Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Orange Man Reruns & Scandals Galore
The News Cycle is almost impossible to track these days. At least, to do so fully.
That’s where we come in.
In the Badlands News Brief, the Badlands Media team hand pick news items of interest from the previous days to give you an overview of the biggest goings-on relevant to the Truth Community with some Badlands flavoring to help wash it down.
Before we get into the meat of today’s Brief, we want to take a moment to thank our sponsor, and to let our Badlands readers know about a fantastic deal they’re offering.
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Now, onto the news from Wednesday, October 23 …
The Clock Is Ticking on Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney descended on the crucial Milwaukee suburbs Monday night and, sitting side by side, delivered compelling political sermons.
The problem was they were preaching to the converted.
The event was explicitly aimed at those moderates and onetime Republicans who remain up for grabs, and may decide the election, but the rhetoric seemed better suited for those in the audience wearing “The Lincoln Project” and “,LA” t-shirts.
The political odd couple criticized former President Donald Trump’s lack of decency, his disregard for the Constitution and rule of law, and asked those in attendance to imagine him without guardrails. Our allies abroad, they said, were nervous. And, of course, there was a detailed recounting of what Trump did (and didn’t do) on January 6.
Those are all profoundly serious issues and are part of the reason why the race, in an otherwise turbulent year for Democrats, remains competitive. But reams of voting results and research indicate those issues long ago pushed so many people away from Trump’s GOP. They are not what animates that small number of people who remain undecided in the second-to-last week of October. What new voters are being won with denunciations of Donald Trump’s character?
The discussion here was backward-looking and Trump-focused. It was, in short, all about yesterday and him rather than tomorrow and her.
And not for a lack of opportunity. — Politico
And …
Democrats fear race may be slipping away from Harris
There is growing fear in Democratic circles that the presidential race could be slipping further away from Vice President Harris.
To be sure, Democrats still think Harris can defeat former President Trump. The margins are so close in the seven battleground states likely to decide the contest, a shift toward either candidate or a mistake in the polling could be decisive.
At the same time, Democrats are privately expressing worry that battleground polling appears to be moving in Trump’s direction over the last two weeks.
Cracks in the “blue wall” of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are starting to show, with Senate incumbents in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin now in toss-up races, according to the Cook Political Report.
The three northern states generally move in the same direction in the presidential race, but Harris has been losing ground to Trump in polls, particularly in Wisconsin. In Michigan, doubts among Arab American voters are worrying Democrats.
None of this is making Democrats feel better about an Election Day that is now less than two weeks away. — The Hill
Our Take: The consistent panic of legacy media over the past few weeks is giving way to anger as Harris continues to fail to make her case to the voters.
Activists, under the pretense of journalism, are beginning to call out the Democrat nominee for failing to define her platform, and they are shining a bright spot on her failing strategy: “Not Donald Trump.”
Strategy is a generous term. The candidate is weak, didn’t win a primary, and is overtly inauthentic in every appearance. All she has are attacks and deception, and it’s tiresome. So tiresome, that her campaign workers at Politico and The Hill are openly expressing their frustration.
In contrast, Trump is the known entity in this race and, in comparing the records of their respective terms in office, voters are moving to Trump in such numbers that it’s becoming impossible to spin. Look at these comments from Theo Vaughn’s recent sit down with JD Vance.
Sure, they still claim the race is 50/50. And the media is working overtime to explain to voters that Harris’ reported losses with black, Latino, women, and union voters will be made up by non college educated white voters. Unbelievable on its face, this narrative is gaining steam among the institutional establishment.
Politico is right, though. The clock is ticking on Harris with less than two weeks to go until Election Day, and the widespread vibe among voters is that election day will end our current dystopian nightmare.
I disagree. After Election Day, democrat efforts to prevent Trump from taking office will heat up — Raskin has been working on this since December 2023 — and unprecedented actions will define the season.
Show me what democracy looks like, democrats. —
'The Atlantic' Immediately Debunked After Attempting Yet Another Trump Military Hit Piece
The sister of slain soldier Vanessa Guillén slammed The Atlantic after it used anonymous sources to allege that President Donald Trump disparaged her after discovering the funeral expenses.
Guillén’s death at the hands of a fellow soldier and his girlfriend became national news in 2020, with Trump comforting the grief-stricken family and extending death benefits. He also offered to cover the costs personally if the Army did not pay for the funeral expenses.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, however, attempted to rewrite history on Tuesday, claiming that Trump was outraged when he learned that Guillén’s funeral, which included heightened security and closed streets, cost $60,000.
According to the magazine—relying on an anonymous source—Trump allegedly said, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” and ordered then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to deny payment.
Guillén’s sister, Mayra, issued a viral statement on X, condemning The Atlantic’s distorted portrayal of her experience with Trump.
“I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics- hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members,” Mayra wrote on X, garnering over 3 million views.
“President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today,” Mayra added. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: Seriously, I hope Donald Trump files a massive slander/libel lawsuit against Jeffrey Goldberg, and destroys his life. Because that is, effectively, what Goldberg intended to do to Trump with this absurd work of fiction. You would have to be an absolute degenerate to pen something like this, and then publish it.
So I decided to look into this clown's background. Interesting history.
So this guy is another one of these Israeli dual citizens. He served in the IDF during the First Intifada as a prison guard.
You also have to wonder why Jeffrey Goldberg doesn't support President Trump? Nobody has been a better friend to Israel than Donald Trump. So why does Jeff hate him so much? President Trump actually asked this question recently, pondering why so many Israeli-American dual citizens opposed him.
Trump said that these Israeli dual citizens need to "get smart" about voting for him.
It would appear that Trump is correct. It is not reciprocal. Why not? Why do Israeli-American "elites" hate Donald Trump? —
Trump campaign accuses UK's Labour Party of election interference
Donald Trump's campaign has accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party of "blatant foreign interference" in the U.S. presidential election after some volunteers travelled to help campaign for Vice PresidentKamala Harris.
The Republican candidate's camp has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in Washington, calling for an investigation into what it termed apparently illegal contributions from Labour to the Harris campaign.
British political activists have long travelled to the U.S. ahead of elections, with those from the centre-left Labour Party typically supporting the Democrats, its sister party, and Conservatives and the right-wing Reform backing the Republicans.
Labour leader Starmer denied that the complaint would damage relations with Trump if the former president wins again on Nov. 5, saying Labour supporters were volunteering in their own time.
But the complaint is a potential complication as Trump is already close to Britain's right-wing politician Nigel Farage and former prime minister Boris Johnson, both of whom are critical of Starmer.
The British prime minister met Trump at Trump Tower in September in a bid to build a relationship ahead of the vote. — Reuters
Our Take: Convergence.
It's one of the concepts I write about most in the Info War, and it's now happening all over the mass psychological game board.
From the Financial to the Political, the Cultural to the Clandestine, the core Pillars of the Deep State's System of Systems have been exposed one by one, and now, the threads binding them together Anons have been tracing for years are being revealed in a paint-by-numbers approach to the normie layers of the Collective Mind, bringing the whole corrupt tapestry into view.
In this particular example, we have Elon Musk seeding "this is war" as it relates to out-dated reporting suggesting foreign interference and British Collusion in US speech platforms, and by extension, US elections ... only for Trump Team to follow up with a narrative boost masquerading as a lawfare deployment.
Everything they accused Trump of is being reversed on a narrative level for public consumption.
Seeding. Germination (*In Progress.) Harvest.
Coordination = Control. —
North Korean troops are in Russia, U.S. says
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Wednesday that the U.S. has evidence that North Korean troops are in Russia.
Why it matters: Austin's comments are the first official acknowledgment from the U.S. about the recent deployments to Russia, a significant development that Ukraine and South Korea previously warned about.
Driving the news: "There is evidence that there are DPRK troops in Russia," Austin said at a press conference, referring to North Korea.
What the troops are doing in Russia remains to be seen, he added. Austin did not specify the number of troops included in the deployment.
"If they're co-belligerents, if their intention is to participate in this war on Russia's behalf, that is a very, very serious issue," Austin added, noting this would have ramifications for Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
Yet the development could suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin "may be even in more trouble than most people realize," Austin said.
North Korea and Russia have both denied reports of the troop deployment, per the Washington Post.
The big picture: South Korea stepped up its warnings about North Korean troops movements in recent days, issuing alerts about the purported movements last Friday and on Monday. — Axios
And …
What to know about the Russia-North Korea alliance
The U.S. confirmed Wednesday that North Korea has deployed troops to Russia, a significant development that could aid the Kremlin's forces in the war in Ukraine.
Why it matters: The deployment is the latest sign of a strengthening alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang, two of the U.S.'s staunchest foes.
Catch up quick: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's confirmed the deployment. He said the U.S. is still trying to determine what their purpose is, but warned it would be a "very serious issue" is North Korea intends to be a co-belligerent in Russia's war in Ukraine.
The development could indicate Russian President Vladimir Putin is in "more trouble than most people realize," Austin added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last week that at least 10,000 North Korean troops would soon join Russia in its war against his country. — Axios
Our Take: Hello! My very handsome allies!
I absolutely love that the Ghosts in the Machine are ramping up this narrative. What makes it even funnier is that the baboons in the MSM have no idea what to make of it.
"It's unclear what specifically North Korea has gained through the weapons sales beyond hard currency and food."
They aren't necessarily wrong with this take. Un really doesn't have much to gain, other than just wanting to be involve and support the bros. I respect the hell out of it.
This just proves that the bromance that we watched blossom over the summer was not just for the cameras. Un has friends now, and he doesn't like it when you mess with his friends. He's the friend at the bar who is going to have your back, when the trouble begins. Where I come from, we call that "integrity." —
Democrats Whine About Nonexistent ‘Sexism’ To Hide Kamala’s Obvious Incompetence
Vice President Kamala Harris and Hallie Jackson of NBC met in Washington, D.C. Tuesday for a little girl talk. Both wore power pantsuits. It’s what professional gals in D.C. are wearing this season. Shoulder pads are back, by the way.
Actually, it was an interview about how Harris would handle the presidency if elected, but Jackson got mired down in a long discussion about girl power. A good 10 minutes was spent on gender, and the undertone hinted that maybe Americans are not sophisticated enough to handle a female president.
It has been pretty rare to see Harris pressed on questions during interviews, especially at NBC, a certified member of the Harris Fan Club. To her credit, Jackson did press Harris, but not on a revelatory issue; on the girl thing. She asked four questions about her sex, and each time Harris politely deflected the question, downplaying the topic.
“Back in 2019 … you said that the elephant in the room was whether the country was ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president,” Hallie said. “So, let me ask you, as you sit here today, do you think the country is ready now for a woman and a woman of color to be president?”
“Absolutely,” Harris said, adding that it is important to be “not only turning the page, but closing the chapter on an era that suggests that Americans are divided.” She said that regardless of their race, gender, or age, the American people want a president who focuses on their needs. — The Federalist
Our Take: Americans aren’t ready yet — or, more specifically, are still too misogynistic and bigoted — to elect a female president. This is the narrative NBC is peddling as the inevitable outcome of a free and fair election comes sharply into focus.
After all, Americans rejected Hillary Clinton in 2016. It wasn’t her record, insufferable whining, or deadly personality, it was her chromosomes… right?
Americans allegedly rejected Michelle Bachmann in 2012 — though, that is arguably the work of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner under the direction of Brennan, Clapper, and the US IC.
Tulsi Gabbard, Carly Fiorina, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar… Americans have never elected a woman to be president, so they must be unenlightened and bigoted woman haters.
It can’t possibly be the candidate, the messaging, or the campaign. It can’t possibly be the fact that our elections are (un)democratic theater to provide the illusion of choice and free will to a permanent underclass class of debt slaves called voters.
In 2024, the regime runs the worst candidate of any gender in the history of the presidency, then cries about the patriarchy when voters reject her. The elections may be fake, but the popular will of the electorate is obviously rejecting Harris. She’d rise above bigotry claims if that weren’t true.
Voters are choosing Trump, publicly and proudly, and it’s not because he has a penis. It’s because Trump is not the regime.
If Trump were controlled by the global corporate communist regime, they wouldn’t be repeatedly trying to trigger their mentally ill supporters to assassinate him (allegedly and apparently based on all available data). They wouldn’t be publicly and profoundly destroying their own institutional illusions if the people rejected Trump.
But they are.
In 2016, Trump’s victory drew the invisible governors into the light. In 2020, Trump’s illegitimate but reported defeat revealed the controllers, their bipartisan motives, and the lengths to which they would go.
It makes sense, because the whole corrupt temple is at stake. The enemy is fighting for their lives. The uninterrupted insanity of the past decade proves this to be true. Laws, standards, rules, norms… all have gone out the window in the age of Trump.
That being said, it’s encouraging that the regime deployments, at this crucial moment, are so terribly designed and poorly executed. Right now is the critical moment in which the institutional establishment must convince the world of a legitimate Harris victory. The best they seem to have appears to be, “Trump is Hitler and voters are misogynistic racists.”
Bold, albeit misguided move — a narrative that no longer holds any meaningful social power. Not the work of our betters, certainly. Curious and begs many questions about who is writing and directing this movie.
I’m ready for this season to end, and I am eagerly awaiting what’s yet to come. Even if it’s a legitimately elected female president. —
Blinken Pushes Saudi-Israel Normalization During Saudi Visit
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought progress on Wednesday on normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, hoping such a historic deal could create incentives to end the war in Gaza. Blinken flew directly from Tel Aviv to Riyadh as part of a Middle East tour just days before the U.S. election.
Speaking in Tel Aviv before departing, Blinken emphasized the importance of keeping “eyes on the strategic prize” of Israel-Saudi normalization, even as efforts for a Gaza ceasefire struggled to gain ground. “There remains, despite everything that’s happened, an incredible opportunity in this region to move in a totally different direction,” Blinken said, highlighting Saudi Arabia’s key role in this potential shift.
In Riyadh, Blinken met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and later held an hour-long conversation with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The State Department later confirmed that discussions included “the need to end the war in Gaza” and building lasting regional stability through greater integration among Middle Eastern nations.
Saudi recognition of Israel would be a significant milestone, as the kingdom is the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites. Before the October 7 Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had expressed optimism about the prospect of formal ties with Saudi Arabia. However, with Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, U.S. officials believe Saudi normalization could serve as one of the few remaining incentives for a ceasefire.
Biden and Harris have faced criticism from the left wing of their party for not pressuring Israel more forcefully, such as by cutting off military aid. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham has suggested that the U.S. Senate would likely approve a Saudi-Israel deal during Biden’s current term. — Badlands News
And …
Saudi spokesman: We participated in military exercises with Iran
Saudi Arabia recently participated in military exercises with Iran and other nations in the Sea of Oman, a Saudi defense ministry spokesman confirmed to AFP on Wednesday.
"The Royal Saudi Naval Forces had recently concluded a joint naval exercise with the Iranian Naval Forces alongside other countries in the Sea of Oman," Brigadier General Turki al-Malki told the news agency in a statement.
This confirmation followed an Iranian news report earlier this week, which mentioned that the two former adversaries were planning joint military drills in the Red Sea.
"Saudi Arabia has asked that we organize joint exercises in the Red Sea," said Admiral Shahram Irani, the commander of Iran's navy, as quoted by the ISNA news agency.
However, on Wednesday, Maliki clarified, "No other exercises are being addressed during this period of time."
Iran and Saudi Arabia were longtime regional rivals and Saudi Arabia broke ties with Iran in 2016 after protesters invaded Saudi diplomatic posts in Tehran and the northeastern city of Mashhad.
However, the two countries agreed to normalize relations last year as part of a China-brokered deal. — 7 Israel National News
Our Take: Real quick, let's set the stage for this meeting.
I reposted a video of Blinken and MBS meeting that was posted by the Saudi Foreign Ministry, including images of his recent meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, as well as the Prime Ministers from Spain and Greece, noting that the flag was missing in Blinken's meeting. (An anon noted that the video posted by the Foreign Ministry is 17 seconds long.)
There might be a totally plausible explanation. One person suggested that maybe it's because Blinken isn't a Head of State, but I went and checked, and Spain's Head of State is actually King Felipe VI, not the Prime Minister.
There was another 17 second video posted yesterday, out of Russia, and it will warm your heart.
So much FOMO over Kazan, right now. We (the US) should be there.
We also need to think of a TrumpaMania stage name for Modi—obviously should be a nod to his skillful hugging.
As for the actually story, Blinken obviously is rushing over to Riyadh because one day after Iran announces plans to conduct joint navy drills with Saudi Arabia—with consternation from the media over the fact that Riyadh never confirmed these drills would ever happen—Saudi Arabia then comes out and says those drills have already happened.
Didn't you get the memo?
(Real OG's will get that reference.)
PS - "U.S. officials acknowledge that Saudi Arabia is unlikely to move forward without meaningful progress toward an independent Palestinian state. Last month, Crown Prince Mohammed made it clear that Saudi Arabia would not recognize Israel without such a state." —
Massive Lithium Deposits Found in Southwestern Arkansas
A groundbreaking study led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) revealed a potentially massive lithium reserve beneath southwestern Arkansas, which researchers say far exceeds the current worldwide demand.
According to the study published in Science Advances, researchers estimate between 5 and 19 million tons of lithium reserves are present in the region. If commercially recoverable, the supply could potentially meet the projected 2030 world demand for lithium in car batteries nine times over, according to a press release Monday by the U.S. agency.
The research, which combined efforts between the USGS and the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment’s Office of the State Geologist, employed a methodology using water testing and machine learning to estimate how much lithium is present in brines within what’s known as the Smackover Formation. — The Epoch Times
Our Take: The Switch theory that runs in parallel with the Devolution Operation posits that, amidst the noisy narratives that have dominated the American zeitgeist for the last four years, there are Actuals bubbling beneath the surface that suggest an American energy and manufacturing boom is right around the corner.
Just like Trump has predicted/promised.
Yesterday, we received the latest marker that the future of US energy and production is brighter than most could imagine in the form of a miraculously large lithium deposit found in Arkansas that has the potential to eclipse the original worldwide supply estimates through 2030 by a factor of 9.
What's particularly Trumpian about this news, however, is the fact that this mass deposit was reportedly discovered due to specific modeling mandates budgeted into the Energy Act of 2020, a DOE directive meant to kickstart the new energy era.
How serendipitous, that such a deposit is found just before Trump publicly resumes the office he never lost ... —
The world’s largest internet archive is under siege — and fighting back
There are few organizations dedicated to the gargantuan task of preserving the vast, ever-shifting record of human activity that is the internet. The largest such record belongs to a nonprofit based in an old church in San Francisco that operates on a smaller annual budget than the D.C. Public Library.
It is currently under siege.
Hackers struck the Internet Archive last week, leaking the information of millions of users and defacing it with a message taunting the nonprofit’s website for running on a shoestring budget. To prevent further leaks, the Internet Archive’s team took the site, including its popular Wayback Machine, offline. It’s the first time in its almost 30-year history that it has suffered an outage of longer than a few hours, founder Brewster Kahle told The Washington Post. Most of the site remains offline a week later.
The cyberattack kicked off a frenzied race to restore access to the Internet Archive and the more than 900 billion webpages it preserves on the Wayback Machine, its archival service. It was also a rude awakening. To Kahle, that hackers would set their sights on a free repository of digital history, seemingly without an agenda or a ransom, is hard to imagine.
“I don’t know,” Kahle said. “Why kick the cat?” — WAPO
Our Take:
I don't have a lot to say about this story, I just wanted to share it with you all. It would appear that some nefarious entities want to erase the history of the internet—probably the same communists who want to erase our entire history.
"The Internet Archive was among several groups that preserved deleted tweets by former president Donald Trump, it wrote in 2017."
Shocker.
We'll keep an eye on this one. —
BONUS ITEMS
Russia halting strikes on energy targets could lead to peace talks, says Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Russia putting an end to aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy targets and cargo ships could pave the way for negotiations to end the war, the Ukrainian president has said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists in Kyiv on Monday that “when it comes to energy and freedom of navigation, getting a result on these points would be a signal that Russia may be ready to end the war”.
Ukraine has been bracing for a painful winter after a series of Russian missile strikes on thermal power plants destroyed almost half of its energy generation. The country is now largely dependent on its nuclear power plants and the import of energy from European countries.
If Moscow and Kyiv agreed to end strikes on their respective energy infrastructures, it would be a significant step towards de-escalating the conflict, Zelenskyy said in reference to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries.
“We saw during the first [peace] summit that there could be a decision on energy security. In other words: we do not attack their energy infrastructures, they don’t attack ours. Could this lead to the end of the war’s hot phase? I think so,” he said. — FT
New Zealand In The Crosshairs Of US Intelligence Leak Investigation
New Zealand has been implicated in the leak of classified documents which outline the United States’ assessment of Israel’s plan to attack Iran.
According to White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” about the leak.
One of the documents says it was compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), while the other appears to have originated from the National Security Agency (NSA).
The two documents, marked “top secret,” were shared within the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
They include the acronym FGI, standing for Foreign Government Intelligence.
They were published on an Iranian-aligned Telegram account called “Middle East Spectator” last week, but Kirby said there was no “indication” that any additional documents will “[find] their way into the public domain.”
New Zealand has recently been the victim of several successful hacks by foreign powers. The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), the country’s intelligence agency, recently suffered a $7 million (US$4.7 million) budget cut.
Iran has a large and sophisticated cyber-warfare capability, so the possibility of a hostile hack is being investigated by U.S. intelligence agencies and the FBI. — The Epoch Times
We hope you enjoyed this brief look back at the major news items you might have missed in this ever-escalating and ever-accelerating news cycle as the Information War continues to rage on around us.
As always, if you have any thoughts on these news items or the MANY others swirling in the digital ether, drop into the comments below to share them with your fellow Badlanders.
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Thanks, Ashe, for taking umbrage at being called a misogynistic bigot. Deplorable, misogynistic, racist... it makes me so tired. I am a woman; and, like you, I would vote for a woman to be president, just as soon as one who impresses and can pass muster, is a candidate! I have an in-depth flow chart for ruling out HRC with "Benghazi" in the top box. As for the phony veep... well, need I say more? There are a lot of America-loving smart women out there. I went to school with some, back when teachers taught students to think. (Just celebrated my 50th HS reunion). "It's the candidate, stupid."
Exciting times as we march one day closer to November 5th, remember, remember...
Thanks for reminding everyone of the DS Rat Bastard MSM's inverse reality BB: "Everything they accused Trump of is being reversed on a narrative level for public consumption. Seeding. Germination (*In Progress.) Harvest. Coordination = Control. — Burning Bright". Everything they say is a LIE so I simply point and laugh in their faces.
What will the day bring :-)
God Wins!
God Bless!!!