Badlands Brief

TACO Tuesday Returns as the War of Stories Gets Weird

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 Sounds Alarm That Graham’s Death and McConnell’s Weakness Present Opening for America First Acceleration

According to Politico, The sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham has created a perceived “hawkish void” in Republican foreign policy, which Trump’s America First allies view as an opportunity to advance a more restrained U.S. role abroad.

Graham, long one of the GOP’s most influential advocates for assertive engagement, strongly backed aid to Ukraine and Israel, NATO commitments, and measures such as Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine and potential strikes on Iran. The day before his death, he helped broker a bipartisan agreement on new Russian sanctions with the White House.

His passing, alongside Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health-related absence, is seen by some as further eroding the traditional “McCain wing” of the party that has pushed interventionist policies since John McCain’s death in 2018.

America First figures have welcomed the development as a chance to reduce interventionist pressure on President Trump.

Steve Bannon called it a “mortal blow” to the “McCain wing of the ‘America Last’ party,” arguing that remaining hawks like Sen. Tom Cotton lack Graham’s gravitas and political skill.

Trump himself praised Graham as “a great politician and a kind man,” noting that Israel and Ukraine had “lost somebody who was very special.”

Ashe in America: Oh my.

“We lost a great man. He was a great politician and a kind man. You know who really lost? Israel. Ukraine. A lot of countries he fought for — they lost somebody who was very special,” Trump said.

Israel and Ukraine “really lost” with the death of Lindsey Graham.

I mean, we all know that, but the President just said it out loud.

I hope one day we get to look at these moments with Trump with post-Justice eyes.

Now consider:

“Trump] would call him for advice, and Graham would call him constantly to try to give him his counsel to help him push responsible national security policy,” said Fred Fleitz, Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff and vice chair of American security at the American First Policy Institute.

“He learned from what Graham told him, from Graham’s trips abroad, from Graham’s vast number of international contacts.”

He sounds like a great … asset … for the President, doesn’t he?

I haven’t heard anything about a funeral yet.

It would be crazy if George Floyd had a bigger funeral than Lindsey Graham, wouldn’t it?

When I searched for details, this is the browser summary I got:

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TACO Tuesday Returns as Trump Backs off Hormuz Toll Scheme and Announces Middle Eastern Investment Deals

Donald Trump has reversed an earlier plan to impose a 20% U.S. “reimbursement fee” on Hormuz transit in favor of trade and investment deals with Gulf states.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister rejected the notion that military pressure would force negotiations, while the IRGC warned that U.S. aggression would only delay the strait’s reopening.

Shipping traffic through the vital waterway dropped sharply to just six vessels on one recent day—the lowest in five weeks—raising alarms over freedom of navigation.

The developments have heightened risks to global energy supplies and seafarer safety while fueling concerns about wider regional escalation.

The UAE has reserved the right to respond, India summoned Iran’s ambassador, and analysts note the potential for prolonged disruptions if the tit-for-tat exchanges continue.

The situation underscores the strategic stakes of Hormuz control and the challenges of containing the conflict without broader economic and security fallout.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: There was something pleasantly symbolic about the way this "Toll Plan" unwound.

It happened during a White House meeting between President Trump and the recently elected Prime Minister of Iraq, Ali al-Zaidi.

As President Trump pointed out during their meeting, al-Zaidi is a young and handsome leader who is smart and capable, while al-Zaidi pointed out that he is a business man with a masters degree in finance who is new to politics—like an Arab version of Trump.

And Trump used this meeting with the new generation of leadership in Iraq to announce free trade in the Persian Gulf.

And in true Trump fashion, he used geopolitical jiu-jitsu to turn the situation into an investment opportunity that benefits the American People.

It's becoming increasingly clear that what we have witnessed over the past year in Iran has been a power struggle between the good twin and the evil twin, with Israel and Five Eyes putting their thumb on the scale to try and take over the country.

Just listen to Trump describe the Soleimani assassination from the perspective of Iranian leadership.

To whatever extent a war is actually being waged on Iran, it is undeniable that Israel has suffered cataclysmic reputation damage from this operation, as well as physical damage from Iranian missiles.

I maintain the theory that President Trump is not waging war against Iran, but rather waging war against Israel using Iran as his proxy.

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Warsh Holds Steady as Positive Economic Data Frustrates the Anti-Trump Brigade

June’s inflation report delivered a sharp surprise that gives new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh room to delay potential interest-rate hikes.

The consumer price index fell 0.4 percent for the month—the largest drop since April 2020—driven primarily by lower energy prices, while services inflation outside energy stayed flat. Annual inflation eased to 3.5 percent from 4.2 percent in May, though it remains well above the Fed’s 2 percent target.

The softer reading comes after Fed officials, including board member Christopher Waller, had signaled openness to raising rates as soon as July if incoming data stayed hot.

Warsh has struck a cautious tone, warning against complacency.

He stated that he does not want to “overread or cherry-pick data” and rejected any notion that “mission accomplished” on inflation.

Emphasizing that “inflation is a choice,” Warsh said the Fed “can and will deliver price stability” and wants economic growth to be more broad-based while keeping price increases limited.

The combination of encouraging June data and fresh geopolitical risks leaves the Fed in a delicate spot: the immediate case for a July hike has weakened, but the inflation outlook remains fragile and closely tied to developments in the Middle East and energy markets.

Burning Bright: I know not everyone in the world things financial markets are as fascinating as I do. Hell, even I must admit I never really took an interest in the stuff until about 2023, when I dove headfirst down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, which, much like other aspects of the Awakening tends to lead one to do much delving in the dark.

In other words, and as many of you can attest, you usually learn a lot more about the potential solutions to problems by dissecting everything you can about the problems in the first place.

WAY back in May 2025, I wrote the popular 'Reality Wars' on my own Substack, in which I argued, not for the first time that the Federal Reserve (and central banking policy writ large across the battlespace) had been placed into a game theory pincer by Trump (and yes, even by Our Boy Blue, Joe Biden,) largely as a result of the Covidian Inflation Wave that has yet to recede.

In short, I argued that the Fed was caught between raising and lowering interest rates, the core metric from which all global monetary policy, which is to say FLOWS emanate, which is reminiscent of the Cantillon Effect, wherein he who sits closest to the money printer holds disproportionate sway over the whims and wiles of what SHOULD be a free market.

I argued then and would argue now that, if the Fed chair were to raise interest rates, the US is at risk of falling into a true recession. If they lower rates too quickly, we'll get another inflation wave, with a much faster crash after another Covid-like sugar high.

Well, now that Trump's next Fed chair is in, Kevin Warsh, that stasis seems to be holding.

That said, as I argued in 2025, I don't think this stasis is permanent, and I DO believe rate CUTS are in the offing in 2026, while the financial media says the opposite will occur.

Why?

Because the next wave of liquidity is not just needed in the midst of what I believe and hope to be a full-scale economic and monetary transition during Trump 2.0 (or 3.0, depending on your framing,) but that wave needs to arrive only after it can benefit the pockets of Main Street more so than Wall Street, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised in 2025.

As I wrote in 'Reality Wars:'

‘Whether by hook or by crook—but far more likely, a combination of the two—the beast will blink because the beast will starve without the government calling for it to print, to bleed the American people in order to feed itself and its collectivist brood … its false reality.

Soon, the ONLY choice before it will be to cut rates, and since the government will no longer be the first-choice borrower (which is to say, the first spender, thanks to the DOGE deployment,) the next liquidity cycle will flow directly into the pockets of the American people, and American endeavors riding along the new rails of Trump 2.0, whose core tenets of domestic production and real valuation will reward small, strong, sound companies, while destroying those who grew too fat living off 1% margins in an era of cheap foreign and illegal labor, cheaper borrowing and zero competition and disruption.

That’s us. We’re the disruption. And our energy has been building for some time as we’ve eyed the system hurling stones from its code-based glass palace.

As I have been arguing since the advent of my time writing under this name in the Info War, I believe we are transitioning from an era of ‘Too Big to Fail’ to the polar opposite, which I wrote about at length way back in 2022."

Trump is on-shoring domestic production, capacity and capital expenditure, and he is doing so largely through Executive decree.

That means the next liquidity wave stays here.

It's coming. The only question is ... when?

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Jack Smith Lied to Congress. Lock Him Up.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley has revealed that former special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained and reviewed text messages from 44 members of Congress—including Grassley himself, 19 other senators, and top House Republicans such as then-GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as some Democrats—as part of the investigations into Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

The messages, sent to senior White House officials in the final weeks of Trump’s first term, came from White House records subpoenaed by Smith’s team and turned over by the National Archives in August 2023.

Grassley, joined by Sen. Ron Johnson, released a joint report based on whistleblower information and internal DOJ records, alleging that Smith’s prosecutors bypassed standard document-filtering protocols and directly accessed communications that fell outside the scope of the probes.

Grassley has announced plans to compel Smith to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and has framed the episode as evidence of overreach.

The disclosures add to Republican criticism of the Biden-era Justice Department’s handling of Trump-related investigations, which were ultimately dropped after Trump’s 2024 election victory.

Ashe in America: Remember when Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were held in contempt of Congress and sentenced to prison?

I reckon a federal prosecutor (trained at The Hague) that lied under oath to Congress about spying on Congress should get a much more precedent-setting, ground-shaking outcome, no?

Here is the testimony in question:

So that was a lie…

Hawley says it looks like perjury. I’d say it looks like treason.

Good thing Rubio just announced he is dismantling the international courts.

Smith has nowhere to run.

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Trump Tells Netanyahu to Move Idf Out of Lebanon and Syria

President Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a recent phone call to redeploy Israeli forces from southern Syria and southern Lebanon, telling him that local populations “don’t want you there.”

The request came amid U.S. efforts to reduce Israeli military footprints in both countries following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and ongoing tensions with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Netanyahu pushed back, stressing Israel’s need for security zones along its borders to prevent attacks similar to October 7.

The call reflects broader U.S. diplomatic pressure for phased Israeli withdrawals, including from designated “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon under a U.S.-brokered framework that envisions Lebanese army deployment and Hezbollah disarmament.

Washington had also sought a security agreement with Syria that included gradual IDF pullbacks, but concluded Netanyahu was unwilling to concede without stronger guarantees.

The developments highlight tensions in U.S.-Israel relations despite public affirmations of close ties, as Trump seeks de-escalation while Israel prioritizes buffer zones amid persistent threats from Hezbollah and Iranian-backed groups.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: "They don't want you there. You should redeploy." —President Trump to Netanyahu

And now the moment has come: President Trump is siding with the Arabs.

I suspect that this is merely the beginning (or continuation) of a series of steps where President Trump is ultimately forced to pick a side, and does not end up choosing Netanyahu and his merry band of zealots.

This red line that he is drawing—placing himself between the Zionists and the Arabs—will expose the Greater Israel Project and its objectives.

Just like with all of Israel's malfeasance, the Zionists deny that these occupations of foreign nations is even occurring. They castigate and dismiss the allegations as antisemitism.

Now that it is President Trump calling them out, telling them to stand down, they will be forced to engage with the narrative and explain why these occupations are so necessary.

We will see the talking heads quickly go from, ‘There is no occupation; Israel does not want these lands; None of this is happening,’ to, ‘Of course we are occupying the borderlands; A security zone is needed to act as a buffer between Israel and its neighbors because antisemitism.’

Eventually, the mask will drop completely and the rhetoric will be, ‘These lands belong to us; They were given to us by God; The inhabitants must leave and surrender their property to us.’

When that moment comes—and in many ways, it has already transpired—we must understand that this is the language of bandits. This is the logic of cut-throats. It is the war-cry of thieves.

The Zionists can talk about the will of God all they want; the reality is that they have always operated under the law of the jungle: might makes right.

If you are strong enough to take it, then it is already yours.

The problem that the Zionists are going to run into is that the IDF is on the verge of collapse due to manpower shortages, and Netanyahu just sided with the Ultra-Orthodox faction in the Knesset to codify into law the long-practiced exemption of Haredi yeshiva students being conscripted into the military.

The law says that the government cannot arrest draft-dodgers, meaning that the 80,000+ able-bodied men from the Haredi community will not show up to boot camp when they are conscripted.

Truly, I think we are going to witness the IDF bottom out and collapse, as the manpower shortages get worse and morale wanes.

We may even see a mutiny.

The IDF was never built for this style of warfare. They prefer quick skirmishes that never last more than a few weeks. They are not set up for a multi-year, multi-front war of attrition.

And just like he did last September during the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu is trying to invite himself to the White House for a meeting with President Trump.

Only this time, it appears that the White House ain't having it.

As the Muslims witness President Trump stonewalling Netanyahu, while demanding that he pull out of Arab lands, I suspect that we will see their support and admiration for Trump flourish like never before.

The world recognizes that President Trump is in the unique position to stop Israel from their warmongering, but it seems more important that this fire be allowed to burn itself out, so that it can never again be re-ignited.

That strategy will become more evident as things unfold, and as the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu wilts.

The people who have attacked Trump for his apparent loyalty to the Zionists will be forced to recognize his genius in how he has untangled this Gordian Knot.

This was the only way to end the Greater Israel Project once and for all.

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