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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman dig into a grim week of authoritarian chest-thumping and reality-warping. They start with the Dallas ICE detention-center shooting—three immigrants shot, one killed—and the head-spinning “evidence” rollout amplified by Kash Patel. From there it’s J.D. Vance’s sanctimony about “violent rhetoric,” the broader strategy of blaming critics while expanding state power, and why this phase feels less like politics and more like a permission structure for repression.

They break down the reported moves to indict James Comey, the DOJ’s Soros-as-crime-boss fishing expedition, and open talk of targeting Letitia James—not “accountability,” just payback. Then: Trump’s UN ramble (renewables are a “joke,” Christianity “most persecuted,” escalator conspiracies) and his whiplash turn on Ukraine/Russia, plus NATO stress tests, Pete Hegseth’s generals’ confab, and why World War III talk is suddenly louder.