Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Trumpian Deliberations, Libertarian LARPs & Israeli Misfires
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.
This Brief is being supported and brought to you by our friends at Freedom Stack, who can help you build new websites, host them with First Amendment protection, and help you own your payment processing.
Now, onto the news from Monday, May 27 …
Ahead of summations in Trump trial, here's a brief look at what every witness said on the stand
Over the last five weeks, the jury in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial witnessed a marathon of testimony.
Among the 22 witnesses who took the stand, jurors heard from Trump's former lawyer, an adult film actress, two of Trump's executive assistants, a tabloid executive, a top White House aide, and a flurry of custodial witnesses as prosecutors sought to show that Trump falsified business records to hide the reimbursement of a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to boost Trump's electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Defense lawyers told a markedly different story, pinning the responsibility for the invoices on Cohen and suggesting that Trump -- who has denied all wrongdoing -- was simply protecting his family from false allegations. — ABC News
Our Take: “Closing arguments in Judge Juan Merchan’s upside down clown rodeo are schedule to occur today, and this ABC article reminds us why this case never should have been brought.
The inner workings of President Trump’s political campaign underwent a colonoscopy over the past six weeks, and the result is that prosecutors essentially suborned perjury in an effort to make their case. Unreliable witnesses were impeached multiple times and, even so, conflicting testimonies provide sufficient reasonable doubt for acquittal.
Side note: The precedent is now set for political campaign colonoscopies, and if the Presidential front runner isn’t off limits, no one is.
Deliberations are expected to begin tomorrow, and we’re all wondering if this NY jury, already the subject of bias accusations following voir dire at the beginning of the trial, can rule fairly on the facts and the evidence, in accordance with the law.
It’s 12 angry thems in NY this week. Get your popcorn.” —
Biden's $320M Gaza Pier Has Detached & Drifted Onto Israeli Beach
A section of the $320 million floating pier built and erected off Gaza's coast has broken off and floated onto an Israeli beach. The Saturday mishap is the latest setback for the US humanitarian aid project, after three US troops were reported injured aboard the pier two days prior, including one critically.
The Times of Isreal's military correspondent Emanuel Fabian has reported that "An American vessel used to unload humanitarian aid from ships into the Gaza Strip via a floating pier disconnected from a small boat tugging it this morning due to stormy seas, leading it to get stuck on the coast of Ashdod, eyewitnesses say."
The recovery operation has not gone well either, as "Another ship was then sent to try and extract the stuck vessel, but also got beached," Fabian writes.
And yet a second US Army vessel also got stuck in shallow waters while trying to rescue the pier section. Overnight US ships had been moving two pieces of the floating pier to the Port of Ashdod in southern Israel when the now beached section detached and drifted away. American troops can be seen in footage standing helplessly on the beach.
An official US Central Command (CENTCOM) statement says the following:
This morning four U.S. Army vessels supporting the maritime humanitarian aid mission in Gaza were affected by heavy sea states. The vessels broke free from their moorings and two vessels are now anchored on the beach near the pier.
The third and fourth vessels are beached on the coast of Israel near Ashkelon. Efforts to recover the vessels are under way with assistance from the Israeli Navy.
The pier operation was already last week off to a rough start -- and was paused for two days -- after desperate Palestinians mobbed and ransacked the first trucks transporting aid unloaded from the pier before they could reach a distribution warehouse managed by the World Food Programme. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “This story reeks of the Afghanistan withdrawal, in terms of slapstick comedy and shameless buffoonery.
Sometimes I feel like we are getting punked by the Ghosts in the Machine, who see our noses so close to the grindstone that they want to jolt us out of that hypnotic state of hyper-analysis, so they deploy a story about a floating pier that costs $320M and comes apart and then runs aground while dragging a bunch of tug boats ashore with it.
I think about those Afghani teenagers who were flamboyantly frolicking in front of the camera, laughing and waving while a C-17 Globemaster taxi’d hastily beside them, somehow not sucking up the countless pedestrians running alongside it into its jet stream, while also appearing to be missing key components of said jet engine, as if it were like one of those inflatable tanks from the old footage of the 4th Psyop Group from WW2.
I’m not saying this story is fake— I’m sitting here looking at pictures of a $320M floating piece of concrete(?) that has washed ashore on a beach, alongside a tug boat that has also beached itself— so of course this is a real story and not something intended to humiliate the global hegemony and highlight their weakness and incompetence, foreshadowing their impending demise.
That’s not what this is at all. This is a completely real— if not wildly hilarious— gaffe that I’m sure we’ll all look back on and laugh about someday, as we suddenly notice some Palestinian teenagers frolicking gleefully in the waves around the beached military equipment, laughing and waving to us.” —
Xi Jinping’s Recipe for Total Control: An Army of Eyes and Ears
The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in the sprawling Beijing apartment complex. Each sheet was further broken down by unit, with names, phone numbers and other information on the residents.
Perhaps the most important detail, though, was how each unit was color-coded. Green meant trustworthy. Yellow, needing attention. Orange required “strict control.”
A police officer inspected the wall. Then he leaned forward to mark a third-floor apartment in yellow. The residents in that unit changed often, and therefore were “high risk,” his note said. He would follow up on them later.
“I’ve built a system to address hidden dangers in my jurisdiction,” the officer said, in a video by the local government that praised his work as a model of innovative policing.
This is the kind of local governance that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, wants: more visible, more invasive, always on the lookout for real or perceived threats. Officers patrol apartment buildings listening for feuding neighbors. Officials recruit retirees playing chess outdoors as extra eyes and ears. In the workplace, employers are required to appoint “safety consultants” who report regularly to the police. — The New York Times
Our Take: “The NYT is kicking off the week with a hit piece on Xi, after carrying water for the Chinese Communist Party throughout the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes.
Overall, the piece suggests Xi is a Mao in waiting because he's recruiting the Chinese citizenry into sniffing out clandestine threats to the nation.
At face value, it's a viable concern. Going back to the Mao era, China has been a communist superstate wherein dissent has been stamped out through violence and intimidation, and yet, the NYT admits that Xi has so far refused to return to struggle sessions and other Maoist doctrine, even though they keep conflating the two leaders.
What's more, the MSM turn on Xi didn't occur until around 2022, when Xi refused to condemn Putin's Special MIL Operation in Ukraine.
Why the change of heart re: China?
1) Because THIS China is not Mao's China.
2) Because [they] thought Xi was on their side, just like they thought Trump could be compromised.
3) Because the Sovereign Alliance is real.” —
Chase Oliver nominated as Libertarian presidential candidate
Chase Oliver, a candidate for the Georgia Senate election in 2022, won the presidential nomination late Sunday night for the Libertarian Party, the third-largest political party.
The nomination came after seven rounds of voting over a long, contentious day as factions of the party feuded over the nomination and party leadership positions. After winning, Oliver promised to unify the party in his acceptance speech.
“I’m extending my hand,” he said. “Take it and be a part of liberty.”
Oliver is supported by the Classic Liberal Caucus, a left-leaning faction. After the last standing contender was knocked out, Oliver won with 60 percent of the vote against “none of the above.” The contest had fewer than 900 delegates voting.
The final contender was Michael Rectenwald, a former New York University professor who faced backlash and left his job after he invited controversial far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos to speak to his class. Rectenwald, endorsed by the right-wing Mises Caucus that had taken over the party in 2022, had been the front-runner for most of the day. But Oliver, who was in some ways a protest vote against the ruling caucus, ultimately surpassed Rectenwald in their final head-to-head round.
“In a weird way, this is a microcosm of where the country is headed,” said Dave Smith, a comic and Mises Caucus leader. “Things are so polarized.” — The Washington Post
Our Take: “Libertarians spent Monday trying to convince everyone they’re actually relevant after proving over the weekend that they are, in fact, not.
President Trump showed up at their convention, negotiating on parts of their platform, in real time, from the stage. They whined and booed and screamed profanities. In the end, the Libertarians nominated Chase Oliver, who beat out Michael Rectenwald. Rectenwald kind of did it to himself, though:
‘Mises Caucus candidate Rectenwald… struggled to articulate himself, then abandoned the event midway. He later told the Washington Post’s Meryl Kornfield that he had consumed an edible cannabis product before speaking.‘
‘Before speaking’ — which is shorthand for ‘before he went on stage to make his pitch to be President of the United States’ — he got too stoned to speak. Keep telling us how serious you are, Libertarians.
Chase Oliver is worse than Gary Johnson and, with this nomination, the Libertarians look exactly like the so-called Left. Oliver’s nomination has zero impact on support for Trump, but Biden is now facing two challengers. The vote totals on November 5th are going to be interesting … and probably hilarious.
The fact is that 45 gave the minor party the biggest spotlight they’ve had, maybe ever, and they face planted. Libertarians are still very much the party of open borders and societal licentiousness, regardless of what the Mises Reformers say. There is no question following their behavior, and results, this weekend, that these are not serious change makers. They’re little more than Peters Pan.
As the rest of us return to our regular programming, Libertarians are fighting each other on social media, desperate to stay a part of the conversation. Some of them are even asking President Trump to make good on the cabinet and senior post positions he offered — which they booed at the convention.
Bold, and right on brand for petulant children who refuse to grow up.” —
Netanyahu says deadly Israeli strike in Rafah was the result of a ‘tragic mistake’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a “tragic mistake” was made in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that set fire to a camp housing displaced Palestinians and, according to local officials, killed at least 45 people.
The strike only added to the surging international criticism Israel has faced over its war with Hamas, with even its closest allies expressing outrage at civilian deaths. Israel insists it adheres to international law even as it faces scrutiny in the world’s top courts, one of which last week demanded that it halt the offensive in Rafah.
Netanyahu did not elaborate on the error. Israel’s military initially said it had carried out a precise airstrike on a Hamas compound, killing two senior militants. As details of the strike and fire emerged, the military said it had opened an investigation into the deaths of civilians. — AP News
And …
Egyptian guard killed in shooting on Rafah border, Israel and Egypt investigating
A member of Egypt's security forces was killed in a shooting incident near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip and an investigation is under way, Egypt's military spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.
Israel's military had earlier said it was investigating reports of an exchange of fire between Israeli and Egyptian soldiers.
"A few hours ago (Monday), a shooting incident occurred on the Egyptian border. The incident is under review and discussions are being held with the Egyptians," the Israeli military said in a statement.
Later on Monday, Egypt warned against compromising the security and safety of its security forces, a high-level source told Egypt's state-linked Al Qahera News, adding that Egypt would take necessary measures to prevent the incident from recurring.
An Egyptian soldier stationed on a watchtower had reacted to seeing an armoured vehicle carrying Israeli troops cross a boundary line near the border while the soldiers pursued and killed several Palestinians, two Egyptian security sources said.
The soldier opened fire and Israeli forces fired back, killing him, the sources said, sparking an exchange of gunfire between the two sides. Several Israeli soldiers were wounded and the force fell back, and one Egyptian was wounded, the sources said.
Israel seized control of the Rafah border crossing from the Gaza side of the border earlier this month as it stepped up its military offensive in the area, drawing strong criticism from Egypt. — Reuters
Our Take: “The timing of these incidents is almost farcical, given the court order to cease military action issued by the UN’s International Court of Justice on Friday, and the ominous warning from the EU’s High Representative of the Foreign Affairs Council, Josep Borrell.
Borrell’s comment resonates: ‘We will have to choose between our support to the international institutions and the rule of law, or our support to Israel.’
What this really means is, ‘We will have to choose between our support to the international institutions and the rule of law, or our support to the United States.’
Despite being fostered and created by the high lords of London, Israel has become an extension of the United States, and everybody in the world knows it.
Now we have both France and Germany— the two anchor-states of the EU— expressing their disgust with the images coming out of Rafah.
Dropping 2,000 pound bombs on tent cities full of refugees seems like a sure-fire way to kill civilians. Hard to decipher the logic, unless the logic was to be provocative and antagonistic.
One could maybe dismiss such musings as conjecture, but then we have this Egypt story. The soldier being killed is bad enough— and a quick way to revive the mid-century conflicts of yesteryear with Egyptian President Nasser, back when Egypt was the premiere power in the Arab world— but it is the backstory of the incident that is the most foreboding:
The Egyptian soldier opened fire on the IDF when an armored vehicle crossed a boundary line while pursuing Palestinians and shooting them.
We need more clarification, but were these Palestinians civilians, or Hamas militants? One would think that the Egyptian soldiers would be trained to identify a Hamas fighter, and presume that stand-down orders were issued if IDF were witnessed engaging Hamas. Getting involved would only stir conflict with either side, and drag Egypt into this war.
So why did the soldier feel obliged to engage the IDF? Were they gunning down civilians? It seems like a fair inquiry, given the ‘mistake’ in Rafah.
Borrell and the EU are scheduled to meet with Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, and ‘Team Peace’— his team of Arab foreign ministers and diplomats. Wonder what they will talk about.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Efforts to draft a pandemic treaty falter as countries disagree on how to respond to next emergency
A global treaty to fight pandemics like COVID is going to have to wait: After more than two years of negotiations, rich and poor countries have failed — for now — to come up with a plan for how the world might respond to the next pandemic.
After COVID-19 triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. In 2021, member countries asked the U.N. health agency to oversee negotiations to figure out how the world might better share scarce resources and stop future viruses from spreading globally.
On Friday, Roland Driece, co-chair of WHO’s negotiating board for the agreement, acknowledged that countries were unable to come up with a draft. WHO had hoped a final draft treaty could be agreed on at its yearly meeting of health ministers starting Monday in Geneva.
“We are not where we hoped we would be when we started this process,” he said, adding that finalizing an international agreement on how to respond to a pandemic was critical “for the sake of humanity.” — AP News
Mayor Pete Bombs CBS Interview, Blames Airline Turbulence On Climate Change, As Host Laughs In His Face
Transportation Secretary Mayor Pete made his rounds on Face the Nation this weekend where he was both laughed at to his face by the host and suggested during the interview that increased airline turbulence is occurring as a result of climate change.
Early in the interview CBS’s Margaret Brennan called out Mayor Pete on something we wrote about just days ago: after spending more than $7 billion since 2021 on EV infrastructure, the nation has less than 10 EV chargers to show for it.
As we noted earlier this month, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by Biden in November 2021, allocated $7.5 billion for EV charging. Of this amount, $5 billion went to states as "formula funding" for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program to establish a network of fast chargers along major highways.
Today, there's seven chargers with a total of just 38 parking spots.
And how do you know the problem is bad if you're a Democrat? First, it was the Washington Post calling out the lunacy. Now, it's CBS. When pressed for an answer, Mayor Pete tried to deflect the issue, leading to an involuntary laugh by host Brennan. — ZeroHedge
Iran further increases its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, watchdog says
Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential report on Monday by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the latest in Tehran’s attempts to steadily exert pressure on the international community.
Iran is seeking to have economic sanctions imposed over the country’s controversial nuclear program lifted in exchange for slowing the program down. The program — as all matters of state in Iran — are under the guidance of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that likely won’t change in the wake of last week’s helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president and foreign minister.
The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the wider Middle East over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Israel and Iran have carried out direct strikes on each other’s territory for the first time last month.
The report, seen by The Associated Press, said that as of May 11, Iran has 142.1 kilograms (313.2 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% — an increase of 20.6 kilograms (45.4 pounds) since the last report by the U.N. watchdog in February. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. — AP News
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 believe in the sovereign alliance because Putin is not taking the bait for war. I also believe there are other world leaders who silently oppose the Cabal. Things are exciting right now! But most people have no idea. My Dad thinks I'm nuts because I said Trumps still in charge. I said the biggest red flag is we haven't gone to war. We aren't at war because Biden isn't really in charge. It's cool that God clued me into the plan through Devolution. God bless the patriots fighting to take back our country!
Just for the record, another big piece has become detached from the Biden Build Back Better pier and at last sighting was preparing to capsize with several vehicles aboard. The Ringling Brothers, even with the help of Barnum and Bailey, never put on such an elaborate and extended clown show.