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 Thursday, December 28 …
Colorado Secretary of State says Trump is BACK on the ballot unless the Supreme Court rules he should be disqualified
Donald Trump is back on the presidential ballot in Colorado after an appeal put a stay on the ruling that removed him under an 'insurrection' clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The Colorado Republican Party filed on Wednesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the lower court's ruling that disqualified Trump from running on the presidential ballot in the state due to his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that Trump will for the time being remain on the ballot, which goes to print on January 5 – unless the Supreme Court affirms the lower court's ruling or otherwise declines to take on the appeal.
The 4-3 ruling earlier this month said Trump would not appear on the state's primary ballot, according to a 155-year-old 14th Amendment clause that bans those from office who 'engaged in insurrection.'
Although Colorado's 10 Electoral College votes are unlikely to go to the Republican candidate anyway in the general election – and the state isn't highly important in the GOP primary – the ruling could set precedent for a slew of other states looking to remove Trump from the ballot. — The Daily Mail
And …
Maine bars Trump from ballot as US Supreme Court weighs states’ authority to block former president
Maine’s Democratic secretary of state on Thursday removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause, becoming the first election official to take action unilaterally as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether Trump remains eligible to return to the White House.
The decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows follows a ruling earlier this month by the Colorado Supreme Court that booted Trump from the ballot there under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That decision has been stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether Trump is barred by the Civil War-era provision, which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows’ decision to Maine’s state courts, and Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. In the end, it is likely that the nation’s highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot in Maine and in the other states.
Bellows found that Trump could no longer run for his prior job because his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol violated Section 3, which bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.” Bellows made the ruling after some state residents, including a bipartisan group of former lawmakers, challenged Trump’s position on the ballot. — AP News
Our Take: “What theater!
As we reported here on The Brief on November 21, November 29, and December 6, the deadline to finalize the 2024 primary ballot according to the statute is today, December 29th. The deadline to print the ballots is January 5th, and the Colorado Supreme Court stayed their ruling until January 4th.
‘…we conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him. See § 1-7-114(2), C.R.S. (2023)… But we stay our ruling until January 4, 2024 (the day before the Secretary’s deadline to certify the content of the presidential primary ballot).
If review is sought in the Supreme Court before the stay expires, it shall remain in place, and the Secretary will continue to be required to include President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot until the receipt of any order or mandate from the Supreme Court.
The Colorado GOP has already appealed the case to the Supreme Court, and President Trump is expected to appeal as well. Should Secretary Jena Griswold finalize a ballot that didn’t include Donald J. Trump, under the current circumstances, she would be violating a court order.
So this isn’t really news … but there is some news in the 14th Amendment domain.
Late breaking Thursday — on the same day that Colorado’s Secretary of State puts President Trump on the ballot despite a favorable court ruling — Maine’s Secretary of State unilaterally decided to remove him with no court ruling. 45 can appeal to Maine’s Superior Court within five days.
I see this action in Maine as a great development because it places additional pressure on SCOTUS to deal with the question of insurrection. And it’s all about the question of insurrection.” — Ashe in America
Another Take: “A lot of the takes on the Trump-Maine situation are bang on, but this succinct one might hit the nail on the head when it comes to the core takeaway for the reachable middle of the American mind we haven't quite tapped, and that the patriot side of the Info War is designed to.
The continued Witch Hunt on Trump and the MAGA movement has now infected all theaters of power projection, from the political and narrative (media,) to the cultural (academia and entertainment,) and even legal, but the simplest questions are often the most effective when it comes to seeding the Collective Mind.
MAGA already believes the elections are rigged. The Normie Layers of the Collective Mind by and large do not, even if that's a shrinking portion.
So, if and when the Deep State fails to successfully remove Trump's name from ballots nationwide, how are these Normie Layers supposed to sink back below the serene waters of ignorance to pretend the 2024 election is 'fair and secure?'
The masks are off.” — Burning Bright
American Spies Confront a New, Formidable China
Beijing’s spycatchers all but blinded the U.S. in China a decade ago when they systematically rounded up a network of Chinese agents working for the CIA. As many as two dozen assets providing information to the U.S. were executed or imprisoned, among them high-ranking Chinese officials.
The CIA is still struggling to rebuild its human espionage capabilities in China, the agency’s top intelligence target, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials. The gaps leave the U.S. with limited understanding of secret deliberations among Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his inner circle on key security issues such as Taiwan and other topics, the officials said.
“We have no real insight into leadership plans and intentions in China at all,” said a former senior intelligence official who until recently read classified reporting.
Strengthening the human spy network targeted on China is one goal of a titanic, but mostly secret, shift at the CIA and its sister U.S. spy agencies. It comes amid a larger transformation in U.S. security policy away from fighting insurgencies around the world and toward preparing for a possible “great power” conflict with China and Russia.
After two decades of hunting terrorists, the $100 billion-a-year U.S. intelligence community is retraining personnel, redirecting billions in budgets and retooling expensive spy machinery to focus on those potential adversaries. — The Wall Street Journal
Our Take: “If you've been following the Power Hour (or if you took the Q drops seriously,) the concept of the Sovereign Alliance isn't new to you.
In essence, the theory posits that Trump was instrumental in the formation of an international alliance of anti-Cabal leaders prior to implementing Devolution, with the main players being Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Mohammed bin Salman.
What ties these figures together is their shared pledges to root out corruption within their governments, returning their lands to sovereignty.
A recent report by WSJ is a massive Actual to map onto this theory, as it blows the whistle on China's anti-corruption purge by attempting to paint the CIA as the biggest losers of the whole deal, lamenting the fact that their intel gathering (ie: spying) efforts on China went dark during the advent of said campaign ... the same one that ensnared Hunter Biden's business partners.
Notably, the CIA has, "no real insight into (China's) leadership plans."
Many. Such. Cases.” — Burning Bright
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Refuses to Testify Under Oath About Secretary of State’s Dominion Voting Machines
As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier this year – the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia unsealed the 96-page Halderman Report in June 2023- the Security Analysis of Georgia’s ImageCast X Ballot Marking Devices.
University of Michigan Professor of Computer Science and Engineering J. Halderman and Security Researcher and Assistant Professor at Auburn University Drew Sringall collaborated on the report where they discovered many exploitable vulnerabilities in the Dominion Voting Systems’ ImageCast X system.
Far-left Georgia Judge Amy Totenberg sealed and covered up the results of the investigation on Dominion voting machines in Georgia and sat on the report for two years until its release last summer.
[…]
Now, Secretary Raffensperger refuses to testify before the court in January regarding the state’s voting machines. — The Gateway Pundit
Our Take: “When Professor J. Alex Haldeman’s report was (finally) unsealed, Brian Lupo and I went through it line by line with voting systems expert Clay Parikh.
The report’s findings are an astonishing rebuke of the ‘safest and most secure election in history’ narrative. That is, a well-respected, Democrat, cyber expert proved that Chris Krebs, a lawyer with an undergrad in environmental science, was wrong about the security of the 2020 presidential election. Krebs’ dangerous lie has been propagated arrogantly for three years by institutional talking heads with, like Krebs, big mouths and impressive talking point discipline — but no credible expertise on which to make such assertions.
But it’s actually worse than all that, than Georgia (and all states) covering up known vulnerabilities in the critical infrastructure that secures our votes. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger is fighting to keep those vulnerabilities in place.
According to Halderman:
‘Astonishingly, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has been aware of our findings for two years, just announced that the state will not get around to installing Dominion’s security patches until after the 2024 Presidential election.’
It’s true. From Raffensberger’s office:
‘Also, in reviewing the processes it will require an update of the nearly 45,000 pieces of voting equipment, along with the subsequent acceptance testing. This process will take tens of thousands of manhours. Therefore, the statewide move to 5.17 will occur following the 2024 election cycle.’
This is an astonishing admission. Raffensberger is effectively saying, ‘We know the machines are vulnerable, but it would be really time consuming to make them less vulnerable so, in the interest of remaining comfortable, we’re gonna just keep things the way they are. If you have a problem with that, you’re a conspiracy theorist and likely a dangerous extremist.’
Also, it gets worse.
Raffensberger is now refusing to testify in the Curling case, which has taken years to reach trial. Nothing says ‘trust our election system’ like a nontechnical politician unilaterally deciding to keep vulnerabilities in place — and then refusing to testify about it.
As a reminder, Curling v. Raffensberger is a Democrat-initiated case, brought in the wake of President Trump’s 2016 victory. This case proceeding to trial in early 2024 will shine a massive spotlight on the wanting election system that American elected officials and bureaucrats gaslight as ‘the gold standard’ and the ‘safest and most secure’ system in the history of earth.
It’s anything but, and it’s unclear how Curling can be tried without addressing the machines. It’s all about the machines. And it’s coming into focus in a presidential election year.
What a time to be alive.” — Ashe in America
Russia Warns Japan Against "Hostile Actions" Of Exporting Patriot Missiles For Ukraine
Russia and Japan historically were enemies but in recent decades moved to being 'frenemies' given improved relations but also the ongoing simmering standoff regarding ownership of the Kuril chain of islands just north of Japan. The last two years have seen relations get tense once again due to Russia's Ukraine operations, and Tokyo's growing defense cooperation with the United States, which has evoked Beijing's wrath as well.
This is especially so in light of last week's announcement by the Japanese government saying it is preparing to ship Patriot anti-air missile defense systems to assist Ukraine. It's a plan the Biden administration has sought and considers a major diplomatic 'victory'.
Japan just announced a significant change to its arms export rules in order to make this happen, something the White House has welcomed at a moment Kiev is running low on ammo and advanced arms. It's also another big move signaling that Japan is abandoning its historic post-WWII neutrality and pacifism.
[…]
Predictably, Moscow has blasted the move and warned Tokyo it faces "grave consequences". Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a Wednesday briefing, "The Japanese side loses control over the weapons with which Washington can now do whatever it wants." She added: "It cannot be ruled out that under an already tested scheme Patriot missiles will end up in Ukraine."
She explained that such a scenario will be "interpreted as unambigously hostile actions against Russia and will lead to grave consequences for Japan in the context of bilateral relations." — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “It seems everyone is 'warning' everyone these days, and I think that's a feature of the Awakening rather than a bug.
While Cold War tensions obviously featured world superpowers, the Collective Mind is currently watching an international game board reset in the (seeming) absence of Donald Trump and under the guiding hand of Joe Biden.
This shifting is seeing the following Macros develop on the global scene:
Tensions from the Israel-Gaza Crisis are now spilling over into the wider Middle East, with nations traversing the Suez Canal currently embroiled in a tense kinetic standoff with Houthi rebels whose escalation could result in a global economic Crisis Cascade.
Tensions between China and the West, and Russia and the West are continuing to escalate, with the former still eyeing 'reunification' with Taiwan as the latter warns Globalist satellite states from intervening in the flagging Ukraine theater.
All the while, the Normie Layers of the Mind War search for a Peacemaker.” — Burning Bright
Democratic mayors renew pleas for federal help and coordination with Texas over migrant crisis
The mayors of Chicago, New York City and Denver renewed pleas Wednesday for more federal help and coordination with Texas over the growing number of asylum-seekers arriving in their cities by bus and plane.
The mayors’ requests come as U.S. cities have struggled to manage the increasing number of migrants sent from Texas and other states. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing operation has transported more than 80,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities since last year. His administration recently stepped up the practice with chartered planes.
The mayors sharply criticized Abbott and the effort, saying buses arrive at all hours and outside designated drop-off zones with no details on who is aboard.
“We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a virtual news conference with the other mayors. “This not only prevents us from providing assistance in an orderly way, it puts those who have already suffered in so much in danger.” — AP News
Our Take: “‘For many months, we were able to keep the visualization of this crisis from hitting our streets, but we have reached a breaking point.’
First of all, that statement is fundamentally untrue for all these cities. The migrants have been on the streets since the Afghan withdrawal, and these Mayors have encouraged them to keep coming. Second, the ‘visualization of this crisis’?! Said another way, ‘we’re losing the optics of the Great Migration.’
All of these cities are sanctuary cities. The designation of ‘sanctuary cities’ originally appeared to be a political rebuke of border communities sounding the alarm about the unsustainable situation at the border. Border communities, to their credit, forced liberal cities to put their money where their rhetoric was by sending migrants to the sanctuaries. The cities pretended for a while, but now they’re unable to ‘keep the visualization of this crisis from hitting our streets.’
The question is not how to absorb more migrants or to which city to move them next. The problem will only worsen until we deal with the border and deport non-asylum seekers.
I’m not holding my breath. As they said in the press conference, the real issue is the visualization of the crisis, the optics of it — not the crisis itself. Every one of these mayors (and elected officials broadly) would waste no time removing unwanted persons from their property. But they’ll clutch pearls and screech ‘compassion’ if you want to remove them from yours.” — Ashe in America
Argentina's President Javier Milei Signs Decree Slashing 5,000 Government Jobs
Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, has revealed plans to lay off an estimated 5,000 state employees hired this year before he took office, as part of wider efforts to slash government spending amid the backdrop of the country's troubled economy.
Mr. Milei, an economist, signed a decree on Dec. 26 stating that his government won’t renew contracts for the thousands of government workers hired since Jan. 1, according to reports.
However, the decree, which was published in the Official Gazette, includes exceptions, such as in cases in which workers were hired as part of "quotas regulated by law or other types of special protections," including those with disabilities and personnel who are considered "indispensable," according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.
The decree also noted that other government contracts made before 2023 will also undergo an "exhaustive review" in the next 90 days, according to the publication.
Overall, Mr. Milei's government estimates that more than 5,000 workers will lose their jobs, although the Association of State Workers (ATE), a workers union, anticipates some 7,000 employees could be affected. — The Epoch Times
Our Take: “There's a LOT of noise in the Info War ether regarding new Argentina President Javier Milei, with alternating claims that he's a sovereign savior of an ailing economy to a WEFian puppet installed specifically to rug-pull the sovereign movement on the world stage.
When you dig through the noise in an attempt to locate signal, however, I believe that, so far, Milei's Net Effects remain positive.
Milei vowed to cut government spending and jobs and reduce the size of the government itself upon taking office; he is already making good on that promise to the tune of 5,000 positions, a decidedly anti-globalist, anti-communist move.
Milei has publicly signaled that the central banking sector will be targeted by his admin, and that it represents an existential threat to prosperity.
Milei is directly referencing the concept of 'accelerationism,' by claiming that 'gradualist programs' always end in failure.
He's ripping off the economic band aid ... let's keep an eye on the bleeding.” — Burning Bright
BONUS ITEMS
Federal Judge Rejects Press Freedom Claims By Project Veritas In Ashley Biden Diary Case
A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that investigative journalism outfit Project Veritas should have to turn over documents detailing how the organization came into possession of the alleged diary of President Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley Biden.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of a special master's recommendation that Project Veritas should be made to turn over all documents in its possession that detail how it came into possession of the diary in the fall of 2020. Judge Torres ruled against claims by Project Veritas that it has journalistic non-disclosure privileges under the First Amendment and thus should not be made to turn over its records.
With Judge Torres's ruling, federal prosecutors could soon take possession of more than 900 documents detailing how Project Veritas came into possession of the diary. Judge Torres ordered a government evidentiary filter team to sort out any documents not protected under attorney-client privilege and turn those documents over to government investigators by Jan. 5.
The legal battle over Ms. Biden's alleged diary began in the fall of 2021, when federal agents carried out search warrants at the homes of several Project Veritas employees, including the group's founder and then-CEO James O'Keefe. Project Veritas has asserted that federal investigators should be compelled to return records seized from the organization, arguing that the records seizure violated their First Amendment rights as a press organization. — The Epoch Times
Beer sales plunge to lowest levels in 24 years — thanks to Bud Light’s disastrous Dylan Mulvaney campaign
Beer sales in the US are expected to plunge to their lowest level since 1999 — largely due to Bud Light’s massive falloff after its disastrous tie-up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, industry experts said.
Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights.
Bud Light sales have steadily declined each month by 25% to 30% since Mulvaney’s now-infamous posts touting the brand on April 1, according to industry data.
The Mulvaney fiasco unseated Bud Light as the No. 1- selling beer in the US after two decades of dominance.
While other beers grabbed some of Bud Light’s market share — with Constellation Brands’ Modelo unseating Bud Light and Molson Coors’ brands Coors Light and Miller Lite seeing upticks — their growth did not make up for Anheuser-Busch’s declines.
“This year in particular AB is driving the decline in the industry,” David Steinman, vice president and executive editor of the publication, told The Post. — The NY Post
Multiple Financial Executives Commit Suicide Amid China's Financial Crisis
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to purge its financial system, state media recently revealed that a number of bank executives have committed suicide or died suddenly.
According to the authorities of Yingshan County, Hubei Province, Wang Shengyong, the president of the Yangtze River Village Bank in the county, died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Dec. 5 at the age of 54 years old. It was reported that Wang committed suicide after using his position to defraud depositors of 40 million yuan (about $5.6 million) under the guise of capital raising.
According to official media reports, Du Haitao, deputy general manager of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Credit Suisse Asset, died of a heart attack while running on Dec. 13 at the age of 49. Born in 1974, Du was deputy general manager of ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management Co., LTD. and chairman of ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management (International) Co., LTD.
On Dec. 10, Gong Danzhi, the president of Huaxia Bank’s Tianjin branch, fell to his death. The local police station confirmed the news. — The Epoch Times
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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On this, the last Friday - and last Badlands News Brief of 2023 I would like to thank all of the contributors/commenters and all of the Badlanders for making this a worthwhile part of my day! The BNB and my french-pressed dark roast have become an essential part of my routine. I have found wisdom, hope, community, insight, and inspiration from you all. My deepest, sincere thanks. I pray that the year to come will exceed our hopes, but that we will endeavor to maintain our understanding of Truth and stand firm in our faith no matter what things (mostly outside of our control) may come. God bless!!!
"Now Faith, Hope and Love remain, these three; but the greater of these is Love. Pursue Love, yet be jealous for the Spiritual, but especially that you may declare before." 1Corinthians 13:13-14:1
PS - Great takes today - a whole weekend's worth of pondering ahead!