NEWS WEAKLY 202, 28 Feb 2026

Episode title: Difficulty Level: National

Hello and welcome to News Weakly, where we punch the news in the headlines weakly. This week, the world is in multiple active spirals, but Australia has bravely chosen to centre a word association game like it is the Cuban Missile Crisis with better catering.

Anthony Albanese describes Grace Tame as “difficult” during a Herald Sun conference word association game, and suddenly the nation discovers that adjectives can carry freight. The real story is not just the word, it is what the word has historically meant when men apply it to women, and how quickly a flimsy media moment becomes a full week of moral theatre. Then Tame responds on Instagram, politicians demand titles be stripped, commentators run their diagnostics, and Australia convinces itself it is doing political analysis while mostly doing a social media reading comprehension test.

The US and Iran meet in Geneva for indirect nuclear talks, mediated by Oman, with messages passed back and forth like divorced parents refusing to make eye contact at a school recital. Everyone says they want to avoid war while moving military hardware around like it is a hobby. The argument is about enrichment and rebuilding, but the anxiety sits in the region, especially Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Israel both know how quickly “posturing” turns into “miscalculation.”

NSW Police data records 197 incidents of anti LGBTQIA+ hate related violence since 2023, with a disturbing pattern of teenage boys luring victims on dating and hook up apps, then assaulting and robbing them, sometimes filming it. The ideology varies, the method does not. Extremism is a franchise model now. Different uniforms, same obsession, same fixation on queer bodies as a site for performance, humiliation, and cruelty.

“We are treating a throwaway word in a word game as if it were a constitutional crisis.”

You can back the show on Patreon.com/samishah.

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music 'Historic Anticipation' by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

NEWS WEAKLY 201 – 21ST FEBRUARY 2026

This week on News Weakly: Australian values get workshopped into meaninglessness, Pauline Hanson re-releases her Greatest Bigots collection, ISIS brides become the nation’s worst dating story, and Victoria’s Big Build proves the only thing constructed efficiently is defensiveness.

AUSTRALIAN VALUES GET DEVALUED!

Angus Taylor rediscovers the Liberal Party’s “centre of gravity,” which turns out to be immigration anxiety with better lighting. We revisit the official Australian Values Statement and ask the obvious question: why are migrants the only ones being tested on it?

PAULINE PAULINES!

Pauline Hanson declares there are no “good Muslims,” the ABC obliges, and the outrage machine spins up like it’s 2015 again. Is she a politician, or just a human push notification powered by grievance?

SWIPE RIGHT FOR THE CALIPHATE!

Anthony Albanese has “nothing but contempt” for Australian ISIS brides attempting to return. But if citizenship collapses under the weight of terrible romantic decisions, half the country is in trouble.

BIG BUILD, BIG TANTRUM!

Explosive allegations of corruption on Victoria’s Big Build projects meet a Premier more offended by tone analysis than by bikie infiltration. When the scandal costs $15 billion, the real emergency is apparently eye direction.

AND ENGLAND GETS ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEHEADING A ROYAL AGAIN!

We briefly consider the monarchy, remember Charles I, and decide unless limbs are involved, we simply do not care.

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Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music “Historic Anticipation” by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A suicide bombing in a Shia mosque barely registers before the algorithm moves on, and that erasure opens the door to something darker. This episode looks at why conspiracy thinking no longer lives on the fringes, but feels increasingly rational in a world where intelligence agencies really do assassinate, destabilise, and lie, and institutions keep getting caught doing exactly what they deny. From Pakistan to Australia, from foreign policy to arts boards and police crackdowns, the show unpacks how incompetence, cowardice, and risk-aversion get misread as secret coordination, and why that misunderstanding doesn’t challenge power but lets it off the hook. When everything feels orchestrated, accountability disappears. And once reality becomes optional, nothing democratic survives for long.

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music Historic Anticipation by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.