The news cycle is impossible to fully track these days. That’s where we come in. The Badlands News Brief is a uniquely curated selection of the stories dominating the info war — with context and commentary from Badlands hosts.
President Trump claimed on Tuesday that the U.S. would be “virtually defenseless” against other nations if the Supreme Court strikes down a slew of tariffs.
Why it matters: Trump’s comments come just one day before the highest court will hear oral arguments challenging the legality of a key part of his economic agenda. Trump officials have played down the effects of a potential loss, saying the administration would step in to reimpose any tariffs overturned by the Supreme Court using other trade authorities. Still, Trump for months has been warning that a loss would be economically devastating for the country. […]
“Tomorrow’s United States Supreme Court case is, literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday evening.
“With a Victory, we have tremendous, but fair, Financial and National Security. Without it, we are virtually defenseless against other Countries who have, for years, taken advantage of us,” he wrote. “Our Stock Market is consistently hitting Record Highs, and our Country has never been more respected than it is right now. A big part of this is the Economic Security created by Tariffs, and the Deals that we have negotiated because of them.”— Axios
Another Take: Today is D-Day. The Deep State is going to try and stop President Trump from implementing a tariff policy that not only will eliminate the need for an income tax, but also liberate the American economy from the shackles of globalism.
This quote from President William McKinley, who implemented his own tariff program and was assassinated for it. —
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Big wins for Democrats: The party had victories in major contests across multiple states, building momentum into the 2026 midterms. Zohran Mamdani will win New York City’s mayoral race, CNN projects, while Abigail Spanberger and Rep. Mikie Sherrill will win their respective gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. Californians also voted to approve Democrats’ redistricting push.
Historic firsts: Mamdani will be New York City’s first Muslim mayor and the first South Asian to hold the office. Spanberger will become Virginia’s first female governor and Sherrill will become New Jersey’s first female Democratic governor. Democrat Ghazala Hashmi, projected to be Virginia’s lieutenant governor, will become the nation’s first Muslim woman elected statewide.
Test for Trump: The elections were seen as the first major electoral tests of Donald Trump’s second presidency. In a social media post tonight, he blamed GOP losses on the government shutdown and his absence from the ballot.
Our Take: We would have won these elections if Scott Pressler registered voters harder. —
One More Take: The best possible outcome from [yesterday’s] fake elections is that the still-retarded come to understand that the elections are fake and the TV Characters they obey have been lying to them, nonstop, for the entire time…
Elections are fake. Pretending otherwise is assisting the enemy.
Taking elections seriously at all constitutes ‘pretending otherwise.’
A UPS cargo plane crashed on Tuesday after taking off from an airport in Louisville, Ky., killing at least seven people and sending a cloud of thick smoke rising over one of the largest air cargo hubs in the United States.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said that the plane, which was carrying three crew members, hit two businesses near the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport and that the death toll could rise. Mayor Craig Greenberg of Louisville said that four of the people who died were on the ground when the plane crashed, and that 11 others were injured.
The plane exploded into a fireball and left a fiery trail through an industrial area near the airport. Officials issued a shelter-in-place order for people living nearby. — The New York Times
Our Take: At least seven people are dead from a UPS plane crash on Tuesday, and an estimated 11 more are injured.
The footage is wild. This guy’s dash cam caught the crash — it happened right in front of him:
It looks apocalyptic from over head:
I hope we eventually get to know what happened. What a tragedy.
Prayers for those injured to recover and for the families of the deceased. [Clip Link 1, Clip Link 2] —
The White House slammed New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani after he linked the Trump administration to threats against voters in New Jersey. On Tuesday, as New Jerseyans went to cast their ballots, bomb threats forced voters out of multiple polling places.
While the threats were found to be non-credible, they still caused a disruption to those looking to exercise their right to vote for the Garden State’s next governor. When asked about the threats in his neighboring state, Mamdani made comments that raised eyebrows and rocked the West Wing.
Mamdani called the threats “incredibly concerning” and said that he believed they were “an illustration of the attacks we’re seeing on our democracy.”
“We have to understand this as part of the general approach the Trump administration has taken to trying to intimidate voters with baseless allegations of voter fraud as a means of trying to repress the voice of Americans across this country,” Mamdani said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Mamdani’s remarks were “completely irresponsible” and not based in fact. — Fox News
Our Take: The fake bomb threats are now fake.
Stories of bomb threats are stories only. Always.
The fake bomb threats are Trump’s fault. [Clip Link] —
Kim Yong-nam, the last ceremonial leader of North Korea, has died at the age of 97, the country’s state media reported on Tuesday.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim died on November 3 from multiple organ failure following an illness. He was not related to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
From 1998 to 2019, he was the head of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s parliament, the highest ceremonial position in the country. Previously, he served as the country’s foreign minister from 1983 and 1998. According to APTN, people who met him described him as mild-mannered but firm in his views.
After his retirement in 2019 and subsequent constitutional amendments, the functions once associated with the head of state were absorbed by the State Affairs Commission, chaired by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. — RT
Our Take: I was wondering what a “ceremonial leader” is, so I asked AI.
I have no idea what this means, but it is interesting that this fake and gay dynamic ended in 2019.
So all the puppet leaders in North Korea are dead? Kek.
This week, many of you will be joining your favorite Badlands hosts in Cocoa Beach, Florida for the TENTH stop along the Great American Restoration Tour, and our second event in the land of rockets both real and fake.
These events have presented a great opportunity to meet and network with fellow patriots, and create an awakening pressure cooker where a natural sifting toward sovereignty, nationalism and community-building takes place.
The FBI has launched an investigation after finding classified information tied to the baseless Trump-Russia collusion saga stashed in “burn bags,” with the Justice Department releasing some of the once-hidden records as part of its prosecution of fired bureau chief James Comey.
The FBI launched the preliminary investigation into the burn bag saga in July, according to an opening electronic communication made public in DOJ filings in federal court on Monday as part of the Comey prosecution.
The bureau said that the classified information was stashed away in a room at FBI Headquarters and was related to Crossfire Hurricane and also other FBI inquiries into President Donald Trump and his allies.
The preliminary investigation into the burn bag saga is authorized to use “grand jury subpoenas” and “polygraph examinations” to get answers. — Just the News
Our Take: It’s one of the most ubiquitous terms in the Info War. But what do we mean when we talk about ‘Boomerangs’ in 2025?
From Russiagate to Elections, Borders to Law & Order, Trump doesn’t toss Boomerangs ... he hurls them.
Verizon said Tuesday that it will implement new safeguards to ensure top-level review before complying with subpoenas that target members of Congress after acknowledging it had secretly provided the call records of Republican lawmakers to the Justice Department as part of the sprawling Arctic Frost investigation that served as the foundation for the federal indictment of President Donald Trump.
“In 2023 Verizon was ordered to turn over call records for certain members of Congress to the Department of Justice. The Special Counsel and DOJ at the time decided who to target,” Verizon spokesman Kevin Israel told the Washington Examiner, referring to former special counsel Jack Smith and the Biden administration.
“A court ordered Verizon not to tell anyone about that. We had no choice but to comply with the court order. So we did.”
Chief Judge James Boasberg, a D.C. federal judge, approved orders preventing both carriers from notifying the lawmakers. On Tuesday, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg related to his role in imposing the order. — Washington Examiner
Our Take: Weaponization of government definitely includes intimidation and coercion, and that’s appears to be what we have here.
Judge Boasberg prevented communication companies from telling US Senators that the government was surveilling them. They believed they had no choice but to comply, so they violated the senators’ — their customers’ — trust and complied.
The U.S. sent several UN Security Council members a draft resolution on Monday for the establishment of an international force in Gaza for a duration of at least two years, according to a copy obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: The draft resolution, which was designated “SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED,” would give the U.S. and other participating countries a broad mandate to govern Gaza and provide security through the end of 2027, with the possibility of extensions after that.
Driving the news: The draft resolution will be the basis for negotiations over the coming days between UN Security Council members, with the goal of voting to establish it in the coming weeks and deploying the first troops to Gaza by January, a U.S. official told Axios. The U.S. official stressed that the International Security Force (ISF) will be an “enforcement force and not a peacekeeping force.” — Axios
Our Take: “The ISF is intended to provide security in Gaza during a transition period during which Israel is to gradually withdraw from additional parts of Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority is to conduct reforms that would enable it to take over Gaza longer-term.”
The two biggest takeaways from this resolution are that the President expects (and likely demands) that Turkish soldiers will be part of the ISF deployed to Gaza, and also that President Trump intends for Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to assume governance over Gaza long-term.
These two conditions are circumstances that Netanyahu and the Zionists have ardently stated will never happen. Netanyahu swore that Turkish troops would never enter Gaza and that the Palestinian Authority will never govern it.
Well too bad for Bibi that the Turkish troops are a strategic imperative, as Turkey is a NATO state and it would mean that Gaza would effectively become protected by Article 5 — meaning that if the IDF attacks the ISF, Israel would be at war with NATO.
As for Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, President Trump gave his word (in so many words) to President Abbas on May 3, 2017, that he would help liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. That may mean very little to the political scum of DC and Tel Aviv, but to Donald Trump, giving your word is a sacred bond that must be upheld.
Dick Cheney, America’s most powerful modern vice president and chief architect of the “war on terror,” who helped lead the country into the ill-fated Iraq war on faulty assumptions, has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 84.
“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the family said, adding that he died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the family added.
“We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. — CNN
Our Take: The Cheney legacy has been weaponized in somewhat subtle and overlooked ways.
From 9/11 to the Forever War, the Machine has worked overtime to push the idea that Cheney was THE puppet master.
Just hours before the government shutdown became the longest in U.S. history, Senate Democrats privately agonized behind closed doors Tuesday about bringing it to an end.
A two-hour-plus lunch meeting ended without a clear consensus on an endgame for the 35-day standoff, even after several senators involved in increasingly serious bipartisan negotiations laid out their thinking during the lunch, according to multiple attendees.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emerged from the long meeting and signaled that his party isn’t yet ready to surrender. A few hours later, the shutdown surpassed the 34-day, 20-hour shutdown that ended in January 2019. — Politico
Former Virginia Del. Jay Jones (D) was projected to oust incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) in the race for the state’s top law enforcement spot on Tuesday, staving off a texting controversy that dogged his candidacy in the campaign’s final month.
While the race was always considered one of the more competitive statewide contests in Virginia this cycle, it was roiled in its final stretch by resurfaced violent texts sent by Jones in 2022 about then-state House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R).
“Three people, two bullets,” Jones wrote in a text to Del. Carrie Coyner (R) about Gilbert.
“Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot,” Jones wrote. “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”
“Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time,” Jones told Coyner. […]
Early voting in the state had already begun by the time the scandal broke in early October. — The Hill
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Anyone shocked that the Democrat snot-hovels of NYC, NJ, PA and VA elected and retained leftists is pretty blind to the rampant stupidity of these same people. Remember, these are the same lemmings who were told to shout "no kings" to the candidate calling for a return to the Constitution.
The messaging on both sides is becoming hilarious. For all of you who enjoy dystopian horror, grab your popcorn and get settled in!
Anyone shocked that the Democrat snot-hovels of NYC, NJ, PA and VA elected and retained leftists is pretty blind to the rampant stupidity of these same people. Remember, these are the same lemmings who were told to shout "no kings" to the candidate calling for a return to the Constitution.
The messaging on both sides is becoming hilarious. For all of you who enjoy dystopian horror, grab your popcorn and get settled in!
"The footage is wild. This guy’s dash cam caught the crash — it happened right in front of him."
First thoughts after viewing the footage 911 was 100% fake.....where's the Pentagon footage of the plane.