It’s been two weeks since I announced that Men Yell at Me is moving over to Patreon.

🎧 And since the move, I launched a Dingus of the Week podcast. You can listen to it wherever you find your podcasts. You can also watch the video here.

✍️ I’ve written about the art heist, authenticity and politics, Josh Hawley’s idea of manhood, and reclaiming frogs from the fascists.

👑 Also, like a prosperity gospel preacher, I’ve named and claimed dinguses like Trump’s big ballroom, and the Young Republican group chat.

If you haven’t yet made the move, it’s very easy, I promise. All you have to do is search your email for an email that begins “Claim your free months…” Find that. Click on the link in the email, and let’s go.

That offer of free months ends on Nov 4. SO CLICK NOW!

You can also just click on this link. (But I recommend finding the email so you can get some free months at a paid level.)

And listen, I hear you…

But Lyz! One more platform? I simply cannot! I get it. I, too, have platform fatigue, and one of the reasons I wanted to move from Substack was because, as a platform, it’s moving to be more of another Twitter than a functional newsletter space. Five minutes to transfer and you can be on the peace of Patreon. And the newsletter will be reliably in your inbox, and you won’t have to worry about the app.

I can’t afford another subscription! Once again, I get it. Which is why the MAJORITY of my content has always been free and easy to access. You just have to sign up to make sure you never miss anything. The Wednesday essay, the Dingus of the Week newsletter, and the podcast are all free. And will always be free.

But over on Patreon, I have some new features for paying subscribers. There will be 1-2 deep dives a month that are for the paid tiers, the Sunday links, and more.

FINE! But, who else is over there? I am so glad you asked, Virginia Sole Smith moved her newsletter and so did Anne Helen Petersen! And others will be moving as well soon.

Don’t miss out! Your moving offer ends soon.

Also, did I mention, DINGUS OF THE WEEK PODCAST!!??

Welcome to MYAM, now on Patreon.🎉 If you are not a paying member, let me tell you what you missed this week. You missed a deep dive into the masculinity of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, and some incredible chats in the MYAM forums.

➡️ You can read all about why I made the move and the new features here.

✉️ If you haven’t yet made the move over, check your email for an email titled “Claim Your Free Months to Men Yell at Me on Patreon.” If you have any trouble with the move, please fill out this form.

Read the Dingus on Patreon

This is a preview of the Dingus of the Week. To read the whole thing, go over to Patreon. I’m serious, git out of her!

This week, Politico published a story revealing chats from leaders of Young Republican groups in which they joked about slavery and professed their love for Adolf Hitler. (It’s important to use his first name so we don’t get him confused with the other Hitler.)

And that’s just the PG stuff. Members of the chat talked about raping their opponents. According to Politico’s report, one particular Young Republicans vice chair used the N-word a lot. And as Politico reported, another member of the chat, “who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

That member “was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.”

So, breaking news: A bunch of amoebic sacs of vanilla pudding sent the exact kind of texts you’d expect them to send: racist ones.

Oh my god — a collection of sentient phlegm behaved in a disgusting manner? What in the pleated-front khaki is going on here!?

➡️ Read the rest of the Dingus of the Week on Patreon.

🚚 Yesterday, I announced that MYAM is moving to Patreon! For more on why I am moving, you can read all about it over on Patreon. Please check your email for an email titled, “Claim your free months to Men Yell at Me on Patreon” for a link to help you switch over your subscription. Already 1/3 of you have moved with me, thank you!

I would not make this move if I didn’t feel like it was the right thing for this newsletter and the community. So I know it’s a pain, but it will be worth it.

And now, here is a preview of this week’s Wednesday newsletter.

You can read the full thing FOR FREE on Patreon.

What do you do in a country where facts don’t matter?

What do you do in an America where reality is fake and the lie is the reality? What do you do when an authoritarian government insists that they and they alone know the truth? What do you do when people want to believe their own lies so much they lie to themselves?

There are a lot of things you can do. Fact-checking feels futile, but it is a necessary step. Supporting the voices that do tell the truth doesn’t hurt, either.

But also, sometimes the best way to counteract a false narrative is to put on a frog costume, get out in the streets, and dance.

In the face of the president’s lies, protesters in Portland have donned inflatable costumes and held dance parties. It’s hard to manipulate images of a person dancing in a puffy unicorn outfit into something fearsome and scary…

Read on Patreon

You can read the rest of this week’s Wednesday newsletter for free on Patreon.

After five years on this site, it is time to move on.

I am leaving Substack for Patreon.

Why?

➡️ Well, go over to Patreon to read all about it. My first Patreon newsletter is a reflection on my 20-year career in media and how I got here. It’s also about why I didn’t move from Substack before, as so many of you have asked me to do. And why I’m moving now. It is also why I don’t think just abandoning spaces is the right answer all the time.

Read MYAM on Patreon

And now for a little business

If you’re a paid subscriber: As of Monday, October 12, I’ve paused your billing on Substack, so going forward you won’t be charged.

But we do need you to come re-join us on Patreon to keep your paid access going. So, check your email for the link.

And as a thank you for all your support, I am gifting all current Substack subscribers FREE ACCESS on Patreon.

⚠️ Important note:

• Check your email for details on claiming your access

• Having an issue redeeming your free access? → Submit Here

Let me assure you, this newsletter will always continue to be a political newsletter written with a feminist slant that sits at the intersection of patriarchy and politics in red state America.

This place will always feel like sitting down on a porch with your best friend over a glass of whiskey and ranting about the state of the world and finding joy in the fight. It will continue to be personal, political, sometimes funny, and will always raise hell.

And it will always have the best community on the internet. Because you are here.

But what is changing is that there will be new features, more content, a new podcast, new premium content, and so much more.

My first premium newsletter for subscribers at the $10/month level will be about Josh Hawley and manhood and will be published on Thursday. So make sure you are signed up!

So, head over to Patreon!

My Patreon will offer newer, more affordable content tiers. And also tech support! If you need help, you can fill out this form and, I, or someone from the Patreon team, will get back to you.

What’s included on Patreon?

The membership includes two paid tiers, plus a free membership option.

Free Membership

• 2 x Newsletters (per week): Wednesdays + Fridays

• 1 x Dingus of the Week Podcast Episode (per week): My brand new podcast!

👑Not a Dingus ($5/month)

• 3 x Newsletters (per week): Get ONE extra newsletter per week (2 free + 1 paid member-only). Access my weekly Sunday paid subscriber newsletter.

• 1 x Dingus of the Week Podcast Episode (per week): My brand new podcast!

• Comment Access: Ability to comment on all content

• Access to all past newsletters

👑👑Definitely not a Dingus ($10/month)

• 3 x Newsletters (per week): Get ONE extra newsletter per week (2 free + 1 paid member-only). Access my weekly Sunday paid subscriber newsletter.

• 2 x Special Newsletter (per month): Deeper reporting and personal essays. The format and content may shift over time as I experiment with different ideas.

• 1 x Dingus of the Week Podcast Episode (per week): My brand new podcast!

• Exclusive Content Extra: A mix of special content that might include Q&As, recommendations, and more. I’ll use this space to try out different formats and ideas

• Polls & Topic Submissions: Help shape upcoming content — nominate Dingus of the Week candidates, suggest topics for the podcast and newsletter, vote on ideas, and more.

• Chat Communities: Access my new Patreon chat rooms, Flyover Discord. Connect with other members and discuss your favorite topics.

• Weekly Discussion Topic: A place to talk about the news and other burning topics with the best community on the internet (no Nazi’s allowed)

• Comment Access: Ability to comment on all content

• Access to all past newsletters

Questions?

If you have any questions → Submit here

I’ll get back to you shortly!

Thank you for being here. I’m so grateful for your support, and can’t wait for the next five years.

But seriously, go over to Patreon now.

Last year, I was interviewed by Maria Shriver on “The Today Show.” She had read my book This American Ex-Wife, after reading about it in The Atlantic, and her team reached out to get me booked for the show. The date was in the middle of my kids’ spring break, and when I asked if there was a different date they could book me, the producer paused before saying, “This is the day Maria is available, you should make yourself available. And bring your kids.” And so I did.

You can watch the interview online.

My favorite moment was after the cameras turned off, when Maria pulled me behind the set while the Indigo Girls played. She had something she wanted to ask me.

Read more

I love reading the news because the headlines will say, “The administration violates every single article in the Constitution! And no one will stop it.”

Then immediately below that:

“Here are five fluffy bathrobes you must buy from Amazon today!”

“Thousands of children are dying in a genocide!”

“How exhaling at the wrong time saps your strength”

“The president deploys American troops against the American people.”

“Are you peeing correctly?”

Am I peeing correctly? It’s the end of the American empire and you want me to worry about incontinence? I don’t have equal rights in this country, I WILL PEE HOW I WANT TO.

Welcome back to the weekly dingus, the newsletter where we make jokes about someone or something in the news, making our lives just a little worse. And it’s a big week for mediocrity.

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Bari Weiss

Because this week, the Elizabeth Holmes of media, Bari Weiss, just became editor-in-chief at CBS. And Bari Weiss makes Ron Burgundy look like Walter Cronkite.

Weiss’ takeover came about after Paramount CEO David Ellison bought her newsletter/reactionary rag/website for every man who declares they aren’t political but quotes Andrew Tate a lot, The Free Press.

Why, you ask? Well, over on Defector, Patrick Redford has a thoughtful analysis that you should read. Because the following sentences fall well short of it. But essentially it has to do with the merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, which was approved by the FCC in July after Skydance swore on a stack of Trump Bibles to eradicate wokeness from CBS.

It’s like the stupidest Succession plotline. Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison — who is richer than 400 Oprahs — apparently didn’t have enough money. So he needed this merger, and to get it, he had to render up an offering to the angry and petty gods of American authoritarianism. And part of that offering is Bari Weiss.

Not only is this a bad and frankly scary plan, but it’s doomed failure. Ellison thinking that Weiss can appease the Trump administration is like thinking you can fix a broken arm by breaking your neck. Even Megyn Kelly thinks it is a bad idea.

Weiss was the New York Times columnist who couldn’t get a job on The View. The alleged reason was she didn’t test well with audiences, which is embarrassing because Meghan McCain got a job there and so did Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Weiss also couldn’t actually get canceled when the cancel culture grift was good. So she walked off the job, pretending she was being silenced. Then she used that notoriety to found the Free Press, which became a success because it’s been backed by the dollars of a billionaire class that is still utterly livid that five years ago, for three months, America said “Black lives matter.” The billionaires may never recover.

On her first day in the new job, Weiss sent a note to CBS employees that vowed to uphold a journalistic ethos that “holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny”.

Which is the media equivalent of “Read my lips, no new taxes” and “Mexico will pay for the wall” or “I never inhaled.”

Putting your faith in Bari Weiss to uphold journalistic integrity is like hoping Kristi Noem will lose her injectionist’s number, or that the three ghosts of conspiracies past will visit Marjorie Taylor Greene and she will stop believing in Jewish space lasers, or the alien that is using Mitch McConnell’s body as its host will finally go back to the planet from whence it came, or that the Republicans will stop doing a Weekend at Bernies with Chuck Grassley, or that if we ask pretty pretty please Donald Trump will stop using the Constitution as toilet paper, or that RFK Jr. will just leave all that road kill alone. Basically, it’s like hoping that shit will fix the diaper.

But nothing in Weiss’ past would lead us to that kind of equal scrutiny. The Free Press has published articles that fearmongered about trans activism; implied that George Floyd actually died of a drug overdose; salivated over the “virginity” of an AI actress; and claimed that the genocide in Gaza wasn’t so bad because the children dying of starvation had preexisting conditions.

All of this appears under the guise of, “Aw, geez, just asking questions.” They’re not right, they’re not left, the Free Press claims; they’re just asking why all leftists are evil baby murderers. WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY? WHY WON’T YOU DEBATE ME, YOU FILTHY COMMUNIST?!

It’s depressing because it’s a rhetorical trick Americans fall for every time. Give a white person a pair of glasses and have them very calmly state, “I am a deep thinker and I am wondering why you think you have a right to live.” And boom, that person is the EIC of CBS, while billionaires nod their heads sagely and say, “Wow, yes, why did no one think to ask this before?” And pundits herald them as bold truth tellers. If Weiss has a talent for anything, it’s repackaging what people want to hear as a courageous contrarian enterprise.

“I am above politics,” says area media woman who really just means she’s rich enough not to suffer the consequences of how she votes.

But the real problem is not actually what the Free Press and Weiss have said and reported on; some of it, god forgive me, isn’t so bad. It’s what Weiss intentionally leaves out. It’s the stories omitted — the ones about Black women being forced out of the workforce, the violence trans people face, the real cost of the rollback of reproductive rights. It’s the stories of how we got here and why, casually glossed over in favor of the stories that feed the collective click rage. It’s what is left in the silence that is the real damning evidence.

But all of this is not going to work. You let the fox in the henhouse because it promises not to eat the chickens? You let the Kool-Aid man promise that this time he’s not gonna crash through the wall? You are the dingus.

As Redford notes, Weiss will be a kind of Vichy government for CBS, appeasing no one, solving nothing. Because in the end, no milquetoast mediator can reason with the insatiable appetite of authoritarianism.

In other very dingusy news:

Italians, to Trump.

Anyway, speaking of newsletters by writers who were actually fired (hi!), this week marks the five-year anniversary of Men Yell at Me. Thank you so much for being here and subscribing and for sharing with your friends, ex-husbands, parents, and enemies. Thank you for supporting a political newsletter with a feminist slant and making it a success. I cannot wait to talk to you next week about the next five years of this newsletter and how we are going to grow. Every subscriber to Men Yell at Me makes the governor of Iowa a little madder. Thanks for doing your part.

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And now for something good

On October 23, the Iowa Abortion Access Fund is holding our annual fall fundraiser in Des Moines! Get tickets and come meet our new executive director! You might not be able to fix America, but you can fund abortions. I hope to see you there. Also, share this event with your Iowa friends, because we need to sell some tickets!

The worst person you know just made a really good point.

JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, told Trump to come and get him after the president said he should be in jail.

And Chicago continues to Chicago so hard.

Protesters in Portland are dressing up in silly inflatable costumes, proving that you can fight back and have fun doing it.

A federal judge sided with Planned Parenthood after it sued the Trump administration over the closure of a program that aims to end teen pregnancy.

Nabarun Dasgupta received a MacArthur genius grant for his work studying the opioid crisis in America. And Tommy Orange won a MacArthur for his writing.

Jane Goodall, in her last interview before her death, said she wanted to blast Elon Musk and Donald Trump into space.

This dog helped the police find his owner (sorry, I mean in the good way). A good boy.

Dolly Parton is NOT dying! SHE IS FINE! YOU HEAR THAT! SHE’S OKAY! *sobs realizing that no one, not even Dolly, can live forever.*

The first round of a ceasefire has been agreed to by Israel and Hamas.

Something I am enjoying

I am back in Iowa and the weather is finally cool enough for me to wear sweaters and eat big bowls of soup like some sort of forest witch in a fairy tale. Which is good because I’ve been trapped in my house working like a maniac. Next week is a big announcement. So stay tuned.

But I am having a hard time balancing motherhood and work. It’s not harder than it was when the kids were 6 and 4 and I was trying to write my first book. And while their father’s work is taken as a matter of fact, my work sometimes feels like a betrayal. I think there is no way to work as a woman and not feel like you are letting down someone you love. I should have more parties for my friends. I should do more volunteer work. I should be writing about one thing over another. I don’t think there are easy answers.

But this weekend is my daughter’s first homecoming dance. And I get to take a moment and see my tiny baby all dressed up and off to have fun with her friends. And then my son and I will go bowling and knock back a couple of Shirley Temples, and eat a plate of fried pickles, and that will be a moment of good in the middle of all of this.

Correction: The first version of this newsletter said “Bari Weiss makes Ron Swanson look like Walter Cronkite.” That was a mistake. Wrong Ron! I meant Ron Burgundy. My apologies to Ron Swanson who has done nothing wrong, ever!

This week marks my fifth anniversary of writing this newsletter.

By now, maybe you know the story. I was a broke single mom, working for my local paper, making below the poverty line. In 2020, the editor-in-chief fired me after GOP leaders in the state complained about my writing and I opposed the publication of a really bad op-ed.

You can read the full story here.

In the days that followed, I was terrified about how I would pay my mortgage and buy groceries. But Substack reached out and offered to ensure that I would make a decent income if I focused on writing my newsletter full-time. And that is what I did.

Now the newsletter has more than 72,000 subscribers. And together we laugh about dinguses and take on the hot garbage strewn waste of this America. In the years since it launched, I’ve published a NYT bestseller and put out two seasons of a podcast that has over 200k downloads.

So many of you all write to tell me that this newsletter challenges you, or helps you see things a little clearer, and gives you hope. Or sometimes it just gives you a laugh that helps you think that we can make it through all of this. And we can.

It’s important for this newsletter that I write from a red state where there are no media jobs, not really. It’s important that I’m a single mom, a journalist and an activist. Voices like mine are rarely represented in newspapers or opinion columns.

And it’s important that I have 20 years of experience living in and reporting on the Midwest. In the aftermath of my firing, every potential new employer told me I would eventually need to move — away from the place and perspective that makes this newsletter unique.

Thank you for continuing to be here. Thank you for supporting this newsletter and the voice of a fierce, unapologetic feminist in red-state America.

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Tilly Norwood isn’t a real actress. She’s an AI puppet conceived of by AI production house Particle6 and its subsidiary talent studio Xicoia. She can’t think or feel or even talk without human guidance. But Particle6 CEO Eline Van der Velden has a vision that Norwood will be the first of many AI actresses, stating that she wants Tilly “to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman.”

In response to the news about the creation of an actress so fake and so pliable, the Free Press published an essay by Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, thirstily declaring that, “Tilly Norwood doesn’t need a hairstylist, has no regrettable posts, and if you wish to see a virgin on-screen, this is one of your better chances.”

It’s not likely Norwood’s career will extend much beyond the horny imaginations of AI slop creators and the libidinal minds of sweaty economics professors. But it matters that one of the first AI bots forced upon us as a new vision of the future is a woman. It matters that in the cultural imaginings of men, she’s a pliable virgin.

Society doesn’t want real human women.

Our administration is staffed by the human equivalent of Norwood. Women who have contorted themselves into a Fox News fever dream of perfection. The internet is filled with women who perfectly perform motherhood and marriage, while wearing aprons and feeding chickens. GLP-1s have greatly increased access to thinness, making it easier for women to shrink and sculpt themselves into yassified models of perfection. All my ads on social media are about weight loss or beauty or how to self-optimize. Everything is designed to keep me in constant search of perfection, never once resting, never once being satisfied.

America doesn’t want to see real women.

Real women are being forced out of the workforce and, as a result, are losing access to economic freedom and agency. Women are losing reproductive rights and, as a result, are losing their ability to choose the lives they want to live. SNAP benefits are being cut, which hurts women the most, as they’re the ones most likely to stay and raise their children; they are the ones who earn less, because the gender pay gap is growing. Access to health care is also getting more and more restricted. This, too, impacts women the most, because they’re more likely to stay home to help aging parents, sick kids, disabled kids?

Tilly Norwood’s company heralds her as a problem-solver. But this robot only solves a problem if you see humans as a problem. If you see people with full lives and sexual agency as a problem. And her debut comes at a time when women — especially Black, queer, trans, and immigrant women — are being pushed out of public life, not through culture wars or jeans ads, but through laws and policies designed to make existing that much harder.

And it is harder. Things are harder now than they were five years ago when I started this newsletter and even one year ago, when I published my feminist manifesto about equality and relationships. People are less likely now to subscribe to a feminist newsletter that looks at how we build inequality into our daily lives and how oppression happens, personally and politically.

But this newsletter has given us the space and platform to raise money for trans rights and abortion access in Iowa. Together, we’ve built a community that doesn’t always agree, but we do know that we will all be in the same Mad Max truck together in the end. And what we are fighting for is the value of our lives, our voices, and our homes.

This community is a reminder that every voice matters, especially in the face of a government and a movement that want us to be quieter, nicer, more put together, with a bit more lip filler, and could we just be more demure, focus on our protein goals, and enter our soft girl era. And I will be doing none of those things.

I am looking forward to the next five years. Unless Tilly Norwood develops a real talent for making long-form jokes about Pete Hegseth.

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For the first three years after the divorce, I was constantly bending and accommodating to my ex-husband and his schedule. I justified it as being an adult. I justified it as being a bigger person. I justified it because there were kids and I wanted to keep things nice, and after all, wasn’t this situation my fault?

And then one year, around the holidays, I made a mistake in my schedule and needed some accommodation. Could he please swap weekends? After all, for years hadn’t I done that for him, for his mother, for his family? That one weekend he wanted to take the kids to the family farm because the apples were ripe, and hadn’t I been so helpful in making that happen? And the wedding? Could I just have this one weekend?

Read more

I love to live in America, a country where every day you wake up feeling like Pete Hegseth personally knocked you in the face with a skateboard, and you get to play my favorite little game, “Am I Dying?”

Is it the stress of knowing my health care costs are rising, and so are the costs of my medications?

The rising cost of literally everything due to tariffs? The only thing Trump hasn’t put a tariff on is stupidity, because that would amount to a tax on the wealthy.

Was my pillow positioned incorrectly, thereby causing a pain in my body so severe that it has me confessing to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby?

Is it allergies, which have gotten worse thanks to global climate change and a country that thinks polluting the environment has no consequences?

Is it the knowledge that the administration is sending armed ICE agents into people’s homes without warrants and disappearing them without due process?

Perimenopause?

Blond influencers on Instagram keep telling me to wake up early, splash my face with spring water, and eat more protein. But no amount of protein powder is going to defend me against the rising tide of authoritarianism. Maybe I need some creatine?

At no point has eating more boneless skinless chicken breast made me feel better, and the water in Iowa is poisoned, so at this point I’m just going to take up smoking, swallow seven Tylenol each morning, and bathe in red dye #3 until the microplastics in my brain become sentient and take over.

Welcome, my friends, to the Dingus of the Week newsletter. Each Friday, I make fun of someone or something in the news that has made our lives just a little or a lot worse.

In a time when Jimmy Fallon is being a coward and Stephen Colbert is being canceled, I think it’s even more important to make jokes and to laugh at the army of lobotomized incels running our country. To quote the late and great Molly Ivins, “Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.”

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This week, Dunning-Kruger poster boy Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called all the nation’s generals into a room to give them a 40-minute speech that could have been a three-minute TikTok, which could have been a 10-second skateboard to the nuts, or alternatively, an email.

Traditionally, the military does not like to gather all its top commanders into one room because it’s too tempting to our greatest enemies, who continue to target America, our freedoms, and our way of life.

By which I mean other white men.

But Pete, who looks like a nondenominational youth pastor just seconds away from being discovered on Grindr, had an important message that could not be an email, a Zoom call, or a TikTok.

For days leading up to the event, news commentators wondered what the message could be that was so important. What could the man who looks like if Yakety Sax was a person and also drunk have to say to the leaders of the greatest military presence in the world?

Well, listen up chucklefucks, because Pete Hegseth downed a 32oz of vodka and rolled onto that stage and delivered a rousing address to the military that makes the St. Crispin’s Day speech look like a PowerPoint from Brenda in HR.

What did he tell them? Not to get fat.

It’s not like I had high hopes for Hegseth. Trump’s second administration is run wholly by crooks, dorks, brainworms, and sentient lip filler. But Hegseth, a man so sauced even Prego won’t jar him, spent millions of taxpayer money on the day the government shut down to gather everyone together and tell them to stop being so fat.

Anyway, here’s Pete Hegseth hitting himself in the nuts.

@trendy_viewz#PeteHegseth accidentally flipping a #skateboard into his nuts on live TV

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And now for something good

This week, past DotW winner Eric Adams dropped out of the NYC mayoral race, leaving America’s largest village in want of an idiot. RIP to the campaign of a man who made Mr. Bean look like Albert Einstein. (New Yorkers, the nation is counting on you to bear in mind that Andrew Cuomo has spent tens of millions of dollars of your money to defend himself in multiple sexual harassment lawsuits. Please do the right thing.)

The beloved children’s television show “Reading Rainbow” is coming back. This time, the host will be Mychal Threets, the internet’s favorite librarian.

Happy Taylor Swift Day to all who celebrate.

And Philadelphia has its first queer women’s sports bar!

Mark Duplass launched a production fund for queer filmmakers.

Garrett Bucks and Sarah Wheeler have a new podcast. And you know what? That’s very good news.

Like so many ambitious girls who grew up to be called “difficult” women, I loved Jane Goodall. And while I am sad that she died this week, she led an incredible life.

In response to the president’s repeated attacks on the First Amendment, Jane Fonda is reviving a Cold War-era activist group. I really loved the deep dive that one of my favorite podcasts, You Must Remember This, did on Jane Fonda and Jean Seberg. It’s worth listening to recall the smear campaigns that the FBI orchestrated against these women and how so many people believed them and still do.

Nicole Kidman, welcome back.

Something I am enjoying

This week, I am in Maine to run a writing workshop hosted by the MidCoast Villager. The Villager is a small, local, independent newspaper run by my friends Alex Seitz-Wald and Willy Blackmore, who edit the paper, and Lucia Graves, who works on the marketing side.

What a delight to see my friends and spend time in the beautiful world they live in. I ate at Primo, one of the best restaurants in Maine, and made so many jokes about “airy balls” I thought I was going to get kicked out of the place.

The workshop was designed to drive revenue to the paper, which, like so many small newspapers in America, is struggling. But we need these papers and these voices. We need to tell these stories because they are a record of our lives and the things that give them meaning. And even if these stories feel small and inconsequential, in the overwhelming onslaught of a world of genocide and attacks on our democracy, they are the very texture of our lives. Sure, maybe a story about road construction on Highway 1A isn’t the most glamorous thing to write, but it’s far more important to the people who need that highway to get to work than a profile of a famous actress. Every story about a new restaurant is the story of someone’s dream, someone’s future hope. Every story about a high school athlete is a story of triumph. Every story about a local artist is the story of artistic freedom and vision. And every single time we write a story that tells the truth about our lives, even just the fact that we existed, and ate food, and had one glorious night, we leave a reminder that we lived and that we mattered.

🏠 I recently conducted a survey about this newsletter, and so many of you told me you wanted more essays on single parenting and homemaking. You asked about how I am muddling through all of this *waves at the world* with kids. And about how I co-parent with someone who, let’s just say, when Roe was overturned, served cupcakes to celebrate all the babies who wouldn’t be murdered anymore. I live this political divide in ways so deeply personal that it’s a blood, flesh, and tears reminder that politics is not some abstruse power game. The news isn’t some hysterical abstraction. These are our lives.

🏠 So this newsletter is about all of that.

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This week, two men with saws came and cut down my children’s playset and hauled it away.

I had tried to give away the playset for free to anyone who wanted it. I posted pictures online and had family after family come look at it and ask me skeptical questions about its safety, would it fall? Would it give their kids splinters? Was it sturdy? Was it right for a 5-year-old? What about a 10-year-old? What was the weight limit? What was the age of the playset?

I didn’t know the answers to those questions. The playset was here when we moved in, and I couldn’t find its equivalent online. I told them how my kids loved it when we moved in in 2019, how it was their hideout in 2020, how we painted the inside with stars and tree branches, how they made broomsticks out of old branches and duct tape and rode on the swings with their sticks and pretended like they were witches. How it held together when my daughter ran up there crying after her birthday party was canceled in 2020 and then again in 2021. How it held me when I sat in the swing after being fired, and I had days of emptiness and fear. How it had survived the inland hurricane of 2020, and the neighbor’s tree just missed smashing it into pieces, and how it sheltered the fairy world we’d built underneath it, and how that, too, had survived. And look, there were still little fairy people hiding in the dirt, although they were fading and worn.

None of these were assurances enough for parents who wanted facts, statistics, schematics, and weight limits.

I heard one woman whisper to her father, who had come to test the playset with her, “It’s not worth the risk.”

It’s ironic, I think, in a state that overwhelmingly votes to preserve gun rights and takes away food assistance for kids, that everyone who comes here is so worried about the safety of the playset. And I am a little angry because of course, it’s safe; it has been for us! But also, I know she’s right: Things that are safe for a moment aren’t always safe forever.

The playset was here before I bought this house. I don’t know how old it was, and maybe it wouldn’t have been safe for another family. Maybe it would have been a risk rather than a rescue.

So I paid those men to chop it down and haul it away.

I bought my house in 2019. I’d walked through it with my realtor and immediately wanted it because of the back porch, the trees, and the oak floors, and how, when my daughter saw it, she said it looked like a witch’s cottage. But I was a single mom, living off freelance work and books, and even though I had been paying a rent much higher than my mortgage would be, and had two years of tax returns showing I was stable, I couldn’t get a loan unless I had a job offer. I’d been interviewing for jobs for over a year because I needed health insurance. And two places assured me they were going to make me an offer — soon. But those offers hadn’t come through yet. So I didn’t have the loan, and I couldn’t make an offer. The house was soon listed as sold.

Four weeks later, it was back on the market again. The prospective buyers hadn’t really wanted an old house after all. I went back to the bank; this time, I was employed. My local newspaper had given me an offer to work full-time for $49,000, which put me just under the poverty line for a family of three. But it was what the bank needed, so I got the loan. And I got the house.

Six months later, when the world shut down, this house became our refuge.

The first thing I did when I heard about the shutdowns happening across America was to buy a trampoline for my kids. I did not have the money for it. But I bought it anyway. If our world was going to shrink to the size of this house, I wanted us to have some fun.

And how many days that year did I sit at the kitchen table trying to work while my kids played outside? Watching them jump on the trampoline and climb in the playset. My daughter took old curtains from the basement and hung them in the playhouse. She took blankets up there and made nests for herself and her brother, and they sat there in a world where they felt safe, while I watched from a world that felt out of control.

My son began having nightmares in March of 2020 and stopped sleeping in his bed. He told me he dreamed of evil red balloons that flew in the sky and hovered over him and his sister. He said he didn’t know what the balloons would do, but he was scared. And I asked him, where was he safe in the dream? And he said in his playhouse. So I told him to dream about the playhouse.

For centuries, women could not own property. And even once they could, it was hard. Hard to get a line of credit at a bank without a man’s signature. Impossible to get a loan without some approval, some backing, some signoff from a man. When I told a friend who owns his own business how hard it had been to get the loan, he was confused. He’d gotten his home loan when he was in debt up to his eyeballs with his first restaurant. Maybe I’d done something wrong?

When I left my marriage, my husband accused me of ruining the home. But hadn’t I been the one who’d painted it; cleaned it; organized and arranged it? That home still stood and still does. Another wife now arranges pillows and vacuums rugs. Most of the walls are still the same color I painted them 20 years ago.

Homemaking is the domain of women, a service we are supposed to render in service of men. Something I am reminded of every time I try to fix something in my home. “Is it just you?” They’ll ask. “Is there a husband who needs to sign off on these decisions?”

Just us, is the answer. Just the three of us. This is our home; this is where we feel safe.

The homes women share with men are not safe. Thirty percent of marriages involve intimate partner violence. This doesn’t count the instances of emotional and financial and verbal abuse.

But making your home on your own isn’t easy. Women still face discrimination when buying homes. Despite the fact that single female homeownership eclipses men, we pay more for our mortgages and often sell our homes for less.

I wasn’t ruining a home, as my husband had said. I was making a new one. And what I had done wrong was imagine that instead of trapping me, this house could be my freedom. That instead of hiding me away, it could be my harbor.

And it has been. In a state people leave, in an America destroyed by violence, I have created something beautiful.

But every act of creation is an act of demolition.

So the playset is gone, making room for what I hope will be a fire pit where my children and their friends will sit on summer nights surrounded by all the flowers I hope to grow. And I know demolition means loss, but it also means creating space for possibility. I am so happy my kids have lived long enough to outgrow a playset. What a gift to watch children age in a country that criminalizes their identities and watches them die in school shootings. If I can imagine a future here in this backyard, I can build it.

On Sunday, I write an essay and then offer up a buffet of internet reads curated by me and my assistant editor, Isabella.

These are paywalled because, well, this newsletter is a full-time job. And your money creates jobs for me and Isabella jobs in a state where there aren’t many jobs in the media. It also helps us be independent in a time when independent voices are being silenced.

Today, I am not paywalling the essay. Please read, and subscribe if you can.

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I saw it like so many other people, on a video on my phone. I was on Instagram and a friend had reposted a video of Jorge Gonzalez, an employee of the Bread Garden in Iowa City, being thrown to the ground and arrested by two men, identified in the video as ICE agents.

The Bread Garden is a Whole Foods-like market located on the pedestrian mall. The Bread Garden is a central hub for the small college town. At any moment of any day, the patio is occupied by students doing homework or professors eating sandwiches and flipping through pages of books. Across the mall is a playground, newly redone with rubber padding and colorful climbing equipment.

Gonzalez is an immigrant whose son is an American citizen. He came to Iowa earlier this year to join his partner, to start a family, and to begin a new life. He reported regularly to ICE and was being monitored with an ankle bracelet. If they wanted to detain him, they knew where he lived. They knew how to find him and bring him in without violence or intimidation.

Instead, plainclothes officers, who did not identify themselves, went into the crowded market right at the beginning of the lunch rush, attacked Gonzalez, threw him to the ground, and arrested him.

My son saw the video and said, “Isn’t that illegal?” Yes, I said, but no one can enforce the laws when it’s the police breaking them. That night, during their nightly phone call, I overheard my kids’ dad tell my son that Gonzalez must be a bad guy, must have done something bad.

I didn’t shout, “Whatever helps you sleep at night, asshole.” But I wanted to. Maybe I will next time. There seem to be no rules to the cruelty; maybe there should be no more rules to my civility.

Iowa City is sometimes, jokingly or not so jokingly, referred to as the People’s Republic of Johnson County. It’s one of the only safe Democratic strongholds in a state that still wants to believe it’s purple, but is in fact, deeply, deeply red. I have friends who talk about how they want to move somewhere better, somewhere bluer, somewhere safer.

Gonzalez isn’t the first person arrested without cause in the middle of the day, by men not in uniform. He won’t be the last. And this is happening in places that didn’t vote for Trump, that protested him, that held and hold demonstrations and rallies.

Johnson County, where Iowa City is located, is where Jon Green, the county supervisor, defied the governor’s orders and refused to fly the flag at half-staff for Charlie Kirk. In defense of Green’s stance, another supervisor, Mandi Remington, stated, “Johnson county is home to a diverse community, including many who were the direct targets of Kirk’s rhetoric. To honor him with our flags would be to dismiss the harm he caused to our neighbors and constituents.”

“Supervisor Green’s stance affirms that our county will not elevate voices that work to strip others of dignity, freedom, and belonging. I believe this decision is a principled one, rooted in respect for the people of Johnson county and the constitutional values we are sworn to protect.”

Nowhere is safe.

That’s the point of these public arrests. They’re a show of force. A statement that is supposed to make us afraid.

These aren’t just arrests; they are disappearings by an authoritarian and secret police that answers to no one except the whims of an increasingly vindictive president who is going after his political opponents, weaponizing our government against us.

On Friday, I went to a protest against ICE and I heard Gonzalez’s partner speak about the violence of losing him, of what it means to have someone you love to just be taken away in the middle of the day with no answers, no recourse. The unknowing of it. The confusion. The understanding that this is the government, and there is no one to appeal to. No higher authority. There is only us. Us to stand up to this.

After the rally I spoke with the lawmakers in attendance, some of whom want to plan trainings so people can interfere with ICE next time. So they can, if not stop them, stand up to them. And I spoke with other politicians who talked about the harassment they’re receiving for even speaking out against it. Not just online, either; they’re the targets of vitriol from their neighbors, who might come up to a politician’s mother at church and tell her to get her kid to shut up. Somehow worse are the people who encourage moderation, the ones who are supposed to be the leaders, who say, “It’s not that bad. Just be civil. Just be polite.”

After the protest, I walked to get lunch with a friend, and her phone pinged. There had been another arrest, Ian Roberts, the superintendent of the Des Moines Public Schools, who was born in Guyana and grew up in Brooklyn. He was also an Olympic athlete.

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Last week, Ezra Klein was runner-up for Dingus of the Week for surgically removing his own spine and tossing it in the garbage disposal of punditry. As I wrote then:

​​…no one was working harder to aid and abet the cause of fascism than Ezra Klein, the New York Times columnist and podcaster, who rushed to defend Charlie Kirk’s legacy from Kirk’s own words. Literally no one was asking him to do this, but he was like, “Oh, we need a reasonable centrist to provide a veneer to hate? I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!”

It’s the stupidest Hunger Games of all time.1

And I thought I was done writing about Klein and his backbone of soggy toilet paper. But he was back this week with a new proposal: Democrats, stop running on abortion rights.

Here was his full quote:

My view is that a lot of people who embrace alarm don’t embrace what I think obviously follows from that alarm, which is the willingness to make strategic and political decisions you find personally discomfiting, even though they are obviously more likely to help you win.

Taking political positions that’ll make it more likely to win Senate seats in Kansas and Ohio and Missouri. Trying to open your coalition to people you didn’t want it open to before. Running pro-life Democrats.

That’s right, you little weasels: A white guy with a beard is here to tell you how to win an election. So put down your matcha lattes or whatever bisexual beverages you drink and LISTEN UP. Here is the plan: To stop authoritarianism, you must give up all your rights. And by “you” Ezra Klein means anyone not him.

Oh you don’t get it? Let me explain again, because I think there was vegan cheese in your ears. In a country where people’s rights are being stripped away and an authoritarian president is actively silencing voices of dissent, Klein’s brilliant idea (derogatory) is to toss even more rights overboard.

Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice he’s willing to make!

Klein is arguing that Democrats must run candidates who oppose a policy that is so popular even Republicans showed up in red states to pass measures protecting the right to an abortion.

A Pew study this year found 85 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Abortion rights are one of the few things Americans agree on, alongside hamburgers are good and Mitch McConnell is bad.

As you can see, Klein — who is so much smarter than you, with your little pea brain — has made a compelling case: We must simply toss your rights off this boat, as though sacrificing Jonah to the whale, to calm the storms of fascism in America.

What a choice to look at the vast hellscape of American democracy and think, “Okay, the solution is depriving half these people of even more of their rights.”

Ezra Klein is so quick to yeet people’s rights out the window you have to wonder how much he actually believes in them. If Ezra Klein had to make Sophie’s Choice he’d be like “fuck all dem kids.”

If Klein were King Solomon and two women each claimed the same baby was theirs, his solution would be to take away their right to health care and tell them Charlie Kirk was a hero.

Faced with the Gordian Knot, Ezra Klein would interview three pro-knot pundits and write a 700-word op-ed arguing that dialogue with the knot is the only way to fix America.2

Ezra Klein in the French Revolution would spend the entire time chiding the sans-culottes for not wearing pants.

Ezra Klein during the Salem Witch Trials would be like, “I saw Goody Proctor getting health care!”

With Democrats like these, we don’t need Trump and his supporters to take our rights away. We’ll do it ourselves.

Dingus Runner-Up: Jeremy Carl

A Trump State Department nominee has been busy cleaning up his past on social media, where he promoted the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy, said Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted, and accused all Democrats of being evil fascists.

In any other era of American history these tweets would get him sent off to run the Heritage Foundation. But it’s Trump’s America, so really the dingusry here is that he tried to delete them and did a crap job at it. Also, if he’d doubled down on them and gotten some lip filler, he could be running the Department of Homeland Security.

Where are those dinguses now?

Ryan Walters, a two-time dingus winner whom you may know as that perpetually damp-looking man from Oklahoma who thinks the Bible belongs in classrooms and porn belongs on his work computer, has resigned his role leading Oklahoma’s schools. That must have been some serious (alleged) porn, my guy.

Cancel culture has gone too far when men simply cannot (allegedly) watch porn on their work computers during meetings. But Walters, unlike Carl, parlayed his right-wing extremism into a job with a conservative nonprofit. And I am sure he will be back.

And now for something good

Global philanthropies are working together to make a promising HIV treatment more widely available.

While not a cure, researchers have been able to treat Huntington’s for the first time, offering a glimmer of hope for people who suffer from the disease and their families.

MacKenzie Scott literally cannot give all her money away. But she’s trying, bless her. This week she donated $70 million to HBCUs.

Chicago gets an all-women’s sports bar!

There is some great news for rabies vaccines!

And the worst person we know, past dingus winner Ted Cruz, actually made some good points.

Fat Bear week continues! Fat Bear week is sponsored by the National Park Service and is like a March Madness bracket where bears go compete for the fattest among them right before hibernation kicks in. This year there is a bear named Flotato, because he naps and floats. Here are some pictures of Flotato, our bear king. If Flotato doesn’t win, I’m going to make January 6 look like a 5-year-old’s birthday party, I swear to god.

Just a reminder that while politicians and pundits continue to let us down, we are the hope here in America. Shout out to all the people protesting ICE. Are you all chiropractors? Because you are out here showing us what a spine looks like.

Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian hospital chaplain, finally won his release after being jailed and threatened with deportation.

Something I am enjoying

This summer, I finally got my backyard landscaped to handle some lingering derecho damage to the retaining wall and fence. And while I was at it, I had the back patio redone, and, I am ashamed to admit, a water feature put in. (It runs off recycled rainwater!)

I spend at least 80 percent of my time at home on my back porch. Even when it’s cold and snowy, I’ve been known to wrap up in a robe, stuff chips in my pocket, grab a heated blanket and have some whiskey out there. The porch was the reason I fell in love with this house. And the backyard has these two gorgeous pine trees that somehow survived the derecho, and we put up a hammock between them, where my kids play a game they call “legitment” where they spin each other around in the hammock until I’m sure someone is going to die.

Perhaps, in hindsight, I picked the best summer of my life to do this project. Road construction in front of my house, plus the backyard construction, plus being busy as hell, meant my house has been perpetually dirty and I’ve been stressed out. In my defense, usually when you ask a company to do a big project, they are like, “We will fit you in … in 18 months.” When I was trying to get renovations done on my bathroom, I had to beg the company, “Please do it before my son hits puberty!” And they did, barely.

But the backyard is done now. And the past couple of mornings I’ve spent outside in a chair, reading books, listening to the water, trying to forget about the decline of man.

And yesterday, I took some time off to plant an offensive amount of hydrangeas. It occurred to me that when the apocalypse settles in, the survivalists who camp out at my house will curse me for focusing on pretty flowers over vegetables, but I’ll be too busy being conscripted into nannying for Andrew Tate’s kids to care.