Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Israel Strikes Again as The FED Pivots
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.
But before we get onto the Brief, we want to introduce you to a new Sponsor of the Badlands Substack: Kimchi One, a fermented product by our friends at Brightcore, who are offering the Badlands audience 25% off using the promo code: “Badlands.”
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Now, onto the news from Wednesday, September 18 …
Israel detonates Hezbollah walkie-talkies a day after pager attack
Israel on Wednesday blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon in a second wave of an intelligence operation that started on Tuesday with the explosions of pager devices, two sources with knowledge of the operation told Axios. More than a dozen people were killed and hundreds of others were wounded.
The big picture: The second wave of clandestine attacks is another serious security breach in Hezbollah's ranks and increases pressure on the militant Lebanese group.
Lebanon's health ministry said 14 people were killed and 450 wounded in the attacks on Wednesday.
The walkie-talkies were booby-trapped in advance by Israeli intelligence services and then delivered to Hezbollah as part of the militia's emergency communications system, which was supposed to be used during a war with Israel, the sources said.
The attack further damages Hezbollah's military command and control system.
Driving the news: On Tuesday, Israeli intelligence services blew up thousands of pager devices used by members of Hezbollah's military units and institutions.
At least nine people were killed, including a child, and more than 2,800 were wounded in the attack.
On Wednesday afternoon local time during the funerals of some of the Hezbollah members killed in the first attack, a second wave of explosions took place. — Axios
Our Take: So Israel detonates thousands of pagers on Tuesday, injuring thousands and killing several, including a few kids. They couldn't possibly have known who, exactly, was in the possession of those pagers at the exact moment of detonation; they were merely operating off of a presumption (perhaps based on intel) that a number of them would likely be in the hands of Hezbollah members.
Then, the next day, during the funerals of the victims—some of whom were Hezbollah, but also the children who were collateral damage—walkie talkies are detonated in a similar manner, injuring and killing more people, including more children.
Objectively speaking, how is what Israel is doing any different than what Ted Kaczynski ("The Unabomber") was doing between 1978 and 1995, when he mailed bombs to random people in an attempt to foment chaos and anarchy? (Only 3 people were killed and 23 injured over that 17 year period—a rather lackluster body count, compared to what Israel just achieved in a 24 hour period.)
Furthermore, considering the level of coordination that Israel has demonstrated here, it would be prudent to remind everybody that back on October 7th, 2023, it took the Israeli government SEVEN HOURS to mobilize a response to a violent invasion, despite the fact that their entire society (mandatory military service) is organized around the preparation of that exact scenario.
Simply put, the Israeli government/military has been preparing for that moment ever since its creation in 1948. Not only did it fail to meet that challenge, but we now have Israeli helicopter pilots and corroborating investigative reports that confirm that military personnel were ordered to fire upon Israeli citizens that day, killing hundreds of them.
and I actually covered the helicopter pilot's public testimony back in November, on Badlands Daily. At the time, CannCon—a marine who serve in Iraq—said that the devastation shown in the picture below (which shows the parking lot of the infamous Nova music festival that became the original target of the Hamas attack) was absolutely indicative of damage caused by hellfire missiles launched from helicopters, and could not possibly have been caused by Hamas infantry with rifles and RPG's.
With this totality of evidence, let's check in on the international response:
And here's what Israel is saying:
I understand there are reports of Israel rigging these devices with explosive materials, possibly linked to Taiwan or Hungary, and we will discuss that more, in detail, in the coming days. But this "shift in military strategy" to "all out war" aligns with what Ukrainian President Zelensky said a few days ago in a media interview, when he said that the NATO Nazi strategy is now to target Russian civilians, in order to undermine support for Putin's war effort.
What Zelensky is describing is terrorism, just like what Russian Foreign Minister spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said of the IDF.
A few days ago, I mused that we were witnessing the emergence of a "supervillain," referring to the Netanyahu regime, and that could easily be extended to NATO and Ukraine, but this is clear evidence that the world finds this conduct unacceptable, and won't stand by and allow civilians to be treated as military targets.
Not only is the Netanyahu regime descending into madness, but its behavior is bordering on suicidal. Anytime you are killing children, and indifferent toward it, then it is impossible for you to claim to be the benevolent actors. —
'Apolitical' Fed Slashes Rates By 50bps With Stocks & Home-Prices At Record Highs
Despite only 9 of 113 economists surveyed expecting a 50bps rate-cut, Powell and his pals did it. At the same time they slashed their 'DOTS' expectations for rates, despite not adjusting growth expectations, barely adjusting unemployment, and hoping for lower inflation.
And all this two months before the election... amazing!
[…]
Wow! The economy is so great, it needs an crisis-level rate cut 2 months before the election
Federal Open Market Committee votes 11 to 1 to lower benchmark rate by 50 basis points to target range of 4.75%-5.0%, the first rate cut in more than four years
Fed governor Miki Bowman dissented in favor of a smaller 25 bps cut. It's the first dissent by a governor since 2005.
Statement adds language to say the committee is “strongly committed to supporting maximum employment” in addition to returning inflation to its 2% goal
Statement says that “in considering additional adjustments” to rates, officials will assess incoming data, evolving outlook and balance of risks
Fed tweaks language to note job gains “have slowed;” says inflation “has made further progress toward the committee’s 2% objective but remains somewhat elevated” — ZeroHedge
Our Take: As if on Q, the FED does exactly what Trump wanted them to do, even though his public messaging implies the opposite.
If you're not thinking in Game Theory terms, you're missing it.
The Federal Reserve was guaranteed to begin "easing" its economic policy today. In fact, 100% of polled economists predicted it. That said, only 8% believed Jerome Powell would cave to the current regime's bully pulpit power and cut as dramatically as they did.
What is Trump's overarching message heading into the November election?
That the entire machine is against him. The Deep State, from the Media and Entertainment Industrial Complexes to the Intel Agencies with repeated attempts on his life, and now even the entirety of the Central Banking apparatus.
Now, Powell hands a seeming win to the Admin before 11/5, and I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to backfire on both Actual and Narrative levels with force and speed.
Exposure > Disclosure > Awakening.
Not SOME of the System. The whole thing. —
Lemon: Black Male Support for Trump Is ‘Aspirational’ — ‘They Want to Be Like Him’
Former CNN host Don Lemon said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that some black men are supporting former President Donald Trump because they want to be like him.
Host Joy Reid said, “You did recently speak with a lot of black men supporting Trump. I have to ask you about it. Here it is.”
Lemon said, “I have been talking to a lot of black men who say they’re supporting Donald Trump. Who are you voting for?”
After several black men answered Trump, an unidentified man said, “I think the reason why the money he gave away last time he was in office is what they’re looking for again.”
Reid asked, “What do you make of that? What do you make of black men, as disdainful as Trump is to black people?”
Lemon said, “I think you’ll agree as a journalist, as an American, you should have some knowledge before you say you’re going to vote for them before you go into the polling place. A lot of them said I liked him because he gave me the stimulus check. I am like, that did not come from Donald Trump. His name was on it. It came from a Democratic Congress and Nancy Pelosi. I do think that some of it is bravado. I also think that it is aspirational. Donald Trump, devil may care, is flying around in airplanes, on gold toilets, beautiful women and all those things. I think maybe men who don’t have an agency that white men have in society, maybe it is aspirational to them, and they want to be like him, and therefore they say they will vote for him.” — Breitbart
Our Take: Who had Don Lemon going full blown racist against black men on their 2024 bingo card?
‘I think maybe men who don’t have an agency that white men have in society, maybe it is aspirational to them, and they want to be like him.’
This guy. Lemon claims that black men who are voting for Trump don’t have agency. That is a stunning thing for any man, let alone a black man, to say about an entire racially-defined voting block.
The more desperate they get, the more their true colors come out. I hope we get black American reaction videos to Lemon’s comments. Regardless, Lemon’s racism should expand Trump’s support even further among the demographic, who do, in fact, have agency and should decide to vote in their own self interest in 2024.
All of us, together, are going to make America great again… while Lemon and Reid cry it out in front of the tens of Americans that comprise their ever-dwindling audience.
Accelerate. —
Does America Want Ukraine to Defeat Russia? It Doesn’t Look That Way.
Once again, Ukrainian wartime leaders are preoccupied with a looming choice across the ocean in Washington that will shape their fate as much as anything that happens on the front lines.
In my conversations with them here in recent days, they expressed a mix of concern, exhaustion and determination. The spring and summer fighting seasons brought successes — a stunning incursion into Russia and technological advances in drone and robotic warfare that blunted their enemy’s advantages in manpower and weapons. But the human cost for Ukraine is huge — pictures of those killed in action hang across Kyiv. Russia is stepping up bombing attacks, including on this capital and energy infrastructure, with worries growing that this winter may be the hardest ever.
All that puts a great weight of expectations on Washington. In the coming weeks, President Joe Biden must decide whether to allow the Ukrainian military to use the U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deeper in Russia. This is just the latest in a series of decisions about the extent of American support for Ukraine. But it is also potentially a pivot in America’s approach to this conflict.
The Ukrainians are asking the American president to expand the target list to include sites beyond the immediate border area in Russia that America has allowed them to strike. It is a fair ask. Russians are waging war on Ukraine from their territory, sending bombers and missiles, and Kyiv wants to use the weapons it has to defend itself.
Is it an escalation? No more so than when Ukraine asked for advanced American Abrams tanks, F-16s or the surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) from the U.S. It’s more about giving the Ukrainians the ability to wage war as well as they can with the weapons they have. As the Russian leader has done every time the U.S. was considering these requests, Vladimir Putin made threatening noises, warning last week that Ukrainian ATACM strikes on Russia “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.” Every other time, nothing changed when Biden, almost always after protracted stewing, signed off on one or another allegedly escalatory step. — Politico
Our Take: I think it is safe to say that we are dealing with people who are ostensibly suicidal—psychotic, even—in their desire to fight Russia to the bitter end.
At the very least, they are beyond delusional, to the point where they have completely lost touch with reality.
Just listen to the bizarre diatribe given by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the Yalta European Strategy Conference this week—where globalists gathered to indulge their collective hatred of Putin—who said that if the United States withdraws its military from Europe, he could see Ukraine being the future defenders of the continent, given the heroism they have shown on the battlefield. He said that "only Ukraine" has demonstrated that it is capable of defeating the Russians.
This guy is an abject retard. What a dangerous imbecile.
I think Jeffery Sachs gives a pretty solid response to that statement, in an interview yesterday with Judge Andrew Napolitano:
Sachs brings up a good point: That is Mike Pompeo sitting next to Boris Johnson. I do hope Pompeo ends up on the right side of things, but he does keep some strange company.
What remains clear is that is that these "leaders" are fully prepared to sacrifice all our lives in World War 3, in order to see this battle with Putin to its bloody end. I certainly expect some real nuclear scare events to begin materializing soon. —
Coffee could be more than a morning pick-me-up, according to new research
A morning cup of coffee may do more than just perk you up, according to new research.
Moderate amounts of caffeine intake — defined as about three cups of coffee or tea a day — were associated with a lower risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Chaofu Ke, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Soochow University in Suzhou, China.
Cardiometabolic multimorbidity, or CM, is the coexistence of at least two cardiometabolic diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
“Coffee and caffeine consumption may play an important protective role in almost all phases of CM development,” Ke said.
Researchers analyzed data from about 180,000 people in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource that follows people long-term. Those involved did not have cardiometabolic diseases at the outset. — CNN
Our Take: Wine is bad, wine is good. Eggs are bad, eggs are good. Coffee is bad, coffee is good.
Trust the science and the experts.
I love this new study because I love coffee, and I drink more of it than any other beverage. For example, I had seven cappuccinos yesterday but, in my defense, they’re tiny little shot glasses that, when combined, don’t even comprise one Starbucks ‘Venti’ by volume. Still, it’s seven shots of espresso, so that must mean my heart is in solid shape now, right? That’s how I’m taking it. This is not medical advice.
Of course, the science and the media are hedging and telling people not to trust this very appealing story, because they hate joy and delicious caffeinated beverages.
You really don’t hate them enough. —
BONUS ITEMS
Cops shoot down bogus report of explosives found near Trump’s Long Island rally site
Police said Wednesday there was “no validity” to reports that explosives had been found near the site of former President Donald Trump’s Long Island rally.
A Nassau County Police spokesman denied the claims circulating on social media — just hours before Trump’s campaign event was set to take place at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale.
The unconfirmed reports earlier had wrongly claimed that an explosive device was discovered in a vehicle during security checks at the rally site, cops said.
“Reports of explosives being found at the site are unfounded,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Police said they were questioning a person “who may have been training a bomb detection dog near the site. — NY Post
Cuomo Red-Pilled: Former CNN Anchor Tells Trump He's Ashamed Of The Media
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has spoken out about how ashamed he feels at the media for pushing the narrative that Donald Trump only has himself to blame for deranged lunatics trying to assassinate him.
Cuomo, now with News Nation, stated that he called Trump personally after the second assassination attempt to say he’s “really sorry that this is going on and it’s being dealt with this way.”
“I called him today because I am ashamed of how we are responding and not responding to the threats on him,” Cuomo said.
He continued, “And I feel for his family, and I know you can roll your eyes and say, ‘Oh yeah, he asked for it.’ Listen, that’s your choice, and I think it’s a wrong choice. Okay? We got to get out of the judgment business, unless it’s judging ourselves, and you’ve got to start rewarding things that are better.”
“And I got to tell you, I don’t know how he stays in the race,” Cuomo further noted, adding “I don’t know how he got up after being shot in the head. And you people who try to mitigate that, you need to check yourself. He gets up, pumping his fist, stays in the race, barely even talks about it.”
While qualifying that he is not a Trump supporter, Cuomo urged “I am worried about us. I am ashamed of what’s happening around us right now, and the relative lack of concern about it. I just don’t see how we get anywhere better than where we are right now.” — Modernity News
More than 100 GOP national security figures endorse Harris
More than 100 Republican former national security figures, as well as members of Congress, endorsed Vice President Harris on Wednesday, citing former President Trump’s “demonstrated chaotic and unethical behavior.”
The letter lists a litany of rationales for endorsing Harris and criticizes Trump, saying “she possesses the essential qualities to serve as President and Donald Trump does not.”
“Donald Trump’s susceptibility to flattery and manipulation by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, unusual affinity for other authoritarian leaders, contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior, and chaotic national security decision-making are dangerous qualities,” the letter states.
“He is unfit to serve again as President, or indeed in any office of public trust.”
Signatories included former Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine), who served as Defense secretary under former President Clinton; former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who served under former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush; former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who served under Bush; former FBI and CIA Director William Webster, who served under former Presidents Reagan and George. H. W. Bush; and former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who served under President George W. Bush.
Ex-GOP lawmakers signing the letter included former Reps. Charles Boustany (La.), Barbara Comstock (Va.), Mickey Edwards (Okla.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Christopher Shays (Conn.).
The group endorses Harris as she has “consistently championed the rule of law, democracy, and our constitutional principles,” agreed to sign a bipartisan border security bill, and has expressed support for U.S. allies while condemning adversaries, the letter reads. — The Hill
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.
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The security state floats to the top, like sewage.
It just keeps accelerating and can make your head spin.
Ashe I am glad you pointed out the coffee story. As I look back over my life I see a continuous stream of "scientific study" lies that keep contradicting themselves every time a new pile of money shows up by some benefactor. To steal a line from Tommy Boy "Whores, shaking their little asses":-)
Y'all keep up the great work.
God Wins!
God Bless!!!