This week, we clear up and shut down topics like the FaceApp, created by a Russian company that is harvesting our biometrics a year before a presidential election. (Everything’s fine.) Also on the docket: Millennial women are being haunted on Instagram by a Danny DeVito crop top; a reporter caused a stir at Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s cryptocurrency press conference by wearing Google Glass; and millions of people are getting ready to storm Area 51 by using an anime-inspired jogging technique.

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The Fourth of July weekend is turning out to be terrible. First we learned that Betsy Ross was not so much a patriotic seamstress as she was a racist plagiarist. And now, We the People, are going to be left footing the bill for an obscene MAGA rally, complete with the finest Sherman tanks your 1957 dollars can buy. And we will not be making PBS.org’s recipe for a red white and blue potato salad, which combines an unholy trinity of ingredients–blueberries, onions and mayonnaise. (Vomit.)

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It’s been a terrible week, but only one of us was paying attention. Rachel hasn’t slept since she decided to adopt a St. Berdoodle puppy on Sunday–unfortunately one day too late to enter the Miss Dog Mom USA pageant in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becky are embroiled in a possible love triangle with a Miami pool boy; Lenny Dykstra spent nine hours in a New Jersey dumpster looking for his teeth; and an Alabama man sicced a meth-addicted attack squirrel on the police.

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After recovering from a fugue state, we shut down everything this week from Chernobyl to Twizzlers. Our finest living patron of the arts, Seth Fradkoff, shares a distressing story about getting kicked out of “Tootsie: The Musical” on Broadway for taking a stand against loud snacks. Also on the docket: Manhattan prosecutor-turned-novelist Linda Fairstein attempted to un-cancel herself via op-ed; a British woman revealed that she paid her way through college by naming nearly 700,000 Chinese babies; another woman in Cincinnati quit her job to eat crab legs on YouTube; and comedian/actress/writer Jenny Slate agreed to deliver a highly exclusive commencement address in Massachusetts.

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For our second-ever transatlantic broadcast, Brian was holed up in a bar in the north of England and Rachel was home in New York City—and, like Robert Mueller, if we had confidence that this week was not an abomination, we would have said so. To that end, we shut down Mueller’s cryptically worded press conference, anarchy on Mt. Everest, and the government official who compared Jews to carbon dioxide.

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Our attempts to warg our troubles away were interrupted by an impromptu Donald Trump speech, in which the Victim-In-Chief announced that he was going on strike until the Democrats cease all of their investigations into his rampant misconduct. To which we say, Nope! Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio entered the Democratic 2020 field with a cringeworthy (and possibly illegal) video shot inside his taxpayer-funded luxury SUV.

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It’s been one of the most devastating weeks on record, as misogynist troglodytes in statehouses across the country mount an assault on women’s constitutional rights. But we’re back to fight another day and shut down misguided attempts to raise awareness, such as the #sexstrike endorsed by TV’s Alyssa Milano. Also on the docket: a used-car heiress staged a fake wedding because her hairstylist husband wouldn’t sign a prenup; while YouTube makeup artists Tati Westbrook and James Charles end their friendship over gummy vitamins.

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Despite the Uber/Lyft strike and a Louis Vuitton fashion show taking over JFK Airport, we finally made it to San Francisco to perform live at Betabrand’s fabulous Podcast Theatre! On the docket, Donald Trump’s tax returns, a scandal at the Kentucky Derby, involving horses, and at the London Marathon, involving nurses. Also: Sonic the Hedgehog's unrealistic teeth caused a stir on the Internet, Burger King unleashed unhappy meals on an already unhappy public and so much more.

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Barbara Corcoran threw herself a birthday funeral, a Belgian water company created dinnerware to shame people who attempt to Instagram their food, a Taiwanese company is selling bib hammocks for Instagram aversion therapy, and people are renting parking spots in San Francisco because they can’t afford coworking spaces. Also: the backstory on Russian spy whales, military dolphins and drug dealer parrots; and Spotify playlists that go too far.

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Like a Netflix crossover special of Full House, Desperate Housewives and Orange is the New Black, the college-cheating scandal known as Operation Varsity Blues captivated and revolted us in equal measure. We are a nation of grifters and there’s no turning back! Also: two dead people struggle to sell a house in the Hamptons that they designed to either prolong your life or end it.

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It’s New York Fashion Week and it’s not just the cold weather that is keeping us from experimenting with the hottest trend at the Grammys (hint: it’s an exposed ribcage).Joined by author and fashion journalist Christina Binkley, we shut down blackface turtlenecks, mock turtlenecks, Adam’s apple turtlenecks, harnesses on the red carpet, breast pumps as a fashion statement, and a boots-on-the-ground report about how Michael Cohen is spending his last days as a free man. Also on the docket: the two disparate theories explaining what’s behind the Jeff Bezos extortion attempt; Tinder for cows; Starbucks horoscopes and the unusual story of Dina Lohan’s fiancé.

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There’s no good time to be incapacitated, but that’s what happened this week, and we’re still struggling to keep up with all the horrors. But with the help of our special guest, comedienne/playwright Glace Chase, we managed to shut down the substance, structure and guests of the State of the Union speech; a wild ATM incident in China; a man in the Netherlands embroiled in a legal battle to officially change his age; and, of course, the scandal in the Virginia legislature that combines three elements we thought we’d never see together: blackface, #metoo and the Moonwalk.

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Jack Dorsey and Azealia Banks have a beard-hair beef, Nest hackers, flaming robots, Boris the Robot, plus Wired Senior Editor Lauren Goode on the worst, nope-iest gifts for those people you just don't like that much.

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With the help of media maven Bevy Smith, we shut down “grabbers” at the border, John Bolton’s language barrier, a gender reveal explosion in Arizona, Moroccan cannibals and the dystopian gamification of behavior in China. Also: Bevy weighs in on the biggest pop-cultural controversies of the week.

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This week, we find ourselves tethered to the blockchain in the struggle for truth and justice. Joined by multi-hyphenate guest Walt Mossberg, we shut down wild animal crackers, the Cohen-Manafort-Duncan guilty grifter trifecta, goats on the lam, mullets in Tribeca and ultimately come to grips with the overwhelming odds that we are living in a virtual reality simulation. 

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