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Nic McKinley went from Air Force pararescue to the CIA, then founded DeliverFund to fight trafficking with intelligence tools. Ryan Dalton was a trafficking attorney and federal agent at the State Department before launching Closed Horizon, a platform that crowdsources rewards to surface hard answers. Different roads, same fight.
Skip the spy-novel version of Epstein. The simpler read: a guy who moved money for people who needed it moved, and collected leverage doing it. That access is what kept him protected.
From there it runs downhill. How intelligence operations actually get funded. Why a broker like that turns useful, then disposable. What a criminal trial would have forced into the open. And why a dead defendant solves that problem.
It also hits the harder one. It's an era where anything can be faked and attention gets steered on purpose. Getting to the truth is its own job now.
I went in skeptical. I'm still skeptical. The corruption underneath is harder to wave off.
Look at the evidence and decide for yourself.
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Michael's in the studio and we're working through the week. We start with two Pasadena officers horsing around with loaded guns. One of them ends up shooting the other through the windshield of the cruiser. We talk about the accountability that comes with carrying a badge. One oh-shit can unwind a career of attaboys.
From there we get into the aircraft gifted by Qatar and whether it belongs in service as Air Force One. We cover the new Iran framework, what it cost, and how it stacks up against the deal that came before it. We talk about being able to disagree with your own side without burning the whole thing down.
Then there's the UFC event on the White House lawn — the timing, the optics, and fighter bonuses paid out in crypto. We close with the beagle raid at Ridgeland Farms, where the line sits between legal and moral, and what we're willing to do in the name of science.
Enjoy
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Matthew spent six years in the Navy as a Search and Rescue swimmer. Then fifteen years as a cop — Virginia Beach, then undercover narcotics in New Hampshire during the opioid epidemic. He worked under a different name for years. He wrote a book, The Journey to Midnight, about the night he planned to kill himself. Now he talks to cops and veterans about it.
This one covers why suicide is so high in law enforcement and the military. Trauma stacks up and you never get the time to process it. The "unfit for duty" label that ends careers, so nobody asks for help. A fatal wreck on Route 101. A man who shot himself three feet away. A two-and-a-half-year-old, a blind cord, and thirty seconds in a car that Matt still hasn't let go of.
His chief checked on him one day, then went home and killed himself two hours later. What he did with that is most of this conversation.
The Journey to Midnight: https://a.co/d/03SCujlF
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Five questions this week. No real through-line, which is usually how these go.
-A reader four years sober wants to rebuild the friendships he burned while drinking.
-A father of two wants the kind of relationship with his kids he never had with his own dad.
-A high school junior writes in about his 13-year-old sister and an eating disorder serious enough to put her in front of doctors.
-A guy three months into jujitsu can't get out from under bigger training partners. Size matters. Mat time matters more.
-And a sailor stuck under a former SEAL who got booted from the Teams and now leads by intimidation. I get into why he probably got kicked out, and how to manage two more years.
Enjoy.
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He was called the most dangerous man in Vermont. The governor said it on television. The truth is more boring and more alarming. Daniel Banyai is a former protection contractor and a Seventh-day Adventist who built a firearms training school called Slate Ridge in West Pawlet. He did it by the book. Federal firearms license. Explosives permits. Zoning. A school classification the town had handed out for 200 years. He welcomed anyone who'd show up and shoot straight.
Then it came apart. Neighbors who'd missed their window found a clause and reopened it. The town pulled the permit it had already granted. He fought to the state Supreme Court and lost. They demolished the buildings while he was locked up and made sure the materials couldn't be reused.
We talk about the year inside. Isolation. The shot caller. Getting beaten during the arrest that became a felony. We argue restrictions, religion, and a two-tiered system he says protects some and not others. The throughline is simple. Weaponized zoning can erase anyone. He happened to pick guns.
Since we recorded, a jury acquitted him of the assault charge in forty minutes. His words after: the system did not fail him here. 
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