Ambitious Crossover Attempt

Noam and Jen go over the surprisingly successful offense that anti-Assad forces have mounted in Syria over the past few days, including their retaking of Aleppo (that's a city in Syria) and their unimpeded march toward Damascus. We discuss what this means as far as downstream effects of actions that Ukraine and Israel have taken, how Iran and Russia are in no position to help Assad, where is China...

Jen and Noam discuss Matt Gaetz withdrawing from the Attorney General nomination at Trump's request and what does it mean, the Ethics report and what could possibly be in it that is so bad that Gaetz gave up his political career to keep it from coming out, the exodus to Bluesky, how skeeting is working out for everyone, how to terraform Mars, and if Noam should DM Elon about radiation poisoning. C...

Noam and Jen try to dissect Trump's bizarre Cabinet nominations, from the stupid to the desperate to the dangerous. We speculate on recess appointments, how everyone hates Matt Gaetz, who will actually make it through confirmation, if any Republican will actually go against Trump on his picks, and the weird hazing of RFK Jr.  At the end, we give a brief rundown of what we're watching, and Jen make...

Jen and Noam discuss the only thing that happened this week - Donald Trump is officially going back to the White House. We don't try to unpack all of the things because nobody needs to get in all of their takes in the first week but we give initial thoughts on what the election does and does not mean, how we don't really have enough hard data to know the answer to that, jumping to conclusions base...

Noam and Jen spend this last episode before the election discussing the intricacies of the popular anime Neon Genesis: Evangelion, how its themes refer back to the Old Testament, and the value of subjugating one's personal desires to the greater good. Nah, just kidding. They discuss the accusation leveled by Nate Silver and Nate Cohn that the 2024 general election polls are the victim of herding,...

Jen and Noam discuss the decision made by…well not the employees of the Washington Post to not endorse a candidate this election cycle and their disagreements on the importance of it, their agreement that Israel's strike on Iran's long range missile and drone manufacturing plants is very important for both the situation in the Middle East and in Ukraine, whether Trump's chat with Rogan will be imp...

Noam and Jen discuss the dispatching of Yahya Sinwar to the next realm, the deification of him by Western idiots, bricks of cash, Birkin bags, and the hypocrisy of "freedom fighting" while wearing luxury cologne. They also discuss the abysmal state of election polling and why it's like that now. Jen tries to interest Noam in discussing impromptu dance parties and Arnold Palmer's man junk, but he i...

Jen and Noam wade into Ta-Nehisi Coates' wading into the Israeli - Palestinian conflict, Noam compares Coates to an etrog (look that up kids), the CBS struggle session, human safaris, Harry Truman, Jeffery Epstein, the ongoing back and forth at the Israel - Lebanon border, how the UN just sucks so bad, when and how Israel will attack Iran, the alleged beef between Team Biden and Team Harris, a sid...

Noam and Jen start the pod discussing the one year anniversary of the 10/7 massacre in Israel and where the various wars stand now, the rather hilarious update on Israel's penetration of Hezbollah's communications, the lies circulating about the aftermath of hurricane Helene, AI imagery, the misinformation economy, thoughts on the revised indictment of Trump on the 2020 election stealing scheme, a...

Jen and Noam discuss all things foreign policy - the escalation of Hezbollah leadership to the afterlife, what does it mean for Iran, the US being kept out of the loop by both Israel and Ukraine as to their big military moves, the paper tiger of "escalation", the US being a crappy ally as of late, Zelensky visiting the US, the propriety of writing messages on artillery, and a brief discussion on p...

Noam and Jen are back with a hot, spicy, and sexy episode of Ambitious Crossover Attempt! The pair explore the scandalous tale of young, sexy star reporter Olivia Nuzzi engaging in a tawdry textual affair with RFK Jr., internet muckraker Chris Rufo's email showing up in the Ashely Madison leak, North Carolina's GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson's exotic sexual preferences, and finish up wi...

Jen and Noam discussed last week's events the way a four-year-old eats; we mashed everything together on the plate and consumed it. From the Trump - Harris debate to Haitians not eating cats in Ohio (or anywhere else apparently), turning eating the dogs and eating the cats into a meme, another crazy person trying to assassinate Trump, and Laura Loomer looming over the Trump campaign. We will hopef...

Noam and Jen discuss notable conservative podcasters / YouTubers getting busted taking Russian money, the silliness of the "I was deceived!" defense, who is getting a better ROI on their disruption spending, the Tucker / Darryl Cooper interview, the absolute silliness of the idea that the origins and motivations of the players in WWII are simply unknowable and open to interpretation, the collapse...

Jen and Noam discuss the joyful DNC, the rejection of the progressive keyboard warriors and their dumb demands, the contrast between Team Happy and whatever the hell is going on with Republicans, Barack Hussein Obama, RFK Jr. dropping out of the race (kinda) to support Trump, Disney+ canceling The Acolyte after one boring season, the limits of an expanded universe, and Noam makes Jen sad by bringi...

Noam and Jen enjoy the relative calm of the past week, where the most controversial take was Walz's taco recipe. They (well at least Jen) enjoyed that there was an actual discussion about economic policy despite it being price controls vs tariffs, Vance is still weird not for the stuff he did in high school and college, the upcoming DNC, a Taylor Lorenz Minute!, and Natasha Frost doxxing Jews for...

Jen and Noam are exhausted, and it's not even mid-August. We cover the Walz as VP drama, stolen valor, word coping mechanisms, The Vibes Election, when is anyone going to interview Kamala, Trump's wild helicopter rise with a black guy, is Trump mentally slipping, the debates that both will and will not happen, weird goings-on in Trumpland,a nd other random bits of ephemera. Ambitious Crossover Att...

Noam and Jen waited for Kamala, but she (or at least her VP nominee announcement) didn't come. No matter, there was still plenty to talk over; the assissinations of Hamas head Ismael Haniyeh and Hezbollah senior member Fuad Shukr, what it all means for what comes next in the Middle East, the massive prisoner exchange between the US / Germany and Russia, the massive messup Bloomberg News made in ju...

Jen and Noam do not have to throw a week's worth of notes in the fire! Hooray! The past week has still been quite eventful; Kamala (or Nancy, really) gets the thumbs up from all the major Democratic players, Joe says goodbye to the campaign trail, the Democratic veepstakes begins, J.D. Vance is confronted with his own statements, and the Normies start to realize that conservatives are weird.  At t...

Noam and Jen ONCE AGAIN have to preempt a whole week's worth of news to discuss breaking news, this time to discuss Biden's announcement that he is dropping out of the presidential race (but not resigning) and endorsing Kamala Harris to be the nominee. We give our initial thoughts on Biden's bow out, where this leaves the pundit class, how this changes the view of the RNC and Trump's speech, Biden...

Jen and Noam once again have to preempt a whole week's news due to the news of an attempted assassination of Trump. We discuss what we don't know (and may never know) about the motive for the shooting, The Picture, the weirdness of an assassination attempt being a crime of opportunity, what Trump may or may not have learned from his near-death experience, the perils of assigning iconography too so...

Noam and Jen start with the SCOTUS presidential immunity decision (the real news of the week) and Trump already testing the boundaries of the ruling before we move to basically ripping the press to shreds for being a bunch of unserious clout-chasing hacks (except for Alex Thompson) when it comes to the topic of Biden dropping out of the presidential race, our hatred of unnamed sources, Jen's overa...

Jen and Noam discuss The Debate, the Debate Discourse, is it cynical for the press to want to yeet Biden into the sun, does Biden yeet himself from the race, the other guy that was at the debate, where does Kamala fit into this conversation, the importance of a good VP pick, who is Trump gonna pick as his running mate, and will we be talking about any of this in a week. Ambitious Crossover Attempt...

Noam and Jen kick off the official beginning of Election Season by giving our pre-debate thoughts, Jen shares her doubts on if this debate will happen as planned, how Trump is basically the luckiest SOB ever, Jen makes a HotD joke that spirals into a discussion on monarchical succession, how "anti-Zionism" reached new lows, a brief history of Israel-related animal conspiracy theories, and a bit of...

Jen and Noam discuss SCOTUS deciding that the ATF doesn't have the authority to enforce the bump stock ban, Hunter Biden's potential future as a 2A champion (if his dad doesn't pardon him), 2020 amnesia, AOC and others realizing they are indeed surrounded by antisemites, the recently renewed COVID debate, and doing time on the hunger strike rotation. Ambitious Crossover Attempt has a Twitch channe...

Noam and Jen spend the whole episode discussing K-pop and anime. Just kidding. They spend the entire episode discussing the breaking news that four hostages taken from the Nova music festival were found and rescued by the IDF, including Noa Argamani. From the news itself to the operation that resulted in the freeing of the hostages, and of course, the reactions to the news both online and from mai...