Badlands News Brief
Sovereign Alliance Comms and Tapwater Goblins
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 Tuesday, May 14 …
Putin to meet with Xi during visit to China this week
Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a two-day state visit to China this week, the first known foreign trip of his fifth term.
Why it matters: Putin will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the trip in the latest showing of the two nations' close ties.
Driving the news: Putin will be in China on Thursday and Friday on invitation from Xi, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday.
Putin, 71, was reelected in March to a fifth term as Russia's president.
His trip will be a reciprocal visit to Xi's trip to Moscow last year following his own reelection, the Kremlin said in a statement, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
State of play: Russia and China have been cultivating the close ties between for years as tensions with the U.S. have risen.
Putin and Xi met in early 2022 — weeks ahead of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — where they announced a "no limits" partnership.
Beijing has maintained warm diplomatic ties with Moscow and provided critical support to its defense industrial base as Russia has waged its war in Ukraine.
During his own visit to China last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has "serious concern" over China providing weapons components to Russia over the course of the war.
The other side: The U.S. State Department and White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment. — Axios
Our Take: “Sovereign Alliance comms abound ... but only if you're paying attention.
There are some who routinely challenge the possibility of a Sovereign Alliance existing (coordination between leaders like Trump, Xi and Putin, among others,) first hinted at in the Q Drops and later pollinated by asymmetric readings of the War of Stories, and to those people I say, enjoy reacting emotionally to the same PsyOps normieville is going to be freaking out about all year.
Donald Trump has told you himself we're in the midst of a Psychological War. The idea that said war doesn't go both ways is absurd to nurture, especially in light of the existence of a 4th PsyOp Group of the US MIL.
Whatever Actuals that could spin out of meetings like this are long done, with these publicized meetings serving as Narrative Deployments.
The 'New Axis' Narrative is just getting started, and Trump will do his part in building it up en route to an engineered (and highly cathartic) resolution.
Be the frame & support.” —
Smotrich warns establishment of Palestinian state is a looming ‘tangible danger’
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a group of settlement mayors Wednesday night that the establishment of a Palestinian state was becoming a “tangible danger” due to international efforts advancing the cause.
He also informed them of his efforts to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convene a key administrative body in order to authorize new construction plans in the Israeli West Bank settlements.
According to Smotrich’s office, the finance minister outlined during the meeting with settler leaders in the Finance Ministry what he described as “the tangible, developing danger” that a Palestinian state would be established through “international involvement” and the “consent of leftist elements” in Israel.
Present at the meeting were Israel Ganz, recently named the new chairman of Yesha Council settlement umbrella body, and the mayors of the biggest West Bank settlements including Beitar Illit, Modiin Illit and Maale Adumim. — Times of Israel
And …
UN assembly approves resolution granting Palestine new rights and reviving its UN membership bid
The U.N. General Assembly voted by a wide margin on Friday to grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine and called on the Security Council to reconsider Palestine’s request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.
The world body approved the Arab and Palestinian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-9 with 25 abstentions. The United States voted against it, along with Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Papua New Guinea.
The vote reflected the wide global support for full membership of Palestine in the United Nations, with many countries expressing outrage at the escalating death toll in Gaza and fears of a major Israeli offensive in Rafah, a southern city where about 1.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
It also demonstrated growing support for the Palestinians. A General Assembly resolution on Oct. 27 calling for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza was approved 120-14 with 45 abstentions. That was just weeks after Israel launched its military offensive in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people. — AP News
Our Take: “So this saga is from last week, with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich freaking out about a UN vote for Palestinian statehood, and then the UN, indeed, voting overwhelmingly in favor of Palestinian statehood.
Smotrich—who is an ethnic Ukrainian—is quite the little psychopath. He has gotten himself into trouble on more than one occasion for publicly calling for genocide against Palestine. One instance would be last March (2023) when he said: ‘The [Palestinian] village of Huwwara needs to be wiped out. I think that the State of Israel needs to do that—not, God forbid, private individuals.’
A month later, in April 2023, Smotrich was filmed giving a speech at an event that was promoting "Greater Israel," which is a particularly maniacal notion among ultra-Zionists that Jewish scripture demands that Jews conquer most of the Middle East—’from the Nile to the Euphrates’—in the glorious name of Israel. On the podium where Smotrich spoke was a banner showing an expanded map of Israel that included all of Palestine, all of Jordan, and a large portion of northwestern Saudi Arabia. (The Greater Israel project also calls for the annexation of Lebanon, half of Syria, half of Iraq, and half of Egypt.) During the speech, Smotrich said that the Palestinian people was a made-up concept, that they weren't ‘real people,’ and that his children were the real Palestinians.
Smotrich was arrested in 2005 by the Shin Bet for allegedly planning a terrorist attack with a five-man cell, where they planned to burn vehicles on major highways with 700 liters of gasoline, in protest of then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evict all Israeli settlers from Gaza—who had illegally settled there in violation of international law.
In 2017, while a member of the Knesset (Israeli Congress), Smotrich wrote a manifesto entitled ‘Israel's Decisive Plan,’ which is now known as The Smotrich Doctrine. In it, Smotrich explains that the Two-State Solution is a ridiculous idea, and that ‘There is only room for one expression of national self-determination west of the Jordan River: that of the Jewish nation.’
The first step of Smotrich's grand design to subvert the Two-State Solution is to first establish [illegal] Israeli settlements throughout Palestine. Curiously, back in March, Smotrich announced the largest land seizure by Israel of the West Bank since 1993, and approval by the government to [illegally] construct 3,300 new homes for settlers.
Smotrich goes on to say in the manifesto that all non-Orthodox forms of Judaism are a ‘fake religion,’ and that Torah Law should be implemented into the Israeli justice system, which would effectively create a Jewish version of Shariah Law, where rabbis would be empowered to dictate legally-enforceable guidance on daily routines and activities, such as how to use electricity on the Sabbath (Saturday). There would also be special laws for gentiles (the Seven Laws of Noah) which include prohibiting the worship of idols—which would presumably include Christianity, considering that Smotrich considers most forms of Judaism to be illegitimate religions.
The whole thing reads like an inverse Mien Kampf. I strongly encourage you all to go take a look for yourself. And Bibi Netanyahu thought this guy should be Finance Minister, a position Smotrich is now using to withhold tax revenue from Palestine that Israel has collected from Palestinian citizens.
It actually doesn't seem like Smotrich and Netanyahu get along all that well, with Netanyahu blocking Smotrich's newly-planned settler developments. But Smotrich is definitely in the crosshairs of the international community, who have been calling for his prosecution for war crimes for years—long before October 7th.” —
Ukrainian Corruption Center reports northern border defense funds were diverted to fake companies, letting Russians walk right across border in new Kharkiv offensive
Head of the Mezha Anti-Corruption Center, Martyna Bohuslavets, has written a report in Pravda asking "Where are the fortifications?" She reports that millions of dollars that were intended for the construction of fortifications in Ukraine were instead "transferred to Kharkiv OVA to front companies of avatars."
Bohuslavets said the Ukrainian Kharkiv Regional Military Administration (Kharkiv OVA) paid out funds to fictitious companies during the construction and fortification of the Kharkiv region. The report comes as Russian forces have broken into the northern region of Ukraine and the US continues funding the war.
According to Ukranian Pravda reports, the Russian military has begun to advance in the northern region of Ukraine where funding that was set for fortification was transferred to fake companies. The offensive from the Russian military launched on Monday with attacks on towns and villages, the Kyiv Post reports. A total of 7 billion hryvnias was spent there by Ukraine, according to the report.
This comes as the BBC reports that a regional Ukrainian commander in Kharkiv has said that the first line of defense was missing in a massive "betrayal" in the northern region of the country. Denys Yaroslavskyi, a commander in the region in charge of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, told the outlet, “There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields."
He told the BBC that government officials claimed to have built up the mines as the first line of defense at a huge cost. He told reporters, “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal." He then added, “When we were fighting back for this territory in 2022, we lost thousands of people. We risked our lives."
"And now because someone didn’t build fortifications, we’re losing people again," he stated. — Human Events
Our Take: “Now THIS is the kind of article that might normally be dismissed by the awakening minds in this community as par for the course when it comes to Ukrainian corruption, but sometimes, when we dig a BIT deeper, connections are illuminated.
I may be off my rocker, and I plan to have the Devo man himself
take a look for discussion on the Power Hour tonight, but I think we’ve got ourselves some additional, subtle indicators that not ALL is quite as it seems where it concerns US aid to Ukraine.Observe this section from the reporting:
In March, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported on the lack of oversight on the funds going to Ukraine during the war. GAO found in its report from March that the Defense Department is lacking in its ability to provide oversight on the resources being sent to Ukraine in the war.
The GAO reported, "DOD does not have quality data to track delivery of defense articles to Ukraine. DOD guidance on PDA does not clearly define at what point in the delivery process defense articles should be recorded as delivered or provide clear instructions for how DOD service branches are to confirm delivery."
It added that full documentation of the funding being sent to the military effort has been lacking.
Now, I don’t know about you, but aside from the usual incompetence coming out of the Biden Administration, I tend to perk up anytime the Department of Defense comes up in light of Continuity of Government operations that may or may not be underway as we speak, and certainly since the advent of Putin’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Does the DOD not have ‘quality data to track delivery?’ … or are they just not sharing said data with the people asking for it?” —
US Says Putin's Dramatic Cabinet Reshuffle Smacks Of 'Desperation'
The Biden administration has reacted to Russian President Vladimir Putin's significant cabinet shake-up announced Sunday, wherein Putin tapped Andrey Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who specializes in economics, to move into the position of defense minister. Sergei Shoigu meanwhile has been moved to head Russia’s Security Council at the expense of Nikolai Patrushev. Shoigu can be seen as having in essence been given a promotion.
This big shuffle was unexpected, and the surprise has been registered in European capitals and Washington, with the US saying that this shows signs of "desperation" for Moscow sustaining the high costs of the Ukraine invasion.
"Our point of view is that this is further indication of Putin’s desperation to sustain his war of aggression against Ukraine, despite it being a major drain on the Russian economy and the heavy losses of Russian troops, with some estimates as high as 315,000 casualties," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said to a press briefing Monday.
"The Kremlin’s mobilization of its war of aggression against Ukraine has caused so many families to suffer," he stated. "Russia started this unprovoked war against Ukraine. Putin could end it at any time by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine."
To be expected, Britain is also joining in on the US critique, with current and former officials agreeing that Putin's decision-making shows signs of 'instability'. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Of course, the Western Hegemon is posturing that they scent blood in the water where it concerns Putin's replacement of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with economist Andrey Belousov.
The only problem is, they're full of shit on a few counts:
1) Shoigu hasn't been demoted. He's in effect been PROMOTED in terms of defense, moving from Defense Minister to head Russia’s Security Council, a position even closer to Putin.
2) Belousov's move from Deputy Prime Minister to Defense Minister should be seen as both a promotion and a shot across the bow to the Central Banking elite, as it signals Russia's stance that, in the wake of two years of Western sanctions and the weaponization of the US petrodollar, economic defense IS national defense.
3) The prime sources of the anti-Russia FUD come by way of the State Department, who are calling the move an act of ‘desperation,’ and Christopher Steele (yes, THAT Christopher Steele,) who said it betrays Russia's ‘serious instability.’
Project, much?” —
Historian Yuval Noah Harari Expresses Skepticism About Bitcoin, Calls It 'A Currency of Distrust'
Our Take: “Tapwater goblin bankers are scared. And that's a good thing.
My favorite bits of Narrative Convergence occur when the enemy's deployments converge with the truth, which, much like water, eventually finds its own level.
Thus, it’s both a sign of establishment panic and the inevitable forward march of truth when you have WEFian Globalist princes like Yuval Noah Harari accidentally putting together the best possible case for decentralization of the financial sector than any Bitcoin maximalist could hope to achieve.
For starters, this is the rare Globalist Banker rant wherein you can come away in almost total agreement with everything Harari says ... as long as you reject his baseline framing, which is that he and his ilk are net benefits to society.
Harari says the following are threats to the System:
1) Decentralization and transparency.
2) Distrust of government and banking apparatus.
3) Digital Gold.
Simply play the inversion game, and ask yourself if he's wrong on any count.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Rumble Sues Google!
Pro-free speech video-sharing platform Rumble has initiated legal proceedings against Google and its parent body, Alphabet, alleging anti-competitive digital advertising policies that violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. “Google exploits significant conflicts of interest that stem from its multiple roles in this electronically traded marketplace,” Rumble argues in its lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California.
“As a result, it is able to pocket a supra-competitive portion of every advertising dollar that passes through the Ad Tech markets it controls, ad-revenue that rightly should have passed through to publishers like Rumble and its content creators,” it continues, accusing Google of “exclud[ing] competition by engaging in conduct unlawful under settled antitrust precedent, including through unlawful tying arrangements, a pattern and practice of exclusionary conduct targeting actual and potential rivals.”
Rumble is seeking “injunctive relief and damages in excess of $1 billion.”
Separately, Rumble is suing Check My Ads, a tax-exempt organization it accuses of “routinely target[ing] news outlets and platforms that do not adhere to their political worldview” and defamation. — The National Pulse
Speaker Johnson defends Trump outside 'sham' New York trial
Former President Donald Trump's entourage continued to grow when more high-profile politicians attended his New York hush money criminal trial on Tuesday -- including House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson, the highest-ranking Republican in Congress, was in criminal court with Trump on Tuesday morning. After commuting with Trump in his motorcade from Trump Tower, the speaker read a statement in nearby Collect Pond Park where he said he was "deeply concerned" about "this sham of a trial."
"I told him I wanted to be here myself to call out what is a travesty of justice," Johnson continued, "President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him."
His appearance comes less than a week after Trump helped save Johnson's speakership after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump ally, attempted to oust him. Trump spoke privately to Greene and urged her to drop her push to oust Johnson -- though Greene went on to trigger a vote to oust him, which Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly rejected.
Throughout his remarks, Johnson stuck to Trump's script where he discussed the length of the trial preventing Trump from the campaign trail.
"They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and keep him off of the campaign trail," Johnson said. — ABC News
Supreme Court Justices Thomas And Alito Issue Warnings About State Of America
In separate remarks at two different events on Friday, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued warnings about the state of affairs in America today, including support for freedom of speech “declining dangerously” and the nation’s capital becoming a “hideous” place where cancel culture runs rampant.
Justice Thomas spoke at a conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Point Clear, Alabama, while Justice Alito delivered a commencement address at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic college in Ohio, with both of the conservative-minded judges painting a dark picture—while encouraging action and offering hope.
At the Alabama event, Justice Thomas was asked to comment by the moderator—U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle—about what it’s like to work “in a world that seems meanspirited.”
“I think there’s challenges to that,” Justice Thomas said. “We’re in a world and we—certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been—just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible.”
Justice Thomas has faced heavy fire from Democrats who accuse him of skirting disclosure rules, of corruption in general, and of being too cozy with wealthy Republicans. They have not been able to point to any specific court cases in which the justice has misbehaved. Some activists have even pushed for Justice Thomas’s impeachment.
By contrast, over 100 former Supreme Court clerks signed an open letter last year defending Justice Thomas’s integrity, calling him a man of “unwavering principle” whose independence is “unshakable.” They called various critical stories that have targeted him as “malicious” and “perpetuating the ugly assumption that the Justice cannot think for himself.”
“They are part of a larger attack on the Court and its legitimacy as an institution,” the letter also stated. “The picture they paint of the Court and the man for whom we worked bears no resemblance to reality.” — The Epoch Times
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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Isn't it interesting its almost impossible to provide accountability for the funds that have been sent to the Ukraine. Did we really believe all this money was going to Zelensky? How much is making a U Turn into the pockets of U.S. politicians. Ever hear Ukraine called the most corrupt country in Europe and the capitol of MONEY LAUNDERING???
I love how anytime an establishment author writes about Russia v Ukraine it's always "Russia's unprovoked invasion/attack of Ukraine"
OMG the Borg have spoken and Russia Russia Russia just decided one Friday evening after too many Stoly that it would be fun to attack a neighboring country. "Hey, what about Ukraine, Vladi??" "DAAA!!! After cartoons!!"
It's laughably ridiculous. I wonder how many people still believe it?