Best John Heers Podcasts (2024)

1
How "Pharmacy Benefit Managers" Are Extorting Us (w/ Max from UNFTR) 40:15

2h ago40:15

40:15

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Max (just Max) is the host of Unfucking the Republic (UNFTR), one of our favorite podcasts. UNFTR publishes intensively-researched deep dives into some of the most important issues in the world. One of their most recent investigations is into Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), an insidious cartel…

1
Why Everyone Feels So Rotten About the Economy (w/ Kyla Scanlon) 33:06

1h ago33:06

33:06

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Kyla Scanlon is a leading online economics commentator and Bloomberg contributor, who regularly publishes TikTok explainers helping people understand the economy. Her new book In This Economy?is meant to help laypeople understand the economic forces around them that are so determinative in the o…

1
S14 E01: An Introduction 13:15

2h ago13:15

13:15

Wonder is all around us. In every moment, in every mundane or grand occasion. The earth and all that is in within it, is an unfolding poem spoken from divine lips in search of an audience. In this introductory episode, Stephen Roach shares the groundwork for this season’s exploration of Reclaiming Wonder. He says, “It is the artist whose work bridg…

1
Nuclear Countdown, or, Why We Need to Start Worrying and Stop the Bomb 28:46

32m ago28:46

28:46

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Nuclear weapons are always lurking there in the background, out in remote places where we don't have to think about them, but ready to be fired at any time. Journalist Sarah Scoles was interested to find out more about the people who maintain the system of nuclear weapons. What do they do and ho…

1
Why No One Gets To Retire Anymore (w/ Teresa Ghilarducci) 37:47

5d ago37:47

37:47

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Teresa Ghilarducci is an economist at the New School for Social Research and the author of Work, Retire, Repeat, which shows how the possibilities for having a comfortable and dignified retirement are slipping away. We begin with a news story about a 90-year-old veteran who was pushing shopping …

1
The Authoritarian Nightmare Donald Trump Is Planning (w/ Radley Balko) 36:51

7d ago36:51

36:51

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Radley Balko is one of America's leading journalists on policing and criminal punishment. His book The Rise of the Warrior Cop is a remarkable expose of the militarization of local police forces around the country. Recently, Radley has produced several excellent essays on the authoritarian promi…

1
S14 Trailer: Reclaiming Wonder 3:04

30m ago3:04

3:04

Around the turn of the century, German Sociologist, Max Weber coined the phrase ‘disenchantment’ as a way of describing society’s transition from a mythical or religious understanding of the world to a rationalistic, scientific view. Advancements in science and technology alongside a perceived decline of religious devotion rendered the world demyst…

1
What Americans Don't Know About Iran (w/ John Ghazvinian) 42:35

15m ago42:35

42:35

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! John Ghazvinian is the leading historian of U.S.-Iranian relations, the author of the indispensable study America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present. His book shows how opportunities for positive relations between the U.S. and the Iranian people have been repeatedly squandered. From instal…

1
Is It 1968 All Over Again? (w/ Charles Kaiser) 32:05

14m ago32:05

32:05

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! With antiwar protests jeopardizing a Democratic president's reelection and an upcoming party convention in Chicago, 2024 has some eerie echoes of one of the world's most tumultuous years: 1968. Perhaps by revisiting that year we can better understand our own time. To see what lessons it holds, …

1
Intentions, Outcomes, and CERN 31:00

23h ago31:00

31:00

Find this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1epb8MOU59E Making pilgrimage to CERN, ancient oracles, auguries, and more. John continues his exploration into intentions and how we are aligning ourselves to a good (or God depending!). And you might be surprised to find that the Old World folk and their entrail readings are that far removed from Phy…

1
The Toxic Legacy of Martin Peretz’s New Republic (w/ Jeet Heer) 40:57

17d ago40:57

40:57

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Jeet Heer has written two major essays about the intellectual legacy of the New Republic magazine’s 70s-2000s heyday. The first, from 2015, excavates the magazine’s history of racism and its role in Clinton-era “welfare reform” and in pushing Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s The Bell Cur…

1
The Value of A Dream with Stephen Roach (Recorded Live in Urbana Illinois) 16:45

1h ago16:45

16:45

In this live talk, recorded at the Audiofeed Festival in Urbana, Illinois, Stephen Roach encourages listeners that the value of a dream is not contingent upon its coming to pass. The value of a dream, he says, is in the dreaming. For anyone, who has grappled with the death of a dream or the pain of letting go, this talk will encourage you that a dr…

1
Jonathan Kozol on the Scandal of America's Apartheid Education System 35:00

10h ago35:00

35:00

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Jonathan Kozol is one of the leading critics of the U.S. education system, having written a series of widely acclaimed books across a 60-year career, including Savage Inequalities, The Shame of the Nation, and Letters to a Young Teacher. Today he joins to discuss his new book An End to Inequali…

1
How Corporations Suck the Welfare State Dry (w/ Anne Kim) 33:16

1d ago33:16

33:16

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Anne Kim's book Poverty For Profit: How Corporations Get Rich Off America's Poor gives a partial answer to an enduring question: how come we spend so much trying to solve poverty but poverty persists? One major reason, Kim argues, is that parasitic for-profit industries suck a lot of the money o…

1
Why Thomas Sowell is a Terrible Economist (w/ Cahal Moran) 54:45

3d ago54:45

54:45

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Thomas Sowell may be the best-selling economics writer of our time. For decades, the Hoover Institution pundit has published books and columns introducing economic concepts to a popular audience. He has been acclaimed as a genius and maverick whose insights are ignored by the academy because the…

1
Why Do We Have a "Viral Underclass"? (w/ Steven Thrasher) 41:12

19d ago41:12

41:12

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Steven Thrasher is a professor of journalism at Northwestern University and the author of The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. He has also recently been present at the Columbia protests over Gaza. He joins today to discuss what he saw at the protests, before …

1
Is Trump an "Aberration" Or the Logical Conclusion of the Right-Wing Project? (w/ David Austin Walsh) 41:40

17d ago41:40

41:40

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Today we talk to David Austin Walsh, a postdoc at Yale and the author of Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right, a new book about the history of the U.S. right wing. Walsh is particularly interest in what the boundaries are (if any) between "mainstream" conservatism an…

1
Uncle Seth: Light Person Extraordinaire Insults Our Listeners! 1:02:18

14d ago1:02:18

1:02:18

Find this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8BNf5N4c318 Uncle Seth returns...with a vengeance! But please be kind, because we truly do love him. Visit us at https://first-things.org/ 2 years. Deep cultural immersion. Intense personal discovery. See what it means to become a Field Worker with FTF: https://first-things.org/opportunities or email D…

1
What Will New Weight-Loss Drugs Do to Us? (w/ Johann Hari) 1:03:34

30d ago1:03:34

1:03:34

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Bestselling author Johann Hari, whose Lost Connectionsand Stolen Focus have previously been discussed on this program, returns today to discuss his new book Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs. New weight-loss drugs have proved remarkably eff…

1
S13 E13: Frameworks of Community with Conor Sweetman and Yi Ning Chiu 38:45

26d ago38:45

38:45

In this Season Finale round table, founder of Ekstasis magazine, Conor Sweetman and essayist, Yi Ning Chiu discuss expressive individualism, various frameworks of community and why physical community remains essential in our modern, digitized culture. Alongside of Ekstasis, Conor serves as the director of innovation for Christianity today while Yi …

1
Inside the MAGA Movement on the Ground (w/ Isaac Arnsdorf) 26:04

12d ago26:04

26:04

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Who actually comprises the MAGA movement? Where do Trumpian politicians come from? How do they defeat "establishment" Republicans on the local and state level? How much is organized from above? What's the role of Steve Bannon in all this? In Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement's Ground Wa…

1
How The Dollar Became America's Most Powerful Weapon (w/ Saleha Mohsin) 30:14

15d ago30:14

30:14

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! When we think of American power, we often think of missiles, guns, and tanks. But operating in the background is an incredibly powerful weapon whose use often goes unnoticed: the dollar. In her new book Paper Soldiers: How the Weaponization of the Dollar Changed the World Order, Bloomberg News …

1
Getting Reoriented: Life Update from Stephen Roach 5:00

17d ago5:00

5:00

If you’re a regular listener to the podcast then you know that we haven’t produced our regular episodes for the past few weeks. And if you follow us on Instagram or get our email newsletters then you know the reason why. On May 27th, my studio laptop was stolen. In light of this event and feeling disoriented, I began to study the word 'orient.' I d…

1
In Praise of Excess (w/ Becca Rothfeld) 38:45

17d ago38:45

38:45

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Becca Rothfeld is the nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post. Her new essay collection, All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess, draws together and expands on some of her best work. It covers subjects including Marie Kondo and minimalism, the films of David Cronenberg, the …

1
What Would a Left Foreign Policy Look Like? (w/ Van Jackson) 41:10

19d ago41:10

41:10

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! We know the left is, generally speaking, anti-war and anti-imperialist. But if a left-wing government ever took power in the U.S., what would its foreign policy look like? How would it deal with, say, human rights abusing governments? Would it shun them? Sanction them? Would a leftist governmen…

1
How Cars Make Life Worse (w/ Daniel Knowles) 34:11

1M ago34:11

34:11

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Daniel Knowles is a reporter for The Economist (yes, that one). His book Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse argues that cars are a problem, and shows all the ways in which we could have more satisfying, sustainable, affordable lives with fewer cars. That's a tough sell in a car-loving countr…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

John Heers Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide