Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Debates, Decisions and Disasters for the Deep State
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.
If you’d like to support one of our sponsors and get a hefty discount in the process, consider using the “BADLANDS” promo code for 30% off from our friends at CB Distillery, valid through Friday!
Now, onto the news from Thursday, June 27 …
Badlands Special Coverage of the 1st 2024 Presidential Debate
Our Take: This debate was about presence, not policy.
And it exceeded even my wildest fever dreams regarding the disparate demeanors on display.
Keep in mind, while the Truth Community is orders of magnitude larger than it was pre-Trump & pre-Q, we still exist in an informational bubble within a bubble, which is largely defined by being further along an informational timeline (h/t
) than our fellows, even within the MAGA normiesphere.Extend that out to the Normie Layers of the Collective Mind watching Joe Biden fumble his way through the barely-maintained ability to form sentences, nevermind coherent thoughts while Donald Trump is seen considering his opponent, considering the questions and considering his answers.
None of this approaches the intricacies of policy, geopolitics or game theory, because we're not the audience for this debate.
This debate was a binary.
The American people are being asked how they feel about the state of the country, and about the state of its leadership.
Awakening. —
Supreme Court punts on Trump immunity, taking thorny topic off debate table
The Supreme Court took what could have been a heated topic at Thursday's presidential debate off the table by pushing its decision on former President Trump's legal immunity case for at least 24 hours.
Why it matters: Trump's legal woes are at the center of both candidates' campaigns. For President Biden, it's because he knows some voters might shy away from backing a convicted felon. For Trump, it's because he claims to be the victim of politically motivated prosecutions.
Driving the news: The court is down to its final cases of the term, with the question of presidential immunity looming largest on the outstanding docket.
Trump's two federal cases — one on his alleged efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election and the other on his handling of classified documents after his time in the White House — hinge on the court's decision.
During more than two hours of oral arguments in April, a majority of the justices appeared poised to grant the presumptive GOP nominee at least a partial victory, but they did not seem to be aligned with the "absolute immunity" argument Trump has pushed.
Several justices seemed to agree that presidents can't be prosecuted for "official acts" — a core topic of the oral arguments that explored whether Trump's efforts to overturn the election were official or unofficial.
The court will most likely kick the case back to lower courts, Axios' Sam Baker reports.
Context: Biden's re-election campaign and its surrogates have characterized November's election as a choice between democracy and lawlessness, seizing on Trump's conviction. — Axios
Our Take: We didn’t get a ruling in President Trump’s immunity case prior to the debate, so it will likely come in today or Monday, as the court usually completes its work by the end of June. They released four rulings on Thursday:
SEC vs. Jarskey: The court held that defendants are entitled to a jury trial under the 7th Amendment when the SEC seeks civil penalties for securities fraud. Hooray for the Bill of Rights.
Harrington vs. Purdue Pharma: A bankruptcy case where the court held that the bankruptcy code does not allow the discharge of affected claimants’ interests without their consent.
Moyle vs. US: The court denied various writs on Idaho’s abortion ban, and vacated the injunctive stays, finding that those actions violate the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. Alito’s dissent in this is worth a read.
Ohio vs. EPA: A case challenging overreach by the EPA based on 20 states’ air quality compliance, SCOTUS stayed the EPAs actions until the challenge is through the D.C. Circuit Court. Not a great jurisdiction for challenging Federal overreach.
The SCOTUS calendar this session is a stark reminder that our rights are under assault every day. We’re still awaiting a couple big rulings but, regardless of which way they go, we can expect the court itself to be a significant topic during the remainder of the campaign. —
US intel indicates war between Israel and Hezbollah inching closer
A large-scale confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah is likely to break out in the next several weeks if Jerusalem and Hamas fail to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, U.S. intelligence indicates.
U.S. officials are trying to convince both sides to deescalate — a task that would be significantly easier with a cease-fire in place in Gaza. But that agreement is in tense negotiations and U.S. officials are not confident Israel and Hamas will agree to the deal on the table in the near future. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah have drafted battle plans and are in the process of trying to procure additional weapons, according to two senior U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence.
Both sides have publicly said they do not want to go to war, but senior Biden officials increasingly believe that intense fighting is likely to break out despite efforts to try and prevent it.
The risk is higher now than at any other point in recent weeks, according to another senior U.S. official, who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive intelligence.
A war between Israel and Hezbollah could ignite a conflict that forces the U.S. to help defend Jerusalem and pushes the Biden administration to engage more deeply in a region it has for years tried to leave. It also risks another humanitarian disaster, punching the aid community at a time when it is already stretched thin and trying to manage the crisis in Gaza. — Politico
Our Take: Netanyahu is completely botching this military campaign. He is making rookie mistakes that even a child playing a real-time strategy war simulation video game understands.
He has failed to properly wrap up the Gaza adventure, or even negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas, and yet he is opening up a second front in the north. Is he trying to get Israel pinched in a double-envelopment? What does he think Hamas is going to do, now that the IDF is reportedly pulling their armor (tanks) out of Rafah and sending them north to join der blitzkrieg?
As Colonel Macgregor has told Judge Napolitano, Hamas has not only replenished all of their lost personnel, they have now expanded their political support into the West Bank. That means that Hamas can theoretically not only launch attacks from the south in Gaza, but also from the east in the West Bank.
That means that the IDF could potentially be facing a THREE front war, with two of them (Hamas) being asymmetric conflicts, which will be extremely difficult to maintain, long-term.
The fight with Hezbollah will be a more conventional affair. In fact, that fight will be more intense and difficult than anything they have faced thus far in Gaza. And that doesn't even account for the Wagner Group, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, all of whom would likely get involved on the ground and fight alongside Hezbollah.
The US is now announcing that they are moving two aircraft carriers into the region. Looks like the stage is set for World War 3...
...accelerate. —
West ‘unable to negotiate’ – Lavrov
The West has repeatedly displayed its “inability to negotiate,” which has now become evident to everyone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Western “vassals” of the US are willing to breach “any agreements” and violate international law upon receiving “orders” from Washington, Lavrov claimed at the Primakov Readings International Forum in Moscow.
Russia had been interested in a mutually beneficial relationship with the collective West, but building one has proven to be effectively impossible, the top diplomat argued.
“Our interest was much broader and more comprehensive, but the West was not ready for mutually beneficial, equal cooperation,” Lavrov stated. “When it needs to do something on orders from Washington, it resorts to breaking any agreements, any violations of international law.”
Moscow is now seeking to ensure its security and prevent any threats emanating from the “Western direction,” Lavrov said. The collective West, at the same time, is trying to make an example of Russia to assert its neocolonial policies, the diplomat claimed. — RT
Our Take: Back on Tuesday, Judge Andrew Napolitano interviewed journalist Pepe Escobar.
Pepe said that two months ago, he attended an intimate dinner with a few other journalists and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, where Lavrov said that for the first time in modern history, Russia has no real line of communication with the West. Anything that is said by the Russian Foreign Ministry—either in private conversation, or in a public statement—is immediately dismissed by nearly every western leader as "Russian propaganda."
Lavrov explained that even at the height of the Cold War, the Soviets were able to pick up the phone and speak directly to somebody at the White House, and be taken seriously.
Our leaders are deranged. They have fallen into a spiral of groundless psychosis, fueled by appalling opulence and unhinged emotional petulance. They are Nero playing the lyre while Rome burns.
The Russians are the adults, along with China, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the Sovereign Alliance. The Globalist Oligarchy has revealed itself to be nothing more than spoiled rotten children who are completely incapable of accomplishing even the most basic task without screwing it up. Even laundering tax dollars—one of their favorite past-times—seems to have become a chore.
They've grown lazy and weak, and that weakness has led to sloppiness, and that sloppiness will be their downfall.
Last night, President Trump showed us the strategy, moving forward. We must adopt Sun Tzu's most famous parable: "If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him."
This same line was included at the beginning of the 4th Psyop Group's notorious Ghosts in the Machine video.
No coincidences. —
Supreme Court strikes serious blow against the administrative state
In a potentially groundbreaking decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that defendants accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission have the right to a jury trial.
Why it matters: The decision in SEC v. Jarkesy deals a serious blow to the administrative state, part of a yearslong project by the financial sector and conservatives to weaken federal power.
The decision hobbles not just the SEC but other federal agencies like the EPA and Labor Department that rely on administrative law judges, which report to federal agencies and are part of the executive branch and not the judicial.
Jarkesy could weaken the ability of a range of federal agencies who use these judges — from the EPA to OSHA — to enforce laws in the public interest.
The big picture: It's one of a handful of cases the Court has taken on this term that chip away at federal agency power — the most important one, a case regarding the deference courts show to agency decisions, is still to be decided.
Catch up fast: George Jarkesy ran two hedge funds that the SEC said were a fraud, so the agency brought a case against him before an administrative law judge — one of about 2,000 who work for a range of federal agencies. — Axios
Our Take: I’m going to approach this take a little differently today, and I want you all to put your Bicameral glasses on, because today’s
take is actually going to be written by SLATE globalist, corporatist, liberal shill Mark Joseph Stern … because, when you simply take his entire argument, I think you’ll notice a sense of inner calm and even hope that the promised neutering of the (Deep) Administrative State is WELL underway … communists like Stern being most affected:
Don’t threaten us with a good time, Mark. We can only get so erect. (Even
.) —Michelle Obama's private frustration with the Bidens
Former First Lady Michelle Obama privately has expressed frustration over how the Biden family largely exiled her close friend Kathleen Buhle after Buhle's messy divorce from Hunter Biden, two people familiar with the relationship told Axios.
Why it matters: The family tensions — and the former first lady's disdain for partisan politics — are partly why one of the Democrats' most popular voices hasn't campaigned for President Biden's re-election, the sources said, even as former President Obama has been a willing surrogate.
Michelle Obama also was initially reluctant to campaign for Biden after he became the Democratic nominee in 2020, people familiar with the situation told Axios.
Biden's team says the relationship between the families is strong, pointing to public displays of camaraderie that continue today. But the sources told Axios that the relationship changed in 2015.
That was when then-Vice President Biden was weighing a presidential run, and President Obama was not encouraging it.
It also was the year Biden's son Beau died of cancer, setting off years of tumult within the family that included Hunter Biden and Buhle's divorce in 2017.
Driving the news: This year Barack Obama has attended fundraisers and appeared in videos for President Biden's re-election effort, but Obama has done so solo, without his popular spouse. — Axios
Our Take: First of all, this isn’t news. It’s a (too) long gossip piece about the private feelings of Michelle Obama about the Bidens. Spoiler: She doesn’t care for them.
The ‘exclusive’ from Axios recaps old stories about drama between the two families during the Obama administration, and since, and focused heavily on Hunter and his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle. Kathleen and Michelle are friends, and the former First Lady believes her friend was wronged.
The part of the story that should be news is Michelle Obama’s “When We All Vote,” the mother of all NGOs. Under the umbrella of this NGO, you will find all the other election-related NGOs. They’re all working together under Obama’s banner.
Michelle Obama established When We All Vote in 2018 — and shortly after, Biden talked about his ‘voter fraud’ network. I’m sure the two facts are completely unrelated.
Better to just focus on the gossip and drama, right? —
ISIS Smuggling Reports Create Border Firestorm Before Trump, Biden Debate
On the eve of the year's first presidential debate, a new media firestorm has been ignited over reports that 400 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with the aid of a human smuggling network linked to terror group ISIS.
Immigration is bound to be a core topic of discourse when President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday night face off in the first of two one-on-one debates. The event, which will be televised and hosted by CNN, will take place unusually early in the election cycle and without a studio audience.
Trump and other Republicans have condemned Biden's border policies amid a surge in encounters at the southern border since he took office, while the incumbent president has accused Trump of deliberately attempting to make the issue worse by blocking a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
On Wednesday, CNN and NBC reported on the identification of 400 migrants who were purportedly smuggled over the border by a network affiliated with ISIS, with both networks citing anonymous U.S. officials. — Newsweek
And …
Biden administration moves toward allowing American military contractors to deploy to Ukraine
The Biden administration is moving toward lifting a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine, four US officials familiar with the matter told CNN, to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems.
The change would mark another significant shift in the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, as the US looks for ways to give Ukraine’s military an upper hand against Russia.
The policy is still being worked on by administration officials and has not received final sign-off yet from President Joe Biden, officials said.
“We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature,” said one administration official. “The president is absolutely firm that he will not be sending US troops to Ukraine.”
Once approved, the change would likely be enacted this year, officials said, and would allow the Pentagon to provide contracts to American companies for work inside Ukraine for the first time since Russia invaded in 2022. Officials said they hope it will speed up the maintenance and repairs of weapons systems being used by the Ukrainian military.
Over the last two years, Biden has insisted that all Americans, and particularly US troops, stay far away from the Ukrainian frontlines. The White House has been determined to limit both the danger to Americans and the perception, particularly by Russia, that the US military is engaged in combat there. The State Department has explicitly warned Americans against traveling to Ukraine since 2022. — CNN
Our Take: Moving forward, we should always refer to the CIA as the State Department, to gaslight the naive public into understanding how sinister and duplicitous that agency is.
The State Department is using their mercenaries to attack Russia and destabilize America.
ISIS is not a "radical Islamic terrorist" organization. I know this because I have personally interviewed two separate veterans who served on High-Value Target (HVT) teams, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, and both said that in ten years of raiding ISIS safe houses to extract terrorist leaders, they never once found a Quran or any Islamic prayer materials.
They never found any evidence that a single Muslim lived at any of these locations.
What they did find was an abundance of western pornography, video game consoles, DVD's, and other "contraband" that would be extremely difficult to acquire in remote parts of the Middle East—unless you had friends in the West.
President Putin has also said on multiple occasions that ISIS fighters are highly-paid mercenaries, not religious zealots. (This is exactly what the two HVT veterans told me, as well. They go out and find the degenerate losers in any village, and offer them US cash to join their gang.)
The State Department has been waging kinetic war against the Sovereign Alliance for years. Now, it appears they intend to wage kinetic war against the American People on US soil.
Now is not the time to panic. Now is the time to keep a cool head. Those who panic are the ones who will lose. Whenever chaos erupts, always look for the guy in the room who is calm. He is the one who is going to make it. Be that guy. —
UN warns of overdose deaths after Afghan opium production plummets
The Taliban-ordered crash in opium production in Afghanistan, long the world's dominant supplier, could drive up overdose deaths as heroin users switch to synthetic opioids already proving deadly in Europe, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.
The cultivation of opium, from which heroin is made, fell by 95% in Afghanistan last year after the Taliban banned the production of narcotics in 2022. Although opium production in Myanmar increased by 36% last year, it still fell globally by 75%, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual World Drug Report published on Wednesday.
"The result of a prolonged shortage of Afghan opiates could have multiple consequences in Afghanistan and in countries of transit and destination for Afghan opiates. The purity of heroin on the market is expected to decline," the UNODC said.
Preliminary field observations indicate a possible slight increase in Afghan opium cultivation this year but it is unlikely to return to pre-ban levels, the UNODC said.
While there were "no real shortages" in the main destination markets for Afghan opiates such as Europe, the Middle East and South Asia were reported until early 2024, that could change if future harvests remain small, it added. — Reuters
Our Take: The criminal reprobates are showing you exactly who they are.
They are whining because Trump turned control of Afghanistan over to the Taliban, and the Talibros immediately ended the heroin industry. (This is why we saw an explosion in synthetic fentanyl.) But somehow, this makes the Taliban evil? You have to be a deeply disturbed degenerate with a filthy soul to understand that logic, let alone publicly express it.
Now they are arguing that the depleted supply of heroin is going to lead to... more heroin overdoses? Because Big Pharma is making highly dangerous synthetic opiates—like fentanyl?
Seems to me that Big Pharma should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and the corporate press is making the argument for us.
Let's be clear: the State Department (aka the CIA) invaded Vietnam to protect their cartel's drug trade. (We detailed that in a recent Brief.) Then, after 9/11, the State Department invaded Afghanistan to seize control of the opium fields to drive up production, which led to the devastating Opioid Crisis, where the Sackler Family (among others) murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans with their poisonous Oxycontin.
These people are ruthless gangsters—a violent cartel that is desperate to defend their business interests. They will happily murdered people for profit, and enslave children to work their mines, their fields, and their brothels.
If we are truly God's People, we will defeat them at all costs. —
BONUS ITEMS
Supreme Court Allows Emergency Abortions in Idaho
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that emergency abortions in Idaho can proceed. Hospitals in the northwestern state are now permitted to perform emergency abortions when a patient's health is in serious jeopardy.
The decision leaves significant questions unresolved and potentially positions the issue for another review by the conservative-majority court.
This news comes nearly two years after the historic reversal of Roe v. Wade. Since then, Idaho became one of 14 states to impose a total ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with only very narrow exceptions.
This ruling follows an unusual incident where an opinion was briefly posted on the court's website by mistake and then swiftly removed. Bloomberg News obtained it before it was deleted. The final opinion closely mirrors the draft that was inadvertently released. It reverses a previous court order that permitted Idaho's abortion ban to be enforced even in medical emergencies.
However, the decision does not address the fundamental issues of the case, suggesting that the justices who previously voted to overturn Roe v Wade may soon reexamine the conditions under which doctors can perform abortions in medical emergencies. — Newsweek
Cannon comes under scrutiny for plodding pace of Trump documents case
Judge Aileen Cannon’s plodding supervision of the Mar-a-Lago documents case is coming under building scrutiny after she dedicated three days to exploring long-shot motions from former President Trump.
Cannon weighed arguments from Trump’s team that question the legitimacy of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment and his office’s funding, while taking the highly unusual step of inviting outside groups into her Fort Pierce courtroom to weigh in on the matter.
Her lengthy consideration comes after reporting from The New York Times that two of Cannon’s judicial colleagues urged her to hand off the case — including one who was concerned about the optics after one of Cannon’s actions was criticized by a higher court.
There is no trial date set in the case; Cannon suspended the start date indefinitely as she argued she must carefully weigh a pile of pretrial motions from Trump that ask her to toss the proceedings.
Attorneys generally avoid open criticism of a judge, but that dynamic has shifted as motions mount in the Trump documents case. — The Hill
NASA Awards Elon Musk's SpaceX Contract To Destroy Space Station
In a major vote of confidence for Elon Musk's SpaceX, NASA has awarded the private space company a contract worth nearly $1 billion. This contract is for developing a "Deorbit Vehicle," which will be responsible for steering the International Space Station out of orbit by the end of the decade.
"NASA announced SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the US Deorbit Vehicle that will provide the capability to deorbit the space station and ensure avoidance of risk to populated areas," the space agency wrote in a press release.
The ISS, launched in 1998, recently extended its operational life from 2024 to 2030. Russia plans to withdraw from the ISS in the coming years and focus on building its own space station. The Deorbit Vehicle will steer the ISS into the Pacific Ocean.
"Selecting a US Deorbit Vehicle for the International Space Station will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition in low Earth orbit at the end of station operations. This decision also supports NASA's plans for future commercial destinations and allows for the continued use of space near Earth," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, wrote in a press release.
On Wednesday Musk wrote on X, "The Moon Station that Starship will enable will be great." — ZeroHedge
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.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the ass whuppin Sleepy Pedo Joe took last night in the debate. It was glorious and the meltdown of the CNN talking heads afterward was proof in my mind that we are in control. I have come to believe that We the People won the day Trump was elected in 2016 and everything since then has been a complete take down of the DS Rat Bastards and the Awakening.
I believe MSM is dead and We the People are the news now and that it is our responsibility to be the force that loudly sets the Public Mandate for Justice.
Thanks for all your work to get us these Takes.
God Wins!
God Bless!!!
Calling out the CIA (above) is commendable, but perhaps 𝘿𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 should be the CIA's new moniker.