Podbit · Planet Money
China spends only about 10% of annual income on redistribution — half what the US spends and a third of Western Europe's 30%. Despite the communist label, there's no property tax to speak of, and the burden falls on regressive consumption taxes. Welcome to socialism with Chinese characteristics.
NYC Mayor Mamdani asked residents not to set AC below 74°F during a heat wave — Taylor Swift apparently ignored this entirely for her MSG wedding. Matt McCusker sees it as a potential 'totalitarian tiptoe': a small compliance test to gauge how much control the government can actually wield.
California's CPUC requires large utilities to direct up to $633 million in contracts to state-certified LGBT-owned businesses. Qualifying requires letters from personal contacts on company letterhead attesting to your homosexuality — and falsely claiming the certification carries up to a year in jail.
Taiwan has less than three weeks of energy reserves. A Chinese blockade — no military engagement, just cutting off oil and LNG — would brown out the island. Fabs take 90 days to restart once shut down. The global economic impact would exceed the Great Depression. This isn't hypothetical: China has blockaded the Taiwan Straits 7 times in the last 4 years.
In the LA mayoral primary, Karen Bass led, Spencer Pratt was second, and Nithya Raman was a distant third — until the mail-in ballots came in and Raman leaped to second. Vance calls it 'super sus' and asks: what theory of the electorate explains why mail-in ballots were so disproportionately pro-Raman? There was also direct evidence of homeless people being given cigarettes and cash to use addresses for ballots.
JD Vance formally offered, as sitting Vice President, a deal to Democrats live on Joe Rogan's podcast: accept federal voter ID and Republicans will significantly dial back election-integrity rhetoric. The Save America Act already has majority Senate support but the filibuster's 60-vote threshold is blocking it.
The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding has three parts: Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz, violence stops, and then both sides negotiate long-term nuclear issues. In return, Iran wants sanctions relief. Within the first week, 20 million barrels per day were flowing again. The hardliners then panicked and shot at ships — triggering US retaliation and a temporary breakdown.
Critics claimed the Iran MOU would give Iran $300 billion. That's completely false. The deal allows UAE and Saudi Arabia to invest in Iran if Iran meets its obligations — no US taxpayer dollars involved. Vance says this was a deliberate, well-funded disinformation campaign to tank the deal.
A Time magazine story published the day before this podcast revealed that a former Trump campaign operative, paid by elements of the Israeli government, funded influencers to attack the Iran deal and personally attack Vance. Vance says beyond a shadow of a doubt, some elements in the Israeli government are actively trying to derail the negotiation — and his response is 'go to hell.'
The New Mexico Department of Justice sent formal letters, made calls, and held meetings from February to July 2026 — and got almost nothing in return. After five months, the federal government delivered 31 pages of mostly-redacted, already-released documents out of 6 million on file.
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