Badlands Brief
Trump Taps Surprising New DNI While Media Freaks Out About Everything
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.
Media Says Talks Between US and Iran Stalled. Trump Calls Fake News.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: I love the fact that President Trump has tricked the MSM into questioning whether any of this is real. I hope that dynamic is further exploited for the benefit of the American People and the world.
Alpha and I covered this topic in depth on Badlands Daily yesterday. I also covered the Israeli response on Geopolitics with Ghost. So I would encourage you to go watch those shows to get a far more in-depth discussion and dissection of this evolving event.
I suspect this pattern of “fakeness” will continue, with all sides accusing one another of lying about the news of the day. I bet we will see the MSM continue to gaslight the public about what is or what isn’t happening.
Sooner or later, the public will have no choice but to defect from the news media entirely, as no outlet will be considered a reliable narrator.
Trump Appoints William Pulte, Housing Director to Acting DNI
President Trump has appointed William J. Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence.
Pulte currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Pulte will continue holding his existing roles at the FHFA and with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while serving in the acting DNI position.
Trump praised Pulte’s qualifications in the post, highlighting his experience overseeing some of the nation’s most sensitive financial matters, including the safety and soundness of U.S. housing markets.
Ashe in America: “… he will remain Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.“
I would have thought ODNI was a full time job.
There are 18 intelligence agencies, including the Space Force one, and ODNI is a sort of clearing house within that community.
How can that be a part time job?
In my other take in today’s Brief, we revisit DOGE and modern tooling and accountability …
I can be convinced that Gabbard’s leadership of ODNI oversaw a change effort in the IC — transforming the people, process, and technology.
With modernization, IC oversight could be a part time job.
I guess we’ll see what happens.
What I’m really looking forward to is the Justice phase…
“Don’t forget that this persecution is being done by the same weaponized agencies that for seven years have been running illegal psychological warfare campaigns against the American people, much as if they were trying to destabilize a foreign country.”
Accelerate.
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EPA Boss Makes Criminal Referrals Alleging Self-Dealing in Green Energy Grants While Media Panics in the Midst of Trump’s Energy Transition
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has made criminal referrals to the EPA inspector general and the Department of Justice alleging self-dealing in the distribution of Biden-era green energy grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Zeldin has canceled or paused roughly $29 billion in such grants, including $20 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that was routed through eight nonprofit “cutouts” and a separate $2 billion grant to Power Forward Communities for residential decarbonization projects.
The referrals highlight cases such as former Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund director Jahi Wise personally overseeing a $5 billion grant to his prior employer, a $2 billion award to Power Forward Communities—a nonprofit tied to Stacey Abrams that reported only $100 in revenue the previous year—and $20 million given to Young, Gifted & Green, whose CEO applied while serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Zeldin stated that the funding went to “pass-through entities” connected to former Obama-Biden officials, Democratic donors, and politically connected individuals, describing the rushed 2024 distribution as “blatant waste and abuse” that “feels criminal” and centered on “self-dealing.”
Burning Bright: As I've been arguing for years, the Scarcity Paradigm was never a neutral observation of physical limits. It has rather functioned as the central operating lie of the Globalist Deep State’s Hegelian machinery, a narrative imposition refined over decades and then compounded by engineered Actuals on the ground.
In other words, the Macro Narrative of Scarcity and decline has been paired with concrete projects designed to make that constraint self-reinforcing, from destabilization operations in the Middle East and other energy hotbeds to corporate and governmental limits placed on domestic energy production and distribution.
The dialectic has run on parallel tracks: foreign chokepoints that have punished sovereign peoples on the back of energy dependence on adversarial or unstable regimes, and domestic architectures that constrain output while laundering political and financial power through the administrative state.
The Green New Deal era represented an especially aggressive acceleration of both tracks.
What was presented as climate and justice policy at the time operated in practice as a mechanism for locking in lower energy densities and for routing enormous flows of public capital through networks of aligned nonprofits and politically-connected entities.
Recent criminal referrals from Trump's EPA leadership targeting billions in rushed grants—funds moved through thinly-capitalized cutouts to figures with clear partisan ties—illustrate how these programs functioned once the layers are pulled back.
Two years of executive orders dismantling energy limits and accelerating restored pathways along Nuclear and Supersonics, and legal pressure on the administrative machine have begun dismantling those structures, not as isolated regulatory housekeeping, but as part of a broader restoration of energetic sovereignty.
Thus, the reverse indicators now surfacing in mainstream coverage are so instructive precisely because they are involuntary.
Outlets that once celebrated every new offshore wind commitment now lament the halting of projects in places like my own Massachusetts, where promised long-term industrial footprints largely delivered temporary construction booms (and an influx of illegal labor) before policy shifts, cost realities and investor flight intervened.
At the same time, the same information channels amplify near-daily warnings about data center expansion—framing the infrastructure required for a new American frontier in the realm of compute as a looming crisis for grids, water and rural communities.
Remember, the enemy always attacks what he fears most.
Ashe in America: DOGE exposed waste, fraud, and abuse and, in my opinion, deployed modern tooling inside government to monitor and flag waste, fraud, and abuse in the golden age government.
But we cannot have a golden age without accountability for this dystopian era. To that end, Zeldin’s referrals are encouraging.
If we don’t have transparency and accountability for what’s been done in the name of the full faith and credit of the American people, then we haven’t solved anything, and the next corrupt scheme will be emboldened to go even harder.
Prosecute all of them. Anyone that violated their oath and caused harm on the American people needs to be dragged into the light and held to account.
I hope we see other agencies follow suit with criminal referrals. And I hope they livestream the trials.
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Putin Hits Drone Factory and Other Sites Outside Kiev in Response to Ukraine’s Unhinged Aggression
On May 22, 2026, a Ukrainian drone struck a college dormitory in Starobelsk in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic late at night while students were asleep. The attack reportedly killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and injured 70 others.
Russia has responded with a large-scale overnight missile and drone strike using precision weapons, including hypersonic missiles, targeting Ukrainian military airfields, defense industry facilities, fuel and transport infrastructure, and a drone production plant linked to President Zelensky across regions including Kyiv, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, and Sumy.
Russian Defense Ministry officials stated that all designated targets were hit and described the operation as a response to “terrorist attacks” by Kiev, with President Putin calling it a new chapter in Ukraine’s “crime spree” that would bring “well-deserved and inevitable punishment.”
In a separate incident on Saturday, a fiber-optic-guided drone struck the machine hall of the sixth power unit at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, puncturing a hole in the building.
Rosatom, which operates the plant under Russian control since 2022, described it as Kiev’s first deliberate attack on the facility’s main equipment and warned that any explosion or fire could cut power and water supplies, creating conditions for a nuclear incident.
Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev stated that radiation from such an event would primarily endanger Ukraine and neighboring EU countries.
Ukrainian authorities denied involvement.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: My favorite part of the story is this:
A drone film scouting company linked to Zelensky’s friends became Ukraine’s “miracle” factory that produced all of their long range drones.
How many other film production companies in Ukraine do you think were repurposed for the war effort?
Strange.
These strikes from Russia came in response to Ukrainian aggression; particularly the attacks against the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia—the largest one in all of Europe.
It’s become clear that Ukrainian leadership is growing increasingly unhinged. Just look at that story about Ukraine “accidentally” arming a drone with weapons and flying it toward military targets.
You will recall that sometime over the last week, a drone struck Romania—which is west of Ukraine—and the MSM reported that the drone was Russian. Putin and the lads denied this, of course.
In fact, Putin went public and not only denied it, but suggested that it was likely the West or Ukraine who committed the false flag against Russia.
Accidentally flying a heavily armed drone into Finland.
Attacking the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Bombing the hell out of Lebanon.
The thugs in Kiev have grown increasingly bold in their attempt to commit false flag operations.
Accelerate.
BONUS ITEM
Henry Nowak Case Goes Nuclear in the UK, Sparking Public Outrage and Allusions to the ‘White George Floyd’
On December 3, 2025, in Southampton, UK, 18-year-old Henry Nowak was stabbed five times by 23-year-old Vickrum Singh Digwa while walking home after a night out.
Nowak suffered wounds to his face, legs, and a penetrating lung injury from an 8-inch blade.
He repeatedly told arriving police officers that he had been stabbed and could not breathe, but officers instead arrested and handcuffed him after Digwa claimed Nowak had launched a racist attack that knocked off his turban.
Nowak died about an hour later from his injuries. No independent evidence supported Digwa’s racism allegation.
Digwa, who carried two blades (including a kirpan worn around his neck) and had trained with weapons since age 12, was arrested at the scene.
Police focused on the unverified racism claim rather than treating Nowak’s wounds or immediately securing Digwa, despite a visible blood trail.
Digwa was convicted of murder on May 28 following a trial in which prosecutors stated the case was about murder, not racism or religion, and in which Digwa was found to have lied about key events.
Digwa was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years.
Nearly six months after the killing, Hampshire Police referred itself for an independent investigation into its handling of the incident.
Nowak’s family described the police treatment of their son as “unbearable” and noted that the perpetrator “was believed” while their bleeding son was not.
The case has prompted discussion about police response and media coverage when the victim is white and the perpetrator is from a minority background.
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Fun Brief today.
ASHE I am with you: "Prosecute all of them. Anyone that violated their oath and caused harm on the American people needs to be dragged into the light and held to account. I hope we see other agencies follow suit with criminal referrals. And I hope they livestream the trials."
Let the fun begin...
God Wins!
God Bless!!!
It does seem odd to make DNI just one more hat on a hatrack of duties - unless an actual working, highly experienced 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘌𝘹𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 can see that many of those titles were greatly inflated and can be fulfilled by a much smaller competent bureaucracy. Wait - isn't that something we voted for? 😄