Badlands Brief

On Iranian Pincers and American Caterpillars

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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Media Accuses Trump of Weaponizing Intel Access for Market Makers

Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) launched a Truth Social API on August 1 that sells real-time, machine-readable feeds of President Trump’s posts to institutional clients.

Access to the top-trending accounts costs $60,000–$100,000 per month (potentially more for broader feeds), giving high-frequency trading firms and financial news organizations a millisecond speed advantage over the public.

Trump’s posts have repeatedly moved markets—examples include an August 2 post about canceling Iran strikes that sent oil prices down nearly 5%, earlier Iran-related statements that dropped Brent crude by nearly 11%, a 2025 crypto-reserve announcement that boosted XRP 27%, and tariff threats that cut the S&P 500.

TMTG, in which Trump holds a dominant stake through a trust, saw its shares rise about 7% after the API announcement, adding tens of millions to the value of his holdings.

The company has been converting Truth Social from a money-losing platform into a revenue source by packaging presidential market-moving power as a paid data product.

Congressional Democrats have criticized the arrangement as a conflict of interest and potential vehicle for self-dealing.

Sen. Mark Warner introduced legislation to ban it, calling the prioritized access “corrupt.”

TMTG and the White House reject those characterizations, arguing the posts are public information and that critics misunderstand the distinction between public and nonpublic data.

Ashe in America: On Monday, on AMS, I told the story of the end stage TDS lesbian I debated at the Rockies game. One of her core arguments was that Trump is using government to enrich his family. Reading this narrative deployment about TMTG, I recognize her talking points.

It feels like the left is attempting a Biden and Burisma rerun, with Don Jr as the Hunter character; but even these media outlets are forced to admit that, unlike Hunter and Burisma, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by any Trump.

We are going to hear a lot more of this for the next two and a half years, so buckle up. The most corrupt people on the planet are deploying narratives on every front that the person exposing their corruption is actually the corrupt one.

What did Assange say? 98% of Washington would go down?

P.S. Axios was also forced to admit this: “In 2023, TMTG sued 20 media organizations, including Axios, for defamation. Litigation is ongoing.”

Accelerate.

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Netanyahu Says Israel Didn’t Agree to Board of Peace’s Plan to Disarm Hamas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel has not agreed to a disarmament plan for Hamas put forward by the Board of Peace, which Hamas accepted last week.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said Israel will not withdraw from its current positions in Gaza—now controlling more than 60% of the territory—until Hamas is completely disarmed and demilitarized. He emphasized that the draft was not Israel’s proposal and that Jerusalem had submitted its own comments and amendments.

The Board of Peace plan, described by a senior U.S. official as an extension of President Trump’s earlier 20-point framework for ending the Gaza war, would require Israel to pull back to the original “Yellow Line” established in the October 2025 ceasefire-hostage deal and immediately halt military operations once the agreement takes effect. Further withdrawals beyond that line would depend on Hamas beginning to hand over weapons.

Israel has reportedly agreed to tighter rules of engagement requiring high-level approval for strikes, but rejected the full terms of the pullback.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: After President Trump announced the big breakthrough disarmament deal between the Board of Peace and Hamas, two Israeli ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet issued a public statement demanding that Netanyahu cancel the Gaza stabilization plan and the International Stabilization Force (ISF), which is now housed in a military facility in Israel that was constructed by the US.

To nobody's surprise, one of the two was Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The other was the Minister of Settlements and National Missions, Orit Strock.

The major concern expressed in the open letter was that giving control of Gaza to the ISF would likely pave the way for a Palestinian State.

[Note: AI was used to translate the Hebrew text into English. Please forgive the awkward formatting.]

Netanyahu released a video—in Hebrew, meaning his target audience was Israelis—where he says that Israel has not yet agreed to any disarmament plan, and that the IDF will continue to operate against Hamas in Gaza.

The Board of Peace's high representative, Nickolay Mladenov, traveled to Jerusalem on Monday to meet with Netanyahu to try and secure Israel's support for the deal. But the political calculus has never been in favor of peace, and now the Board is walking back expectations that a deal with Hamas will even be finalized.

This is exactly what I have said was going to happen: President Trump would negotiate peace with the party (or parties) that many believe cannot be dissuaded from war—in this case, Hamas—and Israel would end up being the turd in the punchbowl, and the obstacle to peace.

I think a break-up between Trump and Netanyahu is inevitable, though I think we will first see the political systems both in the US and Israel turn on Bibi, for opposing reasons.

The US political system will denounce Netanyahu for subverting peace, while the Israeli political system will denounce him for subverting war.

By the end of this story, Israel being the aggressor and unreasonable party will be an indisputable fact.

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Caterpillar Shares Erupt Even While Rates Remain Restrictive as the Real Economy Outpaces the Fake One

Caterpillar reported second-quarter revenue of $20.54 billion, the first time the company has exceeded $20 billion in quarterly sales. Revenue rose 24% year-over-year and beat the Bloomberg consensus estimate of about $19.01 billion.

The bulk of the strength came from the Machinery, Power and Energy segment, which generated $19.58 billion (up 25%) and delivered operating income of $4.21 billion (up 51%), both well above expectations.

Management attributed the results to strong order rates and a growing backlog across its main businesses, driven in part by demand linked to the AI data-center buildout, power-generation needs, reshoring, and broader industrial activity.

Shares jumped nearly 8% in premarket trading after the release.

The stock had fallen roughly 23% the prior month amid broader concerns about data-center capital spending and power-equipment valuations; the strong beat reversed some of that pressure.

Burning Bright: Am I doing two takes this week adjacent to the construction industry while fifth-gen warfare headlines are screaming across the digital battlespace?

Yes.

Yes, I am.

Why?

Well, for starters, I think there is more fifth-gen warfare involved herein than many, and I also think there's a current need for real, verifiable GOOD NEWS amidst the seemingly-endless flood of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) the System would like to saddle the Age of Trump with, so that our morale might be broken, and our mandate shattered.

In another Brief this week, I discussed the encouraging surge of young American men entering training and vocational schools orbiting the physical economy, all of which is largely being predicated on Donald Trump's 2024-25 promises of a new American manufacturing boom and the rapid build-out of arguably the biggest infrastructure step change in American history, that being the very Data Center boom that the System is crying Doom over.

Now, we've got even more mechanistic fuel to add to that fire, with Caterpillar, a staple in the global construction world announcing what Wall Street is calling shocking revenue beats this week.

So, why is this so shocking?

In short, it's not ... IF you believed the Manufacturing and AI build-out Trump promised were REAL.

If, however, like most of Wall Street, you believe we've entered a new DOT COM bubble on the back of mindless AI-induced Silicon Valley hype, you'd have shorted most of the physical economy companies that would be essential to actualizing said boom.

Related:

And so they did short said companies, including Caterpillar, and now, reality is coming back to bite with a vengeance.

This actually coincides with my recent readings of what's REALLY going on in the ongoing Financial Shadow War the Trump Admin is waging with the Matrix, wherein I have argued that new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh isn't paralyzed when it comes to his current rate decisions, but is actually putting the squeeze on the Fake Economy while allowing the emergent and resurgent Real Economy to continue on unabated.

To wit, the REAL jobs (those in manufacturing, energy, data and physical services) are in the midst of a Renaissance, while the FAKE jobs (those in the financial and solely-digital realms) are facing attrition, both from the advent of the very technologies they helped to usher in and, more importantly, in a lending environment that is punishing over-leverage while rewarding leverage built on attainable (ie: physical) bets in the real world.

The Data Center build-out may be about artificial (ie: digital) intelligence ... but it's all being build in the physical world, with Chips, Facilities and the Energy required to power both.

This isn't Software. It's a Physical-Digital fusion unlike anything we've seen before.

Put simply, the real economy is humming along so nicely, the quarterly financials that hit in October and in January are probably going to blow Wall Street away ... even as Wall Street itself enters a new dark age (at least for the hedge fund bros) while Main Street rebounds in a way it hasn't since the 1950s.

(I wrote about these trends in the recently-expanded Reality Wars series at Burning Bright. Consider checking it out if you want to get more retarded about it all, if this Brief wasn't quite autistic enough for you.)

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What a Drag! Eleventh Circuit Rejects Hamburger Mary’s 1A Obscenity Argument

A federal appeals court has upheld Florida’s 2023 law that restricts children from attending “adult live performances,” ruling that it does not violate the First Amendment.

In an 8-5 decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a preliminary injunction that had blocked enforcement of the statute and sent the case back to a lower court.

The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, prohibits venues from admitting minors to live shows that depict or simulate nudity, sexual conduct, lewd exposure of prosthetic genitals or breasts, or similar content.

Although the statute does not explicitly name drag performances, it has been widely understood by critics as targeting them.

The lawsuit was brought by Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in Orlando, which argued the law is unconstitutionally vague and chills free speech.

The majority opinion, written by Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, held that the measure is consistent with the state’s interest in protecting children from material that is obscene for minors rather than an across-the-board ban on drag.

Dissenting judges, including Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum, sharply criticized the ruling, arguing it allows the state to chill political and artistic expression under vague language.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the decision a victory after years of litigation, while attorneys for Hamburger Mary’s said the fight continues and that the ruling improperly lets the state target disfavored speech while overriding parental judgment.

Ashe in America: Florida made it unlawful for establishments to allow children to watch obscenity, and the people who claim they aren’t grooming kids took the state the court.

What a time to be alive.

From Tallahassee Democrat: “Although the law does not name drag shows, critics have widely viewed it as a law meant to combat drag – a recognized art form that's roughly defined as ‘dressing up as the opposite sex,’ but also has a history of political commentary and activism. ‘In any event, the Act is consistent with a legislative intent to target drag shows that are obscene for children, not drag shows writ large,’ wrote Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, a Trump-appointed judge who authored the majority's opinion.”

They aren’t even saying they can’t have drag shows for kids, they just can’t have their junk hanging out in front of kids. And they’re upset about it.

They said they were just doing art and trying to teach inclusiveness. But now they’re raging in the courts and forcing taxpayer funded defenses because they can’t twerk in a g-string in kids’ faces.

It was always going to be this perverted and retarded.

The men in the dresses were your first clue.

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Bessent and Trump Both Say Deal With Iran Could Come “In the Next Day or Two”

President Trump said an “all-day negotiation” took place with Iran on Tuesday and described the talks as positive, adding that Iran wants to make a deal and that an agreement could come “tomorrow or the next day.”

He stressed that only concrete action matters and repeated a threat of hard military strikes if no deal is reached.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent separately told CNBC that the United States and Iran could announce a deal “today or tomorrow” to reopen the strait and move toward a more normalized situation.

He framed the potential agreement as providing “freedom of movement” for shipping, noting that hundreds or even a thousand vessels have been waiting to exit after months of disruption that began in late February.

Reporting indicates the proposed arrangement may involve a temporary (possibly 60-day) period of unimpeded transit without tolls, potentially extendable, and is backed by regional partners including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.

Iranian officials have denied engaging in direct talks, and some Iranian sources have suggested Tehran would retain significant control over traffic.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: Looks like President Trump has Israel in a pincer move.

As the Board of Peace presses for Netanyahu to accept its disarmament deal with Hamas, President Trump and Scott Bessent announce that they expect a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as soon as today.

This is after weeks of bombastic rhetoric that the US would obliterate Iran, and send it back to the stone age.

Iran, of course, is denying than any discussion is taking place.

I think that this nonstop flip-flopping from President Trump is designed to confuse the Israeli diaspora into making another bad move.

Remember: the longer this war drags on, the more unpopular Israel becomes, while Iran seems to be generating plenty of sympathy that it has not experienced in the past.

So maybe this deal happens, or maybe it doesn't. But I think the actual intent of these deployments is to confuse Israel into making a bad (and hasty) move that puts it further into a compromised position.

Meanwhile, the GOP and other Israeli loyalists in the US government are being exposed for their treasonous disposition toward Israel, where they prioritize Israel's needs over that of the US.

That is a situation that must be resolved with extreme scrutiny and widespread public awareness.

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