[ShabelleMedia] This morning, an explosion struck a house in Beledweyne, the capital of the Hiran region, where government officials, leading traditional elders, and other military officers were having a meeting on the Al-Shabaab war.
According to eyewitnesses, a vehicle laden with explosives targeted the front gate of the house, located in the Howlwadaag neighborhood. This was followed by a direct assault by armed militants who breached the building.
Government forces engaged in fierce fighting with the attackers, who, after entering the building, began shooting those inside. The house was reportedly hosting a meeting about the ongoing battle against Al-Shabaab militants in the region.
The attendees were primarily elders and military officials.
The meeting focused on efforts to combat Al-Shabaab in Hiran, with the Macwisley militia and Somali government forces recently resuming operations in the region after a months-long lull.
Updates will follow as more information becomes available.
[Garowe] Resilient Puntland forces seized an ISIS militants training camp within the state, authorities confirmed, in the latest significant development, which comes at the time the country is making huge strides in the fight against violent extremist groups.
According to the Puntland counterterrorism operations centre, the sniper training camp was discovered at the top of Cal-Miskaad mountains where the military has camped for the last two months, engaging the militants who had established several bases.
The sniper training camp helped the group prepare adequately — thus its capture perhaps highlights the positive progress by the military teams. For the last two months, the Operation Lightning has reflected the potential of local troops in the fight against terrorism.
Reports further indicate that the training camp was located in Dibi-Ganuun area of the Calmiskaad mountains, where intense fighting between the terrorists and the military has been recorded. Previously, a weapon manufacturing factory was seized within the vicinity.
The successful operation resulted in the capture of military supplies and food stockpiles belonging to the terrorists, officials said. Further details on casualties and the scope of the seized materials were not immediately available to the media.
Elsewhere, Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni warned against politicizing national security, emphasizing the need for unity to defeat terrorist groups in Somalia. The Puntland leader has been on the frontlines supporting local troops in the fight against ISIS.
With ISIS capacity annihilated in the north, the major focus is elsewhere in the country, especially in Middle Shabelle where the al-Shabaab militants have reigned terror on innocent civilians and members of the Somali National Army (SNA).
Somalia heavily depends on the US Africa Command and the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) for the execution of sophisticated military activities in the country. Shortly, the foreign troops shall hand over military responsibilities to the SNA.
[Garowe] An Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... coordinated by the Somali National Army (SNA) destroyed al-Shabaab ... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... 's makeshift bridge, officials said, noting the significance of the target, which was being used by the group to connect many areas in middle regions.
According to officials, the al-Shabaab fighters used the bridge as the link within central regions, making movements easier in the Middle Shabelle region where an intense operation is taking place following new infiltration into the region by the holy warriors.
The strike also killed Death Eaters and destroyed vehicles, according to the statement. In recent months, intense fighting has been witnessed in central Somalia after the local military and international partners activated operations on the frontlines.
Somali intelligence officials also believe that the al-Shabaab attack on Bal’ad town on Feb 27 was a decoy as the Death Eaters were transporting a large number of fighters in the vicinity of Yaaqle to move north into the Middle Shabelle region where fighting has been intense recently.
Last month, the local media reported that with support from African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops from Burundi, Somali government forces fought back and removed al-Shabaab fighters who entered Balad earlier this morning. Multiple casualties have been reported.
To neutralize the holy warriors, the US Africa Command together with the federal government of Somalia, have frequently launched airstrikes within the central regions as a wider strategy to neutralize the al-Shabaab, a group fighting painfully to dislodge the federal government.
Al-Shabaab's capacity has been significantly neutralized following sustained military operations, but the group can still wage small-scale sporadic attacks — usually targeting security forces, senior government officials, and innocent civilians.
The Somali National Army has heavily relied on backup from the US Africa Command and the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) but the regions have drastically reduced their presence ahead of the much anticipated exit.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it struck a number of individuals who were on their way to meet a drone being sent from Israel into the Gaza Strip.
According to the military, the IDF was tracking the drone on its journey and carried out an airstrike on suspects who were on their way to receive the drone in southern Gaza.
A similar incident occurred on Saturday.
In recent weeks, there have been several attempts to smuggle contraband into the Gaza Strip, with the IDF saying suspects on the Israeli side load up drones with weapons or drugs and fly them over the border.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it identified several terror operatives attempting to plant a bomb near troops in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya neighborhood earlier today.
Troops deployed in the area opened fire on the operatives, hitting some of them, the military says.
In a separate incident, the IDF says it spotted three terror operatives trying to plant a bomb near troops in central Gaza, close to Nuseirat. An Israeli Air Force drone targeted the three.
Israeli forces are still deployed to a buffer zone along the Gaza border amid the ceasefire, and the IDF has repeatedly warned Palestinians against approaching the area.
[IsraelTimes] Police say two Palestinians from the West Bank city of Nablus have been arrested on suspicion of receiving funds from Hamas to finance terror activities.
According to the statement, the two contacted Hamas operatives abroad with the aim of obtaining funds to finance terrorist activity in the West Bank.
Police say the sums of $35,200 and NIS 33,000 (approximately $9,000) were seized. The money was received via bank transfers.
The two were arrested within the last month as part of an operation with the Shin Bet, police say.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF Military Police has launched investigations into at least six cases where troops operating in the Gaza Strip used Palestinians as human shields, Haaretz reports.
There have been several reports amid the war of soldiers sending detained Palestinians to search buildings and tunnels before troops did, endangering their lives.
The IDF confirms the Haaretz report, saying: “The IDF acts in accordance with international law and military values. The IDF’s instructions clearly prohibit the use of human shields or forcing people to participate in military missions. The protocols and guidelines on the subject were routinely clarified for soldiers on the ground during the war. Claims of conduct that do not meet the guidelines and protocols are examined.”
The military says that “in several cases, investigations by the Military Police Investigatory Unit were opened after suspicion arose of [troops] using Palestinians for military missions during the fighting. Investigations in these cases are ongoing, and naturally, they cannot be elaborated upon.”
[IsraelTimes] A Palestinian man from Jenin who was in Israel illegally stole a vehicle and crashed it into a checkpoint outside an IDF base in central Israel before being arrested, police say.
The suspect, described by police as being in his 20s, stole a car from the Tel Aviv area and moderately wounded a man in his 20s when he crashed it into a barrier next to the Tzrifin IDF base, south of Ben Gurion Airport.
Police say that officers pursued the vehicle until the man was apprehended in Ramle, not far from the base.
According to a report in the Ynet news site, the suspect crashed through the checkpoint and drove inside the base for several minutes before returning to the checkpoint and hitting the young man. Despite this he was still not apprehended until after he had left the base.
Ynet identified the wounded Israeli as an IDF soldier, and said he was taken to a hospital for treatment.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it has launched a manhunt after a Palestinian hurled a stone at an Israeli vehicle near the West Bank town of Udala, lightly wounding an infant.
The incident occurred on a section of the Route 60 highway that was built to bypass the flashpoint town of Huwara.
According to medics, the stone struck the windshield, sending glass shards that hit a 2-month-old baby who was sitting in the front seat.
The driver headed to the nearby IDF Samaria Regional Brigade base, where the baby was treated by medics. She did not require hospitalization.
“Upon receiving the report, IDF soldiers were dispatched to the scene and began searching for the terrorist,” the military says.
[IsraelTimes] A Greek tanker set ablaze by Yemeni rebels with more than a million barrels of oil aboard has been safely towed through the Suez Canal, the waterway’s authority says.
“The oil tanker Sounion was successfully towed by four tugboats” through the Egyptian waterway and was now “heading to Greece,” Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie says in a statement.
The Sounion was attacked in the Red Sea last August by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, catching fire and losing power before its 25-member crew were rescued by a French frigate.
Its cargo could have created a catastrophic environmental disaster.
Had the Sounion broken up or exploded, it could have caused an oil spill four times larger than that caused by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 off Alaska, experts said at the time.
Houthis have attacked ships in the key commercial waterways of the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea with drones and missiles, saying they are targeting vessels linked to Israel, the United States and Britain.
[IsraelTimes] IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has canceled a decades-old practice where large portions of the military take time off at the same time, usually during the Jewish holidays.
The practice is known in the IDF as shutdown or hadmama in Hebrew. Entire bases or units would all go on breaks during the Jewish holidays and during the end of the summer, leaving skeleton crews to continue operations. Some non-essential units would close altogether during these breaks, which usually lasted several days.
The IDF was in such a shutdown period ahead of the October 7, 2023, onslaught, with many senior officers at home or on vacation, and only half the number of usual troops on the Gaza border.
Since the start of the war, there have been no such unit-wide vacations.
Deadly important lesson learned.
Zamir, during a conference with senior officers today, just days after entering the role, says that “there will be no more shutdowns in the IDF,” adding that there will still be usual furlough and vacation time, but not simultaneous by entire units.
Also during the conference, Zamir tells the officers that “2025 will be a year of war,” and that returning the hostages is one of the most important goals of the ongoing war.
After the IDF’s investigations into the October 7 onslaught and what led to it, Zamir says the IDF will establish a mechanism to also investigate the war itself and its numerous battles.
He also says that the IDF will allocate NIS 600 million to assist the families of fallen soldiers, career soldiers, and reservists.
[IsraelTimes] The military confirms overnight airstrikes in southern Syria, saying the Israeli Air Force hit “radar systems and detection equipment used to build an aerial intelligence picture,” along with “headquarters and military sites containing weapons and military equipment belonging to the Syrian regime in southern Syria.”
It says that “the presence of these assets in southern Syria poses a threat to the State of Israel and to IDF operations. These targets were attacked to eliminate future threats.”
[IsraelTimes] Trump envoy Adam Boehler tells Iraqi PM there will be political, economic repercussions if academic Elizabeth Tsurkov remains captive, Qatari paper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports
The US has warned Iraq’s prime minister that there will be consequences unless he ensures the release of kidnapped Russian-Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov, the Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... i newspaper al-Araby al-Jadeed reported Monday, citing two Iraqi officials.
The Trump administration threatened "political and economic consequences" if they did not resolve the issue, said the Qatari newspaper.
Iraq’s national security adviser said last week that authorities were actively searching for Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University and fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy who is believed to have been held by Islamist murderous Moslems since March 2023.
Israeli authorities have blamed the Iran-backed Iraqi terror group Kataeb Hezbollah, though no group has grabbed credit for her disappearance.
The two Iraqi officials told al-Araby al-Jadeed that the government is enlisting the help of Shiite politicians to secure Tsurkov’s release.
US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... ’s hostage envoy Adam Boehler has sent direct messages to Iraqi premier Mohammed Shia al-Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... i and "threatened a package of US punitive measures against Iraq, political and economic, if Tsurkov’s detention continued, and considered that the Iraqi government is responsible for returning her as soon as possible," one official said.
"Washington is now the negotiator for Tsurkov’s release, not Israel," said the other official, who sits on Iraq’s National Security Council. Iraq, the official said, sees the situation as "very embarrassing, due to the lack of response from any gang to the crisis."
Iraq "has been making real and important efforts in this case for months," insisted the official, "but the kidnappers are not responding in any way, and their goal is not the financial ransom, which makes the case difficult."
The officials spoke to the Qatari paper a day after US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told Sudani that the White House had let a waiver allowing Iraq to pay Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... for electricity lapse in order to maintain pressure on Tehran relating to its nuclear program. Iran supplies a third of Iraq’s gas and electricity, providing Tehran with substantial income.
Tsurkov, who had likely entered Iraq on her Russian passport, had traveled to the country as part of her doctoral studies after previously traveling to the country and other Arab countries in the region.
In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage video of Tsurkov known to the public since her kidnapping.
In the video, Tsurkov mentioned the war between Israel and Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, which raged after the Paleostinian terror group launched its October 7, 2023, onslaught.
[IsraelTimes] Ali Hamid, 33, struck a motorcyclist in Tel Aviv with his car, seriously wounding him, in a revenge attack after his cousin shot at a military post and was killed by troops
A Paleostinian man from the West Bank was sentenced on Monday to 17 years in prison, and ordered to pay NIS 30,000 ($8,300) in damages, for carrying out a ramming attack in Tel Aviv in December 2022 that left one person seriously maimed.
The Tel Aviv District Court convicted Ali Hamad, 33, of attempted murder in an act of terror, causing serious injury under aggravating circumstances, entering Israel illegally, and driving without a license, and ordered him to pay the damages to the attack’s victim.
The sentence came as part of a plea bargain, following a criminal mediation process.
On December 8, 2022, Hamad rammed his vehicle into a motorcyclist in Tel Aviv on the city’s Abarbanel Street, seriously wounding him; he then continued to drive, colliding with several other vehicles before he got stuck and was arrested by police.
"I looked up and saw a car accelerating in my direction," the motorcyclist, Gilad Tanami, told Hebrew media at the time, from his hospital bed, saying he’d been thrown up into the air.
"He continued driving with my cycle of violence under the vehicle for about 40 meters and then got stuck on a pole."
Hamad committed the attack with a car that had been taken off the road by police order due to damage from a crash, and was then illegally put back in use.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, he managed to drive into Israel from the West Bank with the unauthorized car, which had Israeli license plates.
Hamad carried out the attack a day after his cousin Majohed al-Najjar shot up an Israeli military post near the settlement of Ofra and was then chased and rubbed out by troops.
Hamad was on the way to his cousin’s funeral when he decided to carry out the attack, Walla reported.
[IsraelTimes] Deputy national security commissioner says suspects prepared explosives, then informed authorities with the aim of ‘changing their criminal status’
An alleged plan to attack a Sydney synagogue using a trailer packed with explosives was fabricated by an organized crime network in order to divert police resources, Australian authorities said Monday.
Police in January found explosives in a trailer, or caravan, that could have created a blast wave of 40 meters (130 feet), along with the address of a Sydney synagogue.
But officers said Monday that the discovery was part of a "criminal con job." The ease with which the trailer was found along with the lack of a detonator suggests there was never any intention to attack Jewish targets.
"The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit," Krissy Barrett, the Australian Federal Police’s deputy commissioner for national security, told a news conference.
"Almost immediately, experienced Sherlocks... believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorism plot — essentially a criminal con job," she said.
Out of an "abundance of caution," police followed up terrorism-related tipoffs over the purported plot rather than making public their belief that the information was fake, Barrett said.
Organized criminals in Australia and offshore contrived the scheme, she said.
"Put simply, the plan was the following: organize for someone to buy a caravan, place it with explosives and written material of antisemitic nature, leave it in a specific location, and then, once that happened, inform law enforcement about an impending terror attack against Jewish Australians," Barrett said.
Police suspect that the person "pulling the strings" hired small-time Mister Bigs to carry out the hoax in the hope of getting "changes to their criminal status," she said.
Barrett declined to elaborate on the motivation but said criminals sometimes seek to leverage information to get a reduced jail sentence or other benefits.
Jewish group expressed alarm at the revelation.
"The possible role of organized crime in orchestrating major antisemitic attacks adds a chilling new element to the antisemitism crisis," Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said in a statement. "Synagogues have been burned, childcare centers have been burned, and whether it’s been done for financial gain or as part of an antisemitic ideology or movement, in either case, it’s equally terrifying."
Ryvchin said the revelations hadn’t brought any great relief to the Jewish community.
"Now we have organized crime seeking to intimidate and terrorise the Jewish community for some unknown and bewildering reasons. It seems to raise more questions than it answers. It certainly won’t lead to a mass outpouring of relief on the part of the Jewish community," Ryvchin said.
"Part of the motivation for this attack was to install fear in the Jewish community, which has been on knife’s edge since the seventh of October, and we need to remain vigilant," said Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, referring to the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which started the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Police have yet to make any arrests in relation to the planning of the fabricated plot, but have gone public with the information in order to provide comfort to the Jewish community in Sydney, Dave Hudson, New South Wales Police deputy commissioner, told the news conference.
"It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs, to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to or engage in other criminal activity," Hudson said.
Police are investigating a suspect involved in an organized crime network, he added.
Meanwhile,
...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio wondered: Where the hell was Chumbaloni? And where was his $600?... detectives probing a string of antisemitic incidents across Sydney — though not the trailer incident specifically — have arrested and charged 14 people, the New South Wales Police said on Tuesday.
The charges include 65 offenses, including taking part in a "criminal group," arson and destroying property, the department said.
None of those arrested displayed "any form of antisemitic ideology," according to Hudson.
Investigations into attacks on two Sydney synagogues, the fire bombings of cars, and the spraying of "abhorrent graffiti" on cars and houses indicated it was only "a very, very small group — and potentially one individual behind all these matters," he said.
Police suspect the same "individual or individuals" were behind both the antisemitic attacks and the trailer hoax, Hudson said.
Leibler thanked police for "taking this seriously and for making these arrests."
"While on the one hand, the findings provide some relief to the Jewish community, it does not take away from the fact that we’ve had a kaboom of antisemitism in this country," he added.
Australia has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks since the start of the war, with homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles targeted by vandalism and arson, drawing the ire of the country’s traditional ally Israel.
The number of anti-Jewish incidents in the country quadrupled in the year after the October 7 attack, according to data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
In December 2024, New South Wales launched Strike Force Pearl, whose team includes counter-terrorism and special tactics officers, to investigate antisemitic hate crimes in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, following an arson attack on the Adass Synagogue.
Australia’s federal police also launched Operation Avalite to investigate the surge in antisemitic crimes.
[IsraelTimes] Australian police say they have charged 14 members of an organized crime ring accused of menacing the country with attacks dressed up as antisemitic hate crimes.
Jewish neighborhoods in Sydney city have in recent months seen synagogues daubed in antisemitic graffiti, buildings firebombed in the dead of night and cars torched by vandals.
Although the crime wave stoked fears about rising antisemitic in Australia, police said they no longer believed many of these incidents were driven by “ideology.”
Instead, police said it appeared to be an attempt by organized criminals to gain favor by carrying out high-profile attacks — and then tipping off authorities later.
New South Wales Police said today that 14 people had been arrested and charged with 65 offences, including taking part in a “criminal group,” arson and destroying property.
“None of the individuals we have arrested… have displayed any form of antisemitic ideology,” NSW Police deputy commissioner David Hudson said yesterday evening after a series of raids.
“I think these organized crime figures have taken an opportunity to play off the vulnerability of the Jewish community,” he added.
[IsraelTimes] Hundreds protest outside ICE center in New York for Mahmoud Khalil; legal experts say feds have grounds to deport; free speech group warns of chilling effect and calls for clarity
Anti-Israel demonstrators rallied in New York City on Monday and called for escalation across the US, part of a furious backlash after federal agents detained an anti-Israel protest leader at Columbia University over the weekend.
Hundreds of protesters filled Manhattan’s Foley Square outside an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, to demand the release of the student organizer, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate.
The demonstrators carried signs that said "Release Mahmoud Khalil," with the activist’s image, and chanted, "We want justice, you say how? ICE off our campus now."
"I believe that Paleostine will win," they chanted. Many in the crowd wore keffiyehs and held Paleostinian flags.
One sign said, "Stop Jewish fascism fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. Its distinguishing philosophical feature is the Corporate State. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about... ," and another showed US President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... doing a "Sieg Heil" salute in front of a swastika.
"Trump thinks he can strip our rights, to attack our movement," a speaker told the crowd. "To that we say, ’You are wrong, we will not be silenced, we will continue to organize and we will continue to struggle until the complete liberation of Paleostine.’
You do that, dear heart, while the rest of us get on with life. We’ll touch base in thirty or forty years to see how you’re doing.
"They make figures like Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... and ’terrorists’ into enemies," another speaker said.
"There are actual gunnies in the United States, but they are not Mahmoud Khalil," he said. "The terror comes from the capitalists and their pawns."
The protest drew a larger and more ideologically diverse crowd than recent anti-Israel protests, reflecting the widespread outrage over Khalil’s detention. Speakers and signs tied Khalil’s arrest to issues including affordable housing, immigration, and constitutional rights.
Khalil was a leading organizer for the Columbia protest movement. Columbia protesters held disruptive demonstrations on campus starting soon after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, that have continued into recent weeks. Protesters have openly endorsed violence and US-designated terror groups, and Jewish and Israeli students and faculty have said the activists created a hostile and discriminatory environment. A university task force reported "crushing" discrimination against Jews and Israelis on campus.
The Columbia protest coalition includes the campus branch of Students for Justice in Paleostine. The group’s parent organization, National Students for Justice in Paleostine (NSJP), called for mass unrest on campuses across the US in response to Khalil’s arrest.
NSJP issued a statement on Sunday calling on activists to walk out of class, "take over central spaces on campus, and assert our mass power." The protest activities were scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. The statement was cosponsored by several other leading anti-Israel activist groups.
"The popular movement against Zionism, imperialism, and fascism will not shy away in the face of federal threats," the statement said.
An array of politicians and Red Guardsliberal groups lined up behind Khalil, including the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... . More than 1.3 million people signed a letter calling for his release. New York State Attorney General Letitia James said she was "extremely concerned" and in touch with Khalil’s lawyer.
DEBATES OVER FREE SPEECH
Khalil is the first confirmed case of a detention for possible deportation after Trump’s vow to crack down on student protesters. Authorities have not announced charges against Khalil, who had a green card, according to his lawyer.
The Department of Homeland Security said, "Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization." US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... said on X, "We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported."
Trump said Khalil’s arrest was "the first arrest of many to come."
"We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it," Trump said. "Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again."
ICE’s online database said Khalil was born in Syria and is being held in jug in Louisiana.
A federal judge in New York City ordered Monday that Khalil not be deported while the court considered a legal challenge brought by his lawyers. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Disputes over Khalil’s detention hinge on free speech protections and immigration law.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech advocacy group, issued a letter to the administration seeking more information about Khalil’s arrest.
"The statements the government has released suggest its decision may be based on his constitutionally protected speech. This lack of clarity is chilling protected expression," said FIRE, which has said that Columbia protests have included both protected speech and illegal conduct.
Will Creeley, FIRE’s legal director, said that if there are allegations about material support for terrorism, "you really need to see those."
"Simple, independent advocacy on behalf of a terrorist organization, however reprehensible some, many, or even all Americans might find it, is still protected by the First Amendment," Creeley told The Times of Israel.
Support for Hamas would become illegal if it was coordinated with the terrorist group, Creeley said. Free speech also does not cover targeted threats, discriminatory harassment, and incitement to imminent violence.
"It’s very much a stretch to think that activities ’aligned’ with Hamas are enough to justify this kind of action," Creeley stated. "Folks who would find pro-Hamas advocacy abhorrent should understand that the First Amendment protects your rights just as well, and to defend the rights of those who disagree with you is the best guarantor of your own rights."
GROUNDS FOR DEPORTATION
Two legal experts said authorities have grounds for deporting Khalil.
Federal laws say aliens are inadmissible to the US, or "deportable," if they engage in terrorist activities, including anyone who "endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization." Green card holders are considered aliens.
Last week, at a protest Khalil attended at Columbia affiliate Barnard College, demonstrators passed out pamphlets from the "Hamas media office," and photos of the late Hezbollah terror chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> , according to students at the scene. Hamas and Hezbollah are US-designated terrorist groups.
Federal authorities appeared to take notice of last week’s protest. A Trump administration antisemitism task force warned the university it would cut its public funding shortly before the protest, then announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal funding for the university shortly afterward, saying that "chaos and antisemitic harassment have continued on and near campus" since the warning.
Distributing Hamas pamphlets could be grounds for deportation, said Ted Frank, senior attorney at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, which has filed litigation against anti-Israel groups that have blocked traffic at US protests.
"The pamphleting, at least under congressional law, says, ’Yeah, deport for that,’ and the Biden administration could have done that, but they weren’t enforcing that law, so the Trump administration is enforcing that law," Frank said. "Under the law, even just espousing support for Hamas is enough for deportation."
Frank added that voicing support for terrorist activities, and not a specific terror group, is grounds for deportation, according to the law’s wording, and there is also no difference under the law between having a green card or a student visa.
Americans’ speech in support of Hamas is protected by the First Amendment, but different rules apply for immigration and deportation, Frank said.
Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney and professor at New York’s Cardozo School of Law, said that if the government launched an investigation and found evidence that Khalil supported Hamas before he received a green card, they could revoke his status.
"Immigration laws are clear — that if he lied on his green card application about his support of Hamas, they could rescind his green card," Wildes said.
If the government found evidence Khalil supported Hamas after receiving a green card, prosecutors could make a case for his deportation in criminal or immigration court, Wildes said. Wildes is a Jewish Democrat, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, and Melania Trump’s immigration lawyer.
"Until you’re an American citizen, you can be deported from the United States," he said.
Creeley disagreed that Khalil could be deported, saying, "That read of the law is overly expansive and gives the government power it does not have."
#1
Looks like some Liberal Democrat Parents failed basic child raising and social skills.
In the 60's and 70's the Liberal students were having sit-ins and singing: "Give peace a chance".
Now, the smartphone generation might as well be screaming: "Give Genocidal Terrorists a chance".
HINT
I seem to remember when a 60-70's protester(s) went crazy and destructive. That Tear Gas, night sticks, Fire Hoses, a cold jail celled worked just fine.
[IsraelTimes] Syrian security sources say Israeli jets struck two former bases in country’s Daraa province, as Jerusalem ministers sharpen rhetoric against transitional government
Israeli jets conducted several strikes on former Syrian army barracks and outposts in the southern Daraa province Monday, in the latest string of strikes targeting the country’s military infrastructure following the collapse of the Assad regime, according to two Syrian security sources.
The sources told Rooters that at least six strikes hit a base in the town of Jbab, while at least another eight hit a former army base in the city of Izraa. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The strikes were reported at military sites belonging to the former Syrian regime.
"The Israeli occupation aircraft carried out several strikes on the surroundings of the towns of Jbab and Izraa in the north of Daraa," the state news agency SANA said.
Israeli officials have vowed to demilitarize the southern Syria area close to Israel’s border following the fall of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... Syrian government control is weak in the region, and Israel has threatened to target interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s forces if they deploy there.
Upon the Assad regime’s collapse, Israel sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights, where it maintains a military presence.
Last week Defense Minister Israel Katz called Sharaa "a jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population."
Earlier Monday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the transitional regime "pure evil,"
Syria’s Islamist-led government on Monday said it had completed a military operation against a nascent insurgency. The violence had been centred around coastal provinces where most of Syria’s Alawite minority live.
Assad is an Alawite, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, whose family for decades ruled over the Sunni Moslem majority.
British-based war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said that 973 non-combatants were killed by government forces and allied fighters in reprisal killings. More than 250 Alawite fighters were killed and more than 230 members of government security forces were also killed, the group said.
Sharaa dismissed the Israeli comments as "nonsense."
"They are the last ones who can talk," he said, noting the high corpse count in Israel’s 17 months of war against Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... .
[Rudaw] Syria’s defense ministry said on Monday its forces have pushed "remnants of the former regime" away from the center of the coastal Latakia and Tartous provinces and claimed victory in their military operation despite mass killings sparking widespread condemnation.
"Our forces were able to neutralize the security cells and remnants of the defunct regime from the town of al-Mukhtariyya, the town of al-Muzayri’a, the al-Zobar area and others in Latakia Governorate, and the town of al-Daliyah, the town of Tanita and al-Qadmus in Tartous Governorate, which resulted in thwarting the threats and securing the area," ministry spokesperson Hassan Abdulghani said on X.
Syrian forces "absorbed the attacks" of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... loyalists and "neutralized their element of surprise," he added, announcing that public institutions can now resume work.
Violence erupted in Alawite-majority areas on Syria’s Mediterranean coast on Thursday when gangs, many loyal to ousted president Assad, launched attacks. Damascus responded with heavy force, cracking down on the largest challenge to their newly established rule.
According to Abdulghani, remnants of Assad’s regime were pushed away from key centers, and the roads they used have been secured.
Amid the escalation of violence, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday ordered the establishment of an "independent national committee" to "investigate and look into" the deadly festivities in western Syria. Sharaa also vowed to form another high-level committee to "preserve civil peace" and "listen" to the people of the coastal areas in the west after days of deadly violence in the region.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based war monitor, on Monday reported that around 1,500 people - mostly civilians - have been killed in western Syria since the violence erupted like lava from a volcano on Thursday.
At least 973 civilians, mostly from the Alawite community to which Assad belongs, are among the corpse count, according to the Observatory. Most were killed by government and government-affiliated forces.
The violence has additionally drawn widespread condemnation from the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... , La Belle France, Germany, the US, Iraq, and Iran. For their part, Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... have expressed support for Syria’s new authorities amid the unrest.
The new authorities in Damascus have come under repeated criticism for their treatment of minority groups. After his appointment as Syria’s interim President in late January, Sharaa said he would respect the rights of all ethnic and religious groups.
[Rudaw] Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) chief Mazloum Abdi signed a landmark agreement on Monday to integrate the SDF into Syria's state institutions.
After a meeting between Sharaa and Abdi, an agreement was reached to "integrate all civil and military institutions in northeast Syria [Rojava] under the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the [Qamishli International] Airport, and oil and gas fields," read a statement by the Syrian Presidency.
The statement emphasized that "the Kurdish community is indigenous to the Syrian state, which ensures this community’s right to citizenship and all of its constitutional rights."
Following a swift offensive, a coalition of rebel groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) - headed by Sharaa - on December 8 toppled the Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... regime. Sharaa was in late January appointed as Syria’s interim President.
After his appointment, Sharaa vowed to uphold the rights of all ethnic and religious groups. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the international community has repeatedly censured the new Damascus leadership for its treatment of Syria’s minority groups.
Monday’s agreement is considered a landmark deal since the Kurdish-controlled Rojava had previously rejected centralized rule, insisting on decentralization in post-Assad Syria.
Moreover, the Kurdish National Council (ENKS), an umbrella group of Kurdish opposition parties in Rojava, last week accused the new leadership in Damascus of making unilateral decisions that excluded ethnic and religious communities.
The ENKS and the Democratic Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (DAANES) additionally censured a key conference held by Damascus in late February, the National Dialogue Conference, as "exclusionary" for its lacking Kurdish representation. The conference was intended to pave the way for the formation of an inclusive government and the drafting of a constitutional declaration.
The agreement between Sharaa and Abdi further vows to "guarantee the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process and in all state institutions based on competence, regardless of their religious and ethnic backgrounds."
It also called for a "ceasefire across all Syrian territories" and effectively pledged the SDF’s "support to the Syrian state in its fight against the remnants of [the] Assad [regime] and all threats to its security and unity."
Recent violence erupted like lava from a volcano in the Alawite-majority coastal areas of western Syria, after Assad loyalists on Thursday launched attacks against security forces affiliated with the new Syrian leadership.
However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday reported that around 1,500 people - mostly civilians - have been killed in western Syria amid the violence.
At least 973 civilians, many of whom are from the Alawite community - to which Assad also belongs - are among the corpse count, according to the UK-based Observatory. The war monitor added that most of the civilian casualties were killed by government or government-affiliated forces.
The violence prompted widespread condemnation from the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... as well as western and regional countries. For their part, Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... member, but not the most reliable... have expressed support for Syria’s new authorities amid the unrest.
On Monday, Syria’s defense ministry said its forces had pushed the "remnants of the former regime" out of central coastal provinces like Latakia and Tartous and declared victory in their military operations.
The agreement between Sharaa and Abdi also called for "rejecting calls for division, hate speech, and attempts to spread discord among all components of Syrian society," and urged the "return of all displaced Syrians to their towns and villages, ensuring their protection by the Syrian state."
It stipulates that executive committees "should work and seek to implement" the provisions of the agreement "no later than the end of this year."
The following is the full translation of the Syrian Presidency's statement regarding the historic agreement:
Based on a meeting held between President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Mr. Mazloum Abdi on Monday, March 10, 2025, the following was agreed upon:
1- Guaranteeing the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process and all state institutions based on competence, regardless of their religious and ethnic backgrounds.
2 - The Kurdish community is an indigenous community in the Syrian state, and the Syrian state guarantees its right to citizenship and all its constitutional rights.
3- Ceasefire on all Syrian territories
4- Integrating all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria into the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the airport, and oil and gas fields.
5- Ensuring the return of all displaced Syrians to their towns and villages and ensuring their protection by the Syrian state.
6- Supporting the Syrian state in its fight against the remnants of Assad and all threats to its security and unity.
7- Rejecting calls for division, hate speech, and attempts to spread discord among all components of Syrian society.
8- The Executive Committees should work and seek to implement the agreement no later than the end of the year.
“THEY GATHERED ALL THE MEN”
Images on social media showed Syrian security forces on pickups and trucks driving past thick black smoke that drifted over the road on their way into the city of Jableh, between Latakia and Tartus.
The interior ministry said on Sunday that government forces were conducting “sweeping operations” in an area of Tartus province to “pursue the remnants of the toppled regime.”
SANA quoted a defense ministry source as saying there were clashes in Tanita village in the same area.
An AFP photographer in Latakia city reported a military convoy entering a neighborhood to search homes.
A Syrian security source earlier said the pace of fighting had slowed around the cities of Latakia, Jablah and Baniyas, while forces searched surrounding mountainous areas where an estimated 5,000 pro-Assad insurgents were hiding.
In Baniyas, a city further south, resident Samir Haidar, 67, told AFP two of his brothers and his nephew were killed by armed groups that entered people’s homes, adding that there were “foreigners among them.”
“They gathered all the men on the roof and opened fire on them,” Haidar said.
The mass killings followed clashes sparked by the arrest of a wanted suspect in a predominantly Alawite village, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, reporting a “relative return to calm” in the coastal region on Saturday.
[IsraelTimes] Abu Wadei reportedly left Strip before Oct. 7, previously posed with gunmen, participated in attacks on Israel; British Home Office says he’s been charged with immigration offenses
A Gazook man who published footage of himself boasting of armed action against Israel and praying for Allah to kill all Jews arrived in the United Kingdom last week aboard a dinghy of migrants colonists that was picked up by British law enforcement in the English Channel.
According to The Telegraph, the man known as Abu Wadei was arrested and charged with immigration offenses.
The matter was first reported by the Daily Mail. The newspaper, which relied in part on pro-Israel Jewish UK group Campaign Against Antisemitism, identified the man as Abu Wadei. According to the newspaper, Wadei is thought to be in his 30s and from Khan Younis. His full name is believed to be Mus’ab Abd al-Kareem al-Kassass.
A front man for the British Home Office told The Telegraph that Abu Wadei "has today been charged with knowingly arriving into the UK without leave and has been remanded in jug."
It added that "the British public can be reassured that we take all steps necessary at all times to protect the nation’s security, including taking action in the Border Security Bill to give the police and immigration officers stronger powers to act where anyone poses a threat."
Earlier in the day, The Mail reported that Abu Wadei’s precise whereabouts were unknown and that police said they were unaware of arrests in connection to the case.
Senior figures in the UK’s opposition Conservative Party assailed the Home Office for failing to reveal information about Abu Wadei. The Mail quoted Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philip as saying that Wadei was "a dangerous antisemite and a threat to national security."
"There is a possibility the government has lost track of him, and there is also a risk he may try and use spurious human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... claims to stay in the country," said Philip, accusing the Labour government of being soft on immigration.
The Daily Mail said Abu Wadei left Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... before October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... -led bandidosturbans stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking war between Israel and Hamas.
According to the newspaper, Abu Wadei posted a video to Facebook in September in which he prayed for Allah to handle "the Jews and those loyal to them."
The post did not appear on Abu Wadei’s Facebook on Monday, but the reported video was published by both The Mail and the CAA.
"Allah, kill them one by one, and don’t leave a single one," the man in the video sings. "Allah, destroy them completely, disperse them completely and make the earth fall from under their feet."
According to The Mail, Abu Wadei could also be seen speaking at Gaza rallies between 2017 and 2019, calling himself a member of "the tire-burning unit" — apparently a group of Paleostinians who burned tires during Hamas-backed festivities with IDF troops on the Gaza border.
The Telegraph backed up this reporting.
In other photos, The Mail said, Abu Wadei could be seen brandishing assault rifles and posing alongside masked button men. An independent forensic analysis of at least one photo confirmed that the person brandishing the weapon was the same person who posted on Friday about arriving in the UK, The Mail said.
The newspaper said it had also uncovered an April 2018 interview with Hamas-affiliated outlet Felesteen, in which Abu Wadei boasted of launching incendiary kites at Israel.
"It only costs us three shekels [80 cents], but costs the occupation [Israel] more because of the fires it causes," he was quoted as saying. "We started with [throwing] stones, moved to burning tires and setting the Israeli flag on fire, and then used kites."
That’s the use Gazans put to all those USAID-purchased condoms…
According to the CAA, Abu Wadei lived in Germany and Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... for the past two years "without drawing attention." The group said it had obtained a Greek WhatsApp number apparently belonging to Abu Wadei.
Citing posts from TikTok and Facebook, the CAA wrote on X that Abu Wadei had arrived in Greece in July 2023 and left a month later for Switzerland — though, in the Facebook post cited by the CAA, Abu Wadei says he arrived in Belgium.
In a photo posted to Facebook on February 14 this year, Abu Wadei could be seen in Brussels. The Facebook account has some 11,000 followers, and features numerous posts mourning family and friends killed in the war in Gaza.
According to the CAA, a TikTok video posted in January 2025 showed Abu Wadei in Stuttgart, Germany, and further posts showed him camping in La Belle France between March 4 and 6. The TikTok account, said to have some 189,000 subscribers, appeared to no longer exist on Monday.
On March 7, a video captioned, "Thank God, we’ve arrived in Britannia," was posted to Abu Wadei’s Facebook account. In the video, he could be seen on a dinghy with several other people as they were approached by a boat that The Mail said belonged to the UK’s Border Force, which is under Britannia’s Home Office.
Benefits shopping, or had his asylum application finally been rejected in Germany, so he moved to England to start a new application?
According to The Mail, the dinghy is thought to be one of four, carrying a total of 235 migrants colonists, that were picked up by the Border Force on Thursday morning.
On Friday, Abu Wadei posted on Facebook a picture of himself drinking coffee and holding a cigarette at an outdoor café. The Mail said the picture was originally posted by a friend of his, with an Arabic caption: "A thousand ’thank Gods’ for Abu Wadei being safe. You have brightened up Britannia." The paper said it was unclear when and where the photo was taken.
The UK, like other countries, has seen a sharp rise in antisemitic attacks since October 7, 2023.
[YouTube] Back in 2022, the Biden administration created the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, also known as the “green bank” initiative. It’s a $27 billion program overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.
This is the “gold bar” slush fund, where they were just throwing money at any Progressive NGO in order to hide it from the new Trump administration — one last golden shower for the lads.
[Breitbart] A Democrat donor who has heaped criticism on Elon Musk pleaded guilty to wire fraud as an alleged co-conspirator in an alleged woke investment fraud scheme, according to federal prosecutors in California.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 3 arrested Joseph Neal Sanberg, 45, a cofounder of Aspiration Partners Inc., which dubs itself a “climate-friendly banking alternative” on its website. The arrest stemmed from “a federal criminal complaint alleging that he conspired to defraud two investor funds of at least $145 million,” per a DOJ press release.
Musk critic Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini, 51, whom the DOJ labeled as “Sanberg’s coconspirator,” was arrested in October and took a plea deal last month. AlHusseini, who founded the investment firm FullCycle, signed the agreement in February, and it was unsealed on the day of Sanberg’s arrest. Per the DOJ, citing the plea deal, AlHusseini received about $12.3 million in payments via the alleged scheme.
Aspiration Partners Inc. had notable celebrity backers like Leonardo DiCaprio, Cindy Crawford, and Robert Downey Jr, the New York Post reported.
The DOJ wrote in a release:
According to the complaint against Sanberg and AlHusseini’s plea agreement, Sanberg obtained $145 million in loans secured by AlHusseini, who Sanberg knew did not have sufficient financial assets to cover those loans if Sanberg defaulted. Sanberg hid this fact from investors, then defaulted on the loans, which resulted in at least a $145 million in losses.
Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California, Joseph McNally, said authorities “have worked methodically to secure a guilty plea from one of the main offenders in this case and have now charged another member of the conspiracy.”
“We will continue to ensure that markets and businesses receive an honest and level playing field in which to operate,” he added.
AlHusseini, whose sentencing is scheduled for September 29, is a major Democrat donor who has contributed to countless Democrat campaigns and organizations. In the 2024 cycle alone, he gave thousands of dollars each to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-MO), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show. The Daily Wire reports Democrats have received over $300,000 in contributions from him through the years.
Citing OpenSecrets, the Post reported that “Sanberg has contributed thousands of dollars to various Democrat-aligned causes over the years.”
Moreover, AlHusseini has a track record of criticizing Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and X, who is working on cutting federal waste through the Department of Government Efficiency in his role in President Donald Trump’s administration.
In December 2022, he went on CNBC’s TechCheck, where he trashed Musk, saying he was wounding Tesla’s brand.
“Tesla’s a brand, right? And that brand is being tarnished on the daily because of Musk’s behavior publicly on Twitter,” AlHusseini said.
“Now it is a confused brand where it is, you know, that brand is associated with a founder that attacked Fauci,” he went on to add. “[Musk], you know, promotes characters that are anti-semitic, and it … really has turned off a lot of the buyers.”
Last year, AlHusseini, who invested in Tesla early on, told CNBC’s Closing Bell he “unenthusiastically voted yes” in favor of Musk’s pay package.
He [Musk] continued, “I think, one of the biggest sources of fraud in the world, is government-funded non-governmental organizations. This is a gigantic fraud loophole where the government can give money to an NGO, and then there are no controls over that NGO.”
Should not have been on the public dole to begin with.
Especially when we have a US homeless population that exceeds 771,800. Each of which need food, shelter and medical attention. Of which 35,500+ are US Honorability discharged VET's.
[FoxNews] DOGE says that federal agencies spent $40 billion using credit cards in FY24
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced that it has deactivated more than 200,000 credit cards linked to more than a dozen federal agencies following an audit showing they were unused or unneeded.
The announcement comes as the Elon Musk-led agency continues to root out waste, fraud and corruption in the federal government.
"Weekly Credit Card Update! Pilot program with 16 agencies to audit unused/unneeded credit cards," DOGE wrote on its X account.
"After 3 weeks, >200,000 cards have been de-activated. Great progress this past week by @HHSGov [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] @Interior [U.S. Department of the Interior]."
The agency said that at the start of the audit, there were more than 4.6 million active cards/accounts throughout those agencies.
"So still more work to do," the DOGE team wrote.
It is unclear how much money the taxpayer will save following the cancelations. Last month, DOGE said the 4.6 million credit cards were used for 90 million unique transactions, totaling around $40 billion worth of spending in FY24.
In total, 204,801 credit cards have been canceled, consisting of 171,120 travel cards and 33,681 purchase cards.
The agencies which have had credit cards canceled include the General Services Administration (GSA), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Labor Department, the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Education Department, the Interior Department, the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Agriculture Department (USDA), NASA, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security, Social Security Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Interior Department saw the largest number of credit card terminations with nearly 20,000 purchase cards and nearly 40,000 travel cards canceled. HHS was second with more than 43,700 travel credit cards and 2,235 purchase cards canceled.
The State Department is the only agency of the 16 which didn’t have any credit cards canceled.
Last month, Musk spoke at President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting and said he is looking to find $1 trillion in savings through DOGE to help slash the national debt, which is around $36.5 trillion.
Musk took aim at what he described as $2 trillion in deficits, stating that America "simply cannot sustain" that amount of debt
"If this continues, the country will go, become de facto bankrupt," Musk claimed.
[Federalist] For more than 50 years, despite voters’ moral and economic objections to funding the baby-killing industry, Planned Parenthood has benefited from the flow of American tax dollars. The 119th Congress, in conjunction with the Trump administration, has a chance to rectify that by defunding the abortion behemoth once and for all.
The last time a GOP trifecta had a chance to help eliminate taxpayers’ roles in the abortion industry’s schemes failed when Republican Sen. John McCain voted against the majority of his party’s plans to undo the fallout caused by Obamacare in 2017.
Eight years later, the GOP once again controls the House, Senate, and the White House, which means they are adequately equipped to remedy Republicans’ previous mistake and ensure Planned Parenthood is no longer a multi-million dollar benefactor of tax dollar disbursements.
Most members of the red party claim they are pro-life, so they shouldn’t have a problem voting to dismantle the flow of federal funds to the industry responsible for killing countless unborn babies on moral grounds.
#4
I'm so old I remember when Planned Parenthood was all about family planning and contraception. The abortion thing was sold as a last resort, not an alternative to using birth control.
[Gateway] It’s the feature of our days that the Intelligence services from powerful nations, be it the CIA, MI6 or Mossad, have much more public exposure than in the old days of the Cold War.
With the Russian SVR, heir to the famed — and infamous — KGB, it’s no different. Today (10), the foreign intelligence agency stepped up Moscow’s criticism of the British government, stating that London sees Russian-U.S. dialogue on Ukraine ’as a threat to its interests’.
The UK is the main ’instigator’ of the global conflict, according to the SVR.
This comes in the same day as Russia expels two British diplomats accused of being involved in espionage.
[Gateway] In just the past few hours, we have uncovered perhaps the biggest scandal of the Biden presidency. It turns out Joe Biden never signed anything- no laws, no Executive Orders, no legal documents, nothing. They were all signed by autopen. There were no original signatures.
Which makes them all illegal. That makes everything that happened and passed during the past four years null and void.
But that brings up the question of the century: If Biden never signed anything, who did? Who was calling the shots? Who was running the country? I know the answer...
The spying on Trump. The conspiracy to indict Trump and put an innocent man in prison. All the crimes committed by Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while their boss was Obama. The stolen 2020 election. And brain-dead Biden’s term that turns out to be one big scam with Obama calling the shots- but this time, unelected.
I covered all of this in my last two columns that are part of this "The Criminal Case Against Obama" trilogy.
This is Part 3.
One quick aside. I would argue even the autopen scandal is not the biggest scandal, crime and conspiracy of the past four years. The rigged and stolen 2020 election is the biggest.
#2
You mean the people who want to turn mosquitos into biological weapons right after talking about how 2/3rds of the world's population needs to die?
The people who push the mass movement of military age males into a region while simultaneously having the local government spend tax money to feed, cloth, and shelter them so all they have to do is be military age males?
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The gruesome discovery of nine bodies and a bag filled with their severed hands on a Mexican highway last week had cartel violence written all over it.
The group of students – five men and four women – had allegedly taken part in a series of muggings and thefts in Oaxaca, seemingly angering one of the drug-selling criminal groups that operates in the area.
They were abducted, tortured and murdered for their foray into their rivals' territory, according to an insider, while their alleged boss was shot dead with a haunting note pinned to his body - 'This is what you get for being a thief.' Sounds reasonable
Mexico's notorious criminal gangs have long employed bloodthirsty tactics to punish their enemies - with the hacking off of hands widely known to be the go-to retribution inflicted on thieves.
Their terror methods include the severing of heads, public hangings, the kidnap and killing of small children, ruthless drone warfare and even sadistic cannibal initiation rituals.
In the social media age, image is everything - and the cartels often broadcast ever-more violent ways in order to intimidate those who would stand between them and their trade.
This is the horrifying reality endured by millions of people in Mexico, caught in the crossfire as cartels jostle for control over lucrative drug corridors, while others are lured to become thieves and drug traffickers before meeting a grizzly end.
Here, MailOnline explores some of the methods the cartels use to instill fear in their rivals, citizens and officials.
Various kinds of viciousness explained at the link, with edifying tales from various cartels.
#2
Just some random students... There are rules to the game and Cartels make them very clear. I doubt there was any misunderstanding to the causes that led to the "students" misfortune.
"The group of students – five men and four women – had allegedly taken part in a series of muggings and thefts in Oaxaca, seemingly angering one of the drug-selling criminal groups that operates in the area."
[FoxNews] Immigration operation results in execution of 71 criminal arrest warrants for individuals charged with or convicted of serious crimes
A multi-agency, weeklong immigration crackdown in the Houston area this month resulted in the arrest of 646 illegal aliens, including 543 criminal aliens and seven documented gang members.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it, along with federal, state and local law enforcement, conducted the operation between Feb. 23 and March 2 in the Houston area to bolster public safety, national security and border security.
ICE and its partners executed 71 criminal arrest warrants and arrested 543 illegal undocumented aliens who had been charged with or convicted of criminal offenses while being illegally in the U.S.
Of the criminal aliens arrested, 140 were charged or convicted of an aggravated felony or violent offense, like homicide, aggravated assault or domestic violence.
Another 34 criminal aliens have been charged or convicted of a sex offense or child sex offense like aggravated sexual assault of a minor, possession of child pornography, or rape.
ICE noted that 38 of the criminal aliens who were arrested were convicted of illegal firearms offenses like unlawful carrying of a firearm, alien in possession of a firearm, and aggravated assault with a firearm, while another 52 were charged or convicted of offenses like drug trafficking or criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Fifty-one criminal aliens were charged with or convicted of property crimes, and 93 were charged with or convicted of driving while intoxicated.
"In recent years, some of the world’s most dangerous fugitives, transnational gang members and criminal aliens have taken advantage of the crisis at our nation’s southern border to illegally enter the U.S.," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said in a statement. "After illegally entering the country, many of these criminal aliens have gone on to commit violent crime and reign terror on law-abiding residents."
Also weighing in on the massive operation was ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Houston Special Agent in Charge Chad Plantz, who said the collective efforts have made the Houston community significantly safer and strengthened the country’s national security and border security.
"In just one week working alongside our counterparts from federal, state and local law enforcement, ICE HSI special agents successfully executed 71 criminal arrest warrants and made 554 administrative arrests that included illegally present human smugglers, gang members, human traffickers, child sex offenders, drug traffickers and weapons traffickers," Plantz said in a statement. "As a result, we’ve sent a resounding message to transnational criminal organizations everywhere that the law enforcement community in the Texas Gulf Coast is more united than ever and will not rest until we’ve eradicated these criminal elements from the country."
Along with ICE, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Diplomatic Security Service and the U.S. Marshals Service participated in the operation.
[FoxNews] The bill was sponsored by seven Republicans and one Democrat
The House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at cracking down on Mexican cartels' use of tunnels underneath the southwestern border to smuggle illegal immigrants and illicit items the U.S.
The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in a 402 to 1 vote – with the lone dissenter being Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. Fox News Digital reached out to her office for comment but did not immediately hear back.
The bill is led by Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., but enjoys bipartisan support thanks to its lone Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif.
It's also backed by six other House Republicans, including Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on border security.
The legislation, titled the Subterranean Border Defense Act, would direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to submit an annual report to Congress about cartels' use of tunnels and how U.S. law enforcement was looking to combat it.
"Since 1990, officials have discovered more than 140 tunnels that have breached the U.S. border with an 80% increase in tunnel activity occurring since 2008," Crane said during debate on the bill. "With border crossings thankfully going down since January, I think it's safe to assume this will drive threats to our border underground through these tunnels."
Debate on the bill was brief on Monday afternoon, lasting less than 10 minutes. Just Correa and Crane spoke, with no lawmakers rising to oppose the bill.
"I believe this bill is an important step in the right direction," Correa said.
He said the legislation if passed "will improve Congress' efforts to counter illicit cross-border tunnels and hold bad actors accountable."
It's a rare show of bipartisanship in today's House of Representatives, with Crane being known as one of the most conservative members of the House GOP.
House leaders held the vote under suspension of the rules, meaning the legislation was fast-tracked to a final House-wide vote in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds.
It's what House GOP leaders have done for critical legislation that is expected to receive wide bipartisan support.
#4
Why wouldn't her vote alone be subject to some sort of censure? She voted *against* cracking down on foreign agents and their attempts to intrude on US sovereignty?
[FoxNews] DHS says Khalil 'led activities aligned to Hamas'
A federal judge in Manhattan ruled that anti-Israel agitator Mahmoud Khalil is not to be deported "unless and until the Court orders otherwise," on Monday.
Khalil, who led anti-Israel protests and encampments on Columbia University's campus, was taken into custody on the Upper West Side in New York City on Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said he was a former Columbia graduate student who "led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization."
The judge ordered a hearing for Wednesday. Khalil's lawyer also filed a motion that he be returned to New York City while the case plays out. According to ICE, Khalil is currently being held at the Lasalle Detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil's lawyer has insisted their client was detained illegally and should be released.
His attorney, Amy E. Greer, released a new statement Monday evening, saying he is "healthy and his spirits are undaunted by his predicament."
The statement continued: "The remarks by government officials, including the President, on social media only confirm the purpose – and illegality – of Mahmoud's detention. He was chosen as an example to stifle entirely lawful dissent in violation of the First Amendment. While tomorrow or thereafter the government may cite the law or process, that toothpaste is out of the tube and irreversibly so. The government’s objective is as transparent as it is unlawful, and our role as Mahmoud’s lawyers is to ensure it does not prevail."
Khalil's wife also spoke out in a statement, calling for her husband to be released.
"Mahmoud is my rock, he is my home, and he is my happy place…," she wrote. "For everyone reading this, I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby. I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world. Please release Mahmoud Now."
Hitler was a loving boyfriend to whatshername, and very fond of children and dogs — Aryan ones, anyway. That didn’t in any way offset the fact that he was a totalitarian genocidaire. Separtely, why do we still have no inkling of Mrs. Khalil’s name and background?
Politicians have also spoken out in defense of Khalil. "Squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., criticized his arrest, calling the incident an "egregious violation of constitutional rights."
They were revoking his student visa. Well, guess what? He doesn't have a student visa," Tlaib claimed. "He's a green card holder, legal permanent resident."
"Now, again, they proceed to engage the attorney … he or she asked for a warrant, they hung up on them," she continued. "If you believe in constitutional rights, you understand that they're targeting this person. And everyone knows he has been very vocal against the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and they're targeting him and refusing him constitutional rights. Who's next?"
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., released a statement supporting Khalil.
"Mahmoud Khalil is a legal permanent resident whose wife, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant," Jefferies said. "To the extent his actions were inconsistent with Columbia University policy and created an unacceptable hostile academic environment for Jewish students and others, there is a serious university disciplinary process that can handle the matter."
Jefferies went on to say that "DHS must produce facts and evidence of criminal activity." He said the actions of the Trump administration are "wildly inconsistent with the United States Constitution."
In an X post on Monday, New York State Attorney General Letitia James expressed concern.
"I am extremely concerned about the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, an advocate and legal permanent resident of Palestinian descent," James' post reads. "My office is monitoring the situation, and we are in contact with his attorney."
James' comments came hours before hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York to express support for Khalil. Pictures show demonstrators waving Palestinian flags, carrying signs and wearing keffiyehs.
President Donald Trump said Khalil's apprehension was "the first arrest of many to come" in a recent social media post.
"We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it," Trump said in a Truth Social post.
"Many are not students, they are paid agitators," he added. "We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again."
A palpable point. Mr. Khalil, for instance, has not been a student since he received his degree in December. nSo who, pray tell is paying him, and what have they been paying him for while he continued organizing Columbia and Barnard students to protest, riot, and assault and batter Jewish students on and off campus — almost all of which are unlawful actions not included under Freedom of Speech.
[REGNUM] There are alarming news coming from the coast of Syria (where, as the reader will recall, we still have military bases). They report that first there were clashes with rebels, called by the new authorities in Damascus "remnants of the former Assad regime", and then mass killings of civilians (mostly Alawites) by militants of the new Syrian authorities from Idlib, Damascus and other cities.
There are alarming news coming from the coast of Syria (where, as the reader will recall, we still have military bases). They report that first there were clashes with rebels, called by the new authorities in Damascus "remnants of the former Assad regime", and then mass killings of civilians (mostly Alawites) by militants of the new Syrian authorities from Idlib, Damascus and other cities.
It is difficult to judge the scale of the executions, but judging by the videos and photos from the scene, I think we will end up with a figure of several thousand people. Experts note that such cruelty and mass murders have not been seen in Syria even under the control of ISIS*.
In addition, about seven thousand local residents fled to the Khmeimim airbase under the protection of Russian military personnel.
It was already difficult for the average Russian to follow the intricacies of Syria, and after Bashar al-Assad fled and Russia established contacts with the new authorities, relying on the bayonets of the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which we bombed and fought against, our citizens began to completely fail to understand who was bad, who was good, and why we were still hanging around there.
The answer to this question is a separate dissertation, and perhaps more than one, but I will try to explain on my fingers what is happening there now.
So, let's start from the moment of the fall of Bashar al-Assad's power and his flight to Moscow with his family and some members of the government.
As is known, the Assad family itself was from the confessional Arab minority - the Alawites. The top of the Syrian state apparatus was also made up of Alawites. This did not begin under the Assads, but much earlier, when these territories were ruled by the French after the First World War. This is how the Assads actually managed to get to power.
However, in the eyes of the Sunni majority in Syria, this did not justify them. Especially since the Sunnis did not consider the Alawites to be Muslims, and do not consider them to this day.
The dominance of the Assad family and their Makhlouf relatives has not brought any special bonuses to the Alawites as a whole. According to the most conservative estimates, up to 2 million people in Syria currently belong to this confessional group, making up the majority of the coastal population.
After the virtual collapse and desertion of the Syrian government army in 2011, the Alawites, as Assad's supporters, suffered the heaviest losses, fighting for him in all corners of Syria. For example, I met Alawite guys who served for ten years in the middle of the Syrian desert, hundreds of kilometers from the coast. By 2021, about every fourth or fifth family from the coastal provinces has lost someone on the front lines of the civil war.
At the same time, the Alawites never received any preferences or privileges. Bashar al-Assad tried not to irritate the other ethnic and religious groups of the population in the already unstable and semi-occupied country.
By mid-2021, the Alawites' simmering discontent began to boil over in the face of a sharp deterioration in the economic situation due to the introduction of new American sanctions. However, Assad was relentless, and the protests were dispersed, which later, of course, had an impact when Julani's group began to advance on Damascus. No one was particularly eager to defend Assad directly.
It would seem that a heavy burden has been lifted from their shoulders, and the Alawites no longer have to carry the whole of Syria on their backs. But the other side of the coin has also emerged.
Now, in the eyes of the Sunni group that had captured Damascus, all Alawites fell under suspicion and became dangerous a priori, not to mention the fact that for foreign radical jihadists (who had fought in both Al Qaeda* and ISIS*) who came to help overthrow Assad, the Alawites were and remain a perverted sect hiding behind Islam.
The first weeks after the victory of the "Syrian revolution" inspired hope that the worst could be avoided. Especially since the Alawites of the coast surrendered to HTS* without resistance and even took part in the demolition of monuments to Assad.
However, searches and arrests began immediately after this. To the credit of the new Syrian authorities, they began smoothly. Under lulling speeches about a "new free Syria," the repressions were justified by the "fight against the remnants of Assad’s Baathist regime" and the search for officials guilty of "crimes against the Syrian people."
However, under this sauce, the newly organized security service began to ramp up the pace, shooting people not only on the coast, but also in other areas densely populated by Alawites and Christians - in Homs and Hama. When such stories surfaced online or in traditional media, the new authorities, by that time already recognized by almost all European and Gulf countries, justified themselves: these were isolated cases, and "investigations will certainly be conducted," and the guilty "will inevitably be punished."
Time passed, but the attacks and murders did not stop, but rather became more frequent. Shortly before the current events, young people were shot in one of the villages, and Christian cemeteries were destroyed. The new government responded to complaints that these were unfortunate misunderstandings that would be investigated.
Around the end of February, the euphoria from the overthrow of the "hated regime" finally subsided, and it became obvious to the Alawite population that they had been a priori designated as guilty for all the imaginary and real sins of the Assads, with all the ensuing consequences.
It was around this point that a more or less organized underground movement began to take shape.
It must be said that in parallel, rumors have been circulating at high-level foreign backroom negotiating platforms since early January that the power of Julani and the Idlib government is temporary and that everything will change soon. These rumors allegedly spread from American diplomats through their high-ranking Arab interlocutors.
The catalyst was, of course, Israel, whose Minister of Defense declared that he would protect ethno-confessional minorities (meaning, of course, first and foremost the Druze) from the new Syrian authorities, who, according to him, were terrorists and remained terrorists.
I repeat that the purges, searches, and murders did not stop all these months, they just did not happen on such a scale and smoothly.
Very little information about them leaked into the public space. That is how, on March 6, another round of searches and attacks in rural areas in the province of Latakia provoked clashes and then a demonstration by the few Alawite underground groups that had managed to form.
The first patrols of the security service of the new Syrian authorities were destroyed, even shelling the area with a mini-MLRS and bringing in a helicopter did not help. On the night of March 6-7, several dozen rebels captured some sections of the highway between Latakia and Tartus, taking some checkpoints and buildings at a run.
There are now reports of hundreds of former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* security personnel killed and 120-150 rebels eliminated.
However, the very next day, several thousand former jihadists with heavy equipment, tanks and artillery were transferred from Idlib, Damascus and other cities. The rebels were first stopped and then driven back into the mountains.
At the same time, the new authorities decided to take out their rage on the peaceful Alawite population. Groups of former jihadists began to break into houses and shoot entire families, women and children, filming and calmly posting it all on the Internet to the sound of characteristic cries or nasheeds. On the Internet, you can find videos of the streets of cities and villages, where the dead are lying in a heap, in some cases the dead are buried or burned. The houses of the victims are looted, their property is taken away.
...Given the line the new authorities have chosen towards the Alawites, sooner or later the coast would have flared up. Now, due to spontaneity, it didn't flare up as much - the new authorities reacted strongly, shooting everyone in a row. But imagine if the underground had risen not now, but in four or five months, and had taken control of the coast and the territories around our bases, and the new authorities from Damascus had demanded intervention?
I hope that our command does have some kind of backup plan for this matter.
What can we state now? First of all, for us and our interests.
I will say right away that even before that, the attitude towards us from the new authorities fluctuated from hostile to very hostile. This is logical, considering that our Aerospace Forces participated in the defeat of jihadist groups and bombed their locations in Idlib until the very last moment. And Julani's demands at the negotiations to hand over Assad and his escaped comrades, as well as to compensate for the damage from the bombings, did not come as a surprise.
However, they did not kick us out right away, apparently intending to negotiate with the Europeans and the US about lifting the sanctions.
Now, in social networks of supporters of the new Syrian authorities, there is no longer any doubt about the idea that it was under the patronage of the Russians that the Alawite underground was able to form and act. And this will undoubtedly affect the negotiations regarding the further presence of our military bases on the coast in the near future.
Otherwise, we can confidently state that the idea of at least a unitary Syria and its reintegration in the near future is finally buried. Neither the Kurds, nor the Druze, nor, especially, the Alawites will want to voluntarily directly submit to Damascus and the new Syrian authorities after this.
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11199 views]
Top|| File under: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (al-Nusra)
Text taken from a news article posted in vfokuse.mail.ru
[ColonelCassad] With Donald Trump's inauguration as US President, the White House began dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In early February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was appointed Acting Administrator of the Agency — head of USAID. It was expected that its staff would be cut dozens of times. After six weeks of analysis, it turned out that 83% of USAID programs were subject to official closure, as they spent billions of dollars on goals that did not meet US interests. Military observer Alexander Hoffmann on what the Donald Trump Administration will replace the agency with especially for VFokus Mail.
This federal agency was one of the main recipients of funds allocated by the US Congress to counter the international influence and "soft power" of US adversaries, which the administration of the 46th US President Joe Biden included Russia, China and Iran. What will Washington's "soft power" be like under Trump and what could replace USAID?
PARADIGM SHIFT
Rubio promised that the fight against “hostile propaganda” would remain among the tasks of the US foreign policy, but under his presidency all American programs that lead to political censorship or create conditions for it would cease. According to him, the Biden administration’s actions to promote “soft power” were extremely unpopular abroad and created unnecessary friction with other countries.
The US Secretary of State said that the team of the previous American president put ideology above common sense, which led to a distorted understanding of the world. Rubio described the activities of USAID as suppression of free speech and disinformation. The Biden administration, in turn, called any point of view that does not correspond to the views and ideology of the US Democratic Party, especially abroad, “disinformation”.
Thus, Washington’s foreign policy under Trump, according to Rubio’s statements, abandons the approaches of the previous White House team in promoting “soft power”, focused on imposing the ideological guidelines of the American Democratic Party under the guise of “fighting disinformation”.
However, the Republican Trump administration, just as the Democrats did before, places ideological affinity and its ideological priorities at the forefront of the criteria for allocating funds from the US budget for international development programs.
IDEOLOGICAL ALLIES
The reorganization of US “soft power” abroad could lead to the redirection of American aid to countries whose leaders share the views of Trump’s ideological allies and supporters. Such aid includes not only USAID programs, but also Washington-sponsored initiatives of the UN and other international organizations.
Thus, the selection criterion for programs promoting “soft power” that receive US funding may be whether a foreign country’s policies are in line with Trumpists’ views on family values, or whether they oppose the principles of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), which the Biden administration has been promoting internationally.
Rubio recently appeared on the American Fox News channel with an ashen cross on his forehead, which Catholic believers wear throughout the first day of Lent according to their religious calendar. This caused a major stir in the world, but also widespread support among parishioners of the Roman Catholic Church.
It is likely that such a gesture by the top official responsible for US foreign policy is addressed to all conservative traditionalist Christians in the world, and not just American Catholics, which underlines the new ideological guidelines of the White House. To a certain extent, the ashen cross on Rubio’s forehead can also be attributed to the manifestation of Trumpists’ “soft power”.
Or it’s just that Secretary Rubio is an observant Catholic and didn’t think anything more about it — no messaging involved.
INVESTMENTS INSTEAD OF GRANTS
Changing Washington’s approaches to the use of “soft power”, reorganizing US foreign aid and restructuring USAID were indicated as future actions of the Trump administration in the latest “Mandate for Leadership” prepared by the American conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. “Mandate” is a set of recommendations for a presidential candidate or head of state elected by the Republican Party of the United States.
This instruction was called “Conservative Assurance” and is more widely known as “Project 2025”. The recommendations set out in the collection suggest a fundamental reorganization of the United States in all areas subject to the authority of the country’s president.
Thus, “Project 2025” proposed to deprive USAID of its status as an independent agency responsible for US foreign policy and subordinate the organization to the head of the US State Department. This was done by appointing Rubio as the acting administrator of USAID.
As for the Agency's prospects, here too the recommendations of "Project 2025" provide an understanding of the fate of USAID and Washington's "soft power". The collection proposes to assign tasks to private business to promote US interests abroad through development programs. In other words, to use investments from American companies instead of grants from the federal budget.
WALL STREET'S "SOFT POWER"
During Trump’s first term in office, the US government separated a number of divisions from USAID responsible for American investments in low- and middle-income countries. These divisions formed the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). By now, this federal agency already has a portfolio of investment projects worth over $50 billion.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was going to transfer tens of billions of dollars from the USAID budget to the DFC. The American president nominated Benjamin Black, the son of billionaire Wall Street investor Leon Black, as the corporation’s new CEO.
Even before he was invited to the position, Black Jr. himself called for the USAID budget to be redirected to the DFC in order to invest in business projects abroad instead of distributing grants. The new head of the DFC must be approved by the US Senate.
In addition, the Trump administration must receive permission from the US Congress to extend the development corporation’s mandate, which expires at the end of this year. The White House has already secured support from members of both parties in Congress to increase the DFC investment limit from $60 billion to $120 billion and empower corporations to invest in projects outside developing countries.
Thus, the Trump team has focused on “soft power” through the projection of economic power. The administration of the 47th US President intends to use investments as the main tool for spreading influence and promoting interests in developing countries. Such support, if we are to believe the “Project 2025”, should compete with the international initiatives of the main rival of the United States - China.
If the DFC receives a large part of the USAID budget, then grant funding from the American budget will be significantly reduced and will go to countries where the ideological allies of the Trumpists are in power. After this, USAID will become a secondary federal agency, and may even be abolished altogether.
#3
How about fixing the USA 1st before all others?
Example Given:
Yesterday while in the Hospital & Medical Area of Augusta, GA. The Wife and I found a 75 to 80+ year very frail looking old woman standing in the 50 degree rain, soaking wet, wind breaker/no raincoat, with a pull cart of Homeless belongings in a parking lot of McDonald's.
People just walking by her like she wasn't there. We bought her a $10 Mac D's gift card, which allowed her to enter the place, sit down and dry out with hot meal.
What did USAID do for America's true needy and Homeless?
#5
Some have suggested that using USAID funds to support micro-lending in the 3rd world would be a far superior way to improve lives there than existing programs.
Micro lending has had limited success because it requires relatively high interest rates due to the transaction costs. This could be partially resolved by infusion of capital by the USAID. Even better, much of this would be repaid by successful entrepreneurs who received micro loans.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/11/2025 20:20
Comments ||
Top||
[X] Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the cancellation of 83% of USAID programs, impacting 5,200 contracts. These programs, which spent billions of dollars, were deemed not in line with U.S. interests. The remaining 1,000 programs will now be managed by the State Department to increase efficiency and align more closely with national priorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11174 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Classic. They said the president cant cut spending, but the director of the agency can. Thanks Rubio.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/11/2025 1:14
Comments ||
Top||
#3
I don’t understand how this works with the CR to maintain current levels of spending. Do the Nigerian trans squirrels get their estrogen shots or not?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/11/2025 21:10
Comments ||
Top||
[THEPOSTMILLENNIAL] Just days after Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) grilled reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... Mayor Brandon Johnson ...Hizzonner da Mare of Chicago. He was elected in April 2023 to replace the disastrous Lori Lightfoot and immediately set about out-Richtering her. A member of the Democratic Party (naturally), Johnson previously worked as a social studies teacher in the city's stellar public schools system. He helped organize the 2012 teachers strike. Prior to becoming Da Mare, he served on the Cook County Board of Boodling Commissioners from 2018 to 2023... about his "secret gift room" in Chicago's City Hall, the gifts have gotten pubic coverage from media and they are going to be donated to charity.
Johnson was being questioned in Congress over Chicago's sanctuary city policies, when Gill started grilling him on the different gifts that the mayor has been given. "For those of you who don't know, Mayor Johnson has a secret gift room that is not given access to the public," Gill said.
"On June 12, 2023, you received HUGO BOSS cufflinks and a personalized Montblanc pen. Do you know who gave you those?" Gill added, questioning the mayor.
Johson responded, saying, "So, I did not receive those personally, the city of Chicago—" Gill interjected, "The city of Chicago."
The Chicago mayor added, "That's right, on behalf of the city of Chicago."
Some of the gifts in the room include a signed Bulls jersey as well as a NASCAR driver's fire suit. In addition to that, there were HUGO BOSS cufflinks and a designer Montblanc pen, according to ABC7.
Gill did not stop there, but asked, "Do you know who gave those to the city of Chicago?" When Johnson began to say he received them on behalf of the city again, Gill pressed him again, "It's a yes or no question."
Both began to speak at the same time, with Gill then saying, "I reclaim my time sir. On March 18, 2024 you received a Gucci tote bag. Do you know who gave the city of Chicago that?"
Johnson reiterated that they were not personal gifts, but that they were given to the city separately. Gill once again, reclaimed his time as a politician at the hearing, and said, "This raises serious ethical concerns. You're providing an enormous amount of aid to illegal aliens, aiding and abetting criminals who have come into our country illegally. And you yourself are receiving an enormous amount of gifts, and you won't even tell us who they're coming from. This raises serious ethical concerns."
The local outlet reported that the gifts are now being shown to the public after there was a report from the Chicago inspector general which raised concerns about who gave the gifts. The gifts will now be listed on the city's website where it will also detail who offered the items and they will be donated on a regular basis.
Gill said of the new transparency on the gifts after the hearing regarding illegal immigration, "Chicago is a Sanctuary City that harbors criminal illegal aliens who are terrorizing the American people. Mayor Brandon Johnson has been a major proponent and defender of Sanctuary cities. At the same time, he was accepting luxurious gifts from undisclosed sources. While this new-found transparency is welcome, it isn't enough. Sanctuary city policies must end now. Our elected officials have a duty to American citizens, not illegal aliens."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11151 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This is all one big joke if anyone is going to pretend there was any sort of "transparency" here.
I spent a decade as a Federal Bank Examiner. We were drilled early and often that we couldn't even accept a lunch at a Western Sizzler from a bank we were examining.
We've got to stop splitting hairs over this crap and just designate them as the *crimes* that they are.
#2
The cufflinks, the pen and the other material gifts are pretty small potatoes.
The more serious stuff is, for example, giving friends and relatives of the mayor jobs that don't require him to work, large donations to campaign funds that end up being used for personal benefit, and sweetheart deals that involve the mayor or his friends and relatives buying real estate at less than market or getting loans with no interest or forgivable principle.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/11/2025 10:19
Comments ||
Top||
#3
So basically if the Mayor robbed a bank and was later identified, and gave back $$$$. Then it is ok under Illinois law?
#4
^3
Actually, it might be. If the Bank decided not to testify against the Mayor and there were no other witnesses, prosecution might be difficult. The mayor could claim that it was all a stunt or a test designed to help the bank be more secure.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/11/2025 21:43
Comments ||
Top||
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] Russian troops have inflicted a series of defeats on the enemy along the entire length of the front line from Sudzha and Kupyansk to Pokrovsk and Kurakhovo. Over the past week, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been forced to withdraw from their positions, and in some areas of the front, the enemy is preparing for a strategic retreat.
In recent days, the Russian Armed Forces have been developing a successful offensive against enemy positions in the Kursk region. Beginning on March 5, assault units advanced in all directions on this section of the front, which is why the enemy group in Sudzha found itself on the verge of encirclement.
By March 9, the settlement of Kubatkin was liberated, in another area Russian troops drove the enemy out of Malaya Loknya. To the east, assault units liberated the villages of Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa. The information of war correspondents was confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
"As a result of decisive actions by units of the Sever group of troops in the Kursk region, the settlements of Malaya Loknya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa have been liberated. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to defeat the formations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region," the department noted.
The loss of settlements was also acknowledged by a number of Ukrainian sources, who admit that the Ukrainian Armed Forces group may retreat from Russian territory in the near future. "The enemy has occupied Martynivka, Malaya Loknya and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, today there are many shots from Kurshchyna, where the enemy continues to advance. There is simply no desire to comment on anything. The main thing now is the lives of those who carry out their tasks to the last," the Ukrainian resource DeepState sadly commented on the situation.
The liberation of the village of Kubatkin allowed the encirclement of a group of enemy troops in the settlements of Yuzhny and Ivashkovsky. Later, information was received that both villages came under the control of Russian troops, and the Ukrainian soldiers remaining in the encirclement surrendered.
The Russian army's offensive has caused real panic in Western media. The Bild publication reported on the critical situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region, citing its sources in Kyiv.
According to journalists, the Ukrainian army is retreating in the direction of Sudzha and the border with Sumy Oblast, trying to avoid complete encirclement. Later, the “timely measures to maneuver to advantageous defensive lines” were confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky.
At the same time, retreating formations become targets for Russian aviation and artillery. According to unverified information, the "cadre" 47th and 95th brigades of the Ukrainian army have abandoned their positions. In their place, the enemy is bringing in territorial defense units, which, if anything happens, it will not be a pity to abandon in the emerging "cauldron".
THINGS ARE GOING BADLY
The collapse of the Ukrainian front was also caused by a daring operation by a Russian army assault group that penetrated the enemy's rear via the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod gas pipeline. It was previously reported that a group of 800 assault unit fighters managed to penetrate the enemy's rear and started a battle directly on the outskirts of Sudzha.
The success of the operation was noted by German military expert Julian Röpke, known for his pro-Ukrainian views.
"Since the Ukrainian army had no mobile rear units between Sudzha and the front lines to clear the area, this led to a disaster, as all Ukrainian forces in the north, northeast and northwest were suddenly faced with a two-front war and were cut off from supplies," the expert said on social media.
There is also information about the advance of Russian troops in the territory of the Sumy region of Ukraine, which in the future could lead to the complete encirclement of the enemy group in Sudzha. The Russian Aerospace Forces also struck at the crossing over the Psel River near the settlement of Barilovka, making it difficult for the enemy to transfer reserves to the Kursk region.
The skillful actions of Russian troops on the enemy's communications may lead to the Ukrainian Armed Forces being forced to abandon the "Sudzhan bridgehead" in the coming weeks, which has been fought over for the past seven months.
Another major success for Russian troops was the liberation of the village of Constantinople east of Kurakhovo in the DPR.
Fighting for this settlement has been going on for the past several months, but decisive success was achieved after a simultaneous offensive from several directions.
Assault units of the Russian Armed Forces attacked the village from the north - from the Andreyevka area, from the east - from positions near the village of Ulakly and from the southeast - from the Zelenovka area.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces units stationed in Constantinople had previously suffered heavy losses and were not withdrawn for rotation in a timely manner, a front-line source for the Regnum news agency noted.
"These are the same ones we beat in Ugledar and Kurakhovo. In fact, the command simply abandoned them, because reinforcements went to Kursk Oblast and somewhere else. They were left without rotation, and morale there had been falling in recent weeks. As a result, we drove out the enemy with a decisive assault, skillfully attacking them from several sides," the source told the publication.
Ukrainian analytical resources, however, are in no hurry to admit the loss of Constantinople, stating that the battles for the village continue. And they can be understood. After the liberation of this settlement, the road to the Dnepropetrovsk region opens up for the Russian army, which Kyiv does not want to admit.
At the moment, the front line is moving towards the outskirts of the settlement of Bogatyr, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces command has withdrawn troops from Constantinople. Clashes are also reported in the area of Alekseyevka and the settlement of Razliv.
COUNTERATTACKS NEAR POKROVSK
Fighting also continues in the Pokrovsk area in the east of the DPR, where the enemy has been unsuccessfully trying to seize the initiative for the past few weeks. The Russian Armed Forces have repelled all attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to advance on the front line in the area of the settlements of Udachnoye and Kotlino.
By constantly counterattacking the enemy, the Russian army was also able to occupy some of the previously abandoned positions, sources at Regnum news agency report.
"In general, the intensity of their attacks is waning. Apparently, reserves are running out or American aid has not arrived, but recently they have been trying to advance less and less and are digging in deeper. It can be assumed that in the near future the Ukrainian Armed Forces will withdraw from Udachny, and the front will move north - to the strategic E50 highway," the publication's sources suggest.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces units are continuing their attempts to break through the front line in the Peschanoye and Zverevo area in order to push Russian troops back from the southern approaches to Pokrovsk. During the clashes near the village of Shevchenko, the enemy suffered heavy losses and was then forced to abandon part of the village. The combat contact line in this area runs along Tsvetochnaya Street, separating the urban development and the private sector.
Overall, the Russian Armed Forces have successfully repelled all enemy attempts to counterattack. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, exhausted in battle, are retreating along the entire front line, which creates new opportunities for the Russian army.
[THEPOSTMILLENNIAL] InfoWars news hound Jamie White was found unresponsive late Sunday night in what authorities are investigating as a murder. He was pronounced dead after being taken to a local hospital.
Austin Police Department officers responded to a high-priority emergency call at approximately 11:57 p.m. in the 2300 block of Douglas Street.
Officers arrived about two minutes later and found White, a male victim, with "obvious signs of trauma," according to APD Public Information Officer Leah Ratliff.
The investigation is ongoing, and authorities have not confirmed the nature of White's injuries or released information about potential suspects. This marks Austin's eighth homicide of the year.
Ratliff stated, "This is pretty early on in the investigation, and the homicide unit will be releasing more information as they're able," reports CBS.
A statement from InfoWars's Alex Jones confirmed White's death, vowing that those responsible would be brought to justice. "Jamie's tragic death will not be in vain, and those responsible for this senseless violence will be brought to justice." Jones blamed "Soros Austin, TX D.A. Jose Garza" partially for the murder.
White, who was working late at the InfoWars studios Sunday night, was found at his home just a few miles from the studio. "Jamie loved to fight tyranny, loved to fight for freedom," said Jones.
White was pronounced dead in the hospital. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have yet to release further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11144 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
A right wing investigative journalist.
Wonder who has his 'working notes'?
Work crews are currently dismantling Black Lives Matter Plaza, located just north of the White House, 4.5 years after it was erected. Following threats from Congress to withhold federal funding, D.C. Mayor Bowser has agreed to decommission BLM Plaza. pic.twitter.com/ct5J141YgG
Dutch authorities have arrested Aseel Kashif, a Syrian resident in the Netherlands, after she was caught on video saying, “Do whatever you want with them [Alawites], just don’t film it.” A deportation order has since been issued against her. pic.twitter.com/F278rRxsjQ
[THEPOSTMILLENNIAL] Three more employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been fired who were involved in the situation in which workers at the agency skipped over Florida homes that had Trump campaign signs on their property in the wake of Hurricane Milton.
Acting Head of FEMA Cameron Hamilton wrote in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the three employees failed "to meet our standards of conduct," and hoped that the firings send a message within the agency.
Supervisor Marn'i Washington, who ordered hurricane ...as in blow me down!... relief workers to "avoid homes" sporting Trump signs had already been fired back in November following an investigation. In an interview after her firing, she claimed that workers were allowed to skip these homes if they felt "uncomfortable," like if a home had "loose dogs." At least 20 homes were reportedly bypassed, with messages written in the government system like "Trump sign no entry per leadership" on skipped houses.
Those included in the latest round of firings associated with the incident were of employees higher in the chain of command. He wrote that the investigation headed by FEMA's Office of Professional Responsibility in the wake of the actions by agency members "found no evidence that this was a systemic problem, nor that it was directed by agency or field leadership. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... it did determine that those in the immediate supervisor chain of the single staff member who engaged in this conduct should have had more direct control of their subordinates' behavior. Thus, they have failed to meet my expectations of leaders in this organization and have been terminated."
He noted that in addition to the investigation, he has directed additional training for FEMA staff "to reinforce that political affiliation should never be a consideration in the rendering of assistance."
Since taking office, President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... signed an executive order establishing a council that will undertake a review of the agency. This came after emergency response to the Milton and Helene hurricanes received backlash.
#3
They believed they were untouchable regardless who won — look how well they prospered while defying President Trump during his first time in office.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Smirnov
[REGNUM] Exactly 120 years ago, on March 10, 1905, the largest battle of the Russo-Japanese War ended - the Battle of Mukden. It is generally accepted that the three-week heavy fighting ended with a victory for the Japanese, which provoked a crisis of autocracy, and ultimately its collapse. After all, Port Arthur fell shortly before Mukden, which means the fate of the campaign was predetermined. With a calm and thoughtful analysis, such a dogma turns out to be untenable, conditioned by political considerations.
In essence, this is the point of view of Russia's opponents, which found its most concentrated expression in the interpretations of Vladimir Lenin, and those in turn were declared by Soviet historiography to be the ultimate truth. If the facts contradicted them, so much the worse for the facts.
But before assessing the nature and significance of the key episode of the Russo-Japanese War, let us recall where and how the battle unfolded.
Arrangement of the "figures" and plans of the parties
The Battle of Mukden took place in a space divided by the South Manchurian Railway into two parts: the western plain and the eastern mountainous part. An additional external factor was the weather - in early March there was a severe frost in this part of Manchuria.
By that time, the three Russian armies had 330,000 combat personnel with 1,266 guns and 56 machine guns. Nicholas II entrusted the overall command to General Alexei Kuropatkin, commander-in-chief of "all land and sea forces operating against Japan." The military leader had previously proven himself in the conquest and development of Turkestan and was considered well acquainted with military operations in steppe and desert conditions - in addition to our campaigns in Central Asia, he had a French military expedition to the Sahara to his credit. In 1898-1904, he held the post of Minister of War.
Kuropatkin's troops stood on a front about 150 km long. On the right flank were the positions of the 2nd Army of General Alexei Kaulbars, consisting of the 1st Siberian and the 8th and 10th Army Corps. The left flank was occupied by the 1st Army of Nikolai Linevich - the 2nd, 3rd, 4th Siberian and 1st Army Corps. The defense of the center was entrusted to the 3rd Army of General Alexander Bilderling, made up of the 5th and 6th Siberian and 17th Army Corps. The flanks were covered by the cavalry of General Pavel Mishchenko and a detachment of Colonel Maslov.
The enemy forces numbered 270,000 men, 1,062 guns and 200 machine guns. Emperor Meiji entrusted the command to Marshal Prince Iwao Oyama, one of the creators of the modern Japanese army. Oyama advanced the troops, dividing them into three groups.
Opposing Kaulbars's positions were the 2nd Army of Hakushaku (Count) General Yasukata Oku and the 3rd Army of General Maresuki Nogi. Linevich's troops were also threatened by two large formations - the 1st Army of General Tamemotu Kuroki and the 5th Army of Kageki Kawamura. The center was occupied by the 4th Army of Marshal Michitsura Nozu.
Let us add that Marshal Oyama kept a reserve force in reserve - a division and three brigades with a total strength of 30 thousand bayonets with 170 guns.
Both sides planned to play "on the offensive".
Our command intended to strike a decisive blow at the Japanese left flank. The enemy also expected to strike at the flanks, mainly the right. In general, Oyama, who as a young officer in 1870 personally witnessed the total defeat of the French by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, wanted to repeat the same scheme: divide the troops into three parts and encircle the enemy.
But the battle made adjustments to the participants’ plans.
THE COURSE OF THE BATTLE
At first, the Russian command planned an offensive, but intelligence data on the redeployment of enemy forces forced them to change the plan and go on the defensive. The approaches to Mukden were well equipped in engineering terms and included four lines of fortifications - forts, redoubts, lunettes.
On February 6, the advance units of General Kawamura's 5th Japanese Army launched an offensive, attacking the positions of our 11th Infantry Division on the Tsinghechen Heights. Then Kuroki's 1st Army went on the offensive. The actions on our left flank against the troops of Linevich's 1st Army were more of a demonstration, while the main attack was carried out on the right, with the intention of making a deep envelopment and reaching the rear of the defenders of Mukden.
The maneuver was carried out by Nogi's 3rd Army, secretly concentrated on the Taizihe River line and beginning the operation on February 13. The Japanese offensive encountered staunch resistance from Russian troops. Nevertheless, on February 22, at the cost of enormous losses, the enemy managed to approach Mukden to within 12 km from the west with the intention of striking our communications and rear. The 5th Army continued its offensive from the southeast, which created the possibility of encircling the main forces of the Manchurian armies.
In view of this threat, Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin gave the order to withdraw troops to Telin, where new fortifications were created.
Our Manchurian armies successfully emerged from the emerging "bag". Only the rearguards and supply trains covering the retreat were cut off, which led to the partial capture of personnel from a number of batteries and infantry regiments, in particular, the 55th Podolsk and 241st Orsk.
In the twenty-day Mukden battle, the Japanese command made a desperate and, as it turned out later, last attempt to utterly defeat the Russian army in order to end the war under the dictation of their conditions. However, this did not happen, the "Manchu Sedan" planned by Marshal Oyama failed.
THE AFTERMATH OF MUKDEN. WHO IS DEFEATED?
The enemy's partially successful envelopment of Russian positions had one undoubted consequence - another, albeit not perfectly executed, retreat of the Manchurian armies to previously prepared lines in the area of the city of Sipingai.
At Mukden, the Russian army lost about 90,000 killed and wounded, with another 30,000 missing or captured. The Japanese lost at least 70,000 men, with several hundred captured.
Assessing the outcome of the Battle of Mukden, the modern historian Konstantin Zalessky writes:
“In the Battle of Mukden, neither side achieved a decisive victory, but the Japanese losses were higher; at the same time, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the occupation of Mukden by the Japanese gave Tokyo the opportunity to declare its victory.”
The news of this imaginary victory was carried by the British agency Reuters (London formally occupied a neutral position in the Russo-Japanese War) across the globe and was picked up by numerous enemies of Russia, and then, with their light hand, it firmly entered school textbooks as a historical fact.
A THWARTED BLITZKRIEG OR “CRIMINAL NEGLECT”?
In reality, everything was the other way around.
The "draw" at Mukden was fatal for Japan, because after this battle Tokyo had no forces left to continue the war. Since February 1905, the Japanese army was unable to carry out a single major offensive operation.
At the same time, Russia easily closed the gap that had formed in the personnel of its armies and continued to systematically increase its combat power. It was this circumstance that put the Japanese leadership in front of the threat of an imminent, inevitable defeat and led to the activation of Japanese diplomacy and intelligence - in establishing contacts and making deals with the revolutionary underground with the aim of undermining the Russian rear.
The leader of the left-radical faction in the RSDLP, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), “predicted” Russia’s defeat back in November 1904, when the war was just beginning. “ The government will inevitably become entangled in that shameful and criminal Manchurian adventure, which brings with it a political crisis both in the event of a decisive military defeat and in the event of a protracted war that is hopeless for Russia,” wrote the Bolshevik leader from the Geneva exile.
Commenting on the capture of Port Arthur by the Japanese in January 1905, Lenin wrote in an article that became a textbook example in Soviet times:
"The generals and commanders turned out to be incompetents and nonentities. The entire history of the 1904 campaign was, according to the authoritative testimony of one English military observer (in the Times), "a criminal disregard for the elementary principles of naval and land strategy." References to British experts were intended to confirm the general conclusion: defeat in war creates favorable ground for public indignation, and therefore revolution.
But let us ask ourselves: how did things really stand and, in particular, was the military art of the Japanese really so great?
PLAYING WITH NUMBERS
As the Soviet military historian Alexander Sorokin noted in his fundamental 1956 work on the Russo-Japanese War: "The Japanese generals were no higher in military terms than the Russians. This was confirmed at Mukden. Even in a favorable situation, with the passivity of the Russian command, the Japanese generals were unable to accomplish the task set - to encircle and destroy the Russian troops."
Of great importance for the analysis and evaluation of the results of battles and the war as a whole are data on the balance of power between the opposing sides and the extent of their losses.
Most works on the history of the Russo-Japanese War, domestic and foreign, usually cite the same figures. They migrate from one book to another, without being questioned or critically analyzed.
However, there are grounds for such doubts, if only because the data used by the authors on the number of troops and the size of the losses of the Japanese army are based primarily on the data of its own command. As the researchers note, the Japanese military initially sought to hide information on the number of their armed forces and losses, while at the same time publicizing deliberately distorted statistics that were advantageous to them.
Such data were published or transferred to the allies in a confidential manner and immediately became public knowledge, being carried around the world by wire agencies and influential British media such as the London Times or the Reuters agency. They were also disseminated by the Russian press.
In reality, the picture was quite different, as indicated by the fact that official Japanese figures often look contradictory and unconvincing. This circumstance was noted by members of the military-historical commission of the Russian General Staff, the authors of a nine-volume work on the history of the war, published in 1910.
They used Japanese data on numbers and losses (for lack of other data), but with serious reservations and often refutations.
Thus, analyzing the official data of the enemy on the number of killed and wounded in the Battle of Mukden (41 thousand people), the commission came to the conclusion that they were underestimated by more than half, while the real amount of bloody losses of the Japanese army at Mukden was no less than 67,500 people.
The table provides data on losses in the main battles of the Russo-Japanese War, taken from the publication of the military-historical commission of the Russian General Staff, supplemented by figures from the Great Russian Encyclopedia (Liaoyang, Port Arthur, “for the entire war”).
Let us emphasize that the figure for the loss of our armies at Mukden (89,423 people) includes 29,330 people taken prisoner, while the bloody losses in this battle were, as stated above, less than the Japanese: 60,093 people against more than 70,000, and it is significant that the Japanese command reported losses of only 41,000 people.
It should also be noted that, while the total losses of both sides were equal throughout the war (270,000 people), as reported by the Great Russian Encyclopedia, the number of those killed in the Japanese army was significantly greater than in the Russian: 86 thousand people versus 50 thousand.
Soviet historian and professor at the General Staff Academy Nikolai Levitsky provided more detailed figures for total losses. According to his data, the total number of Japanese army officers killed and hospitalized wounded and sick amounted to 689,000 people, while "Russia's total losses in people for the combat front, including those killed, wounded, missing, and evacuated due to illness," did not exceed 400,000 people.
If we add to the above that during the war the population of Japan and Russia was 45 million and 140 million people, respectively, then it becomes clear why already in the spring of 1905 the Land of the Rising Sun persistently asked for peace.
In light of all this, both the Japanese victory in the war and our supposedly “crushing” and “shameful” defeat are nothing more than political speculation, a malicious myth.
NOT AN INCH OF LAND, NOT A RUBLE OF REPARATIONS
The Battle of Mukden and the naval battle in the Tsushima Strait are entrenched in the public consciousness as the main events of the "lost" war with Japan. However, Mukden was not a rout, and Tsushima did not play a major role, since the fate of the campaign was decided on land.
All the retreats of the Russian army have a simple explanation: the numerical superiority of the Japanese, not only in the initial phase of the war, when their army had a huge strategic advantage and a threefold superiority in forces, but also in the subsequent period (Liaoyang, Mukden), when this superiority was maintained despite the arrival of reinforcements from the European part of Russia throughout 1904.
The very fact that offensive operations require a significant superiority in forces (and all the Japanese battles were offensive in nature) proves that they had such an advantage up until Mukden. Under these conditions, the strategy of retreating and avoiding a decisive battle until the Russian forces had gained an undoubted advantage was completely justified.
The build-up of these forces proceeded at a rapid pace from the beginning of 1905.
Our combat power grew rapidly, while Japan's steadily declined. Our defeats were conditional, if not imaginary: the Russian Manchurian armies were never surrounded and destroyed. While "losing" individual battles, Russia won the war as a whole.
This explains why Tokyo eventually asked for peace, and its Western patrons (England, the USA) did everything to ensure that peace was achieved as quickly as possible. In Portsmouth, Russia essentially spoke to its enemy from a position of strength. Nicholas II's concessions were minimal: not an inch of Russian land (except for half of the already lost Sakhalin), not a ruble of reparations.
It is not without reason that in Japan the results of the war were perceived as a defeat. It would have been even more crushing (in view of the changed balance of forces) if internal and external enemies had not managed to ignite revolutionary unrest in the rear of warring Russia. But this is a separate topic.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 23:57 Department for Documentation of War Crimes of Ukraine from 00:00 03/10/2025 to 00:00 03/11/2025.
A total of 15 facts of armed attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
There were reports of two civilians being injured.
DAMAGED:
Four residential buildings,
One civil infrastructure facility.
A total of 15 armed attacks in the Gorlovka direction.
A total of 46 units of various ammunition were fired.
19:34 Russian tank crews continue to destroy equipment and manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Thanks to the interaction of tank crews with UAV operators, shooting at targets is carried out with a minimum expenditure of ammunition.
17:34 Soldiers of the 16th Separate Special Forces Brigade destroyed enemy UAV control point in the Serebryanskoye forestry area.
17:07 Fighters of the North Group of Forces liberated the village of Bondarevka –MAP
16:29 From 15:20 to 15:40 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles:
One over the territory of the Belgorod region and
One over the territory of the Kursk region.
15:21 Powerful explosion: drone drivers liquidated a large group of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants
During their escape from Sudzha, Ukrainian soldiers tried to hide in a building. Scouts from the North group of troops using UAVs, observed them. Drone operators waited for the right moment and used a strike drone to attack the building with the militants.
14:57 The "Offices" group of the "West" group destroyed Ukrainian Armed Forces units near Kupyansk with Molniya drones equipped with anti-tank mines.
14:48 Footage released destruction of crossings of the Ukrainian Armed Forces across the Oskol Reservoir by an air strike using the Kh-38 in the area of the settlement of Gorokhovatka in the Khar'kov region.
13:57 Units of the North Group of Forces liberated the settlements of Zazulevka, Ivashkovsky and Agronom in the Kursk region –MAP
12:40 Pokrovskoe (Krasnoarmeyskoye) direction. Left flank
Counter battles. The initiative in the area passes to our units. The enemy's attempts to break through/drop in end in approximately the same way: the assault groups are destroyed on the approach to our positions, blocked and cleared.
Our units are beginning to restore their previously occupied positions in the Udachny area and on the northwestern outskirts of Kotlino.
In Shevchenko, there is heavy fighting in the northern outskirts and in the northeastern part. Our units are counterattacking.
The enemy is being destroyed in the railway area, north of Novy Trud and along the northern outskirts of Zeleny.
11:50 FPV drone operators at the Rubicon Test Center struck armored vehicles, manpower and UAVs of the enemy in the Kursk region. Also, drone crews disrupt the enemy's logistics and cut off its retreat routes by destroying road bridges.
11:37 Footage released shows defeats of workshops for the production of UAVs and a warehouse for military-technical property of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement of Bogodukhov in the Khar'kov region, as well as the place for the preparation and launch of UAVs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement of Stepnogorsk in the Zaporizhia region.
11:10 Calculation of the 152mm 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled gun of the Center group of forces destroyed tank and concentration of Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower in the Krasnoarmeysk direction.
11:06 Our naval infantry destroyed manpower and equipment of Ukrainian military personnel who were trying to escape from Sudzha to Yunakovka in Sumy Oblast.
9:54 FPV operators 44 Army Corps GV "Sever" around the clock patrolling the sky of the Khar'kov region, revealing the location of Ukrainian military personnel and inflicting fire damage on them.
9:20 Investigators of the Russian Investigative Committee will investigate the crime of the Ukrainian Armed Forces against civilians of the Belgorod region
According to the executive authorities, in the city of Shebekino a man was injured by a mine of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that detonated nearby.
9:10 An ambulance in Velikaya Lepetikha was attacked Ukrainian Armed Forces drone "Baba Yaga"
"The medical team was returning to the station from a call in the village of Konstantinovka, followed by "Baba Yaga". As soon as the car arrived at the site in Velikaya Lepetikha, a drone drop was made," the District Administration reported.
8:13 T-90M tankers of the "Southern" group of troops of the Ivanovo Guards Airborne Division support offensive actions of assault units, destroying enemy manpower in the area of the settlement of Chasov Yar in the DPR
8:00 In the evening of 03/09/2025 as a result of decisive actions of units of the North group of troops in the Kursk region released settlements of Malaya Loknya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] US Vice President J.D. Vance's cousin, Nate Vance, fought on the side of Kiev as part of the separate mechanized battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces "Da Vinci Wolves." Vance's relative himself spoke about this in an interview with Le Figaro on March 9.
Nate Vance arrived in Ukraine in March 2022, where he spent a total of three years, 2.5 of which he fought in the Honor Company. It is noted that he took part in the battles for Kupyansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Pokrovsk. In January 2025, Nate Vance resigned and returned to the United States, but continues to support Ukraine, as before.
Speaking to reporters, Nate Vance was clearly upset that his cousin and US Vice President J.D. Vance did not inquire about his combat experience and spoke out against providing aid to Kyiv.
"J.D. is a good, smart guy. When he criticized aid to Ukraine, I thought he was doing it because he needed to please a certain constituency, that it was a political game," Nate Vance explained.
Nate and J.D. Vance share the same grandparents. The U.S. Vice President's mother is Vance's father's sister. The cousins know each other well and sometimes vacation together. Before going to Ukraine, Nate served four years in the U.S. Army and trained as a Marine. He later moved to Texas and worked in the oil industry.
Earlier, Regnum news agency reported that in 2024, more than 3.3 thousand mercenaries from more than 70 countries were taking part in military operations against the Russian Armed Forces in the ranks of Ukrainian formations.
In September of this year, US mercenary Michael Paul Maldonado, who fought on the side of the Kiev regime, was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in prison. It was noted that he served in the ranks of Ukrainian formations, receiving money and other material support for this.
At the end of July, the Russian Federation convicted in absentia mercenaries from Georgia and Latvia who participated in military actions in the Donbass on the side of the Kiev regime. Georgian citizen Shota Demetrashvili was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment, and Latvian citizen Aninsh Atvars was sentenced in absentia to 13 years of imprisonment.
[FoxNews] The study shows that over $1 trillion has been spent promoting DEI
A study published this week details the degree to which the Biden administration infused DEI policies into the federal government in a report the authors say can serve as a resource for the Trump administration to continue to identify and "destroy" the practice.
The new study, conducted by the Functional Government Initiative and the Center for Renewing America, identified 460 programs across 24 government agencies in the Biden administration that diverted resources to DEI initiatives.
At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money was infused with DEI principles, the study states.
The study lays out DEI infusion across several federal agencies, including the Defense Department's plan to "integrate environmental/economic justice tools" into training, FEMA’s need to "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management," and the Labor Department's push to "embed equity in a sustainable manner that recognizes the multiple and overlapping identities held by workers."
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 13985, which was aimed at carrying out the stated goal of "advancing equity and racial justice through the federal government."
"This order mandated a whole of government approach to injecting DEI philosophy into the federal budget," the study says. "In alignment with this directive, the Biden administration apparently spent trillions in DEI-related initiatives in a manner and at a speed that has shrouded public awareness of the financial burden."
A study published this week details the degree to which the Biden administration infused DEI policies into the federal government in a report the authors say can serve as a resource for the Trump administration to continue to identify and "destroy" the practice.
The new study, conducted by the Functional Government Initiative and the Center for Renewing America, identified 460 programs across 24 government agencies in the Biden administration that diverted resources to DEI initiatives.
At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money was infused with DEI principles, the study states.
The study lays out DEI infusion across several federal agencies, including the Defense Department's plan to "integrate environmental/economic justice tools" into training, FEMA’s need to "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management," and the Labor Department's push to "embed equity in a sustainable manner that recognizes the multiple and overlapping identities held by workers."
The report outlines how, over the next four years, the amount spent on DEI efforts was "staggering."
"The cumulative budget of these programs exceeds $1.1 trillion," the report says. "However, this figure does not encompass all DEI-related expenditures, nor does it include every program across these agencies. The findings reveal a substantial increase in DEI spending, largely attributable to policy directives under the Biden administration."
"Of the programs identified, 10 are exclusively dedicated to DEI and could be considered for quick elimination; 144 allocate significant resources to DEI initiatives and should be reviewed if those are to be ended; and 306 programs incorporate DEI to varying degrees, though the extent of their DEI focus is indeterminate based on the available documentation."
The report goes department by department and calculates the DEI programs and provides recommendations on how they should be addressed.
"DEI is deeply rooted throughout all aspects of the federal government, and it needs to be eliminated completely," Center for Renewing America senior adviser Wade Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"Thankfully, the Trump administration has already embarked on a vitally necessary complete audit of each and every government program. We offer, in this report, what we hope are additional resources and tools that the new administration and Congress can use to identify, destroy and permanently remove DEI from the federal government."
[RedState] On March 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — on his second day in office – sent a written notice of termination to Liz Oyer, Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice. The Pardon Attorney is a “career” position in that it is not an office that requires a presidential appointment that is confirmed by the Senate. The Pardon Attorney is appointed by the Attorney General, but the position is in the “Senior Executive Service.” These are the top management positions just below the presidential appointees in all federal agencies.
Oyer posted the written notice she was given on her LinkedIn page. It reads in part: “This memorandum serves as official notice that you are removed from your Senior Executive Service (SES) position of Pardon Attorney, Office of the Pardon Attorney, and from federal service, effectively immediately.”
The Office of the Pardon Attorney serves mostly in an “advisory” role. It receives pardon applications from current federal inmates as well as those who have already served their sentences. The Pardon Attorney investigates the circumstances of each case and forwards a recommendation to the president as to whether a pardon or other form of clemency, such as a sentence commutation, should be considered. Part of this process involves consulting with the prosecutorial entity that handled the case – sometimes, there is information about the defendant in the case file that is not necessarily in the court records.
Liz Oyer was appointed as the Pardon Attorney by Merrick Garland in 2022. Oyer was not a long-time DOJ career employee – she spent most of her career as an assistant federal defender in the District of Maryland. Prior to that, she was a partner in the firm Mayer Brown in D.C., so she is a veteran of Big Law, having gone to Georgetown as an undergrad and Harvard Law School.
But there was a noteworthy aspect of her dismissal that was reported by the Wall Street Journal the day after her firing – she was immediately escorted from the building by security.
This is done when there is an ongoing investigation that the individual is likely unaware of, and those conducting the investigation want to preserve all electronic records that might be available on a computer and cell phone. Asking her to leave immediately prevents any attempt to delete such records.
As readers will recall, over the course of the final month of the Biden administration, there were several controversial episodes involving the granting of pardons and/or clemency by Joe Biden. He gave a pardon to his son Hunter that covered any criminal activity over a 10-year (plus) period going back to 2014. He commuted the death sentences of all federal inmates on “Death Row” — except for three. He granted pardons/clemency in approximately 2,500 cases, including Leonard Peltier, convicted for the 1975 murder of two FBI Agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
But what might be of most interest to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche are the “preemptive” pardons Biden issued on his last day in office, given to other Biden family members, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Ret. Gen. Mark Milley, and the House members and staff who served on the January 6 Special Committee. President Trump had stated an intention during the campaign to look into the allegations of influence peddling by members of Biden’s family, some of whom had testified before the House Oversight Committee examining the foreign sources of income received by the family during his two terms as vice president.
Normally, the issuance of a presidential pardon is a “non-justiciable” act. The power to issue pardons rests exclusively with the executive branch as set forth in the Constitution, Article II, Sec. 2, Clause 1. It is “non-justiciable” in the sense that Article III courts do not have jurisdiction to review a grant of a presidential pardon or another form of clemency, so there is no clear avenue through which to challenge the validity of a pardon.
But two issues have now arisen that might provide a basis for an inquiry even though there remains uncertainty as to whether there are any avenues available to seek a remedy.
The first is the now well-publicized cognitive decline and onset of dementia that was evident in Biden’s public appearances for more than two years. This is reflected in the exchange recounted by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), who recently described a conversation with Biden over the suspension of approvals for liquid natural gas exports to other countries around the world. When the subject was raised, Biden said to Johnson that he never suspended those exports even though he clearly did so – as announced by the White House – in January 2024. This raised the issue of whether Biden was aware of what others in the administration were doing in his name.
The second issue that has arisen is an ongoing analysis of the use of an “autopen” to sign official documents with a reproduction of Biden’s signature. Use of an autopen is not controversial. It would be a physical impossibility for a president to sign every piece of paper that requires a presidential signature.
But autopen signatures are easy to detect under examination. The primary indicator is that with autopen signatures, the writing instrument never leaves contact with the paper – except it does so very cleanly between the two names. Further, there is no variation between autopen signatures as they are produced with finely calibrated computer-controlled movements of the writing instrument.
The combination of these two factors leads to the question of whether a presidential pardon bearing an autopen signature is valid if Biden was unaware such pardons were being issued in his name. Is the power to issue pardons something that can be delegated by a president if it is exercised without his actual knowledge as to how that delegated power was used?
The records of the Office of the Pardon Attorney could produce relevant evidence on at least two key issues – were any of the controversial pardons issued in the waning hours of the Biden administration the subject of any review or recommendation by the Pardon Attorney? If not, that increases the likelihood that officials in the White House exercised the authority by going around the process for review and recommendations that were in place. The question as to why they would do that then becomes relevant to possible criminal intent – to hide what they were doing.
The second issue would arise from any evidence of communications between the White House and the Pardon Attorney regarding the more controversial pardons. This would be particularly true regarding the “preemptive” pardons given to individuals for the purpose of impeding any efforts by the incoming Trump administration to investigate those individuals – including the decision-making behind the investigations of Trump himself as part of the “lawfare” waged against him since the summer of 2016.
To the extent there were discussions that could be characterized as being in preparation to corrupt the pardon process for the benefit of select insiders who were already mentioned as possible targets of the incoming administration, could such actions fall within the scope of various “obstruction of justice” statutes? That would be a basis to open a grand jury investigation and begin gathering evidence with the tools that would provide. This investigation wouldn’t be about the pardons and the people who received them, as it would be about the process by which they were issued.
There is almost no doubt that the Trump DOJ is going to explore these issues and the question of whether any avenues of investigation remain open to them, notwithstanding the pardons. They may also test the pardons themselves by alleging they were invalidly issued if there is evidence that White House aides acted on their own initiative and Biden was unaware.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] Since August 6, 2024, when the enemy invasion of the Kursk region began, Russian troops have already liberated 32 settlements, according to TASS calculations made by March 10, 2025, based on data from the Russian Defense Ministry. The Sever group of troops is helping to push the enemy out of the Kursk border area.
In the last two days alone, its fighters have reported taking control of seven villages, hamlets and farmsteads, including Malaya Loknya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa, Lebedevka, Viktorovka, Nikolaevka and Staraya Sorochina.
On March 8, Russian troops showed unparalleled determination, willpower and courage in the Kursk direction, unexpectedly for the enemy breaking through to the industrial zone of the city of Sudzha through the underground Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod gas pipeline. The discussion of this news marked the new, 1110th day of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.
The fighters, who had to walk at least ten kilometers, bent over underground in full gear, risking poisoning from toxic fumes, were called “guys stronger than steel” by the acting head of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinshtein, in a Telegram channel.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not yet officially confirmed the breakthrough through the pipe, but the commander of the Akhmat special forces, Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, published his conversation with the fighters before the operation on his Telegram channel. Calling the "throw through the pipe" into the rear of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) truly historic, he also emphasized that the attack aircraft may be on their last combat mission.
The fact that Operation Pipe reduced the number of militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Sudzha area by a third and that the Russian Armed Forces fighters were able to enter the settlement was reported by sources of the Mash Telegram channel. It is also noted that in addition to the Akhmat special forces, hundreds of people were involved in the operation.
Meanwhile, fighters of the North group of forces consider it important to note that in addition to the fierce fighting for populated areas of the Kursk region, stubborn battles are taking place in forested areas on all sections of the front.
“Often, the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who are in positions do not know what is happening even in the neighboring forest plantation and refuse to surrender, thinking that behind them there are still blocking detachments that have long fled to Sudzha,” the group’s Telegram channel noted on March 10.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] Ukrainian Armed Forces Contain Russian Attacks in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.
The enemy is most active in the Toretsk direction, but in the Kursk region the intensity of fighting has noticeably decreased.
Since the beginning of the current day, 84 combat clashes have occurred on the front in 12 directions. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in an operational report as of 16:00 on Monday, March 10.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, our defenders repelled two assaults near Volchansk, one battle is still ongoing.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy attempted to advance five times in the areas of Lozovaya, Petrovpavlovka, Stepnaya Novoselovka and Boguslavka, and was rebuffed.
In the Liman direction, the aggressor has increased the number of attacks to nine near the settlements of Novoye, Grekovka, Novomikhaylovka, Kolodezi, Zelenaya Dolina, Yampolevka, Novolyubovka and Torskoye. One battle continues.
In the Seversky direction, the enemy has made nine attacks, eight of which have already been repelled. Enemy units of the occupiers are trying to advance in the Belogorovka and Verkhnekamenskoye areas.
In the Kramatorsk direction there is one battle going on towards Belaya Gora.
In the Toretsk direction, the aggressors tried to advance 16 times in the areas of Dachnoye, Kurdyumovka, Krymskoye, Druzhba, Toretsk and Shcherbinovka. Seven clashes are currently ongoing.
In the Pokrovsk direction, the enemy initiated clashes of varying intensity 14 times. All attacks were repelled in the areas of the populated areas of Valentinovka, Elizavetovka, Promin, Lisovka, Pokrovsk, Udachnoye, Kotlyarovka, Alekseyevka and Andreyevka.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, our defenders repelled 14 attacks near the settlements of Konstantinopol, Razliv, Skudnoe, Burlatskoe and in the direction of Vesyoloye. Five clashes are still ongoing.
In the Gulyai-Polye direction, three armed clashes have ended in the areas of Novosyolki and Privolnoye. Three more attacks by the invaders are continuing.
In the Orekhov direction, the Russians advanced five times near Novodanilovka, Pyatikhatki and in the direction of Stepnoye; three clashes are still ongoing.
In the Dnieper direction the enemy made one unsuccessful attempt to attack.
In Kursk region, Ukrainian troops repelled two Russian assaults.
Let us recall that in 2024, Ukraine became the largest arms importer in the world. This is evidenced by a study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22:15 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a decree on payments to participants in the 2014 Donbass war. Payments have been established for three categories of disabled participants in the military actions of May 11, 2014 - they should receive from 4.4 to 6 million rubles.
19:35 In the Korosten district of the Zhytomyr region, a forestry tractor ran over an explosive object, which detonated. As a result of the explosion, the driver was injured and hospitalized. The tractor was damaged.
18.17 Portugal has transferred eight SA-330 Puma helicopters to Ukraine as part of a military aid package approved at the end of 2024.
A special feature of the Portuguese SA-330 Pumas is their modern fire control systems, which allow them to launch Exocet anti-ship missiles.
17:50 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Saudi Arabia for a visit. This was stated by the head of state's adviser Dmytro Lytvyn, Ukrinform reported. Zelensky was accompanied by a delegation that will hold important talks with US representatives tomorrow.
17:35 Ukrainian military personnel have hit important strategic facilities on Russian territory. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We are talking about two oil refineries - in the Ryazan and Samara regions.
17:22 The situation on the border of Sumy Oblast with Kursk Oblast of Russia is under the control of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. This was written on Facebook by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrsky, while working in the operational zone of the Kursk group of troops. He assured that there is no threat of cordoning off our units in Kursk Oblast.
17.15 A serviceman from one of the Odessa territorial defense units has been detained on suspicion of organizing a scheme to issue fictitious psychiatric diagnoses in order to avoid military service. This was reported by the State Bureau of Investigation. It is noted that the defendant sought out "clients" among active military personnel and civilians. Through acquaintances in a mental hospital, he issued fictitious diagnoses to those who wanted them, allowing them to avoid mobilization and be discharged from service. The "services" cost 16 thousand dollars.
16:44 Since the beginning of the current day, 84 combat clashes have occurred on the front in 12 directions. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine provided details in an operational summary as of 16:00.
16.07 British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will hold a virtual meeting of European leaders on Ukraine. This will be a continuation of the recent summit in London. This was reported by The Guardian newspaper, citing the press secretary of the head of the British government.
14:05 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky held a working meeting on issues of forming army corps. According to him, in appointing corps commanders, priority was given to young officers who distinguished themselves by effective actions at the head of brigades.
13.49 The State Bureau of Investigation has reported suspicion to the commander of a military unit in the Kiev region, who allowed the illegal accrual of combat payments of more than 7 million hryvnia. This was reported by the press service of the State Bureau of Investigation on Monday, March 10.
13:33 In Khmelnytskyi, two men attacked a TCC officer, causing him multiple bodily injuries. This was reported by the Khmelnytskyi Regional Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support.
13:11 Russia and the United States have begun "restoring" bilateral relations, but are at an early stage. This was stated by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
12:43 Beta testing of a new document, a digital weapons permit, has begun in the Diia mobile app. This was reported by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.
12:20 Russian troops struck a residential area in the village of Ivashki, Zolochiv community, Kharkiv region, killing three people and injuring another woman. This was reported by the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov.
12:00 According to the results of February, the efficiency of Ukrainian drones increased by 22%. This was reported by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky following a meeting on the development of unmanned systems.
11:48 For the first time in a long time, the Russians raised an airborne early warning and control aircraft (AEW&C A-50U) of the Russian Federation. This was reported by military correspondent Andrey Tsaplienko on his Telegram channel.
10:58 Operators of the 144th Center of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated an industrial building from enemies and captured nine Russian servicemen in the Pokrovsky direction. This was reported by the press service of the Special Operations Forces, which posted a corresponding video on YouTube.
10:54 In 2025, the Ministry of Defense plans to purchase 4.5 million FPV drones for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In total, more than 110 billion hryvnia will be spent on the purchase of drones.
10:35 This week, the United States will hold talks in Saudi Arabia not only with Ukraine, but also with Russia. This was reported by the CNN channel.
10:23 A Russian agent who, on orders from the FSB, poisoned a Ukrainian serviceman and prepared improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to commit terrorist attacks has been detained in Kharkov. The SBU reported this on March 10.
10:05 Russian troops are trying to gain a foothold in the area of the village of Novenkoye in the Sumy region and cut off logistics routes. This was stated on television by Andriy Demchenko, a representative of the State Border Service of Ukraine.
9:25 In the Pokrovsk direction, near Kotlyarovka, Russian troops, using armored vehicles, tried to reach the administrative border of Donbass. This was reported by the operational-strategic group of troops Khortytsia.
8:46 The hottest areas over the past day were Pokrovskoe, Kursk, Toretskoe and Severskoe. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
8:37 The Russian army launched 176 Shahed-type attack drones on Ukrainian territory. The air defense forces operated in 15 regions. This was reported by the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on its Telegram channel.
7:57 The United States has "almost" resumed the exchange of intelligence information with Ukraine and expects positive results from future talks in Saudi Arabia. This was stated by US President Donald Trump in a conversation with journalists on board Air Force One, Reuters reports.
7:46 Russian aviation struck the village of Blakytne in the Zaporizhia region with guided bombs. Two men were injured, residential buildings were damaged. This was reported by the head of the Zaporizhia Regional Military Administration Ivan Fedorov on his Telegram channel.
04:20 DeepState denies the occupiers' claims of having allegedly captured Constantinople in the Donetsk region. The project's analysts note that on March 9, the occupiers sent several combat groups to the settlement, penetrating the northern, eastern and western outskirts of the village. "Some of the groups were destroyed, some may still be hiding in the village until they are discovered and destroyed," DeepState reported.
03:50 Drones attacked the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in the Samara region of the Russian Federation. Local Telegram channels write about explosions and bright flashes.
[X] Protest have increasingly become a tool not merely for expressing dissent but for exerting coercive pressure upon individuals who diverge from prevailing ideological orthodoxies. Recent organized attacks on Tesla dealerships across the nation provide a troubling illustration of this trend, with explicit efforts aimed at intimidating Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk into abandoning his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Central to this disturbing phenomenon are five Democrat-affiliated non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Funded significantly through ActBlue, these entities have leveraged protest not merely as an act of political expression but as strategic sabotage aimed squarely at Tesla’s economic interests and Musk’s personal resolve.
The coordinated nature of these demonstrations warrants serious attention. Troublemakers and Disruption Project have overtly embraced tactics of direct confrontation, aligning themselves with the more militant strands of leftist activism. Tesla dealerships from coast to coast have experienced not only picketing and verbal harassment of potential customers but also outright vandalism—incidents of shattered showroom windows, vehicles defaced with accusatory graffiti, arson, and even episodes involving gunfire into dealership windows at night.
In New York City, Rise & Resist, known historically for its decentralized activism, has escalated actions into events punctuated by chaotic disruptions. Leveraging their lack of centralized accountability, they’ve orchestrated high-profile disturbances designed specifically for maximum media coverage, thus amplifying the perception of widespread grassroots opposition. The psychological effect on Tesla employees and customers has been palpable—intended, no doubt, to erode confidence and sales, ultimately impacting Musk’s capacity to govern DOGE effectively.
Likewise, the Indivisible Project, established explicitly to challenge conservative administrations post-2016, and the Democratic Socialists of America, openly advocate a redistributionist economic agenda. Both organizations deploy highly organized protest tactics, drawing upon robust funding sources connected directly through ActBlue, whose principal funders include progressive billionaires like George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix. It is no mere coincidence that these NGOs are deploying tactics that echo historical methods of political intimidation, recalling darker chapters in American history where business interests and personal liberties were undermined by mob coercion.
Elon Musk's recent public revelation via social media that these ActBlue-supported groups were behind the coordinated assaults underscores a deeper, concerning element. ActBlue itself currently faces intense scrutiny over allegations involving illegal and foreign donations—a critical legal and ethical concern. The recent resignation of seven senior ActBlue officials, including the associate general counsel, further punctuates the gravity of these allegations.
The legal implications are profound. Commentators have rightly suggested Musk could invoke federal statutes specifically aimed at protecting civil rights from conspiratorial deprivation, citing potential violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242. The suggestion of possible terrorism charges reflects the severity of property damage and personal threats involved.
These coordinated efforts transcend mere protest and delve disturbingly into targeted economic sabotage. If the aim of these actions was merely symbolic protest, why then the explicit targeting of Tesla dealerships and the overt threats directed toward employees? Clearly, the intent goes beyond conventional activism—it constitutes an explicit attempt at coercive manipulation designed to force Musk into policy submission through economic intimidation.
Historically, the United States has vigorously protected private enterprise against intimidation and sabotage disguised as political protest. From the Whiskey Rebellion to the labor strikes of the early 20th century, federal responses have repeatedly underscored the necessity of delineating protest from violent intimidation. It remains essential today, in the face of concerted efforts from politically motivated entities, to clearly distinguish legitimate protest from organized campaigns of harassment and economic disruption.
The chilling effect of these actions extends beyond Tesla or Musk alone. It sends a troubling signal that economic and ideological conformity can be enforced through coordinated aggression, masked as grassroots activism. To capitulate to such pressure would set a dangerous precedent, emboldening similar tactics against other private businesses and public figures who diverge from progressive orthodoxy.
Ultimately, the responsibility lies with law enforcement and government agencies to decisively intervene against these orchestrated acts of sabotage. Elon Musk’s call for transparency and accountability, inviting information publicly via his platform, represents not only a defensive posture but also a clarion call for principled resistance against politically motivated economic coercion.
The integrity of public discourse and private enterprise hinges on our collective refusal to yield to intimidation masquerading as protest. The continued unchecked escalation by ActBlue-funded groups requires a robust legal and political response. Failure to act decisively would only encourage further erosion of democratic principles under the guise of political activism. Thus, it is not only Musk’s rights at stake but the very foundations of free enterprise and individual liberty upon which American prosperity and innovation rely.
#4
LAWFARE & SUE
The 5 Democrat-affiliated NGOs—Troublemaking leaders of:
* Disruption Project,
* Rise & Resist,
* Indivisible Project,
* Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
* and the Board Members and funding supporters of ActBlue.
Then list the groups as Federal Domestic Terrorist Organizations. Because their leaders direct actions, that are violent, destructive, and violate laws across state lines.
[Epoch Times] Air Force fighter jets on March 9 intercepted a civilian aircraft that flew in restricted airspace near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.
The incident took place as Trump finished a round of golf at his West Palm Beach golf course. It was also the second time in 48 hours that F-16 fighter jets from the Continental U.S. NORAD region responded to such an aviation violation over Palm Beach, Florida, the aerospace command stated.
On March 1, NORAD F-16 fighter jets intercepted three civilian aircraft violating airspace restrictions over Palm Beach at different intervals. The fighter jets fired flares at two of the aircraft, and all three were escorted out of the restricted airspace.
NORAD stated that it has responded to "over 20 tracks of interests" entering the restricted zone in Palm Beach since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
All idiots completely lacking in situational awareness or are some part of a deliberate campaign of harassment or practice for a future attack?
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11150 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
NORAD?
The guys that couldn't shoot down a balloon?
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila’s international airport Tuesday on order of the International Criminal Court in connection with a case of crime against humanity filed against him, the Philippine government said.
Duterte was arrested after arriving from Hong Kong and police took him into custody on orders of the ICC, which has been investigating the mass killings that happened under the former president’s deadly crackdown against illegal drugs, President Ferdinand Marcos’ office said in a statement.
"Upon his arrival, the prosecutor general served the ICC notification for an arrest warrant to the former president for the crime of crime against humanity," the government said. "He’s now in the custody of authorities."
The surprise arrest sparked a commotion at the airport, where lawyers and aides of Duterte loudly protested that they, along with a doctor and lawyers, were prevented from coming close to him after he was taken into police custody. "This is a violation of his constitutional right," Sen. Bong Go, a close Duterte ally. told reporters.
Duterte’s arrest and downfall stunned and drove families of the victims of his bloody crackdowns against illegal drugs to tears.
"Now we feel that justice is rolling. We hope that top police officials and the hundreds of police officers who were involved in the illegal killings should also be placed in custody and punished," delos Santos said.
Three of the police officers who killed his nephew, Kian delos Santos, were convicted in 2018 for the high-profile murder, which prompted to Duterte at the time to temporarily suspend his brutal anti-drugs crackdown.
The conviction was one of at least three, so far, against law enforcers involved in the anti-drugs campaign, reflecting the concerns of families of victims of suspected extrajudicial killings that they would not get justice in the Philippines, hence, their decision to seek the help of the ICC.
It was not immediately clear where Duterte was taken by the police. The government said the 79-year-old former leader was in good health.
The ICC began investigating drug killings under Duterte from Nov. 1, 2011, when he was still mayor of the southern city of Davao, to March 16, 2019, as possible crimes against humanity. Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the Rome Statute in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability.
The Duterte administration moved to suspend the global court’s investigation in late 2021 by arguing that Philippine authorities were already looking into the same allegations, arguing the ICC — a court of last resort — didn’t have jurisdiction.
Appeals judges at the ICC ruled in 2023 the investigation could resume and rejected the Duterte administration’s objections. Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the ICC can step in when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute suspects in the most heinous international crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who succeeded Duterte in 2022 and became entangled in a bitter political dispute with the former president, has decided not to rejoin the global court. But the Marcos administration has said it would cooperate if the ICC asks international police to take Duterte into custody through a so-called Red Notice, a request for law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and temporarily arrest a crime suspect.
[FoxNews] Medicaid spending has spiked over $200 billion in five years. Reform needs to be a centerpiece of DOGE cuts
In 10 years, the United States is on course to add $20 trillion to the national debt, setting the total sum owed by American taxpayers at over $56 trillion. Every year we spend in the red, interest on the debt continues to accumulate, until by 2051, when interest alone will be the largest line item in the federal budget. Put simply, we are on a collision course with a total financial crisis, and Congress may only have a handful of chances left to turn back. To prevent a total collapse of the U.S. dollar and give the American people the opportunities they deserve, lawmakers must reform Medicaid. To do anything less borders on malfeasance.
While the urgency of our nation’s debt crisis is lost on many, cutting waste, fraud and abuse has been a priority of President Donald Trump’s administration since day one. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk have already uncovered billions of dollars in waste. From excessive Politico Pro subscriptions to Democrat pet projects overseas, taxpayers have been totally robbed.
But, even if DOGE meets its quota for cuts and the freezes on wasteful federal grants aren’t dragged out in litigation, these savings won’t scratch the surface of what’s required to save America from its looming debt crisis.
For lawmakers who claim to be on board with cutting the waste, fraud and abuse — and delivering on Trump’s historic mandate — this is it. Nothing you do in the next two years will come close to the importance of implementing the $880 billion required in savings to programs under the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction.
We are not asking you to slash Medicaid, only turn back the clock and reverse its explosive expansion in the last few years that has put it on an unsustainable course.
In the last five years, federal Medicaid spending has skyrocketed from $409 billion in 2019 to $618 billion in 2024, a 51% increase. Despite being 60 years old, a third of Medicaid’s growth has occurred in those same five years. And in the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Medicaid will cost more than $1 trillion annually, rivaling the size of Saudi Arabia’s current economy.
When Obamacare introduced an entirely new class of able-bodied adults to Medicaid, the program exploded, and the federal government took on the majority of the costs. Under President Joe Biden, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) withdrew 13 waivers for Medicaid work requirements, once again dramatically expanding the program and costing taxpayers billions.
Medicaid was never meant to be this expansive.
Medicaid was intended to assist vulnerable populations like the disabled, pregnant women, children and people in poverty. Today, able-bodied, working-capable adults are on course to become the largest subgroup on Medicaid.
Nationwide, there are an estimated 24.6 million able-bodied, working-capable adults on Medicaid, 60% of whom report no earned income. Coupled with the Biden administration’s unilateral expansion of food stamps, the federal government is effectively discouraging a substantial portion of the able-bodied American population from seeking employment altogether.
The "safety net" has become a full-blown poverty trap, keeping Americans in an endless cycle of dependency and diverting resources from those who truly need help. In some states, higher provider rates for expansion enrollees have created an explicit financial incentive for healthcare providers to discriminate against traditional enrollees. Single moms, infants and the disabled are being pushed aside in favor of able-bodied adults without dependents.
#1
This forgets to mention that the largest population group is now into retirement age. We knew this would hit back in the 70's, yet congress did nothing for decades. Tell congress to stop inter agency borrowing and just maybe programs like this and social security will survive. But congress wants to keep the panic going so they can take their millions and run.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/11/2025 1:12
Comments ||
Top||
#2
They keep trying to tie this with age-related Medicare requirements. It's not. Once you turn 65, you're basically REQUIRED to join Medicare
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2025 1:30
Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2025 2:00
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Once you turn 65, you're basically REQUIRED to join Medicare
Why? I understand that employer insurance stops coverage once employees can be shoved over to the government plan, but can one not buy private insurance out of pocket, or even pay for expenses out of pocket without getting insurance — what do rich people do who don’t want to be limited by whatever an insurance company refuses to cover?
#5
It's not about rich TW. Back in the day when I was 55 and self employed a policy for myself alone would be around $3K/month. Granted, good policy but hardly affordable. Ten years later I have no idea what the same policy would cost.
Medicare is a good plan with the different parts added, and it's wealth based after Part A.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Syria is interested in maintaining deep strategic relations with Russia, so the new authorities of the republic are trying to prevent a split between the countries, said Syrian President for the transitional period Ahmed al-Sharaa on March 10.
"We don't want a split between Syria and Russia. We don't want the Russian presence in Syria to be a danger or a threat to any country in the world, but we want to maintain this deep strategic relationship," he told Reuters in an interview.
According to the interim president, ties between Moscow and Damascus were so close that after the overthrow of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, the country's new authorities decided to "leave room for meetings and dialogue," avoiding confrontation with the Russian side.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, on December 8, 2024, Assad resigned and left the country after the successful offensive of armed opposition groups on Damascus. He received political asylum in Russia.
On March 6, clashes broke out in Latakia between Assad supporters and forces of the new government of the country. Clashes also began in the province of Tartus. The authorities of the republic sent troops to these regions. According to the Kurdish television channel Rudaw on March 8, at least 532 civilians were killed in armed clashes in Syria.
Later, on March 9, fighting broke out in the port city of Baniyas in Tartus province. According to the Syrian state news agency SANA, Assad supporters attacked a gas power plant in an attempt to destroy the city's energy infrastructure, and government forces are trying to retake the facility.
The press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov stated that the issue of violence against peaceful Syrian citizens requires urgent consideration. He noted that many countries of the world and international organizations, including the UN, are concerned about the worsening situation in Syria.
The issue of violence against peaceful Syrian citizens requires urgent consideration. This was stated by the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov to journalists.
According to the Kremlin spokesman, there are manifestations of violence in Syria that cannot but cause deep concern for the Russian side. Violence against Syrians is also a concern in many countries around the world and in international organizations, including the UN.
“We believe that this issue needs to be urgently considered and, most importantly, that these manifestations of violence are eliminated as quickly as possible,” Peskov emphasized.
On the evening of March 9, the first deputy permanent representative of the Russian mission to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, reported that Russia and the United States had requested urgent closed consultations of the UN Security Council in connection with the use of violence against peaceful Syrians.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on March 7, clashes broke out in Latakia between supporters of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and forces of the country's new government. Clashes also began in the province of Tartus. The republic's authorities sent troops into these regions.
According to the Kurdish television channel Rudaw, at least 532 civilians have been killed in armed clashes in Syria as of March 8. It was also reported that 93 members of the security forces and 120 fighters from among the former president's supporters were killed.
In addition, fighting broke out in the port city of Baniyas in Tartus province on March 9. According to the Syrian state news agency SANA, Assad loyalists "attacked" a gas power plant in order to destroy the city's energy infrastructure, and government forces tried to retake the facility.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Boeing E-4B plane in the skies could be an ominous signal of impending doom as the vessel is designed to be deployed ahead of a deadly nuclear attack.
Nicknamed the 'doomsday plane' because of it's ability to survive a nuclear blast, America's fleet of E-4B planes are meant to protect the president and high-ranking government officials from an apocalyptic-level attack.
President Donald Trump on Sunday warned that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to humanity and said that a nuclear war 'could happen tomorrow'.
Trump, who is in charge of the second-largest nuclear stockpile in the world, told Fox News' Sunday Morning Features that the use of 'monster' warheads may 'end the world', adding that the 'level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine'.
But the US Air Force has a fleet of $223million top-secret aircraft that will serve as a mobile war room for the president and his top officials in the case of a national emergency.
The Air Force currently operates four E-4B aircraft, with at least one on alert at all times at the Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
They are typically used to transport the secretary of defense on overseas travel, but are also tasked with following Air Force One on the president's trips abroad.
The aircraft have been in operation since the Cold War and provide leaders with a survivable command and control center, and the ability to deliver orders to the military in the event of a national emergency.
E-4B planes have unique capabilities that cannot be duplicated by any other aircraft that the Air Force uses.
The so-called doomsday planes have thermal and nuclear shielding, and are capable of withstanding nuclear blasts, electromagnetic effects and cyber attacks. They can also launch retaliatory missiles.
They carry special equipment and have the capability to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, and support analysts and strategists in-flight. E-4Bs have 67 satellite dishes and antennas in the ray dome, Business Insider reports.
Doomsday planes all have three decks that include a command room, conference room, briefing room, team work area, communications room, and a designated rest area featuring 18 bunks.
The planes have remained airborne and operational for as long as 35.4 hours in one stint, but they were designed to be able to operate in-flight for a full week without needing to land. The E-4B is also capable of refueling mid-air.
Doomsday planes, called National Airborne Operation Centers when they are in-flight, are operated by the First Airborne Command and Control Squadron of the 595th Command and Control Group.
They are coordinated by the United States Strategic Command and are stationed near the Offutt base.
When the president is in the US, a doomsday plane is kept with its engine running at all times and ready 24 hours a day.
If the President goes abroad, the E-4Bs follow and are known to the crews as 'Air Force One When It Counts'. Should an emergency occur, one of the four craft is thus able to rendezvous with Air Force One almost immediately.
The Air Force has a four aircraft fleet of Boeing E4 planes, which are capable of operating with the largest crew of any aircraft in US Air Force history at 112 people, both flight and mission personnel.
They are not always used as doomsday vessels. The Secretary of Defense will occasionally travel overseas in a E-4B and hold press briefings.
The US is not the only country known to have a fleet of doomsday planes.
Russia has a Ilyushin Il-80 plane known as the 'Flying Kremlin', which is designed to protect President Vladimir Putin in the event of a nuclear attack, according to Euro News.
Similarly to America's E-4B fleet, the Flying Kremlin serves as an airborne command post in the event of nuclear attack.
The lumbering Il-80 Maxdome features special communications equipment, technology that is reportedly resistant to electromagnetic pulse attacks, and can be refueled in mid-air.
The E-4B fleet is expected to reach the end of its service life in the early 2030s.
The four highly-modified Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets have become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain as parts become obsolete.
The Air Force in April last year awarded a $13billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp to develop a successor to the aging 1970s-era E-4B aircraft.
Work on the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) project will be carried out in Colorado, Nevada and Ohio and is expected to be completed in 2036.
To satisfy operational requirements, the weapon system will comprise of a commercial derivative jet hardened and modified to meet military requirements.
The Air Force eliminated Boeing from its competition to develop a successor to the E-4B Nightwatch in 2023.
#1
Seeing as how I live in a target zone (San Diego). I'll just avoid worrying and practice my core flexibility so I can kiss my own ass goodbye
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2025 1:56
Comments ||
Top||
#2
The only place you're likely to see one is near Tinker AFB in OK, where the fly out of. It's the place they take off and land. The rest of the time they're at Angels28, and out of sight.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/11/2025 9:44
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Is this, the updated version of a EC-135 Operation Looking Glass AMCP? Then YES, the Cartel can kiss it.
#4
I've seen them when praying outside the abortuary about 4 blocks from the gates of Offutt Air Force Base (which gives a different meaning to the title of the article).
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] At least 32 people were injured as a result of a collision between a tanker and a cargo ship in the North Sea, Sky News reported on March 10.
According to these data, the crew members of both ships were brought to the nearest port on three boats. The health condition of the victims is not reported.
The tanker was at anchor when the container ship crashed into it, the authors also noted.
Earlier it was reported that the Stena, operated by the American company Crowley, collided with another ship off the north-east coast of England. Both vessels caught fire.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on March 7, Turkish media reported that a tanker and a container ship collided in the Sea of Marmara off the coast of Istanbul. The incident occurred 9 km from the shore. As a result of the collision, the tanker's ballast tank burst, and contaminated water spilled into the sea. The coast guard arrived at the scene to eliminate the consequences of the emergency. According to preliminary data, no one was injured in the collision.
In February, the tanker Natig Aliyev and the dry cargo ship Begonia got stuck side by side in the port of Novorossiysk. The ships were at anchor, but due to a storm and an untimely engine start, Natig Aliyev drifted and fell into the Begonia. It was reported that the ships did not suffer any serious damage, and no environmental damage was recorded.
#3
The ship postioning data shows the the containership driving straight into to the tanker.
And Skid, it turns out the tanker is a Navy leased asset, in the Tanker Security Program.
Reports are the the container captain has been arrested.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/11/2025 16:30
Comments ||
Top||
#4
One maritime collision a mistake, twice a coincidence?? or is it??
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces defeated formations of three motorised infantry brigades of the AFU and one territorial defence brigade near Volchansk and Kazachya Lopan (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses were more than 30 troops and three motor vehicles.
The Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. The Group inflicted damage on manpower and military hardware of four mechanised brigades of the AFU close to Kondrashovka, Zagoruykovka, Monachinovka, Gorokhovatka, and Podvysokoye(Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 210 troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, five motor vehicles, two Western-made field artillery guns, one electronic warfare station, and one U.S.-made AN/TPQ-50 U.S. counter-battery warfare station.
The Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. The Group hit formations of two mechanised brigades of the AFU, one territorial defence brigade, and two National Guard brigades close to Grigorovka, Konstantinovka, Shcherbinovka, Dronovka, and Druzhkovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU sustained losses of up to 270 troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, six motor vehicles, six field artillery guns, and three field ammunition depots.
The Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing to the depth of enemy defences. The Group's units hit two mechanised brigades, one assault brigade, two jaeger brigades of the AFU, one naval ifantry brigade, and one National Guard brigade near Uspenovka, Novopavlovka, Udachnoye, Petrovskoye, Alekseyevka, and Krasnoarmeysk (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy lost up to 490 troops, one tank, one armoured fighting vehicle, one Grad MLRS combat vehicle, six motor vehicles, and four artillery guns.
The Vostok Group's units inflicted fire damage on units of two mechanised brigades, one jaeger brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and one naval ifantry brigade close to Fedorovka, Bogatyr, Veseloye, and Razliv (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy losses amounted to more than 120 troops, one tank, and three motor vehicles.
The Dnepr Group's units inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade and one mountain assault brigade of the AFU close to Pyatikhatki, Pavlovka (Zaporozhye region), and Novonikolayevka (Kherson region).
Up to 65 troops, five motor vehicles, and one field artillery gun of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were neutralised.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, strike drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have hit military airfield infrastructure facilities, as well as clusters of AFU manpower and hardware and foreign mercenaries in 152 areas.
Russia's air defence systems shot down one MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, as well as five JDAM guided aerial bombs, seven HIMARS MLRS projectiles manufactured by the USA, and 50 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 657 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 45,927 unmanned aerial vehicles, 600 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,097 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,526 MLRS combat vehicles, 22,403 field artillery guns and mortars, and 32,658 units of support military vehicles of the enemy have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
During offensive actions, the Sever Group of Forces liberated the settlements of Kositsa, Malaya Loknya, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye.
The Group inflicted strikes on units of one heavy mechanised brigade, five mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade, one assault brigade, two airborne assault brigades, two territorial defence brigades, and two assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Goncharovka, Guyevo, Zaoleshenka, Kazachya Loknya, Pervy Knyazhy, Kositsa, Kurilovka, Loknya, Malaya Loknya, Oleshnya, Pushkarnoye, Sudzha, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye, Cherkasskaya Konopelka, and Yuzhny. Three counter-attacks were repelled.
Operational-tactical, army aviation and artillery fire hit enemy manpower and hardware close to Bondarevka, Dmitryukov, Zamostye, Kazachya Loknya, Kositsa, Kurilovka, Makhnovka, Martynovka, Melovoy, Mirny, Mikhailovka, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye, Yuzhny, as well as Basovka, Belovody, Vodolagi, Zhuravka, Yunakovka, and Yablonovka in Sumy region.
Over the past day, the AFU losses amounted to more than 340 troops, two tanks, seven infantry fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made Bradley armoured fighting vehicle, five armoured personnel carriers, ten armoured fighting vehicles, 13 motor vehicles, three self-propelled artillery systems, eight field artillery guns, one AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery warfare station, an engineering vehicle, as well as six UAV command posts, and an ammunition depot. Two AFU servicemen surrendered.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to more than 66,270 troops, 389 tanks, 307 infantry fighting vehicles, 269 armoured personnel carriers, 2,173 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,383 motor vehicles, 539 artillery guns, 52 MLRS launchers, including 13 of HIMARS and seven of MLRS made by the USA, 25 anti-aircraft missile launchers, one self-propelled anti-aircraft system, ten transport-loading vehicles, 120 EW stations, 16 counter-battery warfare radars, ten air defence radars, 55 units of engineering and other materiel, including 23 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five bridge launchers, one engineering reconnaissance vehicle as well as 14 armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are engaged in heavy fighting in Kursk region.
The units are taking timely measures to maneuver to advantageous defensive positions, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine assured.
The situation on the border of Sumy Oblast with Kursk Oblast of Russia is under the control of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. This was written on Facebook by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrsky, while working in the operational zone of the Kursk group of troops on Monday, March 10.
"There is no threat of encirclement of our units in the Kursk region yet. The units are taking timely measures to maneuver to advantageous defensive lines," he wrote.
The commander-in-chief noted that a number of settlements along the border line, “whose names appear in the reports of Russian propagandists, no longer actually exist – they were destroyed by the firepower of the aggressor.”
According to Syrsky, the enemy has brought a significant number of troops, reinforced by North Korean infantry, into the offensive. The enemy is suffering significant losses in manpower and equipment - in the Plekhovoy area alone, actual losses in four days of fighting amounted to a battalion of infantry.
"Individual sabotage and reconnaissance groups and small infantry groups of the enemy, trying to penetrate into the territory of Ukraine, are destroyed by the firepower of our troops thanks to the previously created defense system," assured Syrsky.
He added that he made a decision on the spot to strengthen the Ukrainian group with the necessary forces and means, in particular, electronic warfare and drones.
Let us recall that in recent days the situation in Kursk region has significantly worsened. The enemy has regained control of a number of settlements and tried to reach Sudzha via a gas pipeline.
Meanwhile, since the beginning of the current day, only two military clashes have occurred in the Kursk region.
[NYPOST] A British serial killer notorious for his eating habits is refusing to chow down after guards at the prison holding him took away his TV and PlayStation. "I ain't eatin' nobody else 'til I gets me Playstation back!"
Robert ''Hannibal the Cannibal'' Maudsley, 71, is incensed by the loss of his gaming system, his brother, Paul, told The Sun.
He said Maudsley has turned away meals and will not ingest anything until his prized electronics are returned. "Hokay. It'll make it easier to carry your dry desiccated husk to the dumpster"
Also known as ''The Brain Eater,'' Maudsley lives alone in a glass cell inside Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire.
He is also miffed guards took his non-fiction books and a music system he had on Feb. 26.
''Bob is held inside a prison within the prison,'' Paul Maudsley told The Mirror. ''Bob complained and he's normally polite, but the prison officers accused him of being abusive. When he finally got back in his cell, they had taken everything — his TV, PlayStation, books and radio.
''He's back to how he was 10 years ago, when he didn't have anything to stimulate him and he would just sit there and vegetate and was in danger of going mad. He loves playing war games and chess on his PlayStation and he's always watching old films on TV and reading factual books.''
It is said he ate part of one of victim's brains.
Paul Maudsley said he's worried how long his brother ''will be able to survive without food.'' Quite drinking fluids and it'll all be over quicker
Robert Maudsley is believed to be the longest-serving inmate in England, having spent 49 years behind bars.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11171 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
he would just sit there and vegetate and was in danger of going mad
[YahooFinance] The Panama Canal is exploring the construction of a pipeline to move liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) across the trade passage,
…why liquified petroleum gas instead of liquified natural gas?
canal administrator Ricuarte Vasquez said on Monday, with Japan seen as a top potential client for gas coming from the U.S. Could help with capacity constraints on the canal. Benefit would be to, among others, US natural gas producers as production is already constrained by demand. Construction could be financed by bonds; probably would cost $5-10 B.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/11/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11160 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
LPG has mostly butane and propane
LNG has mostly methane
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/11/2025 9:53
Comments ||
Top||
#2
I recall the new model Container Ships, including for LPG and LNG models, are super massive. I recall there was talk about expanding some of ports a few years back to accommodate these larger ships. A pipeline through the canal might be more ideal than expanding canal infrastructure to handle these larger ships.
#3
In WW2 there was a fuel pipeline across Panama , saving the shipping time. That right of way may still exist. For anyone interested in rain forests/ birdwatching etc, the Pipeline Road is recommended. You can be looking into the forest and the upper part of a cargo ship goes through it - surreal.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
like lava from a volcano
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
[Federalist] For more than 50 years, despite voters’ moral and economic objections to funding the baby-killing industry, 
[Gateway] In just the past few hours, we have uncovered perhaps the biggest scandal of the Biden presidency. It turns out Joe Biden never signed anything- no laws, no Executive Orders, no legal documents, nothing. They were all signed by autopen. There were no original signatures.
...Hizzonner da Mare of Chicago. He was elected in April 2023 to replace the disastrous Lori Lightfoot and immediately set about out-Richtering her. A member of the Democratic Party (naturally), Johnson previously worked as a social studies teacher in the city's stellar public schools system. He helped organize the 2012 teachers strike. Prior to becoming Da Mare, he served on the Cook County Board of 
...as in 
[Epoch Times] Air Force fighter jets on March 9 intercepted a civilian aircraft that flew in restricted airspace near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.
