Avsnitt
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Influential right-wing pundit turned celebrity conspiracy-peddler, Candace Owens, just visited Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. While at “Russia’s Davos” she marvelled at the cleanliness and beauty of Moscow, explained that Americans were never given any real reason why Putin invading Ukraine was bad, and deflected questions about her potential presidential run.
She’s not alone. MAGA has increasingly found a warm place in its heart for Vladimir Putin and other strongman dictator-types (like Viktor Orban). Owens rubbed shoulders with accused sex traffickers, the Tate Brothers, fake martial artist and aging film star, Steven Segall, Trump’s head of the Commission of Fine Arts, and representatives of the Taliban, North Korea, Iran, and China.
In this reimagining of Russia—the same “evil empire” of GOP patron saint, Ronald Reagan—the post-Soviet dictatorship is poo-pooed as a danger to European democracies by a growing cadre on the right. Figures like Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Tim Pool, Nick Fuentes, and Marjorie Taylor Green all oppose US support for Ukraine and involvement in the war in Iran.
In another interesting turn, they now also all oppose US support for Israel—which makes for some strange diagonalist bedfellows with certain figures on the left, like Hasan Piker.
Julian unpacks this story. Stay tuned for claims that Carlson and Green have been less harmful to Gaza than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as for erstwhile left-wing pundit Ana Kasparian’s come-to-Jesus moment on Owens’ show.
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In the first edition of the Conspirituality Book Club, Derek dives into Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us by Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall, PhD.
First, he looks at how RFK Jr and Jay Bhattacharya forced Hall out of his nutrition research position at the NIH in 2025. Then he covers some of the book's most intriguing findings, including:
Why most people don't have "slow metabolism"
Why most of us don't actually need more protein
The origins of the wellness industry's fascination with products over science
Why ultra-processed foods are actually dangerous (it's not what MAHA claims)
The importance of calorie absorption
Those microbiome tests are more scam than science
Show Notes
Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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A plague is coming. We don’t know when or which one, but we do know that since humans started gathering in groups numbering in the thousands, plagues became a consistent feature of existence. So a plague is always on the horizon, and public health is the response of a healthy society.
How healthy is America right now? Given that a recent NY Times investigation found that RFK Jr is laser-focused on vaccines and food dyes and not much of anything else, the news is not great. Today we look at candidates for the next plague, how unprepared the government is, and, in classic Conspirituality fashion, the wellness influencers selling products they just know will help your immune system stave off any little virus destined to become a plandemic.
In This Week in Conspirituality, Matthew checks in on someone else’s health: Donald Trump, and the online prediction market that’s emerged to appease a cultural wish fulfillment.
Show Notes
We’re Not Ready for the Next Pandemic
Hantavirus Conspiracy Theories Are Already Spreading Online
Ebola, hantavirus: Is the world prepared for the next pandemic?
‘It's completely out of control’: Scientists warn bird flu could spark a human pandemic in 2026
Ebola Spread Shows Deadly Cost of Aid Retreat
Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks raise questions about Trump’s health agency cuts
RFK Jr. cuts jobs at minority health offices at HHS
Trump admin plans to divert $2 billion in health funding to pay for USAID closure
US funding cuts have hampered response to the deadly Ebola crisis, aid workers say
RFK defends 25% cut to HHS budget in FY 2026 request after shrinking workforce
US Withdrawal of Global Health Funding is ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’
Amid Ebola, Hantavirus Outbreaks, Democrats Decry Trump's Health Cuts
Viral outbreaks are always on the horizon – here are the viruses an infectious disease expert is watching in 2026
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Matthew investigates whether Pope Leo XIV's appeals to Liberation Theology represent genuine solidarity with the poor or a sophisticated form of spiritual bypassing.
Drawing on Ole Jakob Løland's analysis of Francis's papacy, Remski traces how Rome has metabolized Liberation Theology into compatibility with 135 years of Catholic Social Teaching by absorbing its pastoral language while suppressing its structural conclusions. This involves a close reading of Cardinal Ratzinger's 1984 rebuke of Gutierrez et al.
Ratzinger’s framing of empathy as temptation prefigures the "toxic empathy" discourse of our present moment. Francis's eulogies for Oscar Romero and Gustavo Gutiérrez honored their sacrifice but erased their politics.
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The FDA is bleeding out Covid contrarians. Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad, Tracy Beth Høeg—all gone. Jonathan Howard returns to discuss why so many RFK Jr's friends have reached the end of their bureaucratic road.
Show Notes
FDA Swaps Top Drug and Vaccine Regulators in Staff Overhaul
F.D.A. Commissioner Marty Makary Resigns After Weeks of Pressure
No One Should Care About or Trust Anything Dr. Marty Makary Says Ever Again
My Sincere Message to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Welcome Aboard and Good Luck. We Are Rooting for Your Success.
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Leo the XIV wrote a big letter about a hyperobject. Many thoughts and debates are triggered. Today we’ll look at what the hell an encyclical is, the Vatican's decade-long conversation with Silicon Valley about coding morally-sound AI, and the broken and laundered echoes of Liberation Theology in Leo’s text.
Show Notes
Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII, May 15 1891
Catholic Church largest non-governmental landowner
Magnifica Humanitas full text
Paragraph 177: memory of past complicity in slavery
Thiel’s Antichrist Framing Collides with Church Doctrine
Why Silicon Valley is Turning to The Catholic Church
Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation (1971/1973)
Medellín Conference 1968, CELAM documents
Camilo Torres Restrepo, ELN Colombia
Ratzinger CDF investigation of Gutiérrez, 1984
James Martin SJ, "A capitalist priest reads Magnifica Humanitas," America Magazine
Word on Fire publishing Magnifica Humanitas in hardcopy
Brief: US v. Liberation Theology (Part 1) — November 1, 2025
Bonus: US v. Liberation Theology (Part 2) — November 3, 2025
Conspirituality Episode on Leo XIV vs Trump (Leo's immigration remarks through Good Friday) — April 2026
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Derek reports on the role of journalism after attending the News and Documentary Emmy Awards in New York City last week.
Show Notes
2026 News & Documentary Emmy Awards | NEWS NIGHT (LIVE)
You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories
Student awarded CBS News scholarship explains why he called out network at event: ‘I had to do it’
Jorge Ramos, who's anchored the news for nearly 4 decades, is leaving Univision
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Matthew investigates the under-construction STACK data centre at 3650 Danforth Avenue in Scarborough, two miles from his home, tracing what he finds through concentric circles of capital, neglect, hype, and deception.
When complete, the 56MW hyperscale facility will draw the power of 50K Ontario homes. But it was built without public consultation, environmental monitoring, or any info on who the tenants will be. Its financing and ownership details track back through a web of investment firms with connections to both the Ford (provincial) and Carney (federal) governments.
Show Notes
STACK Infrastructure — About
National Observer — One data centre or one million homes? Mapping Ontario's proposed hyperscaler boom
Dirty Data — Environmental Reporting Collective
ASME — Data Centre Ambient Heat Study, May 2026
Environment Canada — Heat Warnings
City of Toronto — R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant
Ontario Environmental Registry — Bill 40
Toronto City Council — Motion MM39.47
Democracy Now! — Karen Hao Interview
AI Resist List
Data Center Watch
Indigenous Insider — Kevin O'Leary and Wonder Valley
Parksville Qualicum News — BC Greens oppose Nanaimo data centre
AI is Capital - Jodi’s Substack
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In the early 20th century, some retailers would advertise a product at an attractively low price to lure customers into the store, claim the item was out of stock or of poor quality then pressure customers to buy a more expensive alternative. The practice became known in the public vernacular as "bait and switch" in the 1920s.
This week, we look at three modern bait and switches pertinent to our beat. First, Julian looks at “free speech patriot” Chud the Builder’s slimy social media tactics. Then Derek investigates RFK Jr’s SNAP benefits now you see them, now you don’t. Finally, Matthew looks at how Mark Carney is bait and switching the Canadian political body.
Show Notes
SNAP Restrictions Raise Prices for U.S. Retailers and Consumers, Rather Than Improving Diets
State-Level SNAP Food Restrictions: Assessing Long-Term Profitability and Policy Risks for Grocery Retailers
SNAP Enforcement Changes Risk Limiting Food Access for Vulnerable Communities
USDA outlines retailer compliance for state SNAP waivers
EBT, SNAP, and Food Retail Compliance: A Complete Explainer for Small Grocery and Convenience Store Owners
FRAC Urges USDA to End Harmful SNAP Food Restriction Waivers
Bank of England — Mark Carney biography
UN — Carney Special Envoy appointment
Council for Inclusive Capitalism — Carney
Amnesty International Canada — Bill C-12
CBC News — Bill C-233 defeated
Government of Canada — CERB eligibility
CBC News — CRA COVID benefit clawbacks
Parliamentary Budget Officer — federal housing spending
CBC News — oil and gas emissions cap scrapped
CBC News — F-35 contract review
CBC News — Defence Security and Resilience Bank confirmed
CBC News — Indigenous Services Canada budget cuts
CCPA — Bill C-15 corporate exemption
CBC News — Grassy Narrows, "I can outlast her"
Guardian — Carney climate record
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Across continents and centuries outsider poets have made a bold stand for the life of the body, contemplative ecstasy, sexual liberation, and the sacredness of nature, often in the face of religious and political repression.
From Rajasthan to New York, Ancient Persia to London, and Swansea in Wales to Balkh in Afghanistan, ecstatic poets have broken taboos around sex, death, gender, social caste, and religious dogma.
In a follow-up to last week’s interview with Britt Hartley of No-Nonsense Spirituality, Julian reflects on how poetry has always lit up his inner world as a form of embodied spirituality that transcends religious frameworks or supernatural metaphysics.
He shares favorite pieces that span 800 years and three continents from Mirabai, Walt Whitman, Mary Oliver, Kabir, David Whyte, Dylan Thomas, and Rumi, along with stories from their lives, and his own.
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In February, Derek and his wife, Callan, were surprised to discover she was diagnosed with prediabetes. They didn't know that Asian American adults are at a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes than others without the traditional risk factors. Callan joins to discuss how the diagnosis changed her life, her frustrations with the healthcare system, and how she's navigating her new reality.
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The Trump DOJ's 565-page report from the Task Force for Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias is one of the strangest federal documents in American history. It’s a crybully tome, arguing that the most powerful religious majority in the United States is its most persecuted minority.
Julian examines the FACE Act allegations, the FBI-Catholic surveillance controversy, and the selective history propping up the Christian-founding thesis. Derek traces the freethinker and secularist tradition the report erases. Matthew tracks the document's most telling absence: anticommunism.
From Eisenhower to Reagan, Christian nationalism always came bundled with a Soviet enemy and a defense of free enterprise and private property. But the 67% of the doc that’s about sexuality, gender, and reproductive rights shows that the billionaire Jesus class thinks the class war is over, and so all that’s left to control is the body itself.
Show Notes
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
SPLC: 12 Anti-Semitic Radical Traditional Catholic Groups
AXIOS: Assaults Against Abortion Clinics Rose 128% in 2021
DOJ Says Biden Unfairly Attacked Anti-Abortion Groups
Is Jane’s Revenge For Real?
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In this contribution to an ongoing co-host conversation, Matthew argues that the liberal centre's habit of punching left is a historically conditioned class strategy. From FDR's New Deal—designed to inoculate capitalism against socialism—through Hayek, Buckley, the Birchers, Limbaugh, and the Obama-era "socialist medicine" smear, liberals have accepted the premises of Red Scare attacks, because doing so served their own interest in disciplining the actual left.
The result is a Ratchet Effect that pulls discourse perpetually rightward, and a narrowing of the Overton window to convert anticapitalist politics into psychological pathology.
When the liberal centre engineers conditions in which no structural challenge to capitalism is rational, it can caricature the resulting conflict as hysteria, cultishness, and immaturity. There’s also a gendered dynamic going on here, in which the leftist is unreasonable, nitpicky, always demanding too much, focused on minutiae but also big feelings, and always missing the “big picture”. Sometimes the only real division between right wing and liberal responses to the left is the difference between outright hatred and resentful dismissal.
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It’s normal to feel lost after leaving a cult, transitioning out of fundamentalist religion, or abandoning conspiracy theories. Whether you’ve left behind, you may be asking, "What now?"
Britt Hartley joins Julian to talk about her new book, No Nonsense Spirituality: All The Tools No Belief Required, and her recent run-in with the hardcore atheist community, which calls her work “nonsense.” The ex-Mormon practices Sufi mysticism, holds an MA in theology, and is writing her doctoral dissertation. A spiritual atheist, she advocates passionately for reclaiming awe, rituals, pilgrimages, and spiritual experiences from the monopoly of organized religion.
Show Notes
No Nonsense Spirituality: All The Tools No Belief Required
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Two months ago, we recorded Episode 291: My Chinese Buddhist Israeli AI Guru, surveying the growing field of AI slopfluencers churning out wellness supplements via Amazon affiliate links. At the time, we weren’t clear on who was behind these accounts. Then Mallory DeMille went down a YouTube and TikTok rabbit hole and found the men making millions from these accounts. Today we’re going to look at what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and the cultural and racial dynamics at play in their slop.
Show Notes
An Amish Avatar and an A.I. Monk Are Pitching Supplements on Social Media
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Derek considers the online debates over leftism and liberalism in the context of coalition building.
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Matthew reads the Introduction from Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times.
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As Cole Allen sprinted into the news cycle, social media accelerated to cover the story—and the conspiracy-beast in the basement flexed his fast-twitch muscle fibers. The now third assassination attempt on Donald Trump (this time at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner) had to be staged. What else could explain it? The one time Trump shows up, an assassin is waiting for him. What are the odds? How about the guy who just calmly kept eating his salad?
A highly suspicious AI video showed a security agent’s hat morph into his hair, while another had Allen running faster than humanly possible, which fit with an elaborate story about the shooter actually being a time traveller.
We break down what happened, how quickly the conspiracy theories spread, and the cultural and political dynamics of this ubiquitous reflex.
Show Notes
False-flag Conspiracy Theories Swirl After WHCD
The Era of Normie Extremism is Here
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The Democratic Party is in free fall. Still suffering the aftershocks of the 2024 election, a civil war is brewing internally between those who want to build coalitions that can win elections and those who see radicalization as the only way forward.
In April, debate about whether Dems should embrace hugely popular leftist streamer Hasan Piker,or distance themselves from him dominated the discourse.
A week later, two popular online personalities of the left—acclaimed transgender video essayist, Contrapoints, and artist/author Josh Citarella—sat down for an episode of his Doomscroll podcast. Contrapoints made the case for coalition building and pragmatic Democratic electoral politics. Their frank mutual criticisms of the online left outraged some.
Meanwhile, NYT writer and podcaster, Ezra Klein's controversial comments on Charlie Kirk and highly-charged interviews with Ta Na-Hesi Coates and Sarah McBride (the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress) hovered in the background.
Julian clips key moments from these interactions and offers his thoughts on a way forward for Democrats as we approach the midterms and looming presidential race in 2028.
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On the Whatever Podcast livestreams, alpha debate bros browbeat insecure betas and deride token guest female sex workers while possibly ignorant they're helping promote their OnlyFans accounts. But recently, three steely-eyed women have snuck in, decoded the matrix and fought their way up to stare down the ultimate boss—a chain-smoking, greasy-haired, foul-mouthed Christian nationalist named Andrew Wilson.
Julian features and celebrates the insurgent grit and intelligence of these three women, who've gone into a hostile environment, and not only held their own, but handed this smug prick and his minions their asses in ways both undeniable and elegant. While it may not be possible to drive a stake completely through the heart of misogyny's zombie internet dragon, destroying the main characters at their own game in front of their own fans sure tastes sweet. Who knows, perhaps it might make some of the younger and more impressionable viewers think twice about the hateful and irrational slop they’re being fed.
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