The news cycle is impossible to fully track these days. That’s where we come in. The Badlands News Brief is a uniquely curated selection of the stories dominating the info war — with context and commentary from Badlands hosts.
President Donald Trump believes that the federal income tax will be abolished in the near future and replaced entirely by tariffs. Trump made the bold claim about an income tax-free America during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, after touting the impact of his trade policies and potential “dividend” stimulus checks.
“We’re going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we’re taking in literally trillions of dollars,” Trump said. “Additionally, we’re gonna be able to reduce debt,” the president continued. “And I believe that at some point in the not-too-distant future you won’t even have income tax to pay because the money we’re taking in is so great, it’s so enormous that you’re not going to have income tax to pay.” [...]
The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that the U.S. government has collected $258.1 billion in tariffs during this calendar year. Progressive economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said that tariffs alone would not be enough to replace the revenue lost by eliminating income tax. In a Nov. 30 commentary for CEPR, Baker wrote that if the government “relied on new tariff revenue to replace an income tax that pulled in $2,600 billion, almost ten times as much, it would raise the annual deficit by roughly $2,300 billion.” He added, “That would push the size of the deficit to around $4 trillion, roughly 13 percent of GDP.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has not gone as far as Trump in predicting the total eradication of income taxes, but he has claimed the president’s tariffs can give Americans “income tax relief.” – CPA Practice Advisor
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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke on a major fraud scheme out of Minnesota. At a roundtable meeting with President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Secretary Noem said Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.) allowed this to take place under his leadership.
“You told me to look into Minnesota and their fraud on visas and their programs: 50% of them are fraudulent, which means that that wacko Gov. (Tim) Walz either is an idiot or he did it on purpose — and I think he’s both, sir,” Noem said.
This comes after it was reported that over a billion dollars was siphoned from Minnesota’s COVID-era aid program to dozens of scammer Somalians landing in the hands of Al-Shabaab.
Noem said her department and the governor had discussions about this topic early on but that Walz sat on his hands and instead came after whistleblowers called out the massive fraud taking place in Minneapolis. – One America News
Our Take: Half of the visas in Little Somalia are fraudulent? Damn. Note that if anyone naturalized citizens are involved in this fraudulent scheme, they can lose their citizenship. I think that applies even if they’re congresswomen.
If it doesn’t, it should.
Investigations are happening all over the country across multiple oversight entities. I look forward to seeing what they find in Colorado. I hope they hurry up! –
President Donald Trump said he spoke with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, about sanctions the US imposed on officials from the South American country, a signal that relations between the two nations continue to improve.
“We had a great talk. We talked about trade. We talked about sanctions, because, as you know, I sanctioned them having to do with certain things that took place. But we had a very good talk. I like him,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday at the White House.
Trump earlier this year sanctioned Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, his wife and an institute affiliated with him in retaliation over the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro for his role in a failed coup attempt.
Lula, as the Brazilian leader is known, has gradually won over Trump since ties reached reached a low point over the probe of Bolsonaro, an ally of the US president. – Bloomberg
Our Take:
“We had a very productive call with President Lula of Brazil. Among the things discussed were Trade, how our Countries could work together to stop Organized Crime, Sanctions imposed on various Brazilian dignitaries, Tariffs, and various other items. President Lula and I established a relationship at a meeting which took place at the United Nations, and I believe it set the stage for very good dialogue and agreement long into the future. I look forward to seeing and speaking with him soon. Much good will come out of this newly formed partnership!”
The severe diplomatic standoff which was triggered by last month’s words of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi wherein she suggested Japan would militarily aid in Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion is increasingly becoming a potential military standoff. We earlier detailed that Japan has even deployed medium-range missiles to a remote Japanese island not far from China.
Already there’s been a confrontation involving China’s coast guard boats, which attempted to run off a Japanese fishing vessel for allegedly being inside claimed Chinese waters. The fresh incident happened near a group of geopolitically sensitive islands in the East China Sea on Tuesday. The Japanese boat is accused of entering the waters of the Diaoyu Islands - which Tokyo calls the Senkaku Islands and has long administered.
But a nearby Japanese Coast Guard ship which had been accompanying the fishing vessel then in turn expelled two Chinese Coast Guard ships as they approached and tried to enforce Beijing’s expansive maritime claims over the territory.
The area is already a bit of a flashpoint between the two historic rivals, as Taiwan is located just less than 100 miles southwest of the Senkaku Islands. – ZeroHedge
US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and unofficial diplomat Jared Kushner have been at the Kremlin on Tuesday for high-level talks with President Vladimir Putin. The Americans are presenting Trump’s Ukraine peace plan in its current form after the high stakes Miami meeting with the Ukrainian delegation, which focused on ceding territory and what future boundaries might look like in the Donbass.
President Putin’s public words in the context of the meeting wherein the US side is formally pitching the plan have presented an opportunity for him to lash out at Europe. If Europe starts a war with Russia, soon there will be “no one left to negotiate with” - he warned after several EU and NATO officials have lately issued hawkish words and threats.
Russia is not planning to fight European countries, but if Europe starts a war, Russia is “ready right now” - the Russian leader said. – ZeroHedge
Our Take: We are witnessing the Invisible Enemy squirming under the weight of its own scripted chaos.
Today, two headlines echo the very warnings I sounded back in 2022, when the Pelosi puppet show first lit the modern fuse on this Taiwan tinderbox.
Do you remember? Her so-called ‘visit’ at the time had nothing to do with democracy; it was all about dragging us into the next forever-war proxy.
Fast forward to today: Chinese Coast Guard vessels are locking horns with Japanese fishing boats off a disputed island chain while Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson warns that right-wing forces in Japan are leading the country and the region toward disaster.
Japan, fresh off Prime Minister Takaichi’s vow to arm Taiwan against invasion is now deploying medium-range missiles on Yonaguni, the rock closest to the hoped-for action.
The optics here paint a clear picture: a powder keg with lit matches on both ends.
Now cut to Moscow, where Putin drops his own gauntlet: Russia is not planning to fight European countries, but if Europe starts a war, Russia is ready right now.
If Europe starts a war with Russia, he warns, soon there will be no one left to negotiate with.
This comes as EU hawks accuse Putin of giving lip service to Trump’s peace overtures. In doing so, they come close to admitting who the real warmongers are.
See the pattern?
It’s the same Hegelian death loop we’ve mapped since Maidan: escalate to provoke, de-escalate to feign virtue, then rinse and repeat.
Taipei is handing out civil defense handbooks to every household while labeling Beijing as the real troublemaker.
Meanwhile, across the Eurasian chessboard, Putin’s claims ring true to an increasing number of westerners: responsibility for peace lies with the EU.
To wit, Putin offered a positive outlook on Trump’s recent peace plan, which, again looks identical to the one Putin proposed in 2022.
Europe’s response, however, is more saber-rattling and more aid graft funneled through Zelenskyy’s clown car.
Why?
Because every feint and every flare-up spotlights the fractures in the Globalist facade.
In 2022, I wrote that Taiwan was not the spark, but a mirror, reflecting Ukraine’s scripted savagery back at the West. Xi’s posturing after Putin’s SMO launch were no coincidence in this context, but clear coordination, and all while Trump was conveniently (and temporarily) removed from the game board only to come back to a changed battlespace wherein he must recognize the other major sovereigns at play, as he no doubt always intended to do.
To wit, these twin flares today are no accidents.
They represent the Invisible Enemy’s own relief valves hissing steam.
As for the why of it all?
Because the trial is already underway, and the defendants—the Collectivist Superstate, puppeteers of perpetual scarcity and proxy carnage—are the ones on the stand.
Every Ukrainian graft scandal and every Taiwanese panic lays bare the dialectic: warmongers overextending themselves as their mandate crumbles. –
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Wednesday there was still work to be done to address the fallout of the failed martial law bid by his predecessor a year ago, and the country needed to ensure the perpetrators were brought to justice.
Marking the first anniversary of the shock announcement of martial law on December 3, 2024, Lee said former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s action had threatened an irreparable setback to the country, but the people rose up and stopped the military with their bare hands.
“The recklessness of those who tried to destroy constitutional order and even plan a war all for their personal ambitions must be brought to justice,” he said. “The December 3 coup d’etat was not just a crisis for democracy in one country. If democracy in South Korea collapsed, it would have meant a setback...for world democracy.”
Yoon’s martial law declaration plunged a country that had been viewed as a democratic success story into months of political turmoil, just as U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on global trading partners rattled South Korea’s export-reliant economy. The conservative leader was later ousted and Lee, who lost to Yoon in a 2022 presidential poll, won a snap election in June with a mandate to steer the country out of the shock of martial law, as those who were accused of being involved were arrested and tried for subversion.
Since coming to office, Lee has managed to strike a U.S. tariff deal after two summits with Trump, but there remain deep fissures in society and concerns over whether the conservative side feels it is being persecuted. – Reuters
Our Take: You didn’t think we had forgotten about our dear friend, President Yoon Suk Yeol, did you?
President Yoon was the losing side in the Great Poop Balloon War of ‘24, otherwise known as the Korean Fecal Crisis.
It was in this great war that Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un outwitted Yoon and his CIA handlers by sending balloons carrying loads of garbage and excrement into South Korea in response to a propaganda balloon campaign South Korea had launched against the North in early 2024.
The poop balloon psyop provoked Yoon and his handlers into staging a false flag attack that would kick off with an artillery attack against the poop balloon launch site north of the DMZ. The military failed to see the threat that Yoon claimed the poop balloons presented, and did not launch the artillery strike, leaving Yoon to impose martial law without a military to back him.
President Lee seems like a great friend to America and the MAGA movement. That’s really the best we can ask of these foreign leaders.
Remember that this has become the face of capital punishment for 2026. –
Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee House special election on Tuesday, but Democrat Aftyn Behn significantly cut into GOP margins in the district, continuing a streak of overperformances this year. National outside groups poured millions into the race, as Republicans grew concerned about a potential upset.
President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points last fall, but voters’ dissatisfaction with cost of living helped Behn trim that margin. – Politico
Our Take: MAGA is dead and the walls are closing in and President Trump is slipping and the midterms! Oh my gosh, the midterms are going to be a disaster and democrats are going to win, then Trump will be impeached, and his followers will be disemboweled, castrated, and set on fire. Probably.
Anywho, a Republican won a fake election in Tennessee, but Politico wants to make sure you know that their fake margin of victory is more narrow than it was in the last fake election. That spells trouble for the uniparty right, so we all better unify around the neocons or something.
Elections can’t be real until we are honest that they’re fake. Even then, there’s no guarantee that we will get real elections. With the way Americans are still chasing the laser pointer, we may just end up with blockchain voting, ranked choice voting, or mobile voting.
All of those “solutions” present the same challenges we have with elections now – and some super fun new ones. We’re guaranteed to get exactly that if we skip over the justice phase of elections. Accountability matters. –
Throughout the year, the crypto industry has undergone significant regulatory changes influenced by President Trump’s new policies, alongside a coalition of senators advocating for the adoption and growth of digital assets.
However, tensions escalated when a group of Democratic senators began to challenge Trump’s policies, claiming that they reflect a significant conflict of interest, but this time, particularly concerning David Sacks, the White House’s AI and Crypto Czar.
In a recent statement on social media site X (formerly Twitter), Sacks shared that five months ago, several reporters from The New York Times were assigned to investigate supposed conflicts of interest linked to his role.
He described how the investigation persisted through numerous “fact checks,” during which they scrutinized various accusations against him. Despite presenting thorough rebuttals, Sacks noted that the published article only included fragments of their responses, while the foundation of the accusations remained largely speculative. – Bitcoinist
Our Take: Why does Trump keep surrounding himself with Bitcoin Maxis?
It’s almost like there is some sort of plan or something? –
President Donald Trump, who has cast himself as a relentless foe of illegal drugs, pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, freeing him from a 45-year sentence for conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the United States.
Trump’s extraordinary move risks weakening U.S. credibility in Latin America, could embolden corrupt actors, and is likely to draw criticism that he is undercutting decades of U.S. efforts to fight transnational drug networks.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he had freed Hernandez in response to pleas from Hondurans and that he felt “very good” about the decision. He asserted without evidence that Hernandez had been the victim of a witch hunt by the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
Democrats rebuked the Republican president, accusing him of hypocrisy in claiming to have stepped up the fight against the flow of illicit drugs into the United States while freeing a man convicted of using his office to aid drug traffickers.
Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said evidence presented at Hernandez’s trial had established that the former president had “orchestrated a vast trafficking conspiracy” that raked in millions of dollars for drug cartels. – Reuters
and I discussed yesterday on Badlands Daily, this story feels like a template. There are a lot of terrible people who deserve to face justice for their wrongdoing, and then there are kids just trying to survive and live their life.
The reason the Deep State went after former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez is because Hernandez prosecuted so many cartel criminals and extradited many of them to the US. I do believe that Hernandez is a template that I now see in Nicolas Maduro and Gustavo Petro. –
After repeated US air strikes on the boats of alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers in the Caribbean, President Donald Trump said that America will “very soon” begin striking “bad ones” living inside Venezuela. Trump’s comments during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting hint at further escalation between Washington and Caracas.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land too. Land is much easier; we know where they live. We know where the bad ones live, and we’re going to start that very soon.” Trump said during the cabinet meeting.
Trump’s remarks come after his administration came under heavy scrutiny over its conduct in offensive targeting the alleged drug-trafficking boats, killing more than 80 people so far.
Trump, in the meeting, defended War Secretary Pete Hegseth and said that neither he nor the War Secretary knew about the second strike on the suspected drug vessel. The US military had carried out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean on September 2 after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board. – NDTV World
President Donald Trump built his America First movement, in part, on the promise of keeping the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. On Tuesday, he teased an imminent land strike against Venezuela and even suggested he might attack other countries as well.
The whiplash has some anti-interventionists — among Trump’s most ardent backers — on the back foot as it appears all but certain that Trump is ready to use force to oust Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. The specter of the Iraq war is ever present and they worry that unintended consequences from Maduro’s ouster could mire the U.S. in conflict for years, destabilize the region, ruin Trump’s legacy and tarnish MAGA’s brand with voters.
Other Republicans, critical of past foreign engagements, are left defending the policy by drawing distinctions that at times appear strained or artificial. They argue intervention in the Western Hemisphere is more defensible than the Middle East wars they spent years denouncing, and that Trump isn’t pursuing real regime change, but rather trying to force a change in Venezuelan leadership without remaking the country’s political system.
“He’s not trying to play God with what regime is in which country,” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff and deputy assistant to the president during the first Trump administration. “This is the purest example of him realigning our interests and our focus to something that actually matters to core American interests.” – Politico
Our Take: “NOW - Trump will soon conduct land strikes on cartels and any country suspected of trafficking drugs into the U.S.: ‘Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack... not just Venezuela.””
Lulz, the neocons and the retarded have gone anti-Maduro hard enough that they won’t be able to resist the Mexican cartel operations. Always worth remember that the cartels are the private armies of the Regime, and they are deeply intertwined in high-profile American industries and transnational corporations. [Clip Link] –
Another Take: [From Rand Paul on X]: “Coast Guard records show that prior to the reign of ‘blow-them-to-smithereens’ 21 percent of boats stopped off the coast of Venezuela possessed NO drugs!”
Holy shit!
79% of boats stopped off the coast of Venezuela had drugs?! –
Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, were constructive, very useful, and substantive, according to Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov. He made the comments after five hours of talks on Tuesday between the Russian president, his envoy Kirill Dmitriev, and Witkoff, which finished after midnight local time.
“No compromises have been found as of yet,” Ushakov said afterward, adding that a meeting between Putin and Trump is not currently planned. “We discussed the substance, not specific wording and solutions. The parties see enormous potential for cooperation,” Ushakov said.
“Some American proposals are acceptable to Russia... others are not,” he stated, noting that the issue of territory was also discussed. Asked whether peace is closer or further away following the talks, Ushakov said, “Definitely not further.” – RT
Our Take: Something tells me that peace with Russia has already been achieved, and whatever story we are about to witness is largely performative and inconsequential to the outcome.
The MSM is hyperventilating, insisting that none of us can get along with the Russians. Meanwhile, these guys meet for five hours and claim to be getting along great.
They really don’t want us to be friends with Putin. –
Four Republican states have agreed to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver’s license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network as part of the administration’s hunt for alleged noncitizen voters. The Trump administration said as recently as October that federal officials wanted to obtain driver’s license records through the network.
The commitment from officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio comes as part of a settlement agreement filed on Friday in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit was originally brought by the states last year alleging the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to help states verify voter eligibility.
The settlement, between the states and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, requires the federal department to continue its development of a powerful citizenship verification program known as SAVE. Earlier this year, federal officials repurposed SAVE into a program capable of scanning millions of state voter records for instances of noncitizen registered voters.
In return, the states have agreed to support Homeland Security’s efforts to access the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, an obscure computer network that typically allows law enforcement agencies to search driver’s license records across state lines. Nlets — as the system is known — lets police officers easily look up the driving records of out-of-state motorists. – Stateline
Our Take: Jennifer Asper shared this article with the caption, “Becker’s not happy.”
Good. David Becker being unhappy means we’re doing it right.
The 29-year-old Afghan man accused of fatally shooting one National Guardsman and severely injuring another in Washington, D.C., last week, appeared virtually from his hospital bed on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to all of his charges.
Terrence Austin, one lawyer representing Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, has since argued that his client merits release, highlighting both the Justice Department’s delay in bringing charges and Lakanwal’s clean criminal history. His wife and 5 children, all boys, are still currently living in Bellingham, Washington.
While making his not guilty plea, Lakanwal could be seen laying under a blanket in a hospital gown, with his eyes fluttering as he spoke through a Pashto interpreter during the brief hearing in D.C. Superior Court. The judge later ordered him held without bond, describing the ambush-style attack as an act that spread terror throughout the nation’s capital. – One America News
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on December 1 the arrest of several migrants convicted of serious crimes, including child sexual assault and armed robbery. Among those taken into custody was a Honduran national, Juan Ramos-Ramos, convicted in Hudson, New Jersey, of multiple sexual offenses, including sexual assault of a minor and endangering a child.
Another detainee, Jorge Alberto Menjivar from El Salvador, was convicted in Woburn, Massachusetts, of multiple counts of aggravated child rape and rape by force. Other arrests included a Haitian national, Jean Saint-Cyr, convicted of assault in Brooklyn, New York; a Mexican national, Luis Angel Escobar-Negrete, convicted in Texas of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; and Raul Rodriguez-Martinez, also from Mexico, convicted of second-degree robbery with a firearm enhancement in Santa Ana, California.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin emphasized that “despite a more than 1,153 percent increase in assaults against our law enforcement officers, they continue to arrest the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.” She added that those detained include “pedophiles, sexual predators, and armed robbers,” underscoring the agency’s goal of removing dangerous migrants from American neighborhoods. – The National Pulse
Even by the high standards of chaos for the 119th Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson being accused Tuesday by a member of his own leadership team of protecting the “deep state” was a remarkable development.
Rep. Elise Stefanik’s rare move to publicly accuse the speaker of being a liar and then, in a separate provocation, signing on to an effort to force a vote on legislation Johnson has kept bottled up is the latest symptom of a House Republican Conference seemingly on a razor’s edge.
Increasingly, rank-and-file House Republicans are bringing their spats with Johnson into the open, suggesting the speaker is losing further control over his restive members as his already slim majority threatens to narrow further and potentially devastating midterm elections loom. – Politico
A handful of members in the House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday delayed action in the House in protest of a bill that regulates compensation college athletes receive based on their name, image and likeness. Republican Reps. Byron Donalds (Fla.), Scott Perry (Pa.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) voted with all other Democrats against procedural rule legislation to tee up votes on the Student Compensation and Opportunity Through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act and other measures.
That opposition stalled the vote at 207-209 as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) huddled with Roy, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.), Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) — who had not yet voted — and a few other staff and members. Eventually, Harris and Clyde cast their votes in favor of the measure, and leaders waited for an absent Republican to arrive to pass the rule. – The Hill
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Income tax is nothing more (or less) than a penalty on hard work, innovation, and thrift. To see what America would look like without it, look at the USA from its founding to the imposition of federal income taxes in the early 20th Century. Since then, more effort has gone into extracting something from every penny earned than into improving each citizen's actual earning potential. Most telling - the Founders' prohibited such taxes in the Constitution.
No Income Tax (or any tax) is coming but that is not the end game. 90% (at a minimum) elimination of ALL government (empoyees, selected officials, agencies, ngo, etc.) plus elimination of all laws/regulations back to at least the Civil War must also happen... "We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badgers" (remember that line from UHF?:-)
Income tax is nothing more (or less) than a penalty on hard work, innovation, and thrift. To see what America would look like without it, look at the USA from its founding to the imposition of federal income taxes in the early 20th Century. Since then, more effort has gone into extracting something from every penny earned than into improving each citizen's actual earning potential. Most telling - the Founders' prohibited such taxes in the Constitution.
No Income Tax (or any tax) is coming but that is not the end game. 90% (at a minimum) elimination of ALL government (empoyees, selected officials, agencies, ngo, etc.) plus elimination of all laws/regulations back to at least the Civil War must also happen... "We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badgers" (remember that line from UHF?:-)
God Wins!
God Bless!!!