Badlands Brief
The Reckoning of Fake Elections, Fake Wars and Fake Allies
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.
DOJ Seeks Full List of Fulton County 2020 Election Workers
The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a grand jury subpoena seeking the names, positions, residential and email addresses, and phone numbers of thousands of people who worked in Georgia’s Fulton County during the 2020 presidential election. This includes county employees, bus drivers operating mobile voting sites, volunteers, and temporary poll workers.
The subpoena, dated April 17 and served April 20 on the county’s director of elections, prompted Fulton County to file a motion on May 4, 2026, to quash it.
The request follows former President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, committed widespread voter fraud that cost him victory in Georgia against Joe Biden (Trump lost the state by 11,779 votes).
County officials say the subpoena is part of an effort to harass and intimidate perceived political opponents amid broader Trump administration actions to obtain 2020 election records from swing states, including a January 2026 FBI seizure of ballots from a Fulton County warehouse.
In the motion to quash, county lawyers argued the subpoena is “grossly overbroad and untethered to any reasonable need” and “cannot yield any evidence that could result in a criminal prosecution” because the statute of limitations for related federal crimes has expired.
Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts called the move “outrageous federal overreach designed to intimidate and chill participation in elections,” stating, “Fulton County will not be intimidated.”
Ashe in America: A Grand Jury has subpoenaed everyone involved in the 2020 election in Fulton County.
The subpoena includes Election Day and night workers — including volunteers — as well as those in the risk limiting audits and recounts and signature verifications.
Everyone who was given an order … and everyone who gave an order.
Abbe and Norm and their band of merry men filed a motion to quash — a subpoena from a grand jury — and Brian and I had a good laugh about it on last night’s Why We Vote.
Generally speaking, motions to quash grand jury subpoenas are hard to win because the grand jury’s role is to investigate, not adjudicate. So courts give prosecutors and grand juries broad latitude.
They can — and do in their motion — argue that the subpoena is overly broad or burdensome. It is broad. It’s everyone in the crime scene as Brian said last night.
But last time I checked, the accused criminals don’t get to dictate the prosecution’s witness list…
Remember when we learned that election fraud was part of the treasonous grand conspiracy?
Buckle up.
European Leaders Caught off Guard by Trump’s Recent Threats as Crisis Cascade Accelerates
European leaders expressed surprise at the timing of U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw thousands of American troops from Germany, describing it as a signal that Europe must assume greater responsibility for its own security.
At a summit in Yerevan, Armenia, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas noted the announcement’s timing came as a surprise despite prior discussions, while calling for a stronger European pillar in NATO.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer highlighted the need to address tensions in alliances, and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre downplayed the numbers, but stressed handling changes harmoniously within the NATO framework.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte pointed to European steps like implementing basing agreements and pre-positioning assets, as some officials affirmed the long-term resilience of the transatlantic relationship.
In a separate development, Romania’s pro-EU minority government led by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan collapsed after a no-confidence vote passed with 281 votes in favor—well above the 233 required. The largest party, the Social Democrats (PSD), allied with far-right opposition groups including the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) to oust the government formed about 10 months earlier to counter far-right gains. Bolojan will continue in a limited interim role until President Nicusor Dan nominates a new prime minister and a new government is approved.
Burning Bright: Trump's announced intention to reduce US forces in Germany landed as a shock precisely because it punctured a long-standing European assumption of indefinite American subsidization.
EU voices continue to register surprise, with many of them immediately pivoting to calls for “a stronger European pillar,” language that concedes the prior arrangement was never truly mutual, de facto codifying Trump's core premise from the beginning.
The very premise they once (and very recently) mocked openly.
Meanwhile, in Romania, a pro-EU coalition government is in the midst of collapse under a no-confidence vote after austerity measures demanded by Brussels clashed with domestic political realities. As a result, the national currency has hit record lows as markets have priced in the inherent uncertainty that comes from a State attempting to remember its own sovereignty.
And this comes on the heels of a supposedly pro-EU Hungarian leadership change that looks like anything but in the immediate aftermath, with Viktor Orban's replacement looking, if anything MORE hawkish on national borders and unchecked immigration than Orban himself was.
These are emergent and cascading stress fractures in a structure whose load-bearing beams were always supplied from afar ... by us, and held together at home by threats, lies and broken promises.
Trump's external pressures combined with internal tremors that are quickly morphing into crises is creating an exponential feedback loop, a Sovereign Spin wherein European populations are being forced to reckon with a reality their leaders spent decades obscuring: the security and prosperity they enjoyed was ultimately underwritten by a sovereign United States pursuing its own interests, not by the collectivist architecture erected in its shadow.
Trump’s campaign isn't creating a new Paradigm; it's removing the camouflage from the Old One.
So, while Trump may command the Actual pieces on the game board, the true source of his power is that he commands the story, which, in the realm of fifth-generation warfare is the game board itself.
The Globalist Collectorate has understood this asymmetry from the beginning.
What terrifies them now is not Donald Trump's deployments, but what those deployments are revealing to the one audience they could never afford to lose: their own peoples.
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FDA Blocked Publication of COVID, Shingles Vaccine Safety Studies
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked the publication of several studies that supported the safety of widely used COVID-19 and shingles vaccines, according to a report first published by The New York Times.
The studies concerned vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna for COVID-19 and GSK’s Shingrix for shingles.
The FDA withdrew the research before publication.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon stated that the studies were withdrawn because the authors drew broad conclusions not supported by the underlying data. He said the FDA acted “to protect the integrity of its scientific process and ensure that any work associated with the agency meets its high standards.”
No specific details from the studies’ findings were disclosed in the reporting.
The action comes amid broader policy shifts under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: The article(s) written on this topic are very poorly written and difficult to understand, so let me explain.
The current FDA under RFK Jr has blocked and/or withdrew scientific publications claiming that the COVID and Shingles vaccines are safe, because the underlying data submitted showed the opposite.
We now get confirmation of what we have all long suspected: that the FDA knowingly dispensed a vaccine that was not safe for the public to take, and published fake science to support their grift.
Considering the rollout of the COVID vaccine—the societal coercion—this should be treated as a crime against humanity.
People need to go to prison, or worse.
Florida Attorney General Opens Civil Probe Into SPLC
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a civil investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on May 5, and issued a subpoena demanding extensive records by May 25, 2026.
The probe targets the SPLC’s charitable fundraising practices, focusing on allegations of deceptive and unfair conduct. Uthmeier stated that the organization “appears to be running a deceptive organization that pays informants to manufacture racism on its behalf,” warning that consequences will follow if the allegations are confirmed.
The subpoena requires the SPLC to provide detailed documentation related to its fundraising and operations in Florida.
The civil probe centers on whether the SPLC properly disclosed its practices to donors and complied with charitable solicitation rules.
The investigation represents an official state-level examination of the nonprofit’s operations and transparency regarding informant payments and fundraising claims.
Ashe in America: So many subpoenas, today!
This SPLC one is particularly notable — and it makes me think we’re looking at another overt act in the treasonous conspiracy.
Consider:
“The subpoena demands records including: disclosures to Florida donors about the use of informants, marketing and fundraising materials and their usage timelines, all names or aliases used in solicitations, and documentation of any changes to SPLC communications regarding donations, fund allocation, and informant use… It also seeks: all websites used to solicit donations, annual donation totals from Florida donors, disbursements tied to informants, internal policies governing informant payments, and the share of SPLC’s budget allocated to such programs.”
Same conspiracy … or a different one?
The leftist lawfare playbook, as we have repeatedly discussed, is to forward claims of racism to generate headlines and funding.
This subpoena makes it appear that they are investigating that playbook.
Follow the money.
Is this scheme-filled domain going to crash into the ActBlue (and WinRed) one?
Democrats Want Trump to Lift Lid on Israeli Nukes
A group of 30 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding that the Trump administration disclose information about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and related policies.
The lawmakers argued that continued official U.S. silence on the issue creates serious risks in the Middle East, particularly amid the ongoing conflict with Iran.
The letter states that “the risks of miscalculation, escalation, and nuclear use in this environment are not theoretical” and criticizes the U.S. for fighting “side by side with a country whose potential nuclear weapons program the United States government officially refuses to acknowledge.”
It calls for ending the long-standing ambiguity to support a coherent nonproliferation policy in the region, including regarding Iran’s nuclear program and Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied possessing nuclear weapons and maintains no public doctrine on their potential use or “red lines.”
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: Now we are getting to the place where this narrative always wanted to go.
The illegal Israeli nuclear program is a far-reaching web spanning decades that [likely] includes the assassination of JFK, the Yom Kippur War and corresponding Energy Crisis, Robert Maxwell and his ownership of the Daily Mail, among other topics.
In 1963, JFK engaged in what is known as The War of the Letters with then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. JFK had been inquiring about a potential covert nuclear program in Israel—which he was warned about by President Eisenhower during the customary transition meeting between incoming/outgoing administrations.
Ben-Gurion had been blocking America's inspectors that JFK had dispatched to Israel, restricting their access and outright blocking them from entering certain buildings. It was clear that Ben-Gurion was hiding something, and JFK assured him that he was going to learn the truth.
After JFK's assassination, the optics of the situation were so bad for Ben-Gurion that he resigned from office, ending the 16-year tenure of Israel's founding Prime Minister—the longest-serving PM until Netanyahu.
According to convicted Israeli spy (American traitor) Jonathan Pollard, during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Richard Nixon had cut off shipments of weapons and ammunition to Israel in an attempt to de-escalate and free America of liability or involvement.
Pollard says that Israel responded by loading up a nuclear warhead onto a plane, parking that plane on the runway, and telling the Nixon administration to look at the runway with its satellites. Pollard claims that Israel then threatened to use this nuke against the Arabs if the shipments of conventional weapons wasn't immediately resumed. He says that the shipments resumed the very next day.
In 1985, an Israeli nuclear scientist named Mordecai Vanunu defected from Israel to London, carrying with him a mountain of evidence he had gathered proving that Israel was maintaining a secret and highly illegal nuclear weapons program—the exact kind of program that Iran has long been accused of pursuing.
Vanunu was speaking to news outlets in London to determine which one was best suited to take on the story. When Robert Maxwell caught wind of it, he had his newspaper, The Daily Mail, publish several hit pieces on Vanunu that were designed to discredit and impugn his character. The stories were all false, of course, but damaging enough to make many dismiss his claims as the vindictive acts of a disgruntled scientist.
Vanunu was lured to Italy by the Mossad, where he was kidnapped and taken back to Israel to face a closed-door trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison, much of which was spent in solitary confinement. He now lives as a ward of the state, unable to travel or freely use the internet. (He temporarily had an X account and even followed me, but that was shuttered by the Israeli government.)
I have long been waiting for the zeitgeist to reach such a point where the incentive structure motivated the television characters to pursue this issue. Like many other things they do, I know that they are not pursuing this because it is the right thing to do. They are pursuing this because they see an opportunity to damage President Trump politically, because President Trump has so closely aligned himself with the State of Israel.
Genius plan by POTUS. Accelerate.
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"What terrifies them now is not Donald Trump's deployments, but what those deployments are revealing to the one audience they could never afford to lose: their own peoples."
Trump is a master of simplicity: he pulls you on the stage and let's you state your case publicly. And then we watch and judge accordingly. Just says it.
I believe Israel stole some 200 lbs of nuclear material from us in the early 60s. And I also believe they have more spies in our government than any other country. From sources throughout the years.
On a serious note: Bravo @GBPH!!! "Genius plan by POTUS. Accelerate." 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Writing your take must have been extremely cathartic!