Badlands Brief

The Beggar Kings Arrive Ahead of Saint Fauci’s Confession

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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Is Fauci a War Criminal?

Senator Rand Paul has released more than 1,100 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private diary entries spanning late 2019 to 2022 as part of his investigation into COVID-19’s origins and related research.

The journals allegedly show Fauci privately noting as early as January 2020 that the Wuhan wet market was an “amplifier” rather than the source of the virus and recording early scientific discussions in which multiple experts viewed features like the furin cleavage site as potentially non-natural or “constructed.”

These private reflections contrast with his public emphasis on natural animal-to-human spillover.

The diaries also capture Fauci’s awareness of his rising media profile—describing the attention as flattering.

Separately, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has accused Fauci of concealing a personal COVID vaccine injury: a pulmonary infarction five months after receiving the vaccine in January 2021.

Kennedy claimed Fauci continued promoting the shots and dismissing risks while receiving elite medical care for the condition, and further charged that Fauci’s policies produced the highest COVID mortality rate among major countries.

President Trump reacted to the diary release by saying he “grew tired of” Fauci, who “wanted to close everything down,” while emphasizing that he left lockdown decisions to governors.

Fauci is scheduled to testify today before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Paul, who has long alleged Fauci misled Congress on gain-of-function research and has referred the matter for potential prosecution.

Ashe in America: Despite ranting on shows and social media about the Fauci Files — the old fool’s diaries released by Rand Paul on Sunday — I have been giving the details a 72-hour rule.

Some of this is so criminal that it’s hard to believe Rand Paul and his legislative friends have known this and Fauci still walks free.

Here are some of the highlights:

He was enriching himself, and employing lawyers to find loopholes to help him enrich himself more.

He was straight up lying about case and mortality rates:

He was attempting to hide potential vaccine harms to pregnant women while mandating they get vaccinated:

He hid his own vaccine injury:

That last one is strange, because Rand Paul has since redacted it:

Maybe it’s a privacy thing, which would be hilarious because no one had privacy respected in the age of Covid.

Shout out to Kanekoa the Great for tracking these changes and finding stuff like Fauci stopping the CDC from reporting that the vaccines were not effective.

Fauci is back before Congress today, and Jessica Storm is streaming the coverage here on Badlands:

Anything less than Fauci being arrested in the chamber will be disappointing, but I’m not on that rug. Still, Rand says if he lies today, his (illegitimate autopen) pardon won’t protect him.

So fingers crossed.

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The Beggar Kings Arrive in Washington to Send a “Clear Message” They Don’t Control

President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for separate Oval Office meetings on Tuesday, timed to coincide with the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime advocate for both countries.

Officials from all sides offered upbeat readouts.

Netanyahu called his session “one of the best conversations” he has had with Trump; the two reaffirmed an “ironclad commitment” to ensuring Iran never obtains nuclear weapons, the foremost topic of discussion.

Zelenskyy focused on advancing licenses for Ukrainian production of Patriot interceptor missiles (announced earlier in Ankara) and other ideas to support Kyiv, with special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff expected to visit Ukraine soon to reinvigorate diplomacy.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described both meetings as “positive and productive.”

The Netanyahu meeting occurred against a backdrop of recent friction.

After close early coordination on the Iran war that began in late February, contact between the leaders had grown infrequent; Trump paused U.S. strikes and pursued negotiations with Tehran, including a short-lived mid-June memorandum that Netanyahu had opposed in favor of continued military pressure. Additional disagreements arose over arms sales to Turkey and a Saudi nuclear deal lacking explicit Israeli normalization language.

Trump has privately expressed frustration with Netanyahu’s assessments while publicly maintaining a cooperative tone.

Zelenskyy’s visit continued Ukraine’s deliberate outreach to MAGA and America First circles that have long been wary of open-ended support.

Recent Ukrainian battlefield gains and a high-profile meeting with activist Laura Loomer (who declared full support after interviewing him) created limited openings, including positive comments from Vice President JD Vance.

Yet many hard-line Republicans remain skeptical, and Trump responded cautiously to Zelenskyy’s claims of Russian-Iranian collaboration.

Burning Bright: Volodymyr Zelenskyy entered the American Mindscape, which is to say the Info War around the same time I did.

In fact, long-time readers who've followed me all the way back to the Righteous Russia series may recall that I've been referring to him as the 'Prussian Proxy Prince' since 2022, when he was still popular enough on an ALMOST-bipartisan level to be compared more often to Luke Skywalker than Gríma Wormtongue.

That's right.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when even most of the MAGA core considered Zelenskyy to be a paragon of virtue standing up to the evil Russian Empire.

It was retarded then, and it's retarded now.

The thing is, it seems the Mindscape is beginning to agree, with Zelenskyy as unpopular as any foreign would-be leader among the MAGA core, just as he is taking reputational damage on a lag among the liberal-minded.

Which brings us to the OTHER Prussian Proxy on the board, and some would say the original, Bibi Netanyahu, who has followed something of an opposite, albeit congruent path to infamy as Zelenskyy within the expanding and shifting contours of the American Mind.

You see, just as Zelenskyy was once lionized by both sides of the American Mind and is now demonized by one and ignored by the other, so Bibi has followed an inverted path, having been demonized by the left side of the public aisle long before the right began following suit on a long and Trump-induced delay.

Now, both men find themselves in Washington DC with hegemonic hats held firmly in hand ... certainly nothing new to each, and yet, the timing of which offers a convergence in Bolshevik begging that, well, beggars belief.

I'm not a 'full control' analyst in the way some are in the winding ways of the Info War, but when it comes to the humiliation ritual Zelenskyy and Netanyahu are affecting in the western mind, and of it, you can sign me up for a 'full control' card.

Donald Trump will hear the collectivist cries of the twin Proxy Princes this week in DC, as will the American People, and the headlines, as predicted (and as turned out to be the case) will be glowing.

But nobody will be listening, as the proxies wicks have run.

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With All Eyes on Netanyahu-Trump Meeting, Turkey Signs Huge Deals With Iraq as Erdogan Hosts Iraqi PM Al-Zaidi

Turkey and Iraq signed five agreements in Ankara on July 29 during talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, covering railway and road transport via the Ovakoy-Fishkhabur crossing, infrastructure development in exchange for natural resources, police academy education, youth and sports, and industrial property.

Erdoğan described the pacts as steps to deepen bilateral ties and stressed that Iraq’s security is inseparable from Turkey’s, with both sides cooperating on counterterrorism, energy, and a “terror-free region.”

In parallel, Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) acquired a 15% stake in bp’s Kirkuk oil project (alongside ConocoPhillips), giving Turkey a share in fields holding more than 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent; Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar called it a major milestone toward TPAO’s target of producing 1 million barrels of oil and gas per day.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Presidential Envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack in Ankara on July 27.

The discussions focused on strengthening the bilateral partnership and regional stability, security, and prosperity, particularly regarding Syria and Iraq.

Separately, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa publicly credited Erdoğan—along with Saudi Arabia—for mediating with President Trump the previous year to lift most U.S. sanctions on Syria following the fall of the Assad regime.

Sharaa noted that Syria’s remaining designation as a state sponsor of terrorism remains an economic obstacle and that Damascus has provided assurances on counterterrorism to support its full removal.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: With all eyes on Washington for the Netanyahu-Trump meeting, the real magic is happening back in Turkey.

Turkey's President Erdogan is now hosting Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who is currently on a tour of foreign nations.

You may have noticed that we have been publishing that name a lot in the past few weeks, so let's recap his itinerary in the order that he has visited these places:

USA—->Iran—->Turkey

In all three meetings, major energy deals were announced; but let's get into the specifics and how they are connected to my other take in today's News Brief.

In al-Zaidi's meeting with President Trump, we got the news that the US was backing a project to rebuild old pipelines that once ran between the super-giant oilfields in Kirkuk, Iraq, to the coastline of Syria. These pipelines, which were destroyed during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, would also run down to the oilfields in al-Basra, on Iraq's coast on the Persian Gulf. The pipelines will serve as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz and Suez/Red Sea shipping route, which has proven troublesome in the past several years.

During al-Zaidi's visit to Tehran, the Iraqi PM signed a number of deals with the Iranian government, including the construction of a railroad that will ultimately connect the two capitals, tying rail networks in Turkey and Arabia to the rail networks of Persia and the Caspian Sea—all of which tie into Russia. Iraq and Iran also agreed to work together to dismantle the militias operating on their border—said to be backed by the IRGC, according to western sources.

This brings us to today's news.

During their meeting in Turkey, Erdogan announced that the Turkish Petroleum Corporation has just acquired 15% of the BP Energy Company in Kirkuk, and will be investing in a massive new project there that is expected to contain 3 billion barrels of oil. They expect that this pipeline deal will send 1 million barrels a day to the refineries in Ceyhan (Turkey), equaling the amount of oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz prior to the start of the war in February.

But it gets even better: 11 days ago, Iraq's North Oil Company (which operates in Kirkuk) said that their pipeline is ready to start sending oil to Turkey. This only represents one third of the "million barrels a day" goal, but the fact that they are already at that pace signals that these deals have likely been in the works for much longer than we are being told.

In total, Turkey signed five pacts with Iraq that covered a number of major sectors, including defense, police, education, and transportation, in addition to energy. Most notably, Turkey plans to invest in Iraq's transportation infrastructure, specifically to build a railroad that will tie directly into Turkey's already-sprawling rail network.

Are you seeing the pattern yet?

This rail network was Bashar Al-Assad's vision, which he called The Five Seas Vision—named after the five bodies of water that he envisioned connecting in a massive rail network. (Mediterranean, Red, Black, Caspian, Persian Gulf)

And if he needed any additional proof that President Trump's fingerprints are all over this situation, look who visited Erdogan's administration the day before al-Zaidi arrived:

That's US Envoy Tom Barrack, Donald Trump's oldest and closest friend who has now become his personal diplomat to pretty much every country in the Middle East.

We are watching the Middle East be fixed.

This is what that looks like.

And even Iran is involved as a willing participant.

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Trump’s Self-Deportation Push Is Quietly Bearing Fruit

President Trump’s “self-deportation” program, formally known as Project Homecoming, is on pace to drive more than 200,000 departures of unauthorized immigrants, according to internal data shared with Axios.

Through mid-July, the nearly $600 million initiative has facilitated about 132,000 exits, with roughly 70,000 more people signed up and expected to leave.

Participants receive free travel plus a stipend that has risen to $2,600 (briefly peaking at $3,000 last Christmas).

The program is a central component of the administration’s goal of removing one million unauthorized immigrants annually and pairs a limited financial incentive with aggressive ICE and Border Patrol enforcement.

Roughly half of the self-deportations have involved people already in ICE detention, an acceleration that began after a DOGE staffer brought the program into facilities.

Case managers now operate in 40 detention sites; detainees who opt in spend an average of 17 days in custody versus the typical 50, freeing bed space that had constrained broader removal efforts.

Each voluntary departure costs the government about $2,500 plus the stipend, compared with roughly $18,245 for a traditional removal, producing projected savings of $2.5 billion.

The current contract is set to expire at the end of August, and DHS is seeking a new one; officials describe the effort as highly efficient while critics note it has narrowed to little more than arranging flights.

Ashe in America: According to Axios, the Home program cost $600M, has already bounced 132k illegals, and is on track to exit 70k more.

Assuming those 70k leave, that’s $2,970 per migrant removal.

Now, this program gives the migrants $1,000 to leave, so 34% of the cost is the incentive. The remaining $1,970 is the cost of the program, including, according to GovInfo, airfare and travel and program overhead (cost of government).

I’ve never been a fan of paying them to leave, and I think this program was a carrot that should now be followed by a stick.

If they’re still squatting and squeezing the taxpayers, then we should stop being nice.

We’re done asking. Get out.

I also think that the cost of government on this is insane, and it should be audited. But, to be fair, I think all government should be transparent and on an immutable ledger, and that all of it should be continuously audited all the time by open source AI tooling.

They’ll never go for it. They’ll claim national security and keep their shadow books.

Then again, why do they retain the decision rights when elections are fake?

P.S. The incentive cost stays the same, but the more illegals we bounce, the cost of government per deportation decreases.

The more you know.

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Iraqi Militias Said to Be Backed by Iran Are Actually Backed by Ukraine, Says Iraqi Govt; The US and Saudi Arabia Just Bombed Them

U.S. Central Command and Saudi Arabian forces carried out precision airstrikes on July 28 against multiple logistics and weapons sites in eastern Iraq used by Iran-aligned militants.

CENTCOM stated the operation responded to more than 30 IRGC-directed drone attacks over the preceding 72 hours that targeted U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure; the attacks on U.S. personnel were unsuccessful.

The command noted that Iran-aligned groups had attempted more than 600 attacks on U.S. citizens and facilities in Iraq between February and April 2026, and warned that such actions must stop to avoid further military response.

Separately, a drone strike hit Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing complex, the world’s largest crude oil stabilization facility that handles roughly 5% of global supply.

Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility, describing strikes on oil transport targets as retaliation for renewed Saudi operations against them. Saudi officials instead blamed Iran-backed militias operating from Iraq and reported only minor damage.

In a related development, Iraq’s National Security Adviser said authorities had arrested a small number of militants who confessed to carrying out attacks inside Iraq on behalf of Ukraine; Kyiv’s Foreign Ministry rejected the claim as unfounded Russian propaganda.

In a separate Ukraine-related report, activist Laura Loomer stated that an FPV drone presented to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham as a birthday gift by Ukrainian manufacturer SkyFall during his final visit to Kyiv will now be deployed on the front lines “to kill Russians.”

Graham, a prominent advocate of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, died after returning from that trip; Zelenskyy attended his funeral in Washington.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: Let's start by laying out a timeline and then connect some dots...

• Saudi oil refinery blows up—MSM blames it on Iran.

• Saudi says it was militias using drones operating out of Iraq—MSM says they are backed by Iran.

• CENTCOM says US and Saudi just bombed militias in Iraq.

• New Iraqi National Security Adviser (appointed last month by Trump ally Iraqi PM) says these militias are actually loyal to Ukraine.

• Ukrainian drone company SkyFall posts a new ad online of Laura Loomer visiting their factory, as she recounts that Lindsey Graham visited there just days before his death. Loomer says that SkyFall and other companies like it are about to become major players in the US military industrial complex.

Are we tracking?

Now let's get into the details.

Multiple sources report that Saudi's state oil company, Aramco, had its largest oil processing facility attacked by drones. All were quick to blame Iranian-backed militias.

While the Houthis from Yemen did claim responsibility for this specific attack, the Saudi government has been forthright in admitting that its oil facilities have been under attack in recent months, blaming militias that are operating out of Iraq and using drone technology.

You may recall that back in May, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait worked together to conduct covert attacks against these targets.

The MSM got very excited, as this appeared to signal a willingness by the Gulf Arab States to get involved in the war against Iran. However, the newly appointed Iraqi National Security Adviser, Qasim al-Aboudi, has just revealed that the Iraqis have been interrogating these operatives and learned that they are actually backed by Ukraine. (Meanwhile, the actual Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq say that they have had nothing to do with any attack against Saudi Arabia.)

We arrested a limited number of groups that carried out attacks inside Iraqi territory and targeted several facilities. During questioning, they confessed to working for Ukraine,” al-Aboudi said.

As all of this is unfolding, we have Laura Loomer continuing her propaganda tour in Kiev.

The Ukrainian drone company Skyfall just released a new ad online that shows Loomer holding one of their drones in their factory, touting it as a gift for the Russians in a morbid message that reminded viewers that Lindsey Graham had visited this exact factory just days before his death.

To be fair, we don't have any official sources coming out and connecting these dots for us. However, I think there is a compelling case to be made that patterns have emerged in the Middle East and Africa, with governments in both places asserting that Ukraine is supporting and arming militias that are tied to ISIS and trying to overthrow the local governments.

Is it crazy to think that the militias that CENTCOM and the Saudis are taking out are actually Ukraine-backed groups?

Why would Ukraine even be operating in the Middle East?

And why would they be attacking governments that are allied with President Trump?

Isn't it plausible to suggest that Ukraine is merely a proxy of the Deep State and is now operating in conflict with President Trump as he attempts to unite the world against the Deep State?

Do you think it's a coincidence that President Zelensky and Netanyahu visited the White House on the same day?

What do you think they are discussing in this clip from Lindsey Graham's funeral?

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