Air Date: 7-22-2026

Today we look at how three things Europe thought were features turned out to be leverage that could be held against them: American military protection, Silicon Valley software, and cheap Chinese goods. From a French government office running Linux to a secret European defense coalition that bypasses Washington, Europe is quietly swapping out the old architecture rather than dismantling it, one operating system migration and one secret war game at a time.

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Air Date: 7-1-2026

Today we examine how four months of American bombardment accomplished what decades of diplomacy never could, making Iran, still run by oppressive theocrats, a regional superpower. An Iranian woman told a reporter she endured the bombing hoping it would topple the regime. Instead, it entrenched it.

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Air Date: 05-06-2026 

Today we examine how the U.S. war on Iran is producing an economic crisis with echoes of the 1970s stagflation era which explains why Trump is now less popular on inflation than Jimmy Carter. We'll also be exploring various element of the structure of our economy, including how GDP became a deeply misleading measure of welfare, why consumer spending increasingly goes toward things people don't want to buy, and how gambling and junk fees are literally counted as economic growth.

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Re-Air Date: 4-21-2026

Original Air Date: 1–18-2020

Today we take a look at The Afghanistan Papers which reveal in stark detail much of what the anti-war movement has known or strongly suspected since the beginning. Going beyond the scope of The Pentagon Papers of the Vietnam War era, The Afghanistan Papers feature interviews and documentation from top-ranking officials admitting from the start that they had no idea what they were doing in Afghanistan.

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Air Date: 4–18-2026

Today we examine how the U.S. war with Iran has exposed the deep structural rot at the heart of American power, the global economic catastrophe quietly building beneath the surface, and the cuts felt at home in order to pay for it all.

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Air Date: 3–15-2026

Today we examine how a century of foreign intervention created incompatible national memories between the US and Iran and how Netanyahu exploited that history to maneuver Trump into a war he didn't understand, promising a quick decapitation strike while knowing full well it would become a months-long regional conflict, at minimum.

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Original Air Date: 7–4-2022

Today, for this milestone episode, I attempted to squeeze in as many clever and interesting ideas as I could and ended up writing a starter guide to understand the United States. Plus, there are jingles!

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Air Date: 12-10-2025

Dick Cheney used to be thought of as Darth Vader but did he have an end-of-life conversion back to the light side of the force? No, he was bad all along and only thought Trump was worse.If you need more evidence for just how far from rationality our politics have slid in recent decades, Zorhan Mamdani is seen by many as a radical for mostly just saying that people should be able to afford to buy the things they need to live.

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Air Date: 11-14-2025

The most dangerous part of nuclear weapons has always been the people in charge of them. As we potentially enter a new arms race, some of the worst people in the world are in charge of the vast majority of nuclear weapons.

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Air Date: 11-7-2025

The United States claiming a divine (and imperialist) right to tamper in the politics of South American countries is nothing new. As is so often the case with Trump, the biggest difference is that he’s doing proudly and in the open what used to be done only shamefully and in secret.

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