January 6, 2025 marked two grim occasions: the four year anniversary of Donald Trump inciting his followers to take over the U.S. Capitol and the present-day Congress certifying Trump’s 2.0’s presidential election victory.

This week, Katelyn, Christine, and special guest Meredith Shiner compare and contrast their experiences as congressional reporters on Capitol Hill. Meredith, a communications consultant and journalist, is the preeminent critic of the insurrection that aired live and what she calls the “polite coup”—the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. Biden and the Democrats abdication of their responsibility to any timely or enduring accountability and the mainstream media’s passivity, exacerbated by consolidation under their billionaire owners, are recurring topics. But the discussion does not get mired in cynicism. This episode’s energy is what we all must hold on to heading into next week’s second Trump inauguration, and whatever comes after.

Links:

Greg Owen for LGBTQ Nation: Trans & wildly popular “Oprah of China” suddenly blackballed by Chinese government

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“Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands,” Melissa Nathan—the crisis public relations expert who preserved alleged domestic abuser Johnny Depp’s public image—texted behind the scenes of her latest smear-campaign-for-hire. The New York Times called Nathan’s bluff. publishing the extent of her actor-director client Justin Baldoni’s alleged retaliatory social media operation to turn public sentiment against actress Blake Lively, the target of his alleged workplace sexual harassment on their film “It Ends with Us.”

This week, Katelyn and Christine discuss the coordinated campaign against Lively, perpetrated by our old enemies behind the Amber Heard defamation allegation. We highly recommend you check out the links in the show notes for the context that Cancel Me, Daddy has been providing since its beginnings with Oliver and Katelyn! Revisit the 2022 “Depp-ception” episode with guest and “Cancel Gunkle” Michael Hobbes, who returned in 2023 to cancel The New York Times over spurious and harmful reporting about trans kids. We’re still side-eyeing the paper and the byline.

Links:

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The health insurer horror stories haven’t stopped coming in the two weeks since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed by alleged murderer-turned-folk hero Luigi Mangione. And the ruling class is not having it! Elected officials, corporate CEOs, and the mainstream media with the power to change or buck the system are hell bent on protecting it, at the expense of many more lives.

This week, Katelyn and Christine discuss the sudden, ongoing suppression of free speech, sharing each of their experiences with health insurance, censorship be damned. Their conversation spans UHC’s denials and demands for Christine’s mental health records in 2024 to Kate’s gender-affirming surgeries, which she crammed into one year to meet her deductible under one of the various insurance plans that Americans will have in their lifetime. Thirsty Internet assassin boyfriend memes, of course, rise to the top. And Kate asks Christine to name the greater Italian American—Christopher Columbus, or Luigi Mangione? Tune in for her answer!

Links:

Your Ombudsmon's Corner: Marisa Kabas skeet critiquing Semafor Editor in Chief Ben Smith defending Bluesky’s apparent welcome to transphobes and trolls

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Last month’s Loser Election prompted an X-odus from Elon Musk’s crumbling app to Bluesky, which grew by 1 million users per day toward the end of November. Despite the grim news cycles, Bluesky is far from all doom and gloom. It is, in fact, putting the social back in social networking.

This week, Katelyn and Christine chat with Faine Greenwood, who created the “Alf hog” meme that caught the attention of everyone from AOC to Jeri Ryan to Jake Tapper in the early days of Bluesky. Katelyn, Christine, and Faine have fun with verbal shitposting and Internet shitposting and give credit to the nascent trans accounts that helped shape Bluesky, which they hope will remain a safe and fun space amid an influx of anti-trans and anti-abortion trolls.

In Flytrap news: Subscribe to read Christine’s first essay about her colonoscopy for Christ, “The Red Mass Went Up My Ass,” edited by the inimitable Katelyn herself!

Links:

Support Cancel Me, Daddy by supporting our Patreon and subscribing to our worker-owned feminist media collective, The Flytrap!

Cancel Me, Daddy is a Flytrap Media production. Edited by Maria Paleologos. Graphics by Eden M-W, music by D Peterschmidt.

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The “Daddy Election” did not go as Cancel Me, Daddy planned. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what woulda, coulda, shoulda changed the outcome of the “Loser Election,” in which we’re all losers reading and skeeting our way through the Orange Fallout.

This week, Katelyn and Christine make sense of the “multiverse” of election takes with “Cancel Gunkle” Michael Hobbes, journalist and co-host of Maintenance Phase and If Books Could Kill. Kate, Christine, and Mike discuss checking our priors and checking each other, turning what could have been a hot mess into a thoughtful discussion and mutual thirst for Paul Newman (RIP), both of which we encourage you to contribute to via Bluesky. Everyone has an opinion, and we want to hear yours. Keep up the infighting! And take care of each other. That act is more important than any opinion poised to change over the days and weeks to come.

Links:

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Our regularly scheduled episode happens to fall on Halloween! And spooky season is feeling extra—as extra as Tucker Carlson rallying “Daddy Trump” to give America a “vigorous spanking” for being a “bad little girl.” It’d be funny if it wasn’t sickening, and terrifying. We’re just five days from the 2024 presidential election, featuring the return of the Orange Fascist—and white evangelical power could strong-arm the strongman back into the White House.

This week, author and friend of the pod Talia Lavin unravels the intricacies of the movement, the subject of her new book, “Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America,” with Katelyn and Christine. To well-funded white evangelical nationalists, only Trump can deliver us from the literal demons behind every abortion and pronoun. We need to take this group seriously, or the joke is on us come Election Day.

Content Warning: This episode includes extensive discussion of child abuse and corporal punishment, which Wild Faith explores as central to the Christian right’s political project: creating the conditions for future generations of obedient soldiers for God and country. Please listen with care, and take good care. 

Links:

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America by Talia Lavin

Talia Lavin for MSNBC: Tucker Carlson’s “daddy” comments speak volumes about the far right

Martha Ross for The Mercury News: Tucker Carlson: How early rejection by hippie San Francisco mom made him shameless

William Grimes for The New York Times: Alice Miller, Psychoanalyst, Dies at 87; Laid Human Problems to Parental Acts

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Special episode swap with BEED, a podcast by former Cancel Me, Daddy guest Bridget Todd:

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Chappell Roan’s cancellation by a certain set of voters got us thinking: When do fandoms become toxic? How does “stanning” an artist, a politician, or a (literal) piece of work disproportionately push people who already live at the margins of our culture out of the culture entirely?

This week, Katelyn and Christine nerd out on nerd culture’s historically toxic fandoms with Jessie Earl, aka Jessie Gender, the YouTube essayist who hosts two popular channels. Together, they try to find the “nuance in the nerdy,” from the “Lord of the Rings” to the 2024 presidential election. And “Your Ombudsmom,” Christine’s media critic alter ego, returns with her new regular segment. Stay tuned for out of context cancellations from Katelyn and Christine!

In breaking news: You did it! The Flytrap is fully funded, thanks in no small part to our loyal Cancel Me, Daddy listeners! Thank you! We have a stretch goal that will allow us to commission one freelance writer or artist per month, bringing EVEN MORE cool people to your inbox with provocative, fun cultural criticism and commentary. Who knows—you might be one of them! Please continue to donate what you can, if you can to our Kickstarter. Get exclusive access to our live Zoom show if you donate to the “Friends and a Show” tier!

Transcript here: https://theflytrap.beehiiv.com/p/chappell-roan-and-the-trolls-of-the-ring-transcript

Links:

Jessie Gender YouTube channel 

Jessie Gender After Dark channel

Katelyn Burns: “Concerning “The Rings of Power,” season one

*spoilers ahead* Jessie Gender reviews “The Rings of Power,” season two, starting with episodes 1–3 and continuing through the finale

Nicole Chung for GQ: Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Kelly Marie Tran Has a Story to Tell

Rebecca Sun for The Hollywood Reporter: The Resurrection of Kelly Marie Tran: On Surviving “Star Wars” Bullying, the Pressures of Representation, and “Raya and the Last Dragon’”

Madison Malone Kircher for The New York Times: What is the KHive?

Jon Blistein for Rolling Stone: Chappell Roan on Why She Turned Down White House Invite: “I Won’t Be a Monkey for Pride”

Jessie Gender After Dark: The Treatment of Chappell Roan

Scott Detrow for NPR: Bernie Sanders Defends Campaigning For Anti-Abortion Rights Democrat

Meredith Shiner for The New Republic: The Appalling Attack on Ta-Nehisi Coates Is a Massive Media Failing

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New York placed Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi “on leave” after the magazine Washington correspondent admitted to an inappropriate relationship with former presidential candidate RFK Jr.—sexting while covering the 2024 campaign. 

This week, Katelyn and Christine discuss the unfolding media scandal with equal parts humor and smart analysis, drawing from each of their experiences as Washington reporters themselves. They turn their criticism to the media gatekeepers—WTF is wrong with all of the prominent journalists caping for Nuzzi with the enthusiasm she’s poured into tradfascs in her coverage and on the website formerly known as Twitter?

After recording, Nuzzi asserted in a court filing that her ex-fiancé, Ryan Lizza, former alleged New Yorker sex pest turned Politico bigwig, engaged in a blackmail campaign against her, allegedly exposing her online affair to New York leadership. Lizza has since been suspended by Politico, pending an investigation.

In non-sexting news: We announce our new partnership with the brand-new feminist publication The Flytrap, of which Katelyn, Christine, and eight other talented writers and artists are co-founders! Please support The Flytrap’s Kickstarter here.

Links:

Vanity Fair: "The Reported RFK Jr.–Olivia Nuzzi “Relationship” Casts New Scrutiny on All Journalists"

New York Post: "‘Obsessed’ Olivia Nuzzi pursued RFK Jr. ‘aggressively,’ pol had to block her repeatedly: source"

New York Post: "RFK Jr. and star journalist Olivia Nuzzi had ‘incredible’ FaceTime sex, said they loved each other: sources"

New York Times: "Ryan Lizza Fired by The New Yorker Over Sexual Misconduct Allegation"

SEMAFOR: Ben Smith newsletter, September 23, 2024

Christie Smythe: Tweet (we’ll never call it an X post)

Marin Cogan for The New Republic: House of Cads: The psycho-sexual ordeal of reporting in Washington

Tumblr: Said to LadyJournos, a mid-2010s Tumblr that compiled journalists’ anonymous submissions about their experiences with sexual harassment on the job

Moira Donegan (former Cancel Me, Daddy guest!) for The Guardian: "The real victims of Olivia Nuzzi’s affair with RFK Jr are other female journalists"

Christine Grimaldi: Tweets here and here about NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg’s conflict of interest-ridden friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Washingtonian: “My First: That Time Olivia Nuzzi Wrote About Anthony Weiner and Got Called a ‘Slutbag’”

The -30- newsletter: “A Q&A with Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine on her career, covering Trump and access journalism”

Disclaimer: Katelyn once worked as a part-time political writer for Vox Media, the parent company of New York.

Support Cancel Me, Daddy by supporting the Kickstarter for The Flytrap!

Cancel Me, Daddy is a Flytrap Media production. Edited by Maria Paleologos. Graphics by Eden M-W, music by D Peterschmidt.

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This week we are pleased to welcome freelance journalist Christine Grimaldi for her debut as the new permanent co-host of Cancel Me, Daddy! Together, we also welcome the co-founder and CEO of the American Sunlight Project and disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz for an in depth discussion about last week's indictments involving conservative influencer group Tenet Media.

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