The Daily Whatever, May 23: Fucked-up Friday with Jonathan Small

Every Friday, The Daily Whatever hosts “Fucked-up Friday,” where we invite a guest to join us and discuss the news from the previous week.

Or specifically—we each share what we thought was the most fucked-up news of the week, and we make the case for why it’s the most fucked up of all. And then our live audience votes for which story was, indeed, the most fucked-up.

This week, we were delighted to have fellow card-carrying GenXer

Jonathan Small

as our special guest, and the ensuing conversation was such an insightful takedown of what fucked-up times we’re in.

Here are our most fucked-up news picks for the week:

• Jonathan: 2 Israeli Embassy staffers killed in 'act of terror' in Washington, DC
  Two Israeli Embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, were gunned down and killed while attending a Jewish conference of the American Jewish Committee. Jonathan spoke eloquently about the rise of antisemitism, the senselessness of killing this young couple in the name of freeing Palestine, and the fears he faces for himself and his family.

• Dana: Trump administration ends Harvard's ability to enrol* international students
  Continuing his ongoing grudge against Harvard for their unwillingness to submit government intervention in their admissions, staffing, or educational protocols, DT took things a step further and banned Harvard from enrolling international students. The US is already going to suffer brain-drain as it loses international workers who no longer feel safe here. If our universities don’t hold the line, that drain is going to begin even earlier in the pipeline. Also, it’s not legal and a federal judge has already blocked him, at least temporarily. We’ll see if it sticks.
  *I had no idea the Brits spelled “enroll” with one “l.”

• Lawrence: Three Democrats Who Died This Year Would Have Sunk Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’
  First off, how incredible fucking stupid is “Big, Beautiful Bill” as a name?? And yes, that question is rhetorical. Democrats are down three in the House, because three Representatives—Rep. Gerry Connolly, 75, Rep. Sylvester Turner, 70, and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, 77—all died recently. Connolly died literally yesterday, of esophageal cancer. And yes, these deaths are sad. But that we’re allowing the Democratic party to be run as a gerontocracy? That he was re-elected just in November, after concealing he had a highly fatal form of cancer, and was also elected head of the powerful House Oversight Committee? Absurd. This is how we all lose.

The vote was close, but in the end, Lawrence eeked out a narrow win over Jonathan for the most fucked-up story of the week!

Thank you

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