PART 2: Everything that happened in 2025

Cheers to the moments you forgot … and the ones we’ll remember forever

“CIRCUMCISION CAUSES AUTISM?” DEAN CAIN JOINS ICE? BORDER CHIEF ACCEPTS $50K BRIBE IN A CAVA BAG?

I know you got to the end of the list of events from the first six months of the year and thought … how is this only a list of events from the first six months of the year???

Just because something is still visible in the rearview mirror doesn’t guarantee entry to your memory vault. I’m here to make sure July through (I guess) today does. Anything that happens after Christmas Day is simply none of my business.

And for that reason, you’ll only be getting a Tuesday newsletter the week of New Years. I’m doing some much needed logging off to rebalance my chakras / photosynthesize / exorcise demons or whatever the woo woos are up to these days. I hope you will, too — 2026 needs us to arrive sharper than ever.

---

JULY

1. alligator alcatraz

2. big beautiful bill passes senate

3. the house is being fucking insane, BBB passes anyway

4. paramount settles with trump for $16M

5. horrific flooding in texas, sleep away camp gone

6. people claiming its weather manipulation tech

7. trump calls japanese pm “mr. japan”

8. can now keep shoes on at tsa

9. kamala unaired subway take “bacon is a spice”

10. ppl mad that new superman is woke

11. grok AI goes full nazi and has to be shutdown

12. trump asks liberian president why his english is good¹

13. epstein shit is breaking maga

14. trump threatens rosie o donnell

15. trump threatens wsj over epstein bday letter

16. south park nails trump in “sermon on the mount” ep

17. macrons are suing candace owens

18. jerome powell trump hard hat interaction

    Listen … when I think back to this moment, it really feels like it was one of the first times we saw someone directly challenge POTUS in front of cameras (Zelenskyy disaster aside). The fake receipt, hard hats, and magenta tie make this an instant classic.

19. 88 y/o elenor norton holmes keeps saying she’ll run again

20. ppl saying sydney sweeney jeans ad is eugenics²

    

    Headline from the 19th News, image via American Eagle

21. oklahoma schools superintendent nude tv scandal³

22. gop tx state rep paid stripper to get an abortion

23. nyc shooting targeting nfl

24. presidential fitness test reinstated

25. “i thought you said appointed a man named burn bag”

AUGUST

26. trump fired labor statistics commissioner

27. one fed governor resigns

28. texas dems flee to break quorum for redistricting vote

29. nancy mace running for gov of sc

30. epstein apt pix drop, trump takes a walk on the roof of wh

    

    Image via Washington Post

    “Sir, why are you on the roof?” If Donald Trump is one thing, it is a showman — at his very core. But I wouldn’t say he’s a successful illusionist. Case in point, the day an image of Trump and Melania surfaced in an Epstein estate drop. Within one hour, he was just “taking a little walk” on the fucking roof of the White House à la Michael Scott in “The Office.” Nothing to see here!

31. conservative women brutalizing each other online⁴

32. dean cain joins ice

33. 5 soldiers shot at fort stewart

34. armenia-azerbaijan deal signed

35. guy throws subway footlong at federal agent in dc

36. newsom starts imitating trump tweets

37. bizarre trump putin summit … ???

38. msnbc atrocious rebrand

39. rfk hegseth workout challenge video

40. trump rly wants to get into heaven

41. cracker barrel has fallen again

    

    On June 8, 2023, a post I’ll never forget went viral: “We take no pleasure in reporting that @CrackerBarrel has fallen.” Deceased at the hands of a Pride Month page added to the chain’s website. But Cracker Barrel made a comeback. Until August 2025 when the company dropped a rebrand, with both the cracker and the barrel nowhere to be found. This was one of the most intense rage episodes I’ve witnessed in my seven-year media career. Despite a nationwide campaign to fire her for being a woman and wearing glasses, the CB CEO has managed to stay in place, thanks to a vote by shareholders to keep her.

42. fbi raids john boltons house

43. 1000s play zohran nyc scavenger hunt

44. trump flag burning exec order

45. fail to indict sandwich thrower

46. tons of international mail companies halted

47. school shooting in minneapolis

48. everyone thinks trump is dead

49. is he golfing? or is that pic old?

50. rudy giuliani bad car crash

SEPTEMBER

51. blueanon peaking with trump theories⁵

52. cory booker engaged

53. we struck a venezuelan boat?? idk

    

    (Donald Trump/Truth Social via Reuters)

    An entry like this is part of the reason I love doing these lists, because clearly I was perplexed by this news in real time, but didn’t know what to make of it yet. And here we are closing the year with the Secretary of Defense CEO of War, Pete Hegseth, defying congressional requests to release video of the Sept. 2 strike. I guess “idk” has remained a constant in this story, because that was more or less my reaction to seeing the news cycle that flowed downstream from this entry to the Franklin meme war on Nov. 30.

54. jeffrey epstein birthday book released

55. charlie kirk assassinated

    I launched this Substack on Sept. 9, with a piece about a growing cohort of MAGA that thinks anyone who wears glasses is automatically liberal. That was the kind of internet oddity I thought could serve as Who Broke It’s bread and butter. Sept. 10, I find myself running full-speed (unfortunately, not very fast) from the bathroom to my desk because Charlie Kirk had been shot. The deep, disturbing pit in my stomach told me two things: one, you’re publishing an unplanned newsletter today and two, this project suddenly feels like a much more necessary service than I had expected or intended. We’ve all thrown around the phrase “the day everything changed” too liberally in the past. But the day the TPUSA founder was assassinated fundamentally altered the behavior and trajectory of conservative politics in this country. And we’re not going to understand the full scope or severity for quite some time. The whole reason I’m here is to work through it with you.

56. colorado school shooting

57. everyone is going insane

58. maga ppl want scalps, people fired

59. trump crypto UAE corruption scandal flies under radar

60. jimmy kimmel pulled off air

61. bc fcc chair threatens disney on benny johnson

62. right invents consequence culture

    

    If it’s not cancel culture … what is it?

    Hard to choose but probably my favorite edit of the year. The fact that Dave Portnoy heralded this in — met by the swift backlash from his own employees — made this era feel even more upside down than before the Kimmelcoaster.

63. tom homan bribery sting operation

64. aggressive fireworks at kirk funeral

65. ppl think the rapture is happening

66. “tylenol causes autism”

67. trump fighting UN, teleprompter, and escalator

68. kimmel returns, cries, whatever

69. theo von pissed he was used in dhs video

70. ice facility shooting

71. tiktok deal signed

72. comey indictment

73. shootings in north carolina + michigan

74. sleepiest trump speech following too energetic hegseth

75. government shutdown

OCTOBER

76. comedians get dragged for saudi comedy festival

77. vought freezes funding to new york

78. insane meme war erupts

    

    What a time to be alive

79. trump considering pardon for ghislaine maxwell

80. portland national guard situation

81. tx national guard going to other states??

82. katie porter nightmare interview

83. argentina president concert

    Fresh off what basically amounted to a $40B donation to the struggling South American nation, their wackadoodle president decided to throw himself a modest little music festival to perform nine songs including the Hava Nagila.

84. mtg is kind of shading her party

85. trump loses nobel prize

86. bad bunny super bowl announcement crashout

87. letitia james indicted

88. “circumcision causes autism”

89. israeli hostages released after ceasefire

90. nude bike protest in portland (gonna forgo linking this one lol)

91. leaked young GOP group chat is v nazi

92. pelosi tells a reporter to shut up

93. curtis sliwa is having a moment

94. venezuela what is going on pls

95. george santos sentence commuted

96. renee rapp leads “fuck ice fuck trump” chants

97. bigger no kings protests

98. DHS gets dunked on by nba twitter

99. demolition of the east wing

100. bannon says trump gonna run again

NOVEMBER

101. nancy mace fighting with an airport⁶

102. trump and elon endorse cuomo

103. dick cheney dead

104. ups plane crash in louisville

105. dems sweep every single major election

106. crash out over zohran

107. john mulaney attends scotus

108. reducing flights at 40 airports

109. pelosi retiring

110. 8 senate dems cave on shutdown

111. everyone hates 50-year mortgage idea

112. govt shutdown ends

113. RIP pennies

114. marjorie makes her anti-hero move

115. trump bubba … situation

116. is maga dead?

     

     When I eventually do a five-year version of this — so help me God — I’ll mark this time as the start of a transition period, when MAGA started to lose its legs a little.

117. olivia nuzzi book is nuts

118. trump flips, epstein release passes congress

119. house on fire literal and figurative

120. “quiet piggy”

121. trump is obsessed with zohran

     I usually say “I’m shocked but not surprised” in reference to something terrible that happens. Trump’s utter enchantment when it came to Zohran was not surprising per se, considering we know his affinity for people who are a) winners and b) attractive. And yet, it was still shocking to see him with hearts in his eyes, offering love pats, posting solo pix in a way he has never publicly offered his own vice president, let alone his children.

122. MTG RESIGNING

123. twitter account locations exposed

124. charges dropped for comey and tish james

125. national guard shooting in dc

DECEMBER

126. sabrina carpenter vs trump admin

127. we took over an entire fucking oil ship

128. nicki minaj loves jd vance, hates newsom

129. brown shooting

130. everyone hates trump post about reiners

131. admin vanity fair article pix are … woof

132. white house plaques go up, biden one brutal

133. bongino leaves fbi to resume podcasting

134. trump holiday speech not quite holiday spirit

135. rescheduling weed

136. DNC kills 2024 election autopsy report

137. elise stefanik ends rough year of humiliation

138. EPSTEIN FILES TICKETMASTER QUEUE

     

     Why are we doing Eras Tour / Renaissance Tour / Oasis Reunion loading pages for the Epstein files?

139. so much bill clinton

140. strikes on syria

141. ok so they deleted the pic of trump …

142. ok so they unredacted the grand jury deposition …

143. ok so they’re talking about impeaching pam bondi

144. nicki minaj calls jd vance an assassin at amfest whoops

     Nicki: “Don’t be no scum. Young men, you have amazing role models like our handsome dashing president and you have amazing role models like the Assassin JD Vance, our vice president.” [long pause]

     Erika: “There nothing new under the sun that I have not heard. So, you’re fine …”

     Nicki: “I love this woman. She’s an amazing woman. She has a soul and a heart for the Lord. And words are words, but I know her heart and it doesn’t even matter.”

145. 60 minutes pulls cecot story sketch af

146. accidentally still airs in canada

147. clinton legal team demands release of any clinton-related epstein files

148. woof trump is in the new drop, yuck

149. doj + sdny say they’ve found one million more epstein files

150. trump resumes xmas tradition of kooky santa calls

     Nothing will EVER beat 2018’s “Are you still a believer in Santa? Cause at seven it’s marginal, right?”

And a very Merry Marty Christmas to you all!

1. in case you, like trump, didn’t know — english is the official language of Liberia, so “fork very much found in kitchen” on this one

2. fox news has written 30 articles about Sweeney since the ad dropped and they were still writing articles about it as recently as Dec. 7.

3. one of those entries that I stared at for awhile trying to conjure the memory to the surface. something I did remember though: ryan walters quit this job shortly thereafter to join the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a new anti-teacher-union org, as CEO

4. the link I attached for the iconic battle of the internet conservative girlies is a breakdown video from The Bulwark that truly made me lol — hugely nsfw so proceed with caution lol

5. blueanon is exactly what it sounds like btw, a label conservatives have ascribed to the most conspiratorial minded folks on the left

6. nancy mace is actually still fighting with an airport, in case you were wondering