Athens in the summer of 411 BCE was a city smoldering beneath the weight of its own glory. The golden age had cracked, and under the strain of war, pride, and poverty, the world’s first democracy was about to slit its own wrists. This wasn’t some minor squabble among politicians. It was an existential crisis. A full-blown betrayal from within. The people of Athens, people who once cheered for Pericles and marched proudly in the agora, found themselves spectators in a slow-motion coup that would topple their democracy not once, but twice, in the span of a single year.

Welcome back to *What The Frock?, where the robes are real, the satire is sharp, and the heresy is bipartisan.

In this week’s episode, *It’s Fine…*, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod dive headfirst into the absurdity of modern life, starting with the battle of the broken states: Washington vs. California. Spoiler—Washington wins, and not in a good way.

From a Pride flag kerfuffle at the state capitol to "mostly peaceful" riots in L.A., the duo unpacks the media’s reality distortion field and the increasingly Orwellian language of public officials.

Plus, Rabbi Dave, ever the salty sailor, weighs in on the Navy’s decision to rename the *USS Harvey Milk*—and what that means for Poseidon’s wine tab. Sprinkle in a discussion about whether AI is becoming our new god, and you’ve got a frockin’ episode worth your Sunday.

Pour a drink, light a candle, and press play.

Everything’s fine.

Allegedly.

On June 8, 1967, in the sunlit waters of the eastern Mediterranean, an American ship flew the Stars and Stripes over calm seas. Her name was the USS Liberty, a lightly armed intelligence vessel serving under the National Security Agency. She carried 294 crew members, including sailors, Marines, and NSA linguists trained in Arabic and Russian. That morning, the Liberty cruised peacefully, 13 miles off the Sinai Peninsula, well within international waters. Overhead, Israeli reconnaissance planes circled the ship multiple times. The Liberty’s crew waved. Some even saw the pilots’ faces. At least eight overflights occurred in the hours before the attack. No warnings were given. Nothing seemed out of place. Then everything changed.

It was June 7, 1776, a heavy summer day in Philadelphia. The streets simmered with tension, and inside the State House, the Second Continental Congress sat on the edge of history. The men in that room had argued, pleaded, and petitioned for peace, but now the moment had come to talk about war. Not just war with muskets, but a war of ideas, a war of separation. That morning, a tall Virginian named Richard Henry Lee rose to speak. What he offered wasn’t diplomacy. It was a clean and final break from Britain.

On a warm morning in early June 1918, somewhere amid the rolling farmland and wooded clearings of northern France, a handful of American Marines fixed bayonets, whispered prayers, and stepped into the wheat. It was June 6, 1918 and the woods they faced were called Belleau. Before sunset that day, more United States Marines would be killed or wounded than had fallen in every battle of the Corps’ previous 143-year history combined. That stretch of land would soon become sacred ground, known not just to historians and veterans but to anyone who believes liberty is bought with blood.

On this episode of Dave Does History, we take a long, hard look at one of the most controversial figures of the American West—Pat Garrett.

You probably know him as the man who shot Billy the Kid, but Garrett’s story runs far deeper than that single, fateful moment in a darkened New Mexico bedroom.

Born in Alabama, raised in Louisiana, and forged by the chaos of post-Civil War America, Garrett rose from cowboy to lawman, then fell into scandal, poverty, and betrayal. Along the way, he tangled with outlaws, politicians, and a few ghosts of his own making. He stood tall in a violent time, but by the end, he was a relic with more enemies than friends.

Was he a hero, a hired gun, or just a man caught in the shifting winds of a vanishing frontier?

Let’s find out together.

This is the life and legacy of Pat Garrett.

When most Americans think of George III, they picture a tyrant in a powdered wig, raving about taxes and trying to crush the spirit of liberty. That image, baked into our national memory by revolution and rebellion, is not entirely wrong—but it is far from the whole story. George III, born in 1738 and crowned king in 1760, was a complicated man trying to steer a sprawling empire through one of the most turbulent centuries in modern history.

In Virginia’s House of Burgesses, a 29-year-old lawyer with a sharp tongue and a sharper sense of justice stood up and gave a speech that shook the walls of the chamber—and the foundations of British authority in America. As he warned his fellow legislators about the dangers of unchecked power, Henry’s words grew bold. Too bold, some thought. When he suggested that even King George III could become a tyrant, cries of “Treason!” erupted in the room.

Today on *Dave Does History*, we are digging into a law that did not just ruffle feathers—it rattled rafters. The Quartering Act of 1774, passed by a distant Parliament, gave royal governors the power to house British soldiers in uninhabited buildings across the colonies. To many Americans, it felt like a military boot stomping through the front gate. While it never quite put redcoats in the family parlor, it planted deep fears about government overreach and unchecked authority. This was not just about barns and barracks. It was about control, property, and liberty. We will explore what the law said, how colonists reacted, and why this act became a key grievance in the Declaration of Independence. Along the way, we will visit New Brunswick, New Jersey, where peace with the British army once reigned—before war changed everything. Grab a seat. History just knocked on the door and asked for a room.

On this episode of *Dave Does History*, we set sail into the heart of the Atlantic for one of the bloodiest naval battles you have never heard of—the Glorious First of June. It is 1794, and Revolutionary France is starving. A massive grain convoy from America becomes a lifeline, and the British Royal Navy is determined to cut it off. What follows is a brutal, chaotic clash between two great fleets, led by Admiral Richard “Black Dick” Howe and his French counterpart, Villaret de Joyeuse. Ships collide, captains disobey, cannons roar, and one French vessel sinks beneath the waves in revolutionary glory. But who really won? Was it the British with their captured ships, or the French who fed their people? Join us as we dive into a story of strategy, sacrifice, and a sea soaked in blood and gunpowder. This is not just a battle, it is a war for survival.