Three decades before the White House, Ronald Reagan was being assembled in plain sight. This episode traces the apprenticeship most highlight reels skip: the New Deal Democrat who became FBI informant "T-10," the B-list actor who turned a corporate speaking tour into a political movement, and the lapsed Midwestern kid who would one day broker the marriage of the Republican Party and white evangelical America.In postwar Hollywood, where Reagan, as Screen Actors Guild president, simultaneously fed names to the FBI and lent SAG's institutional cover to the blacklist. His October 1947 HUAC testimony was polite; the private file was not. Careers ended on the strength of "fraternal" reports.Then in 1954, General Electric Theater, and eight years on the GE plant circuit under Lemuel Boulware, the hardline VP who handed Reagan a reading list of Hayek and Hazlitt and turned his pep talks into a portable free market gospel. Corporations were buying preachers and performers to sell their "anti-union, low regulation" gospel. By 1962 GE had cut him loose, but "The Speech" was finished and in 1964 it launched Goldwater and, with him, Reagan himself.Finally, the wedding of cross and capital. Reagan, never a churchgoing adult, became the indispensable broker between corporate donors and a politically homeless evangelical electorate. In Dallas, August 1980, he closed the deal with one line: "I know you can't endorse me, but I want you to know I endorse you." That coalition outlived him still runs our country. In Part 2 we talk about the longterm staggering impact of Reaganomics. ReferencesBalmer, R. (2021). Bad faith: Race and the rise of the religious right. Eerdmans.Cannon, L. (2000). President Reagan: The role of a lifetime. PublicAffairs.Crespino, J. (2007). The new right and the southern strategy. Journal of Southern History, 73(4), 895–924.Critchlow, D. T. (2005). Phyllis Schlafly and grassroots conservatism: A woman’s crusade. Princeton University Press.Dochuk, D. (2011). From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain‑folk religion, grassroots politics, and the rise of evangelical conservatism. W. W. Norton.FitzGerald, F. (2017). The evangelicals: The struggle to shape America. Simon & Schuster.Hancock, A. (2004). The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. New York University Press.Kohler‑Hausmann, J. (2017). Getting tough: Welfare and imprisonment in 1970s America. Princeton University Press.Kruse, K. M. (2015). One nation under God: How corporate America invented Christian America. Basic Books.Levin, J. (2019). The queen: The forgotten life behind an American myth. Little, Brown and Company.Mittelstadt, J. (2005). From welfare to workfare: The unintended consequences of liberal reform, 1945–1965. University of North Carolina Press.Nadasen, P. (2005). Welfare warriors: The welfare rights movement in the United States. Routledge.Nickerson, M. M. (2012). The Reagan administration’s response to the gender gap. Journal of Policy History, 24(1), 115–140.Perlstein, R. (2020). Reaganland: America’s right turn 1976–1980. Simon & Schuster.Reagan, R. (1986, February 15). Radio address to the nation on welfare reform [Speech transcript]. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/radio-address-nation-welfare-reformRich, C. G. (2020). The “welfare queen” goes to the polls: Race‑based fractures in gender politics. Georgetown Law Journal, 108(4), 1–67.Shilts, R. (1987). And the band played on: Politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic. St. Martin’s Press.Sick, G. (1991). October surprise: America’s hostages in Iran and the election of Ronald Reagan. Times Books.Troy, G. (2009). The great communicator: Media and the Reagan image. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 39(3), 458–470.Unger, C. (2024). Den of spies: Reagan, Carter, and the secret history of the treason that stole the White House. Mariner Books.Wilentz, S. (2008). The age of Reagan: A history, 1974–2008. HarperCollins.

In this deeply personal episode, Crystal Dawn opens up about the slow, often invisible process of religious deconstruction. Raised inside a tight-knit faith community where belief wasn't just a doctrine but the architecture of every relationship, Crystal walks us through the cracks that started as questions and widened into a chasm she could no longer pretend wasn't there.Crystal Dawn is a writer and content creator shedding light on the patriarchal systems of harm within evangelical culture. Her experiences growing up a pastor’s daughter, as well as her own deconstruction journey, give her a unique lens… one she blends with research and history to give language to what many people experience in coming out of those spaces. She is currently at work on her first book, forthcoming in 2027.Follow Crystal Here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystaldawnalchemy4/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/CrystalDawnAlchemyWebsite: www.crystaldawnalchemy.com

Resource packet mentioned in podcast: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JHWbiYVQ4sD5gX-o0yHC-5hXnY1KPf0kBvw2rZSJfiE/edit?tab=t.0For ad free episodes, bonus content and "where did we get the Bible?" series sign up at patreon.com/montemaderWe have all seen the photos and videos of Gaza the last two years. We have heard the stories. We have watched politicians deflect and people say "but October 7th!!". But there's a story that spans far beyond October 7th. There is a series of decisions that decimated a region and crushed the vulnerable under the thumb of the powerful. How did we get here? what is the history that led to this point? To help talk about his heartwrenching story, we welcome Dr. Daniel Bannoura. Daniel is a Palestinian theologian and podcaster. He is a professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he received his PhD degree in Qur'anic Studies. He’s also the Director of Public Engagement at the Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice, and host of “Across the Divide”, a podcast that provides a space for thoughtful conversations about Palestine-Israel through the lens of faith and peacemaking.Recommended Reading: 100 Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

This episode is brought to you by ground news. Get 40% off their Vantage plan by using groundnews.com/montemaderThat feeling you get at 11pm on a Tuesday as you crawl into bed after another long day. You've been moving nonstop since you got up and theres a gnawing guilt you can't quite shake. That you haven't done enough, you should be doing more, working harder. That feeling has a 400 year history. Born on a ship off the coast of Massachusetts in 1630, preached from a Puritan pulpit, secularized by Benjamin Franklin, bolted to a factory wall, and then deliberately and expensively marketed to you by a public relations firm hired by General Motors.The message wanders through the mill towns where clergy were quietly put on the company payroll to preach that strikes were sins against God; through the Gilded Age sermons of Henry Ward Beecher telling starving railroad workers that bread and water was enough; through the jaw-dropping story of Spiritual Mobilization, a corporate-funded operation that distributed pre-written anti-union sermons to seventy thousand American ministers during the New Deal era. The Protestant pulpit, for a generation, was a subcontractor of the American boardroom. But it's also a story of the people who fought back and the saga ends with a powerful question "What if rest itself is the most radical act left available to us?" References: full list at patreon.com/montemaderBowler, K. (2013). Blessed: A history of prosperity gospel. Oxford University Press.Carnegie, A. (1889). Wealth. The North American Review, 148(391), 653–664.Carter, H. W. (2015). Union made: Working people and the rise of social Christianity in Chicago. Oxford University Press.Cotton, J. (1641). The way of life. Printed by M. F. for L. Fawne and S. Gellibrand.Dochuk, D. (2011). From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain folk religion, grassroots politics, rise of evangelical conservatism. W. W. Norton.Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch: Women, the body, and primitive accumulation. Autonomedia.Franklin, B. (1904). Advice to a young tradesman. In A. H. Smyth (Ed.), The writings of Benjamin Franklin (Vol. 2). Franklin, B. (1909). The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. P. F. Collier & Son. Fraser, N. (2016). Contradictions of capital and care. New Left Review, 100, 99–117.Gilman, C. P. (1898). Women and economics: A study of the economic relation between men and women as a factor in social evolution. Small, Maynard & Company.Grant, H. J. (1936, October). Conference report. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.Han, B. C. (2015). The burnout society (E. Butler, Trans.). Stanford University Press.Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University PressHersey, T. (2022). Rest is resistance: A manifestoKruse, K. M. (2015). One nation under God: How corporate America invented Christian America.Machen, J. G. (1933). The Christian view of man. William B. Eerdmans.Osborn, I. (2008). Can Christianity cure obsessive OCD? A psychiatrist explores the role of faith in treatment. Brazos Press.Petersen, A. H. (2020). Can’t even: How millennials became the burnout generation. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Phillips-Fein, K. (2009). Invisible hands: The businessmen’s crusade against the New Deal. W. W. Norton.Price, D. (2021). Laziness does not exist. Atria Books.Rodgers, D. T. (1978). The work ethic in industrial America, 1850–1920. University of Chicago Press.Rose, J. (2001). The poverty of virtue: The ethical foundations of American welfare reform. Journal of Religious Ethics, 29(2), 247–272.Sutton, M. A. (2014). American apocalypse: A history of modern evangelicalism. Harvard University Press.Suzman, J. (2020). Work: A deep history, Stone Age to the age of robots. Penguin Press.Tawney, R. H. (1926). Religion/rise of capitalism. John Murray.Winthrop, J. (1838). Model of Christian charity. In Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (3rd series, Vol. 7, pp. 31–48). (Original work delivered 1630)

This Episode is brought to you by Ground News, subscribe for 4o% off their vantage plan at groundnews.com/monteWhy do institutions built on moral authority so often become safe harbors for predators? Abuse scandals within religious institutions are recurring patterns with shared structural causes. This episode breaks down why churches, regardless of denomination, repeatedly find themselves at the center of abuse cover-up stories, and why victims so often find themselves silenced.We walk through several prominent cases that have made headlines in recent years spanning Catholic dioceses, evangelical megachurches, and independent ministries examining the common threads: delayed reporting, internal investigations kept away from civil authorities, institutional loyalty placed above victim care, and the "forgiveness" framework weaponized to shut down accountability.Then we go deeper into the structural question: hierarchy itself. When authority flows unidirectionally downward challenging a leader becomes spiritually dangerous for members. Whistleblowers risk not just reputation but community, belonging, and in some traditions, their eternal standing. This creates near perfect conditions for abuse to go fester and grow.SourcesBaptist News Global. (2026, March 21). The Southern Baptist Convention did not get played. https://baptistnews.com/article/the-southern-baptist-convention-did-not-get-played/Barr, B. A. (2021). The making of biblical womanhoodChen, Y. (2024). Ecclesiastical abstention or judicial abdication? The First Amendment and clergy sexual abuse. Yale Law & Policy Review, 42(1), 1–58.CrossPolitic Studios. (2026, March 17). How the SBC got played [Documentary film]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/XNQk2y8cUJYDu Mez, K. K. (2020). Jesus and John WayneFreyd, J. J. (2022). Institutional betrayal and institutional courage. In L. S. Brown & E. Pantalone (Eds.),Guidepost Solutions. (2022). Report of the independent investigation: The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee’s response to sexual abuse allegations and an audit of the procedures and actions of the Credentials Committee. https://guidepostsolutions.com/sbc-ec-investigation/Hess, R., & Hess, J. (1989). A full quiver: Family planning and the lordship of Christ. Wolgemuth & Hyatt.Ingersoll, J. (2015). Building God’s kingdom: Inside the world of Christian Reconstructionism. Oxford University Press.Joyce, K. (2009). Quiverfull: Inside the Christian patriarchy movement. Beacon Press.Klein, L. K. (2018). PureKvam, K. E., Schearing, L. S., & Ziegler, V. H. (Eds.). (1999). Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim readings on Genesis and gender. Indiana University Press.MinistryWatch. (2022, February 15). Former plaintiffs in Bill Gothard abuse lawsuit hit back at Institute in Basic Life Principles’ statement to NBC News. https://ministrywatch.com/MinistryWatch. (2025, August 1). TX Supreme Court rules against Bill Gothard and the Institute for Basic Life Principles. https://ministrywatch.com/Netflix. (2022). Our father [Documentary film]. Blumhouse Productions.North, G. (1996). Crossed fingers: How the liberals captured the Presbyterian ChurchPortugal, T. (2023). Donor Deceived: Doctor donor fraud cases. https://donordeceived.org/Pride, M. (1985). The way home: Beyond feminism, back to reality. Crossway Books.Provan, C. D. (1989). The Bible and birth control. Zimmer Printing.Recovering Grace. (2014). Firsthand accounts of sexual harassment and abuse at IBLP. https://www.recoveringgrace.org/Right to Know. (2023). Fight fertility fraud now: State and federal legislation tracker. https://righttoknow.us/fertility-fraud-laws/Silliman, D. (Director). (2023). Shiny happy people: Duggar family secrets [Documentary series]. Amazon Studios.Stewart, K. (2020). The power worshippersType Investigations. (2016, January 8). New charges allege rape by prominent religious leader. https://www.typeinvestigations.org/Worthen, M. (2013). Apostles of reason

I feel very confident in saying that this is quite possibly the most important, powerful, and for me, inspiring interview I've ever done. This one is on the longer side but it is worth every minute. I could have done a series with Deeyah. Deeyah Khan is a BAFTA– and two-time Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker known for her deeply empathetic and unflinching storytelling. Her work explores some of the most urgent and polarising issues of our time, including extremism, violence against women, racism, inequality, and social exclusion.Over the course of her career, she has spent years engaging directly with individuals involved in violence and extremist movements. Her documentaries feature jihadists, convicted anti-abortion terrorists, as well as current and former white supremacists and armed militia groups in the United States. Through these encounters, she seeks to understand the human stories behind radicalisation and division.In addition to her filmmaking, Deeyah is the founder of Fuuse, an independent media and arts production company. In 2016, she was appointed UNESCO’s first Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity.Born in Norway to Muslim immigrant parents, Deeyah’s experience of navigating multiple cultures informs her creative vision. This perspective brings a distinctive emotional honesty and humanity to her work, shaping films that not only challenge audiences, but also foster connection, deeper understanding and dialogue.I encountered Deeyah's work in her documentary "White Right: Meeting the Enemy" and it is TRULY transformative. She sat in rooms with white supremacists I'd be nervous to sit in and she did it with fierceness, determination, courage and love. And some of those men left the movement due to her influence. She is a rockstar and I can't wait to share this story with you.

This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Get 40% off their vantage plan by subscribing at groundnews.com/monteLike many of you, I watched a viral video of a gorgeous woman walking through her house, opening her Bible to Matthew 25 and reading the passage on "the least of these". This was in response to a TikTok comment of someone lashing out at Jen because she (the commenter) "was maga and loved Jesus". After calmly reading the Bible, Jen simply says "sounds pretty liberal to me" and ends the video. That simple video caused MAGA to call Jen's job where she works as an OB Nurse to get her fired, reported her online and tried to call her licensing board to get her nursing license revoked! Because she read the Bible and they didn't like it. She even had to have private security when she spoke at a conference. And that is how I met a kind, compassionate, funny, loving lady who shares my alma mater. We talk about our journey's through faith, Liberty, growth, change, and what it means to love your neighbor.

This episode is brought to you by Ground News. You can get 40% off their Vantage plan and stay up to date with all the news by going to groundnews.com/tablesMy grandma Ena was a pilot and they were her favorite stories to tell. I am sure its no surprise that I grew up with Amelia Earhart as one of my heroes. The woman who flew so that my grandma could fly. She vanished into the sky—and into one of the greatest mysteries of the modern age.In this episode, we fly into the world of Amelia Earhart, a woman who refused to stay grounded, refused to stay compliant and traditional in a time when society expected her to. She became record-breaking aviator and one of the most famous women in the world. The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. A symbol of independence, grit, and relentless ambition.But Earhart wasn’t just chasing records—she was chasing the edge of possibility itself.In 1937, she set out on a daring attempt to circumnavigate the globe, navigating thousands of miles over open ocean with only the tools and technology of her time. Somewhere over the vast Pacific, near a tiny speck called Howland Island… she disappeared.No confirmed wreckage. No distress call that told the full story. Just silence.In this episode, we’ll trace her rise from a curious, rebellious girl to one of the most famous pilots in history and then dive headfirst into the theories, investigations, and unanswered questions that have kept her story alive for nearly a century.And we will take a brief flyover to meet the Night Witches of the USSR's air service.This episode is to celebrate Women's History month with women who paved a runway for those who would come later!Rachel Hartigan, Lost: Unsolved Mysteries of Amelia Earhart and the Bermuda TriangleSusan Butler, East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia EarhartDoris L. Rich, Amelia Earhart: A BiographyMary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia EarhartCandace Fleming, Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia EarhartRic Gillespie, Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart DisappearanceElgen M. Long and Marie K. Long, Amelia Earhart: The Mystery SolvedMike Campbell, Amelia Earhart: The Truth at LastFred Goerner, The Search for Amelia EarhartVincent V. Loomis, Amelia Earhart: The Final StoryLes Kinney, Amelia Earhart: Beyond the GraveTheodore G. Tharpe, Crash and Sink: The Salvage of the Earhart ElectraNational Geographic Society, “Amelia Earhart Biography and Disappearance”Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “Amelia Earhart”Library of Congress, “Amelia Earhart Papers”FBI Records: The Vault, “Amelia Earhart”TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery), “Amelia Earhart Project Research”U.S. Navy Historical Center, “Earhart Search Operations 1937”PBS American Experience, Amelia EarhartHistory Channel, “Amelia Earhart Disappearance Theories”

This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Subscribe for 40% off their vantage plan at groundnews.com/tables. Project MKUltra was a secret research program run by the Central Intelligence Agency beginning in 1953 during the Cold War. Its goal was to explore methods of mind control, interrogation, and psychological manipulation, partly out of fear that rival nations like the Soviet Union were developing similar techniques.The program funded dozens of experiments at universities, hospitals, and prisons. Researchers tested drugs such as LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, electroshock, and other methods to see whether human behavior and memory could be controlled. Many subjects were not informed they were part of experiments, and some were exposed to powerful drugs without consent.The program remained secret until the 1970s, when investigations by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities revealed the experiments. Much of the documentation had already been destroyed on orders from CIA director Richard Helms.MKUltra became one of the most controversial intelligence programs in U.S. history and led to new oversight of intelligence agencies and stricter ethical rules for human experimentation.Sources available by request at [email protected]

This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Subscribe for 40% off their Vantage plan at groundnews.com/tablesThe Tuskegee Syphilis Study was a 40-year medical experiment conducted by the United States Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama to observe the natural progression of untreated syphilis in Black men.Beginning in 1932, researchers recruited about 600 poor African American sharecroppers—399 who had syphilis and 201 who did not. The men were told they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term used to describe various illnesses. In reality, they were not given proper treatment, even after Penicillin became the widely accepted cure for syphilis in the 1940s. Instead, doctors deliberately withheld treatment so they could study how the disease damaged the body over time.Participants were misled about the nature of the study and were subjected to painful procedures such as spinal taps while being told they were receiving medical care. Many men died from syphilis or related complications, infected their wives, and children were born with congenital syphilis.The study continued until 1972, when a whistleblower, Peter Buxtun, exposed it to the press. Public outrage led to congressional hearings, a class-action lawsuit, and major reforms in medical research ethics, including stricter informed consent requirements and oversight by institutional review boards.In 1997, Bill Clinton formally apologized on behalf of the U.S. government to the surviving participants and their families. The scandal remains one of the most infamous examples of unethical human experimentation in American history and contributed to long-lasting distrust of the medical system among many African Americans.Sources available by request [email protected]