Fighting With Congressmen on the Internet, Thirst Traps for Democracy, and JD's Big Dumb Daycare Plan

Kate and Emily are back from a Door County vacation where they failed spectacularly at recording an IRL podcast and succeeded at most everything else. Now it's post-Labor Day, kids are in school, and there are 56 days until the midterms. This week: Kate has taken up a new hobby, which is arguing with Congressman Derrick Van Orden on X. It went about how you'd expect — he accused her of being paid (because who would hold him accountable for free?), Mark Pocan jumped in on her side, and Rebecca Cooke posted the single best clap-back of the cycle: an MTV Cribs-style tour of the "waterfront property" Van Orden keeps bringing up. It's a small house on a lake heated by a log fire. Also on the docket: the viral campaign that signed up 26,000+ paid poll workers, why Wisconsin's measles case count and kindergarten vaccination rates should have every parent locked in, the Republicans' first-ever midterm convention (tickets: $25,000), why AI deepfakes in campaign ads are about to be everyone's problem, and Hunter Biden's meme coin, because of course. Then: JD Vance's plan to take money out of the child care program that helps working and single parents afford daycare, and hand it to two-parent families where the mom stays home. Emily walks through what that actually does to a single mom who has to work to feed her kids — and Kate shares that her own daycare tuition just went up $160 a month after Wisconsin Republicans let the state's child care funding expire. Plus: Emily's hair, Kate's toxic relationship with a chatbot, and the 24-hour rule for angry emails.