Badlands News Brief
Kash Unleashed, Zelensky Abandoned & Trump Championed
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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 picks news items of interest from the previous days to give you an overview of the biggest goings-on relevant to the Truth Community.
Items feature original commentary from members of our growing team of citizen journalists, whose stated opinions are their own. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see their other work.
Now, onto the news from Wednesday, November 1 …
Judge hearing arguments over whether Trump violated 14th Amendment and is ineligible to be on Colorado’s 2024 presidential ballot
Trial began Monday in Denver District Court on whether former president Donald Trump can appear on Colorado's ballot for the 2024 presidential election.
A group of Republican and unaffiliated voters have teamed up with a liberal organization to argue that Trump is ineligible to hold office under the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause. His campaign counters that his role in the January 6 riot was limited to constitutionally-protected political speech.
The hearing is expected to last all week. The judge will issue her written ruling sometime afterwards, but neither side expects the suit to end here; instead it is likely to be appealed, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. — Colorado Public Radio
Our Take: “In an exciting turn of events Wednesday, petitioner attorney Eric Olson said my name — my full government name — in the middle of the trial. From the CPR piece:
‘3:13 p.m. Unauthorized recording delays hearing. The proceeding is halted briefly when plaintiff’s attorney Eric Olson said he’s been informed that someone has been recording the livestream of the court hearing without permission.
Judge Wallace asks, ‘And we know that they’re not part of the expanded media coverage?’
Olson said that’s correct. He said, ‘it’s a livestream from Ashley Epp. She’s a conservative activist in Colorado who has been very involved in efforts urging people to question — and reject — the results of the 2020 election.’
I don’t go by Ashley Epp. I am Ashe in America in all my writing and media, and Ashe Epp or Ash Epp in my personal and professional life. In fact, the only place I am referred to as Ashley Epp is in government records — and in the baseless NAACP et al lawsuit against me and my two co-defendants.
Fun fact, Jena Griswold is a witness for the plaintiffs in that case against me, and she’s also the respondent in the lawsuit to restrict President Trump from the ballot. Of all the coverage across the internet, the Badlands feed was targeted — only they didn’t mention Badlands. They mentioned me. By my government name, which at least one party to the case — the Secretary — knows. This feels personal, and it’s very intimidating. But enough about me.
The trial began 20 minutes late Wednesday, and the first witness spoke about the 14th Amendment. We were live on Badlands Daily at the time, covering the news of the day, so we caught up with the trial when Deputy Elections Director Hillary Rudy took the stand. Rudy testified to the processes and teams responsible for granting or denying ballot access and other procedures in the Department of Elections, her employer since 2006. This was an interesting dynamic because Rudy was questioned by Scott Gessler, lead attorney for President Trump and a former Colorado Secretary of State. Hillary Rudy used to work for Scott and their exchanges during cross-examination seemed … cold. Following Rudy’s testimony, Gessler motioned for a directed verdict, and they broke for lunch. When they returned, Judge Wallace denied the motion.
Then Team Trump called Kash Patel. This is must-watch.
Kash absolutely destroyed the petitioner’s case and, even better, the fiery and sometimes downright hostile exchange between Kash and the petitioners’ counsel made for a great stream. It was right after Kash’s testimony that, with 8,600 live viewers, Olson lied to the judge about the stream and then spelled my last name on the air. Out of an abundance of caution, we made the decision to stop the livestream, so we were unable to carry Katrina Pierson’s testimony before the court adjourned for the day.
Day four of the trial begins at 8am MT on Thursday. And Eric Olson owes me an apology.” —
Zelensky ‘Deludes’ Himself Into Thinking Ukraine Can Win War: Aide
One of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s closest aides has told Time Magazine that the Ukrainian leader has deluded himself into thinking Ukraine can win an ultimate victory against Russia after the failed counteroffensive and amid waning support for the conflict in the West.
The report said that despite the setbacks, Zelensky “does not intend to give up fighting or to sue for any kind of peace. On the contrary, his belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic.”
The aide said Zelensky “deludes himself,” adding, “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.” The report said that the idea of negotiating peace or a temporary truce with Russia remains taboo to Zelensky.
“For us it would mean leaving this wound open for future generations,” Zelensky told Time. “Maybe it will calm some people down inside our country, and outside, at least those who want to wrap things up at any price. But for me, that’s a problem, because we are left with this explosive force. We only delay its detonation.”
A senior Ukrainian military officer told the magazine that the armed forces has had to second guess orders that came from Kyiv’s political leadership, including an order to capture the Donetsk city of Horlivka. “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” the officer said. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?” — AntiWar.com
Our Take: “Overton's Goalpost is nearing its endgame when it comes to Establishment support for Ukraine, with Time Magazine the latest to turn on the Prussian Proxy, even going so far as to call Zelenskyy "deluded" in the meat of the article when it comes to his prospects of defeating Russia, and of garnering more substantial and lasting western support.
This turn, which started a few months ago, tells us a few things about the current persuasion of the Mind War:
1) The Media Industrial Complex and the Regime are not aligned, as the former turns on the Ukraine Narrative while the latter attempts to drum up further support and funding for it.
2) A bipartisan audience is being shown not only the mechanism behind proxy wars and proxy presidents, but who the puppet masters are, as the Globalists on both sides of the aisle bang the drums of war against Iran, and even Russia & China.
Preventing the Establishment from entering a new war is the only thing unifying the American Mind at present.” —
Donald Trump Deserves a Fair Trial
Donald Trump has always played to courts of public opinion. But now he faces judgment in courts of law, under very different rules. His critics and opponents celebrate this moment and the prosecutors responsible for it, believing that the criminal-justice system’s standards and procedures will emphatically limit Trump’s ability to lie, to demagogue, and, above all, to escape responsibility. Trump, it’s often said, enjoys no greater or lesser latitude than any other criminal defendant. One wonders if Trump himself truly understands what that entails.
But do Trump’s opponents truly understand it either?
The criminal-justice system is built from the ground up to protect defendants’ rights, even while seeking to punish them. The canonical account of our criminal-justice system, after all, is Blackstone’s: “For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” “The reason is,” John Adams added in 1770, “because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.” — The Atlantic
Our Take: “Wow.
The Atlantic, for those who don't remember, was the Liberal Rag that put out the infamous "Covid Amnesty" editorial in 2022.
They're a Mind-Mover within the Marxist-Communist-Globalist paradigm.
Now, a negative way to parse this headline is to suggest that the Atlantic board knows Trump's trial isn't going to be a fair one, but the fact that they're seeding it to an audience we consider unreachable is further circumstantial evidence that Trump's Trial isn't just going to happen DURING his campaign for the 2024 election, it's going to BE his campaign.
It's also going to set more Actual and Mass Psychological precedent than we can imagine.
And ALL eyes in the nation are going to be on it.
If you don't think this was planned at this point, you probably can't be helped.” —
German Defense Chief Says Public Must Get Used To Possibility Of 'War In Europe'
Starting last month, top Ukrainian officials began pushing an alarmist narrative that "world war 3 has already begun" - as the head Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Aleksey Danilov had claimed in early September. The words were spoken after it became clear that Ukraine's military was losing, and now Time magazine has confirmed the military doesn't have the manpower to fight off the Russians. Naturally, Kiev must find new ways to draw in more direct support of key European powers.
"If somebody thinks that World War III hasn’t started then it’s a huge mistake. It has already begun. It had been underway in a hybrid period for some time and has now entered an active phase," Danilov said before the Kiev Security Forum at the time (early Sept). More than a month later, some European leaders have begun to echo the same warning.
Significantly, this week Germany Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a media interview that German residents must start getting used to the idea of the specter of war in Europe.
"We have to get used to the idea that there may be a threat of war in Europe," he said in the national broadcast interview. "Germany must be able to defend itself. We must be prepared for war."
He was responding to questions related to Germany being slow to rearmament itself in the wake of the Russian war in Ukraine, and now with the prospect of the Gaza-Israel conflict spilling over into broader Mideast regional war. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “We’ve had a lot of lead-ups to potential ‘Scare Events’ percolating in the Collective Mind over the course of the last year and a half, kicking off with Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine, and while I do not think the Israel conflict fits the bill, it could certainly lead to the sort of Crisis Cascade that does.
At least, according to the observing audience, which, no matter how disconnected much of Normieville is to the sociopolitical landscape, is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain willful ignorance.
As I’ve said a lot these past two weeks, the only bipartisan point of agreement I’m consistently seeing reflected from Left, Right and Center of late is the sentiment that the US should abstain from direct involvement in yet another Middle Eastern war, no matter what NeoCons have to say about it … and while this bit of Narrative alarmism and escalation comes out of Europe, the story is much the same all over the western world as the hegemon comes into focus for the first time for many slow-blinking minds new to the cleansing fires of the awakening.” —
FBI Director Wray warns terror threat to Americans at 'whole other level' amid Hamas-Israel conflict
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday warned that the threat of a terror attack against Americans has been raised to a "whole other level" due to ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
"The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level," Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Hamas launched a deadly terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7, leading to a military response from the U.S. ally. The conflict has renewed concern in the U.S. that there could be similar terror attacks inspired by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including by domestic and homegrown terrorists. — FOX News
Our Take: “I’m partial to many of the Kayfabe/False Feud theories parsed, forwarded and analyzed by Badlands’ own
, and I find Wray to be an interesting and enigmatic ‘Deep State’ figure.That said, I tend to leave dissections as to which side various DOJ figures could be playing for others, and focus on the Net Effects of their Narrative Deployments.
Wray’s comments on Wednesday hit me in two ways:
They continue to ratchet tension within the US portion of the Collective Mind, continuing to draw more mass psychological attention to the gravitational pull of the Israel chaos.
To many in the Anon, Truth and Conspiracy community—not to mention a growing plurality of even politically-moderate Americans—Wray’s comments come with FBI backing, and, in the wake of recent events both at home and abroad, carry with them the shadow of a threat.
Whether or not that holds water, there is growing bipartisan distrust of US intel agencies and federal law enforcement apparatus due to the weaponization of said systems we’ve seen targeting Donald J. Trump.
I believe the Actuals are under control, but the Narrative is highly effective.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Turkey Is Preparing An Israeli War Crimes Case For The Hague's ICC
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is apparently trying to make good on his threats issued before a large pro-Palestinian rally last week saying that he would "present Israel before the world" as a "war criminal" state.
Turkish media is reporting Tuesday that officials are exploring ways to bring a war crimes case centered on Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC). This was announced as the death toll in Gaza soars past 8,500.
Erdogan had told a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Istanbul on Saturday, "Israel, we will also declare you as a war criminal to the world, we are preparing for it, and we will introduce Israel to the world as a war criminal," according to a state broadcaster. "Israel is committing war crimes" as an "occupier." He added: the "West owes you, but Türkiye does not owe you."
But the only problem with Turkey bringing a war crimes case is that the country is not a party to the Rome Statute, which is the international treaty that established the ICC.
Turkey's Daily Sabah explains:
Thus, it cannot directly apply to the court. However, it can notify the Prosecutor’s office at the ICC through government agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) about crimes against humanity. Under the Rome Statute’s Article 15, the Prosecutor may initiate investigations proprio motu (on one's own initiative) based on information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC. Therefore, Türkiye can issue notices about crimes committed by the Israeli government.
The publication also cited the following example, along with various statements of UN officials decrying Israel's seeming indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza:
ICC’s chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza over the weekend and issued a stark warning to Israel, suggesting that obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza could potentially be considered a criminal act. "Impeding relief supplies as provided by the Geneva Conventions may constitute a crime within the court’s jurisdiction," Khan stated. — ZeroHedge
Sam Bankman-Fried’s fourth day on the stand did not go well
Sam Bankman-Fried has stepped down from the stand, after four days of testimony in his criminal fraud trial.
“That concludes the presentation of evidence in this case,” Judge Lewis Kaplan announced just after noon ET on Tuesday as he sent the jury home from the Manhattan court. Closing arguments are set to begin at 9:30 am ET on Wednesday.
Tuesday’s testimony delivered some of the most potentially damning blows yet to his defense, which has hinged on Bankman-Fried’s narrative that he made honest mistakes as a startup founder.
Prosecutors say former billionaire Bankman-Fried used his crypto exchange, FTX, as his own personal piggy bank, using the money he took from customers to enrich himself and his family, buy luxury beachfront property in the Bahamas and funnel millions into US political campaigns.
Bankman-Fried, 31, testified Tuesday that he knew as early as 2020 that FTX customer funds were being held in a bank account controlled by FTX’s sister company, the hedge fund Alameda Research. He said he does not recall giving any directions to Alameda employees to safeguard those funds.
The government has countered that Bankman-Fried was well aware that he was misrepresenting key aspects of his business to investors, customers and lawmakers in Congress. He has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.
His decision to testify is seen as a Hail Mary from a defense that has struggled to poke holes in the testimony of several high-ranking executives from Bankman-Fried’s former inner circle. — CNN
Elon Musk: "Twitter Was Completely Controlled By The Far Left"
Appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast Tuesday, X owner Elon Musk laid out how Twitter was acting as an arm of the government before he took over, and was “completely controlled by the far-left.”
“The degree to which Twitter was simply an arm of the government was not well understood by the public,” Musk said, adding “And it was whatever, everything was like Pravda basically, a state publication, is the way to think of old Twitter. A state publication.”
“There was basically oppression of any views that, even I would say, be considered middle-of-the-road,” Musk continued, adding “certainly, anything on the right, and I’m not talking about far-right, I’m just talking mildly right.”
“Republicans were suppressed at 10 times the rate of Democrats. That’s because old Twitter was fundamentally controlled by the far-left. It was, like, completely controlled by the far-left,” Musk asserted. — Summit News
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.
The Badlands Media team will continue to combine our cognitive powers in order to slow things down and find the signal amidst the noise as this series expands.
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.
Ashe you are in our thoughts and prayers. Keep up the good fight. You are obviously over the target.
Thanks y'all.
God Wins!
God Bless!!!
RE: Musk and Twitter being controlled by the Far Left: It is important to note that Donald J Trump infuriated SO MANY people back in 2016 that he caused them to go apoplectic. Nothing in their narrative infuriated them more than his ability to communicate directly to the people through his Twitter feed. The media could not control what he said or what the public might here. He was saying it behind their back.
Seeing the cabal explode in 2020 into a multi-headed hydra of authoritarianism - - - well at least it showed them for what they were. And that sure as hell is not what America is supposed to be about.