Badlands Media

Frankie Val is joined by Jay Gulinello for a Thursday night in Studio A, opening with Lauren's pregnancy countdown (37 weeks tomorrow), next year's Jamboree on October 22, 2027, and a Brewers-Dodgers World Series rundown before Frank admits he has spent three days in mortal combat with ChatGPT over livestream thumbnails. That leads into Anthropic's new rules on "abusive" behavior toward Claude, and why the models keep stamping the whole show title onto the art. The center of the show is a Social Security debate: Frank walks through Cato Institute polling on boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z, the drop from 16 workers per beneficiary to about 2.7, and whether younger viewers will ever see a return. Callers and chat weigh in, including Cloud Nine on European safety nets. Later the room goes full October with Chucky one-liners, a neighbor's year-round Chucky window display, and Frank's dad in the movie Spookies, plus a Blockbuster nostalgia detour. They close with Super Chats, raffle prizes, a nod to Badlands viewers hanging out on the affiliate, promo code FRANKLY at quitefrankly.tv, and a Ripple Effect clip on nuns and Europe's population crisis before the flip side.

Matt McDonagh is back for episode three of Life in the Singularity, and this week the focus is digital twins and the leverage superintelligence hands to anyone willing to learn. Matt argues that AI has torn down the old wall of syntax mastery, so curiosity now matters more than credentials, and he explains why he thinks large language models will one day look like 8-tracks: a stepping stone, not the destination. From there he covers running models locally and offline, using AI to pressure-test a business idea before you spend a dime, and why being "incalculable" is the best defense in a world that already knows everything about you. A long Bitcoin segment takes on the quantum computing scare and Satoshi's coins, then turns to deflation, housing, money printing and fractional reserve banking. The back half plays a short video on digital twins, live virtual models of factories, energy grids and desalination plants where an intelligence can experiment without real-world cost. Matt shares how he uses his own digital twin, walks through the OODA loop and a build, measure, iterate mindset, and previews graph and recurrent neural networks for next week.

Ashe in America and CannCon settle in for Chapter 18 of The Creature from Jekyll Island, picking up right after Jackson's war on the Second Bank. The Bank is dead, but banking is very much alive, and the chapter walks through the failed fixes that followed. They cover the push to kill small banknotes and force everyday trade back onto gold and silver, then how checkbook money and demand deposits made those limits pointless. Next come the safety-fund schemes, money backed by government securities (the Red Dog and Wildcat era that foreshadowed the Fed), and the mirage of "free banking" that still ran on state favors and gold-box tricks. From there the book turns to the Union in jeopardy: tariffs, legal plunder, Lincoln, and why the Civil War looks like an economic war as much as a moral one, with Mexico and the Monroe Doctrine in the mix. Ashe and CannCon keep pulling the thread to today, including how the 1830s money fights rhyme with current trade and industrial policy. No sponsor interview in this cut. Dense history, clear parallels, and a lot of "we're just describing the present."

The Department of Justice holds a press conference in St. Louis to announce the results of Operation Show Me Justice, an ATF-led surge against violent crime that ends today after two months. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter reports 435 arrests, including 412 on outstanding warrants, along with 80 kilos of drugs, 166 illegal firearms, six machine gun conversion devices and over $1 million in currency seized. He credits the ATF, Marshals Service, DEA, FBI, Homeland Security and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and invites mayors and police chiefs across the country to partner with the department. Senator Eric Schmitt says more than 500 of the region's most violent criminals are now off the streets. The ATF director announces a new Crime Gun Intelligence Center for St. Louis starting in January 2027, and the Marshals Service director and Police Commissioner Robert Tracy describe how the federal, state and local partnership worked with the community. In the questions, the officials explain the charges, compare this surge to the D.C. and Memphis task forces, and note homicides down about 50 percent from last year. Schmitt also talks about defense jobs, a new airport and ICE in Missouri. The full press conference.

Jon Herold opens late after his daughter's birthday lunch, then digs into the Nidal Hasan execution plan: the firing squad is still on, but the stream was pulled after pushback, and families of the victims can still watch in person. The story that caught him most is the Justice Department's 48-hour deadline to California to segregate suspected noncitizen midterm mail ballots or face emergency relief, including the Trent McCotter letter to Shirley Weber and Dean Logan. From there he hits the Tesla Roadster unveil hype, midterm polling hedges and the authenticity fight over voting advice, then Ukraine: Trump reversing on Patriot interceptor production licenses, scarce interceptors, and how Starlink and US intel keep Kyiv dependent. He closes with a messenger app sponsor read and a quick note on Kimberly Guilfoyle after her resignation.

CannCon and Ashe in America, swapping in for Alpha Warrior this week, dig into Ilhan Omar's citizenship story, from her ties to Feeding Our Future to her age, her father's naturalization and her amended financial disclosures, plus news that federal agents seized a member of Congress's phone. Next they revisit Jack Smith's investigation, including Grassley's finding that the special counsel gathered names and donor data from Trump campaign circles. Then it's Maricopa County, where observers caught a worker making changes to the Novus ballot duplication system at night after logic and accuracy testing, and the hosts walk through why electronic adjudication and small-county audits leave room for fraud. On the world stage, Ukraine accuses SpaceX of limiting Starlink as it takes Russian missile strikes, and the crew asks why Kash Patel is heading to Russia. They close with the military's treatment of a service member held before trial, the coming execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and whether it should be public, and AI ads that put words in CannCon's mouth.

Jon Herold and Burning Bright open with a very Russia-heavy week, from Trump's and the Kremlin's tiger posting to Burning Bright's own summer training around Siberian tigers. Then it's on to the new White House press secretary's rough first briefing and the bar exam question. The hosts argue it's fine to be critical without stretching the plan to explain every story, and play Trump's March comments on Kimberly Guilfoyle to make the point. Next up is the raid on Ilhan Omar's home and the Justice Department investigation: the allegations about her records, why a cover-up could matter more than the original charge, and the tie back to the Minnesota fraud stories. They also get into Trump's fight with the White House press pool, the midterm predictions, and Trump governing in spite of Congress and the courts. The back half turns to Russia and Ukraine, with Trump's diesel deal with Putin as more signal than supply, the push for a Zelensky election, oil prices, and Elon Musk on Ukraine's Starshield service. They close with recent right-wing wins in Latin America and Boris Johnson and Brexit as a warning that a red win isn't always an anti-establishment win.

President Trump takes questions from the press on his way to Kalispell, Montana, then holds a rally for the state's Republican candidates. In the gaggle, he says Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and backs Mike Rogers, explains why he is campaigning in a state he won easily, sends his best wishes to Pope Leo after his cancer diagnosis, and says inflation is low and the Iran war will be over very shortly. In Kalispell, Trump asks Montana to "pretend I'm running," backs his candidates for the U.S. Senate and Aaron Flint for Congress, and warns that the Democrats will take your guns away. He promises $5,000 for every adult citizen if Republicans hold the House and Senate, talks up red dye diesel for farmers and ranchers, lower drug prices and zero illegal crossings at the border, and announces a new Department of War super range in Montana for testing advanced weapons. He closes with his plans on taxes, health care, cash bail, voter ID and the Save America Act. Here are the full remarks.

Shipwreck opens solo with the "Great Citizen Award" that showed up in her mailbox, explains the one local race she will vote in this year, and vents about Iowa's Senate choices, the flood of political ads and mail, and why she can't bring herself to write in Chuck Grassley. From there she gets into the Noahide laws, then wonders whether the data center boom is really about AI bot farms built to steer your feed before the elections, with a media literacy check on spotting them. Along the way she reminisces about the '90s, Marlboro Reds and smoking during COVID, and this week's Beetlejuice rewatch. Later she plays a breakdown of the differences between Christian, Jewish and Muslim beliefs and talks about Mary Magdalene's writings. She closes on gas prices, the master-trolling excuses, the still-missing Epstein files and a new White House human trafficking appointment.

President Trump rallies Bullhead City, Arizona, 20 days out from the midterms, walking on to "God Bless the USA" and opening with Air Force One and life on the road. He goes after Governor Katie Hobbs again and again, from the border and the cartels to the cognitive test he says she couldn't pass, and makes the case for Andy Biggs. He touts the tax cuts, no tax on tips, falling car insurance premiums, Social Security and the drop in violent crime, and talks about tariffs, China, Canada, TSMC's Arizona plant, TikTok, Iran and oil moving through the Strait again. Along the way he revisits the 2020 election and broken machines, the new White House ballroom, the Congressional Medal of Honor for a 104-year-old veteran and a call to win one for Charlie Kirk, before closing with the "make America great again" refrain and a "YMCA" walk-off.