The Lou Perez Podcast

Former public defender and former NYC candidate Maud Maron joins Lou to talk about Nikole Hannah-Jones's confession about her daughter's education, what happened to the "tough New Yorker," drug dealers on her stoop, and why she's done with the Democratic Party. Maud is a New Yorker, a woman, an independent, and currently "independently unemployed." She ran against Alvin Bragg for Manhattan DA on the Republican line. We get into Mamdani and Rikers, the DSA takeover, why registering as a Democrat is a trap, the teachers union nobody mentions, Lou's Queens public schools and the SHSAT, Soho encampments with furniture, and why the sidewalks are yours for the taking. Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 🍺 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 👕 Rock XX-XY Athletics. Get 20% off with promo code LOU20: https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?sca_ref=7113152.ifIMaKpCG3ZfUHH4 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez 🎬 Watch my sketch comedy streaming on Red Coral Universe: https://redcoraluniverse.com/title/the-lou-perez-comedy-68501a2fd369683d0f2a2a88?loopData=true&ccId=675bc891f78f658f73eaa46d 0:00 – Intro: Maud Maron, independently unemployed 0:36 – We met at FreedomFest in Memphis 1:42 – The face cream the government doesn't want you to have 3:51 – Keeping tabs on Brooklyn through Nextdoor 4:33 – What happened to the tough New Yorker? 5:43 – Drug dealers on the stoop and two cops in the living room 8:38 – "He looked like Boston Rob from Survivor" 9:37 – Push-in robberies: safety is the baseline 13:03 – What's changed since Maud's public defender days 13:32 – Her grandfather and the old Democratic machine 14:39 – Mamdani, Rikers, and the Trinitario gang member 16:55 – Jumaane Williams vs. Target over ICE 18:28 – Democrats who defend gang members 20:44 – Maud's question: is there a path for NYC Republicans? 21:33 – The registration trap 23:31 – Pataki, Giuliani, Bloomberg, and Larry Sharpe 26:29 – The DSA took over the party 28:13 – Politics is a street fight 28:25 – Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter 33:11 – The teachers union nobody mentions 33:45 – $50,000 a year per student 37:18 – Lou's Queens public schools and the SHSAT 40:26 – When Asian kids don't count as people of color 41:06 – Argentina and Tucumán pride 42:41 – Running against Alvin Bragg, and what's next 43:17 – Saritha Komatireddy vs. Tish James 44:57 – Trump cleaned up Union Station 45:33 – Soho encampments with furniture 46:32 – The sidewalks are yours for the taking

Bretigne Shaffer writes children's horror, superhero graphic novels, and dark comedy about COVID — and she self-publishes all of it, because no traditional publisher (or Netflix) will touch a story that's critical of the pandemic response. We talk about her Halloween story Elixir of Fear — a 19th-century patent-medicine salesman who's also a wizard, a "budgie flu," and a whole town swept up in a fear campaign — why great art about COVID hasn't arrived yet, the people now pretending lockdowns "weren't a big deal," and why she moved her family from California to Kentucky. Plus: the lost world of literary journals, short stories as Hollywood IP, B-movie horror vs. gore, The Exorcist, her upcoming short story collection Alligator and her novel Davy Sunshine and the Big Pandemic, the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry — and the burning question of whether female unicorns have horns. 🔗 Bretigne Shaffer Website & Substack: https://www.bretigne.com Books: Annabel Pickering & the Sky Pirates · Urban Yogini: A Superhero Who Can't Use Violence Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 🍺 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 👕 Rock XX-XY Athletics. Get 20% off with promo code LOU20: https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?sca_ref=7113152.ifIMaKpCG3ZfUHH4 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez 🎬 Watch my sketch comedy streaming on Red Coral Universe: https://redcoraluniverse.com/title/the-lou-perez-comedy-68501a2fd369683d0f2a2a88?loopData=true&ccId=675bc891f78f658f73eaa46d 0:00 – Intro: Bretigne Shaffer braves a cold 0:58 – The stomach bug that took down Lou's whole family 2:16 – Elixir of Fear: a COVID fable in children's horror 3:35 – The "budgie flu" and how fear campaigns work 4:50 – John Bellairs and scary-but-not-too-scary stories 6:04 – Why write fan fiction you can't sell? 8:12 – Procrastination and the pain of writing 10:07 – Where's the great art about COVID? 12:26 – "It wasn't a big deal": the lockdown memory hole 15:07 – When COVID skeptics couldn't say a word 17:00 – Alligator: her first short story collection 17:10 – Mailing stories to literary journals 19:31 – Tin House, Fiction, and Mark Jay Mirsky 20:37 – Short stories as Hollywood IP 22:07 – Libertarian film studios and fleeing California for Kentucky 22:54 – Halloween, B-movie monsters, and Alligator (1980) 25:09 – Real horror vs. gore: The Exorcist 26:47 – Why she self-publishes 30:07 – Annabel Pickering and Urban Yogini 31:28 – Davy Sunshine and the Big Pandemic 32:53 – Writing for kids vs. adults 34:26 – The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry 36:20 – Do female unicorns have horns? 37:14 – Molière's The Imaginary Invalid 38:46 – Where to find Bretigne #BretigneShaffer #COVID #SelfPublishing #Horror #FreeSpeech #Libertarian #LouPerezPodcast

David Zhang built a 1.4 million subscriber YouTube channel exposing the Chinese Communist Party — from his base in the US, where he can actually say what he thinks. Born in China, raised in Canada, now in New York, David breaks down how Beijing operates: surveillance, threats to family members back home, and a propaganda machine that's gotten scarily good at targeting Western audiences. We get into TikTok as a weapon, China's economy cratering under Xi Jinping, the comedian who got an entire stand-up competition banned for one joke about the PLA, and the doctrine of "unrestricted warfare" — Beijing's playbook for taking down the US without a single bullet. Plus: the four olds Mao tried to destroy, Chinese tourists at the Louvre, and the Asian gene that means David didn't need deodorant until he was 27. 🔗 David Zhang YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChinaInsiderWithDavidZhang/videos Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 🍺 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 👕 Rock XX-XY Athletics. Get 20% off with promo code LOU20: https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?sca_ref=7113152.ifIMaKpCG3ZfUHH4 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez 🎬 Watch my sketch comedy streaming on Red Coral Universe: https://redcoraluniverse.com/title/the-lou-perez-comedy-68501a2fd369683d0f2a2a88?loopData=true&ccId=675bc891f78f658f73eaa46d 0:00 – Intro: David Zhang & China Insider 1:52 – Born in China, moved to Canada at 11, then the US 4:33 – Free speech in China: three different threat levels 7:25 – How the CCP threatens creators outside China 9:31 – Stand-up comedy in China — and the joke that got it banned 13:37 – Is being gay legal in China? 15:10 – 1.4M subscribers and the bot armies in his comments 17:04 – Why David's family left China 18:35 – China's billionaires and the capitalism secret 23:21 – Shanghai's LED light shows vs. actual economic collapse 26:54 – FreedomFest Vegas and dying American small towns 30:03 – Outsourcing, COVID, and what we can't let China control 33:30 – Taiwan, TSMC, and the chip supply nightmare 34:36 – "America Against America": Wang Huning's playbook 38:37 – TikTok data harvesting and information warfare 43:06 – Has David ever been back to China? 44:11 – Chinese tourists, the Louvre, and materialism without morality 46:30 – Mao's "Four Olds" and destroying Chinese culture 50:28 – The Asian gene: David didn't need deodorant until 27 51:59 – Wrap-up #DavidZhang #ChinaInsider #CCP #TikTok #China #FreeSpeech #LouPerezPodcast

Aidan Grogan is a researcher at the Manhattan Institute. He went undercover at Socialism 2026 — the annual conference sponsored by Haymarket Books, held in Chicago over Labor Day weekend — and sat in on panels that weren't being livestreamed to see what they were saying behind closed doors. In some cases, they were saying considerably more radical things than what made it onto the stream. We talked about: how he got in (registered as Aidan G. with a burner email, wore Marxist pins, didn't iron his shirt, gave up on the disguise by day four); masks required at all times, COVID still surging, it felt like 2020 all over again; the family abolition session — two Yale-affiliated researchers sitting in a circle with Crayola markers on the table, advocating to dismantle the family as an oppressive capitalist institution; Sophie Lewis, Oxford graduate, family abolitionist, currently married; the audience describing the "most culturally celebrated family" as white people, private property, and heteronormativity; the fat genocide panel and the presenter who was herself relatively fit; Sophie Lewis denying any biological basis to sex; the mismatch between revolutionary rhetoric and people with too much anxiety to fire a gun; the old macho Marxists vs. today's conference-goers; Bill Ayers and the career path of a left-wing terrorist (hint: it ends in a tenured professorship); Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community and why radical politics is a substitute religion for the socially alienated; and the DSA platform calling for abolishing the Senate, the Electoral College, and the checks and balances of the American constitutional order. Read Aidan's coverage → City Journal: cityjournal.org Follow Aidan → Manhattan Institute: manhattan-institute.org Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 🍺 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 👕 Rock XX-XY Athletics. Get 20% off with promo code LOU20: https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?sca_ref=7113152.ifIMaKpCG3ZfUHH4 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez 🎬 Watch my sketch comedy streaming on Red Coral Universe: https://redcoraluniverse.com/title/the-lou-perez-comedy-68501a2fd369683d0f2a2a88?loopData=true&ccId=675bc891f78f658f73eaa46d TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — Aidan Grogan, Manhattan Institute and City Journal 0:43 — What is Socialism 2026? Haymarket Books, Labor Day, Chicago 1:27 — Going undercover — livestreams vs. behind closed doors 3:51 — The viral clip: pronouns, jazz hands, anxiety about clapping 4:11 — Armed revolution calls — "I have too much anxiety to use a gun" 5:35 — How he got in: Aidan G, burner email, Marxist pins, bad clothes 7:20 — Day one vs. day four — what happens when you dress normally 8:20 — Masks required the entire time — felt like 2020 all over again 10:00 — His cover story: "I'm new to socialist ideas and just exploring" 10:54 — The family abolition session — Crayola markers, Yale researchers 12:29 — What does abolishing the family actually mean? 14:17 — The audience answers: white people, private property, heteronormative 16:41 — Sophie Lewis: family abolitionist, Oxford graduate, currently married 17:49 — Do they ever actually live by the ideas they preach? 18:49 — "It takes a village" — and why they mean the government 21:09 — The data: two married biological parents produce the best outcomes for children 23:45 — Low birth rates — opportunity cost, not money cost 26:06 — At war with biology — the left's rejection of reality 27:24 — Queer theory, family abolition, and the roots of the movement 28:27 — Sophie Lewis denies any biological or natural basis to sex 31:38 — The fat genocide panel — presenter was relatively fit 33:29 — The old macho Marxists vs. today's conference-goers 34:15 — Luigi the musical, political violence, and LARPing revolutionaries 36:48 — Champagne socialism — why these people won't actually risk anything 38:48 — Robert Nisbet and radical politics as substitute religion 39:01 — People who want communes nobody would want to be on 43:05 — Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground, and the career path of a left-wing terrorist 45:18 — Should we be worried? Lone wolves vs. organized violence 46:52 — DSA platform: abolish the Senate, Electoral College, and checks and balances 47:50 — Mayor Mamdani and the low bar for praising elected officials 49:59 — American institutions are more robust than the radicals think

Andrew Hartz is a psychologist and the founder of the Open Therapy Institute — a national directory of vetted, non-activist therapists, plus a peer-reviewed journal, conference, and podcast. He wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed about political activism in mental health, got a grant to do something about it, and hasn't stopped since. We talked about: what an activist therapist actually looks like (APA's division on psychoanalysis lists 90 talks with zero mention of therapy, evidence, diagnosis, or treatment — but plenty on colonial domination, carcerality, and proximity to whiteness); how APA accredited a drag show called "Feel the F***ing Fantasy Redux" for continuing ed credits; a keynote speaker who co-translated Communism for Kids and wrote Abolish the Family; clinics diagnosing patients differently based on their race; patients being referred out for having the wrong politics; how mental health activism is backfiring on the people it claims to help (secondary gains and the evidence against rewarding symptoms); when this all started (earlier than you think — 2014, accelerating through 2019); why Lacanian nonsense writing infected academic psychology and what that sentence actually is; what CBT can and can't do; humor as a mature defense mechanism and why patients who laugh have better outcomes; why AI therapists worry Andrew more than most people realize; and Lou volunteering to coach soccer for a team of first graders despite having never played the sport. Find a vetted therapist → opentherapyinstitute.org Read the journal → Open Inquiry in Mental Health on Substack https://openinquirymentalhealth.substack.com/?utm_source=global-search 0:00 — Intro — Andrew Hartz and the Open Therapy Institute 3:23 — What is an activist therapist? The APA call for papers read aloud 6:24 — APA's division on psychoanalysis: 90 talks, 800 attendees, zero mention of therapy 8:29 — APA accredited a drag show for continuing ed credits 10:08 — Keynote speaker co-translated Communism for Kids, wrote Abolish the Family 11:53 — Lou's SJW Therapist sketch — and how close to reality it actually is 12:21 — Diagnosing people by their race — a white girl's anxiety vs. a black girl's anxiety 13:17 — The intake form that starts with pronouns — and what that signals 14:01 — Patient referred out for thinking she didn't get a fellowship due to affirmative action 14:41 — Who's paying for this? Insurance, premiums, and activist therapy 16:16 — "Evidence is Western" — activist therapists and why they reject research 17:25 — When did therapy start going this route? 2014, accelerating through 2019 19:47 — Lou's SJW Therapist video: January 2019 — right on time 20:12 — Mental illness as identity — secondary gains and how compassion backfires 21:33 — Test anxiety, extra time, and why rewarding symptoms makes them worse 23:52 — Lou used to wet himself before tests. He is not ashamed. 26:06 — The incoherence of activist academia — can anyone read this sentence? 27:23 — "Counter the extractive relations of cis heteropatriarchal racial capitalism" — a real sentence 29:54 — Lacan, oracular interpretations, and how academic nonsense writing spread 33:45 — If you have to build a birdhouse, the sentences have to make sense 36:36 — Greg Lukianoff, CBT, and what good therapy actually looks like 38:10 — Anger, dysregulation, and slowing down the loop 41:53 — What therapy cannot do: eliminate human emotion entirely 42:44 — Lou and the spiral — and why self-control matters 45:32 — Lou volunteered to coach soccer. He doesn't know how to play soccer. 49:30 — Humor as a mature defense — why patients who laugh have better outcomes 52:56 — Was it Good Will Hunting? What Robin Williams got right about therapy 54:55 — AI therapists — what they can replace and what they can't 57:17 — The danger of chatbot therapy for people who struggle with real relationships 58:03 — Open Inquiry in Mental Health journal and how to find a vetted therapist Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU 🍺 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 📖 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r 👕 Rock XX-XY Athletics. Get 20% off with promo code LOU20: https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?sca_ref=7113152.ifIMaKpCG3ZfUHH4 🌐 TheLouPerez.com | 📧 [email protected] ✉️ Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez 🎬 Watch my sketch comedy streaming on Red Coral Universe: https://redcoraluniverse.com/title/the-lou-perez-comedy-68501a2fd369683d0f2a2a88?loopData=true&ccId=675bc891f78f658f73eaa46d TIMESTAMPS: #MentalHealth #Therapy #ActivistTherapy #OpenTherapyInstitute #AndrewHartz #CBT #Psychology #LouPerezPodcast #LionsOfLiberty #AITherapy