The news cycle is impossible to fully track these days. That’s where we come in. The Badlands News Brief is a uniquely curated selection of the stories dominating the info war — with context and commentary from Badlands hosts.
President Trump said Friday that he’s canceling every executive order former President Biden enacted but didn’t personally sign.
“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect. The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States,” Trump wrote in a Friday afternoon post on his Truth Social platform. “The Radical Left Lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him. I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump added.
Before Trump pardoned turkeys Gobble and Waddle on Tuesday, he joked that his predecessor’s turkey pardons were invalid due to him using an autopen. — The Hill
Our Take: My favorite storyline stemming from the autopen story is what happens with the Hunter Biden investigation that was so abruptly shut down.
That door should be immediately reopened. […]
Trump revoked all of the EOs Biden did actually sign. So no presidential action from Biden is valid any longer.
But remember, Joe Biden’s actions were illegitimate because he didn’t win the 2020 election.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and advisor Jared Kushner are among the Trump administration officials meeting this weekend in Florida with a delegation from Ukraine as part of efforts to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Andrii Yermak, recently resigned after prosecutors searched his home in connection with a corruption investigation tied to alleged embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars from the energy sector.
Ukraine reportedly sent a new team to continue negotiations with U.S. and Russian representatives on a peace deal.
A 28-point peace proposal is under consideration. Supporters have said it provides a path to end the war, while critics argue it is favorable to Russia. — Just the News
Our Take: I wonder who is leading the Ukraine negotiating team now that Andrey Yermak has run away with the hundreds of millions of dollars he helped embezzle and steal?
Does anybody actually care? about Ukraine, I mean?
Why did we all stand by while our government stole our money and sent it to their criminal friends in Ukraine? Why did the Republican Party do this? Why did they steal all of our money?
These are not rhetorical questions. They deserve to be heard, and should be asked of every member of Congress every time they decide to show their faces in public. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
The interview with Jan Jekielek, host of “American Thought Leaders,” [aired] at 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 29. Here are nine key takeaways from the interview:
1. Response to Firing Reports: The director said recent media reports that President Donald Trump was considering firing him were false. “I think we are executing the president’s mission wildly successfully in a historic fashion,” Patel said. “And I think when the media gets together with anonymous sources, like they always do, and it gets louder and louder and louder, that just means our mission is the most effective it’s ever been.”
2. Comey Case Dismissal: Patel also reacted to federal Judge Cameron McGowan Currie of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina’s ruling on Nov. 24 dismissing charges against one of his predecessors, former FBI Director James Comey, by saying that more information is yet to come. Comey was accused of lying to Congress during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020. […]
3. Murder Rate Drops to Lowest in Modern History: The director celebrated an upcoming report that will reveal homicide rates plummeting 25 percent to the lowest level in decades. [Watch Interview] — The Epoch Times
Our Take: This was a good interview, and it’s only 30 mins — worth the watch. As the artists formerly known as MAGA continue to doom on Agenda 47 and Trump’s chosen leaders, the FBI Director recaps key accomplishments for the Bureau — and they tie back to Agenda 47.
Promises made, promises kept.
Patel claims accountability is coming, and that it will pick up speed in the new year. Despite the dismissal of the Comey indictment, the deep state actors don’t appear confident — they’re more panicked than ever. For goodness sake, the Vindman twins are fully melting down and begging for extrajudicial intervention while the Seditious Six are sweating through their strongly worded statements.
It’s all very exciting. And hilarious. Yesterday a normie friend tried to hard sell me that Trump has dementia because a “huge Trump supporter” he knows had dinner with POTUS and promised that “Trump is slipping” and “it’s a problem.”
My friend told me to take his third hand speculation “to the bank.” LOL.
The choice to know is yours. So is the choice to stay retarded.
What began as a microblogging platform is, in Elon Musk’s hands, being reshaped into a bold experiment in global communication, commerce, and consciousness. Speaking to investor and entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath on the People of WTF podcast, Tesla CEO and xAI founder Elon Musk laid out his vision for X—the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“We’re building a global town square,” Musk said, describing his ambitions for X not just as a social media network but as the digital foundation of humanity’s collective mind.
The idea is as philosophical as it is practical. In a world of fragmentation and noise, Musk wants X to become a place where language barriers dissolve, conversations deepen, and the boundaries between media, messaging, and money disappear. — Business Today
Our Take: It’s strange to think the purpose of our soul and our consciousness is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain temporarily in this world and then vanish forever.
What system would create that idea in the first place and then desire the world it necessitates?
NATO members should find ways to be more aggressive towards Russia, the US-led alliance’s top military chief has said.
Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee, told the Financial Times (FT) in an interview published on Sunday that member states have been weighing options to respond to what he described as Russia’s “hybrid war.”
“We are studying everything … being more aggressive or being proactive instead of reactive is something that we are thinking about,” Dragone said. The commander added that a “pre-emptive strike” could be considered a “defensive action,” though it would be “further away from our normal way of thinking and behavior.”
According to FT, diplomats from Eastern Europe have been especially vocal in demanding tougher actions against Russia, including retaliatory cyberattacks. Dragone noted, however, that NATO’s decision-making has been constrained by legal and ethical concerns, as well as jurisdiction. — RT
Our Take: Oh really? That’s your master plan? And here I was assuming that NATO’s entire existence was predicated on an aggressive posture toward Russia and studying ways to become even more aggressive. And I would assume ever since Russia rolled into Ukraine in early 2022, and NATO branded it as an existential threat toward all of Europe, that NATO would have really kicked it up a notch and made preparations for a potential all-out war with Russia.
But no, this whole time NATO has been playing opossum, conserving its deadly energy for the perfect moment — four years after Putin’s invasion; after the Ukrainian military has gotten its ass kicked and regime leaders are resigning in disgrace (after being exposed for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money from the west); and [as] Trump and Putin are days away from announcing a peace deal — to shift into that highest gear and unleash NeoCon fury onto those damned Ruskies.
I guess I’ve really underestimated the geniuses at NATO. I thought they were in over their heads and had no idea what they were doing; but in reality they were just pretending to be retarded and incompetent to lull Putin into a false sense of security.
Putin thinks that by destroying the Ukrainian-Nazi war machine, exposing its politicians for being grifting frauds, and cornering the regime to the point of desperation — leading to humiliating outcomes — that he can conquer his declared enemy and just win the day?
Jokes on you, Vlad. You have awoken the Jewish Nazis and EuroFags, and filled them with terrible resolve. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness. Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.
Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.
Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections. — The New York Times
Our Take: Over on X Sunday, allegations of racism were flying against anyone that pointed out this scandal. But it’s not racist to say true things.
“Debate over the fraud has opened new rifts between the state’s Somali community and other Minnesotans, and has left some Somali Americans saying they are unfairly facing a new layer of suspicion against all of them.”
When this fraud began being addressed, the Somali-led NGO sent threats to the state about racism. From the article:
“Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit group that was the largest provider in the pandemic program, responded with a warning. In an email, the group told the state agency that failing to promptly approve new applicants from ‘minority-owned businesses’ would result in a lawsuit featuring accusations of racism that would be ‘sprawled across the news.’”
Kayseh Magan is a Somali American who previously worked as a fraud investigator for the Minnesota AG’s office, an they said, “‘There is a perception that forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash among the Somali community, which is a core voting bloc’ for Democrats.”
Huh.
Is it okay to defraud taxpayers if you’re doing it for political reasons? I would have thought the answer was “no,” but based on the number of arrests for politically-motivated fraud — Somali or otherwise — the answer appears to be an enthusiastic “yes.” — Ashe in America
The media keeps saying the MAGA movement is finished, blaming Donald Trump and pointing to poll numbers and Republican defections to support their story. But despite all these claims, reports about the movement’s demise are greatly exaggerated and overlook Trump’s ongoing influence and resilience. Make no mistake: MAGA is alive and well, and Trump’s influence over the party remains strong.
Scott Jennings put the “MAGA is dead” narrative to rest on CNN NewsNight by pointing straight to the numbers and the fundamental dynamics on the ground. While some critics and even insiders claim cracks in Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, Jennings showed that the facts tell a very different story—one of strength, not decline.
The mainstream media narrative often leans on anecdotes and quotes from disgruntled insiders to claim MAGA is fracturing. CNN NewsNight’s Abby Phillip referenced a senior House Republican who said the White House team “has treated all members like garbage,” adding that “the arrogance of this White House team is off-putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened.” Meanwhile, Syracuse University’s Nayyera Haq cast Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation as a symbol of the movement’s troubles. — PJ Media
Our Take:
One of the goals of Irregular warfare is to affect the legitimacy of its target.
So why are all these so-called MAGA influencers assisting the enemy by portraying Trump as incompetent?
Another Take: There is a concentrated effort to undermine the Presidency and more importantly, National Mandate of Donald Trump emanating from within key nodes of the MAGA Core.
The wolves are in the house. They have been the whole time.
Forces from U.S Central Command (CENTCOM) and the Syrian Ministry of Interior located and destroyed more than 15 sites containing ISIS weapons caches in southern Syria, Nov. 24-27.
U.S. military personnel from Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolved (CJTF-OIR) worked with Syrian forces in identifying and eliminating the ISIS weapons storage facilities across the Rif Damashq province during multiple airstrikes and ground detonations.
The combined operation destroyed over 130 mortars and rockets, multiple assault rifles, machine guns, anti-tank mines, and materials for building improvised explosive devices. Forces also discovered and destroyed illicit drugs.
“This successful operation ensures gains made against ISIS are lasting and the group is not able to regenerate or export terrorist attacks to the U.S. homeland and around the world,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander. — CENTCOM
Our Take: The former Al Qaeda/ISIS head-chopper Al Jolani is now working with the US in joint operations against ISIS? No wonder Netanyahu and his ilk suddenly seem to hate the Syrian president. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
A top Republican and Democrats in Congress suggested on Sunday that American military officials might have committed a war crime in President Trump’s offensive against boats in the Caribbean after a news report said that during one such attack, a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors.
The remarks came in response to a Washington Post report on Friday that said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given a verbal order to kill everyone aboard boats suspected of smuggling drugs, and that this led a military commander to carry out a second strike to kill those who had initially survived an attack in early September.
“Obviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Representative Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio and a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said on CBS that if the report was accurate, the attack “rises to the level of a war crime.” And on CNN, when asked if he believed a second strike to kill survivors constituted a war crime, Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, answered, “It seems to.” — The New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that he had spoken with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, but did not provide details on what the two leaders discussed.
“I don’t want to comment on it. The answer is yes,” Trump said when asked if he had spoken with Maduro. He was speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One. […]
“I wouldn’t say it went well or badly, it was a phone call,” Trump said regarding the conversation. The revelation of the phone call comes as Trump continues to use bellicose rhetoric regarding Venezuela, while also entertaining the possibility of diplomacy. — Reuters
Our Take:
You mean a land war is not imminent and Maduro is not currently fleeing to Turkey?
The plane carrying Pope Leo XIV landed in Beirut on Sunday, marking the beginning of his three-day visit to Lebanon. The trip is the second leg of his first foreign journey since being elected.
According to the official schedule, he will visit the Monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, pray at the tomb of a major saint, meet Catholic patriarchs, hold an interreligious encounter in Beirut, meet with youth groups, visit a psychiatric hospital, hold an outdoor Mass on the Beirut Waterfront and pray at the site of the 2020 Beirut port explosion. — Just the News
He once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” He accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Honduras. A man was killed in prison to protect him.
At the federal trial of Juan Orlando Hernández in New York, testimony and evidence showed how the former president maintained Honduras as a bastion of the global drug trade. He orchestrated a vast trafficking conspiracy that prosecutors said raked in millions for cartels while keeping Honduras one of Central America’s poorest, most violent and most corrupt countries.
Last year, Mr. Hernández was convicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison. It was one of the most sweeping drug-trafficking cases to come before a U.S. court since the trial of the Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega three decades before.
But on Friday, President Trump announced that he would pardon Mr. Hernandez, 57, who he said was a victim of political persecution, though Mr. Trump offered no evidence to support that claim. It would be a head-spinning resolution to a case that for prosecutors was a pinnacle, striking at the heart of a narcostate. — The New York Times
Two years ago, Pfizer anticipated that sales of its rebound-prone COVID-19 oral antiviralPaxlovid and fully approved mRNA COVID vaccine Comirnaty would plummet, but good news appeared on the horizon: The drugmaker’s mRNA flu vaccine did well in phase 3 trials in ages 18-64, and Pfizer expected to release results from the 65-and-up cohort “later this year.”
The results are finally in: Compared to a standard flu shot, the mRNA vaccine was associated with six times as many adverse events as infections prevented in adults under 65, and it outright failed in elderly people, associated with more deaths and both minor and serious injuries, from injection-site swelling to kidney problems. — Just the News
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The autopen situation is a brilliant way to completely void most of the Biden illegitimate Presidency and show people how unpresidential Joe Biden really was. It's glaringly obvious to me that it also supports the "Devolution " concept. Even as I type this I'm blown away by how that truth is being revealed.
The autopen situation is a brilliant way to completely void most of the Biden illegitimate Presidency and show people how unpresidential Joe Biden really was. It's glaringly obvious to me that it also supports the "Devolution " concept. Even as I type this I'm blown away by how that truth is being revealed.
BEST BRIEF LINE OF THE DAY
The choice to know is yours. So is the choice to stay retarded.
Choose wisely. — Ashe in America