Badlands Media

Jon Herold leans on the chat for a lighter Thursday, opening with Karoline Leavitt's announced departure as White House Press Secretary and a fun debate over whether the role should even exist in the Trump era. He digs into a Washington Post report tying a covert CIA program to mysterious strikes on Ecuadorian fishing boats near the Galapagos, plus a separate leak questioning the CIA's confidence in the Iranian assassination threat that prompted Trump's secret plane switch in Turkey. Other topics include a new executive order on transnational cybercrime, a Natalie Winters report on USDA funded halal meal programs in public schools, the national debt closing in on 40 trillion, and Trump's push for permanent Daylight Saving Time. Jon also gives a sneak peek at his own AI powered news aggregator project. Sponsor reads, market updates, and a lively chat session round out a slower but fun Thursday show.

CannCon and Alpha Warrior dig deep into a genuinely stunning federal case against the Southern Poverty Law Center, walking through allegations of a secretive internal unit literally named after the CIA that ran informants, funneled donor money to people inside hate groups, and even broke into a target's headquarters to copy documents before sneaking them back. They connect the dots to a broader RICO strategy that could unravel a whole network of NGOs. From there Alpha gets to say I told you so as a prior prediction about a high ranking military firing tied to the Air Force One canary trap story turns out to be spot on. They also revisit Wisconsin's ongoing election chaos with fresh Steve Kornacki meltdown clips and a Ron Johnson update on the Fauci saga. A dense, energetic Wednesday show.

Todd Blanche steps up as the 88th Attorney General and gives the kind of speech that's part victory lap, part love letter to the DOJ, tracing his own path from a college intern in the building all the way to the top job. He walks the room through his career, from paralegal to prosecutor to Deputy AG, before laying out a promise to lead with integrity, back federal law enforcement without apology, and keep hammering cartels, gangs, and anyone committing fraud against the government. There's a rundown of the department's recent wins on violent crime, fentanyl seizures, and border enforcement, plus a genuinely heartfelt thank you to the paralegals, analysts, and support staff who rarely get credit. It's less a policy announcement and more a mission statement, equal parts pep talk and changing of the guard, with Blanche making clear he sees himself as one of the career staff first and the boss second.

Jon Herold and Burning Bright open with sponsor banter (yes, there's now a joke Chinese knockoff Badlands promo code in play) before diving into a fresh John Solomon clip and a batch of newly declassified files. The throughline for the night is clear: the intelligence community, not any one political figure, is squarely in the crosshairs of these disclosures.
Herold breaks out one of his all time favorite Trump clips, a rapid fire rundown of Russiagate, the Mueller probe, both impeachments, the dossier, and the Twitter files, framing it as the actual target list behind everything getting declassified right now. The guys dig into why that framing matters, what's still to come, and why they think this moment has been years in the making. There's the usual mix of substance and back and forth banter throughout, including a few tangents that wander before circling back.

Bigfoot week continues. Shipwreck welcomes Adrian from Rise Attire, who traded streetwear design for building Sasquatch Nations, an original video game rooted in real cryptid encounter stories. They swap theories on whether Sasquatch, the Giant of Kandahar, and dogman are all separate species or branches of the same mystery, dig into the Sasquatch Genome Project's unexplained DNA results, and preview the game's cinematic trailer and lore, including the guardians of the borderlands and a treaty between humans and something far older. There is also a detour into Nessie drone footage, portals in the deep woods you should never walk up the stairs toward, and a genuinely fed up rant about Lindsey Graham's sister taking his Senate seat. Equal parts cryptid convention and culture war venting, with plenty of heart underneath the chaos.

Chris Ponder and G Money join Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Steven L. Kwast to push the "tools for truth" framework into new territory, tying it directly to Bitcoin. G Money makes the case that Bitcoin isn't just a monetary system but a thermodynamically grounded protocol that makes lying nearly impossible once information is written to the chain, while Chris riffs on constellations, constitutions, and why some systems resist being reduced to a simple "hot body" model. Kwast connects it all back to metaphysics, free will, and the historical arc from the American Revolution to today's information war. Expect a wide ranging conversation covering fifth generation warfare, a controversial book recommendation, and a closing call to action that's part strategy session, part sermon on personal responsibility. It's dense, ambitious, and unmistakably optimistic about where this is all headed.

Jon Herold digs deep into newly declassified documents revealing that the FBI's "Round river" operation buried corruption reporting from 14 confidential human sources on Joe Biden while formally labeling officials like Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo as Russian disinformation conduits. He ties this fresh evidence back to Hunter Biden's laptop emails and the Blue Star Strategies contract timeline to argue the Tucker Carlson led "redemption tour" is conveniently timed to counter the release. He also plays a clip of John Solomon previewing possible grand jury indictments out of Fort Pierce, Florida, and covers Trump floating a national emergency declaration to bypass Congress on election reform, plus a new DOJ special grand jury in DC overseen by one of Jeanine Pirro's deputies. Sponsor reads, market updates, and a preview of tonight's Power Hour round out a dense Wednesday show.

Eleven defendants, over a thousand sham marriages, and tens of millions of dollars, DOJ pulls back the curtain on what officials call one of the largest marriage fraud prosecutions in U.S. history. The Attorney General walks through a decade long scheme pairing Chinese nationals with paid American citizens in fake weddings, complete with staged photos, prenups, and a whole cottage industry of recruiters and officiants, before handing things to SDNY's U.S. Attorney and an HSI deputy to break down how the case actually came together. The press Q&A wanders well beyond the marriage fraud story, touching on a Southern Poverty Law Center indictment, the status of a certain high profile contempt referral, New York's second home tax fight, state fraud accountability, and a blunt, no nonsense answer about whether a certain "weaponization fund" is really dead. It's part law enforcement victory lap, part rapid fire news conference covering half a dozen other storylines at once.

CannCon and Ashe bring on voting systems expert Clay Parikh for an urgent breakdown of a wild overnight development in Wisconsin, where five out of nine election USB drives reportedly downloaded audit logs instead of actual vote totals, delaying results and prompting officials to call it simple human error. Clay walks through the technical documentation and explains why that explanation does not hold up nearly as cleanly as election officials are claiming. From there the show shifts into a look at a wave of primary challenges against long tenured incumbents, playing viral clips of two very different congressional moments and revisiting a memorable Donna Brazile and Scott Jennings clash over whether the DSA can fairly be compared to the Tea Party movement. A dense, fast moving episode with a genuine breaking news feel.

Alpha Warrior and Josh Reid come in energized this week, breaking down why a national emergency around election integrity looks more likely by the day and what that could mean heading into the midterms. They dig into Todd Blanche officially stepping into the Attorney General role, why that confirmation unlocks new subpoena power, and how new investigations into California and Minnesota ballot activity fit into the bigger picture. Expect talk of communications theories tied to a certain phrase making the rounds at the highest levels, some fun speculation about a wild NASA rumor involving planetary alignment, and the usual mix of pattern recognition and government watchdog talk. Add in listener shoutouts, sponsor segments, and the guys riffing off each other as always, and you have another fully loaded Tuesday night on DEFCON ZERQ.