Badlands Brief
Sovereign Signals, Israeli Subversion, and the SAVE America Ultimatum
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.
Sovereign Signal in the Iranian Chaos
The United States has issued a temporary waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil already at sea, as global energy markets face disruptions linked to conflict in the Middle East and shipping risks around the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials said the 30-day measure is intended to maintain oil supply to global markets and prevent further price spikes during the crisis.
Energy markets have been strained by escalating tensions involving Iran, which have disrupted shipping and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and contributed to higher oil and gas prices. The turmoil has affected transit through the Strait of Hormuz and raised concerns about global supply shortages.
Amid the price surge, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow could halt gas supplies to European markets and redirect exports elsewhere, arguing that alternative markets may offer better returns. Russia’s role in European gas supply has already fallen significantly since the Ukraine war, dropping from about 40% of EU pipeline gas supply to roughly 6%.
Separately, a social media post circulating on X cited U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as saying additional relief from sanctions on Russian oil could be considered due to a temporary global oil shortage, though the claim appears in a social post and is not independently verified within the post itself.
Burning Bright: With Iran long positioned as a direct ally to Russia and an economic facilitator for China—two legs of the very Sovereign Trinity I’ve mapped for years, the same structure the Q drops first hinted at—it stood to reason that Trump’s gambit against the Iranian regime would trigger a fever pitch of narrative escalation with both powers.
That escalation is still coming, in my estimation.
Yet, even amid the current geopolitical storm, the amount of clear Sovereign Signal cutting through the noise is striking.
To wit, the United States quietly granted Russia a special license to move oil to India, specifically to ease the energy pressure created by American actions around Iran.
While the Strait of Hormuz remains contested and tanker traffic has collapsed, Washington carved out a temporary window allowing Indian refiners to take delivery of Russian crude already loaded and stranded at sea.
As a result, India—another central pillar of the emerging Sovereign Alliance—receives breathing room, while Russia secures an outlet for its supply.
And the United States, in the middle of precision operations (whether you think they’re entirely Actual, entirely Narrative or some mix of the two) quietly facilitates the coordination.
Three major powers, each aligned with the multipolar realignment working in parallel to keep energy flowing to the right places ... and not necessarily to the wrong ones.
As, notably, the same courtesy has not been extended to Europe.
Instead, Moscow has made it clear it is actively weighing the complete redirection of its gas supplies away from the continent, something the US just made even easier for them to do.
With European industry still dependent on the very US-Russia energy dynamic it spent years attempting to destroy through sanctions, the timing could not be more surgical.
As Gulf flows constrict and global tanker traffic evaporates, Europe now stares down an energy crisis that could eclipse anything seen in decades.
The net result?
American policy appears to be indirectly enabling Russia as it tightens the energy pincer I’ve been documenting since 2022—the same strategic vice I laid out at length in the Righteous Russia series, particularly when it comes to the Power is Power refrain.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced the direction shortly thereafter, signaling that the United States may look to unsanction even more Russian oil to help stabilize the temporary global shortfall, all while Europe is left to twist in geopolitical winds they can no longer control.
This entire sequence brings to mind the moment last September when even the globalist press was finally forced to recognize the trap closing around them, borrowing the very terminology I had used years earlier to describe the parallel pressure campaign being applied to the European project by Trump and Putin, wherein the Globalist Goblins at The Guardian claimed:
“Trump and Putin are carrying out a pincer movement on Europe’s democracies.”
I commented at the time that this was major signal precisely because it represented the enemy announcing what they fear most, after years of attempting to head it off, to no avail.
(I could also argue it’s a rip-off of the core claim made in the very first part of the Righteous Russia series, albeit with inverted framing ... but I digress.)
The Sovereign Alliance is not theory.
It is operational.
Saving Seoul now available in Digital/Audio Formats!
Following the limited edition leatherbound hardcover, Saving Seoul, the first book in the Sword Punk Trilogy is now available in digital and audio formats from our own Burning Bright Publishing.
The audiobook was produced in partnership with Soundbooth Theater.
This isn’t some AI read aloud crap; it’s a full-on audio theater production, featuring a cast of professional actors, original music and high-end studio polish, and I think it represents the best vision for the Sword Punk aesthetic in the best package for this audience, bringing the story of Akio Prince and his war against the Deep State to life in vivid detail.
Head over to BadlandsMedia.tv/SwordPunk to listen to a free sample, and download the full Audio Production for $25.
Trump may accept new Ayatollah, as signs of rift with Israel emerge
Iran’s clerical leadership has selected Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader following the death of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the opening phase of the ongoing war involving Iran, Israel and the United States. Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for choosing the nation’s top authority, announced the decision after deliberations among senior clerics.
The elder Khamenei was killed in a U.S.–Israeli strike that helped trigger a broader regional conflict. In response to the war, U.S. President Donald Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and said the United States should have a role in determining the country’s future leadership.
During the conflict, Trump discussed broader foreign policy issues in a phone interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, stating that Cuba “is gonna fall pretty soon” and indicating he planned to send Secretary of State Marco Rubio there for potential talks. When asked, Trump affirmed that he would be willing to accept a “religious leader” rather than a democratically-elected leader, if the leader was friendly to the US.
The war has also involved debate over Kurdish participation. While earlier reporting indicated U.S. officials had explored supporting Kurdish groups operating inside Iran, Trump later said he did not want Kurdish forces entering the country as part of the conflict.
The Israelis have reportedly angered the White House after attacking 30 fuel depots in Iran without first notifying the White House in advance. The White House is concerned that these strikes targeted infrastructure that specifically serves Iranian civilians, which will cause unnecessary backlash while driving up the global price of oil. The precise message reportedly sent from the White House to their Israeli counterparts upon learning of the strike was, “WTF.”
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: There is a lot of meat on this bone.
First, let’s start with the narrative whiplash that President Trump is causing among those who are trying to impose their own story onto the situation:
Just days after President Trump called for the Iranian People to rise up against the IRGC, he is now saying that he may be willing to accept the new Ayatollah—Khamenei’s son—as long as the new leader is friendly to the US and Israel.
I don’t see this at all as Trump backpedaling, I see this as Trump using chaotic plot twists and narrative whiplash to prevent others from taking control of the narrative and imposing their own agenda onto the situation. Specifically, Reza Pahlavi, the wannabe princeling who has spent his entire adult life living in a mansion in the DC suburbs working as a lobbyist. He put out a video “accepting” the non-existent calls to crown him king of Iran. (Jump to timestamp 2:30 to hear him claim the throne.)
Literally nobody wants this, nor asked for it. So you can see the need for President Trump to shut down this attempted usurpation.
My best guess is that it was the Israelis who put Pahlavi up to this. Netanyahu and the NeoCons are the only ones who have been calling for Pahlavi to be installed as ruler of Iran. Here is a picture of Pahlavi visiting Netanyahu in Israel just a few months ago, likely in preparation for this moment.
The Israeli subversion does not stop there.
Then we had the Kurds, whom Netanyahu and the NeoCons have been pushing as the best option for a ground force invasion of Iran. There were even reports—put out by the CIA’s mouthpiece, the Washington Post—of President Trump courting the Kurds.
But Trump poured water on these reports, expressly stating that he had personally ruled out the Kurds’ involvement.
Sorry, NeoCons! No ground force invasion for you!
Finally, we get to the most sinister chapter in this subversion subplot, thus far: The bombing of civilian fuel depots across Iran, which have led to apocalyptic scenes and widespread terror among the Iranian People.
What makes this development so concerning is the reporting by [Israeli journalist] Barak Ravid and [American journalist] Marc Caputo, who co-authored a story in Axios alleging that the White House was blindsided by these attacks, to the extent that their precise message to the Israelis upon learning of it was, “WTF.”
Barak Ravid even reposted this section of the article for emphasis.
The logic of this reporting certainly tracks. President Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to see the oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz, even lifting sanctions on Russian oil to make it happen. He has also alluded to potentially taking control of Iran’s oil in order to keep the global markets stabilized.
Blowing up Iran’s oil supplies would be counterintuitive to that objective, not to mention the psychological impact it would have on the Iranian population, whose favor Trump is ostensibly trying to win over.
Simply put, this move seems unnecessarily cruel and not at all strategic.
All of this begs the question: What does Tel Aviv look like right now? There are plenty of videos online showing it being hammered with missiles, but are those videos real? Can anything online be trusted? I’m left wondering how desperate the Israelis have become to make a move like this. Perhaps they really are getting pounded in ways that they never anticipated. Perhaps that was Trump’s plan all along?
How soon until we see Netanyahu capitulate and sue for peace? Or will he lead Israel into the abyss?
Trump’s Ultimatum on the SAVE America Act
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he will not sign any other legislation until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, escalating pressure on lawmakers to approve the Republican-backed voting measure.
Trump made the statement in posts on Truth Social on March 8, writing that the bill “must go to the front of the line” and declaring, “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed.” In a separate post, he urged lawmakers to “PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, NOW.”
The SAVE America Act is a federal proposal that would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. A version of the legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11, 2026 by a 218–213 vote and now faces consideration in the Senate.
In his posts, Trump called for provisions including voter identification and proof-of-citizenship requirements and restrictions on mail-in voting, urging Republicans to prioritize the measure immediately.
Civil-rights groups say the legislation would require documents such as passports or birth certificates to register to vote and could eliminate many forms of online or mail-in voter registration, which critics argue would make registration more difficult for some voters.
Ashe in America: The landscape surrounding the fight to pass the SAVE America Act is strange.
As we’ve discussed, the act is a good measure to ensure that only eligible voters can vote. It’s an 80+% issue. It’s even popular with minorities and democrats and minority democrats.
The People want only real, lawful, American voters casting real, lawful, American votes in American elections — crazy, I know. The act requires proof of citizenship for registration and state voter roll maintenance to identify and remove noncitizens from voter rolls.
Predictably, the fake elections industry is freaking out about this change, calling it voter suppression. That’s expected, and hilarious, and an admission that fake voters are a critical aspect of the fake elections industry.
Then there’s Scott Presler, who President Trump highlighted in a Truth Social post. This one is curious because, if the SAVE America Act is properly executed, Scott Presler will be out of business.
Voter registration drives don’t check eligibility. Including Scott Presler’s drives, ostensibly — I asked him how he verifies eligibility during a space on X a couple years ago, and he blocked me.
Scott Presler’s most recent “hard work” in elections cause local candidates to lose on the ground in Pennsylvania. From our friends in Audit the Vote PA on X:
“This guy is a grifter and a conman. He pushed policies that directly hurt election integrity and caused massive losses in municipal/special elections in major swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Now he’s jumping on the SAVE Act because his early voting and mail-in ballot push was a colossal failure and he needs to re-invent himself. I appreciate that he’s drawing attention to this with his platform, but the sad reality is that he’s only in this fight for himself.”
Presler’s premise is what always bugged me. 2020 voter turnout was 94.1% — a global outlier, according to Pew.
That’s not a turnout problem. 94.1% is a red flag indicator for malfeasance, but the establishment’s response was to register more voters. It doesn’t make sense, unless…
Scott Presler’s job is to inflate the voter rolls.
Like I said, if we’re actually doing the SAVE America Act, Presler would be back to picking up trash.
Trump is shining a spotlight on this discombobulating conundrum, and it’s galvanized the election integrity community in a big way behind the scenes. People in the know are pissed.
Accelerate.
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AI Angst and Congressional Paralysis
President Donald Trump has pushed for rapid development of artificial intelligence, saying the United States will do “whatever it takes” to lead globally in the technology, even as concerns grow about its potential impact on jobs.
Congress has held hearings and introduced several bills related to artificial intelligence and employment, but lawmakers have not enacted legislation addressing how the technology could affect workers.
Public concern about AI’s economic impact is rising. A February survey by YouGov and The Economist found that about 63 percent of Americans — including 62 percent of Republicans — believe the technology will result in fewer jobs. The U.S. labor market has also shown signs of slowing, with the Labor Department reporting that employers shed 92,000 jobs in February 2026.
Research cited in the report suggests the technology could reshape employment. A study referenced by Goldman Sachs estimates widespread AI adoption could replace up to 7 percent of U.S. jobs, while research led by Erik Brynjolfsson at Stanford University found employment among workers ages 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations has fallen 16 percent relative to peers since AI tools emerged in late 2022.
Lawmakers in both parties have begun exploring responses. In November, Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Mark Warner introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at collecting data on AI-related layoffs or hiring slowdowns to help guide future policy.
Ashe in America: There is AI tension between the administration and the states. There is AI tension between the administration and Congress. There is AI tension between the administration and the AI providers and the industries they cut across (all industries).
Voter worry about AI taking their jobs is way too little too late. WEF partners have been talking about this as an inevitability since 2015 or earlier. Andrew Yang discussed it as the imperative for universal basic income during the 2020 election. Most people laughed him off as a technology-enabled communist.
The time to fight this transformation was a decade ago — back when people couldn’t fathom the problem statement. It always goes like that.
(Poetic: The people that drove the change a decade ago are now the people being replaced.)
Congress is paralyzed, in my opinion, because Congress is comprised of the stupidest among us. They’re the best products by district — not thinkers, but actors. If we had real elections, we could elect people capable of solving the latest AI dilemma. But we don’t, so Patriot Barbie and Una Panoonah are going to design the Brave New World.
God help us.
On the slight chance that The People can provide input — AI tools may be replacing human jobs, but those tools require human data to function. Right now, the AI companies are largely getting that data — the most valuable asset in the so-called value exchange — for free, by exploiting terms and conductions.
Rather than government-funded UBI, what if humans actually owned their data and technology companies actually had to pay users to use it? You know, an actual value exchange.
It would slow AI execution and speed to market, increase costs on AI companies, create liability and penalties for exploitation, create human jobs (and maybe even new industries), and properly compensate The People for their most valuable asset.
Our data is an intimate extension of ourselves. I wrote about that in July 2020, and finally got the courage to publish it the following year. Devs have been sounding the alarm since before that. Consider video game developer Patrick Stafford in 2019:
“…developers…see a chart that outlines how that game’s players are motivated…How do players interact within a game? What choices do they make? That information can be used to make better games. And it can also be combined with other types of information to build robust personal profiles. Those personal profiles are typically used to target advertising, but privacy experts warn that, in the future, that information may be used in sinister ways we can’t expect.”
That was a long time ago and nothing has been done to address that problem. And the growth in data generation, collection, and application has exponentially increased since then.
More data, means more data innovation and new solutions, including those around security. But until technology users better understand the implications of their behaviors with technology, the world we are building will be informed by the few instead of the many.
We need a Data Bill of Rights, with teeth, restricting the infringement of our rights by both technology companies and the US Government. Even then, it isn’t enough – it’s only the start…
Doing nothing — like Congress — is only an option for the stupidest among us who have no problem that digital chains and centralized exploitation turn the American people into real human slaves.
The only solution to that is real human elections.
BONUS ITEM
The Badlands Blitz
The latest episode of the Badlands Blitz is available now!
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry and Burning Bright run through the latest in Trump’s Iranian Kobayashi Maru ... and how at least some of what we’re seeing unfold was possible to see coming.
Cuban Missile Crisis re-run on deck?
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Thanks @Ashe for taking time to go deep on AI!
And: Yes - and always - "God Help Us!"
PS - What is it He said about mustard seeds?
Data Bill of Rights? Exactly. Will it be written by humans or AI? "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" - Oliver Hardy, Sons of the Desert