Badlands News Brief
Secrets of the Secret Service and Venezuelan PsyOps
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.
Now, onto the news from Tuesday, July 30 …
Acting Secret Service director grilled about Trump assassination attempt as new details emerge
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate faced a grilling from lawmakers about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.
The two officials testified before a Senate panel on Tuesday about security arrangements at the site and the status of ongoing investigations into what occurred both on July 13 and in the days leading up to the shooting.
New details have emerged about the shooting, including a potential social media account owned by the shooter and questions about when the Secret Service first saw the gunman on the roof. Officials have also confirmed, after the FBI director's ambiguous comments last week raised questions about what struck Trump, that the former president was hit by a bullet.
Rowe told lawmakers he was "ashamed" of the protection failures that day and said he visited the site of the shooting as one of his first acts as acting director.
"I went to the roof of the AGR building where the assailant fired shots and laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw made me ashamed," Rowe said in his opening statement. "As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured." — ABC News
Our Take: Inter-agency jurisdictional disputes are a feature of American law and order. In fact, such disputes often adorn the plot lines of the decades-long TV show “Law & Order.”
It’s a well known issue and not surprising — except when bureaucratic dysfunction leads to an assassination attempt on one of the most high value protectees under federal protective care. That is surprising and hard to believe.
Communication breakdowns, issues with radio interoperability, cellular issues, inadequate redundancies, and more were the center-point of the hearing. Acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe, Jr., along with Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate spent their Tuesday getting grilled by US Senators, detailing myriad failures against the known timeline of July 13.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) went hard at the communication failures. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) demanded 302s for all FBI interviews in the course of the investigation, and he railed that USSS did not memorialize encrypted communications on July 13.
WATCH:
Inexplicably, Abbate testified that the Bureau still doesn’t know how Crooks got a long gun onto the roof of a secured area under the protection of the USSS. Apparently, ‘idk’ is an acceptable answer for the top domestic investigative authority. Many such cases.
Democrats, as per usual, cried about gun violence and attempted to move the needle on mass disarmament. Yawn. Commies gonna commie. Shall not be infringed.
It’s unfortunate, but after four congressional hearings, there is still a chasm of uncertainty among the people who should absolutely know what happened. Plausible deniability, lessons learned, and a focus on the future ruled the two bureaucrats’ response under oath.
The greatest victim of bureaucratic dysfunction is public trust. —
Maduro Tells Brazil He'll Soon Release Ballot Records To World; Opposition Official Arrested
The Brazilian administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had as of Monday said he wouldn't congratulate Venezuela's Maduro for now following Sunday's election. "The Brazilian government welcomes the peaceful nature of yesterday's [Sunday's] elections in Venezuela and is following the counting process closely," a statement had said. Maduro has responded to the leftist leader, saying he'll release election data with full transparency to the world …
At this moment, no less than nine Latin American countries have yet to officially declare their recognition of Maduro's third term. The White House too has said its is "reviewing" what data that it can, and that there are "signs" that the official results don't "reflect the will of the people." It has called on the government not to repress protesters.
Meanwhile, opposition party Voluntad Popular announced Tuesday on X that its national coordinator Freddy Superlano has been detained by Maduro's security services. This is likely due to opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez still sticking by his declarations of victory and that the election was stolen.
The top military leadership and generals in Caracas have made clear in a televised address they are remaining loyal to the Maduro government. — ZeroHedge
And …
Maduro Election Victory Spells Trouble For Kamala Harris
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's disputed election victory spells trouble for Vice President Kamala Harris as the U.S.-Mexico border takes center stage in the race for the presidency.
The presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race faces difficult paths to navigate after Maduro was declared the winner on Sunday, most importantly because the result may lead to what one expert told Newsweek said was likely to be a surge in migration from Venezuelans fleeing his regime.
If that happens, Republican lawmakers who have branded Harris as Biden's "border czar"—a description seen by her supporters as inaccurate—may attempt to capitalize on her comments about Venezuela to further attack her record on immigration policy and border security, particularly as migrant numbers typically rise between August and October.
Other aspects of the Biden-Harris administration's policy toward Venezuela, which was an important oil supplier to the U.S. prior to sanctions as well as a source for rare earth elements crucial for emerging technologies, may also come under scrutiny. — Newsweek
And …
Maduro’s exit inevitable, says Venezuela opposition leader, as election protests grow
The opposition leader battling to bring the curtain down on Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime has urged the Venezuelan strongman to accept that his exit from power is inevitable. The call came as thousands of protesters hit the streets to repudiate Maduro’s disputed claim to have won a third term in power.
Venezuela’s incumbent president was officially proclaimed the victor of Sunday’s election by the government-controlled electoral authority on Monday morning.
Maduro called his supposed victory “irreversible” despite widespread international doubts over the veracity of his claim to have beaten the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and his campaigning partner, the conservative activist María Corina Machado.
Later on Monday, González and Machado said they could prove their victory after obtaining 73.2% of the voting tallies from polling stations – the official records that show the number of votes cast by the time each polling station closes.
Speaking to the Guardian, Machado urged the president to come to terms with the end of his 11-year rule, during which Venezuela fell into a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis that has forced millions to flee abroad. — The Guardian
Our Take: So, I see
seems to be the only other person on my feed questioning whether or not all of the worst people in the world cheering on something that has all the hallmarks of a color revolution is a signal that we might want to pump the brakes.Reverse indicators abound when it comes to the current Venezuela narrative cycle, and no, that doesn’t mean I’m confidently defending Maduro or saying the elections were or have been legitimate up until now.
It can simultaneously be true that large scale election fraud being in the news cycle is a net positive in terms of narrative seeding AND that globalist interests have been moving against Venezuela for the last few years.
When violent criminal gang leaders post social media videos proudly proclaiming power to the people, you need to check your underlying premises and consider whether or not we’re seeing attempted regime change on behalf of the worst regime of them all.
Then again, the internet wouldn’t lie to you, would it?
In the first paragraph alone, the Globalists at The Guardian referred to Nicolas Maduro as an "authoritarian regime leader," a "Venezuelan strongman" and called his election victory a "disputed claim" while lionizing his opposition in subsequent paragraphs.
Similarly, Newsweek is saying Maduro's win is going to be bad for Kamala Harris because they are very, very confidently predicting (almost as if they know it for a certainty) a massive exodus of Venezuelans fleeing Maduro's rule and surging to the southern US border.
So, we've got the same Media Industrial Complex who demonized MAGA and Donald Trump for disputing the results of the 2020 election while referring to him as an "authoritarian regime leader" and "American strongman" now confidently proclaiming the Venezuelan election to be stolen, before laying the groundwork for the (totally not) color revolution there to make its way north just in time for our own elections in November.
This is a trial run. Exercise discernment. —
Israel tried to frustrate US lawsuit over Pegasus spyware, leak suggests
The Israeli government took extraordinary measures to frustrate a high-stakes US lawsuit that threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets about one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest.
Israeli officials seized documents about Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in an effort to prevent the company from being able to comply with demands made by WhatsApp in a US court to hand over information about the invasive technology.
Documents suggest the seizures were part of an unusual legal manoeuvre created by Israel to block the disclosure of information about Pegasus, which the government believed would cause “serious diplomatic and security damage” to the country.
Pegasus allows NSO clients to infect smartphones with hidden software that can extract messages and photos, record calls and secretly activate microphones. NSO’s clients have included both authoritarian regimes and democratic countries and the technology has been linked to human rights abuses around the world.
Since late 2019, NSO has been battling a lawsuit in the US brought by WhatsApp, which has alleged the Israeli company used a vulnerability in the messaging service to target more than 1,400 of its users in 20 countries over a two-week period. NSO has denied the allegations. — The Guardian
Our Take: I know I'm doing a lot of Israel stories at the moment, but I do feel that Israel is being saved for last for a reason...
I haven't yet had a chance to dig deep on the other major geopolitical development—Venezuela—though at first glance, I tend to agree with the musings of
and . Time will tell.This story is very interesting, and has largely gone under the radar, being drowned out by last week's Netanyahu speech, his subsequent meeting with Trump, and now the IDF rape story.
For those who don't know, Pegasus is the software that allows governments to access your cellphone's microphone, camera, and all data at any time. It was developed by NSO Group—an Israeli cybersecurity firm that was founded in 2010 by a group that includes Niv Carmi, a former Mossad intelligence operative. The Pegasus software itself is relatively new, having only been launched in 2016.
What may make this story particularly interesting is that the lawyer defending NSO Group is... Rod Rosenstein. (Remember him?)
Allow me to jog your memory: Rosenstein became Deputy Attorney General in April 2017, remaining in that position until May 2019, throughout Russiagate.
"The Israeli government took extraordinary measures to frustrate a high-stakes US lawsuit that threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets about one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest.
At one stage, one of NSO’s lawyers, Rod Rosenstein, a former US deputy attorney general in the Trump administration, appears to have asked one of Israel’s US lawyers whether the Israeli government would “come to the rescue” in the legal battle with WhatsApp."
As the article details, Rosenstein asked the Israeli government to "rescue" NSO Group from this lawsuit, and it absolutely complied. This just highlights the precarious relationship between the Israeli government and its corporate partners... because Israel is a national-socialist (fascist) state, even more-so than the United States federal government.
The real question is, what interest does the Israeli government have in protecting NSO Group's internal documents? Could it be that the Israelis has been illegally acquiring all of the data that its corporate partner's software (Pegasus) has been stealing from individuals and foreign governments? This is pure speculation, but not unfounded, given Israel's history of underhanded tactics... such as the creation of Jeffery Epstein. —
Poll Finds Majority Of Americans Want Biden Out Of The White House Now!
A Rasmussen poll has found that a majority of Americans want Joe Biden to resign the presidency with immediate effect.
The poll found that 76 percent of likely voters approve of Biden stepping down from seeking another term, with just 18 percent of voters not approving of the decision.
However, the poll also reveals that 52 percent of Americans also believe that Biden is not capable of finishing his term and needs to go now, even though that would mean president Kamala.
Respondents were also asked “Will Joe Biden be remembered by most Americans as a great president, a good president, a bad president, or the worst president ever?”
The most popular response was “the worst president ever,” with 29 percent selecting this option. That is almost a third of Americans.
A further 21 percent said he would be remembered as a bad president, meaning half of respondents view his presidency as one of the worst in history.
Meanwhile, whoever is in charge of Biden’s X account still doesn’t understand how angry Americans are at the absolute state Biden has left the country in. — Modernity News
Our Take: In a matter of weeks, we’ve gone from Biden being the most qualified candidate to beat Donald Trump, ‘sharp as a tack,’ a commanding world leader — to media organizations admitting that more than half the country (52%) believes scrotus has dementia. 76% are happy that he is no longer running, according to this poll.
Is public sentiment rapidly shifting, are narratives spectacularly crumbling, or is polling really just fake?
Now, to be fair, this is a Rasmussen Poll. Rasmussen has been relatively consistent on public opinion since 2020, showing the upward trend of awakening over the years.
But before dismissing this poll, consider that polling from NYT/Siena College released last week showed an even higher percentage: ‘87 percent of registered voters approved of his decision to drop out.’
If we are watching a movie, then the awakening of the people is the goal.
Accelerate. —
‘Deep moral deterioration’ being normalised in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The far-right mob attack on two Israel Defense Forces bases in support of soldiers accused of sexually torturing a detainee did not come out of the blue – the parallels to a 2016 incident were immediately obvious.
In March that year, Elor Azaria, an IDF soldier serving in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, calmly walked over to Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, an injured Palestinian knife attacker lying on the ground, and shot him in the head. A video of the killing released by a human rights group led to political uproar.
IDF commanders and many political figures, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned Azaria’s actions as a breach of the military’s ethical codes that must be prosecuted. But the right-wing reaction was swift and fierce. Polls suggested that more than half the Israeli public supported Azaria, and protests were held in his defence.
Both the political and military establishments in Israel have been willing to deny or turn a blind eye to the repeated allegations of torture at Sde Teiman
Netanyahu, playing to his base, appeared to change his mind: the prime minister went on to criticise his generals for investigating Azaria, and eventually joined calls for the soldier’s pardon. Azaria served nine months of an 14-month sentence for manslaughter, and was released in 2018 to a hero’s welcome.
A retaliatory rampage carried out by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian town of Huwara in February last year was another grim incident, as are continuing well-documented war crimes such as looting, and the burning of food supplies and homes by IDF soldiers in Gaza. — The Guardian
Our Take:
Yes, this is real life.
Israeli lawmakers are now not only debating whether or not raping male prisoners is super-based and redpilled, but are also directly participating in riots at military bases, demanding that these acts of sodomy be blessed by authorities.
I'm sure this news is shocking news for those who have not been paying close attention to Israeli politics, but fortunately, The Brief has been evaluating that situation for quite some time—so all of you should now understand that I wasn't merely grasping at straws or engaging in conjecture when I asserted that dangerous reprobates have taken over the Israeli government.
And who was at the center of the action? National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the same radicalized zealot who I have previously reported on as part of a number of stories, including being the defense lawyer for Benzion Gopstein—Ben-Gvir's mentor and the political leader who in 2015 called for the burning of churches and expulsion of Christians from the Holy Land. (The very reason Ben-Gvir had to defend him against criminal charges of incitement.)
Just so we're clear, it is the "religious fanatics" who are angry that the military police will not let their associates in the IDF rape these male prisoners. These fanatics embrace a form of Jewish Mysticism (read: magic) that really only came into existence in the past 800 years—making it younger than both Christianity and Islam. And while "Practical Kabbalah" (read: actual sorcery) was effectively prohibited as a practice among commoners, the elite of this movement believe that those measures do not apply to them. (The reason it was prohibited was because the mystics were worried that an inexperienced person wielding "divine magic" could unwittingly summon demons from the spirit realm... yes, this is what is actually written in their own words.)
I can't help but wonder how Christian Zionists are processing all of this. Because even if they don't believe my assertions regarding Jewish Mysticism (go read the Wikipedia—which only presents half of the story—for "Vilna Gaon," of whom Bibi Netanyahu claims to be a direct descendant) I can't imagine how they can reconcile the leaders of Netanyahu's government condoning the brutal raping of men—especially when the justification is that the victims are "sub-human."
Isn't that what the Nazis said about the Jews?
What would Jesus have to say about all of this?
That second question was rhetorical. What would Jesus do in this situation? Considering that He directly confronted the Jewish Establishment of His day—the Pharisees—and said that they were full of greed and wickedness, and did not serve God, only themselves, I think I can vividly imagine what He would have to say about all of this—but I have a very vivid imagination.
Even last night, I was still receiving messages from earnest Christians quoting scripture, asserting that anyone (me) who "attacked" (criticized) Israel would be cursed—as if this secular government in Tel Aviv is not just another rotten institution of man.
American Christians are in a very dangerous place right now, spiritually, because they are worshipping men on earth, in Israel, in open defiance of everything Jesus said. It is blasphemy, because it is idolatry in its most perverse form. (Worshipping living men—not just statues or trees.)
This is exactly why I told everybody to defect from the religious aspects of this situation back on October 7. I didn't say that because I reject the Biblical nature of this conflict, I said it because America has suffered intense psychological brainwashing operations throughout the latter half of the 20th century, at the hands of scumbags like John Singlaub (founding member of the CIA) and the Western Goals Foundation—which elevated other scumbags like Pat Robertson. If Pat were alive today, surely he would be telling all of you to sit down, shut up, and send the contents of your pocketbook to Israel. (Being that Pat was first cousins with my grandmother, I have first-hand knowledge of his true nature.)
Seek guidance from God—not the secular authorities in Tel Aviv—and you will find yourself on solid footing, both spiritually and morally. I expect things to get a lot darker and more obscene, in the days ahead. For now, it appears that a civil war is about to break out inside Bibi Netanyahu's cabinet—between military men like Yoav Gallant and Jewish Mystics like Itamar Ben-Gvir—and the crux of the issue is... the right to brutally rape male prisoners?
Jesus, take the wheel. —
BONUS ITEMS
Russia, adapting tactics, advances in Donetsk and takes more Ukrainian land
Russian forces have mounted an arc of attack in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, pushing through intense summer heat in a bid to extend Moscow’s steady territorial gains and capture the city of Pokrovsk, a key transit junction.
The offensive is underway as Ukraine continues to suffer from a shortage of soldiers and as election turmoil in the United States has set off new speculation that Kyiv may soon be forced to negotiate a surrender of lands.
After an influx of American weapons and money helped Ukraine blunt a renewed invasion of the northeastern Kharkiv region in May, preventing a major breakthrough and dashing Moscow’s hopes of surrounding Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian commanders have refocused their attention on the Donetsk region, perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top territorial goal.
The reinvasion of the Kharkiv region, while yielding limited gains, nonetheless diverted Ukrainian resources. Oleksandr, 30, a battalion commander of the 47th brigade, fighting near Ocheretyne, said that Ukrainian forces are struggling and that Putin’s prize increasingly seems within Russia’s reach.
“This strategy is clever: You try to concentrate the strength of your enemy in one direction and then distract them at another,” said Oleksandr, whose call sign is “Genius” and who is being identified only by first name in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.
“Their first objective is to destroy us,” he said. “The second is to push us so that they can get more leverage for peace talks and get more from us. They are almost at the point of capturing the Donetsk region.” — The Washington Post
Facebook Admits It 'Mistakenly' Censored Trump Assassination Attempt Photo
Facebook wrongly censored a photograph of former President Donald Trump raising his fist after surviving an assassination attempt, a company official said.
Facebook users shared screenshots showing that when they posted the photograph, they were told they had shared an “altered photo.”
“Independent fact-checkers reviewed a similar photo and said it was altered in a way that could mislead people,” the message stated.
“Facebook determined your post has the same altered photo and added a notice to the post.”
Users were also told that people who share false information might see their posts ranked lower in Facebook’s feed “so other people are less likely to see them.”
People took to social media platform X, a Facebook competitor, to complain about being warned despite sharing a legitimate photo without alteration.
Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman, acknowledged in an X post that the photo was being wrongly censored.
“This was an error. This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the Secret Service agents smiling, and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo,” she wrote.
“This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”
Facebook and other Meta-owned properties use a third-party fact-checking network that enables the company to “take action and reduce the spread of problematic content across our apps,” Meta says on its website.
Some conservatives said that the censorship should prompt lawmakers to question Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta. — The Epoch Times
Iran says Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said early Wednesday.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swear-in ceremony on Tuesday. Iran gave no details on how Haniyeh was killed, and the Guard said the attack was under investigation.
Analysts on Iranian state television immediately began blaming Israel for the attack.
Israel itself did not immediately comment but it often doesn’t when it comes to assassinations carried out by their Mossad intelligence agency.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House. The apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as the Biden administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
CIA Director Bill Burns was in Rome on Sunday to meet with senior Israel, Qatari and Egyptian officials in the latest round of talks. Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is in the region for talks with U.S. partners. — AP News
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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“The greatest victim of bureaucratic dysfunction is public trust.” — Ashe in America
The needle slowly slowly moves, after the magnetic disturbance of decades of distrust by the American public through an underhanded skewing of our moral compass…slowly aligning with our true north values in fair Justice and accountability. MAGA
Pegasus…here I drift off into a lovely daydream of a beautiful magestic mighty stallion of grace and strength, soaring through the sky on powerful wings, hooves sounding like thunder…to soar above the mundane to ride the winds of inspiration, the boundless possibilities of creative thought…Oh dear…back to earth…we are discussing the Trojan horse of spyware, hidden in the beauty of an ancient myth. Like [they] often do, stealing a symbol to cloak their secrets,
“repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.” (Thank you, JFK) and secret spyware.
Thanks for your Takes, Ghost 🙏❤️
FINALLY! Someone admitting that Israel is not perfect! Phew, took a while:) Now I am far behind in my Badlands reading, but Ghost's piece today was the first I've seen giving a full throated tirade against something, anything! going on in Israel. My Take: God clearly stated that if Israel did not follow HIM, they would be punished. I have yet to see one single tiny suggestion that October might have been such a thing. I am not brave enough to be the first.