Badlands News Brief
Russian Space Nukes & Uniparty Shenanigans
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.
Many items feature original (and subjective) commentary. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see our writers’ Substack accounts and check out their other work.
Now, onto the news from Wednesday, February 14 …
House Intel Chair Warns Biden of Mysterious ‘Serious National Security Threat’
The chair of the House Intelligence Committee issued on Wednesday a cryptic warning of a “serious national security threat” that might require help from “our allies” to deal with it.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) cited unspecified “information” about the mysterious threat that he said “all members of Congress” had already been briefed on. He called on President Biden to declassify the information.
“I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat,” he told House members Wednesday.
Capitol Hill sources told ABC News the threat was regarding Russia wanting to put nuclear weapons in space to use against satellites.
An unnamed Democratic source was quoted telling NBC News: “This is a serious issue that could lead to a destabilizing situation and a national security threat.” Apart from describing it as a “potential foreign threat,” however, the source provided no further details. CNN, meanwhile, cited unnamed sources who said the threat is related to Russia and is “highly concerning and destabilizing.”
In a statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said there is “no need for public alarm,” adding that he will press Biden’s administration to take “appropriate action.”
“Steady hands are at the wheel, we’re working on it, there’s no need for alarm,” he cautioned. — The Daily Beast
Our Take: “Right on cue. As pressure builds for the House to pass the Senate’s National Security supplemental aid package, now there is a vague, but super scary and totally not made up threat to national security.
In Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Jake Sullivan was the white dude authority joining KJP, and he claimed that he reached out to the gang of eight last week and that a meeting is scheduled for today (Thursday).
He appeared baffled that Turner would take threat rhetoric to the public before their meeting — but he refused to confirm that the meeting was about the vague new threat or some other matter. Sullivan told reporters to draw their own conclusions:
‘Well, I — again, I’ll — I’ll leave it to you to draw whatever connections you want. All I can say is I’ve reached out to see Turner. Turner has gone out publicly. I’m going to go see Turner tomorrow. That’s where I want to leave things for today.’
It’s likely, and should be way obvious to the American people, that the solution to the vague new threat will be for the House to pass the supplemental. It’s all political theatre intended to enhance and expand the power and resources of the criminal oligarchy.” —
Jared Kushner defends his equity firm getting $2 billion from Saudis after he left White House
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's former White House adviser and his son-in-law, defended on Tuesday his business dealings after leaving government with the Saudi crown prince who was implicated in the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Kushner worked on a wide range of issues and policies in the Trump administration, including Middle East peace efforts, and developed a relationship with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has overseen social and economic reforms but also a far-reaching crackdown on dissent in the kingdom.
After Kushner left the White House, he started a private equity firm that received a reported $2 billion investment from the sovereign wealth fund controlled by Prince Mohammed, drawing scrutiny from Democrats. — CBS News
Our Take: “Jared Kushner is one of the more controversial names in the Trump orbit even among the MAGA base, and while I can understand it at times, the fact remains Kushner is cited by Trump himself as the lead architect of some of the biggest peace agreements of the modern age ... agreements that orbit around the gravitational center of the Middle East in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis have been power players in global politics for decades, but it wasn't until the seizing of power by Trump ally Mohammed bin Salman that we began to see this power tip in the direction of sovereignty.
How fitting, that the crown prince bears as much animus for Joe Biden as he does respect for Donald Trump.
How fitting, that MBS and the Saudis have fantastic relationships with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the 'New Axis' according to the western hegemon.
And how fitting, that the Media Industrial Complex kicks off a fresh fear-mongering campaign designed to turn us against Saudi interests.” —
Inventor of gold-standard cognitive test suggests it’d be a ‘good thing’ for pols such as Biden to take exam — can you answer these questions?
The doctor who invented one of the most popular cognitive assessments told The Post on Tuesday that it may be a good idea for aging politicians to take his test — after being asked about President Biden.
Canadian neurologist Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, who developed the famed Montreal Cognitive Assessment, sidestepped politics and declined to comment on Biden, 81, directly.
But when asked about the mounting public calls for Biden and former President Donald Trump, 77, to take such a test, he replied, “It’s a good thing that we assess cognition the minute there’s any suspicion about cognitive function.
“If the test shows normal results, the likelihood of impairment is very low. Then everybody is reassured that this is maybe just normal aging — that we can all be forgetful and make mistakes. But it doesn’t mean that there’s a significant cognitive disorder happening,” he said.
Speculation and questions about Biden’s mental acuity have reached a fever pitch after a string of public lapses — and last week’s bombshell report from special counsel Robert Hur that heavily suggested Biden has “diminished faculties” and is a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” — The NY Post
Our Take: “In the White House press briefing Wednesday, reporters asked when they’d have another opportunity to ask questions of the so-called rule of the US (scrotus). KJP was non-committal, and it appears the White House is hiding the stumbly-wumbly-in-chief (swic) from the public.
As we reported yesterday, it’s laughable that scrotus is refusing to take a cognitive test — and it’s concerning that the entire cabinet is peddling the message that he doesn’t need to. This is not only insulting to the American people, it could be considered confirmation that Biden cannot, in fact, pass such a test.
That President Trump took and aced this test is icing for MAGA. The same media that claimed Trump’s performance was no big deal must now defend Biden’s refusal to even attempt the gold-standard cognitive test. Or any cognitive test. Or an unscripted interview.
I really hope they don’t replace the swic. And that we get debates. Trump 2024.” —
House Democrats Eye 'Back Door' To Force Vote On Ukraine, Israel Funding
After the Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package Tuesday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refused to hold a vote on it before Congress secures the southern US border first.
"We really do owe it to the American people to get control of that border," said Johnson.
In response, House Democrats are laying the groundwork to force a vote on it anyway using a rare procedural move known as a discharge petition, which would require at least 218 signatures - and the support of some Republicans, to bring the legislation up for a vote.
The package allocates $60 billion to Ukraine support, $14 billion in military assistance to Israel, $9 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza and elsewhere, and around $5 billion to defend Taiwan.
In a letter to his colleagues, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that the caucus would use "use every available legislative tool" to advance the bill, and called on "traditional Republicans" to support it. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Leave it to prominent House Democrats to maintain a disturbing fascination with back doors.
In all seriousness, while it’s predictably slimy and distasteful to see the establishment ‘elected officials’ using every trick in the book in order to fund a foreign proxy state that the American people have NOT agreed to fund, and that Congress has not authorized any war posture for or against on behalf of the United States, these headlines are continuing to bombard the Collective Mind with the unending desire for the establishment to continue their funding of conflict around the world … to say nothing of whatever kickbacks they get in return for doing so.
When Trump was in office, proxy wars and the funding of them was on the downswing, and I think more and more Americans are missing those days by the day, which may just be by design.” —
After border bill failure, ICE considers mass releases to close budget gap
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has drafted plans to release thousands of immigrants and slash its capacity to hold detainees after the failure of a Senate border bill that would have erased a $700 million budget shortfall, according to four officials at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.
The bipartisan border bill that Republican lawmakers opposed last week would have provided $6 billion in supplemental funding for ICE enforcement operations. The bill’s demise has led ICE officials to begin circulating an internal proposal to save money by releasing thousands of detainees and cutting detention levels from 38,000 beds to 22,000 — the opposite of the enforcement increases Republicans say they want.
The budget crunch and the proposal also present a difficult scenario for the Biden administration heading into the spring, when illegal crossings at the southern border are expected to spike again. On Tuesday, House Republicans voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his border record, and immigration remains President Biden’s worst-rated issue in polls. — The Washington Post
Our Take: “The previous story above lays out the establishment uniparty’s desire to actualize more funding to a Ukrainian proxy war—to the tune of $75 billion—and to counter that Narrative Deployment, DHS and ICE get their own financial planning on the books (at least, in the War of Stories,) by threatening to release tens of thousands of detainees into the US as a direct result of budget shortfalls caused by the failure of the Biden admin and Congressional Democrats to separate the funding for domestic defense with the defense of foreign nations we have no actual agreements or treaties with.
This deployment sits snugly alongside the fresh impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and even the Media Industrial Complex is being forced to admit the optics of the southern border chaos is proving to be catastrophic for their chosen puppet in the White House in polling, which is really all they care about this year.
Narrative Pincers abound.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Hunter Biden's phone had apparent cocaine, drug paraphernalia photos at time of gun purchase
Hunter Biden had photos of apparent cocaine and drug paraphernalia on his phone and he discussed his drug addiction in text messages both before and after he purchased a firearm and asserted on a federal form that he was not using drugs, according to evidence released by the Justice Department.
"Prior to October 12, 2018 (the date of the gun purchase), the defendant took photos of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia on his phone," the Justice Department said in a court document released Tuesday.
The document shows the first son talking about how much he paid for said cocaine in April 2018.
Hunter Biden asked in a May 2018 message if he could get "baby powder," which is used as a cutting agent in white powdered drugs, and specified that he wanted "The really soft stuff," the evidence shows.
"On October 13, 2018, and October 14, 2018 (the day after and two days after he purchased the firearm), the defendant messaged his girlfriend about meeting a drug dealer and smoking crack," the Justice Department also said.
The document also featured messages from Oct. 23, 2018, the day that Hunter Biden's then-girlfriend discarded his firearm. — Just the News
Trump Co-Defendant Sends Judge New Argument to Disqualify Fani Willis
A co-defendant in Donald Trump's election interference case in Georgia presented more evidence to support the argument that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her boyfriend Nathan Wade should be disqualified from prosecuting Trump and 18 co-defendants.
On Tuesday, David Shafer, a former chairman of the state Republican Party who has been charged with racketeering in connection with his efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election, submitted additional court filings to the motion seeking to disqualify Willis.
The new filing accuses Wade, a special prosecutor in the Georgia case, of having lied in his divorce proceedings. It presented the court with evidence that he had updated his answers to two questions asking if he had sexual relations with anyone aside from his spouse during his marriage and when he may have entertained a member of the opposite sex, not including his ex-wife, during that period.
The documents Shafer provided, which Newsweek has seen, show that Wade responded "none" to both questions on May 30, 2023, but that he updated those answers last month after the allegations of an "improper relationship" between himself and Willis were brought to light. He changed his response to "the Plaintiff declines to respond to this interrogatory and asserts his privilege pursuant to O.C.G.A. Sec. 24-5-505."
Georgia law states that no party is required to testify on matters that "incriminate" or "bring infamy, disgrace, or public contempt upon" parties, witnesses or their family. — Newsweek
Germany's top security official wants easier ways to track right-wing extremist financing
Germany’s top security official said Tuesday that she aims to make it easier to trace right-wing extremists’ financing and plans to set up an “early recognition unit” to detect far-right and foreign disinformation campaigns as early as possible.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s proposals follow large protests against the far right in Germany in recent weeks. They reflect growing concern after a report said extremists met to discuss deporting millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship, and that some members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, whose support has doubled since the country’s 2021 election, were present.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency says the number of far-right extremists has been rising. In 2022, it reached 38,800, with 14,000 of them considered potentially violent. The agency’s head, Thomas Haldenwang, said the numbers are believed to have risen again last year.
Faeser said efforts to shut down extremists’ financing have been hampered because financial investigations are limited to “inciting and violence-oriented” movements. She suggested that the law be changed to make a group’s “threat potential” grounds for such investigations, and the proceedings should be faster and less bureaucratic.
“No one who donates to a right-wing extremist organization should be able to rely on remaining undiscovered,” she said. — The Washington Post
At least 8 children among 22 hit by gunfire at end of Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade; 1 person killed
Eight children were among 22 people hit by gunfire in a shooting at the end of Wednesday’s parade to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win, authorities said, sending terrified fans running for cover as yet another high-profile public event was marred by gun violence. One of those victims — a mother of two identified by her radio station as a DJ — was killed.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said three people had been detained as part of the investigation. She said she has heard that fans may have been involved in tackling a suspect but couldn’t immediately confirm that.
“I’m angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment.” Graves said. Police did not immediately release any details about the people who were detained or about a possible motive for the shootings. She said firearms had been recovered, but not what kind. — 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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It's hard to imagine a better response to a rumored, possible, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't Russian Space Nuke than buying Zelenskyy another yacht.
I’m with Ashe on the National Security: threat - theater…especially when I came across mention of the same old Russia Russia playbook again.
Probably everyone here has seen Tucker’s short video on life in Moscow…taking us through the absolutely beautiful and clean subway station in Moscow, but if not, don’t miss it! Beauty in our surroundings lends a very high, uplifting energy of consciousness…and ugliness has the opposite effect.
Make American Beautiful Again ❤️🇺🇸
https://tuckercarlson.com/tc-shorts-the-moscow-subway-station/
Thanks BB for the Brief and your Take on the Jared Kushner story…hadn’t heard about that yet.
I can’t comprehend anyone still sleeping through the games being played on the Ukraine / Border funding manipulations!
Add that to the narrative confusion over Biden is mentally fine vs elderly senile ??
Prayers for the children and adults injured in the parade shooting and for everyone who just went there to have a good time and celebrate. May ALL the puppets of satanic rule everywhere be in their final days of their presence on this beautiful planet…
❤️🇺🇸🕊🙏🌎🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
Edit: IF, God forbid, Anything nuclear happens, then these demonic players on the world stage will have their scapegoat
narrative in place, blaming we know who and we will not fall for it!!