Badlands News Brief
Bicameral Biden Presides Over a Global Minefield
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 …
Biden reverses course, reinstates numerous Trump-era policies like Houthis, border wall and oil
President Biden rode into office promising to undo his predecessor’s work — only to quietly revert to Trump-era policies and initiatives across an array of fronts.
In January, Biden designated Yemen’s Houthi rebels a “global terrorist group” and cut US funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Former President Trump took the same steps in 2021 and 2018, respectively — but Biden undid those efforts to much fanfare shortly after assuming office.
During the rapprochement, Biden steered at least $730 million to UNRWA, allowing the organization to bolster its longstanding and widely documented ties to Hamas.
The Houthis — notable for restoring slavery to Yemen in 2019 — have long been committed to the destruction of the United States.
[…]
On his last full day in office, Trump imposed tough sanctions on a Russian vessel and its parent company involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project that would have doubled Russia’s capacity to send natural gas to Europe.
Biden reversed those sanctions in May 2021, overriding a State Department assessment.
Biden re-imposed the Nord Stream sanctions just hours before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The pipeline was ultimately destroyed in September 2022 amid mysterious circumstances.
[…]
“Biden ran in 2020 on a whole bunch of hysterical rhetoric about a moral crisis and if he tries to do the same thing in 2024, Trump will have all of these areas to point to and say, ‘Well if I’m such a bad guy why is your administration looking more an more like mine in terms of policy every week?’ ” said GOP consultant Luke Thompson. — NY Post
Our Take: “Last week, the Wall Street Journal put out a deep dive of a piece in which the Globalist EU bureaucracy spent a few thousand words freaking out about the fact that the Biden Administration, which was ostensibly meant to take them back to the Obama, Bush Jr. and Clinton eras has instead resembled the Trump era in uncanny detail where it concerns foreign policy and trade.
This week, the NY Post is taking a stab at the domestic theater, running through a litany of Actuals the Biden Admin has signed off on Stateside that, once again resemble Trump era policies.
Scratch that ... as I explored at length in my latest feature, many of these policies ARE Trump policies, either redrafted and passed under new names, or literally passed through the very Congress that blocked them when the Orange Man was in (public) office.
I often say that winning is all around us, if we cultivate the eyes to see it.
But sometimes it's fun to reverse that trend.
What do you think [they] see when they look?” —
Prosecutor in Trump Georgia Case Admits Relationship With Colleague
Fani T. Willis, the district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump, acknowledged on Friday a “personal relationship” with a prosecutor she hired to manage the case but argued that it was not a reason to disqualify her or her office from it.
The admission came almost a month after allegations of an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” between the two surfaced in a motion from one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants. The motion seeks to disqualify both prosecutors and Ms. Willis’s entire office from handling the case — an effort that, if successful, would likely sow chaos for an unprecedented racketeering prosecution of a former president.
“While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek,” Ms. Willis’s filing said, adding that her relationship with the prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade, “has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit” to Ms. Willis.
The filing included an affidavit from Mr. Wade asserting that the relationship started only after Mr. Wade had been hired.
The original motion containing the accusations, filed by Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official, alleged that Ms. Willis had hired her “boyfriend” as a special prosecutor, granting him lucrative contracts even though he was underqualified, and then benefited by going on vacations that Mr. Wade paid for. — The New York Times
Our Take: “What an absolute disaster for Willis.
‘We all love Willis here at The Root, which is why she got the top spot at last month’s The Root 100 ceremony,’ the article stated. ‘But she absolutely should’ve known better than to put herself in this position.’
Even the black press can’t spin Fani’s misconduct. It’s that bad. The NY Times is keeping Willis at an arms length, casting dispersions on her story in this piece.
‘Ms. Willis also purchased plane tickets for herself and Mr. Wade, according to the filing on Friday, which included copies of her email traffic with Delta showing travel arrangements to and from Miami.’ Copies of her email traffic are not proof of payment — and, ostensibly, if she had proof of payment, she would have produced it.
The embattled prosecutor is facing a state legislative inquiry, a federal legislative inquiry, and an examination of the facts alleged by the RICO case fact finder, Judge Scott McAfee, on February 15.
Fani can argue that the hearing should be vacated all she wants, but her recent admissions come no where near resolving the matter. Rather, they raise new questions about the seemingly warranted perceptions corruption and, importantly in the pursuit of justice, introduce material disputes of fact. The judge must hear from both sides and, if Ms. Willis were innocent, I’d reckon she would want her side to be heard, her set of facts examined. But she doesn’t. That’s interesting.
Just imagine, for a moment, if Fani was a Republican bringing a case against Biden. There would be wall to wall coverage of her affair and the expenses and the lies and problems with the story. She would be forced to resign in disgrace.
She may well still, or she may keep her job and continue this bogus case, but a decision should not be made before the court, the legislators, and the public can examine the facts for themselves. The Public trust demands it.” —
Tucker Carlson Spotted In Moscow As Neocons Melt Down Over Potential Putin Interview
Russian media outlet "Mash" reports that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was seen at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in recent days. On the social media platform X, there's enormous interest in Carlson's trip and speculation about whether he plans to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As of Sunday morning, "Tucker" is trending on X with over 307,000 posts.
The journalist previously relayed a story about trying to set up a Putin interview, until a Washington, DC source briefed him about how the NSA spied on him.
[…]
"Uncensored on X. The US deep state and the Biden administration must be in panic mode because Putin (the most censored man in the West) will expose their propaganda and lies," X user Kim Dotcom wrote in a post.
[…]
This comes as Elon Musk has freed Twitter from corporate and government control while citizen journalists, armed with keyboards, report the news unbiasedly. In other words, the matrix has glitched. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Propaganda is a relatively local phenomenon. This was one of the lessons I learned during the COVID narrative. The propaganda was tailored uniquely to different localities, and varied from nation to nation.
In the midst of the lockdowns, I decided to test the claim that we weren’t allowed to travel and accepted a job as a speaker at a conference in North Carolina. The conference had offered to host my whole family, so we made a vacation of it. Needless to say, we did in fact travel regardless of all the fear mongering and claims that we would be stopped.
In Toronto, the mask mandates were for children 2 & up (we had not been masking our children regardless). As soon as we landed in North Carolina, we found out the mask mandate was for children 11 and up.
A 9 year difference!! Sounds super scientific!!
The propaganda was designed for its target audience, standard psychological warfare.
Once I saw this drastic inconsistency in COVID policies, the nature of the global operation being run suddenly became a lot clearer.
All this is to say that this is what Tucker Carlson is up to merging American awareness with Canadian awareness, and now moving on to Russia. Even though our enemy is running a globalist operation, they rely on curated psychological ecosystems that cannot withstand the free thought that is cultivated when non-local awareness is injected into these delicate, localized cognitive biomes.
Panic.” —
Saudi Arabia pushes for U.S. defence pact ahead of presidential election
Saudi Arabia would be willing to accept a political commitment from Israel to create a Palestinian state, rather than anything more binding, in a bid to get a defence pact with Washington approved before the U.S. presidential election, three sources said.
Months of U.S.-led diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel and recognise the country for the first time were shelved by Riyadh in October in the face of mounting Arab anger over the war in Gaza.
But Saudi Arabia is increasingly keen to shore up its security and ward off threats from rival Iran so the kingdom can forge ahead with its ambitious plan to transform its economy and attract huge foreign investment, two regional sources said.
To create some wiggle room in talks about recognising Israel and to get the U.S. pact back on track, Saudi officials have told their U.S. counterparts that Riyadh would not insist Israel take concrete steps to create a Palestinian state and would instead accept a political commitment to a two-state solution, two senior regional sources told Reuters.
Such a major regional deal, widely seen as a long-shot even before the Israel-Hamas war, would still face numerous political and diplomatic obstacles, not least the uncertainty over how the Gaza conflict will unfold. — Reuters
Our Take: “Another header out of the MSM this weekend that should get the jimmies sufficiently rustling is calling attention to the Saudis signal boosting the fact that they don't have a 'peace pact' in place with the Biden Administration, but that they'd like to.
Which can't help but remind sizable portions of the Collective Mind about the very literal peace pacts put in place (or brokered) by Donald Trump directly during his public administration, including but not limited to the Doha Agreement.
While I believe these pacts are already actualized--and will continue to be--as we push forward in the Shadow War, this headline and those like it are running on a parallel path that occupies the Narrative Layers of the Mind War.
Narrative Seeding is done by all players on the game board, on all sides, and here, we have Mohammed bin Salman both planting the seeds for the Sovereign Alliance's reveal & codification upon Trump's return, while drawing attention to the current regimes' failures therein.” —
FOIA Documents Reveal Government Officials Notified of Election Fraud in Michigan Following Election Day in 2020
In July 2023, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D-MI) charged 16 Republican Electors with political crimes in connection with the controversial 2020 Presidential election.
The ALTERNATE electors in Michigan, many of them senior citizens, were charged with eight felonies each, which could mean spending the rest of their lives in prison if AG Nessel has her way.
[…]
During her staged press release where she announced the bogus charges against the 16 GOP electors, Michigan’s politically motivated Attorney General Dana Nessel stated the electors were GUILTY, which is a curious statement to make from Michigan’s top law enforcement officer, knowing the electors haven’t even had their day in court!
Make no mistake, this is a political persecution, not a prosecution.
[…]
Michigan’s lawless attorney general would like the people of Michigan to believe that the electors had “no reason” to believe that the election was anything but “the most secure election in history.”
Yet she herself was fully aware that in OCTOBER, a month before the 2020 election, a full-scale investigation involving the Muskegon Police Department, MI State Police, lead investigators from the Attorney General’s office, and MI SOS Jocelyn Benson’s office was underway, involving over ten thousand voter registrations turned in by one individual at the city clerk’s office Muskegon, MI. — The Gateway Pundit
Our Take: “This is why we don’t quit before the magic happens. The truth cannot be hidden forever.
From President Trump to the Michigan electors, the political persecution relies on an alternative theory of intent. The regime claims that 2020 was the safest and most secure election in history, and that there was no legitimate reason to doubt the results. Because it was so safe, secure and above reproach, their intent must have been nefarious—in this case, it must have been with the intent to commit fraud.
If citizens and electors had cause to believe the election was stolen, this narrative about alternative intent — insurrection, fraud, sedition, etc. — goes out the window. And undoubtedly, they had cause.
‘Department of Justice officials knew on November 5, 2020, two days after the election, that there was a very serious accusation of voter fraud reported at the TCF Center in Detroit from election night.’
You know what that is? It’s potential proof of a cover up implicating the highest levels of the Michigan state executive branch. What are they covering up?” —
Danielle Smith bids to transcend politics with Canada's toughest trans youth rules
Premier Danielle Smith swore for months that she didn't want to politicize issues around the rights and aspirations of transgender, gender-fluid or questioning youth, and has now declared Canada's most restrictive and wide-ranging set of policies governing the rights and aspirations of those same minors.
She didn't want to politicize it, and yet there Smith was on Thursday, by herself at the news conference lectern. The health, education and sport ministers weren't on hand to explain the various reforms, nor any civil servants or subject experts — only Alberta's chief politician.
In the social-media video issued Wednesday that launched these dramatic moves, and again the next day, Smith said she wants those children to know "you are loved and supported as you work through your complex and often changing emotions, feelings and beliefs."
However, the government policy will imply that those young people might be making a terrible mistake about who they want to be, and will not support, and in fact block, any minor from having gender-affirming surgery — in addition to imposing Canada's first ban on hormone treatment and puberty-blocking medication for anyone under 16. — CBC
Our Take: “It’s a great study of narrative warfare to observe the principle of incongruence in action between the parental rights movement and the trans rights movement.
When you compare what each side is saying, you’ll notice that it’s nothing like a debate in which opposing views attempt to reconcile and respond to arguments presented.
For example, take Premiere Smith’s statement on schools socially transitioning children without parental consent:
’For a minor aged 15 and under, the government will require parental notification and consent for a school to alter the name or pronouns of a child. For 16 and 17-year-olds who choose to alter their name or pronouns, parents do not need to give consent, but they must be notified.’
Here’s a classic response from left-wing news outlet The Tyee in an article called ‘Danielle Smith Declares War on Trans Kids:’
’[S]he went on to outline a program that … would force teachers to out children who wish to use a name or pronoun they were not given at birth to their parents, regardless of risk.’
Notice that the response here has nothing to do with responding to Smith involving parents in a drastic, psychosocial change in their child’s life and identity. It’s not a counter argument.
It’s a power struggle to dominate the narrative.
One side presumes that parental involvement and a stable, united family is the starting point. The other side presumes children isolated from their families and the inherent hatred and bigotry of their parents is the starting point.
These are two entirely different presumptions from a moral, philosophical and empirical perspective. They are different realities.
On the cognitive battlefield, entrenchments are narrative based.
Often, our struggle is not to overcome the enemy with logical refutations, but to construct narrative entrenchments that will outlast the ideological onslaughts of the elite social engineers and their army of ideologically subverted foot soldiers.
To gain a deeper understanding of this particular narrative battle, I suggest watching to see how effectively Smith’s entrenchment holds up.
Did she cede too much ideological ground to her opponents? Or did she couch her proposal carefully enough into a moderate position that it will hold up in the face of pushback from not only her provincial opposition, but from Justin Trudeau’s woke federal government?
How carefully is she treading in Canada’s Overton Window? Is she avoiding an opportunity to redefine it?
Personally, I believe in bringing the entire fifth-generation war into the Overton window. Call communism communism. Outline the war on the family and the obvious use of state schools to ideologically divide parent and child.
But I will admit that, given the Hegelian Dialectic in operation, this can sometimes give our woke enemies the ammunition they need to radicalize our society even further, especially in Canada where all mainstream media is state media.
I will watch the Alberta struggle for parental rights closely.
Story wars are a subtle art, and there’s lots to learn from the principle of incongruence and the struggle to control the rules, characters and constructs of the collective hero’s journey we’re on.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to rest easy as a student of war.” —
BONUS ITEMS
U.S. and U.K. launch airstrikes targeting Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen
ABOARD USS EISENHOWER, the Red Sea — The United States and the United Kingdom launched airstrikes Saturday targeting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to the group’s continued attacks in the Red Sea, the countries confirmed in a joint statement.
The U.S. and U.K. struck 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations in Yemen using missiles launched from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, they said in the statement.
More than two dozen aircraft were also launched from the ship, a U.S. official said, some carrying 2,000-pound bombs, sidewinder air-to-air missiles and other precision-guided missiles.
It is not immediately clear if anyone was killed or wounded in the strikes.
The strikes Saturday “targeted sites associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, and radars,” the joint statement said.
The statement added that the “precision strikes” were meant to “disrupt and degrade the capabilities” the Houthis have used to attack ships in the Red Sea, threatening global trade and innocent sailors operating the ships.
The strikes “are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi actions since previous coalition strikes on January 11 and 22, 2024, including the January 27 attack which struck and set ablaze the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker M/V Marlin Luanda,” the statement said. — NBC News
Scandalous Senate 'Deal' Allows 1.5 Million Illegals Per Year, Slides Up To $2.3B To NGOs Trafficking Them, And Gives $60B To Ukraine
While the House has gone full 'Israel or Bust', the Senate has come up with a $118 billion bipartisan agreement which would allow 1.5 million illegals to enter the US every year, allocates $2.3 billion towards NGOs and other organizations which traffic them, gives $14.1 billion in security assistance to Israel, and a whopping $60 billion in support to Ukraine.
The bill also locks in green card giveaways until 2030.
The agreement was reached by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), whose own state legislature censured him last week for striking such a crappy border deal, along with Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).
Let's pause to revisit the fact that President Biden could close the border with the stroke of a pen, right now, but refuses to do so until Ukraine and Israel money materializes. He really likes quid-pro-quo arrangements, you see.
As noted above, the bill also carves out $2.33 billion for "Refugee and Entrant Assistance," which provides that "Amounts made available under this heading in this Act may be used for grants or contracts with qualified organizations, including nonprofit entities, to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services." — ZeroHedge
Judge delays Trump's federal trial as court considers his presidential immunity claim
Former President Donald Trump's federal election interference trial in Washington, D.C., will no longer begin on March 4, Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in a court order released Friday.
It is unclear when exactly the trial will now start, but the case has been on pause for nearly two months — Trump's team requested a stay on Dec. 7, and it was granted on Dec. 13 — which would mean the soonest the trial could start would likely be late April or early May.
A start date in early May could easily mean the trial won’t conclude until after the Republican National Convention, scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee.
In a previous order, Chutkan reiterated that a total of seven months was "sufficient time" for Trump to prepare for trial, not including the time the case has been on pause.
Friday's ruling comes as the D.C. Circuit Court has not yet decided on whether the former president is immune from prosecution. A panel of federal appeals court judges heard oral arguments on Jan. 9, and the case is on an expedited schedule.
"The court will set a new schedule if and when the mandate is returned," said the court order from Chutkan.
A lawyer for Trump and a spokesman for the special counsel both declined to comment. — NBC 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.
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.
Aaaahhhh Monday morning and a fresh start with all these Takes. Really gets my week going!!!
They think PANIC BB and it get’s louder every day… Glorious!!!
Fani… what an Ass!!!
Love the Take on propaganda being localized. It is hilarious that the DS Rat Bastards think they still control the narrative and We the People still believe any of the bullshit they spew. BTW Simon I understand you are up in the Great White North, Welcome to Badlands!!!
I think the MBS story will be a HUGE Rug Pull on Pedo Sleepy Joe and whoever else is dumb enough from his “team” to attach their name to this narrative.
MI like CO is totally broken politically and the whole Uniparty toilet needs to be flushed.
Finally, Simon the issue I take with Danielle Smith’s position on transgender bullshit is that that she starts with the DS Rat Bastards position and defends out. This is nothing more than controlled opposition. Where you ended your Take was way more appropriate. I would go even further. The mutilation of the body is wrong and forcing children to think any of this “normal” or “healthy” is not just absurd but it is criminal. I believe We the People are the news now and we all need to share the Truth everywhere we can.
BTW there are only 2 genders and your pronouns don't mean shit to me, learn proper English.
Thanks for all your excellent work.
God Wins!
God Bless!!!
Great lineup today…LOVE Badlanders!!
“ What do you think [they] see when they look?” — Burning Bright
[They] are seeing the most formidable enemy they never imagined. The Great Awakening is global!! 🙏❤️
Very relevant observation, Simon:
“Tucker Carlson is up to merging American awareness with Canadian awareness, and now moving on to Russia”
The entire global population knows (or is waking up quickly) that this is a spiritual war and I suspect nothing freaks out the evil global cabal more than that their evil intentions are no longer invisible to the vast majority of humanity.
For weeks I’ve been hoping Tucker would do an interview with Putin…I imagine it has crossed most of our minds. Timing is everything❤️🙏🤞
The “Fani Theater” is entertaining…and educational to the “slow blinking” (BB) normies. Just what kind of Justice system do we really want!?!
Peace in the Middle East….Deja Vu 🕊
The Truth of Election Fraud is gaining ground ❤️🇺🇸
And Thanks Simon for your take on the “narrative warfare to observe the principle of incongruence in action between the parental rights movement and the trans rights movement.” 👍
And it’s only Monday 😊❤️🇺🇸🕊🌎