Badlands Brief

All the Classic Earmarks of Discombobulation

The Badlands Brief is your daily drop of Badlands’ takes on the narratives dominating the info war. Read on, and join the conversation in the comments section.

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DOJ Seeks House Intel Records Tied to Former CIA Director Brennan in Signal of Pending Criminal Case

The Justice Department requested records from the House Intelligence Committee tied to former CIA Director John Brennan as part of a reported criminal inquiry. From Punchbowl, “Brennan, the CIA director from 2013 to 2017, set up the counterintelligence investigation into Trump in 2016. Trump stripped Brennan of his security clearance in 2018 and again in 2025.”

The request centers on documents generated or held by the committee during prior intelligence oversight activities. This is being described as a “rare instance” of the executive branch seeking access to legislative branch materials in a prosecutorial context. The move signals potential escalation beyond routine information-gathering, though no charges have been announced and the scope of the inquiry remains unclear.

The DOJ request may raise possible separation-of-powers issues, potential negotiations, and legal action over compliance and the limits of executive authority.

Ashe in America: “The vote in the secretive intelligence panel was split along party lines and deeply divided the committee. Democrats felt as if they didn’t have enough time to review the material, which several lawmakers said they received on Friday.”

It’s important at times to realize how far we’ve come. Two years ago, as we sought truth in March 2024, looking towards the Presidential Election with both anxiety and excitement, the idea that our government oppressors could face accountability – for any of the overt acts in their portfolio of crime – was a fantasy.

John Brennan was still considered untouchable, and the legacy media confidently supported the idea that he was some sort of American hero, rather than the subversive traitor – perhaps the worst in US history – that the man ostensibly is.

Two years later, Trump is President, Brennan is under investigation, the House Intelligence Committee is voting to collaborate with the DOJ to advance justice for the former CIA Director’s portfolio of work – and the uniparty appears frustrated that they are unable to stop it.

And John Brennan seems unable to stop it.

It’s an encouraging story. We should pause and reflect on that accomplishment — that such a story is even possible.

No celebration without bracelets, but we’ve come a long way, homies.

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

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The Telegraph Takes Down Story Documenting Cooperation Between Christian Villages and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon

The Telegraph has removed an article that reportedly documented alleged cooperation between some Christian villages in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah, though the reason for its removal has not been publicly explained and the original article is no longer accessible for independent review. Third-party traces indicate the piece was published March 23 under the headline “Christians and Hezbollah unite against ‘Epstein empire’” before being taken down roughly a day later.

The claim sits within a complex and contested reality on the ground. Separate reporting from Christianity Today describes Christian communities in southern Lebanon as geographically embedded in Hezbollah-influenced territory and exposed to Israeli military operations, with some residents denying affiliation with Hezbollah even as they remain within its operational environment.

The episode comes as Israel’s posture toward southern Lebanon has sharply escalated. On March 23, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel’s border “must be the Litani,” signaling support for extending control northward. A day later, Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that Israeli forces would occupy territory up to the Litani River and control bridges and a broader “security zone,” formalizing intent to hold a significant portion of southern Lebanon.

The broader conflict intensified after March 2, when Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel, prompting Israeli evacuation orders and expanded strikes and ground activity in southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities report more than 1,070 deaths and over one million displaced, while Hezbollah has described any Israeli occupation south of the Litani as an “existential threat” and vowed resistance. The United Nations has also warned that the prospect of a sustained Israeli presence in the area is “very much concerning.”

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: Over the weekend, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the annexation of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the IDF would be formally occupying this region.

The IDF has been in Lebanon for months; then Israel broke the ceasefire with Hezbollah when the Iran War kicked off.

It’s important to understand that in this region of Lebanon—which has been under Hezbollah control since the 1980’s—there are entire villages comprised entirely of Catholics. Many of these villages have an enormous cross erected on a nearby high point.

The tallest of these crosses—known as the Cross of All Nations— can be found in Qanat Bakish. It stands at over 240 feet tall.

Here is the one in Rmeim.

Here is the one in Kobayat, which stands at over 120 feet.

In Ijdabra, they have recently constructed the world’s largest inhabitable cross, standing at roughly 150 feet. Inside of the cross there is a church that can hold 200 people.

Just last week, outside of the town of Al-Qaa, they completed one of the largest statues of Jesus in the world.

All of this resides in Hezbollah country, and under their protection.

Indeed, on just about every hilltop in the vicinity, you will find that a giant cross was erected by Christians.

This month, the IDF accidentally killed Father Pierre al-Rahi with a tank round that was mistakenly fired in Qlayaa.

While we have long been told that Hezbollah is a ruthless terrorist organization that seeks to kill Christians around the world, the reality is that they are actually a resistance group that has been fighting a legitimate state military (IDF) for decades.

Now we have learned that as the IDF moves into southern Lebanon, and begins bombing these Christian villages—hoping to kill as many of them as possible, which they hope will scare off the rest—it is Hezbollah who has come to their defense, and even provided aid. (Including supplying Christmas trees to the towns in need.)

This follows a pattern, as we saw that Hezbollah was the first and only entity to cross into Syria and defend Assad from a coup following the 2011 Arab Spring, which led to the formation of ISIS. ISIS was then used to attack Israel’s perceived enemies in the region, namely Assad.

So now we see Christians and Muslims joining forces against the IDF, and The Telegraph doesn’t even have the decency or courage to keep their published story on these events, as we see these communities unite against a common enemy: the invading imperial army of Greater Israel.

I think we have been lied to about Hezbollah and what it actual is. Because clearly they don’t hate Christians.

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Russia Grows Emboldened in the Wake of the Iran Crisis as Global Energy and Currency Exchange See Resets

Ukraine said Russia launched one of the largest aerial attacks of the war, involving hundreds of drones and multiple missiles in a roughly 24-hour period. India’s refiners booked approximately 60 million barrels of Russian crude for the upcoming month, a volume more than double February levels.

The increase in Indian purchases follows supply disruption concerns tied to the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil chokepoint. Indian refiners are increasingly settling some Russian oil trades using non-dollar currencies, including UAE dirhams and Chinese yuan. Workarounds include converting Indian rupees into dirhams or yuan to facilitate transactions with Russian suppliers.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly ~20% of global petroleum liquids consumption, making it one of the world’s most critical energy transit routes. Market analysts say the current crisis could accelerate a shift away from dollar-denominated oil trade toward alternative settlement systems.

Burning Bright: For weeks, the Russia-Ukraine story – once the unchallenged king of the Narrative cycle – faded into background noise precisely as the Iranian theater demanded every scrap of attention.

Developments there weren’t absent from the Actuals, of course; they never are. But in the Narrative realm, where the war is truly fought and won or lost in the Collective Mind, an older script loses its hold when the fresh chaos of Hormuz and proxy flares captures the emotional bandwidth of the observing Mindscape.

And if that apparent pause in visible escalation out of the borderlands reeked of anything, it was coordination – not paralysis.

All players, from the Sovereign side to the remnants of the old order appear laser-focused on the Middle East, as if the board had been cleared for one decisive untangling before the next piece could be moved with intent.

The Media Protectorate, ever eager to paint disarray, has once more missed the pattern entirely, with ‘new’ developments in Ukraine the result of direct second-order fallout from the very Iranian Knot now dominating the cycle.

To wit, the prime narrative already coalescing around this renewed Russian pressure in the Donbas is being anchored straight to Trump’s recent easing of sanctions on seaborne Russian oil – temporary waivers issued amid the energy price spikes triggered by the Strait disruptions.

The legacy outlets and Con Inc. doom brigade are already spinning it as the latest blunder, with Trump, they claim, accidentally fueling Putin’s war machine while distracted by his own Middle East commitments.

Which is retarded.

This is the methodical unwind of the rules-based international order in action – the very architecture the Sovereign Alliance was forged to dismantle, piece by interlocking piece.

What the media brands as chaotic incompetence is, in reality, the controlled release of pressure valves across theaters, easing the flow to stabilize markets at home while exposing how the old sanctions regime was never about security, but about engineered scarcity and perpetual entanglement.

The Donbas was the original narrative hook of the story that is unwinding the Globalist World Order, but the deeper play is disentanglement – Russia gains breathing room in its borderlands precisely as the globalist chokeholds loosen elsewhere, each Sovereign actor feeding off the chaotic synergies provoked by the others.

Which is why operating from a faulty premise – the one that fails to invert the Axis and Allies paradigm – dooms any earnest analysis from the jump.

If you think Trump is falling ass backwards into brilliant disentanglement and post-fallout resurgence after resurgence, you’re simply not going to understand what’s being set up until you consider what’s actually being destroyed.

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Third GART Exclusive Livestream Today @ 2pET! Get Your Tickets Now

Badlands Media hits the road four times a year for a three-day patriot-packed event with our hosts and the Badlands community. Meet like-minded Americans, hear powerful content, and be part of something real on April 9-12 in Nashville, TN.

All Virtual or In-Person tickets also get you access to exclusive livestreams leading up to the event. The third exclusive ticketholder livestream is this Thursday March 26 at 2PM ET. Link to the stream on rumble will be sent out on Thursday by 1PM ET.

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Peace Talks Between US and Iran Difficult, Not Dead

Efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict between the United States and Iran remain active but unresolved, with both sides signaling that diplomacy is difficult yet not fully abandoned. Indirect channels – primarily through intermediaries such as Pakistan, along with other regional go-betweens – continue to carry proposals between Washington and Tehran, including a US-backed ceasefire framework that mediators said had been relayed to Iran and publicly detailed on March 25.

Iran has rejected at least one recent US-backed proposal and put forward a counter-proposal and broad conditions for ending the conflict, underscoring the wide gap between the two sides. Public statements remain inconsistent: US officials, including President Donald Trump, have pointed to “productive conversations,” while Iranian officials have repeatedly denied direct negotiations or questioned their value.

Earlier in March, Iranian officials, including Tehran’s envoy to the United Nations, said Iran had not initiated talks and voiced skepticism about diplomacy while military strikes continued.

The current standoff follows earlier nuclear and de-escalation talks that ended without a deal in late February, after showing limited progress, before being overtaken by US and Israeli military action against Iran. That shift from negotiation to open conflict disrupted formal diplomacy but did not eliminate back-channel engagement.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: President Trump and Iran continue to play games regarding the true nature of this war, as the rest of the world struggles to grasp what is actually happening.

A few days ago, President Trump said that the Iranians gave him a gift that signaled to him that a deal is possible.

President Trump says that they are involved in negotiations, and that he expects Iran to deny it. Trump said that his administration has identified people in the Iranian government that they trust and are willing to work with in the future.

What is interesting is that while Iran denies that the negotiations are happening, the Trump admin is removing names of Iranian leaders from its Kill List, indicating that perhaps they are actually speaking with the US and earnestly trying to resolve the situation.

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President Trump Announces Appointees for President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

The White House announced new appointments to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Wednesday. PCAST is a federal advisory body that provides the president with independent advice on science, technology, and innovation policy.

The council includes leaders from academia, industry, and research institutions, reflecting a mix of public- and private-sector expertise. Appointees are tasked with advising on issues including artificial intelligence, national security technology, economic competitiveness, and scientific research priorities. The following appointments were announced:

• Marc Andreessen

• Sergey Brin

• Safra Catz

• Michael Dell

• Jacob DeWitte

• Fred Ehrsam

• Larry Ellison

• David Friedberg

• Jensen Huang

• John Martinis

• Bob Mumgaard

• Lisa Su

• Mark Zuckerberg

PCAST operates under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) framework, meaning its work is structured to provide formal recommendations to the president. The announcement states the council will help guide policy on emerging technologies and maintaining US leadership in science and innovation.

Ashe in America: The Thiel Doomers are going to have a field day with this appointments list. The appointments are about half Thiel bros (Zuckerberg, Andreessen, Ehrsam, Ellison, Friedberg, and Huang, and half not (everyone else).

I live with a Thiel Doomer, so I hear the argument – that Peter Thiel is shadow running our government through his vast network of insider placements – on the regular. I have also read 1984, Brave New World, and lots of other tech-enabled dystopian tales, so I recognize all the classic earmarks of doomer’s delight.

Then there is Mark Zuckerberg… just… what? I know he got testosterone or whatever, so he’s no longer a soy-based psycho (allegedly), but remember the Center for Tech and Civic Life? Are we just forgetting about all that?

Public trust is conditioned on accountability. It must be.

Then there’s the whole Melania Robot thing.

Yesterday was a lot.

My response broadly is, if power is returned to the People, then it’s up to the People to say no. A big part of me thinks the race to technocracy has to be about that. That we are the plan.

Then there is the part of me that believes saving the nation at the enterprise level necessarily requires committed patriots and a highly sophisticated plan. The seeming celebration of the birth of Westworld, and its infamous board of governors, is definitely part of someone’s plan. Trump’s? Thiel’s? Truth’s?

Note that these parts of me can comfortably coexist.

Eyes and minds open, and brains on. Let’s see what happens.

(Also, we need purse-sized portable EMPs, stat.)

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BONUS ITEM

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2nd Appeals Court Backs Trump Immigration Detention Policy

A federal appeals court has upheld the Trump administration’s interpretation of immigration law, marking the second appellate ruling in favor of the administration’s position.

The St. Louis-based US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled 2-1 that federal law not only allows but mandates detention in the majority of deportation cases, reversing lower court decisions that had granted release petitions in Minnesota.

The ruling marks the administration’s second appellate victory on the issue, following a similar 2-1 decision from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit last month.

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