Badlands News Brief
Polling Paradoxes, Hegelian Seeding & Putin's Gambit
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 with some Badlands flavoring to help wash it down.
Now, onto the news from Thursday, June 20 …
Biden Enters ‘Debate Camp’ with Advisers Ahead of 1st Showdown with Trump
President Joe Biden enters Camp David in Maryland on Thursday to begin a full week of preparing for his contest with former President Donald Trump in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.
The octogenarian and his team of advisers will use the secluded rural setting for intensive preparation and coaching in the days before heading directly to the June 27 debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta, ABC News reports.
According to a campaign official, Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, is leading the debate camp preparations at the presidential retreat.
Other senior campaign aides and longtime advisers, including Cedric Richmond, a former White House aide and current campaign co-chair, will also be on hand, the ABC News report notes.
If elected, Biden would be 86 when he completed his second term, the oldest president ever to serve. — Breitbart
Our Take: So-called Ruler of the US Joe Biden is spending more than a week in debate prep at Camp David, which is hilarious because no amount of prep will fix Joe Biden.
President Trump is approaching the debate as just another campaign appearance, laughing at the idea that he would require anything resembling Joe Biden’s all-hands-on-deck approach to preparing for the contest.
This debate will be must-see TV, and is sure to produce viral and hilarious moments. Americans will recall that Biden’s team cancelled the remaining debate in 2020, claiming COVID as the reason when everyone knew it was because the future scrotus was getting destroyed in the heads to head.
Don’t forget the June 27 debate involves Biden’s hand-picked moderators and no live audience. There are also rumors that the candidates will be sitting.
And the world will be watching. —
UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea need to be reviewed — Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the UN Security Council sanctions regime against North Korea launched by the United States should be reviewed.
"I would like to note that the indefinite restrictive regime of the UN Security Council against North Korea, inspired by the United States and its allies, must be revised," the Russian President said following negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Putin emphasized that the propaganda cliches reproduced over and over by Western countries are no longer able to disguise their aggressive geopolitical plans, including in the North-East Asia region.
The Russian leader also stressed that Moscow and Pyongyang will continue to counteract the practice of sanctions familiar to the West. "We will continue to oppose the practice of sanctions strangulation as a tool that the West is accustomed to using to maintain its hegemony in politics, economy and other spheres," Putin stressed. — TASS
Our Take: Yesterday, I wrote that I'd love to see Putin challenge the UN's draconian sanctions against North Korea, which have been in place for decades.
Last night, a video was released of Putin's press conference, where he explicitly compared these sanctions to the Nazi siege of Leningrad—better known as St. Petersburg—during World War Two. The siege was part of Operation Barbarossa, and is considered the longest and most deadly in recorded history, lasting from September 1941 until January 1944 (872 days).
As a result of the Germans cutting off the city's supply lines, it is estimated that over 1.5 million Russians perished—mostly to starvation—including Putin's older brother, who died of illness related to malnutrition.
One could imagine how an experience like that would impact somebody, and having lost two brothers myself, watching Putin invoke that anecdote leads me to believe that he is deadly serious about helping the people of North Korea avoid a similar fate. Make no mistake, Vladimir Putin may go down as one of the great humanitarians of our age, especially if he is able to alleviate the suffering of the North Korean people.
I've had a lot of fun this week highlighting the blossoming friendship between Putin and Kim Jong Un—and even saw one of my memes of their bromance go a little viral—but do not underestimate the historic significance of this visit.
What
said last night on DPH was spot on: Kim Jong Un is a young leader who was likely groomed to be a CIA puppet. Now that his strings have been cut (by President Trump), he needs real guidance on how to be a real leader, so it makes perfect sense that the captain of the Sovereign Alliance—and neighbor to North Korea—would be the one to take him under his wing and show him the ropes.I expect that Putin's callout of the UN will not go unchallenged. This may very well become another facet in the War of Sovereignty, where Russia becomes North Korea's champion and liberator.
In any event, what was accomplished this week was a PR campaign to reintroduce Kim Jong Un to the western public, so that North Korea can ultimately be recognized as a part of the emerging free world. I would place Putin's visit in the same tier as Trump's first visit to Riyadh, as a symbolic moment that will only become more legendary with age.
Between Un gifting Putin a set of good boys (hello, dog comms), and this touching goodbye on the tarmac, how could you not be endeared to these two?
—
Parliaments of Russia, Vietnam strengthen partnership in security, economy — Putin
Cooperation between the parliaments of Russia and Vietnam helps strengthen the countries' relations in security, economy and humanitarian development, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man.
"The parliaments play a significant role in the development and strengthening of our relations," Putin said. "I mean, on a practical level, the adoption of relevant decisions at the legislative level creates a solid and reliable basis for our interaction in the sphere of security, economic and humanitarian development," he emphasized.
"The Vietnamese direction in our foreign policy is one of the unconditional priorities," the Russian leader emphasized. Putin said that he has held "very productive talks with the president, the prime minister, the secretary general" of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee. "I am glad to have the opportunity to meet with you during this visit and to discuss no less important issues for the development of Russian-Vietnamese relations in terms of relations between our parliaments," Putin pointed out.
The Russian leader congratulated Tran Thanh Man on his election as speaker of the Vietnamese parliament. The Vietnamese official only took office on May 20. "We hope that with your election to the high post of the National Assembly speaker, this (parliamentary - TASS) direction of our interaction in the parliamentary dimension will only intensify," Putin concluded. — TASS
Our Take: Do you see what is happening? What Putin is doing?
He is conducting a world tour that mirrors the trip President Trump took in 2017.
It began with a historic visit to a high-profile country that has long been branded as a backwards nation full of radicalized zealots that want to destroy the west. The arriving president was greeted as a conquering hero, with the host city decked out in the flag of the visiting nation, and the face of that president plastered all over the place. The public was treated to spectacle, pomp, and circumstance, while the leader of the host country was reintroduced to the public as a benevolent and endearing figure who seemed to genuinely admire and respect the visiting president. Historic announcements were made, alongside historic bilateral agreements that were signed.
Then the protagonist president hopped on his plane and jetted off to the next nation to perform yet another [mutually beneficial] conquest.
Vietnam and North Korea are two very important places in the post-WW2 history of America. They served as the sites of two very gruesome wars that forever scarred the baby boomer generation. But most importantly, they served as critical proxy states for the State Department and CIA.
Most people in this community likely understand how North Korea was used by the CIA as a proxy state. They were propped up as a puppet boogey-man, with the Kim family installed as the puppet figurehead.
Vietnam was a different kind of proxy state.
I have detailed on the Brief how west-African nations were exploited and looted by France, until Putin and the Wagner Group came along and kicked their asses out. Vietnam is another country that suffered under the French colonial rule, which had set up a large-scale opium operation that Britain and France had used to subjugate China during the Opium Wars of the 19th century. (Basically, they flooded China with very cheap opium and turned the Chinese into junkies.)
Shortly after the end of the Korean War in the 1950's, France was being driven out of Vietnam by the Soviets and Chinese, which is why the Globalist Empire decided to get the United States involved by staging the Gulf of Tonkin false flag event.
The CIA was forced to move their opium operation into Laos, while the American soldiers fought the Vietcong to prevent the complete shutdown of the drug trade. During the Vietnam War, the Empire's main customer base for its heroin was actually American GI's serving in Vietnam. That's why so many of them came home with drug addiction and other mental health problems.
See how evil these scumbags are?
Putin is busy at work establishing a worldwide network of Sovereign-minded allies who want to see this despicable Empire ended.
Godspeed, Mr. Putin. America is with you. —
Harvard Expert Issues Urgent Nuclear War Warning: 'Dark Clouds Loom'
A Harvard professor has warned the world is dangerously close to nuclear war at a time when leading experts key to preventing such conflicts are "aging out," pleading with leaders to urgently seek help from a new generation of scientists and engineers.
Matthew Bunn, a professor of energy, national security and foreign policy, said "the risk of nuclear war has not been so high since the Cuban Missile Crisis" in 1962.
"Dark clouds loom on the nuclear horizon, with threats from all directions," he wrote in an editorial for the scientific journal Science, released Thursday. "The world could soon face an unrestrained arms competition for the first time in over five decades—and a more complex one involving more countries and more technologies."
In his editorial, Bunn warned the 2010 New START Treaty is the last remaining agreement limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, but it expires in 2026, with Russia blocking required inspections and no new talks underway. — Newsweek
And …
China Targets US With Hacking Contests
China's spy agencies are using talent competitions to recruit young hackers for cyberattacks on the US.
The revelation comes in a new report that has shed fresh light on the secretive state's "hack for hire" programme, which the authors said was "unlike anything we have ever seen."
Cyber experts have called on the government and big business to do more in the wake of the report from ETH Zurich's Center for Security Studies, which revealed how China is weaponizing the brains of its young technophiles.
Beijing has banned homegrown talent from competing in international hacking, in which contestants compete to exploit vulnerabilities in widely used software for cash prizes, and created its own events, the report said.
Chinese hackers are now forced to compete in government-sanctioned domestic events, giving spy agencies a pipeline of knowledge and manpower that can be exploited for use against the U.S. and its allies. — Newsweek
Our Take: The funny thing about nonlinear events is that they're only nonlinear if they aren't predicted well in advance.
Earlier today, I spied a series of pieces warning about the increasing dangers of China hacking US systems. Of course, the fact that the Media Industrial Complex has been warning about Chinese threats to US energy (and, yes, VOTING) infrastructure is meant to lull the Normie Layers of the Collective Mind into the acceptance of this narrative deployment as an actual if and when it's deployed this fall.
Now, they've doubled down by somewhat hilariously using a "Harvard Expert" in order to make extra special sure said normies know they're meant to not just FEAR, but emphatically EXPECT the "New Axis" to deliver on their supposed promise of nonsensical nuclear armageddon.
We've been told that the choice to know would be ours.
What cognitive choices you've been making determines whether you're terrified of the movie ... or grabbing more popcorn.
Reruns, Mirrors, and Control. —
Donald Trump Suffers Abysmal Polling Week
Former President Donald Trump has been hit with a series of negative polls this week, as the road to the presidential election continues.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is set to face his Democratic opponent, incumbent President Joe Biden, in November, and so far, polls have shown that the results of the 2020 White House rematch may be tight—with the pair statistically tied or holding only marginal leads in a number of surveys.
This week, three polls have shown Trump is now behind Biden. One—a Fox News poll of 1,095 registered voters—showed Biden ahead of Trump with 50 percent of the vote share to the former president's 48 percent. The new polling results show a three-point change from May, when Trump was ahead by one point, the outlet reported. They also mark the first time since October that Biden has polled ahead of Trump in a Fox News survey. — Newsweek
And …
Biden is stubbornly underperforming other Democrats
Democrats keep doing surprisingly well in special elections. The party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbents are running ahead of their rivals in key battleground states. One of Democrats’ signature issues — reproductive rights — has repeatedly proved a winning message.
And yet Joe Biden is struggling to pull even with Donald Trump.
It’s another ominous sign for the president: Even as other Democrats are running strong, the party’s down-ballot successes aren’t translating into momentum at the top of the ticket. Biden trails Trump in many of the states he needs to win to keep the White House. His job approval is underwater. And the coalition of voters that ushered him into office four years ago is fraying.
The split in political fortunes between the president and other Democrats has grown unmistakably clear to party leaders, laying plain the degree to which Biden’s problems appear to be Biden-specific. Interviews with Democratic lawmakers, strategists and former party officials in Washington and the states found Democrats increasingly willing to acknowledge that the president’s political difficulties are anchored in Biden’s individual vulnerabilities — including his age, his inconsistent messaging and his dismal support among young people.
“Democrats are enthusiastic about trying to win the Senate and trying to win the House,” said Neil Oxman, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.
And they’re “not enthusiastic about Biden’s reelection,” Oxman said. “Period.” — Politico
Our Take: It’s that time of year when legacy media works overtime to convince the public that we are a 50/50 country. It’s exhausting, defies reality, and fails even slight scrutiny, but it’s critical to the elections game that it appears close.
Take the first article on 45’s polling.
Buried in the piece is this gem: ‘While these recent polls show Trump trailing Biden, others show the former president leading.’
Oh, you don’t say? Why is that in the 11th paragraph? Also, they admit to contacting the Trump campaign outside of business hours, meaning they didn’t want a response.
Then there is the Politico piece on Biden polling that states, ‘Joe Biden is struggling to pull even with Donald Trump.’
So which is it? Neither, but we will get to that in a second.
The Politico piece claims, ‘In the last few presidential elections, down-ballot candidates outran both Trump and President Barack Obama in their reelection bids.’
Sounds like Politico is getting ahead of down ballot races outperforming the top of the ticket.
So to summarize, according to Newsweek and Politico:
The POTUS race represents a 50/50 country.
The House and Senate races are trending left.
The down ballot races are going to outperform the top of the ticket.
Remember, in 2020, when they kept saying for weeks before the election that we wouldn’t know who was president on election night? And then they stopped counting, Edison went to zero, and the famous F-curve vote insertion happened?
They’re saying different stuff now, and we should pay attention.
Back to the POTUS race, it’s not a dead heat. Trump is up in every demo, but the regime’s narrators want you to believe that his overall support — and Biden’s — hasn’t changed.
It’s literally unbelievable. —
Senate Democrats launch investigation into Jared Kushner's business
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) this month launched an investigation into Affinity Partners, the Saudi-backed private equity firm led by Jared Kushner.
Why it matters: Wyden is chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and as a member of the majority could get enough votes to subpoena documents that House Democrats have unsuccessfully sought.
Catch up quick: Kushner formed Affinity shortly after leaving the White House, and by the end of 2021 had raised $3 billion for a debut fund.
This included a $2 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, even though PIF staff reportedly raised red flags. Overall, nearly 99% of Affinity's fund capital came from non-U.S. sources.
So far Affinity has invested in at least eight companies, including an Israeli auto services group and a California solar energy fintech.
The big question is if Kushner discussed his plans for Affinity with foreign governments while still serving as senior adviser to former President Trump, or if it was some sort of retroactive quid pro quo. — Axios
And …
"Israel is becoming a pariah state, a hated country, and it’s trickling down to high-tech"
"I'm the VP of development at a startup. I enlisted on October 7, and since then, I've been in the reserves on and off. The company informed me that the situation is no longer possible, and they are looking for someone who can give 100% because they are suffering (and that's true). I understand them completely, and we came to a joint conclusion that I should leave." This tweet was published last week on @FeedTechILUncen on X. Although it is a very personal tweet, it reflects what is happening below the surface in the Israeli high-tech industry in recent months. These underground currents are manifested beyond heavy personnel costs and pose a real threat to the continued success of the industry in Israel. More and more companies, including early-stage startups, prefer to "spread the risk" and recruit more workers abroad to avoid shutting down operations or damaging development, as has been the case in the last eight months.
"In large companies, there has always been a dispersion of personnel across different countries, but today there is a tendency to be more strict about this to ensure continuity in situations of massive reserve recruitment or regional instability," says Micha Kaufman, co-founder and CEO of Fiverr, which employs 770 people in Israel and around the world and is traded in New York at a value of $1 billion.
Kaufman was one of the signatories of the high-tech letter sent last week to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of the Economy, warning against the flight of high-tech jobs from Israel to abroad. "If this is not enough, it becomes more difficult for Israeli companies to raise money due to pressure on funds to reduce exposure to Israel," explains Kaufman. The letter, which was sent with the escalation in the north already in the background, but mainly ahead of the discussion that began this week in the High Court on the law concerning the ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service, warned against the abandonment of high-tech jobs abroad. — Calcalist
Our Take: There are two ways to look at this narrative deployment, when you consider that second story from two weeks ago:
The first, and more obvious, is that this is another boomerang deployment that will become a [mirror] template that will be used to prosecute the criminal cockroaches that crawl around the underbelly of DC. Reading the letter that Ron Wyden sent to Kushner's company, Affinity Partners, it is hard not to laugh out loud at the blatant hypocrisy of the DC criminal cartel.
It's not that these reprobates are outraged by Kushner's alleged "impropriety," they are outraged that they now have competition.
Because crime bosses hate competition. That's why gangsters go out of their way to eliminate their competition through unsavory means.
Nothing that Kushner and Affinity Partners are doing is illegal, let alone unprecedented. Kushner has likely followed every conventional norm in starting the business and acquiring investors—especially considering who his father-in-law is, the fact that he was persecuted the entire time he was president, and the fact that Kushner's own father was sentenced to two years in prison in 2005 for white-collar crimes.
Given the amount of heat on the Trump family, you have to imagine that everything Kushner and the Trump kin were doing post-presidency was above board.
The second way of looking at this is much more interesting, in my opinion. Because when you read that other article, which details how Israel's economy is now severely suffering from the Gaza War, it becomes more obvious why Kushner started this company. The fact that he did it with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with the majority of the company's funding coming from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), is kind of a Devo proof, in my opinion. Because not only did MBS have to overrule the PIF's manager's to get the funding for Kushner, but the company's stated goal was to target the Israeli tech sector.
Due to its lack of natural resources, Israel has developed a robust technology industry out of pure necessity. But as this article has detailed, that sector of their economy—which is very much its cornerstone—has been hit very hard by the war, for two reasons:
The first reason is that tens of thousands of tech-sector workers, considered highly-skilled laborers, have been conscripted as reservists into the IDF for the war effort. The other reason is that the war itself has created both uncertainty and disdain from foreign investors, who are either reluctant or completely unwilling to invest funding into an economy that seems committed to a long-term kinetic conflict with neighboring Arab nations.
According to a senior official at one of the international companies operating in Israel, "We are becoming a pariah state, a hated country, and this trickles down to high-tech as well. Even our friends no longer want to be associated with Israeli technology."
So it's almost like Kushner and MBS were aware that this unavoidable conflict was on the horizon, and that the Israeli economy could face potential collapse without an influx of cash to keep its core sectors afloat. Whether that works out in the long-run remains to be seen, but the fact that MBS is now publicly branding the Netanyahu cabinet as "war criminals," while indirectly propping up the Israeli economy with billions of dollars from the Saudi Public Fund indicates that there is a greater plan in place, which intends to save the Israeli people from its despotic leaders. —
BONUS ITEMS
Supreme Court gets ready to drop its bombshells
The Supreme Court is about to drop a string of blockbuster rulings, with abortion rights, gun rights and the Justice Department's case against former President Trump all hanging in the balance.
The big picture: Two years after overturning Roe v. Wade — and with questions about some of the justices' ethics and impartiality at a fever pitch — the court is squarely in the center of election-year politics. The remaining slate of high-profile cases is all but guaranteed to turn up the heat even further.
The court has 23 cases left to decide, and will likely hand down all of those opinions by the end of the month, give or take a few days — meaning the next week or so may redefine the limits of presidential power for generations to come.
There's no bigger blockbuster in that mix than former President Trump's claims of "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution. — Axios
Firestorm erupts over requiring women to sign up for military draft
Senate Democrats have added language to the annual defense authorization bill to require women to register for the draft, prompting a backlash from Republicans and social conservatives and complicating the chances of moving the bill on the Senate floor before Election Day.
Conservatives led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) are certain to attempt to remove the provision requiring women to register for the draft, which could present a tough vote for Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and other Democrats in tight reelection races.
Republican candidate Sam Brown, who is running against Rosen, is already making it an issue in the Nevada Senate race.
Brown, an Army veteran who was severely burned by an improvised explosive device explosion, slammed Rosen in a video for voting to require women to sign up for the draft.
“Look at my face. This is the high cost of war,” he posted recently on the social platform X.
“Amy and I volunteered to serve, and we honor all who serve,” he wrote, referring to his wife. “But forcing America’s daughters to register for the draft is UNACCEPTABLE. Shame on Jacky Rosen.”
In the video posted below those comments, Brown pointed to the scarring on his face as evidence of the dangers women would face in combat theaters. — The Hill
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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Regarding US soldiers returning from VietNam either hooked on heroin or mentally screwed up. My daughter’s first boyfriend decided he wanted to join the marines and go fight in Vietnamese. He was 16 and lied in order to enlist. He was a big friendly kid when he left. He got wounded and sent to Japan and then “home” but in reality became another psychiatric victim. They shoved him in a mental institution in Seattle, for a couple of weeks he was strapped in a straitjacket, and put in a padded cell. Then they moved him up to a padded cell but no straitjacket. Of course they also drugged him with mind altering/mind killing drugs all the while. The last stage was in a regular room (locked and guarded) and then finally deemed fit by the psychiatric overlords to return to society. He came home a broken and bitter man bearing no resemblance to the 16 year-old kid who left home a year before.
The fake and dangerous “science” of psychiatry should be banned. Many, many deaths and many problems currently in the world can be directly tied to psychiatry. Things like so-called “transgender dysphoria” are the bread and butter of psychiatric claptrap. School shootings can be traced to psychiatric history of the shooters, including drug cocktails and other psychiatric “therapies.” No doubt the CIA utilizes psychiatrists to create monsters that harm society. They are evil and it’s an evil occupation. No one should be left in their “care”, especially children,
I don’t believe any polls and haven’t for years. Let’s not forget the polls that showed Hillary winning! I never participate in them when contacted as they are usually for the demonrats! It’s easy to determine who they are polling for just by the questions they ask. Let’s not get sucked into that again! Anyone supporting the democrats now are supporting the full destruction of America, including themselves and their own families!!! I asked my crazed, covid boosted, liberal brother in law if he thought the criminal illegals will ask him how he votes before attacking or killing him and his family!! He looked at me like a deer in the headlights!!! They are clueless!