Badlands News Brief
Russia Responds as Trump's Revenge Tour Takes Shape
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 Tuesday, November 19 …
Ukraine fires six US-made long-range missiles into Russian territory, Kremlin says
Ukraine fired 6 U.S.-made long range missiles into Russian territory on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Russia shot down five and the sixth was damaged.
Ukraine has not confirmed that it fired the ATACMs.
President Biden recently gave a green light to launch U.S.-made missiles into Russia.
Russian officials have said the decision could lead to a world war. — Just the News
Our Take: The budding Ukrainian Missile Crisis is a 1962 re-run that many of us saw coming because we've been paying attention to the Info War not as a sequence of organically-unfolding events, but as a narrative template being first seeded and then rolled out along a pre-set timeline.
It also represents a massive opportunity for awakening & mass unification, as it has the potential to hit all layers of the Collective Mind at once.
On the Normie layers, the story is simple and apparent: Donald Trump wants peace between the East and West, and the reeling Regime is attempting to thwart it out of spite or delay, opening the opportunity for Trump to open the same sort of backchannels the Kennedy brothers did to avoid war with Nikita Khrushchev.
On the Anon layers, we're seeing the beginnings of the 'Scare Event' template being formed, leading to a series of Crisis points that will allow Trump to step into his prescribed role as peacemaker on the world stage, and BEFORE he takes office.
Planned. — Burning Bright
Trump’s vows for revenge take on new seriousness
President-elect Trump’s vows to seek revenge have brought a renewed sense of alarm to those who have crossed ways with him now that he’s returning to the White House.
Trump routinely calls for adverse actions against his perceived enemies and often makes veiled threats — a dynamic present during his first term in office that accelerated as he battled for reelection.
After his inauguration, Trump will have new avenues to make good on those calls. He’s also assembling a team that would be well-positioned to carry out any vows for retribution.
Trump nominated former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as attorney general and several lawyers on his criminal defense team to fill out other top leadership posts at the Department of Justice.
And Trump is likely to be bolstered by his allies in Congress. House Republicans who kept their majority have also vowed to investigate Trump adversaries.
Their potential targets are nervous. — The Hill
And …
‘Kissing the ring?’ MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ hosts meet with Trump to reopen lines of communication
MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, fierce critics of President-elect Donald Trump, say they traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with him to reopen lines of communication that would better serve their morning show viewers.
With feelings still raw two weeks after the election, their journey to Trump’s Florida home hasn’t gone over that well with many fans and critics of “Morning Joe.”
The show’s anchor team had been so critical of Trump that, in September, Scarborough said that “it’s not a reach” to compare him to Hitler. MSNBC pulled “Morning Joe” from the air the Monday after the assassination attempt on Trump this past summer.
On Monday’s show, the hosts said they had reached out to Trump last Thursday and met with him the next day. “It was the first time we have seen him in seven years,” Brzezinski said.
She said Trump was “cheerful, upbeat,” even as the three of them discussed issues they disagreed on.
“What we did agree on was to restart communications,” she said. Her father, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in Jimmy Carter’s administration, often spoke with world leaders he disagreed with, and she said that’s a job for journalists and commentators too. — AP News
Our Take: “I will be your retribution.”
This is possibly one of President Trump’s most misunderstood and misinterpreted statements, but America is about to realize what it means. Of course, if you’ve been paying attention, you already know.
Trump’s first inaugural address from 2017 reveals the plot:
“Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.
For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.”
This is the entire point, the driving strategy between the first Trump administration and the Biden Pause. We are about to enter the third act.
Trump’s appointments were decided long ago. There is nothing Joe and Mika can say to POTUS to change their fate. There is a plan — it’s playing out before our eyes.
The revolution is not televised, it’s podcasted and blogged, and those who repeatedly, nefariously betrayed the American people are about to receive a justly deserved penalty. — Ashe in America
Incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr vows to ‘dismantle’ Big Tech’s ‘censorship cartel’
Brendan Carr, the incoming Federal Communications Commission Chairman, has demanded answers from Big Tech firms about their involvement in what he described as an “censorship cartel” to suppress speech with which they disagreed.
Carr – who President-elect Trump dubbed a “warrior for free speech” on Sunday as he announced him as his pick to lead the agency – sent letters to Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook.
The letters were dated Nov. 13, days before Trump revealed his promotion from the FCC’s senior Republican commissioner to permanent chairman.
The Republican specifically sought information about the firms’ dealings with NewsGuard – a for-profit “fact-checking” firm that has run afoul of Congressional Republicans for allegedly targeting conservative outlets by labeling them as more “risky” than liberal outlets.
“Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel,” Carr wrote in an X post last Friday alongside the letter. “The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with ‘fact checking’ groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.”
The Big Tech executives were told to submit responses to the FCC by Dec. 10 on which of their products or services partner with NewsGuard and whether they require online customers to rely on NewsGuard while using their services. — NY Post
Our Take:
LOL. If I’m reading this right, Trump just made the FCC Commissioner from his first term the “permanent” God King of television.
Let's take a closer look at Brendan Carr.
Based.
Very Based.
So it turns out that Brendan Carr has the same organization in his crosshairs that has threatened countless independent media outlets, including Badlands Media.
The same organization that Mike Benz has been opining about for months on X.
How do you like them apples, Jules Kroll? — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
Trump confirms plans to use military for mass deportations
President-elect Trump confirmed Monday that he is planning to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations.
Why it matters: Trump made his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants one of the cornerstones of his 2024 campaign, and his team has already begun strategizing how to carry its plan out.
A Truth Social post early Monday is the first time the president-elect has confirmed how his administration will execute the controversial plan.
Driving the news: Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, posted on Truth Social earlier this month that Trump was "prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program."
Trump reposted Fitton's comment Monday with the caption, "TRUE!!"
The big picture: There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Trump's mass deportations are expected to impact roughly 20 million families across the country. — Axios
Our Take: Sanctuary cities are freaking out about this and, all of a sudden, they claim to value states’ rights. Leftist logic: States’ rights are a virtue for protecting criminal invaders, and a vice for protecting unborn Americans.
Here in Colorado, the outrage over mass deportations of criminal invaders has a mixed response. There is a solid amount of ‘but who will pick the crops,’ but leaders in the Centennial state are in a tough situation because the migrant madness has increased crime, victimized legitimate residents, and cost state taxpayers over $340M.
If Colorado leaders oppose federal government intervention, Colorado residents may revolt. People are on edge. City-dwellers have had to change their behavior to remain safe in once-sleepy and uneventful communities. It’s a very serious problem, and the government has gaslit residents for years about the true impacts. But the people — conservatives, democrats, libertarians, unaffiliated— are now awake to the devastating truth of disastrous Democrat policies, and the gaslighting is less and less effective with every narrative deployment.
If the local government prevents the federal government from removing violent gang members from our streets, the reaction of the people may cross the rubicon.
Then again, expected incoming Border Czar Tom Homan said states attempting to evade ICE will be subverted and held accountable. I’m an advocate for state sovereignty and rights, but what is the answer when states actively work against their own citizenry and for special interests and criminal enterprises?
I think we’re about to find out. — Ashe in America
Trump selects Linda McMahon to lead Department of Education – which he has vowed to shutter
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday selected his transition co-chair, Linda McMahon, to serve as secretary of the Department of Education – an agency he and his allies have pledged to abolish.
McMahon, 76, previously served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term and she is the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, a company she started with her husband, Vince McMahon.
“Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World,” Trump wrote in his announcement.
The president-elect, 78, indicated that he will task McMahon with giving states a larger role in education policy and that she will pursue the expansion of school choice nationwide.
“Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families,” Trump said, noting that McMahon has been a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights” through her work as the chairwoman of the America First Policy Institute think tank. — NY Post
Our Take: Yesterday, I said that I strongly hope to see Hulk Hogan be appointed Marco Rubio's Senate seat—which I reiterated on Badlands Daily. I see this appointment of Linda McMahon as a signal that the storyline is pushing the narrative in that direction.
Linda McMahon is an accomplished executive, serving as the head of the Small Business Administration during President Trump's first term. As she explained during her short speech at the Republican National Convention this past summer, she also served as the President of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., working with her husband, Vince McMahon, to build the organization into an iconic cultural powerhouse, in which their highest rated storylines of all time involved Donald Trump.
One of the earliest major events that Linda and her husband funded through their wrestling organization was Evel Knieval's infamous [failed] Snake River Canyon Jump, where the daredevil attempted to ride a steam-powered rocket motorcycle across the canyon. (The bike made it across, but due to a prematurely-deployed parachute it was blown back into the canyon and almost landed in the river.)
So Linda is no stranger to spectacle.
It's also worth noting that she left the WWE in 2009 to run for Senator of Connecticut as the Republican candidate. She lost to Richard Blumenthal, so the appointment of Terry Bollea (aka Hulk Hogan) to the Florida Senate seat would represent something of a redemption arc.
What Linda didn't mention during her RNC speech was that she, too, played herself as a character from time to time within the fictional wrestling universe that her husband created.
For the record, we now have two legends of World Wrestling Entertainment, one of which has been inducted into its Hall of Fame (Donald Trump—2013). The question is, will we get a third? — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
Trump taps Howard Lutnick as Commerce secretary
President-elect Trump chose billionaire Howard Lutnick to serve as Commerce secretary and lead the push for a sweeping program of tariffs.
Why it matters: The Commerce Department will have a key role in implementing Trump's trade agenda — and Lutnick has been a vocal supporter.
Lutnick, co-chair of Trump's transition, was hoping to become Treasury secretary, but Trump recently soured on the finalists and is now considering other options, transition sources tell Axios.
Zoom in: Lutnick is the chairman and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment firm he joined after graduating college in the 1980s.
Lutnick became one of the most prominent business voices in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
Cantor Fitzgerald's offices were in the World Trade Center's North Tower, and hundreds of the firm's employees, including Lutnick's brother, died as a result of the attack.
Lutnick holds an annual fundraiser on 9/11 — often attended by athletes and celebrities — to raise money for charities around the world.
The big picture: Lutnick told the Wall Street Journal this month that he had to hire hundreds of employees after much of his staff died on 9/11 — an experience he said qualifies him to help staff the incoming administration. — Axios
Our Take: While I had been prepared to dig into any of Trump's picks, and have seen the wisdom in some curious ones with the benefit of hindsight, I must admit I was absolutely hoping for Howard Lutnick to be named to a position in the second admin.
As I said a few weeks ago after digging on the man, he's not only a New York firebrand in the vein of Trump himself, but he's a heterodox thinker with a penchant for going at the establishment rather than with them.
He also has one of the most harrowing and heartbreaking stories of 9/11 I've ever heard, having lost literally hundreds of employees during the false flag attack; to me, this acts as major signal as to his underlying motivations for graduating from the private sector to the public one in a new phase of the war against the administrative Deep State.
Finally, Lutnick is one of the first major Bitcoin maximalists of the Wall Street class, paving the way for massive disruption en route to the Golden Age.
Winning. — Burning Bright
Fact Check: Did Deitz Nuutzen Painting Predict Trump Dinner With RFK Jr?
Auser on social media has claimed that a photo taken at the weekend of President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eating McDonald's was predicted in an 18th Century painting.
The photograph, which went viral on Sunday, showed Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and Donald Trump Jr. enjoying a McDonald's meal aboard Trump's plane Trump Force One, while House Speaker Mike Johnson stood in the background.
Margo Martin, Trump's deputy director of communications, posted the photo to X (formerly Twitter) shortly after 2:30 a.m. on Sunday after the group's trip to a UFC fight in New York City.
The Claim
On Monday, X user @boneGPT reposted the image alongside an image which the user said was a painting from 1721.
"This 1721 painting by Deitz Nuützen predicted the Trump-Elon-RFK McDonalds dinner," the user wrote.
The "painting" depicts four men, two wearing crowns, dining together, with a fifth in the background. Their poses are identical to the photograph and the layout of the setting is extremely similar.
Musk, who owns X and frequently posts on the platform, replied to the post with a laughing emoji.
It had been viewed 4.3 million times by Tuesday and reposted by many other accounts.
[…]
False.
The painting is almost certainly an artificially generated image created by @boneGPT.
There is no evidence of an 18th Century painter called Deitz Nuützen nor any evidence that the alleged painting existed before Monday.
This appears to be a "deez nutz" joke. — Newsweek
Our Take: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Let me be the first to say that I, too, first thought that this painting and artist were legit. But then Mike Benz (who also fell for it) pointed out that the artist's name is a Dutch (?) version of Deez Nutz—one of the oldest memes/jokes on the internet.
(I looked, the artist doesn't exist.)
The MSM just got rickrolled by some savvy edgelord.
(Touché, my anon. We salute you.) — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
BONUS ITEMS
Georgia appeals court cancels arguments in Trump’s bid to disqualify Fani Willis
A Georgia appeals court canceled next month’s oral arguments in President-elect Trump’s bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) from criminally prosecuting him.
Monday’s one-sentence order from the Georgia Court of Appeals canceling the Dec. 5 argument “until further order of this Court” contained no explanation but comes less than two weeks after Trump’s White House victory.
Earlier this year, Trump began attempting to derail his criminal prosecution for attempting to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020 over Willis’s relationship with a top prosecutor she hired to oversee the case, Nathan Wade.
After a whirlwind hearing earlier this year, the trial judge ruled the case could move forward and that Willis could continue to oversee the prosecution so long as Wade resigned, which he did.
The appeals court was slated to hear arguments from Trump and eight of his co-defendants that Willis cannot oversee the prosecution. — The Hill
Prosecutors open to delaying Trump's hush money sentencing
New York prosecutors suggested in a Tuesday court filing that they are open to postponing sentencing in President-elect Trump's hush money case, even if it waits until his second presidential term ends in 2029.
Why it matters: The filing is the latest effort by prosecutors to keep the case against Trump going after Judge Juan Merchan postponed a Nov. 26 sentencing in the case following Trump's re-election.
Trump's lawyers had encouraged Merchan to throw the case out "to facilitate the orderly transition of executive power." The legal team has also requested a new trial for Trump, and a decision on that is still pending.
If Merchan dismisses the case, it would be a huge win for Trump, the first president convicted of a felony, who has evaded potential imprisonment by securing a second presidential term. He was indicted in three other cases, all of which have been on ice or undercut for months.
State of play: In the filing, prosecutors acknowledged that "consideration must be given" to pausing the case until Trump's second term ends. — Axios
Trump picks former congressman and Fox Business host Sean Duffy as next Transportation secretary
President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday he has selected former congressman and recent Fox Business co-host Sean Duffy to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Transportation.
Duffy served in the US House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019, representing Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District. He most recently was co-host of Fox Business’ “The Bottom Line,” after first joining Fox News as a contributor in 2020.
Duffy’s last day as a Fox News employee was Monday, a network spokesperson confirmed to CNN. Wednesday marked his last day appearing on Fox Business, and he interviewed for the role of transportation secretary later in the week, according to a source.
Trump in a statement praised Duffy as a “tremendous and well-liked public servant” and said he was “a respected voice and communicator in the Republican Conference” during his time in Congress.
“He will prioritize Excellence, Competence, Competitiveness and Beauty when rebuilding America’s highways, tunnels, bridges and airports. He will ensure our ports and dams serve our Economy without compromising our National Security, and he will make our skies safe again by eliminating DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers,” Trump said. — CNN
Senate Republicans deliver a message to Trump: Gaetz’s confirmation is in jeopardy
Numerous Republican lawmakers told Donald Trump and his team that they believe his pick to be attorney general, controversial Rep. Matt Gaetz, has little chance of being confirmed, according to multiple Senate Republican and people around Trump. And they’re privately hoping Trump doesn’t make them walk the plank.
That message, according to people who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, has been delivered to the president-elect himself, his future White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and to Gaetz’s unofficial “sherpa,” Vice President-elect JD Vance. And it appears to be at least partially sinking in.
Knowing how toxic a character they are dealing with, Senate Republicans are worried about getting tarnished by the process. They fear that senators up for reelection in 2026, including Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) could face a MAGA primary challenge if they oppose his nomination — while possibly kissing their seats goodbye in a general election if they back him.
It’s not just the politically vulnerable who are fretting. There’s a fear that Trump is going to waste precious political capital trying to push Gaetz through when he could instead be working on advancing other, more feasible nominations — not to mention his governing agenda. Consider, they say, just how distracting Gaetz confirmation hearings will be as Trump moves to dismantle Joe Biden’s regulatory and legislative legacy.
Trump has indicated that he thinks Gaetz “has less than even odds of being confirmed by the Senate,” the New York Times reported last night. But Trump, they add, still wants a fight. He’s been asking Senate Republicans to give his pick “a shot” and argued that Gaetz is just the man to fix the Justice Department, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters on the Hill yesterday. — Politico
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.
Badlands Media will always put out our content for free, but you can support us by becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter. Help our collective of citizen journalists take back the narrative from the MSM. We are the news now.
GAETZ OR BUST!!!
Thanks again to all of the writers and commenters here on the Brief (and yes - I do mean "all" because that is what a forum invites).
One of the lessons I learned in my career was that - typically - having someone read a proposition allowed them to activate three "gates" - seeing, hearing, and speaking. The last one being the result of the fact that most of the time when we read something, the voice we hear is our own, causing us to be more aligned with or agreeable to that which we read: and this is true (maybe even more true) even if the information is read silently.
However, when we read something written by (or previously spoken by) someone we know well enough, the reading "voice" belongs to them and our opinion of them is reinforced (whether positive or negative) in the very act of reading.
I mention this to support the following: AiA's quote from Trump's first inaugural address sounded really good this morning! The cost for those guilty of betraying the citizens of this country will be "collected" - retribution is coming!