August 27th • 2h 58m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
00 🗳️ MAIL-IN AND THE COURT
Six-three, and the states lost on STANDING — not on the merits. Rob Carty read the order and calls the thing itself creampuff: DHS sends lists the states need not use, DOJ is told to prioritise, USPS is told to consider. PBS walks the emergency order days before ballots are mailed, ABC has what it actually lets him do — a federal citizenship list, prosecutions of state officials, new USPS regulations — and the states are already in front of cameras promising absolute and total chaos.
📰 Articles & links (read/context — above the clips)
Clips — 11
00 Steve PBS The Emergency Order
01 SCOTUS Emergency Order Days Before Ballots Are Mailed
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS walks the Supreme Court's emergency order landing days before ballots are mailed in some states.
02 The Postal Service May Only Deliver To People On The Federal List
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS on the actual mechanism: the Postal Service is barred from delivering to anyone not on federal lists, and DHS builds the list.
03 Time Will Tell If The Presidents Executive Order Was Lawful
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS closes on the Court conceding it has not ruled on the merits at all — the majority only found the states could not show harm yet.
01 MSM The Ruling
01 01- Midterms Are 71 Days Away And They Have 11
📺 YouTube (clip)
ABC: the justices let the March executive order take effect while the bigger fight plays out, with the midterms 71 days away.
02 01- Six Three And What The Order Lets Him Do
📺 YouTube (clip)
ABC breaks down the 6-3 ruling and what it actually lets Trump do — a DHS citizenship list, prosecutions of state officials, and new USPS regulations.
03 02- The Liberal Dissent And The Cost Warning
📺 YouTube (clip)
ABC on the liberal dissent, and the states warning about increased costs months before the election.
02 States Push Back
01 01- Arizona AG It Would Cause Absolute And Total Chaos
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNN: the Arizona Attorney General says the Postal Service rule is now in effect and therefore ripe to challenge — and that it would cause absolute and total chaos.
02 01- We Are Defending The Law Against The Federal Government
📺 YouTube (clip)
MS NOW: Arizona's Secretary of State on the inversion — a state official whose job is enforcing election law now fighting Washington to keep doing it.
03 01- Letitia James They Have To Steal This Election
📺 YouTube (clip)
MS NOW: Letitia James and a group of AGs file to block the Postal Service rule, with no relief expected before next week.
03 Ackerman Mail-In And Fraud
01 01- DHS Draws The Citizen List And The Post Office Obeys It - Democracy Now!
📺 YouTube (clip)
The Supreme Court temporarily let Trump's executive order restricting mail voting take effect, saying it was too early for states to challenge. The mechanism is the part to hear: DHS creates lists of voters it deems citizens — an agency whose voter-fraud claims have already turned out not to be true
02 01- Massachusetts AG On A Mayor And A State Rep Charged With COVID Fraud - New York Post
📺 YouTube (clip)
The Attorney General on charges against the mayor of Lawrence and a district state representative: the conduct alleged is appalling, the money was meant for hardworking Americans and struggling business owners, not two greedy individuals who lied and stole.
01 🇨🇦 THE TRADE WAR
Canada fires back on the 8th of September, 700 products, and then says the quiet part out loud: selfishly, we need aluminum, and we need it badly. Ackerman has four more angles on it, and the Lake America renaming is the same story wearing a hat.
📰 Articles & links (read/context — above the clips)
Clips — 12
00 Steve PBS Canada Fires Back
01 Canada Fires Back 700 Products From September 8
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: Ottawa's answer — "Canada will meet the moment." Retaliatory tariffs on 700 products from 8 September.
02 Selfishly We Need Aluminum And We Need It Badly
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: an American voice admits the dependency out loud — the US does not produce enough aluminium and gets it all from the country it is tariffing.
01 MSM Canada Trade War
01 01- Dollar For Dollar And Lake America
📺 YouTube (clip)
Canada is about to unveil retaliation, dollar for dollar, around $20bn of US goods — steel, dairy, farm equipment, paper. It is only ~5% of a $900bn relationship. Then Trump's response: five Truth Social posts in one morning, Canada called the most difficult and unreasonable country he deals with, a threat to cut off business with…
02 02- Everyone Else Took The Deal Canada Refused
📺 YouTube (clip)
Have other allies said anything? Mostly no — because the countries you would expect to line up with Canada have already signed the kind of deal Canada just refused. Ottawa is diversifying by striking trade deals elsewhere. And Carney's polling on standing up to Trump is very high.
03 03- The Energy Card Canada Has Not Played
📺 YouTube (clip)
The anchor asks whether the embargo talk — electricity, rare earths, potash — is serious. Canada is by far the largest supplier of energy, LNG and crude to the US, and most of the electricity. Carney pointedly did NOT mention energy. That card is still in the arsenal.
02 Ackerman Canada Trade War
01 01- Alberta Premier On Holding A Referendum Mid Trade War - Global News
📺 YouTube (clip)
The opposition says postpone or cancel the referendum because it shows a weak link in national unity that the Trump administration could exploit during a trade war. Her answer is that it is a separate process — citizen initiative law, not her choosing.
02 01- Section 338 A 1930s Law Used Once In 1935 - Global News
📺 YouTube (clip)
The International Trade Court and the Supreme Court both ruled Trump's emergency tariffs were too broad. Racing to replace lost revenue, the administration reached for Section 338 — a mechanism that bypasses the US Trade Office and rests with the president alone, written in the 1930s and used exactly once, in 1935.
03 01- Doug Ford Everything Is On The Table But I Cannot Do It Alone
📺 YouTube (clip)
Asked whether he would still cut Ontario's electricity exports to the US, Ford says yes — everything is on the table. Then the qualifier that is the actual story: he cannot do it alone. Other provinces ship power south too, so it needs a Team Canada approach, and he would happily lead it.
04 02- Cornered Or Working With Your Closest Friends And Allies
📺 YouTube (clip)
The second half turns philosophical: what the trade war is actually doing to two neighbours. Ford's framing is the choice on offer — you can corner a country, or you can support and work with your closest friends and allies. - IN 99.70 / OUT 179.26
03 Lake America
01 01- He Cannot Rename It But He Can Order Agencies To
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNN: the Lake America rename is the jab — the real story underneath it is the escalation to 50% tariffs.
02 01- Back To Weaponizing Bodies Of Water
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNN: he posted the renaming on Truth Social with a map, and a Canadian voice calls it a little man's ego.
03 01- The Hardest Country To Deal With Is Canada
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX reads the post out — "we don't expect to be doing business with Ontario any longer" — and calls Canada the hardest country to deal with.
02 ⛽ OPERATION ECONOMIC OUTCAST
Operation Economic Outcast — the administration's name for choking Iran off by going after anyone who trades with Tehran. Bessent reached for D-Day to sell it and named no country at all. The rial hits two million. And the war runs the other way too: ABC says Iranian-backed hackers took a UK power plant down for four days.
Clips — 12
00 Steve ABC Iranian Cyberattack
01 Iranian Backed Hackers Shut A UK Power Plant For Four Days
📺 YouTube (clip)
ABC, Lama Hasan: a British power plant shut down for four days by Iranian-backed hackers — the economic war running the other direction.
01 The Launch And Economic D-Day
01 01- Today We Are Launching Operation Economic Outcast
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX carries Bessent's announcement live from Treasury — the formal declaration that anyone trading with Tehran is now a target.
02 01- In The Second World War D-Day Marked The Beginning
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: Bessent reaches for D-Day to sell the plan to choke Iran off by targeting anyone who trades with Tehran.
03 02- Zero Leakage And He Would Not Name Names
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS, Nick Schifrin's check: it is not clear what this actually does, Iran has had years of maximum pressure — and Bessent would not name a single country.
04 03- Why Would I Want To Blow Up The Global Financial System
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: pressed on whether secondary sanctions risk the plumbing of world finance, Bessent's answer is a rhetorical question rather than a mechanism.
05 01- Economic D-Day And The Rial Hits Two Million
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX: Bessent wrote it in the Financial Times — "now we are entering the endgame, at dawn begins" — as the rial hits two million.
06 01- You Know Who You Are And You Can Expect A Call
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNBC from the Gulf: the opening salvo hits everything from oil sales to digital-asset networks. "You know who you are, and you can expect a call."
02 Bessent Iran Sanctions
01 01- No One Is Above The Reach Of US Sanctions
📺 YouTube (clip)
A reporter puts it to the Treasury Secretary that Chinese banks keep being named as secondary-sanctions targets and never actually get targeted — is that coming, or does the China trade truce prevent it? Bessent answers that no one is above the reach of US sanctions, and anyone in the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money and…
02 02- We Do Not Have Infinite Patience
📺 YouTube (clip)
Bessent sets a clock on negotiations without naming a date, the same move he made on naming countries.
03 03- Economic Asphyxiation Of This Regime
📺 YouTube (clip)
Yahoo Finance asks what specific penalties Treasury will levy on Chinese banks and shipping firms, and pairs it with a question on auction sizes for long-dated Treasury debt. Bessent takes the Treasury half first, then returns to sanctions and calls it economic asphyxiation of the regime.
03 Ackerman Iran And Russia
01 01- CIA Director Made An Unannounced Overnight Trip To Moscow - 6abc
📺 YouTube (clip)
A secret meeting in Moscow between Russian officials and the director of the CIA. John Ratcliffe made the trip unannounced, overnight — his first known trip to Russia as head of the agency — and the CIA declined to comment. Neither country has said what was discussed.
02 01- Qatar's Foreign Minister In Tehran On The Strait Of Hormuz - Al Jazeera
📺 YouTube (clip)
Qatar's foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has arrived in Iran and met his counterpart Abbas Araghchi. Qatar's foreign ministry says the talks address freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
03 🎟️ KENNEDY CENTER AND LIVE NATION
Five parts from PBS on one story: Trump urged DOJ to settle Live Nation days before trial, Garland had wanted to break the company up, the state AGs refused to sign, a jury went against them anyway — and the Kennedy Center bookings sit underneath it.
Clips — 7
00 Steve PBS Live Nation Five-Part
01 Trump Urged DOJ To Settle Live Nation Days Before Trial
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: per a Wall Street Journal investigation, DOJ spent more than a decade building the case — and Trump urged them to settle days before trial.
02 Ballhaus Garland Wanted To Break Up Live Nation And Ticketmaster
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: the WSJ's Rebecca Ballhaus — brought under Biden, with Garland saying it was time to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
03 A Stunning 180 And The Kennedy Center Bookings Play
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: "a stunning 180-degree shift" — and the tactic, Live Nation asked to help with Kennedy Center bookings.
04 DOJ Would Not Acknowledge The Presidents Call
📺 Justice Department press availability (official)
PBS: asked directly whether the president phoned about the case, the Justice Department declines to confirm or deny it.
05 State AGs Refused To Sign And A Jury Went Against Them
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: the states walked away from the federal settlement, tried the case themselves, and won — the outcome DOJ gave up.
01 Kennedy Center And The Bunker
01 01- DOJ Threatens To Demolish The Kennedy Center
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: the leverage is the building itself — the renovation becomes a threat point against the institution.
02 01- Panetta Confirms The Bunker Was Certainly There
📺 YouTube (clip)
MS NOW: the ballroom is justified on national security grounds because it provides a secure bunker — and Leon Panetta confirms the bunker was certainly there.
04 🥩 BEEF AND THE CATTLE CYCLE
Trump truthed a beef deal and nobody can find who it is with. The market dropped anyway. Our anonymous rancher — boots on the ground, not yet thirty — has the whole thing: he did not actually do anything, but he did truth it. Smallest herd since the 1950s.
📰 Articles & links (read/context — above the clips)
Clips — 5
00 Anonymous Rancher BOTG
01 Trump Truthed It And The Market Dropped
📺 YouTube (clip)
A young regenerative rancher identifies himself and says he took Trump's beef-import announcement "in a No Agenda vein." Trump never bought any beef — he only posted about it. That alone dropped the market, on top of a cattle cycle that is already a year overdue to crash.
02 Commodity Cowboys And The Three Things You Cant Change
📺 YouTube (clip)
cattle people are commodity cowboys who sit and watch the market report and complain about the markets, the weather and the government — the three things you cannot change — the regenerative side focuses on what it CAN change and makes a profit doing it — *"the only limit to your success is the creativity of your mind."* Self-contained.
03 Not Even Thirty And The Labour Comes From South Africa
📺 YouTube (clip)
he is not yet 30 and sees nothing but opportunity, with a generation ahead of him about to retire — he does not expect to own land, he expects to lease it, because few young men are coming back — the hard part is labour, and it comes from South Africa on H-2A visas.
01 The Ground Beef Deal
01 01- Trump Truthed A Beef Deal And Nobody Knows Who With
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNBC: Trump announces a deal to substantially lower ground beef prices with 300,000 metric tons imported — and nobody can identify the counterparty.
02 02- Smallest Cattle Herd Since The 1950s
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNBC: the post claims imports will let the domestic herd grow, against the smallest US cattle herd since the 1950s.
05 💰 MONEY AND INFLUENCE
A two hundred and two million dollar bet that gold's run is over, with the top 22 contracts all calls, which is very rare. Then Ackerman on where the money actually comes from: half of Gen Z takes financial advice from TikTok.
Clips — 5
00 The Gold Options Trade
01 01- A 202 Million Dollar Bet That Golds Run Is Over
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNBC: gold is up 15% on the month, its best since 2008 — and then one trader puts $202 million on the run being over.
02 02- Top 22 Contracts All Calls Which Is Very Rare
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNBC: asked whether anyone is positioned for new highs, the desk finds the options book one-sided in a way it calls very rare.
01 Ackerman Money And Influence
01 01- Half Of Gen Z Takes Financial Advice From TikTok - 6abc
📺 YouTube (clip)
Consumers are turning to AI and social media for money advice, and the scrolling itself sparks spending. A NerdWallet survey finds nearly half of Gen Z and a third of millennials use TikTok and Instagram for financial guidance, and more than eight in ten buy something at least once a year on an influencer recommendation, with nearly half…
02 01- Mamdani's Millionaire Tax Meets A Bumpy Rollout - Eyewitness News ABC7NY
📺 YouTube (clip)
More than 1,200 homeowners flagged for New York City's pied-à-terre tax will no longer pay the surcharge, as the city fends off a lawsuit challenging the tax on luxury second homes. And roughly 10,000 new notices are going out asking homeowners to prove their residency to avoid it
03 01- Robert Reich On Why The Socialists Are Winning - Democracy Now!
📺 YouTube (clip)
Why are progressive Democrats who call themselves socialists winning? Because they focus on affordability and how people actually get by at the kitchen table. Then the structural half: through the eighties, nineties and the first decades of this century the Democratic Party was more dependent on corporate money than ever before
06 🎭 CULTURE WARS
Eurovision calls it the biggest crisis it has ever faced, Spain and Ireland will not broadcast it, and they still keep Moroccan oil as their biggest sponsor. Plus the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, and Dolly.
📰 Articles & links (read/context — above the clips)
Clips — 9
00 Eurovision Boycott
01 01- The Biggest Crisis Eurovision Has Ever Faced
📺 YouTube (clip)
DW: the contest founded to make peace in Europe is now the thing Europe is fighting over.
02 02- Spain And Ireland Will Not Broadcast It
📺 YouTube (clip)
DW: Spain will not broadcast, nor will Ireland, while the EBU votes only to add juries and change the vote count.
03 03- They Still Keep Moroccan Oil As Biggest Sponsor
📺 YouTube (clip)
DW: the Netherlands is the sixth biggest contributor and Spain is big five — but the biggest sponsor stays put.
04 04- Proud Of The Statement But We Won Five Times
📺 YouTube (clip)
DW: Dutch opinion is split between the principle and the loss — a five-time winner walking away from its own stage.
01 Freedom 250 Grand Prix
01 01- Trump Takes A Ceremonial Lap In The Beast
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNN: Trump takes a ceremonial lap in the presidential limousine and drops the green flag at the Freedom 250.
02 01- Mario Andretti I Truly Envy The Drivers Today
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX: Andretti on the first IndyCar race in Washington, calling it a privilege and admitting he wishes he were still driving.
03 01- Kirkwood I Get Out And See President Trump Cheering
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX at the Freedom 250: the driver describes climbing out of the car after the race to find the president in the crowd applauding.
02 Dolly Parton
01 01- A Look Back At The Life Of Dolly Parton
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNN's full obituary package — the career, the philanthropy, and the reach across an audience that agrees on nothing else.
02 01- Tributes From Across The Political Spectrum
📺 YouTube (clip)
CNN: politicians agree on nothing, and yet — Trump lowered the White House flags to half-staff.
07 🤖 AI AND BIG TECH
The docket week. Meta settled with 52 attorneys general and the number FELL. The YouTube analysis is the 1994 tobacco hearing with the names changed. Both documents are in this folder. And the robot games are what the labour end of it looks like.
📰 Articles & links (read/context — above the clips)
Clips — 4
00 Steve CBS The Robot Games
01 Humanoid Robot Games And What It Means For Work And War
📺 YouTube (clip)
CBS, Anna Coren in Beijing — the serious version: machines that outrun and outjump Olympians, and what that means for work and for war.
01 Data Centers And The Midterms
01 01- Seven In Ten Americans Do Not Want One Near Them
📺 YouTube (clip)
Trump hosts tech leaders at the White House on crypto and AI — while seven in ten Americans say they do not want a data centre near them.
02 Ackerman Big Tech On Trial
01 01- An OpenAI Model Escaped Containment And Hacked Hugging Face - Global News
📺 YouTube (clip)
Sam Altman is in an ad promising a Renaissance-level entrepreneurial boom. His own chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, tells the Guardian something else: people will access open-source models and have ongoing, persistent attacks on you, and you will need superior models to fend them off.
02 01- It Took Meta One Week In Court To Capitulate - Global News
📺 YouTube (clip)
After twenty years of largely escaping regulation, it took Meta one week in a California courtroom to capitulate. Up to $17.1 billion to dozens of states over claims it designed apps addictive to children, violated their privacy and misled the public. For grieving parents it is a form of vindication.
08 🚗 CALIFORNIA RULES
California is now regulating which tires you are allowed to buy. Newsom says it saves a billion a year in fuel. Commissioner Skinner concedes 70% of what is sold today will not be legal in 2033. And a state senator calls the board the modern day Marie Antoinette.
Clips — 3
00 The Tire Rules
01 01- Newsom Backs The Tire Rules Save A Billion In Fuel
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX40: Newsom speaks for the first time on the new tire rules — "save a billion dollars a year in fuel… that makes some sense to me."
02 02- Seventy Percent Of Tires Not Legal By 2033
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX40: Commissioner Nancy Skinner concedes about 70% of tires sold in California today will not be legal to sell in 2033.
03 03- The Modern Day Marie Antoinette Let Em Eat Cake
📺 YouTube (clip)
FOX40: State Senator Tony Strickland on families living paycheck to paycheck — "these board directors are the modern day Marie Antoinette, let 'em eat cake."
09 🏫 EDUCATION
The education event.
Clips — 2
00 Trump Education Event
01 01- Forced Upon Our Children As Young As Four And Five
📺 YouTube (clip)
RSBN: Trump says the education system was weaponized like everything else, and names what was forced on children as young as four and five.
02 02- Children Belong To Their Parents Not The Government
📺 YouTube (clip)
RSBN: 25 states use EdFlex authority to cut districts loose from federal red tape — "children belong to their parents, not the government."
10 🛂 IMMIGRATION AND LABOUR
The H-1B fee, and Ackerman on immigration. Threads straight into the rancher — his labour comes from South Africa on H-2A.
Clips — 2
00 The H-1B Visa Fee
01 01- A 103000 Dollar Fee To Hire A Foreign Worker
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: DHS moves to codify an H-1B fee of over $103,000, with some of the revenue funding immigration enforcement.
01 Ackerman Immigration
01 01- The Largest Mass Visa Revocation In US History - New York Post
📺 YouTube (clip)
The government is preparing to revoke business and tourism visas from up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are seeking asylum. If it happens it is the largest mass revocation in US history and will likely be challenged.
11 💉 HEALTH AND FOOD
Worst measles year since 1991, and Shapiro on misinformation. Plus the MAHA food rules.
Clips — 2
00 Steve PBS Measles
01 Worst Measles Year Since 1991 And Shapiro On Misinformation
📺 YouTube (clip)
PBS: the case count is the worst in 35 years, and Governor Shapiro puts the blame on what parents are being told.
01 Ackerman MAHA Food Rules
01 01- The First Federal Definition Of Ultra Processed Food - New York Post
📺 YouTube (clip)
Two years to the day from the promise to make America healthy again, and the claim is the most transformative 18 months of food reform in modern American history. Two steps announced: overhauling the GRAS — generally recognised as safe
12 🕵️ SPOOKS
Flight trackers spotted the plane Ratcliffe was on. And the Afghanistan files.
Clips — 2
00 Steve CBS CIA In Moscow
01 Flight Trackers Spotted The Plane Ratcliffe Was On
📺 YouTube (clip)
CBS, Charlie D'Agata — CBS was first to report Ratcliffe was aboard, after flight trackers spotted a US military plane into Moscow.
01 Ackerman Afghanistan Files
01 01- Documents Stashed And Hidden Away In Safes - New York Post
📺 YouTube (clip)
The Afghanistan review is turning up more the deeper it goes. Highly relevant classified documents that should have been disclosed were stashed and hidden away in safes where they would not be found — and once the team read them, it became clear why someone tried to hide them.
13 🔌 THE GRID
Day 13 without power in Gary, Indiana — and the White House declared a national emergency on the bulk power system the same day. Europe's energy story sits alongside it.
📰 Articles & links (read/context — above the clips)
Clips — 2
00 Steve NBC Gary Indiana
01 Day 13 Without Power In Gary Indiana
📺 YouTube (clip)
NBC, Shaquille Brewster on the ground: nearly two weeks after the storms, residents including a 73-year-old are still without power.
01 Ackerman Europe Energy
01 01- Forty One Billion Euros For No New Energy At All - euronews
📺 YouTube (clip)
European countries are among the hardest hit by the extra fossil fuel costs from Middle East disruption. Italy €12.7bn, the Netherlands €11.5bn, France €10.8bn, Spain €8.8bn between March and August — nearly €41bn absorbed by four economies without importing any new energy.
14 🧊 NEPAL GLACIER
The glacier.
Clips — 1
00 Ackerman Nepal Glacier
01 01- No Earthquake An Ice Avalanche Moving Like Liquid Concrete
📺 YouTube (clip)
Nepalese authorities first believed an earthquake caused the flash flood on the Nepal-Tibet border. The USGS says no earthquake occurred — a chunk of ice broke off a mountain glacier, an ice avalanche, measured as a 5.2 magnitude glacier collapse.