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.
Many items feature original (and subjective) commentary. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see our writers’ Substack accounts and check out their other work.
Now, onto the news from Thursday, February 15 …
In fiery testimony, Fani Willis hits back at misconduct claims that threaten future of Trump case
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis took the witness stand Thursday and forcefully pushed back against what she described as “lies” about her romantic relationship with a special prosecutor during an extraordinary hearing over misconduct allegations that threaten to upend one of four criminal cases against Donald Trump.
A visibly upset Willis, who originally fought to stay off the witness stand, agreed to testify after a previous witness said her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade began earlier than they had claimed. The district attorney’s testimony grew heated under questioning from a defense attorney who’s trying to remove Willis from Trump’s 2020 election interference case, with the prosecutor at one point raising papers in front of her and shouting: “It’s a lie!”
“Do you think I’m on trial? These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial,” Willis told defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant. At another point, Willis said, “Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy.”
Willis is expected to return to the witness stand on Friday to continue answer questions. — The Washington Post
Our Take: “In a hearing about public corruption, Fulton County’s top law enforcement official found herself on the stand, under oath, explaining away evidence of an improper relationship.
Day one of Fani Willis’ disqualification was must-see.
Here are some highlights:
Willis paid her rent for an off-book condo in cash sometimes but mostly through CashApp. It was never a fixed amount. This condo is a key location in Wade and Willis’ relationship, as it was where Ms. Willis spent a lot of time alone with Mr. Wade — but only as friends. They were at the condo, not because they were hiding their relationship, but because Willis was in danger at her home because she is strong on gang crime, and it was dangerous to be at the home. Her elderly father, and sometimes her daughters stayed at the dangerous home. It was a lonely time for Ms. Willis.
Everyone has seen the financial records that show Nathan Wade paid for lavish vacations for DA Willis. Willis’ testimony is that she paid her fair share of all these expenses, but she paid in cash, because she always has cash, because her daddy always taught her to have cash. There is no record of the alleged reimbursements.
DA Willis failed to disclose her relationship with Mr. Wade to anyone in government, not because she was keeping it secret, but because she is a private person. She claims, as the county’s top law enforcement official, that she didn’t know she had a duty to disclose the relationship. She’s just a private individual and didn’t realize there was anything improper about sleeping with her direct reports.
That’s the essence of Fani’s testimony Thursday. If this sounds unbelievable to you, you’re not alone. Even CNN appears to be distancing themselves from the embattled prosecutor.
The hearing continues today at 9am ET.” —
Another Take: “Do I think Fani's entire performance was scripted?
No.
Do I think we're watching a Disclosure Operation/Movie meant to accelerate the Great Awakening and expose the clown show that has been the System of Systems for all of our lives, and that patriot ghosts in the machine have strategically set up certain particularly clownish figures to fail in full view of the American public?
Yup.
Enjoy the show.” —
Putin says Russia prefers Biden to Trump because he's 'more experienced and predictable'
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia would prefer to see U.S. President Joe Biden win a second term, describing him as more experienced than Donald Trump.
Speaking in an interview with a correspondent of Russian state television, Putin declared that he will work with any U.S. leader who is elected, but noted unequivocally that he would prefer Biden's victory when asked who would be a better choice from the point of view of Russia.
“Biden, he's more experienced, more predictable, he's a politician of the old formation,” Putin said. “But we will work with any U.S. leader whom the American people trust.” — CTV News
Our Take: “In a fascinating turn of events, Putin came out and, with great precision, aligned himself with Biden and a number of American left wing talking points.
This is an interesting example of fifth generation warfare from a few different operational layers.
Firstly, it's clear that Putin is engaging in influence operations to game the North American Deep State media. The Tucker Carlson interview empowered Putin to suddenly influence American politics and media coverage much more.
He defended Biden’s health and state of mental acuity, claimed he was more experienced than Trump , and announced that he was the ‘unequivocal’ Russian preference for winning the 2024 election, although Putin stated that Biden was the preference because he was predictable and from the old-school of political class.
’Biden, he's more experienced, more predictable, he's a politician of the old formation.’
There are layers of inference here. The old guard is perhaps one … a corrupt political class Putin has referred to before in speeches where he openly declares that the political class driving American children towards gender affirmative treatments are participating in something Satanic. And then there's the idea that Biden is extremely ‘predictable.’
Biden is a one dimensional cartoon character being used to puppeteer an agenda that is very obvious. He is the face of a monoculture being imposed on America that Putin is openly critical of.
He then went on to describe Tucker Carlson as having gone soft on him, allegedly calling him a ‘dangerous’ man.
The second operational layer is composed of whatever bait the North American mainstream media is taking. They are, of course, doing their best to edit and omit from Putin's latest interview, to build a narrative.
Suddenly', it’s not unacceptable Russian propaganda, or ‘dangerous to share’ or produce interview clips when Putin agrees with us about Tucker Carlson! 😆
And at the same time, Putin backed Trump's position that the US has been funding NATO to guard Europe and that it was a logical position to state that they need to pay their dues. ‘NATO is a US foreign policy tool.’
On a very basic level, he is refusing to be boxed into any of the narratives being imposed on him by both the left and right wing media in North America.
Whether or not Putin is involved in any covert operations or quiet international agreements targeting the Deep State, it's best to keep in mind one of the principles of what the CCP call 'Unrestricted Warfare' from their book of the same name:
’… so-called common interest has become merely the war equation’s largest common denominator that can be accepted by every allied party participating in the war effort. Since different countries will certainly be pursuing different agendas in a war, it is necessary to take the self-interest of every allied party into consideration... Even if we consider a given country’s domestic situation, each of the various domestic interest groups will also be pursuing its own agenda in a war. The complex interrelationships among self-interests make it impossible to pigeonhole [a] War as having been fought for oil, or as having been fought for the new world order...The biggest difference between contemporary wars and the wars of the past is that, in contemporary wars, the overt goal and the covert goal are often two different matters.’
Putin is a self interested Nationalist who seeks the Unipolar world which requires America's dethroning, and yet, even though they are hellbent on destroying the West, he does seem to be invested in the fall of the American Deep State.” —
Billionaire Soros to Become Biggest Stockholder in US Radio Company
Soros Fund Management is positioned to become the biggest shareholder of Audacy Inc. when the radio and podcast company emerges from bankruptcy.
The investment firm founded by billionaire George Soros has scooped up more than $400 million of Audacy’s highest-ranking debt, bankruptcy court filings show. That makes it by far the biggest member of a group of lenders planning to swap their loans for stock in the broadcaster.
“The decision by our existing and new debtholders to become equity holders in Audacy represents a significant vote of confidence in our company and the future of the radio and audio business,” Audacy said in a statement.
Soros Fund Management and lawyers for the creditor group didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
It’s just the latest media investment for Soros. The fund was part of a group of lenders that bought Vice Media out of bankruptcy last year and earlier took a minority stake in podcast company Crooked Media. — Bloomberg
Our Take: “As always, my favorite deployments in the Info War tend to track along Actual and Narrative grounds simultaneously.
The latest Sorosian headlines are teeming with both.
From an Actual perspective, Soros scooping up debt from one of the most-leveraged and largest radio conglomerates in the nation will allow them to swap that debt for equity and take more direct control of the network's business planning, which, of course, gives them a direct line into the Narrative Deployments of said conglomerate.
This comes on the heels of Soros also bailing out Vice Media from their own bankruptcy storm in 2023, along with investing in an up-and-coming podcasting network, so the Sultan Slug has his greasy mitts sliming all over information dissemination arms that hit all demographics ahead of the US election cycle.
And therein lies the Narrative beauty of these headlines, which are beginning to train the Normiesphere to recognize exactly what full info control looks like.” —
Over 100 Chinese Websites Pose As Local News Outlets In 30 Countries: Report
At least 123 Chinese websites are disguised as local news outlets in 30 countries to disseminate pro-Beijing disinformation, according to a recent report from Citizen Lab, a digital watchdog at Canada’s University of Toronto.
“The campaign is an example of a sprawling influence operation serving both financial and political interests, and in alignment with Beijing’s political agenda,” Alberto Fittarelli, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, wrote in his Feb. 7 report.
He called the campaign “Paperwall,” which he defined as “a large, and fast growing, network of anonymous websites posing as local news outlets.” The United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the UK, France, Brazil, Turkey, and Italy were among the 30 countries allegedly targeted by the campaign.
To disguise themselves as legitimate local news outlets, Paperwall websites often used local references as part of their names, such as Eiffel Post and Provence Daily for two French-language websites. Other website names included British FT targeting the UK, Sendai Shimbum and Fujiyama Times for Japan, Daegu Journal and Busan Online for South Korea, and Roma Journal and Napoli Money for Italy.
The lone website targeting the U.S. audience was UpdateNews.Info, a domain name registered in July 2019 and the first Paperwall website to be registered, according to the report. — The Epoch Times
Our Take: “I can't help but refer again to the CCP's book, ‘Unrestricted Warfare.’
The United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the UK, France, Brazil, Turkey, and Italy were among the 30 countries allegedly targeted by CCP influence operations.
The use of fake News Wires that parrot state media, and inject pro-Beijing commentary into these countries is not that sophisticated.
We must not forget how sophisticated the CCP's understanding of 5GW is.
’[T]he progressive breaking down of the distinction between military and technology and civilian technology and between the professional soldier and the non-professional warrior the battlespace will overlap more and more with the non-battlespace serving also to make the line
between these two entities less and less clear.’ - Unrestricted Warfare
Given that this is the sophisticated understanding the CCP has had of 5GW since the 1990s, the idea that they are running such basic influence operations, which the report detailing these ops claimed had a very small influence, seems off to me.
For example, what intel is gained by the CCP in understanding how their information operations are exposed? Do these ops help maintain the idea that governments need to be on the look out for ‘traditional warfare operations’ such as this one? Could this be to draw fire?
The question to me is, what covert 5G operations are these basic influence operations being couched within given the multi-domain nature of the war at hand? China has been caught doing this many times, yet they have persisted.
Even when China gets caught, it is unwise to assume they are doing what they appear to be doing.” —
Trump SPAC DWAC Soars After Regulators OK Merger
Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) spiked Thursday morning after regulators approved a plan for the SPAC to merge with the parent company of "Truth Social" (former President Trump's social media platform).
According to a regulatory filing, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the merger Thursday morning, and Digital World expects to announce within two business days, the date of the special meeting of its stockholders.
"This achievement marks a significant milestone for us," DWAC CEO Eric Swider said in a statement, adding that:
TMTG CEO Devin Nunes said:
"Truth Social was created to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to give people their voices back. Moving forward, we aim to accelerate our work to build a free speech highway outside the stifling stranglehold of Big Tech."
Nunes continued, "I'd like to thank everyone who has believed in our mission and helped bring us to this moment: DWAC and its CEO Eric Swider, DWAC shareholders, the TMTG Board of Directors, the entire TMTG staff, and the whole community of Truth Social users." — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “The stock market is sometimes referred to as astrology for men; in fact, I think a lot of the finance bro movement can be collected and parsed as more of a negative indicator rather than analytics.
The DWAC-TMTG merger has been in the works for a LONG time, after countless stops and starts.
While the stock has yet to eclipse the all-time high it set shortly after launching in late 2021, the latest surge comes on the heels of the announcement that the SEC has approved the long-awaited plan for the financial vehicle to acquire TMTG, which includes Truth Social. The last time it surged was based on Trump dominating headlines (as always) related to the ongoing DOJ Witch Hunt launched against him.
What's more exciting about this (aside from being good for early investors who are still underwater,) is the fact that the merger (expected in September 2024,) could allow Trump supporters to directly fund the emergent media company's future endeavors, giving them/us a direct role in needed industry disruption.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Biden attacked Hur for asking him when Beau died. That didn't happen, sources say.
President Joe Biden lashed out at Robert Hur last week over one particular line in the special counsel's report on his handling of classified documents: that Biden "did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died."
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters in an impromptu White House press conference. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
But Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was the president, not Hur or his team, who first introduced Beau Biden’s death, they said.
Biden raised his son’s death after being asked about his workflow at a Virginia rental home from 2016 to 2018, the sources said, when a ghost writer was helping him write a memoir about losing Beau to brain cancer in 2015. Investigators had a 2017 recording showing that Biden had told the ghost writer he had found “classified stuff” in that home, the report says.
Biden began trying to recall that period by discussing what else was happening in his life, and it was at that point in the interview that he appeared confused about when Beau died, the sources said. Biden got the date — May 30 — correct, but not the year. — NBC News
Trump’s New York hush-money case will start March 25. It’s the first of his criminal trials
Donald Trump’s hush-money trial will go ahead as scheduled with jury selection starting March 25, a New York judge ruled Thursday, turning aside demands for delay from the former president’s defense lawyers, who argued it would interfere with his campaign to retake the White House.
The decision means that the first of Trump’s four criminal prosecutions to proceed to trial is a case centered on years-old accusations that he sought to bury stories about extramarital affairs that arose during his 2016 presidential run. Other cases charge him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and illegally hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate.
In leaving the trial date intact, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan pointed to the recent delay in the separate prosecution in Washington related to efforts to undo the 2020 election. That case, originally set for trial on March 4, has been effectively frozen pending the outcome of Trump’s appeal on the legally untested question of whether a former president enjoys immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office.
Noting that he had resisted defense lawyer urgings from months ago to postpone the trial, Merchan said, “In hindsight, frankly, I’m glad that I took that position, because here we are and the D.C. case did not go forward.” He said he decided to stick with the trial date after speaking last week with the judge in the Washington case, Tanya Chutkan.
The hush-money trial is expected to last six weeks, Merchan said. — AP News
U.S. Probes Israeli Strikes That Killed Civilians in Gaza, Possible Use of White Phosphorus in Lebanon
The U.S. is investigating several Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that killed dozens of civilians and the possible use by Israel of white phosphorus in Lebanon, as part of a probe by the State Department to determine whether America’s closest ally has misused its bombs and missiles to kill civilians, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal.
The process shows the dilemmas facing the Biden administration, which so far has ruled out putting conditions on arms transfers to pressure Israel, but faces increasing calls from some members of Congress to do so as the war wears on.
One attack the State Department is currently investigating is an Oct. 31 airstrike on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City that killed more than 125 people, the U.S. officials said. Israel said it targeted a Hamas commander in a tunnel under a high-rise building.
Weapons investigators suspect that Israel used a 2,000-pound bomb in the strike, which could have been provided by the U.S. The United Nations Human Rights Office said the strike killed a large number of civilians and could be a war crime.
Israeli officials declined to comment on what type of weapon they used, but said they had tried to minimize civilian casualties in the Oct. 31 attack by using a delayed fuse that allowed it to detonate underground. — The Wall Street Journal
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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Putin distancing himself from the Tucker interview and making statements preferring Biden over Trump while dismissing the narrative of Biden’s mental incompetence is a most fascinating move on the game board! The Biden conundrum just got an infusion of chaos, compliments of Putin, into an already unstable American perception of the great divide and the current debate on all things Russia and Ukraine and Biden.
As WildBill reminded me yesterday, the Russians are master chess players…Putin is playing a fascinating strategy - imho.
Whatever the next move by the global Left, Trump’s counter move will bring us closer to Checkmate ❤️
Trump posted a number of clips of Willis and Wade which is how I caught some of it. Watching Fani acting all arrogant and entitled, raising her voice and arguing with the Judge, I realized we were witnessing the diversity/equity problem. How on earth did these two make it into such prominent positions in their “profession”? Certainly not on MERIT of intelligence, character, ethics, and even respect for the legal values of our Justice system. DEI is lowering the bar in every institution and basically weaponizing the law to do it!
The Fani / Wade theater was 🍿worthy