Badlands News Brief
Red States Align While the MSM Craters
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 Thursday, January 25 …
High-Profile Republicans Push Texas to Defy Supreme Court Border Ruling
HOUSE SPEAKER MIKE Johnson has thrown his support behind Greg Abbott as the Texas governor continues to defy the Biden administration following a Supreme Court ruling granting the federal government authority to remove swaths of razor wire installed at the southern border by the state.
On Monday, the conservative-controlled court determined in a 5-4 ruling that the Biden administration can remove concertina wire Texas installed at various points of their border with Mexico. The coils of wire have been linked to slews of injuries of undocumented migrants.
In response to the ruling, Abbott — who for months now has been escalating his feud with the Biden administration over border security — issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that “the federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.”
“I have already declared an invasion under Article I, $ 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary,” Abbott wrote. — Rolling Stone
And …
Democrats Want Biden To Take "Federal Control" Of The Texas National Guard
Democrats have called on Joe Biden to seize control of the Texas National Guard unless it stops trying to secure the border with razor wire barriers.
The Guard is continuing to make and install the barriers in defiance of a Supreme Court order that now allows for the feds to take them down.
Texas Governor Gregg Abbot issued a statement vowing that authorities under his jurisdiction will not back down.
“The failure of the Biden administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV section 4 has triggered Article 1, section 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense,” Abbott proclaimed, adding “For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, section 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself.”
All of this triggered Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro to call for Biden to seize the Texas Guard and federalise it.
Democratic Rep. Greg Casar followed up, stating that he agrees with Castro, that Biden should take control of the Texas Guard — Modernity News
Our Take: “The Bicameral Border:
On the Actual side, as
has pointed out, the use case for this particular patch of Texas border is ... inconsequential, and the legal case for Texas is far from a certainty, which is setting up for a fascinating bit of Federal vs. State lawfare in February.On the Narrative side, the fact that the Actuals are being overstated here lends further credence to the idea that we're seeing a Disclosure campaign being forwarded on the national stage that, as
pointed out, runs parallel to the original deployments of Trump.Most of all, as
points out below, the Net Effects of all of the above on the Normie Layers of the Collective Mind will be Escalation between federal and state forces and ideologies.What starts as political and morphs into social can go kinetic.
I don't think that will happen, but the threat that it COULD is a net win for Trumpism, and devastating for the Palpatine Paradigm forming around the Biden-led Establishment.” —
Trump adviser Peter Navarro sentenced to 4 months in prison for defying Jan. 6 committee subpoena
Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison Thursday for criminal contempt of Congress, with a federal judge telling him he was "not a victim" or a target of political persecution, as much as he may have proclaimed otherwise.
Navarro was convicted in September on two counts for refusing to testify and provide documents to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which issued its report and dissolved in late 2022 after Republicans won control of the House.
The charge carried a mandatory minimum sentence of a month in prison. Federal prosecutors had sought six months for Navarro, saying he, “like the rioters at the Capitol, put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation.” Navarro, prosecutors said, “chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law.” Federal prosecutors said Navarro “thumbed his nose” at the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta handed down the sentence Thursday and also ordered Navarro to pay a fine of $9,500. — NBC News
Our Take: “Judge Mehta has lost the plot.
‘What I find disappointing is that in all of this, even today, there’s little acknowledgment of what your obligation is as an American — to cooperate with Congress, to provide them with information that they’re seeking…
Fine, you think it’s a political hatchet job, it’s domestic terrorists running the committee. They had a job to do and you made it harder. It’s really that simple.
Our obligations as Americans are to protect and defend the Constitution, even if its enemies are in the US Congress. The J6 Committee was a coverup of J6.
That’s why Nancy Pelosi was ‘off limits’ despite the fact that she was in charge that day. Its why Stephen Sund was left out of security briefings in the weeks BEFORE the ‘insurrection’ and denied critical intelligence by his second in command — who was later rewarded with a high-paying position in Pelosi’s district. It’s why the committee destroyed their records.
The J6 Committee was a cover-up of January 6, because J6 was a cover up of November 3. Peter Navarro was under no obligation to assist their efforts. Rather, his obligation to the Constitution required that he fight any efforts to subvert it.
What was it Trump said? We have it all? Let’s see what happens.” —
'The Entire Journalism Industry Is In Freefall': Taylor Lorenz Vlogs The Death Of MSM As BuzzFeed, Insider And Vice Jettison Assets
Corporate media is on life support. Driven to cut costs by sagging ad revenues and waning appetite for propaganda, layoffs and 'restructurings' are happening all over.
Earlier this week the LA Times laid off 120 employees, around 20% of its newsroom.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed and Vice Media - two former darlings of digital media, are looking to siphon off assets. BuzzFeed, which has lost over 97% of its value since going public in 2021, is looking to sell its food sites, Tasty and WeFeast. While Fortress Investment Group, which took over Vice in bankruptcy last year, is looking to sell its Refinery29 women's lifestyle site, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Fortress is in talks to sell Refinery29 after a failed attempt to find a buyer for Vice in its entirety, which includes its namesake news brand, production studio and creative agency, among other assets. Fortress is in discussions with prospective bidders for Refinery29, which saw a decrease in revenue to $30 million last year from around $50 million in 2022, according to people familiar with the matter.
Vice notably bought Refinery29 for $400 million in 2019, while Tasty was an attempt by BuzzFeed to generate revenue streams beyond advertising with direct sales of kitchenware.
The outlets join Jezebel ("Sex. Celebrity. Politics. With Teeth"), which was shuttered in November by G/O Media amid corporate layoffs, and Business Insider, which is now cutting 8% of its staff, per Semafor.
Time Magazine also laid off 30 people this week.
[…]
Opining on the sad state of journalism is Jeff Bezos's vocal-fry champion,Taylor Lorenz, who said this week that "The entire journalism industry is basically in a free-fall," and that the LA Times' woes follow "months and months of layoffs in the media industry."
"And it's not just digital media sites," she continues. "Local news has been obliterated, the newspaper industry is cratering, radio is essentially dead - aside from NPR which has been gutted. Meanwhile, hundreds of workers at Conde Nast, the parent company of pretty much every major magazine from GQ to Vogue to the New Yorker to Vanity Fair are on strike." — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Taylor Lorenz. Lol. Here’s what we’re losing that she claims is tragic:
’How white and affluent drivers are polluting the air breathed by L.A.’s people of color.’
That’s a real headline from the LA Times.
After the release of the vaccine and the rise of blood clots and heart attacks, here’s just a sprinkling of the ‘new’ causes of heart attacks and blood clots that the MSM suddenly started reporting:
• car exhaust
• climate change
• black tea
• loneliness (caused by social media)
• napping
It has become mainstream knowledge that the mainstream media was covering for Epstein.
Narrative warfare in Taylor’s ‘journalism’ was waged during COVID that tore through our entire social fabric, ripping apart friendships and families.
The vaccine injured and the mourning families of the dead have been ignored by her fading class.
Here we have a member of the woke mob media, an expert herself in character assassination and double speak, telling us how bad it's going to be when her kind are not ruling journalism.
Is she living with zero self awareness? Can she not conceive of how attacking millions of people with a radicalized, mind controlled mob using a trillion dollar media corporatocracy was… bad?
It would be easier to assume that the evil that she represents is based on Taylor herself being evil enough to be a conscious agent of destruction. And she may indeed get off on telling us what we can say, think and do. But the truth of the evil we are watching wither and die is worse: that it is parasitic.
Taylor is the result of generations of social engineering and the manipulation of so many institutions that it’s hard to even conceptualize. It’s too convenient and rejects the sophistication of the manipulation that surrounds us to say that she is emblematic of the fading psychological operations called ‘journalism.’
Rather, she is symptomatic, and this distinction is important because it casts a light on the world beyond the death of deep state propaganda. A world where we will regain freedom of thought in entire cross sections of our society once weaponized.
It reminds me of that parable about the red and black ants in a jar being shaken destroying each other. It always ends with the question: Who is the one shaking the jar?
Taylor may be a useful idiot and a total clown, but she’s in the jar like us and without realizing it, she’s showcasing the downfall of the one shaking the jar.” —
Another Take: “The old guard, millennial Twitterati have two options as their establishment crumbles around them:
1) Become authentic (impossible.)
2) Learn to code.” —
US, Israeli intelligence chiefs to discuss Gaza hostage deal -sources
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns and his Israeli counterpart will meet with Qatari officials in coming days for talks on a second potential Gaza hostage deal, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
Burns and the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, David Barnea, will meet with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe this weekend, one official briefed on the meeting told Reuters.
Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel will also participate, a second source said.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been trying to facilitate the release of the more than 100 remaining hostages taken during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza, although there remains a considerable distance between the two sides' demands.
The U.S. and Israeli intelligence chiefs have previously met with Qatari and Egyptian officials, helping to broker a short-lived truce in November that saw more than 100 hostages freed. — Reuters
Our Take: “Where the CIA goes, trouble tends to follow.
Only, lately, it seems that, where trouble crops up, the CIA seems to follow.
That’s the subtle, significant shift I’ve noted during the Trump and Biden eras, and which first became apparent to me during the Kabul withdrawal, where a similar CIA visit was (totally coincidentally) followed by the detonation at a gate that killed both US service members and Taliban guards.
Of course, I hope nothing like that occurs in Gaza, but the fact that the CIA is being trotted out to ‘problem zones’ following Biden’s inability to affect the sort of change or progress the infamous organization likes to see rendered on the game board is both concerning and oddly encouraging.
After all, taken in combination with Burns’ own admission that the CIA is currently flying blind when it comes to knowing the directional plans of foreign nations—and potential Sovereign Alliance stalwarts—like China and Russia lend more credence to the idea that the Deep State truly has become more an archipelago of independently-acting—and ass-covering—criminals rather than a masterful, decentralized spy network of bad actors.” —
The Maine Event That Wasn't: Bellows Fails Again To Force A Ruling On Trump Disqualification
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows lost another attempt to force review of her disqualification “decision” before the United States Supreme Court hears arguments on the issue on Feb. 8th.
The Maine Supreme Court declined to review the matter. With other states like Massachusetts ruling this week against disqualification, Colorado will remain the outlier as the only state supreme court willing to embrace this dangerous and anti-democratic theory.
I have previously written about my criticism of this unfounded theory. Advocates have been rejected in a dozen states, but have continued to seek judges willing to accept this novel argument. They knew that they had Bellows at hello given her prior public comments.
Bellows previously declared that “the Jan. 6 insurrection was an unlawful attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election…The insurrectionists failed, and democracy prevailed.”
A year after the riot, Bellows was still denouncing the “violent insurrection.”
The decision is poorly written and conclusory in virtually every respect.
A couple weeks ago, Maine Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy deferred judgment, in the case given the upcoming argument over the Colorado decision.
Bellows appealed but the justices noted that Murphy had only deferred judgment.
He had not ruled.
Thus, “because the appeal is not from a final judgment, we dismiss the appeal as interlocutory and not justiciable.”
So the Maine event will not happen. — Jonathan Turley
Our Take: “The writing is on the wall for Colorado’s flawed 14A theory, as even the most liberal judicial institutions in the nation won’t co-sign this dangerous, novel endeavor.
Colorado’s case will be heard by the US Supreme Court on February 8, and no one — not the press, the legal scholars, or the public — believes the Centennial State will succeed in removing President Trump from the ballot.
As I’ve been saying since the first day of the district court trial, this endeavor is about the insurrection narrative. It’s about legitimizing the deeply flawed and unjust work of the J6 Committee, and covering up their cover up. Every regime mouthpiece is screeching insurrection while, every day, more and more evidence reveals the insurrection to be a government fabrication.
The most important question before SCOTUS is whether January 6 was an insurrection. The amount of innuendo and academic theory required for the Colorado trial court to find ‘insurrection’ is now a part of our national story that would make the Soviets blush.
SCOTUS must decide if American citizens can be penalized and persecuted based on the hyper-politicized idea of an insurrection — an idea that is wholly disproven by the evidence.
Anything less is manifest injustice to the constitution, and to the people.” —
BONUS ITEMS
"My Party Is Completely Delusional": Dean Phillips Destroys Democrat Demagoguery Of Republicans After Attending Trump Rally
2024 Democratic hopeful Dean Phillips attended a New Hampshire Donald Trump rally this week, where he said he met "thoughtful, hospitable and friendly' people waiting in line, "All of them so frustrated that they feel nobody is listening to them, except Donald Trump."
"I saw the line of people waiting in the cold for hours, and I thought, ‘What the heck, I’m going to be a leader who actually invites people, doesn’t condemn them,'" he said. "I met probably 50 Trump people waiting in line. Every single one of them: thoughtful, hospitable, friendly."
"My party is completely delusional," Phillips continued, adding "And somebody had to wake us up, and if that’s my job, so be it." — ZeroHedge
Fox News Can Press Claims That Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Lawsuit Attacks Free Speech, Judge Rules
Fox News can put Smartmatic on the defensive over whether the voting machine company's $2.7 billion lawsuit over the network's coverage of the 2020 election is designed to chill its speech, a New York judge ruled on Wednesday.
Last April, Fox entered into a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, avoiding a trial on whether the network knowingly spread false conspiracy theories about former President Donald Trump's defeat to appease viewers. But Fox potentially faces billions more in liabilities from Smartmatic's lawsuit, filed in Manhattan in 2021.
Taking advantage of New York's broad journalistic protections, Fox hit back at Smartmatic with a countersuit under the state's anti-SLAPP statute, short for "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation" and designed to prevent litigation designed to chill free speech. Smartmatic argued that the success of Dominion's lawsuit proved the merit of their own lawsuit, but Fox contends that Smartmatic's enormous damages demand has no basis in fact.
In a seven-page ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice David Cohen wrote there has yet to be a ruling on whether Smartmatic’s claims have a substantial factual basis.
“First, defendants’ argument here is that plaintiffs’ alleged damages are so extenuated from their actual lost profits that they were pleaded and/or sought in order to chill defendants’ free speech rights,” Cohen noted.
The judge then added: “That argument has not yet been adjudicated in any court.”
Smartmatic alleges that Fox bears financial responsibility for giving air time to false allegations the company rigged the 2020 presidential election, an issue that they argue a Delaware judge already resolved in Dominion's case. — The Messenger
Trump warns Haley donors will be ‘permanently barred from the MAGA camp’
Former President Trump railed against GOP primary opponent Nikki Haley on Wednesday and warned that anyone who contributes to her campaign would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”
“When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate’s ‘Donors’ would immediately come to me, and want to ‘help out.’ This is standard in Politics, but no longer with me,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!” Trump continued, using the nickname “Birdbrain” to refer to Haley.
Trump’s direct threat against Haley’s supporters signals a sharpening in his rhetoric, as the former president seeks to compel support from all corners of the GOP.
Trump beat Haley in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday by 11 points — a significant edge over his former United Nations ambassador, but closer than his dominant lead in many polls in recent months. — 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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‘Become authentic’ or ‘learn to code.’ 😂😂😂
Simon, I so appreciate how you keep the lies of the plandemic intertwined in every other aspect of the FAKE NEWS we have been subjected for a good portion of my 67 years. I have commented before that I lived in the USSR in 1976 as young and dumb language major exchange student, trying to improve my Russian. However, the ridiculousness of the paranoid politburo's lies they would tell their people left an impression. Obvious oppression, surveillance, and coercion, and propaganda banners everywhere seemed a far cry from my freedom loving homeland. I pitied the soviet citizenry, especially the ones who I grew close to over my semester there. I believe my BS monitor was being honed by what I experienced directly. My HUGE mistake was naively believing that my country was immune to trading freedom for totalitarianism. The propaganda machine that has victimized all of us, including this "journalist" you mention, is evil and ubiquitous. Evil always eats its own. I was asleep as its deployments in my homeland were more sinister, slithering in to EVERY institution under the radar, and after convincing the press and all its minions that some "greater good"🤮 element was at play. Your metaphor of the ants is appropos. Poor gal - she thought she was in the club. George Carlin's warning about the "big club and you ain't in it" is a hard pill to swallow.