Badlands News Brief
Ramaswamy Takes Stock and the War Machine Rumbles
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 Tuesday, December 26 …
Ramaswamy's campaign stops spending money on TV ads shortly before Iowa and New Hampshire
GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign is no longer spending money on TV ads and doesn't have any currently booked, according to an ad tracking firm and the campaign.
For the first week of December, Ramaswamy's campaign spent about $200,000 on TV ads and later on in the month, it dropped to only $6,000 on TV ads, according to NBC News.
The campaign stated that money will still be spent on advertising, just not on television.
“We are focused on bringing out the voters we’ve identified — best way to reach them is using addressable advertising, mail, text, live calls and doors to communicate with our voters on Vivek’s vision for America, making their plan to caucus and turning them out,” the campaign’s press secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the outlet in an interview.
This change comes less than a month before the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary and the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses.
“As you know, this isn’t what most campaigns look like. We have intentionally structured this way so that we have the ability to be nimble and hyper targeted in our ad spending,” McLaughlin also said.
Other GOP primary presidential candidates, including former President Donald Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are still running advertisements on television. — Just the News
Our Take: “We’re less than a week away from 2024, and I’m excited. Election years are fun — especially for MAGA — and President Trump is already playing with the latest out of the Ramaswamy camp.
‘He will, I am sure, Endorse me. But Vivek is a good man, and is not done yet!’
The 45th President posted this message on Truth Social Tuesday evening, sharing the news that Vivek is scaling back on TV ad spending.
Vivek’s announcement contains an important cultural signal that deserves attention. The Ramaswamy camp isn’t scaling back on ads, just on TV ads. This is a smart use of dollars since most people no longer consume media in real time, and the rise of DVR has resulted in TV ads’ diminishing returns.
Vivek is signaling that traditional media is dead. Vivek is going where the eyeballs are — and that’s not on traditional television programming. People are hungry for truth, and they are finding it in new media. If this wasn’t true, all the censorship and truth ministries would be unnecessary.
Whether you think Ramaswamy is the future of the Republican Party, a deep state troll, or anything in between, you cannot deny that he is running an insurgent campaign, disrupting the charade of uniparty election year norms. As always, my position on candidates is that they are irrelevant until we have free and fair elections, with the sole exception of their usefulness to the narrative. Vivek is useful.
Exposure. Awakening. Freedom.” — Ashe in America
…
A Half-Serious Additional Take: “Note to self: never be called ‘a good man’ by Donald Trump in the midst of an Info War.” — Burning Bright
War on Gaza: Egypt proposes detailed ceasefire plan as Israel vows to expand Gaza campaign
Egypt has proposed an extensive plan for a ceasefire and post-war situation in Gaza that includes the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a new technocratic government in both Gaza and the West Bank.
The proposal, reported by several news outlets, outlines a multi-stage cessation of hostilities that would eventually see the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a unified Palestinian government overseeing the enclave.
The plan includes several exchanges of captives. The first stage would see Hamas and armed Palestinian groups release all civilian captives being held in Gaza in exchange for a negotiated number of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. The result would then be a truce and pause in fighting of between seven and 10 days.
Then during the second stage, Hamas would free all female Israeli soldiers being held captive, and Israel would again free additional Palestinian prisoners. The second stage would include an additional pause in fighting of one week.
The last stage would include a final exchange of captives - Hamas would release the remaining captives and Israel would release more detained Palestinians. This would take place after "negotiations [are] held for a period of one month", and this phase would also see Israel pulling its forces back to the Gaza border and also continue to cease all aerial campaigns on the Strip. — Middle East Eye
And …
Another Container Ship Attacked In Red Sea As Houthis Act With Impunity
Another day, another tanker attack in the Red Sea, and Yemen's Houthis are positively boasting about it as the Biden White House continues attempts to cobble together its much touted multi-national naval coalition, which is clearly taking some time getting off the ground.
"The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a targeting operation against the commercial ship, ‘MSC UNITED’ with appropriate naval missiles," according to a Houthi statement.
The vessel was reportedly en route to Pakistan when it came under missile attack, however, there were no reported injuries to crew members, as damage is being assessed. The Houthis said the ship rejected three warning calls before it was fired upon.
Scant details have emerged, but Tuesday's incident happened in parallel with a fresh Houthi missile attack on Israel. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Perhaps the biggest international Crisis (among many,) that the Collective Mind is paying the least attention to is the reports of kinetic action escalating in the Suez Canal, where we're told that Iran-backed militias are threatening the transport of a solid % of all global trade routes through targeted drone strikes.
Leaving aside the immense economic implications of the ongoing and escalating stand-off, the situation is also exposing some interesting trendlines where it concerns the rebalancing (and multi-polar) world order:
The Biden Admin's proposed 'Operation Prosperity Guardian' was rebuked by supposed allies in the UK, France and Australia, who do not trust the current 'chief' to uphold his side of any potential military agreement.
Egypt is being primed (and is priming themselves) for a key role in not only settling the Suez crisis, but the larger Gaza situation tangential to it.
All of this is happening with Trump (strategically) on the sidelines.
Planned long ago.” — Burning Bright
Ukraine damages a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea after battlefield disappointments
Ukrainian warplanes damaged a Russian ship moored in the Black Sea off Crimea, both countries said Tuesday, bolstering Ukrainian morale after battlefield disappointments and doubts about the future of Western aid.
The planes fired guided missiles at the landing ship Novocherkassk, which is moored at a base in the city of Feodosia, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. Video on Russian and Ukrainian social media showed an explosion in the port.
Ukrainian authorities claimed the ship was destroyed. They said it was likely carrying ammunition and possibly drones.
The 360-foot Novocherkassk can carry 10 tanks and 225 sailors.
“We saw how powerful the blast and detonation were. It’s extremely difficult for a ship to survive something like that,” Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on U.S.-backed Radio Liberty.
“The Russian fleet has become smaller,” Ukrainian air force Cmdr. Mykola Oleschuk said in a mocking message on the social media app Telegram. He urged Russians to leave Crimea “while it’s not too late.” — The Hill
Our Take: “All of my sons are pretty athletic now, but when one of them was around six years old, he had two left feet in soccer. During a particularly painful season where the team couldn’t secure even a single win, this kiddo was riddled with unforced errors and, as his cheering section, soccer Saturday was an anxiety-filled affair.
Then, against all odds one magical Saturday, his foot connected perfectly with the ball, and the ball inexplicably sailed into the net. I can clearly recall his adorable little face, beaming with a mixture of joy and disbelief, all these years later. We were so high on his accomplishment that we celebrated for a whole week until the next Saturday when he mistakenly dribbled towards the opposing goal and, thankfully, tripped before scoring on his own team.
This story is like that. Ukraine scored a goal, but they’re far from winning a game, let alone a season.” — Ashe in America
Samsung Delays Production at New US Factory to 2025, Daily Says
Samsung Electronics Co. has delayed mass production plans at its new chip plant in Taylor, Texas, the Seoul Economic Daily said, potentially dealing another blow to the Biden administration’s ambition to increase domestic semiconductor supplies.
Mass production at the upcoming $17 billion fab would begin in 2025, the newspaper reported, citing a speech by President Choi Siyoung of Samsung’s foundry business at an industry event in San Francisco.
Samsung previously said the factory would start production in the second half of 2024 when it announced the investment in 2021. A spokesperson said the company cannot confirm the mass production schedule right now.
The report followed an earlier decision by Samsung’s bigger rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to postpone production at its new Arizona fab to 2025 from next year due to a shortage of experienced construction workers and machine installation technicians.
Any delay at the US sites operated by the world’s two leading contract chipmakers would be a setback to US President Joe Biden’s grand plan to boost chip production on American soil to avoid future supply disruptions like the 2021 shortage that cost companies hundreds of billions in revenue. — Bloomberg
Our Take: “The CHIPS Act has been one of the main economic hints of the Devolution Op of the Biden era, as the original structure of the Act was put together by the Trump Admin, only for Biden to sign it into law last summer.
While this one doesn't seem like a massive notable on the surface (it commits resources to kickstarting domestic production of semiconductor manufacturing,) the long-term economic impact of the initiative will be seismic, bringing tens of thousands of high-paying jobs to the US, while simultaneously curtailing the China-Taiwan near monopoly on the most-traded commodity in the world.
I've forwarded an economic theory I call, 'The Switch,' in which a lot of the good economic moves being forwarded during the Biden Admin will not be actualized until Trump is back in office, and this news on the latest delay to 'Biden's' CHIPS agenda adds more fuel to that fire.
Good things are happening at the core of the US economy, but their effects will be seen on a MAGA-engineered delay.” — Burning Bright
Obama shaped CIA to boost his political agenda, hired leftist activists, former agent says
Former CIA agent John Gentry said that the CIA became politicized under the Obama administration with the hiring of Democratic activists who shifted the intelligence agency leftward.
Gentry, a Georgetown University adjunct professor who served in the CIA from 1978 to 1990, details the agency's political changes in his new book, "Neutering the CIA: Why U.S. Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences."
The politicization of the non-partisan agency first became an issue in the 1990s under CIA analyst Robert Gates, who later went on to become defense secretary for both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Gentry says. At the time, Gates ordered reports to be skewed to support elected officials' political narratives, according to The Washington Times.
Obama and his appointees "made and institutionalized significant changes, largely by creating new structures, policies, and incentives designed to alter organizational cultures in ways congruent with Obama’s political agenda," Gentry wrote.
He said that Democratic activists hired by Obama "shifted leftward the collective, politically salient worldview of the intelligence bureaucracy."
Gentry also calls the CIA a "center of partisan political activity." — Just the News
Our Take: “Yesterday on Badlands Daily, Brian and I discussed the asymmetrical treatment of whistleblowers, from the distinct pearl clutching with Eric Ciaramella to the demonization of ‘so-called whistleblowers’ like those testifying before the House Weaponization of Government Committee.
Former CIA Agent John Gentry should be considered one of the most important whistleblowers of our time, and protected with the highest levels of duty. As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, ‘You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.’
The recent revelations from Just the News reveal an alarming pattern of CIA politicization, documenting the supposedly non-partisan agency’s journey from Papa Bush to the present, but seeing a rapid expansion of political action during the Obama years.
I’ve long said that we saw the largest expansion of communism during President Obama’s time in office, but when I say ‘communism,’ I’m really referring to novel authoritarianism. We are in unprecedented times and uncharted waters and, in modern times, the state is rapidly expanding under the banner of ‘democracy.’ Communism is the most apt descriptor because of the controlling role of the uniparty and the overreaching and unethical actions of its bureaucratic state, but the transformation of our society is unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times.
A politicized intelligence community, entrusted with liberty-shattering powers that, despite swearing an oath to protect against such abuses, are being wielded against political opponents on US soil and, worse, in US elections, is anathema to the American form of government we believe we enjoy.
Obama’s ‘significant changes’ to the intelligence community were institutionalized, ‘largely by creating new structures, policies, and incentives designed to alter organizational cultures,’ according to Gentry, and those cultural changes ‘were congruent with Obama’s political agenda.’
Weaponizing the intelligence apparatus to drive your political agenda sounds criminal. But doing this as president is tyrannical and, in America, sounds like treason. Interesting to think about considering the investigative and prosecutorial precedents being set for former presidents right now.” — Ashe in America
BONUS ITEMS
Blinken's Visit To Mexico Focuses On Optics As Migration Crisis Hits Biden's Polls
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss a new agreement with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to control the surge of migrants flooding the southern border.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will join Blinken in discussions with AMLO about "unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere," a US Department of State press release read.
The goals of the meeting will include "identifying ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges, including actions to enable the reopening of key ports of entry across our shared border," the press release continued.
Blinken's visit is nothing more than optics for an administration that has promoted disastrous open southern borders, allowing millions of illegals to flood the nation ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.
A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, shared with The Hill, shows only 38% of voters approved of Biden's handling of immigration, down from 46% in November. — ZeroHedge
CBS News Reporter Makes "Dark" Prediction of 'Black Swan Event' In 2024
CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge made a “dark” prediction that 2024 will produce a ‘Black Swan Event’ which shocks the world.
Herridge made the call during a round table discussion when she was asked by host Margaret Brennan about what we could expect to see unfold over the coming year.
“Well, mine’s a little dark,” Herridge stated.
“I just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event. This is a national security event with high impact that’s very hard to predict.” — Modernity News
President Biden orders strike after 3 US troops injured in drone attack in Iraq
President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. servicemembers were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said one of the U.S. troops suffered critical injuries in the attack that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, under an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit for the attack that utilized a one-way attack drone.
Biden, who is spending Christmas at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was alerted about the attack by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan shortly after it occurred on Monday and ordered the Pentagon and his top national security aides to prepare response options to the attack on an air base used by American troops in Erbil.
Sullivan consulted with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Biden's deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer, was with the president at Camp David and convened top aides to review options, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.
Within hours, Biden convened his national security team for a call in which Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Biden on the response options. Biden opted to target three locations used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, the official said. — AP 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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Interesting information on Vivek and his ad spending, which sounds legit to me as I haven't watched commercials in over 20 years! Love the soccer reference from Ashe, as it fit perfectly. And more bad Obama news, which infuriates me as his rotten legacy is the gift that keeps on giving. I long for the day he and his "wife" are no longer news makers.
"A politicized intelligence community, entrusted with liberty-shattering powers that, despite swearing an oath to protect against such abuses, are being wielded against political opponents on US soil and, worse, in US elections, is anathema to the American form of government we believe we enjoy."
Perfectly stated.