Mike Rothschild THE STORM UPON US: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult & Conspiracy Theory of Everything

Mike Rothschild is a journalist, researcher, and debunker of conspiracy theories.

His first print book, The World’s Worst Conspiracies, was published in January 2020 by Arcturus Publishing, London.

His work is cited in The New York Times, Snopes, Politifact, Salon, Vice, NPR, among many others. His latest book, THE STORM IS UPON US: HOW QANON BECAME A MOVEMENT, CULT, AND CONSPIRACY THEORY OF EVERYTHING, published by Melville House.
We spoke with Mike Rothschild on July 2, 2021.

Articles pertinent to the interview:

‘Q’ Has Been Quiet, but QAnon Lives On https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/technology/qanon-conspiracy-movement.html

French Child Kidnapping Plot Shows Global Sway Of QAnon Style https://www.huffpost.com/entry/french-child-kidnapping-plot-qanon_n_6163862ce4b024dc528228ff

I’m a Parkland Shooting Survivor. QAnon Convinced My Dad It Was All a Hoax. https://www.vice.com/en/article/epnq84/im-a-parkland-shooting-survivor-qanon-convinced-my-dad-it-was-all-a-hoax?utm_source=vicenewstwitter

Why do conspiracy theories flourish? Because the truth is too hard to handle https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/01/edward-snowdon-conspiracy-theories-belief-powerlessness

INSIDE THE CAPITOL RIOT https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/jan-6-capitol-attack-takeaways.html

What drives ‘J-Anon’, QAnon’s Japanese counterpart? https://globalvoices.org/2021/01/13/what-drives-j-anon-qanons-japanese-counterpart/

Confronting the Threat of QAnon https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/books/review/mia-bloom-sophie-moskalenko-pastels-and-pedophiles.html

Man Kills His Two Young Children Over QAnon, “Serpent DNA” Conspiracy Theories, FBI Says https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/matthew-coleman-qanon-serpent-dna-kills-children.html

Andy Norman MENTAL IMMUNITY: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think

Andy Norman, Ph.D., directs the Humanism Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University and is the founder of CIRCE, the Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative. His book, Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think, just published by HarperCollins, lays out the conceptual foundations of cognitive immunology—the emerging science of mental immune health.

We spoke with Andy Norman on June 14, 2021.

No one wanted to read’ his book on pandemic psychology – then Covid hit https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/19/book-psychology-pandemics-steven-taylor

John Judis – The Politics of Our Time: Populism, Nationalism, Socialism

Currently an editor at large at Talking Points Memo, John Judis has a long history as a senior writer at the National Journal and former senior editor at The New Republic. As you will hear in this interview from May 28, 2021, his ideas have evolved from his activist days in the 1960s as a founding editor of Socialist Revolution, renamed Socialist Review and then Radical Society. In the 1970s he was a founding editor of the East Bay Voice. In 1976, he became foreign editor of In These Times, the democratic socialist newsweekly. He quit in 2014, along with other editors in protest of the owner’s firing of an editor and plan to turn the magazine into a profit making enterprise.

His books include William F. Buckley: Patron Saint of the Conservatives from 1988, The Paradox of American Democracy: Elites, Special Interests, and the Betrayal of the Public Trust; and The Folly of Empire : What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

His tenth book, The Politics of Our Time: Populism, Nationalism, Socialism, was just published by Columbia Global Reports. It is a compendium of revised editions of three of his previous books: The Populist Explosion, The Nationalist Revival, and The Socialist Awakening.

Corporate Subsidy Quietly Dies in Texas — Topping Off Bad Week for Big Oil https://theintercept.com/2021/06/01/texas-subsidies-oil-companies/

Exxon Board to Get a Third Activist Pushing Cleaner Energy https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/business/exxon-board-clean-energy.html

Supreme Court Rules on Tribal Police & Immigrants’ Testimony https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/us/supreme-court-tribal-police-immigration.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage

White male minority rule pervades politics across the US, research shows https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/26/white-male-minority-rule-us-politics-research

The Banality of Democratic Collapse https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/opinion/republicans-donald-trump-loyalty.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Progressives Won Chile’s Election. And They Won Big https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/chile-election-constitution.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

An ‘Army of 15-Year-Olds’ Takes on the Democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/us/teens-massachusetts-elections.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

The Numbers are grim. Republicans are winning at normalizing voter suppression https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/19/republicans-are-winning-at-normalizing-voter-suppression

Jessica Watkins SPECIALish

Jessica Watkins is a stand-up comedian, actress and producer, whose documentary, SPECIALish, is being released on May 11, 2021 through Random Media. Combining her love of standup and adventure, SPECIALish follows Jessica’s 2014 walk across America. She spent over 8 months on a solo walking comedy tour beginning at Lewes, Delaware and ending in Oceanside, California. She performed standup in a dozen states along the way, pushing a running stroller full of gear and living off the kindness of strangers. She filmed over 300 hours of footage chronicling her experience, recorded a comedy special upon return to tell her story, and combined the two to create the award winning documentary, SPECIALish, which was the winner of Best Film at The Broad Humor Festival and Best Film at New Filmmakers Festival NYC .

You can find out more about Jessica Watkins and SPECIALish by going to her website:

jessicawatkinscomedy.com or via instagram @ ajessicawtkins.

Suzanne Simard FINDING THE MOTHER TREE: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

University of British Columbia Professor of Forest Ecology, Dr. Suzanne Simard, is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence. Her decades of in-the-field-experimental research have revolutionized our scientific understanding of forests, elucidating how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies–and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.

Suzanne Simard’s book, FINDING THE MOTHER TREE: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, was published by Knopf on May 4, 2021.
We spoke together on April 27th.

We end the program with a recent piece commissioned by the Intermountain Opera Company composed by Eric Funk, Requiem for a Forest, Op. 168. It is performed by Roots in the Sky. A video adaptation by Thomas Thomas is available on https://bozemanarts-live.com/event/requiem-for-a-forest/

Requiem for a Forest

In summer heat
And warming world
Storms whip up,
Lightening rolls,
Sparks run to earth.
The wind turns
Through the mountains,
Forests burn.

Fire ends,
Yet fire begins.
As mountains die,
Cones open.
Mors stupebit
et natura
Cum resurgent
Creatura.

Now we must learn
How to live here,
Where fire season
Burns all year.
Blackened earth
With green renew,
May the fires
wake us too.

Fungi Fear http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/fungi-fear

Friendly fungi help forests fight climate changehttps://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61787248

This Is What It Sounds Like When Plants Cry https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/science/plant-sounds-stress.html

USING SCIENCE & CELTIC WISDOM TO SAVE TREES (and SOULS) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/climate/celtic-wisdom-trees-climate.html

Magic mushrooms: how scientists discovered fungi are the secret ingredient for restoring the world’s forests https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/15/biology-mycorrhizal-fungi-map-restoring-world-forests

Plants Feel Pain & Might Even See https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/plants-feel-pain-and-might-even-see?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Biden’s Climate Chops Face A Big Test On Old-Growth Forests https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-climate-old-growth-forests_n_60a41b78e4b03e1dd38fc528

‘Forests are not renewable’: the felling of Sweden’s ancient trees https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2021/apr/16/forests-felling-swedens-ancient-trees-biodiversity-sami-environment

USDA May Allow Genetically Modified Trees to Be Released Into the Wild https://truthout.org/articles/usda-may-allow-genetically-modified-trees-to-be-released-into-the-wild/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=da19aa22-8134-413f-a72f-01b72dfd5bb1

‘War in the woods’: activists blockade Vancouver Island in bid to save ancient trees https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/09/canada-logging-old-growth-trees-vancouver-island

Pacheedaht First Nation chiefs in Canada tell anti-logging protesters to leave their lands https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/14/canada-logging-blockade-first-nations-pacheedaht

It’s only natural: the push to give rivers, mountains and forests legal rights https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/01/its-only-natural-the-push-to-give-rivers-mountains-and-forests-legal-rights

How Fungi Move Among Us https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/science/climate-mycorrhizal-fungus-networks.html

Mark Sullivan THE LAST GREEN VALLEY

Perhaps you have heard of The Martel Construction Company headquartered in Bozeman, MT. Beginning with a spec house in 1960, this family owned and operated business has become one of Montana’s premier general contracting firms. They also specialize in green building, including the LEED Platinum MSU Norm Asbjornson Hall, the LEED certified Element Hotel, The LEED Silver Bozeman Public Library and other green built structures, such as Morningstar and Emily Dickinson Elementary Schools, Chief Joseph Middle School and The Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport.

Before their arrival in Bozeman during a wild late Spring storm in 1956, however, they had lived through harrowing experiences as refugees fleeing the Red Army from their farmstead in the Ukraine, across Eastern Europe, through separation and reunion in the final year and aftermath of World War II.

Their incredible story of that time is brought vividly to life by award winning local Gallatin Valley writer, Mark Sullivan, in his latest book, THE LAST GREEN VALLEY.

Map of the long, perilous journey the Martels took from their farmstead in southern Ukraine to their eventual reunion in West Germany after the end of World War II. (Courtesy of Lake Union Publishing)

Mark is the best selling author of 18 previous novels, most recently BENEATH A SCARLET SKY, which has sold about 3 million copies and has been translated into dozens of foreign languages, and which was also an astounding true story from World War II.

We spoke with Mark Sullivan on April 26, 2021.

Listeners may also wish to learn more:

Mr. Jones is a film directed by Agniezka Holland based on the true story of a Welsh journalist who breaks the news in the western media of the famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s. It graphically depicts the horror that The Martel family and millions of others in Ukraine endured under Stalin.

Ian Millhiser THE AGENDA: How a Republican Supreme Court Is Reshaping America

Vox.com legal journalist, Ian Millhiser’s, latest book is THE AGENDA: HOW A REPUBLICAN SUPREME COURT IS RESHAPING AMERICA, just out from Columbia Global Reports.

Before his current work at Vox, he was Senior Constitutional Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress and was a Legal Research Analyst with ThinkProgress. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The American Prospect, Politico, as well as The National Law Journal, The Yale Law & Policy Review, and The Duke Law Journal. He has been the guest on Democracy Now as well as NPR among many others. We spoke with Ian Millhiser on April 19, 2021.

Articles referenced in this interview:

The absurd Supreme Court case that could gut the EPA https://www.vox.com/2022/2/23/22937517/supreme-court-epa-west-virginia-clean-power-plan-climate-change

The rightwing US supreme court has climate protection in its sights https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/us-supreme-court-rightwing-climate-crisis

The Supreme Court hears a case next week that could make Citizens United even worse https://www.vox.com/2021/4/17/22384256/supreme-court-citizens-united-disclosure-americans-for-prosperity-rodriquez-thomas-more

A new bill would add 4 seats to the Supreme Court https://www.vox.com/22384461/supreme-court-court-expansion-packing-judiciary-act-13-seats-jones-nadler-markey-johnson

Let’s Think About Court-Packing https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/51/lets-think-about-court-packing-2/

Biden’s Supreme Court reform commission won’t fix anything https://www.vox.com/2021/4/10/22375792/supreme-court-biden-commission-reform-court-packing-federalist-society

What Biden’s first list of judicial nominees tells us about his approach to the courts https://www.vox.com/2021/3/30/22358434/biden-first-judicial-nominees-ketanji-brown-jackson-public-defenders-diversity-criminal-justice

The Supreme Court’s new, deeply fractured decision on churches and the pandemic, explained https://www.vox.com/2021/2/6/22269879/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-south-bay-pentecostal-newsom-religion-covid-california

The Christian right is racking up huge victories in the Supreme Court, thanks to Amy Coney Barrett https://www.vox.com/2021/4/12/22379689/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-religion-california-tandon-newsom-first-amendment

The Supreme Court’s coming war with Joe Biden, explained https://www.vox.com/22276279/supreme-court-war-joe-biden-agency-regulation-administrative-neil-gorsuch-epa-nondelegation

The Voting Rights Act had a surprisingly good day at the Supreme Court https://www.vox.com/2021/3/2/22309326/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-brnovich-democratic-national-committee-carvin-brett-kavanuagh

The Supreme Court’s enigmatic “shadow docket,” explained https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-supreme-court-s-enigmatic-shadow-docket-explained/ar-BB17PxzL

FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/16/fbi-brett-kavanaugh-background-check-fake

Supreme court rules juvenile life sentences are unconstitutional https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/25/supreme-court-juvenile-life-sentences

US supreme court declines to limit life without parole sentences for minors https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/apr/22/us-supreme-court-life-without-parole-sentences-minors

What the Supreme Court got wrong about homicides committed by cops https://www.vox.com/22373833/supreme-court-police-killings-homicide-derek-chauvin-graham-connor-shooting-fourth-amendment

The Supreme Court Is Also to Blame for Daunte Wright’s Death https://truthout.org/articles/the-supreme-court-is-also-to-blame-for-daunte-wrights-death/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=0286a261-97de-4732-a3fe-ec797fa49ea6

John Topping , 77, Dies; Early Advocate for Climate Action https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/climate/john-topping-dead.htm

LaDonna Allard Dies at 64; Led Dakota Pipeline Protests https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/ladonna-allard-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

Ramsey Clark, Attorney General and Rebel With a Cause, Dies at 93 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/politics/ramsey-clark-dead.html

Rob Dunn DELICIOUS: The Evolution of Flavor and How It Made Us Human

Returning to Forthright Radio is Rob Dunn, who is a biology Professor in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University. He conducts a Public Science Lab, which engages citizen scientists around the world via the website, robdunnlab.com.

His latest book, DELICIOUS: THE EVOLUTION OF FLAVOR AND HOW IT MADE US HUMAN, has just been published by Princeton University Press, and even though that sounds super academic, Rob writes for the general audience in a humorous and easily understood way. He is the science teacher I wish I had had in high school. To be concise, Rob Dunn is fun. We spoke with him on April 5, 2021.

Links to articles/events relevant to this interview:

‘Sophisticated’: ancient faeces shows humans enjoyed beer and blue cheese 2,700 years ago https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/14/sophisticated-ancient-faeces-shows-humans-enjoyed-beer-and-blue-cheese-2700-years-ago

Politics & Prose event with Kim Wejendorp and Rob Dunn https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-ima-st_mig&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-st_mig&hspart=ima&p=%22Rob+Dunn%22&type=ff_q3000_A0IR7_set_bfrq#id=1&vid=1870fdb4e435f45ca537bd2bec62373c&action=click

Hunting for truffles in the Iraqi desert – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/mar/26/hunting-for-truffles-in-the-iraqi-desert-in-pictures

The rice of the sea: how a tiny grain could change the way humanity eats https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/09/sea-rice-eelgrass-marine-grain-chef-angel-leon-marsh-climate-crisis

13,000-year-old brewery discovered in Israel, the oldest in the world https://www.timesofisrael.com/13000-year-old-brewery-discovered-in-israel-the-oldest-in-the-world/

Thomas Thomas and Bozemanarts-live.com

Out of adversity comes creativity and diversity. When the Covid 19 pandemic shut down just about everything, Thomas Thomas created a website to be a performance platform for local artists, https://www.bozemanarts-live.com/

In this interview, Thomas Thomas describes his steep learning curve in creating bozemanarts-live.com and supporting not just the artists who appear there, but the performance arts starved shut-in, shut-down Gallatin Valley community, as well.

We spoke with Thomas Thomas on March 19, 2021, about his journey into creating this platform, and the upcoming first collaboration between Intermountain Opera and Baroque Music Montana, “Into the Light: A Musical Celebration of Spring” that will be streaming on March 20 at 7 PM on https://www.bozemanarts-live.com/