If you have been online in the past few weeks, you’ve consumed at least one “take” about the viral “lesbian bar story.” According to The Boston Globe, “all hell broke loose” when the Greenfield, Massachusetts-based Last Ditch bar posted a cheery Instagram announcement about mask optional Saturday nights.

The Boston Globe played up the backlash—some from Greenfield community members, some from Internet strangers all too happy to add to the ire. But there’s a missing link between Last Ditch’s Instagram post and the Globe’s coverage.

Who or what tipped off the state’s major newspaper to the situation developing in historically caricatured Western Massaschusetts?

This week, Spitfire News’ Kat Tenbarge returns to the pod, revealing the story’s likely origins in a noted transphobe’s podcast. Kate, Christine, and Kat critique the tone of the Globe story and what it reveals about mainstream media’s biases against COVID precautions, queer people, disabled people, and the intersections thereof.

Cancel Me, Daddy is a progressive media criticism show hosted by journalists Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi. New episodes every other week.

Stream on our YouTube channel—remember to ring the bell! Listen via Apple or Spotify. Be sure to check out the merch store—Merch Me, Daddy!

Episode Links:

- Grab a discounted bundle subscription to Katelyn’s and Christine’s newsletters at their TrustFnd collab! https://trustfnd.com/collaboration/bundle-pass-bvco--bvCOiGCVS51ajgYKJKbR

- Subscribe to Kat Tenbarge’s Spitfire News, https://spitfirenews.com/about?modal=signup, and follow her on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/kattenbarge.bsky.social.

- Support local journalism! Subscribe to The Greenfield Recorder, https://recorder.com/subscribe/.

- Madison Schofield, Erin-Leigh Hoffman, and Aalianna Marietta for The Greenfield Recorder: Greenfield takes stock of viral attention: Businesses, officials weigh in after coverage of lesbian bar Last Ditch takes national spotlight, https://recorder.com/2026/09/24/greenfield-lesbian-bar-mask-controversy/

- Madison Schofield for The Greenfield Recorder: Last Ditch in Greenfield bolsters security amid national attention, https://recorder.com/2026/09/30/greenfield-last-ditch-security-increase/

- Annalisa Quinn for The Boston Globe: A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose, https://archive.ph/2026.09.22-175848/https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/22/magazine/greenfield-last-ditch-bar-backlash/

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The right-wing outrage machine could not stand Dr. Jason Arday, the University of Cambridge’s youngest ever Black professor. And so, the coalition of journalists, pundits, and academics could not let the 41-year-old’s academic record stand.

Scorned white academics in the United Kingdom and from the United States unduly interrogated Jason Arday’s credentials and accomplishments. British tabloids amplified the intense and disproportionate scrutiny and pundits around the world doubled down on it.

The right turned Jason Arday into an international story, a cautionary tale for the consequences of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. They hounded Dr. Jason Arday until his death in August 2026.

This week, Katelyn and Christine discuss the playbook used to discredit Black academics with Dr. Jenn Jackson (they/them), a Syracuse University professor and the author of Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism. Dr. Jackson speaks with Katelyn and Christine about how racist right-wing smear campaigns fit into the larger conversation about Trump’s DEI backlash.

Cancel Me, Daddy is a progressive media criticism show hosted by journalists Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi. New episodes every other week.

Stream on our YouTube channel—remember to ring the bell! Listen via Apple or Spotify. Be sure to check out the merch store—Merch Me, Daddy!

A note on care:

This episode discusses suicide and death. If you are struggling, support is available:

US: Call or text 988

UK: Call Samaritans 116

Episode Notes

- Grab a discounted bundle subscription to Katelyn’s and Christine’s newsletters at their TrustFnd collab!

- Connect with Dr. Jenn Jackson via their website, www.jennmjackson.com, and their handle @jennmjacksonphd on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky

- Buy Dr. Jenn Jackson’s Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism via The Flytrap Media’s Bookshop.org affiliate link

- Request Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism from your local library—it makes a difference! Search for your local library via zip code.

- Juana Summers for NPR’s All Things Considered: A professor’s death brings new focus to how Black academics are treated

- Philip Martin for NPR member station GBH in Boston: Black women at Harvard accused of plagiarism to attack DEI programs, supporter says [transcript]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pundits, politicians, and lobbyists have given a pass to Silicon Valley’s tech bros for far too long. We don’t have to understand Peter Thiel or Sam Altman, but we have to understand the "Network State" they want to establish.

Journalist Gil Durán exposes tech bros as the leaders of “The Nerd Reich,” the name of his unputdownable new book. They’re the bad guys—and they’re all guys, some we know better than others.

Over the course of “The Nerd Reich,” Durán introduces us to lesser known players and explains why we should watch out for Peter Thiel and his network state even more than we already do.

Without Thiel, we would not have J.D. Vance a heartbeat away from the presidency. Vance is more “Thielbilly” than “hillbilly,” Durán argues, drawing a sinister connection between “Silicon Valley fascism” and the Trump regime.

This week, Gil Durán joins Katelyn and Christine to reconsider whether the visionaries are really cartoon villains and propose ways we can stop their network state.

Cancel Me, Daddy is a progressive media criticism show hosted by journalists Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi. New episodes every other week.

Stream on our YouTube channel—remember to ring the bell! Listen via Apple or Spotify. Be sure to check out the merch store—Merch Me, Daddy!

Links:

- Grab a discounted bundle subscription to Katelyn’s and Christine’s newsletters at their TrustFnd collab!

- Buy Gil Durán’s: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy from The Flytrap Media’s Bookshop affiliate link.

- Request The Nerd Reich from your local library—it makes a difference! Search for your local library via zip code.

- Subscribe to Gil Durán’s newsletter “The Nerd Reich” and follow him on Bluesky at @gilduran.com.

- Read Gil’s coverage of tech fascists for The New Republic via his author link.

- Roberto J. González for The Transnational Institute: “The Rise of the Techno-Tyrants: Silicon Valley’s right-wing past, present and future.”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On July 4, 2025, a loosely affiliated group of demonstrators gathered outside

the Prairieland immigration detention camp in solidarity of incarcerated migrants.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) would soon recast the demonstrators as an “Antifa cell.” Federal prosecutors would trump up terrorism charges against them. In some cases, the DOJ indicted people who hadn’t even been present at the demonstration. Their so-called crime? Making and moving zines.

Then Trump’s hand-picked federal judges sentenced the Prairieland defendants to a combined 450 years in prison.

How did a routine act of public protest against unjust incarceration spiral into centuries’ worth of more incarceration?

This week, journalist Melissa Gira Grant joins Katelyn and Christine to separate fact from fiction in the Prairieland cases. Melissa, Katelyn, and Christine discuss the Prairieland prosecutions’ dangerous implications for free speech and assembly.

Cancel Me, Daddy is a progressive media criticism show hosted by journalists Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi. New episodes every other week.

Stream on our YouTube channel—remember to ring the bell! Listen via Apple or Spotify. Be sure to check out the merch store—Merch Me, Daddy!

Get Cancel Me, Daddy every week on our Patreon or through an Apple Membership.

Links:

- Grab a discounted bundle subscription to Katelyn’s and Christine’s newsletters at their TrustFnd collab!

- Follow Melissa Gira Grant’s ongoing Prairieland coverage for The New Republic and on Bluesky at @melissagiragrant.com

- Melissa Gira Grant for The New Republic: The Prairieland Sentences Are a National Emergency

- Lex McMenamin for The Guardian: ‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

- Lex McMenamin reel via Instagram: “the prairieland case: how it impacts protest, trans people, and freedom of information”

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The Catholic Church has spent two thousand years fighting about who actually gets to be Pope — and this year, it's happening twice at once.

The Society of St. Pius X, the traditionalist breakaway group that's been in schism with Rome since the 1980s, just got hit with a fresh round of excommunications. Meanwhile, US officials floated the idea of backing an antipope against Leo XIV after a very public spat with the Trump administration. Two crises, one institution, and a lot of history nobody in the mainstream coverage is bothering to explain.

Katelyn and Christine are joined by historian Eleanor Janega (medievalist, author of the Going Medieval newsletter, and a returning favorite for anyone who wants their Church history with actual rigor) to walk through what schism and antipopes have historically meant, why the Vatican keeps splitting along the same fault lines, and what it says about power — inside the Church and out — when a government thinks it can just install its own Pope.

In this episode:

-What the Society of St. Pius X schism is actually about, and why "excommunication" doesn't mean what most coverage implies

-The long, messy history of antipopes — and what it takes to actually pull one off

-How the Pope Leo/Trump administration conflict fits (or doesn't) into that history

-Why institutions that claim infallibility keep having legitimacy crises anyway

Janega joins us to answer the same question we always ask: who gets to define legitimacy, who benefits when they do, and what happens when that consensus breaks.

Links:

-What Pope Leo Can Teach Liberals About Power - The Nation - https://www.thenation.com/article/society/society-sspx-excommunication-schism-leo-catholic/

-Avignon Papacy Explained: What Reported US Threat to Pope and Vatican Means - Newsweek - https://www.newsweek.com/avignon-papacy-explained-what-reported-us-threat-to-pope-and-vatican-means-11803877

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To podcasters, pundits, and outlets on the left, Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner could do no wrong.

Platner’s rugged oyster farmer persona and populist platform appealed to the full spectrum, from center-left Pod Save America’s Jon Faverau to socialist comrade and streamer Hasan Piker.

Progressive media men made excuses for Graham Platner’s misdeeds and misconduct. The Nazi tattoo. The sexts. The abusive behavior. They only dropped their Platner endorsements after the sexual assault allegations. And they’re not sorry for platforming a political newbie that they didn’t vet beneath the shiny ideological surface.

This week, independent journalist Marisa Kabas joins Katelyn and Christine to discuss how lefty media men enabled Graham Platner’s rise and tried to cushion his fall. What does their steadfast support say about progressive media’s accountability gap when one of their own is accused?

Marisa, Katelyn, and Christine center the accusers, rather than the accused, while asking how to correct the structural failures and media gatekeeping that led us to this point.

Cancel Me, Daddy is a progressive media criticism show hosted by journalists Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi. New episodes every other week.

Stream on our YouTube channel—remember to ring the bell! Listen via Apple or Spotify. Be sure to check out the merch store—Merch Me, Daddy! Marisa Kabas is a journalist covering news and politics at thehandbasket.co.

Marisa Kabas is a journalist and newsletter writer covering media and politics at thehandbasket.co.

- Grab a discounted bundle subcription to Katelyn’s and Christine’s newsletters at their TrustFnd collab!

- Subscribe to Marisa Kabas’ The Handbasket for 100% independent journalism

- Marisa Kabas for The Handbasket: We didn’t need a rape accusation to know Graham Platner was unfit

- Ben Binday for The Washington Post: A timeline of the scandals surrounding Graham Platner in Maine Senate race

- Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer for The New York Times: Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior

- Jessica Piper and Adam Wren for Politico: Exclusive: Woman who dated Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her

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