Badlands News Brief
Defamation, Deportation & Deals, Deals, Deals
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.
Before we get into the meat of today’s Brief, we want to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Luv Litters. This 100% pure, kiln-dried wood litter is crafted from wood destined for landfills, and has no dust, no mess, and no toxins. It's safe for all your pets!, and 30 pound bag of Luv Litters lasts up to six months! Transform your pet care routine today with a litter that loves your pet as much as you do.
Now, onto the news from Tuesday, January 7 …
Why Does Trump Want to Buy Greenland? Here’s What to Know—as Don Jr. Arrives on Island
President-elect Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., arrived in Greenland Tuesday for a personal visit as Trump has renewed his suggestion in recent weeks that the Danish territory should become part of the U.S., one of several controversial territorial takeovers Trump has floated, often citing national security—though Denmark and Greenland have firmly rejected the idea.
Trump has floated buying the island for years. Trump wrote on Truth Social last month the U.S. should take control of Greenland “for purposes of National security and Freedom.” He also proposed the idea in 2019, telling reporters, “strategically it’s interesting” and calling the theoretical acquisition “essentially . . . a large real estate deal.”
The Danish territory is home to the U.S. military’s Pituffik Space Base, and has become increasingly important on a geopolitical scale as melting ice in the Arctic Circle has opened new North Atlantic shipping lanes, drawing interest from U.S. rivals Russia and China. Arctic shipping increased 37% over the past decade, CNN notes, citing the Arctic Council, and the Northwest Passage—a shipping lane that connects the Atlantic and Pacific—passes by Greenland.
The island is also part of the strategically important Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap, a chokepoint that Russian ships must transit to travel from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic. However, as NATO members, the U.S. and Denmark are already closely aligned.
Greenland is thought to be home to a wealth of untapped mineral resources, including coal, zinc, copper, iron ore, diamonds and oil, though only small portions of the island have been explored, in part due to its harsh conditions as it’s predominantly covered by ice and glaciers. – Forbes
Our Take: From Canada to Greenland, Donald Trump is directing his communications about "Statehood" to the PEOPLE rather than their governments. Because, as is the case in the US, those governments subsist on mandate, or lack of opposition to it.
The Sovereign Man is the Sovereign World. — Burning Bright
Katz: Deadly West Bank Terror Attack Was ‘Act Of War’ That Will Be Answered In Kind
As Israel Defense Forces troops carried out counterterrorism raids across the West Bank, Defense Minister Israel Katz visited on Tuesday the site of a deadly terror attack in the Palestinian village of al-Funduq, which he said was an “act of war” that will be answered in kind.
Two elderly women and an off-duty cop were killed and eight Israelis were wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on vehicles as they passed through the village on Monday. The three perpetrators from the Jenin area of the northern West Bank are still at large.
“The despicable, murderous terror attack that occurred here yesterday is an act of war for all intents and purposes, and it will be answered accordingly,” Katz said in remarks provided by his office. “We will hit the terrorists and those who sent them, and we will act powerfully against the places from where the terrorists came,” he said.
Far-right government members and settler leaders have called for military action in the West Bank resembling that taken in the Gaza Strip, where the IDF has evacuated and destroyed entire cities that it said had become terror strongholds. – The Times of Israel
Our Take: An "act of war," huh? Let me ask the patriots in this audience a question:
Hypothetically, let's say your neighborhood (in America) was under occupation by a foreign military — doesn't matter which foreign military, you choose. This foreign military acts as a police force, patrolling your streets; they routinely rough up people walking the streets, kill anybody who looks at them the wrong way, foment fear and loathing across the community, steal homes at gunpoint, and construct new residential developments that are given to citizens from their country, who are effectively invading your neighborhood to occupy these new homes.
Some of your neighbors decide, "enough is enough" and engage these brutes in a firefight, exercising their Second Amendment rights, and they are branded "terrorists" by the occupying foreign military. (As you would expect.)
My question is this: Which side drew first blood? The first "act of war?"
During a recent interview, Antony Blinken was asked whether he was worried that the United States was presiding over a "genocide" in Palestine. Listen to his response, as well as Colonel Macgregor's comments.
– GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
What if ICE Agents Show Up? Schools Prepare Teachers and Parents
If immigration agents arrive on the doorstep of a New York City public school, principals have been told what to do. Ask the officers to wait outside, and call a school district lawyer.
The school system has enrolled about 40,000 recent immigrant students since 2022. Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office with promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the district has shared with school staff a protocol to try to shield students who have a tenuous legal status.
In a December letter to principals, Emma Vadehra, the district’s chief operating officer, wrote, “We hope using this protocol will never be necessary.”
Still, New York and some other school districts across the country are readying educators and immigrant families for a potential wave of deportations. – New York Times
Our Take: Emotional blackmail intensifies. Seemingly nonthreatening but still unauthorized trespassers and their offspring being deported isn’t a happy thought. Children are especially good at tugging heart strings.
Also, it’s not the fault of Americans that the trespassers are here unlawfully.
When Christ followers pray the Lord’s prayer we ask God to, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” I do forgive them. Even the criminal ones. I understand wanting to live in America. There many in line for that opportunity, lawfully, who have waited years. America is worth it. I hold no hate in my heart for the trespass. It is forgiven.
They still have to go.
Forgiveness does not require that we enable criminal conduct or prevent the consequences of the forgiven actions. It does not require that we trespass on others’, and give away their spots in line to people who broke the law. That’s just emotional blackmail, and it’s despicable.
Expect these appeals to emotion to continue and intensify. Resist them.
– Ashe in America
Gender Transitions ‘Smell of Apocalypse’ – Russian Church Leader
The acceptance of gender reassignment surgeries in the West “smells of apocalypse,” the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said in a televised interview on Tuesday.
Patriarch Kirill criticized the trend as a sign of moral decay in the West and reaffirmed Russia’s commitment to preserving its own spiritual traditions.
In the interview, aired on Orthodox Christian Christmas, he contrasted what he called the moral decline of the West with the strength of Russia’s spiritual traditions.
“What is happening there smells of apocalypse,” he said, referring to the normalization of gender transitions in Western nations. He emphasized that such practices were “against God’s law” and would never be accepted in Russia as long as its people remain faithful to their millennia-old cultural and spiritual heritage.
Kirill highlighted Russia’s growing prominence as a spiritual counterweight to the West. “They are astonished that we are building churches – 400 in Moscow alone,” he stated. He contrasted this with the situation in the West, where churches are being repurposed, “in the best case into mosques, and in the worst case into entertainment venues.”
In November, Russia banned the adoption of children to countries that permit gender-reassignment procedures. – RT
Our Take: This one is a pretty simple take. All you have to do is look at the statue of Baphomet — the occult demagogue who often depicted as a winged goat-headed man with female breasts, and often associated with Satanism.
What many people don't know is that starting in 1307 and continuing throughout the 14th century, the Knights Templar — the group responsible for organizing the Crusades — began being arrested routinely when they were caught conducting occult rituals where Baphomet was being worshipped.
The Templars are a group that are deeply associated with occult mysticism, and beloved by families such as the Rothschild. This is the case for most of the Christian military orders that were founded to fight in The Crusades. The Knights of Malta would be another example.
Here is a picture of Nathaniel Philip Rothschild's $87 million yacht, which was put up for sale last summer. Note the flag being flown on the stern. (h/t to my Breaking History co-host, Matt Ehret, who showed me this picture.)
And just for fun, go to a search engine and type in "Baphomet" and see what comes up:
But I digress. Transgenderism is obviously Satanism. But the truth is that Satanism has permeated many other secular institutions in our degenerate society, including churches — some of which openly promote transgender ideology.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12
– GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
If We Want Healthier Americans, We Should Help Women Quit Their Jobs
Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Health and Human Services secretary has broken cultural and media taboos against noticing that Americans pay the most in the world for health care yet also have the most chronic diseases. Food is one of the top reasons.
Yet while Kennedy and Tucker Carlson-promoted health gurus like Calley and Casey Means rightly point to processed food, Big Pharma, Big Food, and Big Ag as systemically broken, not a lot has yet been publicly noticed about the other cultural shifts feeding this brokenness. For one: The decline in full-time mothers.
The only healthy and accessible alternative to processed “food” is home-cooked food made from scratch. The wealthy can hire personal chefs, but for we 99 percent the only way to access home-cooked food is to make it with our own hands. Traditionally, mothers have provided this crucial service to their families. It is a deep personal investment not only in one’s family, but in this age of socialized medicine it is also an investment in one’s country and neighbors.
Making from-scratch food is a significant part-time job. I estimate I spend 25-30 hours on it per week, including shopping time. And that’s with growing very little of our food. If we had a serious garden, which I’ve done in some years, it would add another 15-20 hours a week at least. That’s a full-time job right there just getting the most nutritious food possible. And if you don’t grow it yourself, you must trade your own work hours for the farmers.
The amount of time needed to produce slow food is hard to square with also holding down a full-time job out of the home. – The Federalist
Our Take: “I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive clerks at the same time.”
In What's Wrong with the World: Part 3: Feminism, or the Mistake about Woman, G.K. Chesterton acknowledges “the modern working woman bears a double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home,” continuing, “If women are to be subjected to the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them from the wild rule of conscience.”
The sentiment, which Chesterton wrote in 1910, confirms the premise of The Federalist piece. The normalization of the double income requirement for success ignited with a central bank and spread as wildfire with suffrage. Chesterton was describing the inevitable change to both women and society, and the trade-offs that would result of restructuring women’s relationship with government.
“The woman's wisdom stands partly, not only for a wholesome hesitation about punishment, but even for a wholesome hesitation about absolute rules… she stands for Anarchy; a very ancient and arguable philosophy; not anarchy in the sense of having no customs in one's life (which is inconceivable), but anarchy in the sense of having no rules for one's mind.”
The above could be the dictionary definition of every successful homeschool mom I’ve ever met.
“Now anarchy is only tact when it works badly…we ought to realize that in one half of the world—the private house—it does work well. …in short, that government is only one side of life. The other half is called Society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better governed than ours, because (in the logical and legal sense) it is not governed at all.”
115 years ago, Chesterton was a thought leader. In 2025, he is a prophet.
These trade-offs affected all of society, and now it requires two adult incomes to live comfortably in America. And, of course, there is social pressure and shame should you choose, or even desire, to devote your labor to your family and home.
Everything is inverted to the point where it’s a radical idea for one parent to stay home and, as the author in the Federalist explores, ensure the family eats healthy; but few can afford it anyway.
How is this better?
We have to course correct, and we must reject progressive declarations of new normals, or “the huge heresy of Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, we must forget it.” – Ashe in America
North Korea Tests Possible Hypersonic Warhead – Seoul
North Korea fired a ballistic missile with a suspected hypersonic warhead into the East Sea on Monday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It was launched from the Pyongyang area at around 12 noon and traveled approximately 1,100km before landing in the water, according to military officials.
Seoul’s JCS noted that the rocket had flown a shorter distance than that of a typical intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which can travel between 3,000 and 5,500km. However, a JCS official suggested that it could be equipped with a hypersonic warhead, similar to those tested by North Korea in 2024.
Hypersonic missiles are known for their high speed, making them harder to intercept.
Such a missile could potentially be used to strike US military bases in Guam, Yonhap News Agency reports. The island territory, located approximately 3,400km from Pyongyang, hosts significant US strategic assets in the region.
North Korea has conducted several missile tests in recent years, but hasn’t yet confirmed the latest launch reported by the South Korean military. – RT
Our Take: Do I think that any of these North Korea missile stories are true? No. Not at all. North Korea gaining hypersonic missile technology wouldn't be an earth-shattering revelation, anyway, given their alliance with Iran, Russia, and China.
Western propagandists would only be shocked because they want the entire Global South to remain primitive slave camps, where the only prosperity to be found is within the halls of power that are staffed by puppets of the Cartel.
We already reported last year that Kim Jong Un followed President Trump's advice and converted the infamous beach historically used for missile testing into a luxury resort intended for tourism. We've even seen pictures of it.
Now they want us to believe that North Korea is going to [checks notes] strike Guam with hypersonic missiles? Is that before or after it capsizes due to too many US soldiers being stationed there?
Is this strike on Guam in coordination with the thousands of North Korean troops that have been deployed in Ukraine? The soldiers that nobody has been able to confirm actually exist? For a country so primitive, they sure seem to have a vast reach, with cutting edge covert capabilities — impossible to detect or see with the naked eye.
Still holding out hope that Trump defies all odds and invites Un to the inauguration. Dennis Rodman said he's just a "big kid" looking to travel the world and have a good time. Just invite Dennis and give him a plus-one. (That's all the plausible deniability you need, Scavino.) – GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
CNN on Trial for Defamation as Network Execs Forced to Take the Stand
CNN is due to go to trial on Monday after being accused of defaming a military contractor.
Why It Matters: There has been a rise in defamation cases involving news networks in the United States. In April 2024, Fox News settled a lawsuit for $787 million after broadcasting false claims that voting machines were rigged in the 2020 election.
In December, Donald Trump settled his lawsuit against ABC News for $15 million after the station had broadcast claims that Trump had raped, rather than sexually assaulted, E. Jean Carroll. Carroll had sued Trump for defamation for $88.3 for sexual assault and defamation.
Media organizations will keenly watch the CNN case to assess the limits of the First Amendment's free speech protections.
What To Know: Reporters and CNN executives are expected to be called to give evidence in the trial. The case relates to a CNN segment in November 2021 about private contractors who were hired to evacuate Afghans in the wake of the United States' withdrawal from the country… Navy veteran Zachary Young sued CNN in June 2022, claiming in his lawsuit that the segment on The Lead with Jake Tapper defamed him and his Afghan transportation business. – Newsweek
Our Take: Defamation is notoriously hard to prove, and the cases usually end in settlements anyway, but that doesn’t mean Jake Tapper on the stand — testifying about the Afghanistan withdraw and proving that he believed his reporting was true based on what he knew at the time — isn’t going to be fun.
Opening statements in the trial began yesterday, and the trial will be livestreamed. The defamation standard for institutional media is actual malice, meaning that the plaintiffs will have to prove intent. Notoriously difficult, but not impossible. Gotta play to win.– Ashe in America
Trump, Dubai Billionaire Unveil $20 Billion for US Data Centers
President-elect Donald Trump announced an investment of at least $20 billion from Hussain Sajwani, the head of Damac Group, to build new data centers in the US.
Trump said the first phase of the investments would be in the states of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, painting it as critical to keeping the US competitive in emerging technologies.
“The investment will support massive new data centers across the Midwest, the Sun Belt area, and also to keep America on the cutting edge of technology and artificial intelligence,” Trump said at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday.
Trump vowed to help move the deal quickly through the environmental and permitting process and cast it as the result of his election victory, saying his return to power was encouraging foreign business leaders to invest in the US.
“We’re planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that if the opportunity, the market, allow us,” Sajwani said. – Bloomberg
AND
Dar Global Plans US, Greece Projects After Trump Organization Deals
Dar Global said on Tuesday it plans to expand in the U.S. and Greece, after the Dubai-based developer recently unveiled projects in partnership with the Trump Organization.
The international arm of Saudi Arabia's Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company said in a statement it plans to invest in "key international cities" in the U.S.
It said it aims to partner with top-tier developers to create luxury residences, targeting both U.S. and international buyers. It did not provide further details.
Dar Global has agreed a number of deals with The Trump Organization, the company of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. These include plans for Trump towers in Jeddah and Dubai, and a real estate project in Oman.
— MSN
Our Take: Some pretty big news regarding our friends in the Middle East.
First we get Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani appearing with Trump at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, vowing to invest "at least" $20 billion in new data centers across the United States.
“They may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money,” Trump said of Sajwani’s company, DAMAC Properties.
Trump pulled a similar move last month, while holding a press conference with Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son (definitely my favorite name to say, of all TrumpaMania characters) to announce a $100 billion investment from Masayoshi's company, SoftBank, in various US projects over the next four years. Trump put Masayoshi on the spot, asking if he would consider doubling it to $200 billion.
Masayoshi Son laughed, but seemed more than open to the idea.
After the press conference announcing the DAMAC investment, the international arm of Saudi Arabia's Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company — called Dar Global — issued a press release pledging large [unspecified] investments in the US, in addition to the $300 million real estate investment they announced last summer.
During 2024, Dar Global announced plans to construct two different Trump Towers in the Middle East — one in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and one in Dubai (UAE) — while DAMAC has worked with the Trump Organization to develop golf courses in the UAE and Oman, with other projects in the regions planned for the future.
It's worth noting that all of these proposed construction projects will be at risk if the war in the Middle East isn't stopped.
So the choice is simple: War, death and famine; or peace and prosperity. I wonder which one President Trump will pursue? – GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
BONUS ITEMS
Judge Blocks Release of Special Counsel Report on Trump's Criminal Cases
The federal judge who oversaw the classified documents case against President-elect Donald Trump issued an order Tuesday temporarily blocking the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation.
The injunction lasts until three days after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on a pending request to block the release of the report over a separate matter involving Trump co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira filed a motion Monday night asking U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block the report, citing the judge’s previous ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.[…]
[Cannon] said the order will remain in effect for three days after the appeals court resolves the issue "unless the Eleventh Circuit orders otherwise."
— NBC News
Melania Trump Signs Documentary Deal With Amazon for Whopping Sum — With Cameos from Barron And Donald
Former and future first lady Melania Trump has inked an eye-popping $40 million deal with Amazon to license a documentary on her life — with cameos from her husband, Donald, and son, Barron.
The documentary, directed by “Rush Hour” auteur Brett Ratner, is set to be released later this year — with one source close to the agreement suggesting it could spawn multiple projects.
The hefty price tag was first reported by Puck News and covers the rights to projects involving Mrs. Trump over the next four years. Page Six has learned that Disney was also in the running and bid $14 million, only to be swamped by the internet giant.
Sources tell Page Six that the Amazon project is the latest sign that Melania has “gotten more comfortable” with opening herself to the public.
– New York Post
Meta to End Fact-Checking Program in Shift Ahead of Trump Term
Meta on Tuesday announced changes to its content moderation practices that would effectively end a fact-checking program instituted to curtail the spread of misinformation across its social media apps. Instead of using news organizations and other third-party groups, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, will rely on users to add notes to posts that may contain false or misleading information.
The reversal of the years-old policy is a stark sign of how the company is repositioning itself for the Trump presidency in the weeks before it begins. Meta described the changes with the language of a mea culpa: Joel Kaplan, Meta’s newly installed global policy chief, said in a statement that the company wanted to “undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over-enforcement.” – New York Times
Donald Trump Faces Potential Major Clash With His Supreme Court
Donald Trump has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in an upcoming Supreme Court case in which the president-elect asks the court to delay a new law banning TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese owners sell it.
The new law is due to come into effect on January 19, the day before Trump is to be inaugurated as president, and he wants to be in power when it comes into force.
Why It Matters: The Supreme Court, to which Trump nominated three conservative members, may refuse his request to delay the introduction of the new law. This could set up the first major clash between Trump and the Supreme Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority…
On December 18, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear social media platform TikTok's challenge to a new law that will force its Chinese parent company to sell the popular social media site… The Supreme Court is hearing the case on an expedited calendar, with oral arguments on January 10.
– Newsweek
Florida Abortion Amendment Sponsor Must Pay $186,000 in Fines for Fraudulent Signatures
The pro-abortion group behind Florida’s failed amendment to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution recently paid more than $186,000 in fines stemming from complaints and investigations alleging major fraudulent activity during its campaign.
According to a Dec. 20, 2024 memo from Florida Deputy Secretary of State for Legal Affairs and Election Integrity Brad McVay, state election officials were “inundated” in 2023 and 2024 with signature fraud complaints about “Floridians Protecting Freedom” (FPF), the group that sponsored Amendment 4. FPF needed a minimum of 891,523 public signatures to get Amendment 4 on the ballot, in which they collected 997,035.
As a result of the complaints, the Florida Office of Election Crimes & Security (OECS) opened more than 100 criminal investigations in FPF signature gatherers. The investigations involved allegations of paid FPF signature gatherers signing petitions themselves on behalf of deceased individuals, forging voter signatures on petitions, using voters’ personal identifying information without consent, and perjury/false swearing when submitting the petitions. – LifeNews
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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Ashe is on the mark this morning…God, country, family and motherhood. Thanks for the affirmation in a beat down world.
Not that anyone asked, but IMO when Trump says he's Israel's best friend, I think he means its people.
I believe Trump and the Sovereign Alliance (as we're calling it here) have already discussed at length that Israel is, itself, controlled by a psychopathic deep state publicly headed by Netanyahu and his ilk but surreptitiously headed by Mossad and various unnamed players. The people of Israel are a mix of innocent bystanders who are sometimes used as fodder (Oct 6th) and others who actually buy into the superiority complex they project.
If it wasn't for Trump, I believe Israel would simply be wiped from the map soon, condemning all who exist there, but that is an unjust punishment for most of its people. To minimize collateral damage, Trump had to negotiate temperance from Islamic leaders and everyone else who they (Netanyahu, et all) are offending to preserve the maximum number of innocents possible leaving the rest of the world to suffer the exposure of the psychopaths in charge who actually DO want to wipe out every single living soul in the way of "Greater" Israel.
But keep this in mind... the cost of this decision is being born by innocent Palestinian children who, to this day, live their lives in actual daily terror as they watch entire city blocks turned to dust using weapons stamped "Made in USA."