News Items: Jim Lovell Dies at 97, Music Anhedonia, Lithium and Alzheimer's, CHAT GPT-5, Dangerous Worm Cleanse; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Mini Nuclear Reactors; Who Am I; Science or Fiction
All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.
- Infrastructure as Control feat. Andrew
- Why Trump is Obsessed with the Autopen
- How Tucson Beat Amazon’s Data Center
- Tariffs and the Corruption State
- Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #29
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[Apologies for the tardiness, Jereme is moving house, that shit takes a lot of time and work, so it delayed production.] We first chat about how Trump’s Transportation Department will be “unleashing American drone dominance,” then we get into the thick morass of the Trump family’s ongoing entanglements with the crypto industry—and how both sides of this partnership are deeply, financially dependent on each other.
••• US proposes new drone rules that could lead to Starbucks, Amazon deliveries https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-proposes-new-drone-rules-that-could-lead-starbucks-amazon-deliveries-2025-08-05/
••• Southwest Airlines jet dives as a fighter jet crosses its path near Los Angeles https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/25/us/southwest-fighter-jet-close-call
••• Trump’s Finances Were Shaky. Then He Began to Capitalize on His Comeback. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/us/trump-finances-crypto.html
••• The ‘Trump Pump’: How Crypto Lobbying Won Over a President https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/us/politics/trump-crypto-lobbying.html
••• Does Trump’s Biggest Crypto Backer Really Exist? https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-crypto-world-liberty-financial-aqua-1-foundation/
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
More than six years after the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, unanswered questions remain. Who else was involved? Is there a list of known accomplices who participated in the abuse of children? In the first part of this two-part series, the gang investigates the disturbing, lingering questions surrounding the ongoing Epstein scandal -- as well as new revelations that only recently came to light.
After 103 years, the Santa Fe Indian Market remains the biggest draw for Native artists, potters, and jewelry makers as well as those who appreciate and collect their work. More than 1.000 juried participants come from hundreds of Native communities, offering a hugely diverse range of inspiring work. We’ll take a small sample of that creativity and check in on the outlook for Native arts and arts education.
GUESTS
Lily Hope (Tlingit), Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver and artist
Jamie Schulze (Northern Cheyenne / Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), executive director of Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA)
Shelly Lowe (Diné), president of the Institute of American Indian Arts
Dan Vallo (Acoma Pueblo), 2024 SWAIA Best of Show winner and multimedia artist
Monica Raphael (Anishinaabe and Sicangu Lakota), quill and beadwork artist
Break 1 Music: C.R.E.A.M. [Instrumental] (song) Wu-Tang Clan (artist) Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers [Instrumentals] (album)
Break 2 Music: The Gift of Life (song) Randy Wood (artist) The Gift of Life (album)
The gang discuss the deployment of National Guard and federalization of police in Washington DC, a Heritage Foundation economist being appointed to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a shooting targeting the CDC headquarters.
The darker the forest, the brighter the philosophy! Despite all odds, we press on against the horrors of both the fictional and our real universe to talk about what happens when you try to do sociology AT SCCCCCCAAAAAAALLLLLLEEEEEE! Besides parsing the end of the book, we parse the precepts of Dark forest and whether it holds water, what are plausible objections, and what does this tell us about the reality of conflicts at smaller scales.
Korean pop music, or K-pop, originated in South Korea but has become a powerful, global phenomenon. This multi-billion dollar industry manufacturers scores of pitch-perfect idols and groups, performers who become lead trendsetters in the world of fashion, dance, music and more. Yet there's a dark side to this fame, and a peek behind the curtain reveals a brutal, dangerous world of cut-throat competition, financial corruption and abuse. Tune in to learn about the dark side of K-Pop.
News consumers have a constant stream of information at their fingertips, but how reliable is it and how do people check the facts? Indigenous journalists are a means to bring balanced viewpoints to newsrooms that typically have limited interaction with Indigenous populations. As the annual gathering of the Indigenous Journalists Association gets underway in Albuquerque, N.M., we’ll discuss how journalism is changing and how Indigenous journalists are responding to new pressures for transparency, fact-checking, and bias.
GUESTS
Angel Ellis (Muscogee), director of Mvskoke Media and on board of directors for Indigenous Journalists Association and Oklahoma Media Center
Shaun Griswold (Laguna, Jemez and Zuni Pueblo), correspondent at High Country News and Native News Online
Nancy Marie Spears (Cherokee), Indigenous Children and Families Reporter for The Imprint
Hattie Kauffman (Nez Perce), journalist and first Native American to file a report on a national news broadcast
Break 1 Music: On the Road Missing Home (Corn Dance) (song) Sheldon Sundown (artist) Hand Drum/Smoke N’ Round Dance (album)
Break 2 Music: The Gift of Life (song) Randy Wood (artist) The Gift of Life (album)