Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

The Most Depraved Commentary I've Ever Heard Nov 21, 2025

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Right now, there's a clip going viral from former Obama White House aide and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz that is so appalling and depraved it's hard to believe it's real.

But many people are missing the most dangerous part of her commentary. Her comments reveal exactly what the ruling class in America wants to do to online speech, and why we need to fight back so hard to protect our online freedoms.

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The Epstein Saga Is Sending the Internet Into Chaos w/ Brace Belden Nov 19, 2025

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Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news after a massive new cache of emails and text messages was released last week. Now, Congress is set to send to Trump legislation to compel the Justice Department to release even more records. The whole saga has become a messy political fight that’s causing chaos in the MAGA movement and warping the right wing internet.

No one knows the Epstein saga more than my friend Brace Belden, co-host of the Trueanon podcast and one of the internet's foremost experts on Epstein and MAGA influencers.

He joins me to break down what this latest Epstein cache reveals, the real tea on Donald Trump and Bill Clinton's relationship, and how off this Epstein stuff might impact Trump and the influencers in his movement going forward.

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The Government Is Spying on College Football Games Nov 14, 2025

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The Department of Homeland Security has deployed a powerful surveillance tool at college football games, and that's not the only place where they're using it. If you were one of the thousands of people who attended the Old Miss vs Georgia game a few weeks ago, a DHS system could have been monitoring you.

At that game and others schools have been using a little-known Department of Homeland Security platform called the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). FOIAball, a newsletter reporting on college football and public records, got a hold of documents related to this surveillance effort.

All of this information and monitoring is now being fed into facial recognition systems, as those systems of surveillance expand. And, HSIN isn't just being used at concerts and game days, it's not being deployed against protesters, activists, and peaceful crowds.

Story on FOIAball: https://www.foiaball.com/p/dhs-college-football-hsin-surveillance-ole-miss-ohio-state

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How Sydney Sweeney Lost The Culture War Nov 12, 2025

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Sydney Sweeney just had one of the worst box office weekends of all time. Her new movie Christy, about a female boxer, made barely over $1 million, making it one of the worst-performing films of all time,

This disastrous flop comes on the heels of yet another culture war controversy that she was at the center of, stemming from a viral GQ interview, and now she's locked in a bitter feud with Zendaya, her co-star on Euphoria, the HBO show that arguably skyrocketed her to stardom.

So all of this begs the question: can Sydney Sweeny survive becoming an avatar for the culture war? Why does every viral moment now become a referendum on politics? Kat Tenbarge joins me to discuss!

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He Was Tortured in an Israeli Prison for Speaking Out Nov 07, 2025

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Tommy Marcus, better known online as Quentin Quarantino online, first became famous during the early days of the pandemic. He posted timely memes and news roundups, but what started as a funny Instagram account quickly turned into a massive fundraising machine. Tommy got more involved in activism and political causes and began using his platform to raise money for humanitarian issues and injustice around the world.

A few months ago, he joined an aid boat headed to Gaza, hoping to deliver supplies to people caught in the ongoing crisis. His ship was intercepted just miles off the coast and the IDF abducted him and fellow activists before holding them in a notorious Israeli super prison. Tommy, one of the few Jewish activists on the boat, was tortured and abused by the IDF.

He finally made it out and is speaking about the experience for the first time. He opens up about how the experience affected him and changed his beliefs about power, justice, and the United States sanction of the slaughter in Palestine.

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Why Every Hit Pop Song Sounds the Same Now Nov 05, 2025

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Did you know that hit songs in the late 1950s were regularly about gruesome death? Or that a US vice president wrote a number one hit? Chris Dalla Riva is one of my favorite music journalists out there. He writes the substack Can't Get Much Higher where he publishes pieces on the intersection of music and data.

A couple years ago he embarked on a quest to listen to every single number 2 hit from the last six decades, and wrote about what he learned in his new book Uncharted Territory. The book is part celebration, part takedown of popular music, and also provides new ways to think about your favorite songs, genres, and artists. This book is genuinely so good and changed the way I think about so many songs and just how different periods in history were reflected in the music from their time.

Chris joined me this week to discuss the past half a century of number 1 hits and what they say about our culture, political system and world at large.

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The New Legal Fight to Destroy Super PACs Forever Oct 31, 2025

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For the first time in fifteen years, there’s a real shot at ending billionaire control of American politics.

A groundbreaking legal effort spearheaded by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, backed by an unlikely coalition of billionaires like Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman, is taking direct aim at the legal foundation that created Super PACs.

I'm going to be covering this legal fight closely. Larry Lessig joined me on this week's Free Speech Friday to break down his legal fight, where things stand, and what needs to happen next in order to win this fight.

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Has Taylor Swift Finally Peaked? Why Billionaires Can't Make Good Art Oct 29, 2025

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Over the past two decades, Taylor Swift has dominated the pop charts and risen to the pinnacle of mainstream fame. She has amassed a $2 billion fortune, won 14 Grammy Awards, sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, headlined the highest-grossing concert tour in history, and built a vast real-estate and music catalog empire.

But lately, the backlash to Swift is growing louder. She has been criticized for her silence on major political issues, for palling around with Trump supporters, her carbon footprint, and many are calling her latest album a flop.

All of this raises the question, has Taylor Swift peaked, not just in popularity, but in cultural authority? Or is this just another cynical reinvention that she'll use to amass even more money and power? Journalist and Swiftie Kat Tenbarge joined me to discuss it all.

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A Woman Streamer Was Assaulted, Is Twitch To Blame? Oct 24, 2025

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Last weekend, popular cosplay Twitch streamer Emiru was assaulted at a meet-and-greet during Twitchcon. A man cut across several meet and greet lines and attempted to grab her for a kiss. The incident was obviously a catastrophic failure when it comes to keeping women creators safe

But, after the Emiru incident, tons of big content creators began piling on on Twitter, pushing out of context clips attempting to show lax security at the event and calling for Dan Clancy's resignation. They began weaponizing the attack on a woman creator to push their own reactionary agendas.

Kat Tenbarge has been covering gender-based violence for nearly a decade and she joined me this week to break down what exactly went down at Twitchcon, why more security doesn't exactly lead to more safety for women, and what the true issue at the heart of all of this is. These attacks on women creators silence women and prevent them from speaking and expressing themselves freely.

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