Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Trump's Rubber and They're Glue ... Plus Angry Russians
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.
But before we get onto the Brief, we want to introduce you to a new Sponsor of the Badlands Substack: Kimchi One, a fermented product by our friends at Brightcore.
Click the banner below to check out their exclusive offer to Badlanders.
Now, onto the news from Wednesday, August 21 …
Donald Trump Accused of Committing 'Massive Crime' With Reported Phone Call
Donald Trump has been accused of violating federal law by allegedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the ceasefire deal the U.S. is helping negotiate between Israel and Hamas.
The former president allegedly made the call on August 14, according to Axios, which cited two unnamed "U.S. sources who were briefed on the call."
The next day, however, Netanyahu's office denied that the call took place. In a statement quoted by The Times of Israel, a spokesperson said: "Contrary to media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak yesterday with former President Donald Trump."
It is unclear if a call between Trump and Netanyahu took place and Newsweek has contacted representatives of the former president for comment. — Newsweek
Our Take: Similarly, actor Steven Pasquale said it was "pretty balls to the wall treason." The Lincoln Project, a conservative group dedicated to "stop Trump, break MAGA and save America," wrote: "There's absolutely no line he won't cross."
Seriously, Newsweek? You thought the pedo organization was the go-to authority on this one? What's the current tally of scandals that The Lincoln Project is now facing? No really, I've lost count.
Now, about this new phone call psyop. It's obvious, to me, that the perpetrator behind it all is... Bibi Netanyahu.
Before you roll your eyes and scroll away, hear me out. This isn't just conjecture based on my well-documented bias toward him. I'm basing this on logic, deductive reasoning, and a little instinct.
I've been saying for a while that we will likely soon see Netanyahu turn on Trump. Trump already turned on Netanyahu, back in December 2021, when he told the Israeli media that he didn't trust Bibi and didn't think he ever wanted peace with Palestine.
When asked about Netanyahu's aggressive campaign to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank, Trump was quick to explain that he shut down the program.
This moment was a call-back to Trump's very first public meeting as President with Netanyahu nearly five years earlier, just a few after he was inaugurated, in February 2017. He explicitly told Bibi to chill out with the settlements, and Bibi flat-out scoffed at him, and Trump clearly did not appreciate the disrespect.
The Israeli journalist interviewing President Trump in those clips, Barak Ravid, later appeared in a television interview to summarize other portions of their conversation. Here, Ravid explains the significance of Netanyahu backing out of the Soleimani strike the day before the attack was scheduled in January 2020.
"I was very disappointed in Israel, having to do with that event." Trump is heard saying.
"What do you mean?" Ravid asks.
"I can't … I can't mention that now, but I was not happy with Israel." Trump replies.
"During the killing of Soleimani?" Ravid clarifies.
"Israel did not do the right thing. People will be hearing about that, at the right time." Trump states.
Ravid then goes on to explain that while it appeared at the time that relations between the US and Israel were at an all-time high, behind closed doors there was a serious crisis unfolding between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu regime. Clearly there was a lot of trepidation from Netanyahu's team about killing Soleimani—which is odd, considering Bibi's longtime posture toward Iran. Ravid says that Trump told him that Netanyahu was ready to "fight Iran to the last American soldier." My take is that Trump meant that Netanyahu didn't want to kill Soleimani. He wanted to fight Soleimani's forces in an enormous battle that would likely become the preamble to World War 3.
It's no secret that Soleimani was the mastermind behind the network of proxy militias such as Hamas, the Houthis and the Islamic Jihad (among others). With Soleimani gone, we've seen this network fail to properly organize the necessary armed insurgency that would provoke a greater regional war. And that is exactly why Trump took him out. (And probably why Netanyahu is so butt-hurt about it. I think Soleimani was working for Bibi all along.)
"[It was clear to Trump] that Netanyahu didn't want to kill Soleimani." Ravid explains.
Ravid then goes on to explain how later that summer, in 2020, Netanyahu tried to subvert the Abraham Accords. "And then on August 12—24 hours before, when everything is set and ready—the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, calls the White House, and he tells them that Netanyahu doesn't want to do the deal." (Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into signing against his will.)
"My conclusion is the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammad bin Zayed (MBZ), was the unsung hero of the Abraham Accords."
(MBZ is the closest ally and geopolitical mentor of Saudi Crown Prince MBS.)
Ravid explains that Trump told him that his staff lied to him throughout his administration regarding the truth about Israel and Palestine—that Israel wanted peace and the Palestinians are the obstructionists.
"While [Trump] was in office, he realized that this wasn't the case."
Obviously this isn't true. Trump knew exactly what Netanyahu was before he even entered office. That's why he disrespected Bibi during his visit to Israel in May 2017. He was communicating to the Israeli Mafia that he didn't work for them. It was a provocation, and one that I suspect led to the effort to steal the 2020 election from him.
So, back to the current story at hand. Who benefits the most from this narrative deployment? Who gets reprieve from the immense pressure to make a deal? Who gets thrown a lifeline in the form of a scapegoat to blame in Donald Trump?
And now, if they actually try to prosecute Trump for a Logan Act violation, who thinks he has potentially rid himself of the US President who frustrated his agenda more than any other one ever has? (Not to mention, the bad optics cast against Trump with a little more than two months to go until election day.)
It's very basic logic and deductive reasoning. Who has the motive? Who benefits the most?
The answer is obviously Bibi Netanyahu.
Does that make his guilt a certainty? Of course not. But I wouldn't be surprised to see leaks come out of Tel Aviv (not from Netanyahu, directly) that attempt to affirm these silly allegations.
But Donald Trump is a chess master. There is no getting the best of him. —
‘F**k This Country! Burn It Down!’: Anti-Israel Protesters Burn U.S. Flag Outside DNC
Chicago police officers clad in riot gear clashed with a crowd of anti-Israel protesters on Tuesday evening as other demonstrators set an American flag on fire, the incidents happening the second night of the Democrat National Convention (DNC).
In one clip, a crowd chanting, “Free, free Palestine” gathered around a protester who set the U.S. flag ablaze. When a reporter named Ben Bergquam stepped forward and tried to grab the flag out of the flames, a protester appeared to shove him.
“Don’t burn the American flag!” the reporter said, to which the protester replied, “Fuck this country! Burn it down!”: — Breitbart
Our Take: There is so much joy in Chicago this week, as Democrat delegates feign excitement about nominating Kamala Harris, and Free, Free Palestine! protestors assault passersby and police.
Outside, chants to burn down our country and eliminate the state of Israel were ubiquitous. Real America’s Voice reporter Ben Berquam was assaulted trying to snatch Old Glory from a literal fire. Peacekeepers failed to keep the peace by every metric. By peacekeepers, I mean local police of course… pay no attention to the powder blue helmets.
Inside, state delegates shouted their support for Harris in a bizarre roll call vote before the Obamas took the stage to demand unity, mock their political adversaries, and rebuke Democrat voters for their ‘Goldilocks’ complex.
How dare Democrat voters desire a nominee that’s just right? They should be proud of the nominee their oligarchs selected, Michelle probably wanted to say.
The contrast between the contrived messaging inside the convention and the hate and violence just outside is delicious — and voters appear to agree. Most major pollsters are reporting an increase in Trump’s support since the convention began.
Speaking of polls, Elon Musk dropped a poll on X that has over 4M responses, and the results feel right. Hey, it’s not less fake than any other poll! —
In boosting Kamala Harris at DNC, Obamas go high and low
Barack and Michelle Obama used their star power to lift up Vice President Kamala Harris -- and eviscerate her opponent.
Representing Democrats' modern version of political royalty, the former president and former first lady brought a raucous Chicago crowd to its feet with their distinctively soaring rhetoric. But compared to past speeches, these were different.
"When they go low, we go high," Michelle Obama famously said during her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech. On Tuesday, they did both.
Both praised Harris Tuesday as someone uniquely capable of connecting with the American people and deserving of a groundswell of support, issuing calls to action for Democrats to get out to the polls this November.
"Kamala Harris won't be focused on her problems, she'll be focused on yours. As president, she won't just cater to her own supporters, punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee. She'll work on behalf of every American. That's who Kamala is," Barack Obama said.
"We cannot afford for anyone to sit on their hands and wait to be called upon. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to ask for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what we need to do. So, consider this to be your official ask: Michelle Obama is asking you, no I'm telling y'all, to do something," Michelle Obama said to cheers in her speech introducing her husband. — ABC News
Our Take: The Obama Deployment at the DNC was almost surreal on a few levels.
For starters, the fact that the Obamas have largely avoided the political spotlight until now speaks to an overarching thread of desperation that now hangs over the establishment.
They then attempted to resuscitate the 2008 "Hope and Change" aesthetic for the final push of the 2024 election cycle.
As a former liberal myself, and someone who's about as proud to have voted for Obama as many are for voting for any Bush, I can say that MANY centrists and lefties are done with "Hope" as a platform, with nothing underlying it. They already took the cheese once. Many never will again.
Furthermore, they're advocating full-scale "Change" on the back of an administration THEY endorsed in the first place. They're acknowledging THEIR own rule has been catastrophic ... but that they just need ANOTHER chance.
In other words, the Old Guard is acknowledging how bad things ARE by promising to return to how bad things WERE. —
Russia Summons US Envoy Over Presence Of American Mercenaries, CNN Crew In Kursk Region
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned a senior US Embassy official in Moscow in order to protest several issues related to US interference in the Kursk region, which has been scene of heavy fighting since Ukraine's cross-border incursion kicked off on Aug.6.
Russia condemned "provocative actions" of both American journalists and US mercenaries spotted on Russian territory in the context of the Kursk invasion.
The foreign ministry in the meeting with US Embassy Chief of Mission Stephanie Holmes issued "strong protest" in "connection to the provocative actions of American reporters who illegally entered the Kursk region to produce propaganda for covering up the crimes of the Kyiv regime."
The statement further said that national law enforcement authorities plan to "carry out the necessary investigative measures" examining the American journalists' work. — ZeroHedge
And …
Ukrainian Army on war-crime spree in Kursk – Chechen commander
Ukrainian forces that have occupied part of Kursk Region have committed atrocities against civilians while using them as human shields, the commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia's Chechen Republic has claimed.
In a post on Telegram on Monday, Apty Alaudinov recounted an episode in the border town of Sudzha, where he said Ukrainian troops had entered a residential house with children inside.
“In this building, they settled down on the ground floor… and chased children and teachers upstairs to use them as a shield,” he said, adding that this practice is widespread.
He claimed that first-person footage filmed by the Ukrainians had ended up in Russian hands, and showed the brutality of Kiev’s forces. Alaudinov said he had no words to describe Ukrainians other than “fascists and Satanists.”
“I received a huge number of photos in which I saw civilians who were simply shot at point-blank [range], in the head and from the back. All these civilians, unfortunately, died,” he said, expressing his condolences and vowing revenge. — RT
Our Take: Remember when that CNN journalist got caught embedded with Hamas?
Are we noticing a pattern?
I thought this interview with Chechen Major General Apty Alaudinov was interesting.
From the article:
In a post on Telegram on Monday, Apty Alaudinov recounted an episode in the border town of Sudzha, where he said Ukrainian troops had entered a residential house with children inside.
“In this building, they settled down on the ground floor… and chased children and teachers upstairs to use them as a shield,” he said, adding that this practice is widespread.
This isn't the first time we have heard of Ukrainian soldiers using school children as human shields.
Back in March 2022, just weeks after the war started, The Gateway Pundit reported that the Azov Battalion was using women and children as human shields—published with video evidence—while Conservative Treehouse reported that the Nazis had holed up in school houses in Mariupol, so when the Russians attacked them, western propaganda outlets like CNN could report that Putin was targeting civilian infrastructure, including children. (Countless other outlets independently corroborated these claims.)
[Alaudinov] claimed that first-person footage filmed by the Ukrainians had ended up in Russian hands, and showed the brutality of Kiev’s forces. Alaudinov said he had no words to describe Ukrainians other than “fascists and Satanists.”
“I received a huge number of photos in which I saw civilians who were simply shot at point-blank [range], in the head and from the back. All these civilians, unfortunately, died,” he said, expressing his condolences and vowing revenge.
The Major General's commentary aligns with what we have heard from President Putin and his staff. Back in September 2022, he said that the west was "satanic," and that Russia is now the champion of traditional values.
And what really drives the point home is a video interview from a Russian soldier discussing the Kharkiv campaign from the early days of the war. After taking Kharkiv— the second-largest city in Ukraine— they moved south to take the city of Izyum. There, they found... farms... of very young children. A place where they were stripped down naked, and butchered like livestock. (Either adrenochrome farming or organ harvesting, or maybe both.)
The soldier is visibly disturbed as he recounts finding the pits where the remains were discarded, and listening to the Ukrainians talk about the kids as if they weren't even human. He said he had heard about such places, but didn't believe they actually existed.
Yesterday, Putin visited the Russian Special Forces University in the Chechen Republic. Accompanied by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin delivered an impromptu pep talk to a group of soldiers that went viral online.
Transcript:
"At different times-- even in the most difficult times—there are people like you, who do not spare themeselves for the sake of their homeland and for the future of our people... and it's very unpleasant, that you and I meet now... You take for yourself a difficult decision. It is one thing to shoot out here on the range, and another thing to expose your life and health to danger... but you have an inner need to protect the Fatherland, and courage to make such a decision. If you made that decision, then you have already won; you crossed a certain milestone. I want to congratulate you on this. I want to thank you for the decision of this kind, and from the bottom of my heart I want to wish you luck. As long as we have men like this, we are most definitely, absolutely invincible. I wish you the best of luck."
Damn. Vlad knows how to throw down and hit you in the feels. Almost as good as the recent army recruitment video that the Russian Ministry of Defense recently released.
The Sovereign Alliance is infinitely cooler and more endearing than the weirdos at the Deep State Department.
Last week, after Ukraine launched airstrikes against Russian civilians in Kursk, and a drone strike that damaged the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, Putin said that Russia was no longer interested in peace talks. "What is there to talk about with those who attack civilians and nuclear facilities?"
Damn right, Vlad.
As for these contemptuous scumbags from CNN who are embedding themselves with the Nazis in order to produce propaganda videos, I would defer to the DoD's Law of War Manual—which, given their participation in an unlawful incursion into Russian territory, I believe would classify them as 'unprivileged belligerents?'
(In laymen terms: FAFO.)
May God bless the Sovereign Alliance in their campaign against the armies of Satan, as this does feel like a spiritual conflict between light and dark.
Righteous Russia, indeed. —
Wall Street banks brace for downward revision of up to 1M fewer jobs — fueling worries the Fed failed to slash rates on time
The federal government is poised to reveal that the US economy created as many as a million fewer jobs than previously thought in the 12-month period that stretched through the end of March.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to announce a significant downward revision of job growth statistics on Wednesday — a development that could fuel the perception on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve has waited too long to start slashing interest rates.
Experts at Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are predicting that the preliminary benchmark revisions on Wednesday will show that the economy created between 600,000 and 1 million fewer jobs than what was reported, according to Bloomberg News.
Economists at JPMorgan Chase foresee a downward revision of around 360,000. — NY Post
Our Take: The Harris-Biden administration loves to talk about job growth as an accomplishment. As we cover each month on Badlands, the narrators shout large job numbers from the rooftops before then quietly revising them downward after the initial headlines.
Gaming metrics is a feature of the regime.
Despite the continuously manipulated math, the administration and their surrogates keep telling us that they’ve ‘created 15M new jobs!’
That’s obviously untrue, as this 818,000 downward revision of jobs reveals, but even the revised number is misleading.
Many of these jobs are second and third jobs for struggling Americans. That’s not a positive indicator of economic strength. Now add the misleading EITC messaging that we discussed in yesterday’s brief; also, consider the admin’s unfounded claims of corporate price gouging as narrative cover for devastating inflation.
When you consider the totality of Harris’ economic message, it’s undeniable that they’re just being deceptive. The positive economic message coming from those in power is, like everything else with this administration: fabricated, fake, phony.
But the joy is real, right? —
RFK Jr. is planning to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and endorse Trump
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. intends to end his independent presidential campaign and endorse former President Donald Trump, according to two sources familiar with the plans.
The sources cautioned that talks are ongoing but said there will be clarity by the end of the week. One of the sources said the campaigns are working toward a joint appearance.
The decision to drop out will end the most prominent third-party candidacy in the race. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he will give a campaign speech addressing “his path forward,” days after his running mate said the campaign faced a choice about staying in the election or dropping out to back Trump.
Kennedy’s campaign announced he will hold the event in Phoenix on Friday. Trump, meanwhile, is also set to host an event on Friday night, in Glendale, a Phoenix suburb.
Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy's running mate, said Tuesday that the ticket is weighing two options. One is to stay in the race and "risk" a Harris-Walz presidency, as she put it in a podcast interview, while the other is to drop out of the race and "join forces" with Trump. — NBC News
Our Take: I don’t know if the coordination between Donald Trump and RFK Jr. was “planned long ago” like we think a lot of what we’re seeing play out in the Shadow War was … but I also know that the Net Effects of this unified deployment makes the question moot.
Trump and Kennedy are executing a pincer attack on the enemy’s narrative and political apparatus … all ahead of a second Trump Admin that counts disclosure among its prime directives.
If you're not paying attention to narrative structure ... you're nothing more than a psychological passenger being carried along the whims of writers you'll never know.
Characters are cyphers through which the audience imprints onto a story, and the best characters have the best names.
Are you noticing any particular names back in the American sociopolitical zeitgeist of late?
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it certainly seems to borrow quite a bit from it in the Info War. If you keep that fact in mind, you may even see the threads coming together before they converge. —
BONUS ITEMS
Elon Musk’s X reveals investors in court filing
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Elon Musk’s X to unseal the list of shareholders involved with X Holdings Corp., giving the public an official look at the investors who aided his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform previously known as Twitter in October 2022.
Shareholders named in the document include some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists and entrepreneurs — as well as a fund linked with hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The filing lists nearly 100 entities with a stake in X, although many appear to represent different funds controlled by the same firm or person. Other investors include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud; Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey; and 8VC, a venture capital firm co-founded by Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of intelligence contractor and data analysis platform Palantir.
Lesser-known shareholders listed in the filing include UnipolSai S.P.A., an Italian financial services company based in Bologna. Many of the larger investors had previously been reported, but X had not publicly detailed its stakeholders before. X did not immediately return a request for comment. — Washington Post
Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat
President Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan for the United States that, for the first time, reorients America’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal.
The shift comes as the Pentagon believes China’s stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of the United States’ and Russia’s over the next decade.
The White House never announced that Mr. Biden had approved the revised strategy, called the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,” which also newly seeks to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. The document, updated every four years or so, is so highly classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of hard copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders.
But in recent speeches, two senior administration officials were allowed to allude to the change — in carefully constrained, single sentences — ahead of a more detailed, unclassified notification to Congress expected before Mr. Biden leaves office. — NYT
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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I've known Putin invaded Ukraine for good reasons... but I just thought it was biolabs. That soldier talking about those babies broke my heart. What's been done to children by evil is so heinous, I understand why God will throw them in a lake of fire. I would love to see them burn first hand. That is why I fight for truth. The children!!! And I've become a Putin fan because I believe he's a Russian Trump!!!
Coffee and Takes makes for a great start to my day.
The two most interesting Takes to me today were GBPH's discussion about Netanyahu and the Demonic Ukrainian Azov Battalion behavior. The "Saving Israel for Last" Q Drop is very intriguing and while it is very complicated because of the years of religious psyop. GBPH's work sparks a lot of emotional hair pulling but it is spot on and I am grateful he has the guts to boldly push forward. Second the we are saving the children is what 1st got me into my Awakening.
Keep up the great work.
God Wins!
God Bless!!!