Badlands News Brief
Border Bill Dead on Arrival ... Just Like Bidemonics
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.
Some items feature original (and subjective) commentary. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see our writers’ corresponding Substack accounts and check out their other work.
Now, onto the news from Monday, February 5 …
Mike Lee: Senate GOP Needs ‘New Leadership Now,’ Border Bill ‘Disqualifying Betrayal’
Secrecy, lies, and broken promises by Senate Republican leadership – resulting in a historical pro-migration border surrender – are irredeemable, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said Sunday in calling Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to be replaced.
“Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it,” Lee posted to X, outlining a leadership playbook employed by McConnell time and time again for years.
“This is a disqualifying betrayal.”
McConnell gave the unfortunate task of serving as the face of Republican negotiations to Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). But as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made clear, McConnell called the shots for Republicans.
“I have never worked more closely with Leader McConnell on any piece of legislation as we did on this,” Schumer told reporters on Sunday.
Schumer’s revelation is surprising given the two have worked in lockstep often throughout their time leading their respective conferences, most recently on budget-busting spending bills and American taxpayer subsidization of Ukraine’s war efforts.
While not mentioning McConnell by name, Lee seemed to question McConnell’s loyalty, suggesting he was not working for his own Republican conference. — Breitbart
Our Take: “Any doubt that we are in an election year is erased by the situation at the border. Instant amnesty and 8,500 people a day — up to 3.1M MORE people each year — are features of the bipartisan Senate bill on the border. It also sends way more money overseas than it sounds south to fix the border.
The bill was negotiated by Schumer and McConnell for months, and its final state makes you wonder if McConnell was glitching the whole time. Many Republicans in the House are livid, with Speaker Johnson tweeting Sunday that the bill is DOA in the House. Eye-patch McCain loves the bill so much that he is out shilling it, further revealing his treasonous motivations to his constituents. The outrage on this is warranted, though Senate champions of the bill are downplaying the despicable details.
The bottom line is that US ‘Leadership’ is trading US security for additional money laundering and foreign interests. America Last. Again.
‘All enemies, foreign and domestic.’
Do those words still hold meaning? They do to me. America First.” —
Powell Tells ‘60 Minutes’ Fed Is Wary of Cutting Rates Too Soon
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Americans may have to wait beyond March for the central bank to cut interest rates as officials look for more economic data to confirm that inflation is headed down to 2%.
In an interview conducted Thursday with CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday evening, Powell sought to explain the central bank’s rationale for eventual reductions to a broad public audience.
The “danger of moving too soon is that the job’s not quite done, and that the really good readings we’ve had for the last six months somehow turn out not to be a true indicator of where inflation’s heading,” Powell said in the interview with CBS’s Scott Pelley, according to a transcript provided by the network.
“We don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “But the prudent thing to do is to, is to just give it some time and see that the data continue to confirm that inflation is moving down to 2% in a sustainable way.”
Powell said it isn’t likely that the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed panel that sets interest rates, “will reach that level of confidence” about inflation’s path by its March 19-20 gathering, echoing remarks he made at a press conference Wednesday. — Bloomberg
Our Take: “When I attempt to parse headlines in order to tell what's going on in the Info War ... I'm almost never trying to look at what's Actually happening, but more so on the Narrative war playing out in said headlines.
The convergence between patriot Narrative deployments and those of their targets seems to be increasing of late, with Trump in particular consistently front-running or outright provoking said deployments out of the enemy.
This past week, Trump executed something of a bluff charge at the FED, saying he expected them to cut rates heading into the meat of the election cycle in order to boost the chances that Biden wins under the guise of a faux rebound in the economy (that will then precede an epic collapse.)
Of course, the hypocrisy inherent in Trump's statement is that, when he was (public) President, he bent the FED over a barrel and pressured them to cut rates in order to juice the economic data under his watch.
All's fair in the War of Stories. What matters is intent.” —
"Society One Step Closer To Dystopia": Vision-Pro Early-Adopters Spotted In Wild
Apple's nearly $4,000 mixed-reality headset, Apple Vision Pro, hit store shelves on Friday, and early adopters have already been spotted in the wild.
Let's begin with Fox's The Simpsons, which has successfully predicted the future once again.
(CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO WATCH ON X)
In recent days, mixed reality enthusiasts strapped on Vision Pro and attempted to integrate the headset into their daily lives.
X has countless videos of early adopters driving vehicles.
[…]
Last year, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker was reminded of his show when he saw Apple's Vision Pro presentation, saying: "It's weird, it's really weird. One of my instincts when I saw that was like, 'Oh my God, that's so Black Mirror.'" — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Much like the communist warfare described by Yuri Bezmenov, which is incremental in its capacity to cause massive changes over numerous generations, we are similarly being subjected to conditioning that is leading us down a path towards rampant unchecked transhumanism. It is a path of influence set to collide with the end results of identity politics and queer theory.
The pattern connecting these different forms of conditioning is one of daily disembodiment. We are conditioned by identity politics to analyze ourselves according to race, gender, sex, disability: a form of mental gymnastics. We are conditioned by Queer theory to question and deconstruct every single cultural norm we represent, and to undermine any power that norms have by ‘living queer.’ We are conditioned by technology, gadget by gadget, upgrade by upgrade, away from the power and presence of the body towards avatars.
Some of the technological disembodiment can and should be distinguished from intentional engineering by groups like the WEF and the UN. Some of this disembodiment is the natural result of life since the industrial revolution. Human intelligence achieving such large scale and sophisticated ways of manipulating the material realm was bound to drive our awareness outward.
So what's the big deal? Isn't this all just natural human progress and critics are nothing more than geriatric luddites shaking their fists at all the ‘newfangled rigamarole?’
To see the transhumanist manipulation, one must observe across different domains of society to observe the collisions being planned.
Notice how gender ideology is begging children to see their bodies as nothing but obstacles to who they are? Their bodies are being reduced to simple machines. Puberty can simply be turned on and off. Don't want to be a girl? Chop off your body parts and replace them! Your body is an obstacle.
So what happens when the technological disembodiment catches up with the ideological disembodiment? Will our collective struggle move from confronting transgender people to confronting trans-meta people who identify only as their online avatars? Could it become bigoted not to name and address someone as their avatar, or even to refuse to engage with them using the metaverse?
And what of the neurological changes that will no doubt strike when entire generations are raised in VR and through augmented reality? Will they be chalked up as a new form of ‘neurodivergence’ challenging ‘bigoted norms?’
I could go on, as it's pretty fascinating for a sci-fi nerd like myself to contemplate the directions this might go. But let's keep it simple.
The solution to all of this is to raise generations of children who are skilled at cultivating embodiment and who seek the truth using the philosophy of empiricism. That is to say, your body is the ultimate truth seeking tool, not your mind floating in cyberspace. We forget this often as we equate truth seeking with rabbit-holes on the internet.
Dominate the physical domain, seek truth from life itself, from in person human relations, use as many of your senses as you can on your quest for truth. At the same time, allow the evolution of technology to act as an assistant, balancing its influence with a life of presence and appreciation for that which embodies us.” —
Saudi Arabia to manufacture parts of Lockheed missile defense system
U.S. weapons maker Lockheed Martin has signed agreements for Saudi Arabian companies to manufacture parts of its missile defense system, as the U.S. continues to conduct military operations in the Middle East against Iran-backed groups.
The sub-contracts for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system will enhance manufacturing capabilities in Saudi Arabia and transfer expertise to strengthen the country’s defence industry, Lockheed said in a statement on Monday.
The deal was announced on the sidelines of the World Defense Show in the capital Riyadh.
State-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) signed 11 agreements at the event, according to the country's state news agency.
The contracts come at a time of rising tension in the region.
The United States and Britain unleashed attacks against 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, a day after the U.S. military hit Tehran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a deadly attack on U.S. troops in Jordan. — Reuters
Our Take: “Looks like the Saudi/BRICS pump-fake was a negotiation tactic to help dismantle the military industrial complex.
Saudi will now begin manufacturing parts for Lockheed Martin's THAAD anti-ballistic missile defense system.
Also buried in the story is that Qatar will also be manufacturing parts.
This is a Devo proof, as it demonstrates that the Unipolar hegemony is dead.
If the Middle East can manufacture their own military equipment, then the Deep State no longer hold these weapon systems over the heads of foreign nations, like a carrot. (Biden took away the THAAD systems that Trump had deployed to Saudi in 2019.)” —
Another Take: “'The Switch' isn't just Domestic, but international.
The Sovereign Alliance is going to create a mesh of peace with the backstopping of kinetic power projection capabilities toward anyone that would threaten them ... but the strength of said mesh will be through free, fair and open trade agreements that will benefit the industries, power projection and populations of all states in the alliance.
I would call them 'member states,' but I think BRICS is just a precursor to a global framework built on anti-globalism, so eventually, the agreements will be tacit, organic and self-actualizing more so than leverage-based.
Contracts will be drafted on an as-needed basis, as the global economy and trade will function as a Macro layer sitting atop the smaller Macros of domestic production.
And all will be occurring without the energy vampires of the central banking globalist cabal taking their (un)fair share of our production.
The only way to win [their] game is to stop playing it.” —
Since Ohio Train Derailment, Accidents Have Gone Up, Not Down
After a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed a year ago in East Palestine, Ohio, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents and upending life in the town for months, the rail industry pledged to work to become safer, and members of Congress vowed to pass legislation to prevent similar disasters.
No bill was passed. And accidents went up.
Derailments rose at the top five freight railroads in 2023, according to regulatory reports for the first 10 months of the year, the most recent period for which data exists for all five companies.
And there was a steep increase in the mechanical problem — an overheated wheel bearing — that regulators think caused the derailment of the 1.75-mile-long train in East Palestine.
Norfolk Southern, the operator of the train and the owner of the track that runs through the town, was the only railroad among the five to report a decline in accidents in the period.
In response to the accident, members of Congress in March introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at making railroads safer. But crucial parts of the legislation — including a requirement that railroads use more detectors to identify overheated wheel bearings — have faced resistance from rail lobbyists, who contend that they would inhibit the ability of railroads to introduce new practices and technologies to reduce accidents. The bill has yet to be put up for a full vote in the Senate. — The New York Times
Our Take: “Over the weekend, East Palestine, OH observed the first anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment. The environmental catastrophe is still a catastrophe — the creeks are still polluted, residents are still displaced, and no meaningful change or oversight has occurred. Additionally, so-called ruler Biden still has not visited the site of the disaster, with state officials begging him to do so — still, a year later.
When this disaster happened, anyone questioning the frequency of train derailments was called a conspiracy theorist. ‘Trains derail everyday!’, we were told. Now, a year later, The NY Times is letting us know that train derailments are, in fact, increasing. It must be safe to talk about now.
Republicans are pushing a train safety bill that, if history is any guide, is sure to miss the root causes and create more problems than it solves. The railroads will get fined and shuffle paperwork around to make it appear as though they’ve taken preventative action. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will continue chestfeeding and brunching rather than improving US transportation infrastructure.
The people of East Palestine will remain on their own.
Remind me again why we pay these people and let them anywhere near the seats of power?” —
Trump floats ‘more than’ 60% tariffs on Chinese imports
Former President Donald Trump plans to escalate the U.S-China trade war he launched during his first term as president if he is elected to the office again in November.
The GOP frontrunner confirmed in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he is considering a plan to impose tariffs of 60% or higher on Chinese goods in his potential second term.
“We have to do it,” Trump said in an interview on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The Washington Post first reported the Trump campaign was weighing a theoretical 60% Chinese tariff plan.
On Sunday, the former president said he might even go higher: “Maybe it’s going to be more than that.”
Beyond China, the former president has said he would impose a blanket 10% tariff on all U.S. imports, despite broad criticism over how that could hurt consumers.
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s sole remaining presidential challenger, criticized that policy proposal for the impacts it would have on American pocketbooks. — CNBC
Our Take: “If you're looking for another in a long line of recent examples of Trump's ability to puppeteer the news cycle using Narrative Deployments alone, look no further than the fact that his statements/threats on continuing the trade war he sparked with China during his first (public) term sent American investments in Chinese markets cratering, and certainly did nothing to slow the crisis cascade afflicting Chinese stocks.
The thing is, while Trump's tariffs on China are deployed as if they're threats, when you reframe the 'trade war' under the Sovereign Alliance theory, which posits that sovereign leaders around the world (especially in the biggest markets) are attempting to guide the world into a new era of multi-polarity, such tariffs will and have kickstarted one overwhelming trend that will be to the benefit of both nations:
Boosting domestic production.
This is occurring in the US AND, yes, also in China, as the super powers retreat inward to preserve strength and independence.” —
BONUS ITEMS
France Caves To Farmers As Ireland 'Solidarity' Protests Kick Off
Two of France's main farming unions on Thursday agreed to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country after the government announced measures the deemed "tangible progress" in the ongoing revolt against EU 'climate-driven' initiatives designed to wean society off of evil, non-bug-based, carbon-emitting food while China, India, and the rest of the world laughs.
In addition to France, protests have been held in Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Germany and elsewhere. Last week, tensions came to a head in Brussels when farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament building, demanding that European leaders stop punishing them with more taxes and rising costs to finance the so-called 'green agenda.'
After French farmers stepped up protests earlier in the week, the government promised on Thursday to extend protections - including better controlling imports and giving farmers additional aid, Reuters reports.
"Everywhere in Europe the same question arises: how do we continue to produce more but better? How can we continue to tackle climate change? How can we avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?," said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, announcing the new measures.
In response, France's main farmers union, FNSEA, announced that it was time to lift the blockades and "go home." Arnaud Gaillot of the Young Farmers' union echoed the message, however both unions warned that other types of protests would continue, and they'd be back if the government doesn't make good on their promises.
Meanwhile in Ireland, farmers began protesting Thursday evening. — ZeroHedge
Zelensky confirms he’s considering dismissing Ukraine’s military chief
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly confirmed Sunday he is considering dismissing Ukraine’s top military official after more than a week of speculation, saying Kyiv needs a change of leadership.
When asked by an Italian news outlet RAI TV to confirm reports he might fire Ukrainian commander in chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Zelensky said the Ukrainian people want “a reset” and “a new beginning is necessary” after more than a year of a brutal stalemate with Russian forces in the eastern region of Ukraine.
“I have something serious in mind, which does not concern a single person but the direction of the country’s leadership,” Zelensky said, clarifying it was a “replacement of a series of state leaders, not just in a single sector like the military.”
For more than a week, Ukrainian and American media reports have detailed the rift between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, suggesting the president would dismiss the popular general and military leader of the armed forces and had already informed the general in a recent meeting of his imminent firing.
Some reports suggested the Ukrainian president asked Zaluzhny to resign, but the general refused. — The Hill
US Establishes New Stockpile In Australia To Prepare For War Over Taiwan
The US created a new stockpile of military equipment during drills in Australia last summer to prepare for a future war with China over Taiwan, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
The stockpile was left behind after the Talisman Sabre exercises, which ran from July 22 to August 4 and were billed as the largest-ever iteration of the drill, demonstrating US focus on preparing for a future conflict in the Asia Pacific.
The Reuters report said the equipment left behind includes 330 vehicles and trailers and 130 containers in a warehouse in Bandiana, a suburb of Wodonga, a city in southeastern Australia.
The supplies are enough to supply three logistics companies that would focus on getting equipment to US troops who are fighting a war elsewhere in the region. “We’re looking to do this more and more,” said Gen. Charles Flynn, the top Army commander in the Pacific. “There’s a number of other countries in the region where we already have agreements to do that.”
The US is working to establish stockpiles in the Philippines, Japan, and other countries in the region. Congress is also looking to establish a weapons stockpile in Taiwan itself, something that might not be publicized due to the risk of provoking China. — AntiWar.com
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 sooner people realize the climate has been changing constantly long before most of these lunatics were born. And if they really wanted to cut down on CO2 all they have to do is plant millions of trees. Instead these nuts lead by Bill Gates have been removing millions of trees. So if you believe even one word that comes from their lips I would suggest therapy.
Thanks for all your work to bring us your Takes this morning.
Here are my Takes:
1) Get Right With God.
2) Legislators at all levels should DO NOTHING. This would be a great 1st step. Nothing all these Rat Bastards attempt are things we actually need. If they want to take any action to help We the People start eliminating the bullshit legislation that is already "on the books".
God Wins!
God Bless!!!