Badlands News Brief
SCOTUS Enters the Fray as Biden Barks at MAGA Hats
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 the Weekend that Was …
Supreme Court Takes Up Trump Ballot Disqualification Case
The U.S. Supreme Court accepted a petition for immediate review regarding a Colorado Supreme Court decision to strike former President Donald Trump from the 2024A presidential ballot.
“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted,” reads the procedural order.
Oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 8.
Petitioners’ and amicus briefs are due by Jan. 18, and respondents’ and amicus briefs are due by Jan. 31, with any reply briefs due by Feb. 5.
The Colorado Supreme Court had disqualified President Trump as a candidate on Dec. 19 in an order that left little chance for the actual removal of his name from the ballot.
On Dec. 27, the Colorado GOP filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking three separate questions regarding the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and political parties’ First Amendment rights to primary their candidate of choice.
On Jan. 3, President Trump filed a separate petition with a simpler question: Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in its ruling?
The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up President Trump’s petition, and has yet to accept to reject the Colorado GOP’s petition. — The Epoch Times
Our Take: “‘The Colorado court has unleashed harms which will creep beyond Colorado’s borders.’
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the CO GOP Petition is so well written, I can’t believe Chris Murray wrote it. I’m still a little surprised he’s fighting this case. And he’s crushing Gessler’s prior two failures with his argument in seeking SCOTUS review.
Chris Murray is the CO GOP attorney that works for Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Shreck (BHFS). BHFS is the registered lobbyist for Dominion Voting Systems. Things are weirdly incestuous in our elections industry, and it would be great if we could strip the special interests and profit motivations and return to precinct-level elections controlled locally.
Over the weekend, hysteria reigned again with clickbait that Jena Griswold said she wasn’t going to count Trump’s votes. She didn’t say that. What she did say is that if the supremes decide that the Colorado court did not err, upholding their decision to remove him from the ballot, then he would be disqualified and his votes would not count.
Breaking: Jena Griswold said she is going to follow the law. As I’ve been saying, they are way ahead of us in the Centennial state. Colorado law states that only ballots for “qualified” candidates can be counted.
This decision will impact a lot of candidates, by the way. It’s all about the insurrection finding, which must be found to be improper. All eyes on SCOTUS.” —
Biden wasn’t aware for days that Defense Secretary Austin was hospitalized
President Joe Biden was not aware for days that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan ultimately informed Biden late Thursday afternoon, soon after Sullivan himself learned Austin had been hospitalized, the source said. Austin was admitted to the hospital on New Year’s Day due to complications from an elective surgery.
The Pentagon announced the hospitalization Friday. Austin issued his first statement Saturday, five days after being admitted to the hospital, saying he could have done a “better job” of notifying the public.
Austin offered no details about his condition, nor did he say exactly why he was hospitalized on January 1. As of Saturday evening, he remained in the hospital, according to a defense official.
On Saturday evening, Austin thanked the “amazing” staff at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for the care he has received and said he is “on the mend” and looking forward to returning to the Pentagon.
He acknowledged “media concerns about transparency” and said “I commit to doing better” in the statement, which totaled seven sentences. But he did not apologize for failing to notify the public or the press in a timely fashion. Senior administration and military officials who are hospitalized normally put out a statement within 24 hours. — CNN
Our Take: “The Lloyd Austin situation is a perfect example of those organic little white pills masquerading as black pills you only see if you've either got Devo or 'The Plan' goggles on, while the Normie Layers of the Collective Mind REACT ... just like they're supposed to.
I've said before that some of the most memetic stories tend to combine three factors: they're surprising, they're funny and they're just a BIT scary.
This one fits the bill with all three.
First, it's surprising that the supposed Commander-in-Chief doesn't know what the Sec Def is doing. Second, it's funny that Biden doesn't know what's happening at any given time.
Third ... both of those are terrifying to Normies.
While it's impossible to know whether or not the story is accurate, if we do apply any Actual framing to it, it lines up perfectly with the idea of Continuity of Government/Devolution, and the idea of a Fake Admin and a Fake President who lead this country in name only.
The memes will flow until Awakening.” —
"Like Carlo In The Car In The Godfather" - Epstein's Brother Tells Tucker, Pathologists Said "Doesn't Look Like Suicide"
Earlier in the week, we saw Jeffrey Epstein's brother Mark explain to Tucker Carlson how he has struggled to obtain basic documents related to his bother's death in federal custody.
As the identities of Jeffrey's various 'associates' is released this week, it is clear from the 'eliteness' of this list of alleged creeps that many people stood to benefit from Epstein's perpetual silence and Tucker Carlson expressed skepticism about the official cause of death being ruled suicide, writing:
The U.S. government claims Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a federal detention facility in Manhattan four and a half years ago, just before his trial.
If that’s true, why are there so few records available from that night?
[…]
Mark criticizes the handling of his brother's body, the unavailability of key records, and the apparent lack of a thorough investigation by the Department of Justic
"The autopsy showed he was dead for at least 2 hours before he was found. So at that point, they're supposed to leave the body and call the medical examiner's office so they can come take photographs, do the initial testing, whatever they do when they find a dead body. But that wasn't done."
Epstein then details the peculiar circumstances found in the autopsy report, which don't align with a typical hanging suicide.
"Well, after the autopsy and the both pathologists, the city pathologist and Dr. Baden, came out of the autopsy and they said this doesn't look like a suicide. It looks more like a homicide."
Specifically, he highlights the broken neck bones more consistent with strangulation or a physical attack rather than a hanging.
Mark also points out the absence of expected physical signs on the body if it had been hanging for an extended period, further casting doubt on the suicide narrative.
"The autopsy photographs show that the ligature mark on Jeff's neck is in the middle of his neck and goes straight back as if someone put a rope around his neck and strangled him like Carlo in The Godfather in the car." — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Breaking: Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself.
One of modernity’s biggest villains has been in focus recently, as unsealed court documents that further implicate former President Bill Clinton in (one of) the pedophile island horrors dominate the national conversation.
We are also getting a new first hand account of his death and cover up — from his brother Mark Epstein. Mark did not appear on camera.
Despite the regime’s attempt to water down who is buying kids, and overwhelm truth with noise, we may well get the ultimate reveals on this. Here, Tucker is reminding us that they still have so much to answer for, and this interview is a good refresher on the Epstein story in less than half an hour.
I’m not holding my breath that we’ll get the truth on this, but I’m not blackpilled on it. Clinton being on the plane used to be a conspiracy theory, and now it’s accepted as truth.
’Anyone who could murder someone in a federal detention facility obviously has a lot of power,’ Tucker said.
Indeed.
So, why now?” —
Trump Drops New Campaign Video Vowing More Transparency On JFK Assassination
Donald Trump dropped a new campaign video featuring Bill Clinton meeting with Jeffrey Epstein, while the ad also promised more transparency on uncovering the full story behind the JFK assassination.
The video opens with Ronald Reagan’s ‘thousand years of darkness’ speech where he called on Americans to tell their elected officials that national policy should be based on a shared sense of morality and is soundtracked by Aerosmith’s Dream On.
It also features Trump’s promise to obtain transparency surrounding the assassination of JFK, featuring footage of Kennedy being shot before highlighting the lyrics, “you got to lose to know how to win.”
The ad then shows footage of when Trump was ‘arrested’ along with a passage from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War which reads, “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”
The chorus then drops showing Trump with his supporters before clips showing Bill Clinton meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. — Modernity News
Our Take: “Donald Trump boosts a lot of things. Some of it is likely endorsement. Some of it's just fun. All of it serves a purpose in terms of rallying his base.
An 'official' campaign video tends to be one that appeals to emotion first, and this one is no different.
That said, the reason it seems to be making a bigger impact on Trump's more ... anonymous base is due to its allusions to some of the more enigmatic and infamous moments in what has ostensibly been a patriot plan a long time in the making.
Trump's promise of DECLAS where it concerns JFK is a big deal to a bipartisan audience that spans generations, but my favorite part in the video is the particular highlight of the 'you got to lose to know how to win' line.
That one can be taken at face value, as a reference to the 2020 election, but it also speaks to deeper Layers in the Collective Mind, and recalls everything from the Q Op to Devolution.
Trump's winks are coming more frequently and overtly of late.” —
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BONUS ITEMS
Biden marks Jan. 6 anniversary by calling Trump a threat to democracy and freedom
In his first major campaign event of 2024, President Joe Biden on the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, delivered a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to argue democracy and fundamental freedoms are under threat if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
In what seemed to be especially personal remarks, Biden said Trump and far-right extremists are a threat and a danger to the freedoms on which the country was founded, echoing familiar themes he argued during the 2020 campaign, which he then called "a battle for the soul of the nation."
"The topic of my speech today is deadly serious. And I think it needs to be made at the outset of this campaign," he began on Friday.
"Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America's 'sacred cause'?" he continued, repeating a phrase used by George Washington. "This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy's still America's 'sacred cause' is the most urgent question of our time. And it's what the 2024 election is all about."
The president was closely involved in writing the speech, aides told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, after he met this week with historians and scholars at the White House. — ABC News
Saturday Night Drive-By: Citing Anonymous Sources, WSJ Smears Musk As Drug Abuser
The Wall Street Journal fired some serious shots at Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday night, dropping a lengthy hit piece accusing him of illegal drug use to an extent that has worried executives and board members while potentially jeopardizing Musk's various federal government contracts.
The article relies heavily on anonymous sources, described, for example," as "people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it." Here are two of the more potent paragraphs:
The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.
...
In 2018... he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles. The next year he partied on magic mushrooms at an event in Mexico. In 2021, he took ketamine recreationally with his brother, Kimbal Musk, in Miami at a house party during Art Basel. He has taken illegal drugs with current SpaceX and former Tesla board member Steve Jurvetson.
Many of the article's accounts go back a few years or more, and there are no specific descriptions of where or when Musk supposedly used cocaine or ecstasy. As for ketamine, the 52-year-old has previously said he's been prescribed the drug for depression, and last year tweeted that it was a better avenue than antidepressants that are "zombifying" patients. In 2018, he famously shared some cannabis on Joe Rogan's show. — ZeroHedge
Congressional leaders announce spending deal as shutdown threat looms
House and Senate leaders on Sunday announced a spending deal for government funding in 2024, the first step to averting a shutdown later this month even as that threat still looms.
The topline numbers agreed to by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer include $1.59 trillion for fiscal year 2024, with $886 billion for defense spending and $704 in non-defense spending. They also agreed to a $69 billion side deal in adjustments that will go toward non-defense domestic spending.
The side deal brings the non-defense spending figure to nearly $773 billion, a Democratic source told CNN, with spending close to $1.66 trillion overall.
While their agreement on funding levels will reduce the chances of a shutdown, there are still major hurdles facing Congress ahead of two funding deadlines: January 19 and February 2.
One of those hurdles is how to deal with demands by conservatives to use the funding bill as leverage to impose more stringent immigration and border security demands. — CNN
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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I thank God for serious patriotic journalists like you all.. Burning Bright - Ashe in America - Just Human - Patrick - Jon, and on and on and on.. i know you all.. Thank you so much for doing the work for the American people. We are eternally grateful.
Garbear5
If Colorado will only count the votes for qualified candidates then I must ask you, what about the people in the Republican Party running for President who are not properly defined as a Natural Born Citizen. I will point to Nikki and Vivek as an example. Neither meets the litmus test for a NBC. Please look into this. Obama from Kenya kicked all this off and now it’s becoming normal. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were also not constitutionally qualified to run for President.