Conspirituality

During an extraordinary career, Dr. Anthony Fauci led the federal response to HIV-AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and Zika. He always advocated funding for pandemic preparedness, vaccine development, immunology and pathogen research. Then came COVID-19, which, unlike outbreaks past, was trapped in a politicized online disinformation and conspiracy-mongering stew.

As he was pushing 80, Fauci rode the dragon of a novel coronavirus pandemic that was leaving piles of bodies in Italy, India, and New York. He served as the interface between scientists, government, and the public, all while learning about the virus in real-time. Like any good public health communicator, he sought to save lives using the best available knowledge. Like any good scientist, he kept an open mind about what was not yet known.

But the pandemic-grievance industry made him the face of a conspiracy theory. Did he cause a catastrophically deadly pandemic, decimate American freedoms, or ruin the economy over a largely harmless flu? Today we discuss the release of his “diaries” and tune into last week's Senate hearings, where crackpots bullied, berated, and slandered the 85-year old public servant.

Show Notes

Beyond Gain of Function: Strengthening Oversight of Research

Genetic Tracing of Market Wildlife and Viruses at Epicenter of COVID-19

Anthony Fauci biography

New report reveals consequences of Trump administration's HIV/AIDS funding cuts

The Doctor and His Diary: What Fauci’s Innermost Musings Reveal

Did Fauci suffer pulmonary infarction due to COVID-19 vaccine? What we know

Lab Leak Fever with Philipp Markolin

Lab Leak Fever: The COVID-19 Origin Theory that Sabotaged Science and Society
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In the lead-up to our full episode on Anthony Fauci this Thursday, Derek looks at a recent MAHA Action webinar that focused on Rand Paul's publicly releasing over 1,100 pages of diary entries and other related material. As with all things MAHA, the event largely turned into a marketing pitch for the speakers' books.
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Back in the fall, Trump's NSPM-7 redirected the FBI, DOJ, and IRS toward "left-wing political violence," opening the door to labeling domestic groups terrorist organizations — despite three independent datasets (New America, CSIS, even the ADL!) showing right-wing violence outpacing left-wing violence by factors of 9-to-1 or greater. Last week, Rubio's "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism" internationalized this McCarthy reboot.

Central to the rhetoric of Rubio and Miller is framing leftist politics as being driven by envy and resentment rather than a response to inequality. Matthew traces this rhetoric, empirically contradicted by relative deprivation research, back through Nietzsche, Scheler, Schoeck, and Rand.

Four days after the Ministerial, the State Department's Cuba report named 70+ Americans — from spies to wedding guests — as one undifferentiated network, a scapegoat machine now churning out congressional subpoenas, a federal grand jury, and a widening dragnet.

Show Notes

NSPM-7, full text — The White House

NSPM-7 constitutional analysis — The Conversation

New America, "Terrorism in America After 9/11" impact summary

CSIS, "Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in the United States"

Just Security rebuttal of the CSIS report

ADL, "Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2024"

Rubio and Miller Ministerial remarks, full transcript

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), full text

Scheler, Ressentiment (1912), full text PDF

Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour — Online Library of Liberty

Ayn Rand, "The Age of Envy" — Ayn Rand Institute

U.S. Department of State, Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism (July 20, 2026)

National Lawyers Guild, "The National Lawyers Guild Reaffirms its Solidarity with Cuba in the Face of Increasing McCarthyite Repression" (July 2026)
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Climate reality keeps colliding with denial, erasure, and rebranding — across media, politics, and religion. Temu conspiritualists weave melted stories about the origins of wildfires, while the high-class guys run meditation-and-regenerative-farming spectacle backed by Exxon money. Julian’s on that angle.

Derek will be telling us about how climate journalism is collapsing faster than the climate itself with mass environment reporting layoffs at NPR, CBS, the Washington Post, and the LA Times. Trump gutted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. EPA webpages have been scrubbed of human-caused warming language.

Are religious institutions doing any better? In 2015, five world religions — Jewish, Catholic, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist — independently issued climate statements ahead of the Paris COP21 talks. Matthew looks at how they struggled to challenge the global economies they depend on.

Show Notes

What Is Happening to Climate Journalism?

Where Climate Coverage Goes to Die

How will NPR layoffs affect climate stories?

CBS axed its last climate reporting pillar

How do you report on the weather when data is disappearing?

NOAA stops tracking cost of extreme weather and climate disasters

NOAA monthly media calls on climate change suspended

EPA websites now downplay link between humans and climate change

A Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis Rabbis Against Climate Change

"Laudato Si'": Encyclical Letter on Care for Our Common Home

Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change

Hindu Declaration on Climate Change The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change

"Laudate Deum": Apostolic Exhortation to All People of Good Will on the Climate Crisis

Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth (full text PDF)

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Listen to the full episode

What do films like Dracula, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, Being John Malkovich, and Night of the Living Dead all have in common?

Science fiction and horror bend our everyday experiences and beliefs around mind and body, sensory perception, identity, and reality itself. But it turns out that many fictional tropes (zombies, vampires, cloned imposters, reality-simultations, and shapeshifters) may be rooted in rare brain disorders.

These conditions, often caused by injury or disease, can make people prone to becoming convinced that their loved ones are imposters, the same person (in elaborate and convincing disguises) is following them everywhere, their surroundings are an artificial duplicate of a real place, or even that they themselves are already dead.

Once our perceptions are sufficiently distorted, our minds invent explanations that confound reality. Might these overlap with supernatural and conspiratorial beliefs?

Julian blends storytelling, cultural references, and observations from psychiatry and neurology to take you on a fascinating journey.

You’ll learn about:

A woman in a 1903 Prague clinic who patiently explained to staff that the clinic was a perfect replica—not the real clinic itself

A man in 1970’s Sacramento who believed he was a real-life zombie and went on to commit a series of grisly crimes

A woman in 1920’s London who believed that two famous French actresses were following her everywhere in hyper-realistic disguises—and controlling her mind

One man in LA and another in Utah that tragically killed their own family members because they believed they were imposters

These cases drive to the core of how humans experience self, relationships, and the structure of reality.

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