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.
Many items feature original (and subjective) commentary. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see our writers’ Substack accounts and check out their other work.
Now, onto the news from Thursday, April 25 …
Supreme Court weighs limits of presidential immunity in Trump case
The Supreme Court will weigh the limits of presidential immunity Thursday in an unprecedented and historic case with significant implications for former President Trump, his legal fights and the 2024 race for the White House.
Trump is pushing an argument that has already been rejected by two lower courts: That as a former executive, he remains immune from prosecution for official actions he took while holding office.
Prosecutors see the novel argument as one that would put presidents beyond the reach of the criminal justice system even after they leave office.
On the bench are three conservatives Trump nominated to the court — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — but the court’s verdict could cut against claims from the presumptive GOP nominee that he should not be prosecuted. — The Hill
And …
Jack Smith’s odds of putting Trump on trial this year are sinking
The already-slim likelihood that Donald Trump will face a criminal trial brought by special counsel Jack Smith before the 2024 election appeared to dwindle further Thursday in the face of withering scrutiny from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
One by one, the court’s six Republican-appointed justices — including three nominated by Trump himself — took whacks at Smith’s effort to quickly and cleanly reject Trump’s claim of immunity from criminal prosecution over his attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
Instead, during more than 2 1/2 hours of oral argument, the justices forecast a result that could require lower courts to spend months analyzing various aspects of Trump’s election plot, from organizing fraudulent slates of electors to leaning on his Justice Department to sow false doubts about the results. The purpose of those additional lower-court proceedings, several conservative justices suggested, would be to determine if some of the acts alleged in the special counsel’s indictment count as sufficiently “official” presidential duties that they ought to be shielded from criminal charges.
Even if Smith were to win those battles, it would virtually ensure that a trial could not happen until after the election. — Politico
Our Take: “Is the President immune from prosecution for his official acts? That was the question before the Supreme Court on Thursday, and D. John Sauer argued for President Trump while Michael Dreeben argued for the Department of Justice.
Much of the argument focused on official acts vs. private acts, and whether a US President can be criminally prosecuted. The consensus — between both the Justices and the Attorneys — is that a President has no immunity for private criminal acts. As for official acts, that is the matter before the court.
The legal landscape here is complicated, and this specific question hasn’t yet come before the court. The case law and binding precedent is sparse — likely because the immunity was long understood and respected until the Biden regime decided to blow it up to interfere with the upcoming election.
As with all of President Trump’s cases, we have to look for the boomerang, and in this case Justice Brown-Jackson summed it up perfectly: With complete Presidential immunity, a president could turn, ‘the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country,’ Jackson exasperatedly claimed, adding that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes in office.
Future presidents and, like, current ones, right?
On that point, Sauer argued that her fears are unwarranted, as President Trump is simply asking the court to follow the law as understood for the last 234 years. If a Chief Executive were to turn the presidency into the seat of criminality in this country, we’d already have seen it happen.
I mean, look around.
If President Trump is immune from prosecution, then Biden is, too. Alternatively, if President Trump — who is innocent of the alleged crimes and will beat them in court on the merits — is subject to criminal prosecution for official acts, then so is Biden.
As Justice Alito said during the arguments, ‘What we decide will apply to all future presidents.’
Which outcome is better for the nation? I can honestly argue it both ways, but more than anything I want the current regime held accountable for their oppressive, overtly criminal, official acts. I believe it’s necessary for our nation to heal.” —
Trump Allies Draw Up Plans to Blunt Fed’s Independence
Donald Trump’s allies are quietly drafting proposals that would attempt to erode the Federal Reserve’s independence if the former president wins a second term, in the midst of a deepening divide among his advisers over how aggressively to challenge the central bank’s authority.
Former Trump administration officials and other supporters of the presumptive GOP nominee have in recent months discussed a range of proposals, from incremental policy changes to a long-shot assertion that the president himself should play a role in setting interest rates. A small group of the president’s allies—whose work is so secretive that even some prominent former Trump economic aides weren’t aware of it—has produced a roughly 10-page document outlining a policy vision for the central bank, according to people familiar with the matter.
The group of Trump allies argues that he should be consulted on interest-rate decisions, and the draft document recommends subjecting Fed regulations to White House review and more forcefully using the Treasury Department as a check on the central bank. The group also contends that Trump, if he returns to the White House, would have the authority to oust Jerome Powell as Fed chair before his four-year term ends in 2026, the people familiar with the matter said, though Powell would likely remain on the Fed’s board of governors.
It couldn’t be determined whether Trump is aware of or signed off on the effort, but some people close to the discussions believe the work has received the blessing of the former president.
“Let us be very specific here: unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official,” Trump senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement. — WSJ
Our Take: “One of the prime narrative-setters out of the establishment is hitting the panic button re: Trump 2.0, specifically with regards to his alleged plans with the Federal Reserve Bank.
This might make Anons flash back to Trump's selection of Andrew Jackson as one of the prime presidential portraits to adorn the Oval Office during his administration.
When examining enemy panic patterns, I often find it useful to suss out exactly what they're afraid of, and this one provides a few examples:
1. The Deep State fears Trump redefining presidential authority over money issuance in the US. They want authority vested in central banks. Trump wants to return to the Kennedy stance of empowering the US Treasury.
2. They fear loss of control over rates = their ability to time recessions and the Boom-Bust cycle.
3. They assume he won't be able to influence the board, citing the Supreme Court as an example ... which Trump completely remade during his first term.
Good luck.” —
Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction is overturned by New York’s top court
New York’s highest court on Thursday threw out Harvey Weinstein ’s 2020 rape conviction with a ruling that shocked and disappointed women who celebrated historic gains during the #MeToo era and left those who testified in the case bracing for a retrial against the ex-movie mogul.
The court found the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Weinstein, 72, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. But the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein.
#MeToo advocates noted that Thursday’s ruling was based on legal technicalities and not an exoneration of Weinstein’s behavior, saying the original trial irrevocably moved the cultural needle on attitudes about sexual assault. — AP News
Our Take: “The role of the courts is to ensure the ends of justice are met.
On Thursday, a NY Appeals Court ruled that the district court erred in its adjudication of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape case, overturned the ruling, and ordered a new trial.
A few things jump out on this decision:
First, Weinstein is a powerful man with powerful friends, and he has been lauded as an example of how ‘no one is above the law.’ He is a widely hated figure among the proletariat but, I’d wager, still secretly beloved by the bourgeoisie. ‘Hang tight, Harvey, we’ll make this go away, just give us some time.’
The second takeaway from this decision is this bit: ‘The state Court of Appeals ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures…’
Reopens? When did this chapter close? Are we meant to believe that the arrest and conviction of Harvey Weinstein closed the chapter on systemic sexual abuse in Hollywood?
Hollywood executives and high-profile stars sure hope it’s closed, but in reality, it’s just getting started. Just ask Diddy.
The third and final takeaway is the judicial abuse of discretion — in NY — a subject we regularly discuss in the Brief. Judicial abuse of discretion can compound into abuse of power when the net effects of the discretion result in manifest injustice. This is essentially the foundation of the decision for Weinstein here, and it’s the factual reality of a number of cases currently in the NY appellate process, that target another high profile defendant: President Trump.
From Kaplan to Engoron to Merchan, NY judges have exercised broad discretion in an effort to ‘get Trump.’ Now playing on the big screen: The hysterical left that brought us the #metoo movement is now faced with defending the discretion abuse against Trump while railing about it for Weinstein.
Trying cases in the court of public opinion may work for a time. It may influence the district court, taint the jury, and it may even hold with an appellate court. But eventually — seven years after the allegations and four years after conviction in the case of Weinstein — reality will reassert itself.
From everything I understand, Weinstein was a monster. He deserves to be in prison, and he will stay in prison due to another conviction. But even monsters have due process rights, and we should never advocate to violate those rights because of how much we hate the accused.
This is arguably a principle that our society has forgotten and quickly needs to remember.
Due process matters, and the role of the court is to ensure the ends of justice are met. That this controversy is happening in the NY jurisdiction, with a high profile defendant and highly emotionally charges, is a parallel Americans cannot and should not ignore.
Get your popcorn.” —
U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low
American women are giving birth at record-low rates.
The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman in 2023, a 2% decline from a year earlier, federal data released Thursday showed. It is the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking it in the 1930s.
The decline reflects a continuing trend as American women navigate economic and social challenges that have prompted some to forgo or delay having children. A confluence of factors are at play. American women are having fewer children, later in life. Women are establishing fulfilling careers and have more access to contraception.
At the same time, young people are also more uncertain about their futures and spending more of their income on homeownership, student debt and child care. Some women who wait to have children might have fewer than they would have otherwise for reasons including declining fertility.
“People are making rather reasoned decisions about whether or not to have a child at all,” said Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “More often than not, I think what they’re deciding is ‘Yes, I’d like to have children, but not yet.’” — WSJ
Our Take: “There is a difficult possibility to cognize in the population decline mess that we need to frame properly.
It’s easy to get caught up in the issue of sinister globalists ushering in a transhumanist dystopia for the purposes of population control. It’s obvious that their view of transhumanism is rooted in manifesting the ultimate security state. I agree that we are faced by an enemy who is doing just this.
But being aware of this agenda, and the depopulation operations unfolding in parallel does nothing to prepare us for some harsh possibilities.
How will we cope if the population does plummet in tandem with our ability to produce offspring beginning to waver? Unplanned childlessness is already on the rise.
To me, this is where our ability to win the culture war will become more important than ever.
The role of the family unit as a symbol of generating, and sustaining legacies of wisdom and achievement will become all the more precious if having a family becomes exceptional.
Think of how much worse things will be if Neo-Marxism rules the day and our cultural ideal of family is subsequently shattered, as having a family becomes difficult. This is the element of Elon Musk’s ambitions we need to consider outside of the NWO agenda.
Forget about us being engineered into a dystopian circumstance where we are growing babies and micromanaging conception… what if we end up NEEDING this technology to simply produce enough people?
This is the kind of circumstance where family ideals, values and principles will be desperately needed.
Loving, honouring and understanding the power of the natural family needs to be locked into our collective identity now, so that if we end up relying on this kind of technology to survive, it can be surrounded by and anchored to said culture.
If we cannot do this then, in our desperate need to imitate nature to survive, we won’t know how to build technological solutions inspired by the divine nature of family and will instead succumb to technology born of tyranny.” —
Aussie Prime Minister Calls For Ban On Memes
The Australian Prime Minister appeared to call for a ban on memes on social media Wednesday, as his government continues a full on assault on freedom of speech online.
During a press appearance, Anthony Albanese seemed to lump in memes making fun of him with “misinformation” he is claiming should be purged from the internet.
“Social media platforms have a responsibility to make sure that misinformation isn’t got out there,” Albanese stated.
He continued, “I noticed today, for example, on the way up here, they’ve removed various sites that were up containing fake images of myself superimposed on other people.”
Yeah that’s not illegal, it’s called freedom of expression, and… humour.
“That’s the sort of thing that is going on, on social media. Social media has a responsibility to do the right thing here,” he further asserted. — Modernity News
Our Take: “I expect that in the very near future, we will be bombarded, ad nauseam, by foreign voices lecturing us on the dangers of free speech and critical thinking; Telling us that American values are incompatible with their sociopathy.
It is absolutely imperative that each and every one of you relieve yourselves of any concern for what any of these losers think. For too long, we have allowed limp-wrist sociopaths to guilt us into surrendering our culture and our heritage. We have allowed lesser men to tell us that we should be ashamed of the triumphs of our forefathers, trading our pride and human spirit for … what? Serenity?
Enough.
It is time for us to tap back into the sacred, esoteric knowledge that is inherent in good, moral people.
We know something is terribly wrong, and it’s no mystery what that something is. We can either wring our hands in fear over how these dangerous hedonists will judge us, or we can simply ignore them and go about restoring civilization, projecting the power and strength that naturally emanates when the human spirit is earnestly engaged in the pursuit of good works.
If these dangerous hedonists choose to continue to interfere in our lives, as they already have done for so long, then we will have no choice but to engage with them. We have them outnumbered a million to one, and a nonviolent resolution to their conniving schemes is well within our means.
The only thing we have to fear is our own insecurity. If we remain true to ourselves and each other, then America’s rebirth is inevitable.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Fauci To Testify In Public Hearing On COVID-19 Response, Origins
Dr. Anthony Fauci is locked in to testify before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on June 3, his first public hearing since retiring as the president’s chief medical advisor in 2022.
Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) announced in an April 24 press release that Dr. Fauci agreed to appear late last year.
“Retirement from public service does not excuse Dr. Fauci from accountability to the American people,” Mr. Wenstrup said.
“On June 3, Americans will have an opportunity to hear directly from Dr. Fauci about his role in overseeing our nation’s pandemic response, shaping pandemic-era policies, and promoting singular questionable narratives about the origins of COVID-19.”
Dr. Fauci testified in a closed door hearing in January.
According to Mr. Wenstrup, Dr. Fauci has already admitted “to serious systemic failures in our public health system,” which he says deserves “further investigation.”
Mr. Wenstrup says among other revelations, Dr. Fauci has said the six feet apart social distancing guidance, recommended by federal health officials and used to shut down small businesses across the country, “’sort of just appeared,” and was likely not based on scientific data.
During the two-day January hearing, Dr. Fauci revealed he signed off on every foreign and domestic NIAID grant without personally reviewing the proposals.
He also admitted that America’s vaccine mandates, which he promoted, could increase the public’s vaccine hesitancy in the future. — The Epoch Times
NYU 'Pro-Palestine' Demonstrators Have No Idea What They're Protesting
Video captured at New York University shows that some of the students protesting there have no idea why.
NYU is one of several campuses where so called ‘Gaza camps’ have been formed with students refusing to disperse.
Yet it seems that the students don’t really know what they are doing it for.
In the footage below, the videographer asks one of the protesters “What would you say is the main goal with tonight’s protest.”
She responds “I think the goal is just showing our support for Palestine and demanding that NYU stops – I honestly don’t know all of what NYU is doing.”
The student then asks her friend “do you know what they are doing?” To which the other (masked) student responds “I wish I was more educated.”
“I’m not either,” the first protestor then admits, claiming that she came from Columbia University after she was told to. — Modernity News
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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A great day and a great week here in the realm of BNB! Thank you to all of the authors and commenters for your insights! Enjoy your weekend!!
Ashe writes: "From everything I understand, Weinstein was a monster. He deserves to be in prison, and he will stay in prison due to another conviction. But even monsters have due process rights, and we should never advocate to violate those rights because of how much we hate the accused."
And that, my friends, is what justice actually means!
One indication of Truth in a society is having "just balances (picturing the scales of justice), just weights, a just dry measurement and a just liquid measurement" - where the word for "just" actually means rightness in the original language (Leviticus 19:36). Also we should remember, "a false balance is an abomination..." (Prov.11:1)
Simon: "Loving, honouring and understanding the power of the natural family needs to be locked into our collective identity now, so that if we end up relying on this kind of technology to survive, it can be surrounded by and anchored to said culture."
AMEN (said the husband of one wife, father of 11 adult children, and grandfather of 25...and counting)!!! Oh and yes my wife is a saint!
So, should President Clinton be charged with murder, or at least as an accessory, for the debacle at Waco?