Badlands Brief
We Are the Champions of the World
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.
Team USA Defeats Canada — Not Tired of Winning Yet
The United States men’s ice hockey team captured its first Olympic gold medal since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” era with a 2-1 overtime win over Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics yesterday in Milan.
The gold medal was sealed 1:41 into overtime by Jack Hughes, whose decisive goal broke a tie that had stood through regulation. Connor Hellebuyck anchored the U.S. defense with a standout performance in net, making more than 40 saves to keep the Americans alive.
The victory ended a 46-year Olympic gold drought for U.S. men’s hockey and came on the anniversary of the famed 1980 Olympic triumph over the Soviet Union. That earlier team’s legacy was frequently invoked as this generation reached its own pinnacle.
Earlier in the Games, the U.S. women’s team also defeated Canada in overtime for gold, marking a historic weekend for American ice hockey. The win came as the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics concluded, capping one of the United States’ most successful Winter Games.
Bars around Denver erupted in chants of USA! USA! Sunday morning, as the Team USA Men’s Hockey team defeated the Canadians in sudden death overtime in Milan
It was a bit awkward for some Avalanche fans since several of our players – McKinnon, Makar, Toews – suited up for America’s hat. You can see it a bit on the faces of some folks in the video above. Then again, Avalanche bros appeared to be the main playmakers for our neighbors to the north... So, it remains true that the only acceptable Canadians are Albertans, Avalanche players, and Mrs. Bright.
Matt Boldy (Minnesota Wild) opened the scoring for Team USA early in the first period, assisted by Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Quinn Hughes (Minnesota Wild).
Canada’s Cale Makar (Colorado Avalanche) tied it for Canada late in the second period (with 1:44 left), assisted by Devon Toews (Colorado Avalanche). With the game tied 1-1, around the 9:55 mark of the third (about halfway through), Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) got a pass in the slot on a broken play with the net wide open – Team USA Goalie Connor Hellebuyck (Winnipeg Jets) was way out of position, and nearly half the net was gaping. He fired from the left side but missed wide – a shocking miss for a guy who leads the NHL in goals this season.
The game stayed 1-1 through regulation, with Canada outshooting the US 42-28 overall.
In overtime, Team USA Jack Hughes (New Jersey Devils) scored the golden goal at 1:41 of overtime for the US, assisted by Zach Werenski (Columbus Blue Jackets). Hellebuyck made 41 saves in the gold medal match!
The victory comes on the 46th Anniversary of “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid, NY, where the amateurs in Team USA inexplicably defeated the Soviets in the 1980 games.
Team USA were the underdogs in the match up, as much of the NHL suits up for foreign nations in the games. Do you believe in miracles?
The celebration on socials has been epic...
Shout out to the boys:
We are so back.
Golden Age, accelerate!
This is how close we came to losing:
But we didn’t lose. We won. Against a better team with better players (on paper) from a place where hockey is the national pastime.
Everyone on the internet is saying it: “Canada was the better team.”
By every metric, they are right: Canada did win in literally every statistical category, except for the one that matters.
There is nowhere on stat sheet to where you can point and say, “that’s why USA won.” And yet, watching the game, our boys were always in it, and the game never felt beyond their reach.
That’s what they call, “grit.” That’s America. That is why you play the game—and not just let some AI simulate it based on stat sheets.
In a perfect encapsulation of this point, the guy who scored the winning goal—Jack Hughes—got his front teeth knocked out earlier in the game when he took a hockey stick to the face.
That fire we saw from Team USA is exactly what we will need to reach the Golden Age. And it all starts with bold leadership:
There is something magical about having a president with the proper skills to talk shit before the game, and the squad to back it up on the ice. That one-two punch of confidence is exactly what America needs right now to remind itself who it is. Because before we enter the Golden Age, we must confront our national demons and exorcise them from our civilization.
But we aren’t all piss and vinegar. We are also driven by love. In this game, that love was for the late Johnny Gaudreau.
Gaudreau was a star in both the NHL and Team USA until he and his brother were both killed by a drunk driver while cycling in New Jersey in 2024. If not for his untimely death, Gaudreau would have been on this championship team.
Not only were Gaudreau’s parents in the stands throughout the Olympics, but so were his wife and kids— who were brought out on the ice for the victory celebration, as Gaudreau’s jersey was paraded around the rink by his teammates.
That one will get ya right in the feels. RIP Johnny.
And I be remiss if I did not remind you all that this isn’t the first time that this particular Team USA roster faced off this particular Team Canada. One year ago, Team USA lost to Canada 3-2 in the championship game of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament. That was after USA defeated Canada 3-1 in the round robin play of the tournament. That was the legendary game that started with 3 fist fights at the opening puck drop, leading to a two-on-two (plus goalies) match-up for the first few minutes of play.
That was the game that spawned one of the greatest hype videos of all time.
[cue the music]
Because, again, on paper Canada had all the pedigree. They had more NHL stars and the culture of winning. But at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is grit. True grit is what distinguishes the American Spirit from all other cultures, and it’s the reason why you can’t just import foreigners here and call them Americans.
If they ever want to call themselves “Americans,” then they must cut their teeth and learn our ways.
Get on the path. Stay on the path.
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Trump Responds to Supreme Court, Hikes Global Tariffs Anyway
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 20 that the Trump administration’s sweeping use of emergency powers to impose global tariffs was unconstitutional, President Trump swiftly moved to maintain high tariffs by invoking an alternative legal authority. The court found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize broad tariff actions without explicit congressional delegation, effectively invalidating the previous tariff regime.
In response, the administration announced a new global tariff of up to 15 percent under the Trade Act of 1974, the maximum permitted under that statute, after initially setting it at 10 percent. U.S. Customs and Border Protection ceased collection of tariffs based on the court-struck authority but continues to collect under the new framework.
The administration has defended the move as essential to leveraging American trade interests, while European and other international partners have criticized the approach and urged adherence to existing trade agreements. Trade officials say core policy goals remain the same despite the legal pivot.
Ashe in America: The goal is not for Trump to win.
The goal is for The People to win.
Trump told us that’s the goal.
“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.”
Having a rabid response to an opinion you haven’t read makes you controlled, not in control. From Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence:
“That case [Chevron] established a presumption that was nearly the opposite of the major questions doctrine: When Congress failed to speak clearly, courts put a thumb on the scale in favor of delegated power.
Given that development, the longstanding principles animating the major questions doctrine may have receded from view for a time. After all, the two doctrines often applied in the same places and counseled OPPOSITE results. But with Chevron gone, so is the conflict. This Court’s application of the major questions doctrine is not invention so much as RETURN TO FORM.” (Emphasis added.)
This isn’t about tariffs, it’s about authority and power. (I always note where Gorsuch is on opinions because Gorsuch is waging a personal war on the administrative state. I think that’s a noble goal, and I fully support it.)
More broadly, if our goal is to put the branches of government back in their constitutional boxes, then it’s a good thing that the Justices argued back and forth for 170 pages about executive vs. legislative vs. judicial authorities.
It’s also a good thing that there is such a strong emphasis in this opinion on Representation. The power to tax resides in the legislative branch because the legislative branch is the representative one (ideologically, not actually, obviously).
If the power must be representative, then elections are the most important part of this discussion. Friday’s decision underscores that fact.
Final thought: Certain pundits are out declaring that President Trump is enraged by 2/3 of his scotus picks — and, to be fair, he did say that they were horrible and that they embarrassed their families… so I understand how we get there…
However, as I said on Friday’s Why We Vote, (https://rumble.com/v760mn8-why-we-vote-ep.-163.html) the most interesting constitutional conversations at SCOTUS are being driven by President Trump’s three picks. The discussions about questions that shape the lines of the constitutional boxes. Those debates are in the record, and will be analyzed for generations as part of the history of how we saved America.
The goal is not for Trump to win.
The goal is for The People to win…
A Republic, if we can keep it.
Turns out the Lutnick FUD was Fake… as is the Rest of the Anti-Trump FUD
Cantor Fitzgerald has rejected online and media claims that it profited from a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down President Trump’s tariff policy, according to multiple news outlets.
The Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose wide-ranging tariffs was unlawful. That decision sparked renewed scrutiny of whether financial firms stood to gain from the reversal.
In July 2025, WIRED reported that a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, which is now led by the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, had developed a way for clients to buy rights to potential tariff refunds at steep discounts. The article said an internal letter indicated the firm was willing to trade those rights at about 20 to 30 percent of duties paid and had “already put a trade through” on roughly $10 million of such positions.
Cantor Fitzgerald has flatly denied executing any such tariff-linked transactions or taking risk on the legality of tariffs, calling such suggestions false. A firm spokesperson told Semafor that, while the product had been discussed internally, the company ultimately decided not to offer it, citing political sensitivities.
The controversy comes amid broader debate over potential conflicts of interest involving Lutnick, who stepped down from Cantor Fitzgerald to become Commerce secretary, and questions raised by lawmakers including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden about the firm’s activities.
Burning Bright: What’s truly behind this fresh wave of attacks zeroing in on Howard Lutnick in particular?
As I’ve been saying, trying to read the private core of any figure operating at this level is an exercise in futility. We don’t sit in those closed sessions. We don’t carry their full history.
What we can track, though, are the clear patterns that have guided us through years of layered operations.
And the pattern flashing here is hard to miss.
When legacy outlets, Capitol Hill figures and online amplifiers suddenly unite in volume and timing against a senior Trump official—especially right as major economic levers start delivering results—the smart move is to check whose interests are really being guarded.
Lutnick is shoulder-deep in the machinery driving Trump’s 2026 push to reclaim American production and leverage, with focused national-security tariffs on steel, autos and advanced tech that held firm even after the Supreme Court’s recent call on emergency authorities, something both he and Trump actually pre-signaled before last week’s rug pull.
His overhaul turning semiconductor and high-tech investment back stateside at scale, along with moves locking down critical minerals and supply chains represent direct challenges to the arrangements that kept wealth and capacity flowing outward for decades.
Taken in the context of his recent appearance at Davos, where he told the assembled power brokers outright that the long experiment in globalism had failed the working people of the West, and the timing of the current campaign lands differently.
As we know, coordination at that level rarely happens by accident.
So, could an operator like this represent a vulnerability inside the administration?
In theory, yes.
But, whether Lutnick entered this fight with full alignment from day one or has been positioned as a scalpel against the old order he once represented, similar to Scott Bessent, the Net Effects refrain avails us well.
A man who understands the blueprint of that system is now helping redraw it on American terms. And the system is responding in kind.
We do not need to declare our loyalties to men like Lutnick and Bessent.
We simply need to note when the opposition broadcasts its anxieties about them in perfect harmony.
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Military Kills Mexican Cartel Leader, Sparking Violence in Jalisco
Mexican security forces have killed Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), during a military operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, authorities said Sunday. El Mencho was considered one of the most powerful and most-wanted cartel bosses in Mexico and the United States, where a $15 million reward had been offered for information leading to his arrest.
The operation resulted in the deaths of several cartel members and injuries to Mexican troops, and authorities seized heavy weapons and armored vehicles, according to official and media reports. The raid has sparked violent reprisals by CJNG factions across multiple states, including road blockades, vehicle burnings and attacks on public infrastructure. At least 14 people were reported killed in the unrest.
In response to the escalating violence, the U.S. Department of State issued shelter-in-place warnings for American citizens in Jalisco and other affected states, and local officials activated emergency measures including “code red” alerts, canceled public events and suspended classes. Security operations continue as authorities seek to restore order.
To be clear, that is not the Mexican military.
That is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Pictures and videos have flooded the internet showing that the CJNG are better equipped than most of the world’s militaries, and now they have violently ceased control of the city of Jalisco, setting up barricades of burned cars and buses, and attacking various locations including a hospital.
We have been speculating for months that Mexico—not Colombia or Cuba—may be the actual target of President Trump’s military operations in Latin America, as Mexico is the real hub for the cartels.
Now I wonder whether the cartel intends to escalate this situation and maybe even attempt to take it across the border. I could see them trying to start a civil war in Mexico and using it to try and destabilize the United States, which would invite the US military to get directly involved.
Remember, the Mexican Senate already voted to allow SEAL Team 2 to go down there and train their special forces to fight the cartels.
This is a far that may actually be worth fighting. The question is who is connected to the cartels? Who in Washington? Who in Wall Street? Who in the banking sector?
I suspect that we will soon get the answers to those questions.
Israel has biblical right to Middle East – Huckabee to Tucker Carlson
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sparked a diplomatic backlash after remarks in a televised interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson suggested that, under a biblical interpretation of Genesis 15:18, it “would be fine” if Israel controlled lands stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates — a swath of territory encompassing much of the modern Middle East. The interview was conducted in Israel and aired on Feb. 20, 2026.
The biblical reference was raised by Carlson, who asked whether the modern state of Israel has a right to the lands described in the scripture. Huckabee responded that such a claim “would be fine,” though he added Israel is not seeking to expand into neighboring countries and is focused on peace and security within its current borders.
Wew, lad.
Honestly, there is so much juicy content from this interview that Ashe in America and I will be hosting a special stream on Wednesday afternoon just to cover it all. So I couldn’t possibly squeeze all the clips into this News Brief.
After watching the interview, I must say that Mike Huckabee seems like a bad guy. Full stop.
At one point he defends accused pedophile Tom Alexandrovich—the executive director for the Cyber Defense Division at the Israel National Cyber Directorate—who was arrested last August in Las Vegas after attempting to meet up with a 15 year old girl to molest her. Alexandrovich was released on bail and fled the country, now hiding out in Israel where he will likely not be extradited to face justice.
Huckabee said that Alexandrovich is “innocent until proven guilty,” yet did not offer or promise to seek his extradition.
Huckabee made a number of other gaffes, including justifying the slaying of children who are forcibly recruited into Hamas, asserting that the IDF is a more ethical military than the US, and failing to provide a true definition for “Christian Zionism.”
He also failed to properly address the countless crimes that are being committed against Christians in the Holy Land that Tucker repeatedly brought to his attention.
But without a doubt, Huckabee’s greatest mistake was his remark—clearly made in a moment of frustration—that it would be perfectly acceptable if Israel were to claim all of the land between the Nile and Euphrates Rivers.
For context, that would look like this:
It’s amazing because just a year or two ago, even suggesting that this was Netanyahu’s endgame was considered a heinous act of antisemitism.
Imagine what all the Arabs must be thinking right now? For Huckabee to just casually say that this would be okay?
Thank God for the Sovereign Alliance. Fortunately, our Muslim partners are level-headed people that don’t react to the fanaticism of radicalized zealots like Huckabee.
Oh, and ACCELERATE.
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I'm not crying; you're crying. (in reference to the fantastic takes by Ashe and Ghost on the US men's hockey gold medal)
It was well worth the time and space to elaborate on this historic win and what makes Americans great as a people. Thank you, Ashe and Ghost, for recognizing the importance of this moment for us as Americans in this 5th generation war.
I have a gut feeling that not only did the administration know that they would lose this case, but wanted to. Something is amiss with the Supreme Court a feeling that has been with me since the DS started using district judges to fight back. The President hinted at it during the statement after the decision and when I heard it, one (not two) of his picks came to my mind and the Chief Justice who has been the subject of rumors for quite some time. I believe that this case was a trap for the court and they walked into it. We'll see.