Badlands News Brief
Trump's Momentum Builds as Biden Fumbles the Ball
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.
Some items feature original (and subjective) commentary. Feel free to follow the corresponding link to see our writers’ corresponding Substack accounts and check out their other work.
Now, onto the news from Wednesday, January 17 …
CNN cancels its Republican debate in New Hampshire for lack of participation.
Neither of the two Republican debates planned for the days before the New Hampshire primary will be happening.
CNN canceled the debate it was set to host because only one candidate agreed to participate, the network said on Wednesday, a day after ABC News did the same.
The CNN debate had been scheduled for Sunday, and the ABC News/WMUR debate for Thursday. CNN said it would host a town-hall event with Ms. Haley on Thursday instead, after hosting one with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Tuesday.
Only Mr. DeSantis, who finished second in the Iowa caucuses, had said he would debate. Former President Donald J. Trump, who won Iowa overwhelmingly, has skipped every debate throughout the campaign. And Nikki Haley, the third-place finisher in Iowa, said on Tuesday that she would not do any more unless Mr. Trump participated.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them,” Ms. Haley said on X. “He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.” — The New York Times
And …
Donald Trump's Support Surges Over Joe Biden's in Key Swing State: Poll
Donald Trump has a significant lead over President Joe Biden in a 2024 election poll in Georgia, a key swing state that could help decide who wins November's race.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of registered voters shows Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who recently triumphed in the Iowa caucus, with an eight-point lead over Biden in a hypothetical match-up: 45 percent to 37 percent.
Georgia is one of the states Biden flipped from Trump in the 2020 election and is one of several swing states that Biden must aim to retain if he is to win reelection in the 2024 race. Biden's hopes of beating Trump in November have been marred by frequently low approval ratings and polls suggesting the Republican would beat him in swing states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
In a previous Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey in November 2023, Biden and Trump were nearly tied, with the former president at 45 percent and Biden at 44 percent. However, the AJC noted that that poll featured voters with a history of voting who said they intend to vote in November's election, but not those who say they won't vote this year. — Newsweek
Our Take: “How's this for signal over noise?
The media is absolutely freaking the F out over the prospect of Trump Admin 2.0.
While this might seem obvious to most, I think it marks a major shift in rhetoric coming out of the Establishment, and it coincided with the calendar change to 2024 and escalated with the recent Iowa Caucus performance by Trump.
Of course, none of this addresses the core, underlying issues with the US election system, and many of us believe there are going to be even more shenanigans in November 2024 than there were in November 2020.
That said, the Media Industrial Complex is already giving away the Narrative game when it comes to all of the above, which suggests they either know the election theft attempt in 2024 is NOT going to be successful this time, OR ... that whatever success it does see will be temporary in light of whatever counters such a scenario would trigger.
You can learn a lot watching things lie.
Lately, a lot of career liars are telling the truth.” —
E Jean Carroll Admits She Told Trump Stories Because Her ‘Book Was Not Selling,’ Confirms George Conway Convinced Her to Sue.
Bizarro advice columnist and rape fantasist E Jean Carroll has admitted that former husband to Kelly Anne Conway, George Conway, convinced her to sue President Donald J. Trump following a meeting at a party hosted by far-left columnist Molly Jong-Fast. The claim, now confirmed by Carroll, was initially reported in April 2023.
In addition to Carroll’s admission over the far-left plot against Trump, she also disclosed under questioning by her own counsel that she told friends and colleagues she was okay, despite the President’s denials over sexually abusing her in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room in the mid-90s. When questioned about her upbeat demeanor, she responded in court on Wednesday: “That’s the public E. Jean.”
She is now seeking further damages from President Trump for his continuing insistence that her story – oddly similar to a plotline from the TV show Law and Order – never happened.
During the questioning, Carroll also let slip that she embarked upon a media tour about her story about the 45th President because “journalists wanted to hear about President Trump.” She added: “I saw that the book was not selling, so I tried to talk about it.” — The National Pulse
Our Take: “This civil case, and many others, raise important questions about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which are governed by Congress and have been weaponized by uniparty leftists to persecute their political opposition. It’s a matter of public record that leftists have been packing key judicial roles — Judges, AGs, DAs — with activists. They’ve also been relaxing standards and lowering thresholds within the rules. That Ms. Carroll could obtain her decision from Kaplan, without so much as a date of the alleged act, is a red flag about the current legal landscape.
The woman who named her cat vagina, finds rape ‘sexy,’ and published unreported and unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump — for which he was inexplicably found liable — has admitted that, ‘The journalists wanted to hear about President Trump. I saw that the book was not selling - so I tried to talk about it.’
This admission should be enough to overturn the prior ruling on appeal. It probably won’t, but the American People can definitely see that it should be.” —
Scoop: Bill Barr's law firm adds Pat Cipollone, other Trump veterans
The Torridon Group — a law and consulting firm founded by former Attorney General William Barr and former Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot — is adding a team of new lawyers, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsels Pat Philbin and Kate Todd.
Driving the news: Barr told Axios the firm, based in Virginia, will add a Washington office now that it's equipped to take on "every facet of litigation, regulatory and enforcement proceedings, investigations, crisis management, and strategic counseling."
Why it matters: Barr said Torridon lawyers have the perfect mix of public and private experience for complicated, high-stakes matters. But he said it's still a "smaller boutique firm that can give individual attention at reasonable rates."
What's happening: Also joining Torridon are Tara Helfman and John Coghlan, as partners; Chase Harrington and Kyle West, as associates; plus former White House counsel Fred Fielding and former acting Drug Enforcement Administration head Tim Shea, who'll be of counsel.
Zoom in: Cipollone was White House counsel during the final two years of the Trump administration. — Axios
Our Take: “Good News is all around us, as long as you cultivate the eyes to see it and the mind to discern it.
Narrative Deployments abound in a war named for the obfuscation and weaponization of information itself; and this goes both ways, with Deep State, intel agency actors AND patriots embedded all the way up and down the chain of every vector in the matrix.
Parsing Narratives is important, and is what I spend most of my time doing in the Info War, but Actuals are not impossible to find, despite outward appearance; in fact, the reason Actuals can be so difficult to recognize and codify is often owing to the fact they contradict many of the Narratives our own side advance.
For months, we've been discussing Narrative concepts ranging from Kayfabe to Seeding to Shielding. With these concepts in mind, the discerning, Truth-seeking mind is able to reconcile the appearance of 'Good Actuals' with 'Bad Narratives' about said actuals.
Trump Team 2.0 is going to look a lot like Trump Team 1.0.” —
Maine judge delays decision on removing Trump from ballot until Supreme Court rules in Colorado case
A Maine judge on Wednesday put on hold a decision on former President Donald Trump’s ballot status to allow time for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a similar case in Colorado.
Trump’s lawyers appealed in state court when Secretary of State Shenna Bellows removed the Republican front-runner from the presidential primary ballot but then asked the judge to pause proceedings to allow the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the Colorado case, which could render the lawsuit moot.
Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy concluded she lacked authority to stay the judicial proceedings but she wrote that she did have authority to send the case back to the secretary of state with instructions to await the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court case before withdrawing, modifying or upholding her original decision.
In her decision, the judge said that the issues raised in the Maine case mirror the issues raised in the Colorado case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She wrote that her decision “minimizes any potentially destabilizing effect of inconsistent decisions and will promote greater predictability in the weeks ahead of the primary election.” — AP News
Our Take: “Maine took a different path, but ended up in the same place as Colorado. President Trump remains on the primary ballot in Maine, which will take place on Super Tuesday.
’Put simply, the United State Supreme Court’s acceptance of the Colorado case changes everything,’ Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy wrote on Wednesday.
Maine is up against its ballot printing deadline, which is critical path for ensuring uniformed and overseas voters can cast their ballots to be counted on March 5. SCOTUS has scheduled arguments for February 8, meaning, like Colorado, President Trump will appear on the primary ballot in Maine.
More simply, all this theater was frivolous impact law intended to interfere in an election, and expand and advance the insurrection narrative.
It is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will uphold the Colorado decision to remove President Trump from the ballot. Legal minds are divided on whether they will address the matter of insurrection — but it’s become more likely since Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold officially urged the court to explicitly address whether J6 was an insurrection.
I agree with the Secretary (gasp!) that the court needs to address the matter of insurrection. It’s all about the insurrection because it wasn’t an insurrection, and the high court needs to make it official.” —
Putin says past U.S. elections were rigged
Russian President Vladimir Putin, running for a new six-year term in an election that his opponents say is a parody of democracy, said on Tuesday that past U.S. elections had been rigged by postal voting.
"In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting ... they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that's it," Putin said, without providing evidence.
Putin's opponents say the March election in Russia is no real contest as the president wields unchallenged power and his main rival, Alexei Navalny, is serving more than 30 years in jail on charges that Navalny says were trumped up.
They say the use of electronic voting creates scope for authorities to manipulate the vote in Putin's favour without detection. — Reuters
Our Take: “The enemy matrix is reconfiguring itself in the early days of 2024 by inverting previously-held and foundational stances from the entirety of the Biden era: namely, that election systems worldwide are safe and secure, despite sovereign-minded claims to the contrary.
Now, they're front-running seemingly-inevitable victories by figures they have publicly marked as 'threats to global democracy,' including Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, as well as the surging Alternative for Germany party by advancing the very claims they spent the better part of four years decrying.
If one were a wacky conspiracy loon, one might begin to get the impression that the enemy matrix has been trapped in a Mirror Dimension where they're now being forced to dismantle their own paradigms in full view of a waking Collective Mind.
The absurdity we're going to see throughout 2024 isn't a bug of the Info War or the Awakening, but a feature. And it's going to be fun to watch, if you've got the right perspective.” —
Biden administration relists Houthis as terror organization after reversing Trump move
President Biden will redesignate Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis as a terrorist group — three years after removing them from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list — in response to repeated attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea.
The Houthis will be placed on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, which will trigger sanctions designed to prevent further attacks on global trade in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, according to senior administration officials.
"These attacks are a clear example of terrorism and a violation of international law and a major threat to life, global commerce, and they jeopardize the delivery of humanitarian assistance," a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday.
The decision comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. The group said the attacks are in response to Israel's military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. On Tuesday, Houthi fighters launched anti-ship ballistic missiles from Yemen into the Red Sea. — FOX News
Our Take: “Short take for this one.
How many more times must we see something the Biden Admin did ostensibly to reverse a Trump Admin decision … only to then reverse THAT devision later on in full view of the American public, further codifying said Trump decision in the first place?
If one were a conspiracy loon, one might wonder who Joe Biden actually works for.
Oh … and it doesn’t get much more Devolution-y.” —
BONUS ITEMS
Raskin says GOP blocking border deal on ‘orders from Trump’
In a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) claimed Republicans are blocking a potential border bill from the Senate on “orders from” former President Trump.
“Rather than joining Democrats and Biden in good faith, bipartisan negotiations to make progress on immigration, they are taking orders from Donald Trump and actively obstructing a bipartisan border deal,” Raskin said.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly said over the weekend he would “absolutely not” accept the package. He signaled that the eventual border deal would be dead on arrival in the House, though Republican senators aren’t too worried about his refusal to pass their bill, The Hill previously reported.
While securing the border is Trump’s signature issue, any bill that is passed by Congress is likely to see pushback from the GOP front-runner.
Trump’s strength and support in the House continues to grow, and several strategists don’t think it’s likely he will bless a deal with the White House during the primary season. — The Hill
CDC Drafted Alert for Myocarditis and COVID-19 Vaccines, but Never Sent It
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prepared to alert state and local officials to an emerging connection between heart inflammation and COVID-19 vaccines, but ultimately did not send the alert, according to a new document obtained by The Epoch Times.
All four COVID-19 vaccines that are or have been available in the United States can cause the heart inflammation, or myocarditis, according to studies, experts, and agencies like the CDC. The first cases were reported shortly after the vaccines became available in late 2020.
The CDC sends alerts to federal, state, and local public health officials and doctors across the nation through a system called the Health Alert Network (HAN). Messaging through the system conveys “vital health information,” according to the CDC. — The Epoch Times
BlackRock Chief Warns Davos Elites: Trump Victory Poses ‘Fundamental’ Challenge to Europe
The prospect of a Donald Trump return to the White House in 2024 poses a “fundamental” challenge to Europe, the leader of the world’s largest investment company warned Tuesday.
The Daily Telegraph reports BlackRock vice chairman Philipp Hildebrand issued his caution from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
In doing so he added his voice to the swelling chorus from Europe that fears a Trump return to the world stage.
For his part, Hildebrand urged Europe to seize the opportunity to transform itself into a technological superpower that was less dependent on America. He added Europe’s capabilities on defence were “just not there” and required a rethink. Hildebrand said:
“I see it as an opportunity for the construction of Europe.
Clearly, if [Trump’s election] were to lead to a rupture, which I think is what President Lagarde has in mind as a risk, then that would challenge Europe fundamentally.” — Breitbart
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 lOve when it was stated Georgia flipped for Biden in 2020. RIGHT and I watched Georgia flip. Oh, a pipe burst all Republican poll watchers were chased out and then the suitcasers and boxes were pulled out from under the tables. Trump was too far ahead they had to pull out all the fake ballots. Brand new ballots never even put in envelopes. Thousands of new ballots for Biden. WOuldn't you think they would have put at least 10 of the fake ballots for Trump. Guess NOT. Georgia flipped alright whether it wanted to flip or not.
Amen BB: "The absurdity we're going to see throughout 2024 isn't a bug of the Info War or the Awakening, but a feature. And it's going to be fun to watch, if you've got the right perspective.” — Burning Bright"
NCSWIC
God Wins!
God Bless!!!