Badlands Media

Trump kicks off with an 81st stock market record and a shoutout to a South Carolina Senate win before getting to the real headline: signing an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, following the same playbook as the Gulf of Mexico rename, with a hint that an ocean might be next. The Q&A that follows is a genuine grab bag, a blunt breakdown of trade grievances with Canada, tariffs on Canadian cars, a Putin and NATO question, a mail in ballot ruling in North Carolina, missing Americans in Nepal after a disaster, and a detailed Iran and Strait of Hormuz update covering blockades and cleared mines. The room also gets a bittersweet moment as the press secretary marks her last day, reflecting on two years behind the podium before heading off to spend more time with her kids. Wide ranging, a little emotional, and very on brand for a Wednesday press gaggle.

Jon Herold digs into a fresh batch of White House transparency documents on election machine supply chain vulnerabilities, walking through claims that voting machine vendors rely on Chinese made parts, but flags what he thinks is a bigger discovery: what appears to be the previously unknown title of a classified national security memorandum buried in the document citations. He also breaks down Trump's new national emergency declaration over foreign threats to the power grid, connects it to earlier joint declarations from top intelligence officials about the White House ballroom construction, and plays Trump's signing ceremony for the very on brand renaming of Lake Ontario to "Lake America." Other topics include a skeptical take on CIA Director Ratcliffe's under the radar Moscow trip, fresh Kremlin threats toward British military facilities over Ukraine support, and RFK Jr.'s claims about a fabricated Pennsylvania measles death. Sponsor reads and chat banter round out a document heavy Thursday show.

CannCon and Alpha Warrior open with a DHS statement on crime rates that Alpha is very pleased about, tying the drop back to deportation numbers and a broader debate over what actually drives the trend. From there they cover a wave of Democrat officials being charged over pandemic relief fraud, including a Massachusetts state representative facing eleven counts, plus a separate case involving postal employees recruited into a twenty four million dollar stolen check scheme. The centerpiece is the why we vote segment, where a federal judge lifts the last block on the President's mail in voting overhaul, letting the Postal Service move forward with its final rule ahead of the midterms. They close with a clip of leftists in LA County openly regretting their choices after a rough mayoral debate. Expect strong opinions, some good natured needling, and plenty of election talk.

Jon Herold and Burning Bright open with the escalating US Canada trade dispute, breaking down a clip from US Trade Representative Jameson Greer disputing the media narrative around a last minute tariff postponement gone sideways. There's real skepticism here about who actually backed out of the deal and why the coverage seems tilted.
From there it's a stretch of speculation around the CIA director's overnight trip to meet with Russian officials, with theories ranging from Iran sanctions messaging to something involving England, before the hosts settle on a more mundane explanation. The back half shifts to Elon Musk's newly announced Terrafab project, reportedly set to be one of the largest physical structures on Earth, and what it means when Trump's data center rhetoric and Musk's building plans start looking suspiciously coordinated. A August 2025 flashback clip also gets revisited for context.

Cam and Chris Ponder rejoin Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Steven L. Kwast for round two of the truth triangulation series, picking up where last week's 16 steps left off. Cam offers a genuinely great mental exercise for the audience: imagine zooming into history the way you'd zoom into a map app, down to the exact building, the exact timestamp, even Thomas Jefferson's pen moving across the Declaration of Independence. Kwast adds the crucial caveat that makes it more than sci-fi speculation, an information system immune to AI manipulation, where truth strengthens the more it's cross referenced. Expect a detour into how ancient Sumerian cities aligned themselves with the cosmos, a story about Chinese municipal titling that'll make you raise an eyebrow, and a closing reflection on why none of this technology matters without moral character underneath it. Homework included, as always.

Former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin joins Shipwreck for a wide ranging, no filter conversation that starts with home defense, go bags, and a legendary prank story from his academy days, then gets serious fast. He walks through his ongoing lawsuit fallout tied to calling out Cash Patel's inner circle, the strange background research he has done on a certain country singer connected to Patel, and why he thinks getting sued is meant to bankrupt critics into silence. They swap theories on energy vampires and loosh, debate whether voting can actually fix anything, and revisit the COVID years and the friendships that never recovered. There is real venting about broken promises from this administration, plus some genuinely funny detours into regional slang and parody songs about the FBI. Kyle leaves listeners with his six Fs for getting through it all, and Shipwreck adds a seventh: fiber.

Jon Herold works to untangle public confusion over a recent SCOTUS ruling on mail in voting, explaining that it only unfroze one of two active cases challenging Trump's postal executive order while the League of Women Voters case is still blocking key provisions. He covers the DOJ and FBI seizing Chinese state sponsored hacking tools that targeted NASA, the Fed, and other agencies, a Secret Service leak investigation resulting in staff suspensions, and a newly announced Meta settlement over child safety claims. Ashe in America joins later to break down the Mike Lindell Minnesota recount fight and why the state's proposed "partial recount" methodology raises red flags. Other topics include a Pentagon claim of newly found Afghanistan withdrawal documents, a Massachusetts lawmaker's pandemic fraud arrest, and some fun with a new nickname for a Colorado election official. Sponsor reads, ad mishap bloopers, and a lively chat session round out a Wednesday show ahead of tonight's Power Hour with Burning Bright.

CannCon and Ashe open with the CIA director making an unannounced trip to Moscow and speculate on what business would justify a visit nobody was supposed to know about. From there they dig into three Secret Service communications officials being suspended and stripped of clearances in a leak probe that appears tied to the Air Force One plane swap story, with both the FBI and CIA involved. The middle of the show covers the Department of Education rollback and a Colorado teacher taking on her own union, sparking a broader conversation about decision rights and who should actually hold them. The back half is heavy on elections, from Michigan's motor voter whistleblower claims and a Postal Service standoff with a federal judge to an Ohio proof of citizenship block and Lisa Murkowski's shifting explanations on the Save America Act. Plenty of banter and real depth throughout.

Alpha Warrior and Josh Reid kick things off with the mystery of John Ratcliffe making an unannounced trip to Moscow, walking through why the usual explanations do not add up and what kind of message might actually be getting delivered behind closed doors. They also sit down with Nelson McIlveen from Sentry H2O for a segment on water filtration and why what is actually in your tap water matters more than people realize. From there they build out a bigger thesis connecting Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and a coming tokenized financial infrastructure to what they see as the real global battle over data, computation, and energy. They push back on some popular takes making the rounds about the Iran conflict and explain why every major tech player is racing to secure power for the AI buildout. Expect plenty of geopolitical deep diving and the usual community shoutouts along the way.

This is the guest the audience kept demanding, and Zak Paine pushed CannCon to book. Clint Curtis, now Registrar of Voters in Shasta County, California, is the programmer who, back around 2000 in Florida, was asked to write software that could flip an election, and did, in 24 lines of code. CannCon and Ashe in America walk him through that origin story, the congressional testimony every mainstream camera mysteriously abandoned at lunch, the hanging chad "designed problem," and the eerie 51-49 pattern that haunted results for a decade. Then Clint explains his current fix: livestreaming every ballot on video before and after it touches a scanner so the machine simply cannot afford to cheat, and how that process accidentally uncovered a counterfeit ballot-stuffing problem. A rare, technical, and slightly jaw-dropping conversation with someone who has seen the guts of the system. Plus cacao, mystery toner, and a Las Vegas geography quiz.