Badlands Media

Geopolitics with Ghost Ep. 111: Ayatollah Pivot, Putin at SPIEF & Hunter Biden - 6/5/26

Ghost opens episode 111 with Trump's Air Force One gaggle, walking through Trump confirming the Netanyahu F-bomb call, comparing AI wealth sharing for Americans to Chavez's oil nationalization, and delivering the line of the week on the Strait of Hormuz: oil is flowing at $97 a barrel and it should have been $300. The biggest shift comes when Trump tells reporters he would be honored to meet the new Ayatollah, calls him probably a professional, and implies the press may have lied about him the same way they lie about Trump. Ghost maps out how this, the uranium entombment admission, the State Department killing Israel's Somaliland play, and Putin's SPIEF defense of Trump all add up to a coordinated squeeze on Netanyahu. Hunter Biden's viral X account gets its moment: the January 2021 hot mic plea deal clip, his posts torching Jake Tapper, Jared Kushner, and Eric Trump, and Ghost's cooperating witness theory. SPIEF closes the episode with Putin's multipolar world speech, Saudi Arabia as guest of honor signing 30 Russia agreements, the Russia-Uzbekistan nuclear plant launch, and Kirill Dmitriev announcing the signing of the Trump-Putin Alaska tunnel design agreement with a mysterious Asian partner now confirmed.

The Daily Herold: 6/5/26 - California Stolen Live, FISA Blocked & DOGE Goes Dark

Jon Herold comes in Friday on a show that starts with a funeral. DOGE.gov has been taken down after five months of no updates, and Jon is in genuine mourning over the loss of his reliable eight-second daily segment. Then things get more serious: Spencer Pratt is being slowly and obviously bumped from the LA mayoral runoff by late-arriving ballots while everyone watches, federal prosecutors confirm multiple California election fraud investigations, and Trump is posting about it in real time. Jon delivers his funniest and most logical takedown yet of the "just vote them out" solution to election fraud, complete with a mock ballot system for whether the audience should vote. The Save America Act was rejected 48-50 in the Senate with four Republicans opposing it, and Jon asks Elon Musk and others to explain how voting out people in a fraudulent system fixes the fraudulent system. Trump also told the Wall Street Journal he wants Pulte to shrink or possibly terminate the ODNI entirely, which Jon and Chris Paul have been saying for a long time. Seven Senate Republicans including Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee joined Democrats to kill the FISA renewal. The US and Russia signed a Bering Strait tunnel design agreement today. Trump endorsed Lindsey Graham. Jon has thoughts.

Badlands Daily: 6/5/26 - Pratt Getting Robbed, Hunter Cooperating Theory, June Calendar

CannCon and Chris Paul close out the week with a Friday that ranges from California vote counting to the Ukraine end game. Spencer Pratt's 25,000 vote lead over Karen Bass is evaporating in late mail-in counting, and Chris Paul maps the epistemological trap: the same people who watched this happen in 2022 are going to accept the outcome because by the time it is announced, attention has moved on. CannCon flags the 40% primary turnout surge in LA that cannot be explained by anyone running except Pratt, and notes that Los Angeles is the only county in the United States still using Smartmatic. The GOP civil war produces three separate betrayals in one week: Ukraine aid and Russia sanctions pass the House in defiance of Trump, six senators vote to block the White House ballroom, and Collins, Murkowski, Tillis, and McConnell block the SAVE Act. Chris Paul makes the case that none of it matters because Trump does not need congress for anything he is actually doing. CannCon walks through the June calendar: Section 702 lapsing June 12, SpaceX IPO, disclosure day, Trump UFC, G7, a DC rally on June 24, and Supreme Court decisions all overlapping with an active protest movement. The Hunter Biden cooperating witness theory gets its most complete treatment yet.

Badlands Story Hour Ep. 170: The Godfather

Chris Paul and Burning Bright finally sit down with Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 masterpiece The Godfather, based on the Mario Puzo novel and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Diane Keaton. Both guys came to it fresh, with Burning Bright admitting he had never even watched it before this episode, and walked away convinced it absolutely lives up to its legendary reputation.
The conversation centers on the changing of the guard from Vito's old world honor culture to Michael's coldly pragmatic zero sum game, with Sonny stuck as a will without tact and Tom Hagen as the official interpreter who fails because the rule set itself is dying. They dig into the controlled opposition between honor and business as two different justifications for chasing the same worldly prize, why both sides are spiritually bankrupt, and how Vito's actual power projection in his youth is what makes his soft power work as an old man.
From there they go big picture on Donald Trump as Vito (and maybe as Michael), narrative warfare as the prime lever of power rather than an ancillary tool, mandate cultivation versus mandate manufacturing, the horse head as the perfect actual narrative fusion, and why don't insult my intelligence is finally where the audience is landing on the regime.

SITREP Ep. 157: Rick Chow Verdict, Pulte at DNI & CannCon Says Goodbye to His Stepdad

CannCon and Alpha Warrior open with the Rick Chow not guilty verdict out of Columbia, South Carolina, where the gas station owner was acquitted in the 2023 shooting death of fourteen year old Cyrus Carmack Belton. Alpha walks through use of force science, why shooting someone in the back is not automatic murder, and why the sheriff's public statement about the suspect not pointing the gun was political pandering. CannCon pushes back hard. The conversation turns into a wider debate about why people hate cops, the complacency that gets officers killed, and Alpha's reminder that the same cops you berate are obligated to risk their lives for you.
The middle of the show takes a personal turn. CannCon lost his stepdad Hayden that morning to cancer. He walks through the final days, the hospice questions nobody wants to ask, and the Meet Joe Black scene that keeps replaying in his head.
Then the guys return to the Bill Pulte acting DNI move and connect it to Jacqueline Breger's 2023 Arizona Senate testimony on Sinaloa cartel bribes laundered through mortgage fraud, plus the two ex Sinaloa officials who just surrendered at the border.

Quite Frankly Ep. 54: Killdozer at 22, Tim Hortons MAID & Reading Kaczynski with Jay

It's the 22nd anniversary of Marvin Heemeyer's killdozer rampage through Granby, Colorado, and Frank welcomes back Jay to walk the timeline. Two acres at auction, a concrete plant blocking his access, a check stamped "cowards," and a year of secret welding inside a Komatsu D355A. The episode threads George Bernard Shaw, John Adams on studying war, and JFK on peaceful revolution into a single question: how unreasonable do good men have to be willing to get?
From there, the grievances stack. New York is replacing mother and father with "gestating parent" on official documents. A Canadian doctor allegedly assessed a 45 year old man with Crohn's for medically assisted death in a Tim Hortons parking lot, then forgot a drug from the cocktail and the patient briefly came back to life. Oregon wants to ban hunting and fishing in a state with no late term abortion limit. AJ from Twitch calls in to ask where the line actually is.
Frank reads excerpts from the Unabomber manifesto, Jay pushes back on Kaczynski's tidy leftist conservative dichotomy, and the night closes with sperm whales speaking Chinese.

Badlands Media Special Coverage: 6/4/26 - Trump on Coal, Iran Deal & Reflecting Pool

President Trump opens with the big reveal: the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is finished, filled, and flowing after a century of leaks. From there it is a full throttle press event covering the $700 million clean, beautiful coal investment invoking the Defense Production Act to protect 14 plants, 42 mines, and build two new plants. Trump also announces the Lincoln Memorial Promenade and the Great Triumphal Arc as brand new infrastructure projects. The Save America Act gets a full rundown covering voter ID, proof of citizenship, and no men in women's sports. On Iran, Trump says the nuclear sites are entombed under Space Force surveillance and the Strait of Hormuz mine clearing is underway. The stock market hits an all-time high for the 73rd time. Oh, and the Knicks won Game 1.

Taking it Back Ep. 130: Final Month, Pulte's FISA Trap & The California Election Setup

This is a special one. Adel Nero opens by announcing that June will be the final month of Taking it Back on Thursdays, closing out a show that has been on the air since 2019. From there, he and Zak Paine dive into a news mix that swings from the absurd to the strategically consequential. They open with the New York Democrats officially replacing the words mother and father in custody law with gestating parent and non-gestating parent, then pivot to the DC exorcist who was fired for publicly suggesting UFOs are actually demons. The conversation deepens into a real breakdown of why the GOP Senate is freaking out over Trump's weaponization fund and his appointment of Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. Zak makes the case that Pulte is a Scaramucci style wrecking ball, an outsider with no loyalty to the intel agencies, and his very presence is already torpedoing the FISA reauthorization fight. They close with the California primary and why both guys think a major election integrity reveal may finally be near. Last call vibes, big topics.

Badlands Book Club: The Creature From Jekyll Island - Chapter 5, Part 1

CannCon and Ashe in America open Chapter 5 of G. Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island and the bailout game goes global. The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference gets a full autopsy: the IMF and World Bank were designed by Fabian socialists and a communist spy, Harry Dexter White, to eliminate gold from international finance and build world socialism one loan at a time. The Federal Reserve is no longer just America's lender of last resort. It is the planet's. SDRs get exposed as bookkeeping wizardry backed by nothing. Nixon's 1971 gold decoupling gets its proper context. And the World Bank's humanitarian branding gets stripped away as the crew walks through regime after regime, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, all receiving billions while committing atrocities their own governments openly planned. George Bernard Shaw, Fabian co-founder, gets quoted explaining exactly what socialism does to people who are not productive enough to justify their existence. The IMF opposes Bitcoin. CannCon and Ashe are not surprised.

The Daily Herold: 6/4/26 - Luna's "Assault," Hines County Win & Bolton Plea Deal

Jon Herold comes in Thursday with a healthy amount of righteous indignation and Phil Scarborough's best news in years. Anna Paulina Luna filed assault charges after a Code Pink activist tapped her arm in a Capitol hallway, and Jon plays the video, compares it to Savannah Hernandez's actual assault, and asks the obvious question: what does calling that an assault do to people who have been genuinely assaulted? Phil Scarborough's Hines County, Mississippi story reaches its conclusion: a judge voided the 2023 Democratic primary after finding missing ballot boxes, missing voter registration forms, missing ballot books, and missing machine tapes, and ordered a new special election in 45 days. Jon calls it one of the first times since 2020 he has seen an election actually thrown out over fraud. John Bolton is expected to plead guilty to illegally retaining national security documents and pay over $2 million. Todd Blanche is being nominated as permanent attorney general and Jon does not think he has the Senate votes. Trump posted in real time calling out California's slow ballot counting as theft and saying the US attorney's office in Los Angeles is already investigating. The House also voted to rein in Trump's Iran war powers with a few Republican crossovers, and Jon sees a potential constitutional fight coming.