Badlands Media

Jon Herold and Chris Paul dig deep into the aftermath of Maduro's capture, walking through the Pentagon's newly secured stake in Venezuela's oil riches and how the deal has evolved from a broker relationship into a full investment position. They cover Chevron's long, complicated history operating in Venezuela through the Chavez and Maduro years, and play a clip from a ConocoPhillips executive meeting that lines up suspiciously well with the timeline of events.
The conversation broadens into what this could mean for the region's energy future and whether the sovereign alliance framework they've discussed for years fits what's unfolding here. There's also a Tucker Carlson clip worth a listen, plus some banter about AI tools that can now auto clip and post your podcast content for you, which one host finds genuinely useful and the other finds a little unsettling.

Cam Cooksey opens episode 65 (August 29th) with a MyPillow ad that doubles as a plug for Mike Lindell's post campaign standing to expose Minnesota election issues, then settles into a relaxed, tangent heavy night of Truth Social.
The theme is Trump the builder versus the dying legacy media. Cam walks through posts framing Trump as the most popular president in our lifetimes, a barrage of media roasts, and the striking "CNN is in a death spiral but can be turned around" post, which he reads as classic Trump: demo the corrupt structure, then rebuild it. He mixes in tariff talk, a candidate endorsement, Kathy Hochul jabs, the playful "Lake of America" renaming, an Amish and electricity rabbit hole, and an AI data center chat.
He closes on Venezuela and a New York Post piece arguing Trump is winning the Iran war through economic pressure. Cut off the funding, defeat the proxy.

Trump drops a genuinely wild Truth Social announcement mid show, a massive oil agreement handing the US majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, and the crew spends a good chunk of the night picking apart whether Maduro is really finished, whether this counts as regime change or just a really good deal, and why "it's not stealing if nobody stops you" somehow becomes the working theory. From there it connects into a sharper conversation about the Iran war's real effect on gas prices, oil refiners quietly dodging consequences, and whether the whole conflict has become a convenient narrative shield heading into the midterms. There's also some good natured ribbing about billionaires paying eighty grand for stem cell treatments in Switzerland, a Kirk Cousins football aside, and the usual sponsor detours. A dense, genuinely engaging night of geopolitics with the jokes still very much intact.

Host Matt Trump (fighting a temperamental mic cord) turns his leftover map slides into a full episode on a provocative question: did the barbarians actually destroy Rome, or preserve it? Picking up from last week's Phantom Time detour, he leans on Belgian historian Henri Pirenne and the book Medieval Cities, bought decades ago as an Austin physics grad student, to argue a mainstream but revisionist case.
The thesis: the Germanic tribes (Goths, Angles, Saxons, Franks) did not want to burn Rome down. They wanted in, preserving Roman civilization under new rulers, feudalism, and above all the Church, which outlived the state. What truly severed the ancient world, Pirenne argues, was the Arab conquest cutting Christian Europe off from Mediterranean commerce, shifting Europe's center of gravity north. Expect Hagia Sophia, Ravenna mosaics, Justinian, and pointed parallels to whether America is reliving Rome's fall.

Jordan and Nate dig into what they call a genuine media scandal this week: two supposedly measles related deaths in Pennsylvania that the county coroner and commissioner themselves say never happened, complete with a NBC infant death story that quietly admits the actual cause was a ruptured spleen. They connect the dots to what they believe is a deliberate push to pressure Amish communities in Pennsylvania and New York into vaccinating, tying it to a related Supreme Court bound legal fight over religious exemptions. From there it is a rundown of astroturfed food recall panic accounts, RFK Jr's newly signed temporary beef import deal and what it means for American ranchers, and a genuinely nostalgic tangent about the worst school lunches either of them ever ate. The show wraps with some real optimism: new fertilizer plants breaking ground and early signs of a farming shift away from glyphosate.

Jon Herold marks the six month anniversary of the Iran conflict by ribbing early predictions it would wrap up in weeks, then covers the Treasury Department's first named sanctions target under "Operation Economic Outcast," a UAE bank accused of processing 1.8 billion dollars for Iranian shadow banking networks. He digs into a new report on hundreds of millions in tax deductible charity dollars allegedly funneled into Democrat leaning voter registration efforts, and breaks down Trump's surprise announcement letting farmers and ranchers process their own meat to bypass a handful of dominant processors. Jon also debuts a new "Flashback Friday" segment, revisiting a November 2020 Politico article on presidential records that he argues quietly laid groundwork for the later classified documents scandals, plus a personal story about turning down a paid Polymarket promotion over disclosure concerns. Sponsor reads and lively chat banter round out a newsy Friday show.

Ashe in America and Ghost call Season 5, Episode 4 of The Chosen, "The Same Coin," a real turning point, and they mean it. This episode zeroes in on two men chasing the same broken idea of righteousness from opposite sides, as Judas continues to unravel and Shmuel crosses a line of his own that changes everything for him. The hosts spend real time on the Last Supper dialogue between Jesus and Judas, breaking down just how close the show sticks to the Gospel accounts while still finding room for gut wrenching original material. Expect a close look at betrayal, self deception, and what happens when someone convinces themselves that compromise is really conviction. They also talk through where Shmuel's arc is headed and why his storyline mirrors Judas more than either character would probably admit. As always there is warm banter, some sponsor reads, and genuine reverence for how the show keeps raising the emotional stakes. Ashe promises no spoilers too soon, so settle in.

CannCon and Chris Paul kick off Friday with what CannCon dubs Schrodinger's case, as a federal judge blocks the President's mail in ballot executive order yet again, roughly a week before the first ballots go out, in a ruling everyone expects to be appealed within days. They walk through the dizzying timeline of injunctions and reversals stretching back to April. From there they cover a USAID report finding more than a hundred UNRWA employees took part in the October 7th attacks, plus new sanctions avenues opening up against domestic extremist networks. The back half wanders into a genuinely interesting history detour on the Lusitania and what Woodrow Wilson knew, before closing with a Jessica Tarlov clip that has to be heard to be believed and a fresh Trump post it leads directly into. Plenty of banter and a good Friday send off.

Chris Paul and Burning Bright take on the 1997 Val Kilmer vehicle, and the verdict lands fast, this one is rough. Expect an entertaining teardown of a movie that was clearly built to launch a franchise and immediately fizzled, plus a genuine deep dive into Val Kilmer's eccentric career and the strange choices that pushed him away from Batman sequels and James Bond toward this instead. From there the conversation drifts into nuclear fusion, Russian oligarchy talk, and a pretty entertaining read on the film's ending as unintentional propaganda, complete with an NGO cameo that gets roasted hard. There's also some current events woven in around energy prices and manufactured scarcity. Stick around for boosts, a Vegas meetup mention, and next week's pick, a Depression era bootlegging drama with a killer cast neither host has seen.

CannCon and Alpha Warrior go dark, literally, kicking off in the shadows before diving into a stack of military videos and a healthy round of inter branch trash talk. They react to Javelin footage, boot camp chaos, and a Navy recruit graduation before landing on the real debate of the night, that viral video of a run down ship head that had the internet convinced sailors were suffering nine months at sea with no working toilets. Both hosts, one Marine and one who has heard it from every angle, break down why the story was likely overblown family gossip rather than sailors actually complaining, and why deployments are simply not supposed to be comfortable. There is also a deep dive into submarine depths and a hard pass on ever volunteering for one. It is inter service ribbing, military myth busting, and classic SITREP banter start to finish.