Badlands News Brief

Shenanigans Shall Continue Until Morale Improves ...

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 Wednesday, January 10 …

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"You Are The Epitome Of White Privilege": Chaos Ensues After Hunter Biden Crashes Contempt Hearing, Then Flees When MTG Speaks

Hunter Biden received quite the earful after a surprise appearance at his Contempt of Congress hearing for defying a subpoena last month.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) tore into the First Son, asking "who bribed Hunter Biden to be here?"

"You are the epitome of white privilege. Coming in to the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? You have no balls to come up here," she said, adding "I think that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here, right now, and go straight to jail."

The Oversight and Judiciary Committees are moving to hold Hunter Biden in contempt after he skipped out on a closed-door deposition last month, where he would have faced serious questions over his business dealings in connection to their impeachment inquiry into his father, President Biden.

Instead, Hunter held an impromptu hearing on Capitol Hill, where he said he would only testify in a public setting, and suggesting (with maximum goalpost moving) that his father "was not financially involved in my business." (As opposed to involved in other ways, which is of course as opposed to the original 'not at all' claim Biden gave on the 2020 campaign trail).

Hilariously, Hunter fled the room when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) began to speak. — ZeroHedge

Our Take: “The War of Stories isn't just being waged across headlines, but largely through memetic warfare, which is one of the prime reasons the Truth (and those who push it, preserve it and fight for it,) is inevitably prevailing as this Info War accelerates.

In order for something to be memetic, it tends to require a mix of humor and absurdity, and the best comedians across time have recognized that, in order for something to be inherently funny, it has to at least contain the ring of truth.

So, when I see the continued (and continuously escalating) clown show represented by the Biden Crime Family saga playing out in front of the American people, I don't get upset by it.

Not only is it exposing the obvious, that being the Bidens' various and long-running crimes, but more importantly, it's exposing the mechanisms and systems through which such crimes have been committed against an unaware American populace.

From art sales and money laundering to influence peddling, it's all a grand show.” —

Burning Bright

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Trump on potential 2024 VP pick: 'I know who it's going to be'

Former President Donald Trump signaled during an Iowa Town Hall event on Fox News Wednesday night that he has already decided who he will choose to be his running mate in 2024. 

"I can't tell you that really, I mean, I know who it's going to be," Trump said when he was asked who his running mate will be in 2024.

"We'll do another show sometime," Trump said when pushed by host Martha MacCallum to "give us a hint."

"What about any of the people who you've run against?" MacCallum asked. "Would you be open to mending fences with any of them?"

"Oh, sure. I will, I will," Trump responded. "I've already started to like Christie better." — FOX News

Our Take: “Trump’s trolling is only just starting to spin up, and we’re about 10 days into 2024.

Chris Christie has officially dropped out of a GOP race he was never really in, and that race isn’t even relevant to the presidential picture come November.

That said, I find Trump’s VP remarks to be particularly entertaining, as he’s no doubt aware of all the competing theories not just around who his VP pick WILL be, but more importantly, what he thinks of his former actual VP.

Either way, if Trump is having fun, you can bet that his political enemies are not …” —

Burning Bright

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Doocy Questions Potential Cover-Up Over Biden's Health

Fox News reporter Peter Doocy reacted to the revelation that the Pentagon had kept secret details of the Defense Secretary’s cancer treatment by asking if there could be a cover-up surrounding Biden’s health.

We’re only now learning, weeks later, that Lloyd Austin was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on December 22 to be treated for prostate cancer.

Austin underwent a “minimally invasive surgical procedure called a prostatectomy to treat and cure prostate cancer,” according to the hospital.

However, the Pentagon only revealed what happened yesterday after days of speculation and criticism.

Doocy grilled National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby on the issue during a press conference, demanding to know, “Why should we believe anything this administration tells us about anything ever again?”

Kirby acknowledged the Pentagon had faced a “challenge to credibility” by failing to quickly reveal the details of Austin’s treatment.

Doocy shot back by asking, “If the administration’s going to go to such great lengths to keep secrets about the defense secretary’s health, how can anybody be certain that the administration would not go to the same lengths to keep secret problems with President Biden’s health in the future?” — Modernity News

Our Take: “We exist in something of an Info War bubble within a bubble, even if it's one that's getting exponentially larger every hour of every day, as the awakening accelerates.

Anons are a specific subset of the MAGA base, which is an (admittedly massive) subset of the American electorate. As such, we tend to view the Biden Admin as anything from controlled opposition to the unmitigated disaster of a communist clown show it is.

What can cause some in the Truth Community to doom out on occasion is the perceived barrier to entry into the Normie hivemind, especially those who've been conditioned to hate Trump and everything he represents, which includes everything we believe in.

That said, you don't need enemy psychological combatants to adopt your paradigm in order to win a Mind War; you only need them to abandon their own, and this process is largely done through a mix of tension-induced fear and apathy.

Centrist and Lefty Normies don't think Biden is evil.

But they do think he's [sick.]” —

Burning Bright

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Will Orbán Become 'Emperor' Of Europe? Brussels Fears Scenario Where He Controls EU Council Presidency

European Council President Charles Michel has confirmed that he will stand in the European Parliament elections.

If elected, the presidency would remain vacant, and under the current rules, the member state holding the rotating presidency — Hungary after the elections — would chair the meetings.

Charles Michel has confirmed to several Belgian newspapers that he will run in the European Parliament elections. This is the first time that the incumbent president of the European Council has stood as a candidate in an EP election.

The position was only created in 2009, when the Lisbon Treaty introduced it to the European Union. The role of a permanent president was introduced precisely to ensure “continuity” in the EU’s ambitions.

The main criticisms, however, are that it undermines diversity and equal representation among member states — even though it was created to ensure these very goals. — Remix News

And …

Germany Ponders Banning Its Second Most Popular Political Party

Similar to US states attempting to ban Trump from elections, Germany is discussing banning AfD, its second largest political party.

If you don’t like the popularity of the opposition, ban it.

SPD won the last federal election and struggled to form a coalition. Eventually it came to terms with the Greens and FDP, dubbed the Traffic Light Coalition based on the colors of the party flags.

Problems arose from the start because FDP is pro-business and the Greens are as far from pro-business as you can get. The Traffic Light has gone from 52% in the last election to 33 percent today.

FDP’s price for jumping into this bed is a collapse from 11.5 percent to 5.0 percent. This puts FDP on the bubble. It takes a minimum of 5 percent of the vote (with certain exclusions) to get ant seats in Parliament.

On December 13, Foreign Policy noted Germany Is Thinking of Simply Banning the Far Right

Last week, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency took the dramatic step of classifying the Saxony state branch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a threat to democracy—a potential first step towards banning it outright as unconstitutional. “There can be no doubt about the extreme right orientation of this party,” declared Dirk-Martin Christian, president of Saxony’s State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. — MishTalk

Our Take: “While the subversive communists that lie at the center of all domestic ills focus their Marxist fire on a Witch Hunt against the true president we voted for while undermining the effort to do so for the third time ... internationally, the Globalist contingent is simultaneously puckering up while gritting their teeth for even more overt, totalitarian measures meant to stop the rapid spread of sovereign sentiment.

The EU Presidency is a largely toothless position, but the fact the the EU council members fear Based Alpha Chad Viktor Orban coming into it through happenstance tells you all you need to know about how they're feeling about their grasp on collectivist power in the wake of the failed Ukrainian Proxy War.

What's more ... Germany is trending toward banning the fastest-growing political party in the nation specifically because it's the fastest-growing political party in the nation. Oh, and it's growing specifically on the back of said sovereign sentiment.

Commie Death Spiral.” —

Burning Bright

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Democrats Dissent On SEC Spot Bitcoin Approval, Gensler Distances Himself From 'Terrorist-Financing' Crypto

Following yesterday's false start, it appears the SEC has now officially approved a spot Bitcoin ETF... and screwed-up the release AGAIN!

The SEC dropped the following at this link... "Order Granting Accelerated Approval"

Then pulled the link.

So another false start, but...

As Bloomberg's James Seyffart noted:

"It certainly looks like the #Bitcoin ETF Approval order had hit the SEC website."

And Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas summed it up perfectly:

"It's over, thank god!" — ZeroHedge

Our Take: “Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are one of the most controversial topics in the Truth Community, and I can understand why; after all, most cryptos are nothing but money-laundering rug-pull schemes meant to cover criminal organizations.

That said, I do believe BTC is completely different. Many pretenders with one contender. In fact, it’s the only crypto that ‘authorities’ consider an asset.

That said, the ETF Narrative this week was more about the exposure of the Administrative State from where I’m sitting, as the Securities and Exchange Commission … did not set up two-factor authentication on its Twitter/X account, resulting in Tuesday’s ‘leak,’ while the announcement Wednesday was also premature.

Almost unbelievable.

Almost like we’re watching a War of Stories.” —

Burning Bright

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BONUS ITEMS

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Donald Trump: By Now, Every Arab Country, and ‘Possibly’ Iran, Would Have Signed Abraham Accords if Biden Was Not President

Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively that he believes had the 2020 election not gone the way it did and were he still president right now, a path to true peace in the Middle East was possible.

Instead, with Democrat President Joe Biden taking office after the 2020 election, the region has further destabilized and no new countries have joined the historic Abraham Accords since. During Trump’s presidency, several Arab nations joined the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between them and the Jewish state of Israel. The countries that joined during the Trump administration were the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. Trump says that several others were on the verge of joining, including even possibly Iran, but Biden taking office and reverting to a failed approach to the Middle East scuttled the efforts and has disintegrated any progress. Not one country has joined the Abraham Accords during Biden’s entire presidency.

“You would have had every country sign, including possibly Iran, into the Abraham Accords if the election wasn’t rigged,” Trump told Breitbart News in a more-than-two-hour-long exclusive interview here at Mar-a-Lago. “By this time, you would have had every country—Saudi Arabia, and maybe even Iran—signed.”

Trump argued that his approach to the Iranians—he was ruthless with them financially through sanctions, and obviously ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani—was going to force the Islamic Republic of Iran to the bargaining table.

“Iran, as you know, was broke with me. Now, they’ve got $250 billion,” Trump said. “I’m not even talking about the $6 billion and the $10 billion. They have $250 billion now, but they were broke. There was no money for Hamas, no money for Hezbollah.”

Trump also said that if he were president the Hamas terrorists in Gaza—which are largely funded by the Iranians—never would have been able to launch the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

“It [the October 7 attack in Israel] never would have happened,” Trump said. “We would have taken much more decisive action if it did. I don’t understand these people.” — Breitbart

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Poland's Obstruction In Nord Stream Pipeline Probe Raises Alarm For Investigators

At this point, one might be forgiven for thinking that the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage is already ancient history. After all, mainstream media and prime time TV news coverage has by and large 'moved on' as soon as it became clear that Russia had nothing to do with it.

At this point, the consensus even among Moscow's vehement enemies is that the September 26, 2022 series of blasts which disabled the Russia to Germany NS-1 and NS-2 natural gas pipelines had Ukrainian and/or Western involvement. While MSM sources have favored the theory that it was a mystery group of pro-Ukraine operatives on a small yacht, legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has reported that it was a CIA and US Navy special operation with help from Norwegian intelligence services. 

Since then, the ongoing investigation by Germany, Denmark and Sweden into the details of what happened has continued to yield very interesting, incremental developments. The latest was revealed in a Wall Street Journal report this week, and involves apparent Polish obstruction of the probe, which has been deemed by officials to be highly suspicious. — ZeroHedge

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NYC students forced to go remote as city houses nearly 2K migrants at their school, and one mom goes off: ‘Does it feel good?’

Students at a Brooklyn high school were kicked out of the classroom to make room for nearly 2,000 migrants who were evacuated from a controversial tent shelter due to a monster storm closing in on the Big Apple.

The city made the move amid concerns that a massive migrant tent at Floyd Bennett Field would collapse from torrential rains and gusting winds — packing them instead into the second-floor gym at James Madison High School five miles away. 

The school’s neighbors were not keen on the last-minute decision.

“This is f—ed up,” said a local resident who identified himself only as Rob. “It’s a litmus test. They are using a storm, a legitimate situation, where they are testing this out. I guarantee you they’ll be here for the entire summer.

“There’s 1,900 people getting thrown into my neighborhood, half a block from where I live and we don’t know who they are,” he said. — NY Post

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US Navy shoots down barrage of Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen over Red Sea, US Central Command says

The US Navy shot down 21 Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen, according to a statement from US Central Command, in one of the largest Houthi attacks to take place in the Red Sea in recent months.

The military called it a “complex attack” carried out by the Iranian-backed militants. It comes amid increasing tensions around Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and fears it could spill over into a wider regional conflict.

The barrage, launched at about 9:15 p.m. Tuesday in Yemen, included 18 one-way attack drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile, Central Command said. The attack was launched toward international shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea where “dozens” of merchant vessels were traveling, according to the statement.

Two defense officials had earlier told CNN that the barrage included a total of 24 drones and missiles.

There were no ships damaged in the attacks and no injuries as a result of the massive drone and missile launch, CENTCOM said. — CNN

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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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