Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Trump Talks Taxes as Deep State Shenanigans Abound
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.
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Now, onto the news from Monday, October 21 …
Trump tax plans could exempt 93 million Americans from income taxes
Former President Donald Trump’s tax reform ideas could offer total or partial income tax exemptions to roughly 93.2 million Americans, a meaningful chunk of the U.S. electorate, according to CNBC’s analysis of several estimates.
As part of his economic pitch to voters, Trump has floated a sweeping tax overhaul, including a slate of income tax breaks.
So far, the Republican presidential nominee has officially proposed eliminating income tax on tips and Social Security benefits, along with overtime pay. And last week, in an interview on the sports media site OutKick, Trump said he would consider tax exemptions for firefighters, police officers, military personnel and veterans.
These exemptions are part of Trump’s larger vision to transition away from the income tax system and replace it with the revenue he says would be generated by his hardline tariff proposals.
“In the old days when we were smart, when we were a smart country, in the 1890s and all, this is when the country was relatively the richest it ever was. It had all tariffs. It didn’t have an income tax,” Trump said at a sit-down with voters in New York on Friday for “Fox & Friends.” “Now we have income taxes, and we have people that are dying.”
Trump has pledged to impose a 20% universal tariff on all imports from all countries with a specific 60% rate for Chinese imports. — CNBC
And …
Our Take: "There is a way."
This was Donald Trump's response to a question about whether or not it's possible for the US to abolish ALL Federal Taxes, "once the country is back on its feet."
What I believe we're seeing out of Trump's financial narrative deployments of late is the seeding of the ultimate Reverse Hegelian Dialectic, which was summed up in his epic sit-down with the fiat vampire protectorate class represented by Bloomberg and WSJ in which he said, "you people have been wrong about [currency] your whole lives."
When Trump announced his "No Tax on Tips" plan, and followed it up with "No Tax on Loans," only to follow THAT up with "No Tax on Police, Fire and MIL," while taking jabs at taxation as a concept, he's engaging in mass psychological game theory.
If and when Trump starts to roll back these ancillary taxes, those who have NOT received the breaks will demand them.
And Trump will oblige.
He's forcing the old system to justify its existence.
It's failing. And it's afraid. —
New cases of political violence roil US ahead of contentious election
In York, Pennsylvania, a man accosted a group of people rallying for Vice President Kamala Harris’ White House campaign, punching a 74-year-old man in the head and calling another man a “n— supporter” as he fled.
In northern Michigan, an assailant enraged by his hatred of Donald Trump used an all-terrain vehicle to run over and injure an 81-year-old man who was putting up a yard sign for the former president’s reelection bid.
The recent attacks were among at least 300 cases of political violence identified by Reuters since Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including at least 51 incidents this year. With just two weeks to go before the Nov. 5 presidential election, the cases are part of the biggest andmost sustained increase in U.S. political violence since the 1970s.
Some of the violence has been reported widely, most notably two assassination attempts on Trump, a Republican. Other high-profile incidents include three shootings in recent weeks at a Democratic campaign office for Harris in Arizona.
But Reuters documented scores of other cases on contentious political issues – from election disputes to LGBTQ+ rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Incidents ranged from small fights over political signs to more violent brawls and property destruction at rallies. Most of this year's violence wasn't fatal with the exception of two deaths: a spectator killed during July’s attempt on Trump’s life and the shooter.
The pace of cases has remained remarkably consistent since beginning to rise in 2016, around the time of Trump’s first presidential run. In 2021, which included the tumult that followed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, there were 93 cases of political violence, followed by 79 in 2022, and 76 in 2023.
Political extremism experts warn that the charged atmosphere around the 2024 presidential election has created a highly volatile situation. Trump in particular often uses incendiary rhetoric, threatening to put his political enemies on trial and to deploy the military against the “radical left”, calling them “the enemy within.” — Reuters
Our Take: Reuters is trying to convince you that political violence is a massive threat. Let’s look at the examples of political violence they share in this narrative deployment.
Thomas Crooks shoots Donald Trump. “He had no definitive ideology, federal investigators concluded.”
Joshua Kemppainen, “an avowed Trump hater” in Michigan, got big mad that Trump survived, went on a vandalism spree against Trump supporters, ran over and hospitalized an 81 year old Vietnam veteran, then killed himself.
A man in Florida “told his wife he was preparing for war,” was found burying ammunition in a park, and was 5150’d.
Ryan Routh’s alleged second Trump assassination attempt.
Robert Trotta attacked Alan Vandersloot, a 74 year old PA borough councilman holding a Harris sign, opening a two-inch gash on his forehead.
On that last one, Reuters wants you to know that Trotta’s “social media posts, from an account last active in 2020, supported Trump and criticized Democrats.” Also, the police don’t believe Trotta’s attack was politically motivated. Apparently he was a known racist with a history of randomly hitting people.
Caleb Gannon tackled Scott Hayes at dueling Palestine-Israel protests in Massachusetts, and Hayes shot Gannon in the abdomen. Hayes will argue self-defense in his coming trial.
Russell Valleau allegedly attacked a black female postal worker with a knife, for delivering a Harris campaign mailer to his house. According to the article, he was intoxicated and made racist comments.
Finally, four white men in North Carolina asked three Black teens “if they liked Donald Trump,” and when the kiddos said, “No,” white men shot the black kids with a BB gun.
According to the outlet, they identified 51 cases of political violence in 2024 “from records on thousands of violent crimes since the 2021 Capitol attack.”
We can assume that Reuters used the most relevant examples in their reporting, so this may be a good cross section of the threat landscape for political violence. From the info provided, the threat landscape appears to be crazy people, further broken by the info war, and experiencing crisis. The only deaths — aside from the guy above that killed himself — are Cory Comperatore and Thomas Crooks.
They want you concerned about political violence, but a sober examination of these examples point to a mental health problem more than anything else. That problem is exacerbated daily by Reuters, so it’s unsurprisingly absent from the outlet’s analysis.
Think I’m being too hard on Reuters?
Consider that “migrant crime” only shows up on Reuters if the story is about Europe or they’re fact checking Donald Trump and gaslighting about the criminal invasion. 51 cases of political violence in 2024YTD causes Reuters to publish this spread; yet, there have been 15,608 reports of migrant crimes, including 27 homicides and 202 sexually-based offenses, in 2024YTD — and the outlet is silent.
Now playing: Political violence is a super scary threat! —
Air Force pounds Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold after civilians told to evacuate area
More than a dozen Israeli airstrikes were said to hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday night and in the early hours of Tuesday morning after the Israel Defense Forces accused Hezbollah of storing millions of dollars in a bunker underneath one of Lebanon’s largest hospitals amid a years-long financial crisis.
The strikes were launched after the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee instructed residents of several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate the area, warning that they were “located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah.”
The military said earlier on Monday that it would continue striking Hezbollah targets with a focus on their financial infrastructure, after IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that Israel estimated there to be roughly “half a billion dollars in dollar bills and gold” in a bunker underneath the Al-Sahel Hospital in the southern Beirut suburb known as Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah is largely based.
He warned that the Israeli Air Force was monitoring the compound, but stressed that Israel would not launch a strike on the hospital itself, as it is at war with Hezbollah, and not with the Lebanese people.
The hospital nevertheless said that it was evacuating its patients to a safer location, and director Fadi Alameh denied the allegations made by the IDF and invited the Lebanese army to visit the site. — Times of Israel
Our Take: So now the IDF is bombing a hospital in Beirut. And the crazy part is that the narrative has now become about whether there is gold buried in a bunker underneath it, rather than an explanation for why the IDF is now openly bombing the capital of Lebanon, despite promising to keep their military operations to within 18 miles of the border. (Beirut is over 60 miles from the border.)
You see how this works? The goal posts get moved, a shiny new object is presented to the audience, and while you are distracted by the pretty assistant, the magician uses sleight of hand to deceive everybody.
And before you know it, "a coalition of western forces" has invaded multiple countries in the Middle East, pursuing "terrorists" on an adventure to liberate the world from evil.
Does any of this sound familiar?
I know I'm relatively young, but I remember the Bush years.
Soon it will be Syria. As Bezalel Smotrich said, they want Damascus. —
The US is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s Iran attack plan
The United States is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press. A fourth U.S. official said the documents appear to be legitimate.
The documents are attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, and note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app and first reported Saturday by CNN and Axios. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained — including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or obtained by another method, like a hack — and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, one of the officials said. As part of that investigation, officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted, the official said. — AP News
Our Take: Are we being prepped for the mother of all October surprises involving Kamala Harris?
Observe the following Narrative Timeline, and consider the "Iranchurian Candidate" scenario ...
1) Iran hacks the Trump campaign, obtains opposition research on behalf of "unknown entities."
2) Trump team holds onto this knowledge until strategically pertinent to deploy.
3) Kamala campaign claims it was hacked, too, while MSM panics about having been offered access to politically radioactive material.
4) Someone tries to kill Donald Trump in Butler, PA ... and recent reports tie said attempts to "Iran."
5) Hillary Clinton warns of October Surprise involving Kamala, tells Americans not to believe it.
6) Iran obtains "leaked" Israeli MIL INT about strategic operations planning, which Israel claims could only have come from someone near the US Chain of Command.
7) Trump has been seeding "traitor" comms about Kamala Harris and her ilk (going back to Obama and Clinton) for years, while referring to her Marxist origins routinely.
8) Quid Pro Quo is already cemented in the American Mind via Trump-Biden-Ukraine. The Trump Quid Pro Quo was fake. The Biden Quid Pro Quo was about money.
Considering the above timeline, was the Kamala Quid Pro Quo about something much, much worse ... ?
Why is Trump so comfy?
Why is Kamala so twitchy?
How do you show the people the true depths of the enemy's corruption?
When do the trials for treason begin? —
Scoop: Google will block election ads after polls close
Google will block election ads across all of its platforms after the last polls close on Nov. 5, according to a memo sent to its advertising partners Thursday and obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: The policy, first introduced during the 2020 election, is meant to prevent misinformation about voting, including candidates prematurely claiming victory before a race is called.
Google is implementing the policy "out of an abundance of caution and to limit the potential for confusion, given the likelihood that votes will continue to be counted after Election Day," per a spokesperson.
Zoom in: In an email to advertising partners, the tech giant said it will pause all ads related to U.S. elections from being served to people in the U.S.
The policy will apply to any U.S. election ads or ads that refer to U.S. elections, their processes or outcomes.
Any ads running through Google's ad-serving platforms, which include Google Ads, DV360, YouTube, and Google's Ad Exchange and Shopping ads, will be subject to the pause policy.
The big picture: Tech companies are on high alert this year following the chaotic spread of misinformation around the last presidential election. — Axios
Our Take: First rule of the election is that you don’t talk about the election, according to Google.
The behemoth is restricting candidates and activists from advertising in the wake of the election. Advertising is how these entities amplify their messages. But the regime is anticipating needing several days to call races, so Google must “prevent misinformation about voting, including candidates prematurely claiming victory before a race is called.”
If you doubt that the regime is driving this decision, consider that, “The pause does not include public information campaign ads run by state or federal governments responsible for administering election processes, such as a State Secretaries' office.”
Public private partnerships in action. Public private collusion to violate the rights of American citizens. The government couldn’t do this in the open, but their partners provide plausible deniability. The official narrative will be the only narrative because misinformation is such a threat to democracy or something.
Was anyone ever held to account for the Twitter Files? No?
Oh well, they’re probably not doing that illegal thing they did last election for which no one was held accountable, right? —
SCO Summit 2024 Pakistan attended by Jaishankar
The heads of government meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was attended by India, Pakistan, China, Russia and six other member countries on Wednesday (October 17). External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to Islamabad for the meeting, the first such visit in nine years.
The meeting saw some cautious movement on India-Pakistan ties, while India remained the only SCO member to not endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Jaishankar also flagged India’s concerns about China and Pakistan in veiled references.
The SCO’s member countries are India, China, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus.
Here are the key takeaways from the meeting:
Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Muhammad Ishaq Dar, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, spoke twice in less than 24 hours, and there were indications that these talks explored the idea of resuming some form of cricketing ties between the two countries. Sources underlined that these conversations are preliminary, but the talks open a window and a possible first step could be the Champions Trophy being hosted by Pakistan next February. — Indian Express
Our Take: Last week, I mentioned that there was an important summit occurring in Islamabad, Pakistan, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. You may recall that my specific interest in that summit was India and Pakistan, who were not scheduled to hold any bilateral discussions on the sidelines of the summit.
The tribes living on the border of India and Pakistan have been at war with another for centuries—thousands of years, even—divided not only by religion, but culture, in general. Meaning these disputes likely pre-date the creation of Islam, though they were certainly exacerbated by it. Given the antiquity of that region, it could represent one of the oldest running disputes in human history.
But India's president, Narendra Modi, is a man of peace, and Russia last month publicly backed Pakistan's desire to join BRICS—of which India is a founding member.
So my logic was simple: Pakistan and India need to rectify their differences if they are going to join forces to take down the globalist cabal. Which is why I was looking for any indication at this summit that they were pivoting toward dialogue.
These two countries playing sports together may seem rather trivial, but sports represent an opportunity to engage in friendly competition and build bonds outside of economics and politics. That's likely a big reason why President Trump insisted on getting North Korea to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics, which was made an even bigger deal because they were being held in South Korea.
And at the end of the day, the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India met, face to face, and had a positive conversation that resulted in a mutually beneficial decision that will require future cooperation and engagement. If you can't understand how such a moment may translate to diplomacy, then you don't understand diplomacy. (It is much more than just politics.)
PS - When I was on Devolution Power Hour a few weeks back, this topic came up, and I had speculated that we were talking about China, not Pakistan, because China and India also have a rather ancient feud that has been irritated in recent years—to the extent that Steve Bannon and others were speculating that it would become a kinetic conflict along their border.
Here's an update on that:
Next Stop: The BRICS Summit, which begins tomorrow in Kazan, Russia. Get the popcorn ready. —
BONUS ITEMS
Pentagon Chief Visits Ukraine, Unveils New Aid Package, Ahead Of US Election
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Ukraine's capital by train on an unannounced visit Monday, at a moment Ukraine's forces are getting steadily pushed back in the east, and as President Zelensky expresses frustration at the lack of large-scale new military aid.
"It’s been absolutely remarkable that Ukraine has been able to do what it’s done," Austin told reporters as he went into Ukraine Sunday night. "It’s been able to do that, of course, because of the fact that we have supported them from the very beginning, and we’ve rallied some 50 countries to be a part of that support."
In Kiev, Austin announced $400 million in new arms for Ukraine but did not acquiesce to the Ukrainians' main ask - the greenlight to strike Russia with US-supplied weapons.
The Wall Street Journal also emphasized of the package, "It was one of the smaller aid packages the Biden administration has announced and included no new types of weapons systems." — ZeroHedge
Donald Trump Says MAGA Is Nearly Triple the Size of His 2020 Popular Vote
Former President Donald Trump boasted about the size of the MAGA movement during a podcast interview, saying that there were now more than triple the number of members than those who voted for him in 2020.
"We have MAGA—Make America Great Again—you know all about it. Right now, it's 200 million people, maybe even more, representing a majority of the country," the Republican presidential nominee told WWE legend Mark "The Undertaker" Calaway Monday on his Six Feet Under show.
Trump said that MAGA—which he called "the greatest movement in the history of any country"—is far larger than his 2020 popular vote of about 74 million, though he offered no evidence to support these numbers. Throughout his campaign, Trump has often inflated figures regarding his political base and rally attendance.
As part of Trump's strategy to engage male voters through online platforms, the conversation shifted to his interest in professional wrestling—a sport he has long been involved with, having made appearances at WWE events and even participating in the 2007 "Battle of the Billionaires" at WrestleMania 23. — Newsweek
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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All eyes on the BRICS bros! Also of note, my husband voted yesterday and it was 100% Trump people in line wearing Trump paraphernalia and chatting with each other about Trump at MacDonalds. I might take my mom today. It would be more fun for her than anything else I could plan. 🥰
But if 45-47 gets rid of income tax, what will the demonrats have to launder, steal, and send overseas??? Oh the leftist tears that must be falling over this announcement! 😁😁