This episode of The Line is a full-on girls-only chaos session with Alyssa and Promise taking over while Jimmy is sick, and it might be the most unhinged, on-topic episode yet. They open with exactly 1% production ability, accidental buttons, Patreon reads, and a plea for viewers to keep them employed, then dive straight into the worst kind of “news day”: mass shootings, hate crimes, Trump’s deranged social posts, and the Christian nationalist circus around Charlie and Erika Kirk.
The conversation starts with gun culture in the United States, the Brown University shooting, and the horrifying reality that the country has had more mass shootings than days in the year. Alyssa bluntly argues that no one needs a gun ever, while Promise contrasts U.S. gun obsession with heavily regulated gun culture in places like Finland, where gun ownership is high but mass shootings are not. They tackle the hypocrisy of a political right that screams “safety” about immigrants and trans people while ignoring the one demonstrable safety crisis actually killing thousands: guns.
From there they move to Trump’s reaction to the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, and his completely unhinged Truth Social post turning their deaths into a Trump Derangement Syndrome bit and a “golden age of America” promo for himself. Alyssa reads the post in full and both hosts rip into the narcissism, third-person self-worship, and the way Trump weaponizes tragedy to imply that criticizing him puts you at risk of violence. They connect it to his long history of bizarre celebrity commentary, including his old Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson tweets, and the cult-like messaging of the current White House website branding the present as “the golden age.”
The episode then shifts to the anti‑Semitic terrorist attack in Australia at a Hanukkah event, where a Muslim man, Ahmed Al Ahmed, was shot while disarming the gunman and likely saving many lives. Alyssa and Promise praise his courage, tear into attempts to fold this into simplistic Israel/Palestine talking points, and highlight how quickly Australian officials move toward tightening already strict gun laws—versus endless U.S. “thoughts and prayers.” They dig into the idea of shared humanity, criticizing both religious and atheist spaces when “us vs them” rhetoric becomes an excuse to dehumanize and harm.
They also revisit Adriana Smith’s case in Georgia, where her body was effectively used as an incubator under abortion bans, leaving her baby Chance in the NICU, severely underweight, with major medical issues and a GoFundMe that still hasn’t hit its goal. It’s a brutal example of forced birth, the cost of Christian nationalism, and how quickly stories vanish from the news while families are left with lifelong consequences.
In the back half of the episode, they deep dive into the right‑wing soap opera: Erica Kirk’s bizarre media tour, her hyper‑intense interviews, the “stop” message to Candace Owens, and Candace’s conspiracies that Turning Point USA is covering up an assassination related to Charlie Kirk’s death. Promise explains the alleged Egyptian flight patterns, texts about Charlie supposedly changing his stance on Israel, and the book Erica is now touring for—Charlie’s Sabbath book “Stop in the Name of God,” which paints him as a restful family man despite his constant online presence. They explore how evangelical culture demands that women commodify their grief, suppress vulnerability, and become public symbols rather than humans, and how that likely shapes Erika’s robotic, haunting media persona.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.