Latest / The Daily Sarcast / October 26th, 2026: Quest Gets Hacked, The Midterms And My Weekend

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October 26th, 2026: Quest Gets Hacked, The Midterms And My Weekend · The Daily Sarcast

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  i'm gonna punch the tiger if he doesn't stop throwing candy at me espn host
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  matt barry said during a live broadcast after auburn's mascot i'll be the tiger
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  kept throwing candy at the broadcasters and eventually hit him,
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  insert theme song here this is the daily sarcast i give you the news and maybe
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  a laugh i'm lindsey vernick and today is october 26 2026,
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  okay so if you hear the saxophone in the background that's my roommate Gabby Rose playing.
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  I hope that AI didn't edit this out.
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  So if you heard that, like very, you softly playing in the background,
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  that's her. That's like so fun to live with her.
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  Also, today's pod is going to be long. I don't know why.
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  I don't know how. It just is today. So hopefully you'll stick with me through the end of it.
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  Oh, and I hope you had a great weekend. Duh, it's Monday. Okay,
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  so in real news, so something happened in New York this weekend that you probably
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  don't know about that you probably should know about.
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  So the Archdiocese of New York reached an $800 million settlement with approximately
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  1,300 people who said that they were sexually abused by the clergy.
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  And yes, I did just say $800 million. This is one of the largest settlements
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  involving a Catholic archdiocese in the United States.
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  So this agreement was announced this weekend, and it was a huge,
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  major development after years and
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  years of litigation from all of the survivors, which is like a huge win.
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  Like survivors have to deal with this huge legal process, and it's very, very difficult,
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  especially when it goes against like really big things like the catholic church,
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  also some of these events could have happened like decades ago too so who you
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  know it's like really hard to even just go back and explain all this as you might know,
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  like obviously eight hundred dollars eight hundred not eight hundred dollars
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  eight hundred million dollars is so much money but obviously there's no amount
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  of money that can undo what happened to these poor people.
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  And it forces the Catholic Church of New York to admit that what happened in
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  front of their eyes was really, really bad.
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  This is really common now among a lot of Catholic churches, unfortunately, in our country.
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  And a lot of dioceses, I hope I said that right, I'm Jewish,
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  so obviously I don't know a lot about the Catholic Church, but a lot of these
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  churches have faced lawsuits over,
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  sexual abuse by the clergy, and people are asking questions on how the church
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  is handling all of these allegations.
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  So it's not just about what happened to these people, but it's about how the
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  church handled all of these things and how they do continue to handle these things that happen.
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  So what is nice is that each person out of these 1,300 people in this lawsuit
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  will get at least $250,000 at bare minimum, which is nice.
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  But again, obviously, no amount of money can fix what happened to them.
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  So if you've had blood work done recently at Quest, which I have.
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  This next story might make you think twice about where your medical information is.
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  So Quest Diagnostics, as you know, is one of the country's biggest medical testing companies.
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  And they just announced that there was a cybersecurity breach on october 21st how fun,
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  so they're like we think that maybe some of our patients records were accessed
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  but we're not really sure who we're not really sure if it did happen but we
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  think it happened but we're not exactly sure how many people and what they were able to see,
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  which is also code for like we don't know what happened and we also don't really
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  feel like telling you what happened either,
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  quest did tell the feds and they brought in like outside cyber security experts
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  to try to like fix this and they paused access to the system while they investigate what happened,
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  but also like you can still go to quest today and get your blood work done.
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  Okay, cool. But this isn't the first time that Quest has dealt with a data breach.
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  Back in 2019, this happened before with a billing collection company,
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  and they exposed exactly 11.9 million patients.
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  This is our reality. You can still not share much information with your friends,
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  be private on Instagram, and you still have to worry about who might be looking
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  at your information and know what diseases you may or may not have.
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  So if you did recently get blood work done from Quest, just be aware that if
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  somebody sends you a weird text or call or email or whatever,
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  I mean, they do every day for me, like constantly.
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  I'm always getting asked if I need tree removing surfaces in Ambler and I don't
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  live in Ambler. That's where my parents live.
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  And why would I need a tree removing surface? Like literally every day.
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  I'm not kidding. Anyway, I'm getting off track.
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  But if somebody contacts you about something that's weird, just like don't answer.
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  Okay. Lastly, oh my God, I don't understand how the pod is so long today.
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  I guess my fake ad was really long. Okay. So let's talk about this Elizabeth
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  Holmes movie. You can see everything.
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  It's so crazy big right now. It's directed by Nathan Fielder,
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  who wrote and starred in Nathan For You, which by the way is so fucking funny.
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  My roommate and I watched it last night. It's like the best show.
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  You have to turn it on and it's on HBO. And he did the rehearsal,
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  which I think is also on HBO.
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  So he made that with Elizabeth Holmes. And the numbers for this movie right now are insane.
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  Like, they made an estimated $19.5 million just in the second weekend.
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  Like, right now, they made in the North America box office around $45 million.
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  It actually made more money in its second weekend than it did in its first,
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  which is very unusual, especially for a documentary.
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  And it expanded from 855 theaters to more than 2,600. And it was still the number
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  two movie in the country this weekend.
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  So this is a 174-minute documentary, almost three hours, about the woman behind Theranos.
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  It was this blood testing company that promised to revolutionize healthcare
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  and instead became one of Silicon Valley's most infamous fraud scandals.
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  So Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors and got sentenced to prison.
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  So this documentary is about her and her partner, Billy Evans.
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  And they, like, invited this documentary to come to their house 34 days before
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  she went to prison in 2023.
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  But then the movie ends up becoming this, like, much longer three-year journey.
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  So the whole movie is about, like, the filmmakers, like, trying to understand
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  her and her family and how she sees herself after everything that happened.
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  And nathan fielder is like very interesting in this producer position,
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  because his comedy is literally like awkward he's like an awkward comic,
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  could not relate to him more so bummed he's like dating someone we looked up online last night
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  like sucks for me anyway and he's also not jewish but anyway his his comedy is his awkwardness
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  like literally me and it's all about like social experiments and people like
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  behaving in ways that makes you question what's going on like oh my god hello
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  i need to meet this man so,
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  this apparently like i haven't seen it yet but this documentary leaves you wondering
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  whether elizabeth holmes genuinely believes her own explanations or whether
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  she's performing for the cameras and whether anyone can really know what she's actually thinking,
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  so it's just this really strange situation where there's this woman convicted
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  of a fraud and she's inviting a camera crew into her life and then we're all
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  just kind of like watching it all happen.
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  I mean, I can't lie for the life of me. I cannot, absolutely not.
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  I've only been able to keep one secret in my life. I'm currently keeping one
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  secret, and that secret is a secret.
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  But that's it, and I can't keep any other secrets.
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  But this woman made people believe that she reinvented blood testing, which is beyond.
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  And now people are spending a lot of money to see her in a movie and figure out who she really is.
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  I mean, the one thing that our country loves more than a scandal is a scandal
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  that you're able to watch for three hours in real time.
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  In Lindsay life, I finally got a new mattress this weekend, which is exciting
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  because I'm hoping that this not only fixes my sleep aspect of life,
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  but also very other unrelated areas of my life.
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  Saturday, I did CrossFit because I'm a psychopath. And then I went on a date in the afternoon.
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  It was the kind of date where you don't have anything bad to say about the person,
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  which makes everything inconvenient because now you just have to admit that
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  you're just not interested in them.
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  And then on Sunday, I went an hour deep into Brooklyn for a coffee party,
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  which is like a lot of travel for a drink I literally could have made in two seconds at home.
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  Oh my god, this is literally the longest StarCast ever. So for thing of the
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  week, I want to talk about something that everyone should be paying attention to right now.
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  Because whether you love politics or hate politics, or you're just like everybody
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  else and you reach the point where seeing one more political ad makes you want
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  to throw your television out the window.
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  But don't turn this off just yet, even though it's also like the longest daily StarCast ever.
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  I'll try to keep this one quick, but you should know what's happening next week,
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  and you should make sure that you're registered to vote this week.
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  So the midterms are coming up next week, November 3rd.
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  And I think a lot of people don't fully understand what they are,
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  why they matter, or what the outcome could actually mean for their lives.
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  I mean, I didn't until I did the research for this today to tell you,
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  because I think we should all actually know about what's going on instead of
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  just yes anding our parents when they tell us that we should be voting.
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  So let's break it down. So the midterms are what happened.
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  This is like a little kindergarten class. So the midterms are what happened
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  halfway through a president's four-year term.
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  We're not voting necessarily for a new president. I mean, we're not voting for a president this year.
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  But we are voting for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives,
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  35 Senate seats, and governors and other officials in states that are holding elections.
• 13:08
  And this is why this particular election matters.
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  So Republicans right now currently control both the House and the Senate.
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  But right now, Democrats have a real opportunity to take control of the House.
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  They only need four more seats in the House and four in the Senate,
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  which is, you know, not that many.
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  Right now, the Democrats have a stronger chance of winning the House,
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  while the Senate seems a lot more competitive.
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  And if you're wondering why you should care, here's the answer.
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  Congress has a tremendous amount of power over what the president can actually accomplish.
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  So if Democrats win the House, they can launch investigations,
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  hold hearings, issue subpoenas, and make it so much harder for Trump to get
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  his stuff through Congress.
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  And if they win Senate, they'll gain more influence over the judicial and executive
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  branch confirmations and the spending stuff and just like overall legislation.
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  But let's be clear, Trump would still be president no matter what.
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  Like winning Congress doesn't mean Democrats are going to suddenly be able to get the White House.
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  The president still has executive authority and can veto, but there are limits,
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  on what Congress can accomplish without, you know, from both sides of the aisle.
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  The real question is how much this will all actually really affect what goes on in Washington.
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  So the biggest issue that people are voting on right now is the economy and
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  the cost of living. I mean, obviously, we all care about groceries and rent
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  and health care and gas and whether they can afford to live the lives that they're
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  working for. I mean, duh, right?
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  And politicians can always talk about how they're making things better and things
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  are going to be better soon, you know, this and that.
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  But people are going to vote based on what's going on in real time in their
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  lives and what's, you know, currently affecting them.
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  Like, are they able to afford rent? Are they saving money?
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  Can they go out to dinner without worrying about not being able to order a second
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  drink because it literally costs $25?
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  And maybe those $25 need to go to, you know, food at Whole Foods this week.
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  I don't know. Just like putting it out there, maybe from experience. I don't know.
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  Health care is another issue here, along with immigration and the war with Iran.
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  And obviously, all of these different things mean all different things to all
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  different people. So that's kind of interesting when we all go to vote, right?
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  And historically, the president's party usually loses seats in the midterms
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  because everyone's sick of that party and wants the other party to come in, whatever.
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  However, if the Democrats do win, they could put a lot more pressure on Trump,
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  investigate him, challenge him, all that stuff.
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  But passing a lot of major things would still be really hard for him.
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  And then on the other side of things, if Republicans hold both chambers,
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  Trump would have a much easier time, obviously, for the rest of his term.
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  He would have to just deal with the Republicans disagreeing with each other.
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  I mean, but in this day and age is still a lot.
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  And a lot of people ignore the midterms because they're like,
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  oh, whatever. It's like not a big, you know, not a quote unquote big election.
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  But it kind of is, though.
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  These elections can influence like everything.
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  And a lot of people don't realize that, like things that affect all of our everyday lives.
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  And you don't have to be obsessed with politics or have to spend your entire
• 16:26
  day reading news about this.
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  But you have to understand who controls Congress because that's important,
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  because these people help determine which laws get passed and how the government
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  spends your tax money, which they get a lot of.
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  And these midterms will also really lead into what happens for the presidential election in 2028.
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  So to end my big TED Talks on the midterm elections this year,
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  they aren't just some smaller race that happens between the presidential races.
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  This is a really big opportunity for us to go in and vote,
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  and figure out which direction our wonderful country is headed to next so make
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  sure this week that you are registered to vote because midterms are november 3rd which is,
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  three days after halloween so it's one of the days next week,
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  cooking tip of the day you must run the dishwasher when you have no dishes or
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  else you can't cook feedback comments questions a nice jewish boy looking for
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  a date email me at lindsay at the daily starcast.com thank you so much for listening.
• 17:31
  I cannot believe how long this podcast is for today.
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  So if you listen to this and you're making it to the end, thank you so much.
• 17:39
  And I will talk to you tomorrow.