108: Mamdani Unwelcomed, ICE Overreach, Musk Unmasked, & Cocaine Campus

Welcome to David & Stu… Unhinged! As always, we'd like to thank Clara Wang for creating the fantastic artwork for this podcast.

Mamdani Unwelcomed: Mayor Mamdani insists that he plans to attend the 25th anniversary 9/11 ceremonies, despite objections from victims’ families and critics who argue that his past rhetoric, associations, and comments about terrorism make his presence at Ground Zero deeply inappropriate. Unfortunately, this mayor is too arrogant and self-absorbed to realize this.

ICE Overreach: ICE appears to be widening the net, with one report estimating that roughly half of 92,000 arrests in June and July involved people with no criminal record. That may create positive headlines for the diminishing MAGA base, but this type of overreach clearly has gone too far. Even a Fulbright scholar with a PhD in pharmacy, a pending asylum claim, and a respected job at Johns Hopkins has been ensnared in this latest Trump leviathan.

Musk Unmasked: Alex Gibney’s new documentary Musk, previewed at the Venice Film Festival, offers a blistering look at Elon Musk’s carefully manufactured mythology, from disputed personal claims and the Tesla “founder” story to federal scrutiny over Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. We discuss how the film portrays Musk as less visionary genius than a reckless self-promoter and why Trump’s decision to let him anywhere near government data and national security infrastructure was its own act of stunning incompetence.

Cocaine Campus: Fifteen years after the Sandusky scandal, Penn State has a new scandal on its hands involving a cocaine trafficking ring operated out of two fraternity houses, with 13 current or former students among the 14 defendants. In addition to the students, the father of an alleged ringleader, a once-prominent Pittsburgh attorney whose practice apparently included “transportation,” is named as a defendant. Sadly, this seems very on-brand for Penn State.

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