Badlands News Brief

FBI Corruption, Kayfabe & Russia, Russia, Russia!

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 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.

Some items feature original commentary from members of our growing team of citizen journalists. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see their other work.

Now, onto the news from Wednesday, May 17 …

---

FBI Leadership Sabotaged Clinton Foundation Investigations: Durham Report

Remember the Clinton Foundation? Which, took millions in foreign donations when everyone thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 US election, only to see donations plummet by 90% after she lost?

Now we learn, thanks to the Durham report, that the FBI had three concurrent investigations into the Clinton Foundation, which were shut down during the 2016 election year by top brass.

As attorney and political commentator Techno Fog notes at The Reactionary (emphasis ours);

Durham’s scope included the FBI investigations “directed” at the Hillary Clinton campaign. It seems the purpose of that review was to assess and compare the favorable treatment received by Clinton to the targeting of Trump.

The first investigation involved an FBI tip from a CHS that a foreign government was sending a person “to contribute to Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign, as a way to gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency.” (Which country?!) An FBI field office sought a FISA against the foreign contributor and made that request to FBI headquarters, which ignored it for four months due to the fact that they were careful that Clinton was “involved.” According to one FBI Agent, “They were pretty ‘tippy-toeing’ around HRC because there was a chance she would be the next president.” The FISA was approved on the condition that the FBI give defensive briefings to Clinton.

The second Clinton investigation involved the same CHS, who in November 2015 reported to the FBI that another foreign government was looking to contribute to the Clinton campaign “in exchange for the protection of [that country’s] interests should Clinton become President.” That CHS would end up making a $2,700 donation to the Clinton campaign on behalf of a foreign insider, in violation of federal law which bans contributions by foreign nationals. The CHS told their handling FBI agent that “They [the campaign] were okay with it. […] yes they were fully aware from the start” of the contribution being made on behalf of the foreign interest. — ZeroHedge

Our Take: “When an institution is explicitly set up for a purpose, or is tasked with carrying out its mandate using a strict protocol, but the same institution violates these explicit guidelines for corrupt reasons, then that institution violates the very spirit for which it was created. Such a violation is so severe that it is justifiable to completely dissolve the offending institution, to include excluding any and all persons who were negligent or complicit therein until such time as each can be evaluated and a valid trust restoration process can be effected. 

The FBI is the institution in question. The institution was set up to do the following, according to the Mission page of the FBI website:

Our Mission To protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Our Priorities Protect the United States from terrorist attack

Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage

Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes

Combat public corruption at all levels

Protect civil rights

Combat transnational/national criminal organizations and enterprises

Combat major white-collar crime

Combat significant violent crime

Corruption is defined as ‘dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.’

Taking this all into account, the bad actors within FBI, who were and are in top positions (and therefore comprise the chief trustees of the people's mandates placed in its care), essentially committed the most grievous violations and crimes that could be committed—to violate the sacred trust placed in their hands via the Congress, on behalf of the people. 

It's like an ER doctor that decides to kill people instead of healing them. Or a babysitter that invites pedophiles into the house to violate the children for which they are charged with protecting. 

It's not just a mistake. It's not just a minor issue. It's the polar opposite of what they were supposed to be doing. It's one of the most malicious and insidious crimes. And as such, it stands as a high-crime insofar as breaches of trust and contract. 

This fact should not be ignored or marginalized. To do so is itself a failure on our part as freedom-aspiring people, acting as an invitation to other bad actors that "our house is weak, and ripe for the taking." — Justin Deschamps

---

Special counsel John Durham concludes FBI never should have launched full Trump-Russia probe

Special counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, according to a report compiled over three years by the Trump-administration appointee and released on Monday.

Durham’s 300-plus page report also states that the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” to launch the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia but used a different standard when weighing concerns about alleged election interference regarding Hillary Clinton’s campaign. — CNN

Our Take: “To recap, Overton's Goalpost =

• Assert Thing is false, suppress evidence to contrary

• Admit aspects of Thing are true, dismiss whole picture

• Admit Thing is mostly true, but that it doesn't matter

• Admit Thing is entirely true & damning, but that we already knew it, and that conspiracy theorists were right by accident

• Deploy Kinetic or Psychological Distraction Ops

We're seeing this dialectic deployed in full force re: the Durham Report.

Don't be upset about it. It means we're winning.” — Burning Bright

---

---

Remember When Trump and DeSantis Loved Each Other? Neither Do They.

Hard to imagine the Trump and DeSantis families getting together for a cookout. But the gap between the two men grows much wider when you look at personal behavior. Only one of them just lost a $5 million verdict from a jury that found he sexually abused a woman in a department store dressing room.

Trump has been trying to insinuate that DeSantis had some shady doings with high school girls in his far, far distant past. And running an ad reminding the world that his probable Republican opponent has a history of eating pudding with his fingers.

But what about the issues? Sorta hard to pin down since Trump is given to, um, free-associating on this stuff. But he certainly has been running to DeSantis’s left, accusing the Florida governor of wanting to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits.

When he was in Congress, DeSantis did vote for Republican proposals along that line. He’s on the no-changes-no-how bandwagon now. But let’s look at abortion — much easier to pin down. DeSantis, as governor, just signed a bill he supported that will bar abortions in Florida after six weeks. By which time many, many women — particularly the very young, very poor, very traumatized — have no idea they’re pregnant.

DeSantis has at least been consistent. A devout Catholic, he’s had the same position for his entire political career. Trump, on the other hand, um, adapts. — New York Times Op Ed

Our Take: “Is the Trump-DeSantis feud real?

Doesn't matter, for now.

Why?

As recent events have rendered clear, Donald Trump is the past, present and immediate future of the America First movement.

There will be other MAGA leaders. But, anyone attempting to get you OFF the Trump train and onto another is attempting to divide, not unify.

Con Inc. fell right into the same quicksand as the Media Industrial Complex.

Don't join them.” — Burning Bright

---

Hungary Outraged By Leaked Ukrainian Plans To Blow Up Vital Oil Pipeline

Ukraine Officially Joins NATO Cyber Defense Center, Inching Toward Full Membership

Ukraine Aid Funding Expected To Run Out By Mid-Summer

Head Of Ukraine's Supreme Court Arrested For "Large-Scale Corruption" 

Russia Mulls Severing Ties With Poland As US-Supplied HIMARS Deployed Near Kaliningrad

US Officials Confirm Russian Strike On Patriot System In Ukraine: CNN

Russia Seeks To Overwhelm Ukraine's Anti-Air Defenses, Both Sides Claim Gains In Bakhmut

…

Our Take: “Get the picture? These headlines are all from the past 24 hours.

• Ukraine launches counter-offensive in Bakhmut

• WAPO reports 'intercepted' comms that Ukraine planned to blow up Hungarian pipeline

• Russia targeting US-supplied missiles

• Ukraine Aid Funding Running Out as US Debt Ceiling Nears

• Head of Ukraine Supreme Court Arrested for ‘Large-Scale Corruption’

• Wagner Mercenary Group putting pressure on Russia to Counter-Strike ... which they are gearing up to do, with public backing

Essentially, what many of the more plugged-in and admittedly Russia-aligned citizen journalists believe is going on with the ongoing 'feud' between Prighozin's Wagner Group and the Russian Ministry of Defense is, by their standards, obvious Kayfabe, as Prighozin would be in a gulag if his continued (and highly publicized) tirades were not directly approved by the Kremlin.

Russia thrives on Maneuver Defense, which is essentially highly-advanced territorial counter-striking.

They're winding up.

The great irony to all of this is that an extremely aggressive and emphatic counter assault by Russia, which is highly likely, is also the best possible course for the future of the European continent when it comes to avoiding the potential for the sort of protracted 'New Forever War' the Western Military Industrial Complex is desperate to spin up in the wake of their 'loss' of the American Forever War in Afghanistan.

By crushing what's left of the Azov battalion in Bakhmut, Putin can end it.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know escalation in the Ukraine-Russia theater will NOT be good for the Globalist West, and will only accelerate the Great Awakening.” Burning Bright

---

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.