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.
The KKK Act Goes Mainstream as Minneapolis Chaos Escalates
In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, tensions have surged due to federal ICE deportation operations targeting criminal illegal aliens in the sanctuary city region, exacerbated by the fatal shooting of Renee Good, who was killed by an ICE agent after allegedly attempting to run over a federal officer with her vehicle.
This incident has sparked ongoing anti-ICE riots and protests, compounding an already volatile situation involving left-wing activism, potential organized pressure campaigns by nonprofits and federal law enforcement responses.
A notable flashpoint occurred when dozens of left-wing activists stormed Cities Church in St. Paul during a Sunday service, apparently targeting a pastor believed to be linked to ICE’s local field office operations.
Former CNN host Don Lemon is alleged to have joined the mob, leading the U.S. Department of Justice to place him “on notice” for potential federal charges.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon stated that the incident could violate the Ku Klux Klan Act (prohibiting conspiracies to intimidate or violate civil rights) and the FACE Act (protecting houses of worship from interference).
Dhillon emphasized zero tolerance, noting that disrupting religious services is not protected speech and that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, along with the FBI, is investigating.
Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke directly with the affected pastor, affirming that attacks on law enforcement and intimidation of Christians would face the “full force of federal law.” White House officials and religious leaders condemned the actions as a desecration of a sacred space.
Lemon has dismissed the allegations as “fake news.” The broader response includes deployment of 3,000 ICE agents to the area, with 1,500 troops on standby, amid warnings of escalating left-wing violence in Democrat-run cities.
Ashe in America: In March 2022, I was sued for allegedly violating the KKK Act. I fought back and won, but the outcome isn’t the point.
The story is the point.
The KKK Act makes for sensational headlines. It carries a unique moral stigma because of its association with the Ku Klux Klan and racial terror. That stigma is not accidental. Legal scholars openly acknowledge that invoking it can function as political messaging.
From the NYU Social Justice Law Review, quoted by the plaintiffs and their experts in my case:
“Another reason to bring a KKK Act claim is for the purpose of political messaging. Liability under the Act carries the additional stigma of conspiracy and its association with the KKK’s legacy of politicalized racism. …the [KKK] Act creates the opportunity to brand a particular ballot security group or party committee with these deeply embarrassing associations… the threat of such associations could strengthen the law’s deterrent effect and help drive settlement.”
I cited that same passage in my defense to show how the statute was being used as a reputational weapon rather than a civil-rights safeguard. The plaintiffs cited the 2015 paper as an authority for how what they were doing was appropriate. NYU said it!
In the 21st century, the KKK Act is less about stopping violent conspiracies and more about attaching moral contamination to political opponents. It is character assassination with federal branding. We’ve seen this weapon deployed a bunch.
But it hasn’t been aimed at the likes of Don Lemon before. Empathetic mockingbirds rarely get clap backs like “Klan.”
Until now.
Admittedly, seeing the DOJ boomerang the KKK Act onto the same political class that spent years weaponizing it scratches an itch for me.
They use these statutes to deprive rights, reputations, and livelihoods. The KKK Act should probably be abolished.
But before that can realistically happen, certain people need to get better acquainted with it, to see what it’s become in 2026.
People like Don Lemon.
This is going to be fun to watch.
Trump’s Board of Peace Comes Into Focus … to Mixed Reception
US President Donald Trump has launched the “Board of Peace,” a new international body chaired by him, initially established to oversee postwar reconstruction and governance in Gaza under a fragile ceasefire following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and subsequent war.
Backed by a November 2025 UN Security Council resolution (with Russia and China abstaining), the board’s mandate is officially limited to Gaza until the end of 2027, supervising a Palestinian technocratic administration and a separate 11-member Gaza Executive Committee handling day-to-day operations.
However, the board’s draft charter omits specific mention of Gaza, criticizes past “failed” institutions (implicitly the UN), and positions it as a “nimble and effective” alternative for global conflict resolution, with potential expansion beyond the Middle East.
A high-profile signing ceremony is scheduled for Thursday at 10:30 a.m. during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, intended to formally launch phase two of Trump’s Gaza peace efforts.
Invitations were extended to leaders from around 60 countries, including a diverse mix of European nations (France, Germany, Italy, UK, Hungary, Poland, Canada), Middle Eastern states (Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar), and others (India, Pakistan, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Australia, Argentina, Paraguay, Thailand, Vietnam, Morocco, Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Singapore, Uzbekistan).
Confirmed acceptances include Hungary (Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close Trump ally, announced unequivocal support), Kazakhstan (President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev), Belarus (President Alexander Lukashenko), Argentina, Vietnam, and Morocco.
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Canada’s Mark Carney expressed readiness to contribute in principle, while the UK (Keir Starmer) signaled willingness for Gaza’s second ceasefire phase.
However, participation remains limited due to caution: France declined, citing conflicts with UN commitments and the charter’s broader scope; Poland raised concerns over Vladimir Putin’s inclusion; and many leaders avoided public commitments amid fears the board could undermine the United Nations’ authority as the sole universal body for peace and security.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received an invitation, with the Kremlin confirming it is seeking to “clarify all nuances” with Washington before responding.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited and his office confirmed receipt, but he is not attending the Davos ceremony.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: The very stable genius has done it again.
President Trump is launching a thousand ships (so to speak) against the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, as his campaign of hyperbolic aggression continues to sow narrative chaos and dread among the global elite.
He has now invited roughly 60 countries to join his "Board of Peace." which is a creation of Phase Two of the Gaza Peace Plan. And on top of that, he has demanded that a ceremonial signing of the Board take place during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.
Many are now accusing President Trump of attempting to establish his own version of the United Nations, and that sounds pretty awesome to me. Meanwhile, after receiving condemnation from Norway regarding his ostensible belligerence over the annexation of Greenland, Trump formally responded by saying that since the Nobel Committee in Oslo (Norway) refused to give him the Peace Prize after he stopped eight wars, he "no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of peace..."
TRUMP-A-MANIA, BROTHER!
What a legend.
And while for a minute it was looking like Netanyahu and Israel were going to be the kid[s] not picked at all to play dodgeball, we learned late yesterday that Netanyahu was actually invited. However, it seems that he may be facing a slight conflict of interest if he chooses to accept.
In public statements given out yesterday by his office, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “The time has come to dismantle the headquarters in Kiryat Gat,” referring to the Civil Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) established by the US back in October that would serve as a headquarters for civilian and military personnel from the various countries participating in the International Stabilization Force.
From the Times of Israel article:
"By dismantling the headquarters, Israel will be able to remove representatives stationed there from “countries like Egypt and Britain that are hostile to Israel and undermine its security,” and will instead be able to do what is best for the Jewish state, Smotrich said. He declined to explain why he had singled out the United Kingdom for criticism."
What's interesting about singling out those two countries is that those are Israel's two historic allies, along with the United States.
The modern State of Israel was formed out of British Mandate Palestine, fulfilling a promise made by British Lord Sir Arthur Balfour in 1917 to Sir Walter Rothschild, who inherited the title Baron Rothschild in 1915.
Egypt was the first Arab nation to normalize relations with Israel in 1980.
So what does Bibi do, here?
By not joining the board, he would be forfeiting any chance at direct influence over Gaza. But it's also clear that his overt participation in helping the Gazans will trigger the stone cold sociopath Bezalel Smotrich, along with his Ultra-Orthodox constituency of Israeli Settlers. (Hence, likely why they also delayed in disclosing that they had been invited to join.)
My guess is that Netanyahu will ultimately accept the invitation, convincing Smotrich that it's better to be in the room and at the head of the table than on the outside peering in the window to catch a glimpse at the grand plans. I suspect that Smotrich will begrudgingly accept the situation, while using it as a point of focus to catalyze fervor among the Settlers.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Settlers amass outside of the headquarters in protest, and even attack it.
What's interesting is that the first high profile name to come out yesterday morning as an invitee to the Board was Vladimir Putin. Russia's Special Envoy to the US Kirill Dmitriev confirmed on X that Putin had accepted the invitation.
That means that Vlad and Trump are (figuratively) going to finally be shoulder to shoulder at the Gaza Border, standing between Palestine and Netanyahu.
When the Israeli Settlers do attack, it will be against a company of soldiers from across the Sovereign Alliance, led by Turkey and Qatar, with President Trump and President Putin serving as the symbolic captains of the team.
This is like a Pay-Per-View professional wrestling event. The stage is getting set for one of the most historic geopolitical moments of the modern age, and TrumpaMania is literally the theme of the show, with Trump and Putin headlining against Netanyahu and the WEF.
A+ scriptwriting. Bravo.
Here's some pre-game smack talk from the Boss.
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A Transatlantic ‘Crisis’ Over Trump’s Greenland Push
President Donald Trump’s renewed and intensified campaign to bring Greenland under U.S. control—citing national security imperatives against Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic, access to rare earth minerals, and historical U.S. interest dating back over 150 years—has escalated into a major rift with European allies, threatening NATO cohesion and sparking the most serious transatlantic crisis in decades.
Over the weekend, Trump threatened additional 10-15% tariffs on European nations effective February 1 unless they support a U.S. purchase deal, directly targeting eight countries—Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—that deployed a small military contingent to Greenland to bolster Arctic security and demonstrate solidarity.
In a provocative letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre—confirmed by Norway and shared by Trump with other NATO leaders—the U.S. president linked Norway’s refusal to award him the Nobel Peace Prize (for allegedly “stopping 8 wars”) to a shift in U.S. policy: “Since your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize... I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace... but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States.”
Støre responded firmly, affirming Norway’s support for Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland.
The eight affected nations issued a joint statement condemning the tariff threats as undermining transatlantic relations and risking a “dangerous downward spiral,” while pledging full solidarity with Denmark and Greenland’s self-determination.
The European Union responded swiftly by convening an emergency meeting of its 27 ambassadors to coordinate retaliation, including potential €93 billion in countermeasures.
Amid these tensions, the Kremlin confirmed that President Vladimir Putin has been offered a seat on Trump’s U.S.-backed “Board of Peace” for postwar Gaza governance and reconstruction.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the invitation—extended to various European, Middle Eastern, and Asian nations—is under review, with hopes for clarification through U.S. contacts.
Burning Bright: It doesn’t take an expert to recognize that Donald Trump’s second term is already reshaping the contours of the global battlespace.
And that’s bipartisan by design.
Through a series of deliberate and unyielding assertions of American sovereignty, it is becoming increasingly clear that what we are witnessing is the emergence of an entirely new Power Paradigm—one that lays bare the fragility of the Rules-Based International Order the Globalist Hegemon has long presented as an immutable framework governing the affairs of nations, and that Trump (and truly, the American experiment) were born to contest.
This paradigm operates as a profound bicameral cypher, revealing truths about the nature of power that resonate across every layer of the awakening mind, regardless of whether one views Trump as the righteous peacemaker restoring balance to a fractured world, or as the unrelenting disruptor pursuing dominance through sheer force of will.
In either interpretation, his strategic maneuvers—from posturing in the Arctic theater to the shameless reforging of the Western Hemisphere—compel the observer to confront the same inexorable reality: that true enforcement of any order, any set of rules has always depended not on moral consensus or institutional pronouncements, but on the raw capacity to project and sustain power.
In this way, Trump is illuminating what has always underpinned the international system—which operated through proxies, institutions and layers of bureaucracy and deniability—through a transparent exercise and ultimately, enforcement of sovereignty that forces every actor to reckon with the mechanics of actual power stripped of their former abstractions and illusions.
This latest phase represents yet another escalation in the ongoing series of Hegemonic Humiliations that have defined Trump’s return to executive authority, as Europe’s frantic diplomatic gatherings and hastily coordinated responses to everything from Greenland to Venezuela—ranging from threats of symbolic economic countermeasures against economies that dwarf their own to deployments of limited forces in vain and escalatory posturing against the very power apparatus that has propped them up—serve only to underscore their institutional weakness and accelerate the very exposure Trump is engineering, confirming his narrative that these once-dominant entities have grown irrelevant, sustained for decades solely by the American backstop they could influence, but never fully command.
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Massive Somali Welfare Fraud Scandal in Minnesota Sparks Republican Probes, Denaturalization Bill, and Trump’s Attention
A major welfare fraud scandal involving Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community has escalated into a high-profile political firestorm, with Republicans in Congress alleging a deliberate Democratic strategy to build voting blocs through fraudulent entitlements, while the Trump administration pushes aggressive measures including citizenship revocation.
Prosecutors and investigators estimate that up to half of $18-20 billion in federally funded welfare programs over recent years was lost to fraud, primarily in programs like Medicaid (where 86% of Somalis in Minnesota reportedly receive free healthcare), food stamps, housing, childcare, and a prominent $250 million pandemic-era child nutrition scheme known as Feeding Our Future.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) are leading investigations, describing the fraud as a “coordinated effort” and “scam” to manipulate elections, congressional apportionment, and federal funding in blue states.
Whistleblowers, including Minnesota state workers, provided affidavits claiming they warned Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) about the issues, but no action was taken—allegations both officials deny.
Probes are expanding to other Democratic states like California, New York, and Illinois, with the Trump administration freezing funds and targeting high-risk programs.
In direct response, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) introduced the White House-backed Stop Citizenship Abuse and Misrepresentation (SCAM) Act, which would expand denaturalization powers by creating a 10-year post-naturalization window (potentially reducible to five) to revoke citizenship for acts like defrauding government of $10,000+, aggravated felonies, espionage, or terrorist affiliations—retroactively disqualifying “good moral character.”
Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller hailed the bill and called the Somali scandal “one of the greatest financial scandals in American history,” vowing immediate denaturalization and deportation for involved immigrants.
President Trump intensified the controversy in a January 19, 2026 Truth Social post, directly targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)—a Somali-born naturalized citizen and frequent critic—suggesting she be jailed or “sent back to Somalia” over the “$19 Billion Dollars in Minnesota Somalia Fraud,” accusing her of knowing “everything” about it while being a “constant complainer who hates the USA.”
Ashe in America: I’ve repeatedly said, “deport the Somalis; prosecute the Americans.”
With the SCAM Act, we’re looking at denaturalizing and deporting scammers that obtained citizenship.
Obviously, I support this.
This culture is incompatible with the American rule of law. You don’t get to have different laws. You don’t get to come here, participate in a massive criminal enterprise, get caught, and then stay here to try it again. It should be easy to deport criminals from other countries.
Why isn’t it easy?
The name of this legislation is delightful as well.
There is still the matter of prosecuting the Americans.
Everyone that enabled this crime, covered it up over the years, and ostensibly took a cut of the spoils is guilty of providing aid and comfort to foreign enemies. People that exploit our good will and coordinate a criminal enterprise to loot our treasury and steal our stability are our actual enemies.
Pass the SCAM Act and deport the “Somali-Americans” involved in the fraud. Then prosecute the Americans. End the NGOs. Kraken the Karens.
Restore the rule of law — equally, without fear or favor — so we can get on with the Golden Age.
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“Kraken the Karens”. I’m stealing that 😎
I agree with Ashe. The new “Don Lemon Show” will be fun to watch. Something tells me a parody will show up on OnlyLands 👀