The news cycle is impossible to fully track these days. That’s where we come in. The Badlands News Brief is a uniquely curated selection of the stories dominating the info war — with context and commentary from Badlands hosts.
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US special envoy Steve Witkoff sought to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire last week that would halt fighting in the Ukraine conflict along the current frontlines, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources. Putin maintained a firm stance during the lengthy meeting, the sources said.
The discussions on Friday marked the latest in a series of contacts between Moscow and Washington in recent months. Witkoff, seen as a key figure in kickstarting negotiations on the Ukraine conflict, has held multiple rounds of talks with senior Russian officials, including at least three meetings with Putin.
People familiar with the process told Bloomberg on Tuesday that Putin insisted any viable peace deal must include formal recognition of the four former Ukrainian regions that joined Russia after referendums in 2022.
Moscow has long said it is open to negotiations but maintains that the status of Crimea – which joined Russia in 2014 – and the four other regions is not up for discussion. Moscow insists that recognition of the “reality on the ground” is vital for a lasting peace. — RT
Ukraine could face a significant defeat in the near future if it does not sit down at the negotiating table with Russia, US President Donald Trump has warned.
Trump made his comments in an interview with The Atlantic published on Monday. When asked whether he has sympathy for Kiev, the president replied by saying that his policy is aimed at “saving” Ukraine and warned that continued conflict would not bring the country any good.
“I think I’m saving that nation. I think that nation will be crushed very shortly,” he said, adding that Russia has a “big war machine. Let’s face it.” Separately, US Vice President J.D. Vance also emphasized on Monday that Kiev would not win the conflict against Moscow. — RT
Our Take: "Last week, Axios reported that Washington had presented Kiev with what US President Donald Trump described as a “final offer” to end the conflict. Under the proposal, the US is said to be prepared to grant “de jure” recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, and unofficially acknowledge Moscow’s “de facto” control over the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye.
Vladimir Zelensky’s subsequent declaration that Kiev would never recognize Crimea as Russian prompted a warning from Trump that he risked losing his whole country if he continued stalling talks with Moscow."
I love how much Steve Witkoff and his team trigger the establishment shills and ConInc wannabe's. All it takes is meeting somebody like Vladimir Putin or the Iranians face-to-face, and Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro are flinging fecal matter at the wall like ornery primates at the zoo.
Then you have comments like this one coming from President Trump:
“I think I’m saving that nation (Ukraine). I think that nation will be crushed very shortly,” he said, adding that Russia has a “big war machine. Let’s face it.”
Let's check in on Levin.
Is this jackaloon talking about me? Am I "the enemy within" because I objectively view Vladimir Putin — the only world leader aside from Donald Trump who has stood up for the Christian Church over the past 25 years — as a good guy?
You know who I think the real fifth-columnists are in America? The people who would have us blindly follow Israel and Ukraine into wars that everybody knows they can't win. Those people — like Mark Levin — are extremely dangerous. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
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Top Democratic funding negotiators in the House and Senate on Tuesday published a tracker they say is aimed at documenting federal funding blocked under President Trump, while accusing his administration of targeting at least $430 billion in funds. […]
The tracker was compiled by Democratic appropriations staff and details what the offices say is the “minimum amount” of funds believed to be frozen, cancelled or that the Trump administration is fighting to block in court.
It so far highlights 114 programs that Democrats say have seen their funds frozen, cancelled or terminated in the president’s first 100 days in office.
Democrats acknowledged the tracker listed some programs that the Trump administration has been ordered to release in cases where Trump officials are “actively fighting in court to block it.”
They noted in a release that “any relief provided by the courts at this stage is only temporary” and that there were instances where federal funds were still inaccessible to “intended recipients even when ordered by a court to do so.” — The Hill
Our Take: Bring on the impoundment fight. The Uniparty knows it can't win that fight. They admit that any freeze by the courts would be temporary.
The President has (and must have) the authority to defund the agencies and operations of the Executive Branch, over which he has total plenary authority. He can also stop their work and fire every employee. That must happen across the board, as fast as reasonably possible. — Chris Paul
President Donald Trump has done more good for the United States in his first 100 days in the White House than Joe Biden did in four years.
Yet, much of the mainstream news media, chock full of journalists with a leftist bias, portrays the Trump presidency as a chaotic disaster. Trump has been smeared, scorned and labeled an authoritarian. If the news is any indication, America is already in steep decline because of Trump's first 100 days.
But I want to show a different side of what we've seen unfold since Jan. 20 as Trump moves at an extraordinary pace to implement policies that 77.3 million Americans voted for in November. Those measures will in time improve our lives and strengthen our nation. […]
Democrats have become the party of the status quo, and the status quo has respected financial experts forecasting economic disaster for the United States if we don't cut the deficit and slow the growth of the national debt. — USA Today
Our Take: The first 100 days have been a multi-layered, perhaps even multi-dimensional TRAP for the Deep State regime, and they've fallen right into it.
As I tried to come up with a way to condense the kaleidoscopic micros into one overarching macro in the current chapter of the Info War, the Shadow War and the War of Stories, that was the one that just kept bubbling up to the fore.
Let's explore it a bit:
No doubt you've seen Trump and team making the victory rounds this week to celebrate the First 100 days, an entirely arbitrary and yet, strangely meaningful inflection point on which many presidential terms start out. While it's not ALWAYS the case, it can be argued that the First 100 Days sets the tone not just in terms of what the American people can expect from their president, but what the President can expect from the people he's been elected to represent.
Among the long line of items Trump and team have been signal boosting are a successful and immediate crackdown on US border security, the beginnings of a direct and effective Eisenhower model purge of illegal criminal aliens infecting our society, the many Actuals (and FAR more Narratives) that have come out of the Department of Government Efficiency, whose many-colored genies can never be put back in their respective bottles, and, of course, the beginnings of a Sovereign Trade War that I have been arguing is merely the thin Narrative veneer covering a long-planned and long-needed reset of the American and global financial system.
And yet, that last point is undoubtedly the most contentious ... if you're listening to the establishment talking heads, various heads of state ... hell, the entire western hegemon, and even some of the members of what I have dubbed the Sovereign Alliance as they spar with Trump's absolute blitzkrieg to kick off what we're told is going to be a new American Golden Age.
So, why am I saying it's a TRAP?
Because Donald Trump and his team KNOW that the Trade War and said economic reset are far from finished, they KNOW that the net effects of the current period of chaotic (and yet, entirely planned) decoupling will be rocky, and they KNOW that the end state is going to result in the very Golden Age setup that Trump first promised shortly after he came down that golden escalator all those years ago; that the most infamous information dissemination program of all time doubled down on in the years that followed; and that the Biden Regime cultivated mass public mandate for before Trump's (public) return.
You see, from where I'm sitting, Trump isn't taking premature victory laps because he thinks we've won. It's because he knows we're going to ... and on the back of the very deployments and First Principles, America First tactics and Sovereign Solutions the enemy (be they media shills, Con Inc. charlatans or fake presidents the western world over) are doubling down on opposing.
Trump is drawing a line of demarcation between the past and the future.
U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba today announced the creation of a federal task force to preserve and protect the integrity of elections conducted in the District of New Jersey.
The task force, which has been named the Election Integrity Task Force, will consist of a team of federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, who will work in conjunction with law enforcement officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other federal agencies to implement the directives set forth in the President’s March 25, 2025 Executive Order concerning elections. […]
U.S. Attorney Habba emphasized that we and our federal partners are committed to ensuring the integrity of elections here in the District of New Jersey and making sure that the administration of all elections is in compliance with federal law. — US Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey
Our Take: The statement says the new Election Integrity Task Force’s objectives will include:
“Facilitating information sharing between federal, State, and local officials to enhance the ability of election officials to efficiently and effectively remove individuals who are not eligible to vote from State voter lists.” This sounds like reverse ERIC. I wonder if the feds took control of ERIC? Dare to dream — those databases and codebases are an active crime scene.
“Prioritizing the investigation and prosecution of election crimes, including but not limited to, federal statutes that prohibit voter registration fraud, casting of fraudulent ballots, voting by non-citizens, individuals voting multiple times in same election, and foreign interference caused by foreign nationals contributing or donating funds to United States elections.” ALL OF THIS. We have fake voters, fake ballots, fake donations, and foreign interference. We’re missing fake counts but this but that’s a whole other EO.
“Taking appropriate steps to ensure compliance with the voter list maintenance requirements of the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.” This is huge. Cleaning the voter rolls of fake voters limits the number of fake ballots that are naturally in the wild during the election event. Inflated rolls are critical path for the election fraud machine.
The only irritating bit is the limited jurisdiction: “to preserve and protect the integrity of elections conducted in the District of New Jersey.”
What about the rest of us?
This Friday on Why We Vote, @canncon and I are airing the second half of David Becker’s EIEO Meltdown. It was a lot of fun, and you should tune in.
Next week, we already have a lot to discuss, including this new taskforce. (Which will result in indictments if the taskforce’s investigation is done properly.) — Ashe in America
US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz has called for proper oversight of the financial assistance Washington provides to Kiev. In a Monday interview with Fox News, the top state official called Ukraine one of the most corrupt nations in the world.
The US Congress has authorized roughly $175 billion for Ukraine since 2022, although a significant portion of that funding has gone to American industries and government activities related to the conflict.
Waltz’s comment comes days after US President Donald Trump held a face-to-face conversation with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican.
“I will say Ukraine was one of, and is one of, the most corrupt countries in the world,”Waltz said, highlighting that Washington has to “always guard the taxpayer dollars.”
The official also rebuked the administration of Trump’s predecessor for its failure to provide proper oversight of the way Kiev was spending the financial aid provided by the White House at the time. — RT
Our Take: LOL Mike Waltz just shiv'd all of his establishment Republican colleagues in the back.
Yes, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt — if not THE most corrupt (one could argue that distinction belongs to the government of the USA) — countries in the world, and the Uniparty Establishment in DC has used that to their advantage to launder and steal billions of dollars from the American People.
"Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch reported last November that “corruption continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations,” particularly due to multiple scandals in the Defense Ministry."
We need to investigate every member of Congress for their financial ties to Ukraine (and other places), particularly those who voted YES to send hundreds of billions of dollars there. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
A recent interview with former Bush administration official Catherine Austin Fitts, offered a sharp critique of America’s ruling class and the legal system, alleging that both played a central role in the nation's economic and institutional decline.
Speaking with Tucker Carlson on his independent media platform, Catherine Fitts pulled no punches. According to her, a devastating shift unfolded during the 1990s, one that saw America’s political, corporate, and legal elites abandon national interests in favor of their own financial gain.
"It wasn’t an accident," Fitts said. "It was a decision. A decision to strip the country of its assets, hollow out its communities, and leave ordinary Americans to deal with the wreckage." — Lawyer Monthly
Our Take: Tucker Carlson, arguably one of the biggest podcasts in the world, talked about:
- deep underground bases
- trillions of missing govt. dollars
- free energy ("breakthrough")
- secret space programs
- & magnetic pole flips
with Catherine Austin Fitts.
This may be his most important interview to date. — Jordan Sather
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore $12 million that Congress appropriated for Radio Free Europe, a pro-democracy media outlet at risk of going dark for the first time in 75 years.
US District Judge Royce Lamberth also tucked a lesson on the three branches of government inside Tuesday’s ruling, cautioning that the system of checks and balances established by the US Constitution must remain intact if the nation is going to continue to thrive. […]
“In interviews, podcasts, and op-eds, people from both inside and outside government have variously accused the courts — myself included — of fomenting a constitutional crisis, usurping the Article II powers of the Presidency, undercutting the popular will, or dictating how Executive agencies can and should be run,” wrote Lamberth, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
Those notions reflect a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the role of the federal judiciary and of the Constitution itself, he said. — CNN
Our Take: Okay, commie. Good luck with that. — Chris Paul
Hungary is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), its government has announced. A senior official in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government confirmed this hours after Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in Hungary for a state visit.
Orban had invited Netanyahu as soon as the warrant was issued last November, saying the ruling would have "no effect" in his country.
In November, ICC judges said there were "reasonable grounds" that Netanyahu bore "criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu has condemned the ICC's decision as "antisemitic".
The ICC, a global court, has the authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Hungary is a founding member of the ICC, which counts 125 member states, and will be the first European Union nation to pull out of it. A withdrawal has no impact on ongoing proceedings. — BBC
Our Take: I love this development. This is a perfect example of the Sovereign Alliance "drafting" off of the momentum of the Globalist Hegemony, the same way that a race car drafts off of the car in front of it during a NASCAR race.
The International Criminal Court — which was established by George Soros at the Hague in 2002 — is a totally illegitimate entity that has no jurisdiction or authority to issue criminal indictments, though that is exactly what it does.
Regardless of how you feel about the Israel/Gaza situation (my own views are well documented on this platform), we can all agree that watching countries revolt against the ICC and United Nations is a strong signal that the future world will be a multipolar order, not a one-world government. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry
President Donald Trump played some of his greatest hits Tuesday evening at a rally in Macomb County. His diehard supporters followed most every word.
Why It Matters: The president was in Michigan to celebrate the first 100 days of his second term, which he described to supporters at Macomb Community College in Warren as "the most successful 100 days in the history of our nation."
Before his speech, Trump arrived on Air Force One Tuesday afternoon at Selfridge Air National Guard Base to tout his announcement of the acquisition of 21 F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets. He was joined by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. — Newsweek
Our Take: This article is hilarious. The headline says “What rallygoers say” and the rallygoers collectively say, “THIS IS WHAT I VOTED FOR!” The one person at the rally that they could find to speak ill of the president was a protester that was escorted out by security.
Panicked, Newsweek then turns to polling data and punditry to reinforce that Trump’s support really is slipping, even though they can’t find a Trump supporter to support their position.
Wishful thinking.
This is exactly what I voted for. Best First 100 Days ever!
One more thing: Whitmer is moderating, and she’s now doing public appearances with President Trump.
Ongoing humiliation ritual or shrew(d) political calculus? — Ashe in America
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended a judge accused of helping an illegal migrant evade ICE authorities. The highest court in the state said Tuesday that it was in the public interest to relieve Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan of her duties as she faces two federal charges.
The FBI took Dugan into custody Friday morning at the county courthouse on charges of concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest and obstructing or impeding a proceeding.
Dugan is accused of escorting the migrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, and his lawyer out of the courtroom through the jury door on April 18 as a way to help avert his arrest by ICE, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.
Ruiz, who is from Mexico, had been charged with battery for allegedly punching someone 30 times in the face after they complained about his loud music. – Daily Mail
A Georgia family that was traumatized by FBI agents mistakenly raiding their home with flash bang grenades and firearms is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow them to sue, circumventing typical immunity protections awarded to federal employees.
Curtrinia “Trina” Martin, her seven-year-old son Gabe and her then-fiancé Hillard “Toi” Cliatt were peacefully sleeping in their home just before dawn on October 18, 2017, when masked FBI agents battered down their front door and let off flash bang grenades.
Martin, naked from the waist down, was held at gunpoint by agents in her walk-in closet and kept away from Gabe, who was cowering under his bedsheets, “terrified”. Cliatt was dragged across the floor and handcuffed while several agents circled him with firearms.
It wasn’t until an FBI agent asked Cliatt to repeat the address of the house that it became clear the ordeal was a mistake. – The Independent
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Is Hungary in the East or the West? I think the answer is perfectly either or neither. Orban has been showcasing his country as a model for the future; sparklingly clean picturesque and moral. Respectable standing for others to follow, as they know it is preferable to be on the side of righteousness.
Not surprised about Levin. He is showing his ignorance or possibly true color. Never did trust him.
Is Hungary in the East or the West? I think the answer is perfectly either or neither. Orban has been showcasing his country as a model for the future; sparklingly clean picturesque and moral. Respectable standing for others to follow, as they know it is preferable to be on the side of righteousness.