Friday’s episode of The Daily Whatever Show opened exactly the way it should: Lawrence Winnerman was back, I was relieved to have my best friend with me, and the collective mood was somewhere between gallows humor and bracing honesty.
It was Fucked-up Friday, after all, and this time we were thrilled to be joined by journalist and investigator Zev Shalev, whose work on authoritarian networks, Epstein, and global power made him an unusually steady presence for a pretty unsteady moment.
Our conversation opened where the week itself had begun: with the sense that everything keeps getting worse faster than we can process it. I revisited a Washington State ballot initiative that would allow genital inspections of high school athletes under the guise of “protecting” women’s sports.
The absurdity quickly gave way to my anger as I explained what it would actually mean for kids, especially trans kids, and what any parent would do if an adult tried to police their child’s body.
Zev framed it for what it is: the formalization of sexualizing minors to claim moral authority, a perfect example of how the Overton window keeps getting shoved into places that should be unthinkable.
From there, the show widened its lens. Zev walked listeners through why Greenland and the Arctic have suddenly become flashpoints, explaining how melting ice opens new trade routes and access to minerals, and why Greenland’s deep continental shelf makes it geopolitically priceless.
What sounded abstract at first landed hard when Canada entered the picture, not as a side character but as a central player in a growing struggle between democratic and authoritarian blocs. My disbelief at the idea of the U.S. drifting toward conflict with Canada felt especially real coming from my hometown of Seattle, where borders don’t feel theoretical.
That global anxiety threaded into something more intimate when Lawrence shared that my eldest child just turned 18. The pride of raising a thoughtful, kind human sat right next to a grief and I admitted I haven’t fully let myself feel that yet. Launching kids into the world right now, carries a weight it didn’t used to, especially when war feels closer and less abstract.
Zev didn’t sugarcoat it, describing a long-running psychological and information war designed to weaken public trust and prepare the ground for something worse.
The episode’s emotional center came with the killing of Renee Good. Zev laid out why the official narrative doesn’t add up, pointing to disinformation, manipulated footage, and how quickly authorities moved to frame her as a threat.
I pushed back hard on the idea that any woman would calmly comply with masked men with guns approaching her car, turning the conversation into a broader reckoning with whose fear is treated as justified and whose deaths are quickly explained away.
Fucked-up Friday closed the show with three contenders: Dana on RFK Jr. dismantling childhood vaccine schedules, Lawrence on the U.S. withdrawing from international organizations, and Zev on troubling signals in the silver market that feel uncomfortably like 2008.
The audience vote wasn’t close. Zev took it.
The episode ended with a recap of our unsettled world, but it was sharp and brutally honest. Which, at this point, feels like the only responsible way to tell the truth.
Thank you to everyone who joined us and Zev Shalev who has promised to come back for another visit. Please subscribe, follow and support Zev for all the great work he is doing for our world.
Thank you to all the Whatevers for their lively participation in the chat including Ellie Leonard, Nick Paro, Melissa Corrigan, she/her, Jason Odell, Dr. Amber Hull, Lev Parnas, and many others. Big love to Karen Marie Shelton for moderating the chat and helping us write this recap—you’re amazing.
We love you all—truly!—mean it!
Have a great weekend. We’ll be back on Monday bright and early for another amazing week on The Daily Whatever Show.
