patreon to hear the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast