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Air Force Secretary Troy Meink casually dropped the news that America had space-based weapons during the keynote address at a cyber conference. “We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” he said.

But what, exactly, …

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A lot of people are afraid right now. I’ve lost track of the times OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have announced they lost control of their AI. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants to “pace the frontier” and Bill Gates is warning there’s a non-zero chance that AI will kill billions. The US military has embraced AI and it’s leading to grave mistakes. In Ukraine…

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On this episode of Angry Planet, mysterious producer Kevin Knodell and former US Army Ranger turned journalist Marty Skovlund Jr join me to talk about 25 years of 9/11. Kevin originally pitched coming on the show to talk about the non-combat uses of the military. Then we all remembered it was 9/11. Then it got weird and kind of beautiful.

* “Storytelling s…

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Journalist Jasper Craven joins the show today to talk about his new book God Forgives, Brothers Don’t. The book is a deep dive into the history of the American military academy and how it has shaped the country’s conception of manhood. Craven’s investigation led him from Valley Forge to West Point, uncovered a strange 20th century Joe Rogan who changed …

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As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary I feel it’s my miserable duty to remind us that we’re still, technically, at war. The Memorandum of Understanding is here and a peace is being negotiated (hopefully in 60 days or less) but the fighting does tend to flare up on the weekends when the markets are closed.

On this episode of Angry Planet, nuclear…

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When I was a kid my father told me that America dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to prevent a ground invasion which would have led to more deaths. My grandfather, a soldier in the Pacific theater, would have been part of the invasion. I was told that if America hadn’t nuked Japan then I may have never been born.

This narrative is just one of the many we’…

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The world I grew up in no longer exists. The decades after World War II were boom times for free trade lovers. During the Pax Americana it seemed that most diplomatic problems could be solved by exporting blue jeans and lowering the cost of consumer goods for everyone. But in 2026 trade is a serious weapon and economic policy seems less a path to prospe…

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America’s war against Iran has gone on for more than two months and the United States has achieved none of its political objectives. American power has diminished, its munitions stockpile is low, and Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran has all the cards.

To hear Robert Pape tell it, this was all predictable. Pape is a political scientist who te…

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On the morning of April 21, Trump posted an image of eight women on Truth Social, claimed they were Iranian dissidents set to be executed, and demanded that Tehran release them. Detractors, and several Iranian sources, claimed the women were AI-generated. A day later Trump claimed the women would no longer be executed and that he’d saved them.

The truth is that the women are real and many are still in danger. Trump’s post made real Iranian women who protested the Iranian regime appear fake. The story speaks to a moment we’re in where it’s become impossible to parse truth from lies online. This was already difficult before AI-generated pictures and video. Now it feels impossible.

On this episode of Angry Planet, Mahsa Alimardani is here to tell us the story. Alimardani is the Associate Director of Technology Threats and Opportunities at WITNESS.

* Eight real women turned into AI propaganda

* Real crimes bastardized into regime propaganda

* “We need to come to terms with the fact that our information environment is structurally different.”

* Content Credentials as a partial solution

* How AI is supercharging our chosen reality tunnels

* The cycle of uprising and repression in Iran

* The structure of Iran’s internet and how its blackouts work

* Domestic intranet as an alternative form of communication

* AI-generated Lego propaganda videos

* Iran Reframed

* Explosive Media’s deep connections to the Islamic Republic

* Politics as fandom, fandom as politics

* “Everything is becoming flattened.”

* “The onus on the person scrolling is a bit unfair.”

Mahsa Alimardani’s LinkedIn

The Real Iranian Women Protesters Trump Made Look Synthetic

In the Room With Iran’s Social Media Savants

How AI Content Detection is Being Weaponized in the Iran War

Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War

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Kim Song Ju, the man who would become Kim Il Sung, was born to devout Presbyterian parents. Billy Graham’s wife was born to christian missionaries in China and went to high school in Pyongyang. American protestants once spread the gospel in northwest Korea and found fertile ground for their gospel message. Kim listened, learned, and used those teachings…