DN Speak Daily

Sunday, August 9, 2026

Weekly Roundup: Abdul El-Sayed and the New Red-Green Scare + Project Esther (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

The Christian Nationalist Red-Green Scare Has Arrived.

In the Weekly Roundup, Brad Onishi examines how the American Right and MAGA are reacting to Abdul El-Sayed's victory in Michigan by calling him anti-American, communist, socialist, and more. As Brad explains, these rhetorical choices are strategies that correspond to a larger effort by the Trump administration to criminalize dissent. Brad traces the code words used by the American Right against Sayed, Mamdani, and others to NSPM7 and Project Esther.

This is about more than one Senate race in Michigan. It’s about who gets to define what counts as “American,” what kinds of political disagreement are considered legitimate, and what happens when the language of political opposition becomes the language of political persecution.
Interview:

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/live/xmesJTK0A0k?si=JbRc90_DgcFa3XoU
Audio only podcast: https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/weekly-roundup-abdul-el-sayed-and-the-new-red-green-scare-project-esther?hsLang=en

The Fauci Files (Conspirituality podcast #320)

During an extraordinary career, Dr. Anthony Fauci led the federal response to HIV-AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and Zika. He always advocated funding for pandemic preparedness, vaccine development, immunology and pathogen research. Then came COVID-19, which, unlike outbreaks past, was trapped in a politicized online disinformation and conspiracy-mongering stew.

As he was pushing 80, Fauci rode the dragon of a novel coronavirus pandemic that was leaving piles of bodies in Italy, India, and New York. He served as the interface between scientists, government, and the public, all while learning about the virus in real-time. Like any good public health communicator, he sought to save lives using the best available knowledge. Like any good scientist, he kept an open mind about what was not yet known.

But the pandemic-grievance industry made him the face of a conspiracy theory. Did he cause a catastrophically deadly pandemic, decimate American freedoms, or ruin the economy over a largely harmless flu? Today we discuss the release of his “diaries” and tune into last week's Senate hearings, where crackpots bullied, berated, and slandered the 85-year old public servant.
Interview:

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/320-the-fauci-files

Friendly Atheist News Roundup 8/6/2026: Anti-LGBTQ Food Bank Leader Rejects Gay Food (VIDEO Podcast Ep. 647)

0:00 Intro
0:55 Annoying "Sky Evangelist" kicked off airline after scaring everyone with her preaching.
13:03 West Virginia pastor rejects food over LGBTQ support. Now his food bank is empty.
24:46 Missouri Republicans threaten to defund library over books about a rainbow dinosaur and a wig.
34:48 Florida AG threatens to defund Catholic schools unless they loosen vaccination rules.
46:20 Three Texas moms cite "religious freedom" to strike down state's Ten Commandments law.

Interview:

Without Jessica: https://www.youtube.com/live/jHndS3begSU?si=fpOLaZtWfmtQkhyx

With Jessica: https://youtu.be/OhU8Gyz2fdE?si=6BWuqDsivi-OLYS8

US accused of meddling in British politics with $500,000 grant for ‘public education’ courses

Lisa Smart, a Liberal Democrat MP and the party’s Cabinet Office spokesperson, said: “Magna Carta aimed to limit the powers of tyrants and said everyone was subject to the rule of law, something for which Trump has repeatedly shown utter contempt.

“We have a proud tradition of liberty and freedom of speech in this country and we don’t need Trump’s Maga money meddling in our democracy.”…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/08/us-accused-of-meddling-in-british-politics-with-500000-grant-scheme-promoting-shared-values

We've Never Found the Original Bible Manuscripts (Dan McClellan and Dan Beecher; Data Over Dogma podcast on YouTube)

Everybody does textual criticism — including the people who insist it's the devil's work.

This episode we dig into how scholars actually reconstruct the earliest recoverable form of the biblical text: why there's no original manuscript of any biblical book, what a credit-card-sized scrap of John can and can't tell us, and how a single letter in John 1:18 turns a unique Son into a unique God.

Plus, Erasmus back-translating Revelation out of Latin, the verses your Bible quietly dropped, and the paragraph of Samuel that the Dead Sea Scrolls handed back to us.

Interview:

Chapters: 0:00 Cold open
0:45 This week: textual criticism
1:59 KJV onlyism pushes back
3:11 Truth versus certainty
4:08 The KJV's own textual criticism
5:01 It started with Homer
6:00 The earliest recoverable text
7:17 No originals survive
8:33 The Hebrew Bible gap
10:17 Qumran and Origen's Hexapla
11:50 Erasmus and seven manuscripts
14:03 When it became a science
14:27 The harder reading wins
15:49 John 1:18: Son or God
20:00 The shorter reading rule
21:12 Griesbach, Lachmann, and after
23:40 The 1881 Revised Version
25:33 Verses added later
26:38 Diplomatic versus eclectic
28:48 Haplography and dittography
31:43 A lost paragraph in Samuel
32:52 Conjectural emendations
33:53 Wrap-up and thanks

Interview:

https://youtu.be/N5so_9VVLEA?si=r9p86TobaSAvssJS

God Vows to Destroy Everything — Then Changes His Mind (Dan McClellan and Dan Beecher; Data Over Dogma podcast on YouTube)

Zephaniah is only three chapters long, and it comes out swinging: God announces plans to sweep every living thing off the face of the earth, and it escalates from there.

This episode, we're going cover to cover through one of the twelve minor prophets: what "the day of the Lord" meant before there was such a thing as eschatology, who exactly the "host of heaven" are, and why "minor" has nothing to do with quality.

Then, after forty verses of unrelenting devastation, the book pivots to "sing aloud, O daughter Zion" — so who tacked on the happy ending, and why?

Chapters:
0:00 Zephaniah, Cover to Cover
1:09 Three Chapters, No Mercy
2:06 What "-iah" Actually Means
3:53 Why "Minor" Prophets?
4:58 Dating It to Josiah
6:22 Later Editors at Work
7:48 Sweeping Away Everything
10:12 Baal, Milcom, and Rooftops
11:43 The Host of Heaven
12:54 Deuteronomy's Divine Council
15:07 The Day of the Lord
17:04 The Book's Three Movements
19:40 Oracles Against the Nations
21:15 Converting the Dead
23:19 No Messiah Here
24:18 Who Added the Happy Ending?
25:34 A Prophecy That Failed
27:51 Nobody Weaponizes Zephaniah
28:57 The Great Horned Omen
30:36 Wrap-Up

Interview:

https://youtu.be/jULWHaHmpnw?si=QUMZCr2MRJxWW2Cg

Why are people attracted to Christian nationalist lies about American history? (Warren Throckmorton; The Christian Past That Wasn’t: Formerly Telling Jefferson Lies podcast)

Author Warren Throckmorton says:

On July 30, 2026, philosopher Scott Coley interviewed me at a book event at Nooks Gallery & Book Shop in Lancaster, PA. The crowd was positive and supportive of The Christian Past That Wasn't and separation of church and state as a principle. Scott covered several of the book's myths and allowed me to expand on the reasons why people are attracted to Christian nationalist stories. We covered just a few of the stories and concluded with a reading about a white man's history. If you have read the book and enjoyed it, this will be a great supplement to that experience.

Interview:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-at-nooks-gallery-book-shop-with-scott-coley-july/id1720424853?i=1000780341194

“Why Do They Quote the Old Testament?” (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast) It's In the Code 202

In this episode of It’s In the Code, Dan Miller tackles a question from a Jewish listener that cuts to the heart of Christian theology: if Jesus established a new covenant that fulfilled the Old Testament law, why do so many conservative Christians continue to rely on Old Testament verses to make moral arguments?

Dan explores the New Testament's teaching on grace, the Apostle Paul’s insistence that Christians are no longer bound by the Jewish law, and the complicated relationship Christians have with the Hebrew Bible.

Along the way, he explains why many conservative Christians selectively appeal to Old Testament commandments—especially on issues like sexuality—while disregarding countless other laws they believe no longer apply.

Interview:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-in-the-code-202-why-do-they-quote-the-old-testament/id1441649707?i=1000780138337

Who Killed Charlie Kirk? (w/Brandy Zadrozny) (Conspirituality podcast)

MS NOW senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny spent 10 months tracking the conspiracy theories that evolved online in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk. She joins Derek to discuss what her investigation found.

Interview:

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/drop-who-killed-charlie-kirk

Congressional Reason! (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)

After reporting problems created by — as well as victories against — Christian nationalism, we hear the co-chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., speaking at the third annual Congressional Reason Reception in Washington, D.C., co-sponsored by FFRF.

Interview:

https://ffrf.org/news/freethought-radio/freethought-today-august-6-2026/