Badlands News Brief
Badlands News Brief
Globalists Are Having a Bad Time ...
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.
This Brief is being supported and brought to you by our friends at Freedom Stack, who can help you build new websites, host them with First Amendment protection, and help you own your payment processing.
Now, onto the news from the Weekend that Was …
Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply
The United Nations’ top court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave. Although Israel is unlikely to comply with the order, it will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country.
Criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing, particularly since it turned its focus to Rafah. This week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for another international court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also under some pressure at home to end the war, which was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people, most civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostage. Thousands of Israelis have joined weekly demonstrations calling on the government to reach a deal to bring the hostages home, fearing time is running out.
“The charges of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice in the Hague are false, outrageous and morally repugnant,” Netanyahu’s government said in response to the ruling, maintaining its position that the military hasn’t and won’t target civilians. — AP News
Our Take: “On Friday, one week after hearing new arguments from South Africa and Israel on the question of whether there is possibly genocide occurring in Gaza, the UN's International Court of Justice issued an order instructing Israel to ‘immediately halt its offensive [in Rafah].’ It also ordered Israel to submit, within 30 days, a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to this order.
(Remember, this is not the same court as the ICC, which was founded by George Soros twenty-some years ago and recently issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and some of his cabinet members.)
Recall that these proceedings are merely the preliminary hearings to the forthcoming genocide case that will be held between South Africa and Israel at the ICJ (to be scheduled.) This is a modification to the prior ruling issued on March 28, where it cautioned Israel to prevent any form of genocide from occurring.
Almost immediately after the court delivered its ruling, Israel began an airstrike against Rafah. The attack continued into the weekend, and culminated on Sunday evening with videos posted online that show enormous fires raging in the refugee tent camps in Rafah, with brutal scenes of scorched bodies and decapitated children. The corporate press is reporting that over 30 people were killed in these attacks, while the Palestinian Ministry of Health numbers it in the hundreds, claiming that over 60 people were burned alive. (There was also a counter-attack by Hamas on Tel Aviv with rockets late Sunday, though no damage or casualties have been reported.)
It's impossible for us to know which side is reporting the truth—perhaps neither is—but what has been confirmed by Israeli leadership is that the reported attacks on Rafah over the weekend are, in fact, occurring, and they have no intention of ending their military campaign.
Analysts have affirmed that the ICJ has no capacity to enforce this order, and that only the UN Security Council would have any such authority, though maybe limited.
The UN has finally produced an official number of aid trucks that have entered Gaza since the post-October-7th operation began: 906 aid trucks. Back on February 26, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan testified before the UN that aid trucks were not being permitted to enter Gaza, and given the scale of devastation, they required anywhere from 500 to 800 trucks per day to keep the citizens of Gaza from starving.
Netanyahu insists that they are in compliance with the ICJ's prior ruling, however, a video posted by the Israeli government on October 9 shows Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explicitly stating: ‘We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.’
The irony is that these are the exact allegations being levied upon Israel by South Africa and other nations, and if true, it would meet the textbook definition of War Crimes under the Geneva Convention.
Things are about to get very spicy for the New World Order.” —
‘I don’t know how this happened’: A $3B secret program undermining Biden’s tech policy
A backroom Washington deal brokered two years ago is undercutting a key part of President Joe Biden’s policy to grow the national high-tech manufacturing base — pushing more than $3 billion into a secretive national-security project promoted by chipmaker Intel.
In recent weeks, Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have been taking victory laps for the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, a law intended to create jobs and fund innovation in a key global industry. It has already launched a series of grants, incentives and research proposals to help America regain its cutting-edge status in global semiconductor manufacturing.
But quietly, in a March spending bill, appropriators in Congress shifted $3.5 billion that the Commerce Department was hoping to use for those grants and pushed it into a separate Pentagon program called Secure Enclave, which is not mentioned in the original law.
The diversion of money from a flagship Biden initiative is a case study in how fragile Washington’s monumental spending programs can be in practice. Biden’s legacy is bound up in the fate of more than $1 trillion in government spending and tax incentives aimed at transforming the economy — but even money appropriated for a strategic national goal can wind up being rerouted for narrow or opaque purposes. — Politico
Our Take: “‘When you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things.’
Patriot ghosts aren't being too subtle lately.
In recent months, I've been digging into what I've dubbed 'The Switch' theory, which posits that, while the Narratives surrounding the US economy, manufacturing and energy production are catastrophic for the regime, there are a host of Actuals kicked off by Donald Trump (and continued by his Proxy President, Joe Biden,) that are already paving the way toward a much brighter future.
This economic theory runs in parallel with the Devolution research of
. After all, the economy, domestic manufacturing and US energy security feel like National Essential Functions to me.Now, we've got 'sourced' intel pouring out of the MSM that the Biden Admin has no idea why billions in funding it earmarked for the Trump-proposed CHIPS Act it signed is being controlled and coordinated by the Department of Defense.
We already won. The rest is a matter of timing, and storytelling.” —
Navy Reserve veteran pleads guilty to beheading Satanic statue in Iowa State Capitol
A Mississippi man, and former Republican congressional candidate, pleaded guilty Friday in connection to the vandalism of a statue of a pagan idol at the Iowa state capitol in exchange for the dropping of a hate crime charge.
Michael Cassidy pleaded guilty to an aggravated misdemeanor count of third-degree criminal mischief, the Des Moines Register reported. He was slated to go to trial on June 3.
"As you’re likely aware, we have continually contested the hate crime and questioned whether Mr. Cassidy was being targeted due to his religious beliefs," Cassidy's attorney, Sara Pasquale, told Fox News Digital. "We are therefore very pleased that the state ultimately decided to drop the hate crime and are hopeful that this case will bring awareness to similar situations throughout the country." — FOX News
Our Take: “Michael Cassidy, the veteran that destroyed the Baphomet statue in the Iowa State Capitol, has accepted a deferred judgment on a misdemeanor in exchange for prosecutors dropping the hate crime charges.
The hate crime charge was attached because Cassidy hates Satan. You really can’t make this up.
Cassidy shared the news Friday night on X, posting: ‘Not today, Satan.
Pleased to announce the Iowa DA just dropped their absurd felony hate crime charge and instead offered a deferred judgement misdemeanor (a fine, no jail time, nothing permanent on my record), which I accepted.’
As I wrote in February, when news of Cassidy’s charges broke, ‘The Baphomet display, while grotesque, is religious expression, and is thus protected by the First Amendment… And that’s the reason that we must get religious displays out of government buildings.’
Religious displays are not the government’s job — not erecting them, protecting them, or prosecuting their destruction. The government needs to get out of the religion business entirely.
In Iowa, they’ve already spent too much time, and way too many resources, protecting Satan and the feelings of his followers. What an absolute waste of the People’s resources. God wins the ultimate battle of good versus evil, and everyone knows it.
The First Amendment restricts the government’s involvement in religion. The Ninth Amendment preserves rights not enumerated to the people. In other words, the right to smash idols in government buildings is not specifically enumerated, but it’s a religious right and expression — and the federal government is restricted in how it can engage.
In our original government design, such matters should be left to the Cassidys of the world, and the government must remain hands off. While Americans have forgotten, or never learned, such principles, they are quickly awakening, remembering, learning, and claiming their Liberty birthright.
NCSWIC.” —
EU faces 'difficult' choice between support to rule of law or support to Israel - Borrell
The EU must define its stance on the International Court of Justice's call on Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, Borrell said.
The European Union's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has said that the bloc faces a "difficult" choice between its support for the rule of law and its support for Israel, just minutes after the ICJ ruled Israeli forces should halt their offensive in Rafah.
Speaking during a European University Institute (EUI) event in Florence, Borrell said: "Let's see which is going to be the action of the European Union to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that has been issued today, which is going to be our position?"
"We will have to choose between our support to the international institutions and the rule of law, or our support to Israel, and both things is (sic) going to be quite difficult to make compatible," he added.
It came just minutes after the Hague-based top UN court called on Israel to "halt its military offensive in Rafah", citing that the Palestinian people were at an "immediate risk".
The UN estimates that some 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering from war in the southern Gazan town, which Israel claims is Hamas' last stronghold.
Borrell also acknowledged that the EU's decision-making when it came to its response to the war in Gaza had been too sluggish due to deep rifts between EU capitals' stance on the conflict.
He called for a change to the EU's decision-making processes on foreign policy, which requires the unanimous backing of all 27 leaders. — EuroNews
Our Take: “I will reiterate that there is a stark difference between the International Court of Justice, which was established in 1945 as a forum to mediate disputes between sovereign nations, and the International Criminal Court, which was established in the early 2000's by George Soros for the purpose of prosecuting troublesome leaders of sovereign nations. Both operate out of The Hague, and are often confused, though everything UN-related has been tainted with corruption since its inception, thanks to oligarchs who desire a one-world government.
There really is nothing wrong with the idea of an international forum to peacefully mediate disputes, assuming that the proprietors of that forum (the court) have no authority to impose their will on sovereign nations, therefore undermining autonomy. That is the case with the ICJ; it is the ICC that was created (by Soros) in an attempt to weaponize that concept.
It is noteworthy that the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan— who recently issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his cabinet— has reportedly received threats from various UN member-nations, stating, ‘I had some elected members speak to me and be very blunt. This court [ICC] was built for [prosecuting] African nations and thugs like Putin. [Not Netanyahu and western democracies.]’
Since learning of this development, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell—also serving as a Vice-President of the European Commission—has expressed grave concerns over the state and future of the ‘international rules-based order.’ This is a term that we have seen develop since George Bush Sr was in the White House, that is intended to describe a deviation from objective international law, toward a New World Order. A one-world government.
Now with the ICJ issuing its order against Israel and the IDF to cease action in Rafah, and Israel's subsequent decision to defy that order, Borrell has stepped forward to express his concerns in more clear terms: ‘Disregarding [this order] would be against the rules based world order we support and promote everywhere.’
Borrell continues: ‘The EU must define its stance on the International Court of Justice's call on Israel to halt its Rafah offensive. We will have to choose between our support to the international institutions and the rule of law, or our support to Israel, and both things is (sic) going to be quite difficult to make compatible.’
You are witnessing the systematic destruction of the Old Guard. Do not be distracted by shiny objects. Focus on the endgame—defeating the globalist oligarchy and their wretched plans for world domination.
We are winning, and as we continue winning, trusted authorities from yesteryear will try to capture your attention with shaggy-dogs and red herrings (writing concepts). This plan has finally turned the globalists against one another, and they are openly admitting it. Now Borrell is announcing in this article that the EU's Foreign Affairs Council will be meeting this week with ‘Team Peace,’ as I call them, (group of Arab foreign ministers, led by Saudi FM Faisal bin Farhan) to ‘discuss extensively the situation in Gaza.’
Do you understand who is pulling the strings here? The same guys who gave Trump the Sword Dance in 2017.” —
First McDonald's, Now Burger King Admits Consumers Are Broke With Planned Reintroduction Of $5 Meal Deal
A recent trend of mega corporations rolling back prices and reintroducing deals has emerged. Whether this is potentially due to pressure from the White House ahead of elections or, as Goldman pointed out, "Consumer caution mounts as cracks in resilience theme emerge," there's growing evidence that working poor consumers are struggling in the era of failed Bidenomics.
About two weeks ago, after three years of 'McFlation' that sent the price of combo meals as high as $18, McDonald's weighed on new plans to reintroduce $5 combo meal deals. The report, initially from Bloomberg, specified the deal could include a McChicken or a McDouble, fries, and a drink.
Elsewhere, Walmart, Target, and Aldi have lowered prices on thousands of everyday items, including staple foods. This comes in response to a spending slowdown among cash-strapped working-poor consumers who are drowning in insurmountable credit card debt and drained personal savings amid elevated inflation.
Covering the faltering consumer theme have been the analysts at Goldman:
The Largest US Trading Desk Is "Getting Bearish On The US Consumer"
Goldman Warns Consumers Are Cracking As Stagflation Threats Emerge
Goldman's Commentary On Consumer Health Is An Ominous One
The value war kicked off earlier this month as corporations strive to retain their customer base and prevent trade-downs or migrations to competitors. This is why McDonald's meal deal push has prompted Burger King to offer a similar deal.
Bloomberg reported that Burger King is preparing to launch a $5 meal deal. The deal will include the choice of one of three sandwiches with nuggets, fries, and a drink. Franchisees approved the deal in April. — ZeroHedge
Our Take: “Value wars, in theory, benefit customers, as mega corporations battle for our ever-shrinking disposable income.
Now, we can ponder whether eating fast food actually benefits anyone. I believe the Badlands’ audience is majority ‘NO’ on that, as evidenced by their reaction every time the Cannabis Conservative mentions Taco Bell. Brian’s Taco Bell consumption is an important conversation, but it’s (mostly) irrelevant to this current story.
The article cites that plummeting fast food prices are due to, ‘a spending slowdown among cash-strapped working-poor consumers who are drowning in insurmountable credit card debt and drained personal savings amid elevated inflation.’
That feels right. After the dollar store became the dollar and 25 cents store, every American became more bargain-friendly in at least one domain of their personal supply chains. We’re all coping, in our own ways, with the effects of unipartisan treasury looting.
My only hope is that the trend expands to proper groceries. And gas. And home goods. In a free market, it would. But in a free market, we’d never have gotten into this position in the first place.
The good news is that, if prices continue to drop, Brian will stop bitching about it costing $20 to feed one person at Taco Bell.
That’s a win for all of us.
Live Más.” —
Georgia does not want to become second Ukraine – PM
Georgia needs its recently passed ‘foreign agents law’ to curb external influence and avoid repeating the fate of Ukraine, which the West has turned into a battle front against Russia, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on Wednesday.
The divisive legislation, entitled the ‘Transparency of Foreign Influence Act’, would require NGOs, media outlets, and individuals receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities “promoting the interests of a foreign power” and disclose their donors. The bill sparked weeks of protests in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, with critics arguing that it could be used to crack down on the opposition.
Kobakhidze likened the current state of affairs in Georgia to “muddy water,” where foreign influence flows unhindered and where those who wish to affect the country’s governance can easily “catch fish” in the form of opponents to state policies and unite them to form revolutionary movements. Without the law, he says, there is a risk the country could turn into yet another Western proxy, much like what happened in Ukraine prior to the Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014. — RT
And …
Georgian PM accuses EU of ‘blackmailing’ him with assassination threat
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has claimed that a European commissioner told him he could end up suffering the same fate as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt last week.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Kobakhidze said that the unnamed commissioner warned him during a recent phone call that the West would take “a number of measures” against him if his government pressed ahead with a law requiring foreign NGOs in Georgia to disclose their funding.
“While listing these measures, he mentioned: ‘you see what happened to Fico, and you should be very careful’,” he wrote.
Fico was shot multiple times as he met with supporters outside a government meeting in the town of Handlova on May 15. He was rushed to hospital, underwent emergency surgery, and is currently recuperating from his injuries. His would-be assassin – allegedly a 71-year-old poet who disagreed with Fico’s suspension of military aid to Ukraine – has been charged with attempted murder and may face terrorism charges. — RT
Our Take: “Things are truly accelerating in a very exciting way.
You've likely heard about the recent assassination attempt of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, which came on the heels of Slovakia passing a ‘foreign agent law,’ which would require NGO's receiving foreign funding to disclose from where that funding originates. It is a law that was modeled on legislation passed by Russia under Putin, and one of the many reasons these western [Satan-worshipping] oligarchs hate Vladimir Putin so much.
For those who are confused, allow me to clarify: NGO's (Non-government organizations) rule the world. And almost all of these international NGO's are nothing more than fronts for western intelligence agencies like the CIA. Groups like the Red Cross serve as a perfect vehicle with which to infiltrate struggling third-world nations, especially in the wake of natural disasters, when philanthropy groups have free reign to move around the affected nation, uninhibited.
Now we have another nation—Georgia—following the lead of Slovakia and passing this same legislation. All one needs to do is examine the response of the western propaganda matrix in order to discern how significant of a threat this legislation is to the ‘rules-based international order,’ i.e. the New World Order.
But Georgia's legislation doesn't just target NGO's. It also targets media outlets and individuals who receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to disclose their donors.
Now Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze is claiming that he has been personally threatened by an unnamed European commissioner, who allegedly told him that western powers planned to take ‘a number of measures’ against him, and culminated the list of threats with ‘you see what happened to Fico, and you should be very careful.’
Subtle.
These gangsters are really starting to get scared, because their grip on power is slipping, and one by one, all of the ‘lesser’ nations of the world are beginning to stand up to them in a glorious act of defiance.
Kobakhidze has publicly responded by stating: ‘Both America and the European Union need deoligarchization.’ He went on to brand them as the ‘Global War Party,’ accusing them explicitly of trying to launch a coup against him that is styled directly on the Maidan Coup launched on Ukraine in 2014.
If the significance of the conflicts in both Israel and Ukraine—and how they relate to our common struggle against the Global Hegemony—were not clear before, they should now be coming into focus. This is the endgame.
You are witnessing the systematic destruction of the Old Guard.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Trump Suggests Nikki Haley Will Be 'On Our Team In Some Form'
Following her announcement that she would be voting for former President Donald Trump after challenging him in the Republican primaries this year, President Trump said he was sure that former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley would be joining his team in some capacity.
Ms. Haley was previously the United Nations ambassador under President Trump’s first administration. She noted in her first remarks since dropping out of the race on May 22 that she would be supporting her former boss and opponent while calling President Joe Biden’s presidency a “catastrophe.”
In a revealing interview with News 12 New York after a campaign rally in the Bronx, New York, President Trump responded to Ms. Haley’s recent public endorsement of him following her exit from the presidential race.
When asked about the possibility of Ms. Haley being a part of his team or even his ticket, Trump responded positively. “Well, I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” President Trump stated. “I appreciated what she said. You know, we had a nasty campaign, it was pretty nasty, but she’s a very capable person and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form absolutely.” — The Epoch Times
Trump Booed, Heckled, Cheered At Rowdy Libertarian Convention -- Mocks Party's Poor Performance
Venturing beyond his typical audience of uniformly-adoring supporters, Donald Trump was showered with boos, heckling but also applause as he addressed the Libertarian National Convention in Washington DC on Saturday night.
The very idea of his speech was unusual. As the Washington Post's Aaron Blake noted when it was announced weeks ago, "Even for the Libertarian Party, inviting another party's 2024 nominee to speak even as it nominates a candidate to oppose them is something."
Between that dynamic and the fact that Trump's resume is full of items that are repulsive to libertarians, the party's invitation was deeply controversial...as evidenced by this delegate's motion on Friday:
In addition to party delegates, Saturday's crowd also included Trump supporters who bought tickets to the event. When they periodically broke out in chants of "WE WANT TRUMP," libertarians drowned them out with "END THE FED."
There was tension between the camps before Trump even took the stage. Having been dismissed from the convention proceedings, party delegates entered the hall where Trump would be speaking to find that Trump supporters who'd purchased spectator tickets were already in the front rows -- despite previous assurances from party chairwoman Angela McArdle that delegates would get the best seats. Verbal battles escalated into fisticuffs. — ZeroHedge
Vivek Ramaswamy Calls For 'Libertarian-Nationalist Alliance'
In remarks at the Libertarian National Convention, Trump surrogate and former Libertarian Party voter Vivek Ramaswamy called for the men and women in attendance to ally with the “America First” wing of the Republican Party.
“I believe the future of this country depends on a libertarian-nationalist alliance,” the entrepreneur said. The crowd mostly booed in response.
The call for tactical cooperation came after Mr. Ramaswamy outlined his skepticism with both Democrats and what he characterized as “the establishment wing of the Republican Party,” criticizing Republican support for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), among other policies.
He also said that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spoke earlier that day to the convention, was “in no sense a libertarian,” citing his past support for “punish[ing]” skeptics of the mainstream scientific narrative on climate change.
In his opening comments and a subsequent debate with the Libertarians’ vice presidential nominee, Clint Russell, Mr. Ramaswamy suggested that the current political moment offered an opportunity for libertarian ideals to influence the future of former President Donald J. Trump’s “America First” movement.
“I have had extensive conversations with Donald Trump about libertarian objectives,” the entrepreneur said. — The Epoch Times
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.
In Iowa, of all states, it's a hate crime to hate satan. Aggravated third degree criminal mischief, wow. He is a hero in many people's eyes. We are at war, and he acted appropriately, imho.
As for the UN "court of justice", more BS, another fake court that believes it has authority over the US or any sovereign nation. How much longer before the UN is shut down in the US and defunded?
Happy Memorial Day!
Today's Takes are a great start to my week.
Spot on BB: "We already won. The rest is a matter of timing, and storytelling.” — Burning Bright"
Similarly GBPH I totally agree: "You are witnessing the systematic destruction of the Old Guard.” — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry"
God Wins!
God Bless!!!