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 Monday, December 11 …
Supreme Court agrees to expedite consideration of petition on Trump immunity for DC case
The Supreme Court has agreed to expedite consideration of a petition by special counsel Jack Smith on whether former President Donald Trump is immune from being prosecuted for crimes related to his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The high court issued the order Monday afternoon, hours after Smith had filed a petition asking the court to take up the appeal. The court ordered that Trump file a response to the petition by 4 p.m. on Dec. 20.
Smith had filed the petition earlier on Monday asking the high court to consider whether former President Donald Trump is immune from being prosecuted for his actions following the 2020 election, as the former president has argued. The move is part of Smith's effort to keep the trial on track for its scheduled March 4, 2024, start date.
"This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin," Smith wrote in the filing. "The district court rejected respondent's claims, correctly recognizing that former Presidents are not above the law and are accountable for their violations of federal criminal law while in office."
"Respondent's appeal of the ruling rejecting his immunity and related claims, however, suspends the trial of the charges against him, scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024," he continued.
The special counsel invoked the 1974 high court decision United States v. Nixon in his reasoning for why Trump's immunity claims should be considered by the Supreme Court, skipping over the federal appellate court. — The Washington Examiner
Our Take: “Honestly, I think Special Counsel Smith just gave Trump a huge assist here with this petition for cert to SCOTUS.
Trump was already appealing to the DC Court of Appeals over this very issue. Smith jumped it up to SCOTUS.
The common narrative at play is that Smith is concerned with the March 4th trial date. He seemingly is desperate for the trial to begin on that date (the day before Super Tuesday). So this is Smith under pressure, trying to rush a decision on this issue so the case isn’t delayed.
But the ONLY potential downside here from Trump’s point of view is if the case isn’t delayed, which isn’t much of a downside at all.
Trump is not harmed by this case being active, and I doubt very much he will be harmed by a trial playing out. His support just keeps increasing, regardless of the indictments or filings in this case or any other.
If SCOTUS rules Trump does have Presidential Immunity, then the DC case is dead, it’s dismissed.
If SCOTUS rules Trump does not have Presidential Immunity, then it puts every previous, current, and future President at risk of prosecution.
If SCOTUS lands in between those two places, then it’s the best of both worlds: Trump’s legal risk is reduced, and the legal risks to previous, current and future Presidents is increased.
Like I said, it seems like Smith just gave Trump a huge assist.
I’d expect Trump to fight this, just to keep up appearances first of all, and second to add to the delay.
I think the March 4th trial date is all but cancelled now. This thing is gonna carry forward deep into the campaign.
Good.” —
As Zelensky Again Goes To Washington, Almost Half Of US Voters Think Biden Spending Too Much On Ukraine
With $60 billion in stalled aid on the line, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is once again going to Washington to appeal for Congressional leaders to continue US support for Kiev's war effort. The planned schedule includes meeting with President Biden at the White House on Tuesday, as well as talks with House Speaker Mike Johnson, followed by meetings with senators.
Close on the heels of Republican senators last week blocking Biden's requested $106 billion in emergency aid, with most of it for Ukraine, the Ukrainian presidency issued a statement saying meeting will focus on "further defense cooperation between Ukraine and the United States, particularly through joint projects on the production of weapons and air defense systems, as well as the coordination of efforts between our countries in the coming year."
The trip also comes after a slew of negative and embarrassing headlines, including news stories that cited sources close to Zelensky saying he "deludes himself" into thinking Ukraine can still win the war against Russia. A recent and unexpected piece in Time Magazine had this to say of Zelensky:
But his convictions haven’t changed. Despite the recent setbacks on the battlefield, he 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. "He deludes himself," one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. "We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that."
In Ukraine, there's also been more domestic scrutiny of his administration, with Kyiv mayor Vitaly Klitschko last week saying publicly, Zelensky is becoming an autocrat. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Some juicy morsels are beginning to emerge from the beautiful chaos that is the Establishment turn on Ukraine, and Proxy Wars in general:
Polling data from the mainstream suggests 65% of Americans polled believe the US is committing too much aid to Ukraine, and that they should NOT make the same mistake with Israel.
This comes on the eve of yet another Stateside begging tour from Zelenskyy himself, who some of us believe is a proxy that has been taken by patriots, and is now being used to de-program a population so easily funneled into the full-throated endorsement of 'righteous' forever wars.
Biden is expected to soundly reject appeals to peace, and renew the Establishment's commitment to the war effort that TIME magazine reports even close confidants and aides to Zelenskyy believe is futile. The word 'autocrat' is even being used by Ukrainian celebrities as the beast begins to realize it no longer controls all of the puppets it once did.
The Crisis Cascade is accelerating.” —
Missouri AG Opens Investigation into Media Matters after Left-Wing Watchdog Pushed Advertisers to Leave X
Republican Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey formally opened an investigation into Media Matters for America after the left-wing watchdog pushed numerous advertisers to leave X in recent weeks.
In a letter dated Monday, Bailey notified Media Matters president and CEO Angelo Carusone of his office’s pending investigation into the organization’s allegedly fraudulent solicitation of donations from Missouri residents amid its efforts to target the social-media platform. The investigation comes three weeks after multibillionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, filed a lawsuit against Media Matters for swaying several corporations into pulling advertising from his company.
“As you are no doubt aware, a federal lawsuit has been filed against Media Matters, raising serious allegations that your firm falsely and deceptively manipulated the algorithm on X (formerly known as Twitter) through coordinated, inauthentic behavior and that you did so in an attempt to defame the organization and cause advertisers to pull their support from the platform, thus harming free speech,” Bailey wrote.
Last month, Media Matters published a series of reports claiming corporate ads on X were running beside “white nationalist and pro-Nazi content” in an effort to paint Musk and his organization as antisemitic. As a result, IBM, Apple, Disney, Lionsgate Entertainment, Sony, and many more firms began boycotting the platform. Musk, however, fired back at Media Matters with “thermonuclear” litigation, as he described it. — National Review
Our Take: “Our fans over at Media Matters are having a rough few weeks.
(Thoughts and prayers, commies.)
As much as entities like Media Matters have engaged in legal efforts to undermine individual liberty, it now appears they’ve engaged in outright fraud. The ‘hate speech’ and ‘extremism’ in society is so bad that leftist NGOs have to fabricate instances of hate speech to fulfill their mission. Media Matters is the Jesse Smollett of media organizations and, it appears, that fraud is still against the law, even for card-carrying commies.
We will see what happens. But if this was happening on the political right, someone would be going to prison for the actions of Media Matters. I’m not holding my breath that we are suddenly going to become of a nation of equal justice, but a girl can dream.” —
Harvard President Could Keep Job Amid Antisemitism Criticism: Report
The governing board of Harvard was close to a decision to keep the president of the university in her job after a marathon closed-door meeting was spurred by the flurry of criticism that followed her controversial remarks before Congress last week, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times on Monday night.
The meeting was ongoing as of late Monday, however, and no announcement was expected before Tuesday. Dr. Claudine Gay’s congressional testimony—in which she and two other high-profile university presidents stumbled while addressing the issue of campus antisemitism—provoked considerable backlash, with calls for her resignation and threats from hundreds of alumni to withdraw their donations. (She has since apologized for her comments.)
But Monday night’s development comes as other alumni emerged to back Gay, with the Executive Committee of the Harvard Alumni Association declaring earlier that it “unanimously and unequivocally supports” her, according to CNN. More than 600 faculty members have similarly rallied around Gay, demanding in an open letter that the governing board not bend to political pressure to fire her. — The Daily Beast
Our Take: “A beautiful Ouroboros pattern is rapidly sucking most of the oxygen out of the room where it concerns the liberal establishment, especially those ostensibly occupying the self-described 'Elite' circles that comprise the mainstream media and academia.
For those who missed it, Harvard University President Claudine Gay (a diverse individual leading a diverse institution,) issued a pretty damning statement last week when she said, "It can be, depending on the context," in response to whether calling for "genocide of Jews" was against Harvard's code of conduct.
This has resulted in a Death Blossom, as liberal academia drags her through the mud and pressures the school to act, and for Gay herself to resign in disgrace.
To top it all off, it's now coming to light through the work of liberal sleuths that Gay's dissertation was partly plagiarized from the work of others similarly enlightened on the evils of being straight, white, male ... or God forbid, all three at once.
Enjoy the show.” —
UN Climate Karens Melt Down After COP28 Summit Ditches Fossil Fuel 'Phase-Out' Language
Last week, Sultan al Jaber, the president of the UN's COP28 climate summit, insisted that there is "no science" behind calls to phase-out fossil fuels, before getting in a hilarious eco-fight with three leading women from the conference over climate change and gender.
“You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuel," al-Jaber said.
"Please, help me, show me for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”
Responding to the remark, U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen said she lives in Kenya with solar power and clean electricity from the local utility.
“I'm not living in a cave," she added.
“That's all I can say.”
The remarks from al Jaber draw criticism from scientists and are in contrast with the view of Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who said at the climate summit on Friday,
“The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.”
Fast forward to Monday, with the Financial Times reporting that a draft agreement from the summit has dropped all references to the phaseout of fossil fuels, following opposition from oil and gas-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia.
The document — which will have to be agreed by almost 200 countries at the summit in Dubai — sets out an optional range of actions that countries “could” take to cut emissions to net zero by 2050.
This includes reducing “consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero [carbon emissions] by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science”. -FT
The climate Karens, however, want the text to go further by committing to a phase out of fossil fuels - which any honest idiot could tell you would have extreme repercussions in terms of both energy price inflation (which of course hurts the poor the most), and the logistics of shifting developed nations onto unreliable primary energy sources. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “The climate cult is big mad, but they invited the oil barons into the club. What did they think was going to happen?
Setting aside the hypocrisy of people like John Kerry flying private jets to emit additional methane on stage at the climate conference, and setting aside the absolute hubris of believing that destroying the industrialized world will save the planet, the climate cultists are being thrown under the diesel-powered bus in Dubai this week, and I’m here for it.
Climate hysteria is just communism and, like everything else the cult is pushing, its ultimate goal is global power and control.
‘No’ is a complete sentence. Team Oil for the win.” —
7 soldiers killed, pushing Gaza ground op toll to 104; fighting rages in Khan Younis
The Israel Defense Forces announced the death of seven more soldiers on Monday morning, six of whom were killed during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas to 104.
The announcement was made amid ongoing heavy fighting in and around Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold in southern Gaza, and as Gaza terror groups fired more rockets into Israel, including a midday barrage at the center of the country in which a Holon man was injured by shrapnel.
Five of the soldiers belonged to the 5th Brigade’s 8111st Battalion and were killed when an explosive device was detonated near the force as they battled a terror cell near a school in the Khan Younis area.
The IDF said helicopter gunships and fighter jets were called in to carry out strikes against the terrorists who had opened fire from the school, adding that the Hamas operatives were killed and infrastructure in the area was destroyed. — Times of Israel
Our Take: “Sunday night on DEFECTED,
and I discussed the Proxy War cascade that seems to be the defining Macro in the Collective Mind right now:From Ukraine to Israel to Taiwan, the War of Stories is moving the public along a Trauma Timeline that, whatever the Actuals on the ground, has exposed the very concept of Proxy States, Proxy Presidents and Proxy Wars.
This reading maps onto the Game Theory philosophy many of us believe patriots are deploying as they wage a very real Fifth-Generation War against the Deep State's System of Systems in all its forms, first exposing the various components of said system before then forcing them to converge, like parasites attempting to defend the host body.
Acceleration abounds.
It's likely that Actuals NEEDED to be forwarded on the ground in the Donbas by the Russian Federation, just as it's likely that Hamas (and other intel-backed terror cells) had to be dealt with in the Middle East.
But the Story is the part that will, and IS changing the world.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Turley: With Hunter's Indictment, Democrats Face A Moment Of Maddening Truth
The vote is only to continue to look into the allegations that President Joe Biden knew of the influence peddling operation of his family and fostered those efforts. The final line of defense is to acknowledge that this was influence peddling but that Biden was only trying to support his son.
The question for this vote is: how do you know? We have millions raised in what most view as corrupt influence peddling. Many of those payments are now confirmed by the Justice Department in the second Hunter Biden indictment.
Only an investigation will establish the truth on the President’s knowledge and involvement. Yet, for years, Democratic members have opposed any investigation. They now face a moment of truth. — Jonathan Turley
Tucker Carlson says he's launching his own paid streaming service
Tucker Carlson is debuting his own subscription streaming service called the Tucker Carlson Network, with the former Fox News host charging $9 a month for interviews, documentaries and "access to Tucker's personal inbox to ask him anything that's on your mind."
In a video clip posted to his website on Monday, Carlson said the show was prompted by a sense that "something big is coming," including the 2024 presidential election and "entire populations" that are migrating to new locations. He also downplayed his former employer Fox News and its rivals, saying that "big media companies won't help" his fans understand current trends.
"Suddenly everything seems at stake — control of the world, and your soul," Tucker said.
The move to offer paid content comes after Carlson in June launched a free show on X, the service formerly known as Twitter, after his ouster from Fox News. On X, Carlson has interviewed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was ordered by a court to pay almost $1 billion for promoting the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax, and former President Donald Trump, among others.
With almost 11 million followers on X, Carlson is banking that some will open their wallets to pay for monthly shows and behind-the-scenes clips of his interviews. Subscribers can pay $9 a month or get a discount for paying annually, at $72 a year. — CBS 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.
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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Great Takes this morning! Nice to see Just Human weighing in with his uplifting take on Jack Smith’s …what?…gift?! Tis the Season!
BB: “The Crisis Cascade is accelerating.” Truth as a field of consciousness is attracting the questioning mind to higher and clearer and really beautiful vistas!
And BurningBright’s quote of the day:
“ A beautiful Ouroboros pattern is rapidly sucking most of the oxygen out of the room where it concerns the liberal establishment, especially those ostensibly occupying the self-described 'Elite' circles that comprise the mainstream media and academia.”
Bravo Elise Sefanik!!❤️🙏 That was a wonderful show by the House Education and Workforce Committee!
Have we finally had enough of the smug arrogance which has become a defining characteristic of the academic DEI woke-elitist legends in their own closed minds?!
Our youth deserve far better role models, K-12 and in our so-called “Higher” institutions of learning!
Thank you to our Patriot warrior Badlanders for the daily Briefs and Takes. ❤️🙏🇺🇸🕊🌎
Regarding Ukraine and the evolving awareness that the conflict there is producing: BB graciously reminds us of the slow processes of "awakening" that people are experiencing (not unlike my own, I will add). (There is a post-script below on the article...)
Overall, what Just Human, Ashe in America and Burning Bright provide us (as usual) are reminders of the importance of patience, rationality, and compassion (I am not sure if or where those might fit in the dogmas of academia) as regards our fellow Truth-seekers and travelers.
Thank you one and all for your thoughtful contributions!
PS - (disclosure alert - I am sensitive - some might think overly so - to the tendency to allegorize Biblical doctrines.) When BB references the "beast" and "it" in the third point of his take on Zelensky's current "begging tour" these would exactly apply to the symbolic scarlet beast seen in Revelation chapters 17 and 18 - which is also referred to as Babylon - in both its "religious" and its "political/commercial" aspects. Why this matters: The Revelation was written by the last living man who walked closely with Jesus the Christ (our near kinsman), near the end of the first century AD. The disclosures of the system of systems and its ongoing intentions in John's book are remarkably consistent with what we are learning (or re-learning) about the WEF and other globalist efforts today. The wickedness behind the system, though unable to create, is remarkably persistent. It is this truth that illicits calls for the Full Armor of God (Ephesians 6:12-19) by many of us here.