Slate Money | Money Talks: Selling The Dream

After a summer on the receiving end of the internet’s ire, Blake Lively is back in the news, as her relationship with her former director and co-star Justin Baldoni has taken a turn for the litigious.  Guest: Heather Schwedel, staff writer at Slate. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Money Talks: Jane Marie has spent years reporting on the tangled web of multi-level marketing companies, or MLMs, with her podcast The Dream and dives even deeper in her new book, Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans. In this episode, she sits down with Emily Peck to discuss their origins, their appeal to American women, and their extremely questionable business practices.  Want to hear that discussion and hear more Slate Money? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slate Money show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After nine years as Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau has resigned. Has Canada joined much of the rest of the world by jettisoning its progressive leadership, or does Trudeau’s career tell a different story? Guest: Jesse Brown, editor and publisher of Canadaland. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though their physical caliphate has been gone for more than five years, the terrorist organization ISIS has survived—through propaganda, in chatrooms, and as an inspiration and cheerleader for actions like the New Years’ Eve attack in New Orleans. Guest: Colin P. Clarke, Director of Research at The Soufan Group, a nonprofit research group focusing on global security, author of “After the Caliphate: The Islamic State and the Future Terrorist Diaspora.” Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cryptocurrency spent generously on this last election cycle, and now they’ve got their top pick in the White House, and wins across Congress. Where is the industry looking to go with these favorable, regulatory winds?  Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, tech reporter covering the crypto industry for the New York Times. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week: The Lively/Baldoni PR war has become a legal battle. And it’s not just reputations that are at stake. Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers explain how Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni and his answering suit against The New York Times is more than just a Hollywood feud, it’s a fight to stay profitable. Then, the hosts discuss the recent ruling that seems to have killed the dream of net neutrality for good. Finally, they examine the decline in drinking that has caused a lake-sized tequila surplus in Mexico. In the Slate Plus episode: Coffee Wars Want to hear that discussion and hear more Slate Money? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slate Money show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy (?) New Year. Amicus is gingerly stepping into 2025 and into the coming onslaught of Trump 2.0 with one of the country’s very best legal, constitutional and human guides –– civil rights litigator and 14th Amendment scholar Sherrilyn Ifill. Together, Sherrilyn and Dahlia navigate some of the most pressing questions facing the law, the legal profession, and those who care about it. In his end of year judicial report, Chief Justice John Roberts chose to claim the mantle of both embattled civil rights champions and also infallible monarchs while blaming pretty much everyone except the court for the high court’s plummeting legitimacy. What does it mean when the most powerful men in the world equate all criticism with threats of violence, and confuse victory with victimhood? What does it mean when Supreme Court justices decide to freelance and freestyle as trial court judges and appellate litigators at high court oral arguments? And what do lawyers and judges need to do to hold the line in the coming year, and the years that will follow? Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the presidency and post-presidential life of Jimmy Carter; the infighting of Elon Musk v. MAGA; and the possibilities of citizens’ assemblies with The New Yorker’s Nick Romeo. Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: John Dickerson for CBS Mornings: John Dickerson on Jimmy Carter’s legacy and a life shaped by faith CBS News: From the archives: Jimmy Carter becomes first president to walk in inaugural parade to White House and WGAL: Harrisburg, 1979: Jimmy Carter visits TMI after partial meltdown  Sam Stein and Jonathan Alter for The Bulwark: Jimmy Carter was a misunderstood President. Here’s Why. and His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life by Jonathan Alter Stephen Hess for The Brookings Institution: Jimmy Carter: Why He Failed Todd S. Purdum for The Atlantic: Jimmy Carter Was America’s Most Effective Former President and Gal Beckerman: What Made Jimmy Carter Such a Strange President Andrew Prokop for Vox: Elon Musk is on a collision course with Stephen Miller Jonathan Edwards for The Washington Post: MAGA is fighting a ‘civil war’ over H-1B visas. Here’s what they are. Nick Romeo for The New Yorker: What Could Citizens’ Assemblies Do For American Politics? History.com: Ancient Greek Democracy and Simon Hornblower for Britannica: The reforms of Cleisthenes   Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab Bürgerrat: Citizens’ assemblies worldwide Here are this week’s chatters: Emily: Caucasia: A Novel and Colored Television by Danzy Senna and A Complete Unknown from Searchlight Pictures John: Event Santa Cruz: Dock Ellis No-No Cocktail at Brophy’s – Carmel; Patrick Hruby for ESPN: The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis: Meet The Man Behind Baseball’s Most Psychedelic Myth.; and Paul Geisler Jr. for the Society for American Baseball Research: Dock Ellis  David: Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story from National Geographic and Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome and Fatherland: A Novel by Robert Harris  Listener chatter from Lawrence in Bowling Green, Ohio: Rhiannon Giddens for Silkroad: American Railroad: A Musical Journey of Reclamation  For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily, John, and David discuss what President Joe Biden should do in his final two weeks in the Oval Office. In the latest Gabfest Reads, David talks with David Greenberg about his new biography, John Lewis: A Life.  Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.) Podcast production by Jared Downing Research by Julie Huygen Want more Political Gabfest? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Political Gabfest show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/gabfestplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosts Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz Follow @SlateGabfest on X / https://twitter.com/SlateGabfest Slate Political Gabfest on Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/Gabfest/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Christmas Eve a fracas erupted on X, when Elon Musk posted in favor of H1-B visas for specialized and high-skill workers and was met with anger from the MAGA base who view the visas as a way for immigrants to take American jobs. Guest: Ryan Mac, tech reporter for The New York Times and the coauthor of the book “Character Limit How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter.” Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Ethan Oberman, Patrick Fort, and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dispensing aid in the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly difficult. No one knows this better than Hani. On a professional level, his employer, UNRWA—the main supplier of food, water, and shelter to Gazans over the last year—is banned from operating come 2025. On a personal note, his brother Mahmoud was killed in what Hani believes to have been a targeted strike while operating a soup kitchen for hungry neighbors. Guest: Hani Almadhoun, senior director of philanthropy at UNRWA USA. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices