Badlands News Brief
Fake Polls Abound as the Sovereign Alliance Makes Moves
The News Cycle is almost impossible to track these days. At least, to do so fully.
That’s where we come in.
In the Badlands News Brief, the Badlands Media team hand pick news items of interest from the previous days to give you an overview of the biggest goings-on relevant to the Truth Community with some Badlands flavoring to help wash it down.
Now, onto the news from Monday, June 17 …
Biden appears to freeze up, has to be led off stage by Obama at mega-bucks LA fundraiser
President Biden appeared to freeze up on stage and had to be led off by Barack Obama at the conclusion of a star-studded campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles Saturday night.
The awkward moment took place after Biden and his predecessor sat for a 45-minute interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater.
As the men stood for applause, Biden’s gaze seemed to become fixed on the crowd for a full 10 seconds until former President Barack Obama took his wrist and led him offstage.
The incident follows a spate of caught-on-camera moments where Biden appeared dazed or confused about where he was, including when he appeared to wander off at the G7 summit in Apulia, Italy, during parachute exhibition. — NY Post
Our Take: Biden’s latest senior moment went viral over the weekend, as Barack Obama had to lead the old stumbly wumbly off the stage after Biden froze for about 10 seconds.
The embarrassing moment came just a few days after he wandered off at the G7 and had to be refocused, like a toddler, by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
These moments are increasingly common for the so-called ruler of the US, and conservative influencers are placing bets on who will replace scrotus at the convention.
Leftist influencers, however, are not openly fantasizing about replacing Biden — they’re doubling down to shield the old fool, pretending Biden is strong and commanding and claiming — inexplicably— that the video we all watched didn’t happen.
This would definitely be the time to seed the narrative for a replacement at the convention, but the left is defending the old fool (and abandoning their credibility in the process).
It’s looking like they can’t replace him. This is good news because the first debate is June 27, and rug-pulling the American people on that much-anticipated event would be unforgivable. —
Another Take: There was a time, not so long ago, when the Democratic party branded itself as the party of the working class.
More recently, they rebranded further, claiming the working class had devolved into bigotry and ignorance, and so, they became the voice of the under-class, meaning those they could hook on the Nanny State and the Welfare tit.
Now ... they're the party of glitz, glamor ... and bullshit.
And the American people are watching it all.
"Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself." —
Russian President Vladimir Putin set to visit Kim Jong Un in North Korea
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit North Korea for a two-day visit this week, both countries announced on Monday after months of speculation and amid international concerns about their military cooperation.
Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to a remote Siberian rocket launch facility to meet with Putin. After that summit, Kim invited the Russian leader to visit Pyongyang.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Putin will pay a state visit on Tuesday and Wednesday. It did not immediately provide details. Russia confirmed the visit in a simultaneous announcement.
This will be Putin's first trip to North Korea in 24 years. He first visited Pyongyang in July 2000, months after his first election when he met with Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, who ruled the country then.
There are growing concerns about an arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions to fuel Putin's war in Ukraine in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that would enhance the threat posed by Kim's nuclear weapons and missile program. — CBS News
Our Take: There is a lot of signal in this story.
Putin's first visit to North Korea in 24 years? That seems very odd, considering that they share an 11-mile border along the Tumen River, which has a railroad crossing dubbed the "Friendship Bridge." (heart emoji)
The last time Putin visited, in 2000, he restored ties between Russia and North Korea. At the time, North Korea was led by Kim Jong Il, the son of the country's founder and father to the current leader, Kim Jong Un. Putin had just been elected president of Russia for the first time.
As Putin explained in his interviews with filmmaker Oliver Stone, in the 2000's, he was trying to develop a post-Soviet relationship with the West, which likely explains why he sided with the UN Security Council against Kim Jong Il's reported efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2006. (That relationship never materialized, as the West rejected all of Putin's efforts to collaborate with them on mutually-beneficial projects, such as anti-ballistic defense technology.)
Putin remained an ally of the Security Council against North Korea for over 10 years, supporting the unanimous sanctions imposed by the UN on December 22, 2017—the last time Putin would oppose North Korea.
This date holds great significance in the lore of President Trump. It was the same day that he signed Executive Order 13818, the day that he signed his historic tax cut bill, the day—in my humble opinion—that his kayfabe with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began (over his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel), and the day that Trump announced that he would be sending Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine—the first act of "aggression" (kayfabe) against Putin, whom the MSM had insisted controlled President Trump.
In June 2018, Trump went to North Korea and was personally escorted by Un across the DMZ. A year later, in April 2019, Putin and Un met for the first time in Vladivostok. Since then, following in the footsteps of Trump, Putin and Un have become bros.
This past February, upon hearing that Un was quite fond of Putin's personal Auras limousine, the Russian president had one custom-made and shipped to Pyongyang for Un's personal use—in flagrant violation of the UN sanctions Putin had endorsed in 2017. Un's [powerful] sister, Yo Jong, said the gift was a "clear demonstration of the special relationship" between the two leaders. (Un also got to see inside "The Beast" when he met with Trump in Singapore in 2018.)
Indeed.
The article claims that Un wants to sell North Korea's extensive stockpile of munitions to Russia, which aligns with recent revelations from the former South Korean president that Un is "desperate" to rid his country of its nuclear weapons.
If Putin shows up at the DMZ today and imitates Trump's historic 2018 visit, I will walk out of my day-job and livestream the media's meltdown on the Badlands Rumble channel. —
Trouble for Trump in a New Poll on His Conviction
Donald Trump’s criminal conviction didn’t instantly upend the 2024 presidential race. But the results of a new poll should be worrying for Trump.
In the weeks since the verdict, both parties have sought to shape the public’s initial reaction, with Republicans largely denouncing it and Democrats citing the result as further evidence that Trump is unfit for office. To figure out how this unprecedented moment is being processed by the electorate, POLITICO Magazine partnered with Ipsos in a new survey.
Among the most notable findings in our poll: 21 percent of independents said the conviction made them less likely to support Trump and that it would be an important factor in their vote. In a close election, small shifts among independent and swing voters could determine the outcome.
And yet there is also good reason to believe that Trump and his allies’ efforts to discredit the prosecution and conviction have cast doubt on the validity of the verdict among many people and limited the potential fallout for the former president-turned-felon.
A sizable number of Americans, including independents, question whether the verdict was the result of a fair and impartial process. And although most respondents rejected the idea that the prosecution was brought to help President Joe Biden, a large number (43 percent of all respondents) either strongly or somewhat agreed that was the rationale for the case.
Taken as a whole, the results of the poll suggest that Americans’ views on the Trump verdict may still be malleable — and could get better or worse for Trump. — Politico
Our Take: Polls are not predictive, but they are a good indicator of where the narrative is going. In their latest collaboration with Ipsos, Politico is doing a cleanup on aisle 45.
First about the survey. ‘The survey was conducted using KnowledgePanel, the largest and most well-established online probability-based panel that is representative of the adult US population.’
That’s Politico’s assertion; according to Survey Police, KnowledgePanel gets 3.5 of our 5 stars. They pay their respondents and anyone in the house over 13 is eligible to participate. The sample size for these findings is 1,017 respondents.
As for the results, Politico makes several vague assertions in this piece, but Ipsos sums it up:
‘…a plurality of Americans say that the verdict has no impact on their likelihood of voting for Trump and it is not important in decision making process (40%)’
Must be a bummer. All that effort — through which Trump-deranged unipartisans revealed their willingness to corruptly abuse the levers of power for political gain — had effectively no impact.
Some of the most stunning findings, buried in the detailed results, confirms that increasing numbers of Americans are concerned about the asymmetry (corruption) in the justice system.
Consider the segment of Americans (all demographics) with ‘a great deal of trust’ for on key judicial roles:
Supreme Court Justices: 12%
State Court Judges: 8%
Federal Court Judges: 9%
Prosecuting Attorneys: 9%
Defense Attorneys: 8%
Citizens on Juries: 15%
Next, let’s look at who (essentially which classes) respondents believe get special breaks in the justice system:
Wealthy People: 72%
Elected Officials (current and former): 63%
People Like You: 2%
Two percent.
This Politico / Ipsos poll confirms my conclusion from the October 2022 NYT / Siena College poll, which found that 68% of all likely voters were MOST concerned about public corruption as the greatest threat to democracy. —
China's Xi accused the US of trying to trick him into invading Taiwan, but said he won't take the bait, report says
China's leader, Xi Jinping, accused the US of trying to trick China into invading Taiwan but said his country wouldn't take the bait, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The FT said Xi made the accusation in April last year during a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Xi has issued the same warning to officials in his own country, one person told the FT, but this is first known case of him making the claim to a foreign leader, the outlet said.
During the meeting, according to a press statement released at the time, Xi said Taiwan was at the "core" of China's interests, adding: "If anyone expects China to compromise and concede on the Taiwan question, they are having a pipe dream and would shoot themselves in the foot."
Xi's accusation against the US wasn't featured in the statement. — Business Insider
Our Take: I do not think it is a coincidence that this story was deployed the day before Putin is scheduled to be in North Korea, in a potentially historic meeting with Kim Jong Un.
What is curious is the source of the story: it comes from Ursula von der Leyen? (For context, she is the woman standing next to Joe Biden in the parachute video, scowling in disgust as he wanders off.)
Why would Ursula hold on to this information for a full year? Why deploy it now?
This raises fascinating questions that will require time to distill. Until then, we should take notice that the Sovereign Alliance is firing on all cylinders right now, as it habitually out-foxes the Old Guard elite—in diplomacy, economics, on the battlefield, but also in general messaging to the public. And now they are mastering the art of narrative warfare. I love it.
There is absolutely nothing endearing or appealing about the Establishment, and what it claims to offer.
Still thinking about Ursula. What does that mean? —
The Biden Campaign’s Losing Battle
Watch a few minutes of the nba finals, and you’ll likely notice how the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic argues with the officials every time a whistle blows in his direction. “Working the refs” is a long-standing tradition, but Doncic, one of basketball’s marquee stars, takes complaining to a new level. In his eyes, the referees are incapable of correctly calling the game, no matter the circumstance. Whining has become muscle memory.
A similar dynamic has lately been playing out between members of President Joe Biden’s campaign staff and journalists. Each week, Biden-team members and a cadre of notable Democrats spend hours locked in a public spat not just against former President Donald Trump, but against the media.
Recently, TJ Ducklo, a Biden-campaign senior adviser for communications, posted on X: “The President just spoke to approx 1,000 mostly black voters in Philly about the massive stakes in this election. @MSNBC @CNN & others did not show it. Instead, more coverage about a trial that impacts one person: Trump. Then they’ll ask, why isn’t your message getting out?” Responding to Ducklo, the election statistician turned Substack writer Nate Silver pointed out that Democrats often lament that the media don’t cover Trump’s misdeeds enough. Ducklo fired back: “This perfectly incapsulates [sic] the disconnect between the ivory tower/beltway know-it-alls and voters. Donald Trump’s trials don’t impact real people. They impact Donald Trump. His horrific, draconian, dangerous policies impact voters. Cover those. Stop covering polls & process.”
To suggest that a former—and potentially future—president’s legal woes are items not worth discussing is, frankly, absurd. But Ducklo’s complaint was part of a much larger theme: Biden’s allies believe that journalists are failing to meet the moment; that they’re falling back on horse-race coverage and ignoring the knock of fascism at America’s door. — The Atlantic
Our Take: For those of you who watch us on the Rumble channel, you’ll know that I’ve been getting a kick out of dissecting establishment media features of late, and I’ve found Politico and The Atlantic to be absolute treasure troves of reverse indicators.
I often talk about a concept I call Narrative Convergence, which can be applied in a few different ways in the Info War.
Convergence can occur in a mirrored direction, which happens when patriots (Donald Trump and company,) seem to forward parallel messaging with the Truth Community, but it can also happen in an inverted manner, which is how I conceptualize media narratives that oddly run in parallel with our own, albeit from opposite framing.
Put another way, this Atlantic piece is fascinating because it converges with our theories that the Biden team is mismanaging its campaign and making a collective fool out of the POTATUS in the midst of the 2024 election cycle … but what’s truly fascinating is their framing as to WHY that’s happening.
To the media hyenas, the Biden Admin is increasingly seen as hostile … TO THEM, meaning the crabs in a bucket base nature of the establishment is already threatening the thin, eggshell veneer that lays over the whole diseased, corrupt temple that is the System of Systems.
Their co-dependence used to be a strength. It’s been reverse engineered into a prime weakness.
Now, we get to sit back and watch them eat each other. —
Netanyahu dissolves Israel-Hamas war cabinet following Benny Gantz departure
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved his six-member war cabinet on Monday following the departure of former general Benny Gantz, officials said.
“The cabinet was in the coalition agreement with Gantz at his request,” Netanyahu reminded his security cabinet on Sunday, according to The Jerusalem Post.
“As soon as Gantz left – there was no need for a cabinet anymore.”
With the cabinet now dissolved, Netanyahu will now depend on a small group of ministers to help guide the war.
The members include former war cabinet officials Yoav Gallant, the minister of defense, and Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs. — NY Post
And …
IDF knew of Hamas's plan to kidnap 250 before October 7 attack
A newly surfaced document has revealed that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and intelligence systems had detailed knowledge of Hamas's plan to raid Israel and kidnap 250 people weeks before the October 7 massacre.
The document, which was compiled in the Gaza Division, outlined Hamas's intentions and was known to top intelligence officials, according to a report by Kan News.
The document, titled "Detailed End-to-End Raid Training," was distributed on September 19, 2023, and described in detail the series of exercises conducted by Hamas's elite units.
These exercises included raiding military posts and kibbutzim (collective communities in Israel), kidnapping soldiers and civilians, and maintaining the hostages once they were in the Gaza Strip.
The report by Kan News stated, "Security sources told Kan News that the document was known to the intelligence leadership, at the very least in the Gaza Division." — The Jerusalem Post
Our Take: Back on September 26, on Badlands Daily, I shared a story about the imminent Saudi Peace Initiative with Israel, and how it would symbolize (and deliver) lasting peace in the Middle East. Because the deal was contingent on the creation of a Palestinian State, I warned
that many interested parties would like to see it fail, and may seek to subvert it in any way possible, pointing to Iran-- and the fact that a conflict between them and Israel was the likely plan to start WWIII—but also to the Deep State, who are warmongering psychopaths, as most of you know.I've long held a keen suspicion that President Trump and Netanyahu do not like one another. There is the body language, and a strange tension that is hard to describe—I don't claim to be an expert in such things, but I do have a nose for it. The way that they would snipe at one another, even in person, suggested a subtle lack of respect in both directions. Don't get me wrong: they were professional and diplomatic, everything that national leaders should be when they meet with important contemporaries. But they lacked the chemistry that is so much more evident in Trump's relationships with other world leaders, such as Bolsonaro, Orban, Abe, Farage—even Kim Jong Un had this goofy unspoken friendship with Trump that seemed pretty obvious when you watched them interact. It was clear they had previously spoken and connected.
There was even this moment that seemed straight out of The Office (television show), where Trump made a joke about the photographers making them look thin, and the camera pans across the room and zooms in on Un. It was hilarious, and very endearing.
Crown Prince MBS sounded giddy when he came to the White House and joined Trump in announcing an enhanced partnership with Saudi Arabia. MBS and Un are 3 and 4 years older than me, respectively. For our generation—children of the 1990's—meeting Donald Trump is an iconic milestone, presidency aside. (And those two grew up consuming American culture, with Un attending boarding school in Switzerland, where he became a big NBA fan.) So I can only imagine how meeting him in the context of foreign diplomacy would endear you to him, especially in rooms filled with scheming politicians.
But Netanyahu isn't like them. He is one of the Old Guard. So Trump always represented a threat to Netanyahu's status quo—whatever that may be—just as he represented a threat to every other status quo across the Old Guard universe. That's why there was always this subtle hostility in their exchanges—the same subtle hostility that you sense when Trump does PR events with other Old Guard cast members. There isn't this spirit of, ‘Thank God you are here to help us accomplish this,’ that you sense when Nigel Farage and Viktor Orban embrace Trump. (Who could forget Shinzo Abe being an absolute unit next to Trump at the G7 in 2018. What a stud. RIP)
And that feeling, for me, is why I also always felt that the Abraham Accords document was an offensive diplomatic weapon, of sorts, designed to catalyze the bad actors to accelerate their plans; Things that were planned long before Trump, and were always going to happen.
Consider that just two days before the [October 7th] Nova music festival began, it was relocated to a site in close proximity to the Gaza border, with no enhanced IDF security, and no quick response force on standby. When IDF finally did show up—seven hours later—their helicopters and tanks "accidentally" killed hundreds of Israeli citizens.
Those facts alone make this feel like a setup. But when you add the revelation that the IDF and Israeli intelligence knew an attack was imminent, that feeling becomes an unsettling certainty.
As incredible as this all seems, when you think about what happened on 9/11, and who in our government was likely involved, you realize that these elitist sociopaths just think this way. This is their ethos. We are nothing but fodder to them—all of us. And they use their labels to carve us up into tribes, so we never can organize a meaningful peaceful resistance.
That needs to change. —
BONUS ITEMS
Overhaul threat: NIH faces Republican call for reorganization
Congressional Republicans are calling for a reorganization of the National Institutes of Health that would strip its authority over "gain of function" research and freeze the experiments until new reforms are established.
Why it matters: The draft plan feeds a narrative dating from the pandemic that portrays the government's health agencies as having lost the public's trust and could offer a blueprint for a GOP administration and Congress.
It more immediately ratchets up pressure on NIH heading into what could be a difficult fiscal 2025 budget cycle after a long stretch of funding increases was already halted this year.
Driving the news: The plan from the House Energy and Commerce Committee would establish a new oversight process for certain risky pathogen research proposals and transfer power from NIH to a "public, independent oversight entity" to review, approve or reject and oversee the experiments. — Axios
NYT Documents: Putin Was Willing To Compromise To End War In 2022
In April 2022, Ukraine and Russia were on the brink of signing a deal to end the war just weeks after it began. The New York Times published documents showing President Vladimir Putin was willing to make concessions to get an agreement signed.
According to the documents, Putin initially sought to have Kiev recognize Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. However, a draft agreement from April 15, 2022, suggests both parties were prepared to set aside the issue to end the conflict. "Paragraph 1 of Article 2 and Articles 4, 5, and 11 of this Treaty shall not apply to Crimea and Sevastopol," the document says.
In December, Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Chalyi explained that an agreement was reached in the spring of 2022, stating the two sides "managed to find a very real compromise. We were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April, to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement."
Kiev was also willing to accept neutrality with regards to NATO, according to the NYT. Ukraine’s negotiation team proposed a peace deal that would say the country "does not join any military alliances" and "does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents."
The draft deal would have allowed Kiev to sign bilateral agreements with NATO states, as well as become a member of the European Union, but would have required Ukraine’s security partners to lift sanctions on Russia.
The Kremlin also sought to protect the rights of millions of Russian speakers living in Ukraine by forcing Kiev to repeal restrictions on the Russian language, and to bar the state from erecting monuments glorifying neo-Nazis and WWII-era Nazi collaborators. — AntiWar.com
S.Korean military fires warning shots after N.Korean soldiers cross demarcation line
South Korea's military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the Military Demarcation Line near the border on Tuesday, according to the country's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
Some 20 to 30 soldiers breached the line by 20 metres (65 feet) inside the demilitarised zone on Tuesday morning and briefly moved back north after warning shots were fired by the South, according to a JCS official.
The JCS does not think the breach was intentional, the Yonhap news agency reported.
North Korean soldiers also suffered multiple casualties while working due to the explosion of landmines in the demilitarised zone, the JCS official told the press.
North Korea's military has been conducting various activities along the frontline including deploying soldiers and planting landmines, the JCS official added.
Such activities appeared to be part of efforts to tighten border control and prevent North Koreans from defecting to the South, the official said. — Reuters
We hope you enjoyed this brief look back at the major news items you might have missed in this ever-escalating and ever-accelerating news cycle as the Information War continues to rage on around us.
As always, if you have any thoughts on these news items or the MANY others swirling in the digital ether, drop into the comments below to share them with your fellow Badlanders.
Badlands Media will always put out our content for free, but you can support us by becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter. Help our collective of citizen journalists take back the narrative from the MSM. We are the news now.
The baying of the DS Rat Bastard MSM continues to grate on me like fingernails on an old blackboard and so I find the rehashing of their total bullshit to be similarly grating. However, on a recent video on a Channel 17 (the NewsTreason Channel on Rumble) video Dave (the main host) made a very interesting comment that helps me deal with the annoying MSM. He stated that he realized that the MSM bullshit is needed so that when Normies (like most of us were) finally wake up they need to be able to listen to the MSM and then realize how absurd it is and that they have lied to (programmed) everyone forever.
I remain comfyAF.
Thanks for your hard work on a daily basis.
God Wins!
God Bless!!!
Regarding IDF’s former knowledge of the attack, Based Ghost of Patrick Henry’s comment about the Elites’ dividing us into tribes reminds me of the ‘Divergence’ movie trilogy. I find it fascinating that moviemakers managed to get a few bombshell messages out to the public regarding what the Deep State was doing before things kind of shut down after 2016.
And regarding JRB’s freeze up in public, ain’t it a bummer that those clones have such a short life expectancy before their batteries run down? Lol. They must be on their last one. Who didn’t put ‘New Clone’ on the shopping list?