It Could Happen Here - The Shady Business of Lethal Injection: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

In the second episode of the lethal injection series, Steve Monacelli and Michael Phillips interview Dick Reavis, a journalist who witnessed the world’s first execution by lethal injection, that of Charlie Brooks in Texas in 1982. They report on how the lethal injection method was improvised after a Dallas reporter won a temporary court order allowing television stations to broadcast executions. Worried that a televised electrocution might turn the public against the death penalty, Texas politicians instead approved lethal injection. An Oklahoma coroner who admitted he had no expertise in chemistry and knew a lot about dead bodies but not “how to get them that way,” improvised the three-drug protocol eventually used by all death-penalty states, with horrifying results. Then, Monacelli and Phillips interview law professor Corinna Lain, who says that rather than a supposedly painless death, lethal injection is more like a slow drowning.

Sources:

Corinna Barrett Lain, Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (New York: New York University Press, 2025.)

Dick Reavis, “Charlie Brooks’ Last Words,” Texas Monthly (February 1983.) 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Serious Inquiries Only - SIO497: The Mamdani Machine Exposed! Part 2

Part 2 of Asra Nomani's insanely terrible Fox News article. Make sure you listened to part 1!

This is big, folks. Think Watergate combined with Deflate-gate combined with Christina Applegate combined with the Bowling Green Massacre. THAT's how big of a scandal this is.

You thought Zohran Mamdani was just an innocent 34 year old assemblyman who rose to stardom by being an incredibly good candidate and relentless campaigning an economic message in a positive way. But you were an idiot. Dummy.

Asra Nomani broke it here, but let Jenessa and I explain it to you because clearly your feeble, gullible brain can't process. information properly.

Native America Calling - Tuesday, November 4, 2025 – A new report finds tribes are most vulnerable during government shutdown

As the federal government shutdown drags on, tribes are feeling the brunt more than the general population. That’s among the conclusions in a new report from the Brookings Institution that examines how the government distributes the funds it is obligated to. The report finds that a large portion of the money for tribal necessities like health care, education, and economic well-being required under the Trust and Treaty Responsibility is dependent on annual action by Congress rather than being baked into the automatic allocations that other federal funding recipients enjoy. The report calls on a more reliable funding system for tribes.

The shutdown has prompted several tribes, including the Spirit Lake Nation, Standing Rock Tribe, and Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, to declare states of emergency, mainly because of the lack of food and winter heating assistance. We’ll hear more about how the shutdown is grinding away at tribes’ ability to help their citizens.

GUESTS

Chairman  Joseph James (Yurok Tribe)

Nikki Stoops (Native Village of Kotzebue), vice president of engagement for the Alaska Federation of Natives

Liz Malerba (Mohegan Tribe), director of policy and legislative affairs for the United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund

Robert Maxim (Mashpee Wampanoag), fellow at the Brookings Institution

 

Break 1 Music: Hard Paddle (song) Salish Spirit Canoe Family (artist) Keep Singing, Keep Dancing (album)

Break 2 Music: Traditional Side Step Song (song) Little Otter (artist) Side Step Songs (album)

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know - CLASSIC: Interview Segment: Women of Juarez, with Oz Woloshyn

Juarez, located just over the US-Mexico border, has an ongoing crisis that hasn't made the news: hundreds of women have gone missing, and many of the ones who disappear are later found dead, their wrists often bound, with strange symbols carved on their bodies. Journalists Monica Ortiz Uribe and Oz Woloshyn dive deep into this tragic mystery in their podcast Forgotten: Women of Juarez, searching for answers to the femicides that were all too often ignored by law enforcement. What did they find? Join the guys as they learn more with Oz Woloshyn about the ongoing investigation in this Classic Interview Segment.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Serious Inquiries Only - SIO496: Asra Nomani Has EXPOSED the Mamdani Machine!

Part 1. This is big, folks. Think Watergate combined with Deflate-gate combined with Christina Applegate combined with the Bowling Green Massacre. THAT's how big of a scandal this is.

You thought Zohran Mamdani was just an innocent 34 year old assemblyman who rose to stardom by being an incredibly good candidate and relentless campaigning an economic message in a positive way. But you were an idiot. Dummy.

Asra Nomani broke it here, but let Jenessa and I explain it to you because clearly your feeble, gullible brain can't process. information properly.

It Could Happen Here - The Shady Business of Lethal Injection: The Heart Stops Reluctantly

In this first episode of a three-part series on lethal injection in the United States, guest hosts Steve Monacelli and Dr. Michael Phillips describe the futile quest for a “humane” form of execution, from the 1600s to the present day.  They explore how each one has turned out to be extremely violent, prompting authorities to move such “gruesome spectacles” out of public view.  Finally, they describe how the prospect of a televised execution in the electric chair led to the lethal injection protocol, pioneered by Texas in 1982.

Sources:

Corinna Barrett Lain, Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (New York: New York University Press, 2025.)

Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf, The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2025.) 

Austin Sarat, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014.)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know - Strange News: The Looming Hunger Crisis, Mass Layoffs, Strange Stuff in the Skies, Monkeys, Minks and More

As the government shutdown continues, an estimated 42 million US residents may go hungry. Mushrooms may be the next memory chips. Ben, Matt and Noel continue to obsess over 3I/Atlas. Cameos by minks and monkeys. All this and more in our weekly strange news segment.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Native America Calling - Monday, November 3, 2025 – The looming wildfire crisis in the Arctic

Researchers are documenting more and longer-lasting wildfires in northern Alaska and Canada. In fact, the increase of wildfires is a trend across the Arctic, as far as Norway and Siberia, driven by higher temperatures and dryer conditions. The trend has immediate threats to people’s homes and health. Some tribes in Alaska and Canada also worry about the possibility of a long-term cataclysmic cycle of fires burning through vast stores of peat, producing uncountable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. We’ll get a look at the latest research and learn what concerned Alaska Native tribes and other Indigenous stakeholders are doing to prepare.

GUESTS

Edward Alexander (Gwich’in), co-chair for Gwich’in Council International and senior Arctic Lead Woodwell Climate Research Center

Dr. Amy Cardinal Christianson (Métis), senior fire advisor for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative and board member of the International Association of Wildland Fire

Malinda Chase (Deg Hit’an), tribal liaison for the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center under the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the land manager for her village Anvik

 

Break 1 Music: Blueberry Hill (song) Métis Fiddler Quartet (artist) Northwest Voyage Nord Ouest (album)

Break 2 Music: Traditional Side Step Song (song) Little Otter (artist) Side Step Songs (album)

It Could Happen Here - Occulture, Technomancy vs Tradition, and the Role of Magick in 2025

Garrison talks with a panel of magicians at the Occulture conference in Berlin to discuss digital technomancy vs. traditional magical practices and debate the ability of occultism to shape politics and culture in contemporary society.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good Bad Billionaire - Diane Hendricks: Building a fortune

Diane Hendricks rose from a teenage mother on a Wisconsin dairy farm to become America’s richest self-made woman, building a $22 billion fortune through roofing giant ABC Supply.

BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng trace her journey from selling homes to leading the largest roofing supplies company in the US. From renovating properties to reshaping her hometown of Beloit, Hendricks’ story is one of grit, ambition, and political influence.

Good Bad Billionaire is the podcast that explores the lives of the super-rich and famous, tracking their wealth, philanthropy, business ethics and success. There are leaders who made their money in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and in high street fashion. From iconic celebrities and CEOs to titans of technology, the podcast unravels tales of fortune, power, economics, ambition and moral responsibility, before asking the audience to decide if they are good, bad, or just billionaires.