[IsraelTimes] An IDF reserve soldier was seriously wounded after coming under fire during an overnight operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, the military says.
According to the IDF, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on the forces amid the operation, and the soldiers returned fire at the source of the shooting. It is unclear if the gunman was hit.
The wounded reservist was taken to hospital for treatment.
[IsraelTimes] People rally near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Azza Street residence in Jerusalem for the fourth consecutive day of protests against the dismissal of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and the government’s renewed efforts to revive its highly controversial judicial overhaul legislation.
The demonstration is also bolstered by protesters opposed to the renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip and the collapse of the ceasefire-hostage deal, which has left the fate of the remaining 59 captives in Gaza uncertain.
Undeterred by the rainy weather, a group marching toward Azza Street holds a banner declaring: “History is made by the people.”
“Left, right, left, right, left!” the group chants. “Everyone together, until [Netanyahu] falls!”
Others march past the President’s Residence on their way to Azza Street, waving Israeli flags alongside the yellow flags that have come to represent the plight of the hostages.
[IsraelTimes] Prosecutors in the Northern District Attorney’s Office have indicted a 26-year-old Palestinian from Jenin for attacking an Israeli with a hoe last month.
The victim, a man in his 60s, had gone out onto his balcony with a cup of coffee when the assailant ambushed him at the door and began to beat him with a hoe. He managed to push him away and cry for help, upon which the attacker fled the scene, police say.
The next morning, police caught the culprit hiding in horse stables in the nearby town of Muqeible and arrested him. The victim sustained light wounds, according to paramedics.
Spokespeople for the Israel Police and Shin Bet say in a joint statement that investigators were able to determine that the incident was a terror attack and that the assailant harbored nationalist motives.
Gan Ner, which is not in the West Bank, is located near the territory’s northern security barrier — close to Jenin, where the IDF in January launched a counterterrorism operation dubbed “Iron Wall.” The operation has since been expanded to other areas of the West Bank.
The assailant will be indicted on charges of terror-motivated aggravated assault and entering Israel illegally.
[IsraelTimes] President Donald Trump says that Elon Musk should not be allowed to see top secret US plans for any war with China, in a rare admission that his billionaire ally’s business links raised potential conflicts of interest.
Trump strongly denies media reports that the world’s richest man, who is now leading the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will receive a classified Pentagon briefing on its war strategy.
Tesla and Space X boss Musk has major business interests in China but also has huge US defense contracts, while his status as an unelected advisor to Trump has raised concerns about his influence.
“I don’t want to show it to anybody. You’re talking about a potential war with China,” Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office.
“Certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much… Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that.”
Trump, who was unveiling a contract for Boeing to build the next-generation F-47 fighter jet, described Musk as a “patriot” and hailed his efforts to slash back the US federal government, including the Defense Department.
Musk was at the Pentagon today, but Trump attacked reports, first published in the New York Times, about the visit.
“They really are the enemy of the people,” Trump says of the Times, which reported Musk was to receive a briefing in a secure room dubbed “The Tank” on maritime tactics and targeting plans.
The paper said the briefing was called off after it was publicized.
[IsraelTimes] George Glezmann, an American detained in Afghanistan for more than two years before being released by the Taliban, has arrived in the United States, where he reunites with his wife and is greeted by a welcoming party that included his former cellmate.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce says Ryan Corbett, another former prisoner of the Taliban who had been held in the same cell as Glezmann, was at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington, to greet Glezmann.
“After a brief ceremony, George and [his wife] Aleksandra flew to another location in the United States to rest and recover,” Bruce tells a regular State Department news briefing.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement on Thursday confirming the release of Glezmann, who was detained in 2022 while visiting Kabul as a tourist.
A source tells Reuters he left Afghanistan aboard a Qatari aircraft on Thursday evening bound for Qatar, following direct talks between US hostage envoy Adam Boehler and Taliban officials in Kabul.
Bruce says the US is grateful for the support of the government of Qatar in bringing Glezmann home. She says the United Arab Emirates also played a role in facilitating the initial discussions.
In a statement, the Taliban calls Glezmann’s release a “goodwill gesture” reflecting its willingness to engage with the United States “on the basis of mutual respect and interests.”
Bruce says the United States remains “deeply concerned” about the well-being of Mahmood Habibi and other Americans still believed to be in custody in Afghanistan.
Thursday’s meeting in Kabul marked the highest-level direct US-Taliban talks since President Donald Trump came to power in January.
Boehler met with the Taliban administration’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Afghan foreign ministry says in a statement.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified before Congress in 2023 that at least 175 Americans remain stranded in Afghanistan, though he didn’t divulge how many were being wrongfully detained by the Taliban.
“There are several Americans currently detained in Afghanistan, and we have been pressing the Taliban to return the remains of a deceased American,” a State Department spokesperson told The Post.
“We are deeply concerned about the well-being of Mahmood Habibi and all Americans detained in Afghanistan and actively working to bring them home. Due to the sensitivity of these cases, we have nothing further. We remind all Americans — do not travel to Afghanistan.”
Glezmann, an airline mechanic for Delta Air Lines, was visiting Afghanistan as a tourist in late 2022 and intended to spend five days in the country exploring its history and culture, according to his family. He was detained by the Taliban's intelligence service on Dec. 5 but was never charged with any crime or offense.
In September 2023, he was declared wrongfully detained by the Biden administration.
The Taliban jailed Glezmann in a 9-foot-by-9-foot cell with other detainees and sometimes held him in "solitary confinement and underground for months at a time," according to a resolution put forward by Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock from Glezmann's home state of Georgia.
While in custody, Glezmann also suffered from "from facial tumors, hypertension, severe malnutrition and other medical conditions" and experienced a rapid decline in his physical and mental health, per the senators.
Talks aimed at bringing Glezmann home have been happening on and off since shortly after his detention, according to U.S. officials.
Negotiators came close in January, when officials cut a deal to bring Americans Ryan Corbett and another U.S. national in a prisoner swap -- but the Taliban rejected efforts to include Glezmann in the exchange.
"Today is a good day. We succeeded in obtaining the release of an American citizen, Georg Glezmann, after two years in detention in Kabul," former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad posted on X following his release. "The Taliban government agreed to free him as a goodwill gesture to @POTUS and the American people. George is on his way home to his family."
Just in time to run headfirst into Trump policies on the subject…
[IsraelTimes] ‘Hareni’ will operate according to ‘approved guidelines’ of YU’s senior rabbis, statement says; recognition follows years long legal struggle that included US Supreme Court hearing
Yeshiva University has approved a new club for LGBTQ students, reversing a policy it has spent years defending in court.
The school’s announcement on Thursday marks a significant shift for the Modern Orthodox flagship in Manhattan. For years, and particularly during a stretch of fall 2022, the school fought to avoid recognizing the Pride Alliance, a support group for LGBTQ students that launched unofficially in 2009 but had not received formal recognition as a student club.
The dispute revolved around Orthodoxy’s prohibition against homosexual relations. YU seeks to embody the idea that its students can live fully committed Orthodox Jewish lives while participating in modern society. The question of welcoming LGBTQ students has strained that mission for more than a decade as LGBTQ students, some of them anonymously, have sought a more supportive atmosphere on campus.
Now, the university, which is split between men’s and women’s campuses in two separate Manhattan locations, announced that it was ceasing its court battle and recognizing an LGBTQ-oriented club.
"The parties have reached an agreement and the litigation is ending," the statement said. "Current students will be implementing a club, to be known as Hareni, that will seek to support LGBTQ students and their allies and will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis."
The statement added, "The club will be run like other clubs on campus, all in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually supportive campus culture."
"The statement did not detail why YU decided to recognize the LGBTQ club now. But the announcement comes weeks after a student was allegedly assaulted on campus and called homophobic slurs. It also comes as YU has positioned itself as a refuge for Jewish students seeking to transfer from non-Jewish schools.
Immediately after YU’s announcement, the Pride Alliance WhatsApp group changed its name to "Hareni," according to the Commentator, the student newspaper.
"It is with great pleasure and excitement that we announce to everyone that we are now an official club at YU!" students Schneur Friedman and Hayley Goldberg wrote in the WhatsApp group, according to the Commentator. "We are honored to begin this official club as your co-presidents and will continue to foster a strong community within YU!"
Conditions at YU have changed since the school first mounted a legal battle to avoid recognizing an LGBTQ club. For one, the school has — since Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel — appealed to Jewish students at nonsectarian colleges to transfer as a way of avoiding the spread of campus antisemitism, which could draw a more religiously diverse student body.
"I have heard people talk about YU and the Pride Alliance as — ’People know what they’re getting into when they come here, and if they wanted a queer club, they should have gone somewhere else,’" said Rachael Fried, executive director of Jewish Queer Youth, which has provided support to the Pride Alliance. "That sentiment doesn’t work in the current climate. ... The message of, ’Go somewhere else and be a queer student somewhere else,’ it doesn’t land."
In addition, a March 6 column in the Commentator alleged that one of the organizers of the Pride Alliance had been assaulted at a student activities fair. A student was accused of taking photos of the organizer, then shoving him while calling him homophobic slurs and telling him that he did not belong at YU. The column said the victim reported the incident to campus security.
The university had previously argued in court that recognizing an LGBTQ club violated its religious liberty, though the plaintiffs argued that because it was chartered as a secular institution, that argument did not pass muster. The case at one point made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 to send it back down to lower courts.
Shortly afterward, the university briefly suspended all student clubs rather than recognize the Pride Alliance. It later announced its own club to support LGBTQ students "under traditional Orthodox auspices."
he Pride Alliance and its allies rejected that club, but a YU spokesperson suggested in a statement that the school views Hareni as the current version of that club.
"Our students’ well-being is our primary concern," the statement said. "We have always been focused on providing our undergraduate students the right spaces that fit within the unique religious environment of YU, which is different than any other college campus. We are pleased that our current undergraduate students will be leading the new club announced today that was envisioned and approved by our Senior Rabbis over two years ago."
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Doniel Weinreich, said the school’s announcement was a milestone for LGBTQ Orthodox inclusion.
"This agreement affirms that there has never been a genuine conflict between Torah values and open LGBTQ+ identity," Weinreich said in a statement. "It demonstrates that fully committed Orthodox Jewish environments can also be affirming of LGBTQ+ constituents. This is a great moment for the entire Modern Orthodox community."
The new name for the club, Hareni, is the beginning of a Jewish statement of commitment to love one’s neighbor.
"This has been an ongoing conflict so there’s work that has to be done to make sure that YU actually feels like a space where queer students can feel like their whole selves," Fried said. "The administration working with the actual queer students is the right path to actually get to that place."
[IsraelTimes] The IDF is reportedly responding with artillery fire against southern Lebanon after rockets were launched a short while ago at northern Israel.
At least five rockets were launched in the attack on the border community of Metula, with the IDF reporting that it intercepted three projectiles that crossed the border. The other two rockets apparently fell short in Lebanon.
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice, the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.
[IsraelTimes] Order from ICE indicates Trump administration intends to deport Gambian-British national Momodou Taal, who is among those a pro-Israel watchdog has been pushing to expel
A pro-Paleostinian activist at Cornell University has been ordered to report to immigration authorities, in a sign that the Trump administration is planning to deport him.
Momodou Taal, a Gambia ... The Gambia is actually surrounded by The Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... n-British national who was briefly suspended from Cornell over his anti-Israel activism, had preemptively sued to block any effort to deport him, saying that the administration was penalizing protected speech in its mass crackdown on pro-Paleostinian protesters.
He has come under particular fire a tweet posted the day of the October 7, 2023, Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... -led terror attack that said "glory to the resistance!" In another X post two days later, Taal further expressed support for the atrocities, declaring himself to be "an anti-imperialist who believes that colonised peoples have the right to resist by any means necessary."
Now, his lawyers have filed for a restraining order against the government, saying he has been told to "surrender to ICE custody" at a Department of Homeland Security office in Syracuse, New York, about 50 miles north of Cornell. Taal’s supporters have demonstrated on campus this week after observing what they believed to be law enforcement outside his home.
Taal’s lawsuit cited advocacy against him by the krazed killer pro-Israel group Betar US, which says it has submitted names of protesters eligible for deportation to the government.
"Betar confirms that @MomodouTaal was among those on our list of jihadis which we submitted to various government offices for deportation," the group tweeted on Friday. "We are pleased he has been ordered to surrender to @ICEgov."
Betar is happy that Momodou Taal has had his visa revoked. This is an evil jihadi who is an enemy to America and the Jewish people. He was among those on our list of people who must be deported. Many more jihadis to go! https://t.co/BgfVBdixeFpic.twitter.com/oKwlfILu0G
Using the formulation "Shalom Momodou," reflecting a recent Trump administration catchphrase intended to be threatening, the group said it urged more deportations, including of "jihadis who have [become] naturalized citizens."
The group also said it had "reason to believe" that two other pro-Paleostinian activists it has lobbied against — Mohsen Madawi, a Paleostinian graduate student at Columbia, and Mosab Abu Toha, a poet who is working at Syracuse University after fleeing 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... in late 2023 — are "on the short list of those who will shortly be deported."
It is unclear how much the group’s advocacy has set priorities for the Trump administration as it carries out its vow to deport "Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... sympathizers" on college campuses. But Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader who is facing deportation despite holding a green card, faced criticism from the group shortly before he was arrested earlier this month.
#1
Makes sense, to revoke a visa of any student here claiming to get an education. But is more focused on violent protests supporting a known murderous terrorist group.
No matter what the Liberals, Democrats and idiot college professors say. Supporting terrorists dedicated to the murder of anyone not of their religion views, has NO Place in America.
Such students should look to Europe, or the UK.
Where they would feel right at home instead.
Velina Tchakarova
@vtchakarova
Türkiye is experiencing significant political upheaval following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a prominent opposition figure and potential presidential candidate. Detained on allegations of corruption and links to terrorism, İmamoğlu’s arrest has sparked widespread protests and raised concerns about the state of democracy in the country.
On March 19, 2025, Turkish authorities detained İmamoğlu, accusing him of financial misconduct and associations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as terrorist by Turkey and its allies. The arrest occurred just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition’s presidential candidate for the 2028 elections. This move is perceived by critics as an attempt by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to eliminate a formidable political rival.
The arrest has ignited mass protests across Turkey, particularly in Istanbul and Ankara. Thousands have gathered, defying bans on public demonstrations, to voice their dissent against what they view as an authoritarian crackdown on the opposition. Protesters emphasize that their actions are motivated by a desire to uphold democratic principles rather than mere political allegiance.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), led by Özgür Özel, has condemned İmamoğlu’s detention as politically motivated. Özel asserts that barring İmamoğlu from the presidential race would only bolster support for the opposition. The CHP plans to proceed with an internal vote to confirm İmamoğlu as their presidential candidate, signaling their unwavering support despite legal challenges.
The international community has expressed concern over İmamoğlu’s arrest. European leaders and human rights organizations have criticized the move, suggesting it undermines democratic processes and the rule of law in Türkiye. There are fears that such actions could strain the country‘s relations with Western allies and impact its aspirations for closer ties with the European Union.
The political turmoil has adversely affected its financial markets. Following İmamoğlu’s arrest, the Turkish lira depreciated, and the stock market experienced significant declines. Investors are concerned about the country’s political stability and the potential for further authoritarian measures that could deter foreign investment.
It’s amazing that US legacy media are still treating the Turkish protests as minor news. The Erdoğan Era, which began in 2003, has seen nothing like it, and the showdown is about to get ugly. A regime change in Turkey could shake the Middle East and improve Turkey-EC relations. https://t.co/GwGPfzoQwx
Columbia U. is only the first. The feds have an entire list of the next schools that need similar attention.
[IsraelTimes] University to limit masking, give up faculty control over Mideast studies department in bid to regain $400 million in federal funds it lost for its response to anti-Israel activity
Columbia University has agreed to a series of changes demanded by the Trump Administration as a precondition for restoring $400 million in federal funding the government pulled this month over the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus amid pro-Paleostinian protests against Israel.
The university released a memo outlining its agreement with US President Donald Trump ...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party... ’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.
Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands, including restricting face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking away control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.
The Ivy League university’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has sanctioned as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.
The administration has warned at least 60 other universities of possible action over alleged failure to comply with federal civil rights laws related to antisemitism, which has spiked since the Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... -led October 7, 2023, terror onslaught in Israel and subsequent 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... The White House had yet to respond to Columbia’s memo as of Friday evening, and the status of the $400 million in frozen funds remained unclear.
Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under a new official, the memo said, taking control away from its faculty.
The university will appoint a new senior administrator to review the curriculum and faculty to make sure they are balanced, and to provide fresh leadership at the department, which offers courses on Middle Eastern politics and related subjects.
The demand had raised alarm among professors at Columbia and elsewhere, who worried that permitting the federal government to dictate how a department is run would set a dangerous precedent.
Republican politicians in the US House of Representatives last year criticized professors in the department for comments expressing support for Paleostinian terror groups and praising the October 7 atrocities, during which thousands of Hamas-led faceless myrmidons invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 to Gaza.
The school has also hired three dozen special officers who have the power to arrest people on campus and has revised its anti-discrimination policies, including its authority to sanction campus organizations, the memo said.
Face masks to conceal identities are no longer allowed, and any protesters must now identify themselves when asked, the memo said.
The school also said it is searching for new faculty members to "ensure intellectual diversity." Columbia plans to fill joint positions in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the international affairs school in an effort to ensure "excellence and fairness in Middle East studies," the memo said.
"The way Columbia and Columbians have been portrayed is hard to reckon with," Interim President Katrina Armstrong wrote in a letter announcing the changes. "We have challenges, yes, but they do not define us. We are a community of scholars who have deep respect for each other and our mission. We teach the brightest, most creative students in the world, and we care deeply for each and every one of them. I have every faith in our ability to overcome the greatest of challenges. We stand resilient and brilliant."
Armstrong added, "At all times, we are guided by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open inquiry, and respect for all at the fore of every decision we make."
The sudden shutdown of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia University this month was already disrupting medical and scientific research at the school, researchers said.
Critics of the Trump administration’s intervention at Columbia, including thousands of Jewish academics who signed a protest letter this week, say the crackdown there and at other universities reflects an inappropriate incursion on academic freedom and uses fears of antisemitism to justify repression.
The administration’s supporters, who include some pro-Israel students, say the moves are necessary to improve the climate for Jewish students at Columbia, which was the first university to see students form a pro-Paleostinian encampment in the spring of 2024.
"This is a huge win for Jewish safety at Columbia," tweeted Eliana Goldin, who is enrolled in Columbia’s joint program with the Jewish Theological Seminary and a leader in the campus Zionist group Aryeh, on Friday. "I’m looking forward to seeing how the university improves these coming weeks."
[X] Varad Mehta
@varadmehta
“Although Columbia stands among the country’s wealthiest universities, with an endowment of about $15 billion, it wouldn’t take long for it to cease to operate in any recognizable form without government money.”
I’m beginning to see the problem.
Quote
Square profile picture
The Wall Street Journal
@WSJ
·
9h
Exclusive: Columbia University will cede to Trump’s far-reaching demands in negotiations over $400 million in federal funding he revoked https://on.wsj.com/4kM9pJc
4:16 PM · Mar 21, 2025
Varad Mehta
@varadmehta
·
9h
Columbia’s leadership clearly saw the problem.
Quote
Charles Ornstein
@charlesornstein
·
9h
“A Columbia senior administrator said the school considered legal options to challenge the Trump team but ultimately determined the federal government has so many available levers to claw back money, it would be a difficult fight.” https://wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-university-trump-demands-federal-funding-e94d41ca
Not just Jewish students — all the sensible people who are not lovers of rioting, screaming, and bullying everyone who isn’t them.
[IsraelTimes] Military sources describe the strikes at Palmyra and T-4 as ‘extensive’; attacks come after air force intel recently monitored weapons and other strategic capabilities at the sites
The Israel Defense Forces said it bombed a pair of airbases in central Syria on Friday night, the latest strikes targeting military sites linked to the former Assad regime since it was toppled by Islamist-led rebels.
According to the IDF, the Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s targeted "remaining strategic military capabilities" at the Palmyra military airport and the nearby T-4 airbase.
Two Syrian defense personnel were maimed in the strike at Palmyra, local media reported.
The airstrikes were launched after the Israeli Air Intelligence Group — the Israeli Air Force’s intel unit — had been monitoring weapons and other strategic capabilities at the two military sites in central Syria over the recent period.
The strikes carried out by IAF fighter jets at both Palmyra and T-4 were described by military sources as "extensive," taking out capabilities that would ensure the preservation of Israel’s aerial superiority in the region.
Following the collapse of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... ’s regime in December, Israel has vowed to destroy weapons in Syria it fears could fall into the hands of "hostile forces" that may seek to attack Israel.
[IsraelTimes] US said to carry out further wave of strikes on Iran-backed group’s stronghold
The Houthis said they launched more drones at US warships in the Red Sea that have been involved in strikes against them.
The missile launch came after Houthi media in Yemen reported strikes on the Iran-backed rebels’ homeland of Saada, blaming "American aggression."
The group’s al-Masirah TV cited its correspondent in Saada, in Yemen’s north, for the latest claim of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s since the United States on Saturday said it carried out attacks that killed several Houthi leaders after the rebels said they would resume targeting Israeli shipping.
Washington began the new military offensive last weekend, promising to use overwhelming force until the Iran-backed group stops firing on vessels in the key shipping routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
In return, the Houthis claim that they have repeatedly attacked a US aircraft carrier battle group.
Citing an Israeli official, the Ynet news site reported on Thursday that Washington had asked Israel not to respond to the Houthis’ latest missile attacks. According to the report, the US told Israel to "let them deal with it."
The strikes on the Houthis are the largest American military operation in the Middle East since US President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... took office. Trump has said he would hold 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... responsible for the Houthi strikes.
#4
3DC, yes. Yemen has, IIUC, half a dozen water sources/ pumping stations and most of the water produced goes to the khat crop. Take them out, and the Yemeni population, almost entirely addicted, is reduced to a gibbering, useless mob. OK, no change there, but thirsty as well. Busy fetching buckets of water.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas fires two rockets toward Ashkelon with both intercepted in second rocket attack in as many days; IDF troops push further in Strip, blow up former hospital being used as Hamas base
Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Friday that Israel would annex areas of 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 should the terror group Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... refuse to release the remaining hostages it is still holding.
Katz’s announcement came after a weeks-long ceasefire abruptly ended on Tuesday, with Israel resuming strikes on the Strip as hostage negotiations failed to progress.
The renewed fighting has seen the military carry out waves of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s that have killed Hamas leaders and targeted the terror organization’s efforts to regroup. It has also seen limited ground operations in the Strip.
The renewed fighting also saw Hamas firing rockets at Tel Aviv for the first time in months on Thursday. One of the rockets was intercepted by air defenses, while the other two struck open areas, according to the military. No injuries were caused, though several pieces of shrapnel hit areas of Rishon Lezion.
On Friday, two rockets were fired from northern Gaza toward Ashkelon. According to the Israel Defense Forces, both of the rockets were intercepted by air defenses. No immediate reports of injuries or damages surfaced.
Following the rocket fire, the IDF issued an evacuation warning for Paleostinians in the area of the launch. In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language front man, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of the area that is to be evacuated, saying that it is a "final warning" before the IDF carries out strikes there.
Meanwhile,
...back at the Alamo, Davy was counting their remaining cannon balls and not liking the results... Katz said he instructed the IDF to seize additional areas of the Gaza Strip while issuing evacuation orders for Paleostinian civilians in those areas in a bid to amp up pressure on Hamas.
In a statement, Katz said: "If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the hostages, I instructed the IDF to capture additional areas, evacuate the population, and expand the security zone around Gaza for the protection of Israeli communities and IDF soldiers, through a permanent hold of the area by Israel.
"As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel," he continued.
It was unclear if Israel would follow through on its threat to annex parts of Gaza, a move that would likely draw a massive international backlash. Israel has largely refrained from annexing areas that it has captured except for East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Both cases remain largely unrecognized by the international community.
La Belle France already expressed its opposition to Katz’s comments.
"La Belle France is opposed to any form of annexation whether it concerns the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. We have a very clear vision of the future of the region — a solution of two (Israeli and Paleostinian) states living side-by-side in peace," Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told news hounds in the eastern city of Dijon.
Katz said Israel would "intensify" its military campaign against Hamas, including "through the expansion of the ground maneuver until the hostages are released and Hamas is defeated."
He added that Israel will use "all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing US President Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents."
Trump controversially called for the Gazook population to be evacuated while Gaza was rebuilt into a Riviera on the Mediterranean. Arab states and the Paleostinians have vociferously rejected such an idea.
Earlier on Friday, reports from Leb ...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... claimed that Egypt would be willing to take part in Trump’s post-war Gaza plan by temporarily absorbing some half a million Paleostinians from the coastal enclave in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.
However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... the Egyptian State Information Service announced that Cairo categorically and completely denied the report, saying that the country’s "position is firm in its absolute and final rejection of any attempt to displace Paleostinians."
IDF EXPANDS GROUND OPS, DEMOLISHES HOSPITAL
The IDF said on Thursday it expanded its ground operations in the southern Gaza Strip, with troops advancing into the Shaboura camp in Rafah to destroy "terror infrastructure."
Meanwhile,
...back at the Alamo, Davy was counting their remaining cannon balls and not liking the results... troops continued to operate on the coast in the Strip’s north and the Netzarim Corridor area of central Gaza.
In northern Gaza, the IDF said soldiers destroyed infrastructure that was used by Hamas as a command center in recent months to plan and launch attacks on troops and civilians.
In central Gaza, footage circulating on social media showed the military demolishing the former Ottoman Turkish-Paleostinian Friendship Hospital in the central Gaza Strip.
The IDF later confirmed it blew up the building, saying that it was being used by Hamas operatives.
In response to a query, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike on a group of Hamas operatives who were residing at the hospital, which the terror group turned into "terror infrastructure."
"We emphasize that the targeted building has not been used as an active hospital for over a year," the IDF adds.
The footage appeared to show a controlled demolition of the hospital, rather than an airstrike.
When the IDF was previously deployed to the Netzarim Corridor of central Gaza, it used the Ottoman Turkish-Paleostinian Friendship Hospital as a base of operations, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Last year, the IDF published that it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel network that passed under the hospital.
The Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) added that the IDF was working to "dismantle" Hamas infrastructure there.
"Another hospital can be added to the list — in recent months, Hamas hard boyz exploited a site in northern Gaza which previously served as the ’Ottoman Turkish’ hospital as a command and control center, from which they directed and carried out terrorist attacks against IDF troops and Israel," COGAT said, adding, "The IDF operated in response to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure."
Meanwhile,
...back at the Alamo, Davy was counting their remaining cannon balls and not liking the results... the Red Thingy said Friday that fuel shortages in Gaza have rendered more than half of Paleostinian Red Islamic Thingy emergency vehicles in the enclave inoperative.
Out of 53 vehicles, 23 remain operational after aid supplies into Gaza, including fuel, were halted in early March, Tommaso Della Longa of the International Federation of Red Thingy and Red Islamic Thingy Societies told news hounds in Geneva.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, nearly 600 Paleostinians have been killed since the ceasefire ended on Tuesday. The number cannot be independently confirmed and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel has said it is targeting Hamas leaders, terror infrastructure and preparations to carry out fresh attacks against Israel.
#1
"We have a very clear vision of the future of the region — a solution of two (Israeli and Paleostinian) states living side-by-side in peace," Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told news hounds in the eastern city of Dijon."
A recrudescence of Vichy and German-occupied France.
[IsraelTimes] Supreme leader, in televised speech, rejects Trump’s vow to hold Tehran responsible for attacks by Iran-backed Yemen group, which fired at Israel this week amid US strikes
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> said Friday that the Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s, an Iran-aligned terror group that controls much of Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , act on their own motivations, after US President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... said he would hold Tehran accountable for the group’s actions.
Khamenei also warned, "If the US or anyone else commits any malicious act against Iran, they will receive a severe blow," in comments made in a televised speech, echoed by official social media posts.
Trump said Monday that he would hold 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... responsible for any attacks carried out by the Houthis, as the American military carried out waves of strikes against the group, marking the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since he returned to the White House.
The Houthis, whose slogan calls for "death to America, death to Israel, [and] a curse on the Jews," have fired four missiles at Israel since Tuesday, all of which were intercepted, and none of which caused any casualties.
The group resumed its attacks on Israel after fighting resumed 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, amid the collapse of a hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... terror group.
Americans, said Khamenei on Friday, "make a big mistake and call regional resistance centers Iranian proxies. What does proxy mean?"
"The Yemeni nation has its own motivation and the resistance groups in the region have their own motivations. Iran doesn’t need proxies," Khamenei said.
The US "issue threats," he added, but "we have never started a confrontation or conflict with anyone. However,
ars longa, vita brevis... if anyone acts with malice and initiates it, they will receive severe slaps."
Over the years, Iran has been aligned with groups across the region that describe themselves as the "Axis of Resistance®" to Israel and US influence. Those groups include Hamas, Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... ’s Hezbollah and various Shiite terror groups in Iraq and Syria.
The Islamic Theocratic Republic also counted the Syrian regime of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... — ousted by Salafist tough guys in December — as an ally.
The Houthis began attacking ships in the Red Sea in November 2023, a month after Hamas stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
While the Houthis have said they were attacking Israeli-linked shipping in support of Gaza, they have also targeted vessels with no known Israeli connections.
The Iran-backed rebels also fired some 40 ballistic missiles at Israel, from November 2023 until just days before the Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal was reached in January 2025. They also launched several attack drones at Israel, including one that killed a civilian and maimed several others in Tel Aviv in July.
Responding to the attacks, Israel has carried out several strikes on Houthi sites in Yemen.
It is common knowledge, and Iran leaders have even publicly said: Iran supports the Houthi movement in Yemen, by providing various funds for military, and logistical support.
Khamenei and the inter-circle can see the USA finally has President, with both Congression and Voter support willing to correct, or at least seriously address Global Terrorism.
#3
Mask really needs to get StarShip working so massive Rods From God arrays can be placed in orbit to selectively take out perps like Khamenei as just freak meteor strikes.
[IsraelTimes] Thousands respond to image of Clifford’s Tower, where 150 Jews were murdered in 1190, with ‘laugh’ reacts and antisemitic jokes
The Facebook page British History has a devoted but not particularly emotive following. Multiple times a day, it posts an image and factoid from, well, British history, to a handful of comments and thumbs-up emojis.
But when it showed followers an image of Clifford’s Tower in York, England, over the weekend and informed them about an antisemitic massacre of 150 Jews that took place there in 1190, the response was different.
More than 1,600 people applied Facebook’s "laughing" emoji, signaling that they were making light of one of the starkest instances of antisemitic violence in British history. The massacre took place when an estimated 150 Jews who had taken refuge inside the tower chose to take their own lives rather than be forcibly converted; a few who sought to escape were murdered.
Several commenters rejected the hateful responses. "Disgusting to see so many people laughing at this post. Totally think you’re in the wrong group," one wrote.
The original poster, British History, replied to another comment decrying the antisemitic reactions saying that they had blocked many of the offenders.
But a handful of antisemitic comments remained. When one commenter noted that Jews were later expelled from England and not allowed to return until the 1650s, he got a reply of his own: "Should have kept the law !!" It got 265 approving responses, compared to 100 signaling anger.
The proliferation of mocking emojis and antisemitic comments reflects a familiar dynamic for anyone engaging with Jewish content online in recent years, particularly as multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, have recently relaxed their policies against hate speech. Earlier this year, Meta, which owns Facebook, rolled back restrictions on free speech and stopped automating the detection and removal of hate speech.
The British History post about the massacre at Clifford’s Tower went up on its 835th anniversary. The same day, members of York’s Jewish community and local officials gathered for a memorial service that takes place every year and doubles as a Holocaust memorial ceremony.
It was the second ceremony to include Rabbi Elisheva Salamo, the first rabbi to work in York since its Jewish population was wiped out in the massacre. "Helping to rebuild what was once one of England’s most vibrant Jewish communities is an honor and a privilege," she told The Guardian when she was hired.
At the ceremony, Barbara Boyce, York’s former lord mayor who was involved in the decision to memorialize the Holocaust locally, said she feared that contemporary discourse was redolent of the hate espoused before the massacres the ceremony was memorializing."Social media has become an echo chamber that reinforces people’s prejudices," she said. "Opinions, however ill-informed, can be published."
[FoxNews] nationwide incidents targeting Tesla electric vehicles, dealerships, storage lots and charging stations, the FBI on Friday warned the public to "exercise vigilance" near the company's properties.
Since January 2025, Tesla electric vehicles have been targeted in at least nine states, according to the FBI.
The incidents involved arson, gunfire and vandalism, including graffiti expressing grievances against those the perpetrators perceive to be racists, fascists or political opponents, the FBI said.
The attacks, which some are calling domestic terrorism, come after the company's CEO, Elon Musk, was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
DOGE, tasked with slashing wasteful federal spending, has laid off tens of thousands of federal employees as part of its cuts.
Fox News Digital previously reported several Teslas in Las Vegas were set on fire with Molotov cocktails, an Oregon Tesla dealership was shot up, a second Oregon Tesla dealership was damaged by incendiary devices and several Tesla charging stations were set on fire in Massachusetts.
Those responsible for the criminal acts against Tesla appear to be "lone offenders" who target the properties at night, according to the FBI.
"Individuals require little planning to use rudimentary tactics, such as improvised incendiary devices and firearms and may perceive these attacks as victimless property crimes," the FBI said.
The agency urged the public to "exercise vigilance" for suspicious activity in areas occupied by Tesla dealerships or Tesla-related entities.
It noted criminals could make threats online, inquire about or examine security measures at Tesla dealerships, take photos of security-related equipment or personnel at Tesla dealerships or attempt to gain access to restricted areas at Tesla-related properties by bypassing security.
This week, a website called "Dogequest" claimed to have compiled a list of Tesla owners, their addresses, phone numbers and email addresses in an apparent effort to dox those who have not sold their vehicles out of fear of being targeted.
The site, which appeared to have been taken down as of Friday afternoon, also contained a map of Tesla dealerships and charging stations.
If there is an emergency, the FBI urges people to call local law enforcement or 911 immediately.
"Be aware of your surroundings at all times and report suspicious activities to the authorities," the FBI wrote in the statement. "Reporting these crimes can help law enforcement identify violent or malicious actors and prevent further damage."
To report a threat, individuals can contact an FBI field office at fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices, call 1-800-CALL-FBI or visit tips.fbi.gov.
#3
The Tesla vandals are not going to El Salvador. Not sure why Trump says stuff like that.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/22/2025 13:27
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#4
Not sure why Trump says stuff like that.
To get miscreants and wannabes thinking about serious punishment for their little bit of fun. One of his jobs is stomp-dancing in their heads. It they are arguing that he can’t do that, it sets the bar for what he actually can do — twenty years in the federal pen for conspiracy and action in a national terrorism scheme.
It's a conversation starter that generates a national discussion.
Trump says something outrageous.
The media reacts with outrage.
Suddenly, all the news stories are about people reacting to the media reports.
Eventually, a reasonable plan is proposed to deal with the problem.
Plus, He is a New Yorker and prone to bombast. You or I might look at the sky and say "It looks like rain". Translated into New Yorkese, it comes out as "*Bleep* me! We need more rain like I need a hole in the head".
Next Move: El Salvador Prez feeds the fire by saying we would be happy to house your excess perps. Outrage ensues, followed by a long discussion of whether President Trump is allowed to do president stuff. Much to Judge Roberts dismay, he is.
[FoxNews] DeSantis said Florida had been trying to return federal funds to the federal government over the 'ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration'
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said Friday that the state was returning more than $878 million to the federal government that it had been attempting to give back for the past few years during the Biden administration.
DeSantis' office informed the U.S. Treasury Department that $878,112,000 would be returned to the federal government.
The governor said the move came after a meeting with billionaire Elon Musk and his team at the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
"For years, Florida has been trying to return federal funds to the federal government due to the ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration—but they couldn't even figure out how to accept it," DeSantis wrote Friday on X.
"Today, I met with @elonmusk and the DOGE team, and we got this done in the same day," he continued.
DeSantis suggested that other states "should follow Florida in supporting DOGE's efforts!"
The governor's office said in its email to the Treasury Department that it will search for additional excess federal funds that can be returned.
"At the direction of Governor DeSantis and following his meeting with Elon Musk today, the State of Florida is formally returning $878,112,000 in taxpayer dollars to the federal government as part of DOGE's efforts," the email said. "We will also continue to identify other unused or surplus federal funding granted to Florida and determine if further refunds can be made. We hope our actions serve as a model for other states to follow."
Musk, who also serves as a senior advisor to President Donald Trump, responded to the governor's post on X.
"Almost a billion dollars of your taxpayer money saved," Musk said on the social media platform.
DeSantis announced last month the creation of Florida's DOGE task force to "further eliminate waste within state government, save taxpayers money, and ensure accountability in Florida."
"Florida has set the standard for fiscally conservative governance, and our new Florida DOGE task force will do even more to serve the people of Florida," DeSantis said at the time. "It will eliminate redundant boards and commissions, review state university and college operations and spending, utilize artificial intelligence to further examine state agencies to uncover hidden waste, and even audit the spending habits of local entities to shine the light on waste and bloat."
Both Governor DeSantis and VP Vance are retired military men. No doubt they could figure out how to work together as president and VP in the future…
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The USS Constellation was supposed to be a symbol of America's resurgence at sea.
Instead the newly designed warship risks becoming a floating monument to bureaucratic inertia, technological overreach and humiliation.
The glimmer of hope began in 2020 at a shipyard in Wisconsin, where rusted cranes and tools creaked under the weight of America's declining shipbuilding industry.
Fincantieri Marinette Marine, an American arm of the storied Italian shipbuilder, had just won the contract to build the Navy's next-generation frigate.
The grand designs would build a vessel that could protect against submarines, missiles, and drones with sleek European efficiency and cutting-edge American firepower.
It was supposed to be fast, reliable and proven designed to show the world that the US Navy could still dominate the waves.
Instead, the USS Constellation has become one of consternation and a cautionary tale at that.
To speed up the building program, the Navy did something unusual: it chose a design already in use by Italy's navy, where frigates like the Carlo Bergamini class were being built in just four years.
With that head start, the US plan was ambitious but reasonable - with the aim of delivering the first Constellation-class frigate by 2026.
But once the contract was secured, the Navy began constantly modifying the design, frequently changing the requirements, requesting upgrades and tweaking designs after shipbuilders have already begun construction.
The triggering error is clear.
The hull was lengthened by nearly 24 feet. The bow was reshaped. The sonar dome was removed. The engine rooms were redesigned.
Generators and switchboards, separated in the Italian model for survivability, were forced together in the US version, triggering spatial reshuffles and weight increases.
A new propeller was required for acoustic performance. Cooling systems needed enlarging, which in turn demanded bigger pumps - and more space. Ventilation had to be rerouted. Room layouts had to be redone.
Nearly five years after the initial contract award, and over two years into physical construction, the Constellation is just 10 percent complete.
If that pace holds, the ship won't sail the open seas until 2029 - a nine-year timeline, double that of the Italian version it was based on.
The labor shortage is one of myriad challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats.
The cumulative impact of American 'improvements' seems staggering.
The Navy chose a ship design already in use by navies in France and Italy instead of starting from scratch with the hope of keeping costs down.
The idea was that 15 percent of the vessel would be updated to meet US Navy specifications, while 85 percent would remain unchanged, reducing costs and speeding construction.
Instead, the opposite happened: The Navy redesigned 85 percent of the ship based upon its Italian predecessor, resulting in cost increases and construction delays.
Construction of the first-in-class Constellation warship, which began in August 2022, is now three years behind schedule, with delivery pushed back to 2029 - and the final design still isn't complete.
'Every shipbuilding delay, every maintenance backlog and every inefficiency is an opening for our adversaries to challenge our [naval] dominance,' said John Phelan, Trump's nominee for Secretary of the Navy, to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
According to Eric Labs, a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Navy shipbuilding is currently in 'a terrible state' - the worst in a quarter century, Labs says.
'I feel alarmed,' he said. 'I don't see a fast, easy way to get out of this problem. It's taken us a long time to get into it.'
Marinette Marine is under contract to build six guided-missile frigates - the Navy's newest surface warships - with options to build four more. But it only has enough workers to produce one frigate a year, according to Labs.
That 'strategic pause,' as the Government Accountability Office put it, wasn't just costly but crippling.
One set of design documents required 170 comments and revisions from Navy overseers.
'The Navy peeled back the onion and realized how far the design was from meeting the Navy's standards, and had to take a strategic pause to try and right the ship,' Shelby Oakley, director at the GAO, told the Wall Street Journal.
But as time dragged on, the costs also began to mount.
Originally estimated at $1.3 billion, the cost of the Constellation has now surged past $1.9 billion - with more overruns almost certain.
The Navy claims its changes enhance 'lethality, survivability, and fleet commonality.'
But critics see a Navy driven by committees, and hamstrung by outdated practices.
'American ships are fearsome weapons of war… but they are expensive to build and also expensive to run,' former Vice Admiral Jeremy Kyd, who commanded U.S. ships in joint exercises with Britain's Royal Navy, told WSJ.
Such vast expense is also seeing international buyers giving a wide berth.
While the F-35 fighter jet and Patriot missile systems are top global sellers, American-built ships rarely win foreign bids, consistently losing to their sleeker, cheaper European and South Korean rivals.
And while the US Navy fumbles through design reviews and paperwork, China has taken to the seas like a duck to water.
Combined with shifting defense priorities, the last-minute design changes and cost overruns, it has put the US way behind China in the number of ships at its disposal - and the gap is widening.
From 2014 to 2023, China launched 157 warships. By comparison, the US has launched only 67. It means China's fleet is now the largest in the world.
'The U.S. is the global laggard in warship construction,' the Journal reported bluntly.
The numbers tell the story. US attack submarines that once took six years now take nine. Aircraft carriers now need eleven years - up from eight. Frigates are slower here than anywhere except Canada.
The Pentagon is scrambling and President Trump has floated the idea of an Office of Shipbuilding, along with an executive order aimed at reviving the industry and breaking China's dominance.
But steel tariffs, labor shortages, and archaic equipment - some of it pre-World War II - make that a tall order.
A recent McKinsey report found that many US shipyards operate with tools that are so old, spare parts must be fabricated from scratch.
A lack of skilled workers makes things worse. A third of Fincantieri's US workforce is over 50.
One of the industry's chief problems is the struggle to hire and retain laborers for the challenging work of building new ships as graying veterans retire, taking decades of experience with them.
There simply aren't enough trained welders, engineers, and systems specialists to build ships quickly - or reliably.
Shipyards across the country have created training academies and partnered with technical colleges to provide workers with the skills they need to construct high-tech warships.
Submarine builders and the Navy formed an alliance to promote manufacturing careers, and shipyards are offering perks to retain workers once they're hired.
The Navy is trying to help shipyards ensure that once new workers are trained and hired, they stick around in a tight labor market.
The shipyard, which employs more than 2,000 workers, is providing bonuses of up to $10,000 to keep workers, said spokesperson Eric Dent. 'The workforce shortage is definitely a problem and it's a problem across the board for all shipyards,' he said.
Retention is a concern even for shipyards that have met their goals, including Huntington Ingalls Industries, which makes destroyers and amphibious warships in Mississippi and aircraft carriers and submarines in Virginia.
Complicating matters further is something out of the Navy's control: the changing nature of global threats.
Throughout its history, the Navy has had to adapt to varying perils, whether it be the Cold War of past decades or current threats including war in the Middle East, growing competition from Chinese and Russian navies, piracy off the coast of Somalia and persistent attacks on commercial ships by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
And that's not all. The consolidation of shipyards and funding uncertainties have disrupted the cadence of ship construction and stymied long-term investments and planning, says Matthew Paxton of the Shipbuilders Council of America, a national trade association.
'We've been dealing with inconsistent shipbuilding plans for years,' Paxton said. 'When we finally start ramping up, the Navy is shocked that we lost members of our workforce.'
Frustration over America's shipbuilding woes has even reached the Oval Office.
In a now-infamous 2017 meeting, President Trump was shown photographs of modern naval ships - sleek destroyers, stealthy frigates. He tossed them aside.
Then he saw the USS New Jersey - a relic from World War II, bristling with massive guns.
While the White House later disputed the account, the symbolism is stark.
In Trump's eyes, and in the eyes of many defense watchers, modern U.S. warships may be powerful, but they've lost their swagger. Worse, they're arriving years behind schedule.
The Navy's plans are ambitious with a fleet of 390 combat ships by 2054, up from 295 today.
Hitting that target would require doubling the current production rate - something that is likely impossible without massive reform.
As for the USS Constellation, a ship named after one of the first vessels in the original US Navy - it remains in pieces.
#2
But once the contract was secured, the Navy began constantly modifying the design, frequently changing the requirements, requesting upgrades and tweaking designs after shipbuilders have already begun construction.
Those Admirals need to be fired, not retired and given a medal. Make it a career ending third rail.
#3
Why? The naval procurement people got involved.
They screw up everything they touch. They're kinda like dogs who have to piss on everything they pass, to show that they were there.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/22/2025 8:38
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#4
sleek European efficiency
What was he smoking when he said that?
Scope creep on steroids (or Grift) The bane of my existence for 30 years of IS.
#5
But once the contract was secured, the Navy began constantly modifying the design, frequently changing the requirements, requesting upgrades and tweaking designs after shipbuilders have already begun construction
Classic Project Management case - look up "The VASA". It was also a ship-building project.
[Jpost] US President Donald Trump on Friday rescinded the security clearances for former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others, according to a memorandum issued by the White House.
The Republican president, who has also revoked the security clearance for former President Joe Biden, faced Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Harris in last year's election.
They’re no longer working for the government, so they don’t need to be able to access secret government information. But that has nothing to do what they might figure out from open source stuff, just like we do here. If their value add is their deeper understanding of events, they’ll continue understanding deeply without being told secrets. If their only value is the contacts who tell them secrets, then they weren't all that valuable after all.
Courtesy of Fred:
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Donald Trump has officially stripped Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris of their security clearances.
Both have now been cut off from access to classified government information.
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
03/22/2025
00:59 ||
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[11175 views]
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#1
This! Finally.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/22/2025 4:06
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#2
I was disappointed to see him grant the one law firm back their clearances.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/22/2025 8:52
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#3
Former President Joe Biden, former VP Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are among the 15 individuals listed in President Donald Trump's memo on revoking security clearances.
#4
Don't worry. I'm sure they will find a judge who will order Trump to restore the clearances. Oh, and be sure to give Hunter one as well, while Trump's at it.
As the Democratic Party faces a problem not winning enough support from American men, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says he believes some Republican voters felt threatened by his questionable masculinity and challenged them to a limp wrist slap fight. Apparently Wimpy thinks he's tough even when he's not murdering seniors in nursing homes.
Posted by: Woodrow ||
03/22/2025
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[11156 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
It’s not going to happen. Also nobody wants to see a sweaty Walz in a singlet.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/22/2025 8:51
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#2
Even if, the only way he wouldn't get a last minute transfer is if there was a young Chinese boy in the ring.
BREAKING: ICE now confirming the Cobb County mother of five that was strangled to death last week and left in a bush was murdered by 21-year-old Hector Sagastume Rivas, an ILLEGAL ALIEN from Honduras.
5 children are without a mother tonight because of a killer foreign invasion. pic.twitter.com/GeRFtK6sgs
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2025
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[11158 views]
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#1
Hang the total blame for this one tightly around the necks of those that forced Open Borders on us.
Now, think how clean Congress' halls and seats would be right now, IF their OATH OF OFFICE was actually enforced, as written ?
“I, ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.””
🛑IDF and Shin Bet Eliminate Hamas Military Intel Chief who Handled Bibas Family Coffins.
This monster was responsible the psychological abuse of Israeli citizens. He was photographed with Sinwar.
The IDF and Shin Bet killed Osama Tabesh, a veteran Hamas terrorist and head of… pic.twitter.com/moMaHxw98x
— LionsOfZion_ official (@LionsOfZion_ORG) March 21, 2025
… Hamas terrorist and head of military intelligence and key figure in the organization.
Stay informed—follow for updates on this critical strike against terrorism! Like, comment, share!
LionsOfZion_ official
@LionsOfZion_ORG
Hamas livestreamed its massacre. We saw the info war and fought back with autonomous AI. Defending Israel & justice worldwide.
The Times of Israel adds:
Southern Gaza Intel Chief Killed In Strike
On Friday, the IDF and the Shin Bet announced that the chief of Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... ’s military intelligence in the southern 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 was killed in an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... the day before.
Osama Tabash, according to the IDF, also served as the head of Hamas’s surveillance and targets unit, in addition to heading the southern Gaza intelligence unit.
Tabash was a veteran member of Hamas and considered a "significant source of knowledge" in the terror group, serving in many key roles, including a battalion commander in Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, the joint IDF and Shin Bet statement said.
Images from November 2018 show Osama Tabash presenting then-Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintained a separate PM in the West Bank. Zapped during the 2023-24 war, to eveyone's satisfaction... with the pistol of Lt. Col. Mahmoud Kheir el-Din, an Israeli commando who was killed in a botched intelligence-gathering operation in Khan Younis.
"Over the years, he was involved in terror activities and directing attacks, including a suicide kaboom carried out in 2005 at the Gush Katif junction in the Gaza Strip, in which Shin Bet coordinator Oded Sharon was killed," the statement said.
The IDF and Shin Bet said that as part of his role as intelligence chief in southern Gaza, Tabash was responsible for "formulating Hamas’s combat strategy on the ground, coordinating Hamas’s intelligence in southern Gaza, and managing their activities in the area."
"Additionally, over the past year, he was involved in Hamas’s force build-up efforts, and worked to rebuild its military capabilities following the harm it sustained during the war," the statement said.
The military said that the surveillance and targets unit which Tabash also headed is responsible for collecting visual intelligence to create targets for Hamas, both in Israel and in the Gaza Strip.
As such, he was "responsible for planning and coordinating targets and infiltration objectives" during the October 7 onslaught.
During the war, Tabash’s unit was involved in gathering intelligence monitoring IDF operations in Gaza, and directing attacks on troops, the military said, adding that his killing was a blow to Hamas’s "intelligence-gathering capabilities and its attempts to harm IDF troops operating in the area."
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Images from November 2018 show Osama Tabash presenting then-Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh with the pistol of Lt. Col. Mahmoud Kheir el-Din, an Israeli commando who was killed in a botched intelligence-gathering operation in Khan Younis.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22.50 The number of victims as a result of the attack on Zaporizhia has grown to five people. One person died. This was reported by the head of the Zaporizhia OVA Ivan Fedorov. "The attack by Russians on Zaporizhia took the life of one person. Rescuers have just pulled the body of a woman from under the rubble of a destroyed house," he said. According to Fedorov, three people wounded as a result of the shelling are in serious condition, two are in moderate condition. Doctors are providing them with all the necessary assistance.
21.57 Russian troops attack Zaporizhia. Three casualties are known. This was reported on the evening of March 21 by the head of the Zaporizhia OVA Ivan Fedorov. According to him, private homes and multi-story buildings in the city were damaged. Detailed information is being established.
21.12 Defense forces destroyed the Russian BM-27 Uragan multiple launch rocket system heading to the firing line. This was reported by the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which published a video . It is noted that thanks to the adjustment of the operators of the 14th separate regiment of the SBS UAS, the Ukrainian rocket artillery delivered a precise strike with a cluster warhead. The Uragan's ammunition detonated. According to preliminary data, two invaders who were part of the system's crew were destroyed.
20:58 Germany's allocation of an additional three billion euros in military aid to Ukraine increases the overall volume of support and makes its planning possible, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.
19.48 Drones attacked the Engels airfield in the Saratov region of the Russian Federation on the night of March 20. Satellite images of the aftermath of the strike appeared online, published by a Radio Liberty project called Schemes.
17:55 Ukraine maintains "logical relations" with the UN, but does not view the organization as an alternative to a military contingent or security guarantees. This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a joint press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel in Kyiv.
17.29 At least two crew members of a Tu-95MS bomber were killed in an attack on the Russian strategic aviation airbase Engels in the Saratov region. This was reported by the Telegram channel Krymsky Veter, which published a photo of the liquidated Russians.
17.24 At the attacked Neftetrans oil depot near the village of Kavkazskaya (Krasnodar Krai, Russian Federation), the third oil tank exploded . Eyewitnesses reported this on March 21, according to the TG channel ASTRA. It is noted that thick smoke poured out, and black pieces flew into the air. The interlocutors claim that the facility is completely on fire. According to sources, firefighters no longer have control over the fire.
17.02 Since the beginning of the day, 68 combat clashes have occurred on the front in 11 directions. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported the details in the operational summary.
16:38 Law enforcement officers have eliminated 5 more schemes for evading mobilization and illegal travel abroad by men of draft age. As a result of complex measures, 10 organizers of transactions offering their services for 5-13 thousand US dollars have been detained in different regions of Ukraine. This was reported by the SBU on March 21.
16:31 Ukrainian military destroyed a Russian Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile system with ammunition in one of the key eastern directions of the front. This was reported by the operational-strategic group of forces (OSGV) Khortytsia.
15.57 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Czech President Petr Pavel visited Moshchun in the Kyiv region on the anniversary of its liberation from Russian occupiers. The leaders honored the memory of the Ukrainian defenders who died during the defense and liberation of Moshchun in 2022. This was reported on the website of the head of state.
15:53 Ukraine views the next meeting with US representatives in Saudi Arabia as bilateral. Contacts with Russians are not envisaged. This was stated by Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhyi at a briefing. This was his response to the statement by US Presidential Special Representative to Ukraine Keith Kellogg that the Americans will send teams to Saudi Arabia for indirect negotiations with Ukraine and Russia.
15.33 A car with Russian officers exploded in the temporarily occupied city of Skadovsk in the Kherson region. This was reported by the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense.
15.28 At night, Russian military attacked Berislav with FPV drones. As a result of the strike , five police officers were injured , they were diagnosed with concussions and debris wounds, their lives are not in danger. A police service car was destroyed.
14.53 Currently, a list of countries ready to send military contingents to Ukraine has already been formed. The issue is being discussed at the level of the General Staffs regarding numbers and locations. This was stated by Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhyi during a briefing.
14:01 Russian invaders are trying to reach advantageous heights in the Orekhov direction in order to create a threat to Zaporizhia and other populated areas. This was stated by the spokesman for the Defense Forces of the South, Vladislav Voloshin, on air at the telethon. According to him, the enemy is trying to reach a line from where it will be able to fire large-caliber artillery at the eastern and southern suburbs of Zaporizhia.
13.59 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed doubts in Brussels about the large number of meetings of various formats regarding Ukraine. According to him, they have not yet led to progress, reports Polish TV channel TVP Info.
13.43 Russian invaders attacked three cities in the Donetsk region, resulting in civilian casualties. The head of the Donetsk OVA Vadim Filashkin reported in more detail .
13.05 On Friday night, the Russians attacked civilian infrastructure in Odessa and five other regions of Ukraine, but at the same time cynically lied that they were observing agreements with the United States. The corresponding conclusion can be drawn from the statement of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at a briefing.
12:29 After another Russian massive attack on Ukrainian cities, President Volodymyr Zelensky called on partners to increase pressure on Russia. He wrote about this on Telegram .
12:25 In 2025, the number of appeals and cases of rights violations during mobilization events by TCC workers increased, and this trend continues. This was stated by Ombudsman Lubinets.
"In total, over these 2.5 months, we have received more than 40 individual appeals regarding violations in the Kharkiv region: refusal to admit lawyers, use of force, weapons and other special means, refusal to accept documents and other violations," he said.
The human rights ombudsman also noted that at least three videos have recently been posted in the media where cyclists are hit by a car, and then people in uniform use force and these cyclists are put into cars.
"I would like to note that such actions are unacceptable and require a response," Lubinets said.
12:03 The Russian attack on the gas transportation system (GTS) in Sudzha is one of the first information operations aimed at accusing Ukraine of disrupting the ceasefire. This was reported by the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) of the National Security and Defense Council Andriy Kovalenko.
1 1:41 In Kiev, law enforcement officers detained a 19-year-old young man who, on orders from Russian special services, tried to set fire to a bank branch in the Dniprovskyi district of the capital. This was reported by the National Police.
11:20 The leaders of the EU countries did not agree on 5 billion euros for ammunition for Ukraine. Bloomberg reported this yesterday, citing sources. Italy and France spoke out against it, believing that work still needs to be done on the initiative, the sources claim.
10:16 The Security Service detained a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Ternopil, whom the Russians recruited to blow her up along with explosives near the local police department.
Russian special services "noticed" the girl when she was looking for quick money in Telegram channels. In order to attract her to cooperate, the Russians "hacked" her phone. They blackmailed the girl and threatened to leak explicit photos of the minor on the Internet.
09:55 At night, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with 214 Shahed-type attack drones and various types of drone imitators. Air defense forces shot down 114 Russian drones, 81 drone imitators did not reach their targets (location was lost)
The Russian attack affected Odessa, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy and Kyiv regions.
09:30 Russia, with the aim of discrediting Ukraine, shelled the Sudzha gas metering station in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation with artillery; the Defense Forces were not involved. This was stated by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"The Russian Federation is stepping up its discrediting campaign against Ukraine. Thus, the enemy accused our Defense Forces of shelling the Sudzha gas metering station. These accusations are unfounded," the statement said.
The military recalled that, in particular, last summer the station in Sudzha was bombed with guided aerial bombs, and three days ago the Russians again hit it with guided bombs.
09:20 Czech President Peter Pavel arrived in Ukraine on a visit, in particular he visited Odessa, which was under a massive drone attack by Russia on the night of March 21. The Ukrainian and Czech sides discussed key issues of shipping safety, demining and the restoration of Ukraine.
08:35 Russian troops launched 47 drones at Kiev at night. Air defense forces on the approaches to the capital shot down 27 drones. The rest were lost or left the airspace.
According to preliminary information, no damage or casualties were reported on the territory of Kiev.
08:20 Over the past 24 hours, 166 combat clashes were recorded on the front. In the Pokrovsk direction alone, Ukrainian defenders stopped 53 assault actions by Russian invaders.
07:39 The press service of the State Emergency Service published photos and videos of large-scale fires as a result of the Russian drone attack on Odessa on the evening of March 20.
Large-scale fires broke out, a shopping center and stores were burning, and a multi-story building was damaged.
According to preliminary information, three teenagers were injured," the rescuers noted.
07:15 As of March 21, 2025, the total combat losses of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine amounted to approximately 900,800 people (+1,330 per day).
01:17 Hungary has proposed creating a "buffer zone" between Russia and the European Union's defense structures, said Hungarian Minister for EU Affairs Janos Bocka. He noted that the creation of such a zone is only possible by agreement between the United States and Russia, otherwise Ukraine will remain a conflict zone. The politician also warned that any actions by the United States or the EU in Ukraine without Vladimir Putin's approval "are in themselves a source of conflict."
00:48 Czech President Petr Pavel said during a press conference with his Moldovan counterpart Maia Sandu in Chisinau that as a result of the negotiations, Ukraine may have to make certain compromises, including territorial ones.
[BREITBART] FEMA clarified to Breitbart News that the 270,000 number refers to individuals and households, not just homeowners.
As Breitbart News has reported, many displaced residents had tried applying for FEMA relief, only to find that someone else had already applied in their name and with their address, locking them out of the system.
FEMA attempts to make relief funds easy to apply for, but the downside is that fraudsters can more easily take advantage of the system. A FEMA official said that problem was a major reason for closing applications at the end of the month, instead of extending them for a full year, as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) requested.
Identity theft in natural disasters may seem shocking, but it is not uncommon — especially when maps of affected areas and addresses are easily available online. Several individuals have already been arrested for fraud in connection with FEMA grants in the L.A. fires — one of whom is suspected of having collected on similar fraudulent applications for two decades, going back to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.
Newly-installed Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman had warned in January that fraudsters would descend on L.A. Victims have been asked to contact the FBI, at 1-800-CALL-FBI/.
[IsraelTimes] Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli says European Jews should be more worried about Islamic extremism than the far-right, defending his decision to invite far-right European politicians to Israel’s upcoming conference on combating antisemitism.
"The real threat to European Jewry is radical Islam, not the right," Chikli tells Israel Hayom in an interview published this morning.
Chikli blames the left-wing newspaper Haaretz for pushing a campaign that has led to a wave of cancellations of conference participants ahead of the Jerusalem event planned for March 26-27.
Among high-profile figures to pull out have been Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, and others.
Chikli criticizes them for "delegitimizing the people who support us the most," calling it a "terrible injustice."
"How can we boycott people who come to a conference against antisemitism in the State of Israel?" Chikli asks.
Chikli tells Israel Hayom that while many of the political parties in question have histories rooted in racism, they are currently fighting against antisemitism.
For example, Jordan Bardella, president of the French National Rally party founded by noted antisemite and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently challenged the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... about the connection between UNRWA and Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... , and has spoken out against a Paleostinian state after October 7, Chikli says.
Bardella also condemned arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, Chikli notes.
In contrast, he says, French President Emmanuel Macron is "weak" and a "disappointment for Israel."
On Wednesday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog offered to hold a private meeting with world Jewish leaders at his home the night before the main event, without those controversial figures, in an effort to reduce tensions.
#3
During the last 4-5 years especially after the Ukraine war started a significant part the the European "New Right" has sharply shifted to the left.
In terms of the US political spectrum they moved from "Ronald Reagan conservatism" to "Candace Owens/Tucker Carlson conservatism".
Their stance is pro Russia/China/Qatar(Erdogan/Iran and anti-Rushdie and also anti-Israel albeit in a passive aggressive way.
This shift has brought them into greater alignment with the European mainstream but since the mainstream is generally wrong on these issues that's a bad development.
Deepl translation: The #Hamas attack on #Israel is to be condemned. I mourn all the war dead. Now the states in the region must focus on de-escalation to avert a conflagration. Diplomacy is the order of the day. A viable solution for all sides must be the goal!
[FoxNews] 'Now the Haitians are looking at China, looking at Russia. They're like, "Somebody help us,"' former envoy says
A former special envoy to Haiti blames what he views as former President Joe Biden's absentee approach to decision-making for the current woes afflicting the Caribbean nation.
Daniel Foote served as special envoy to Haiti in 2021 but resigned in protest over what he said was the administration’s failed approach of supporting unpopular and unelected leaders.
"All of the governments that the U.S. has backed or anointed or imposed in the last 110 years have not represented the Haitian people," Foote said. He said the Biden administration backed the then-unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry solely for his unwavering loyalty despite lingering questions about how Henry rose to power.
Foote has been involved with Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. He now believes the country has descended into near-total collapse.
"It's a thousand times worse now because we broke whatever weak social contract there was between the people and the government. And there has been no government since basically 2012. It's a failed state."
A recent U.N. report revealed that more than 1 million people have been displaced due to gang violence in Haiti, nearly 10% of the population. Another report indicated that 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control.
Foote said he never met Biden while serving as envoy, claiming that by then, Biden had "deteriorated to the point that they didn’t want him to see a lot of people." Instead, he said, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison devised the plan to support Henry.
Foote said he recalled a remark that Biden allegedly made as a senator in 1994: "If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interests."
"That explains Joe Biden's approach to Haiti," Foote said.
Nuland rejected Foote’s accusations, calling them "completely false" and referred Fox News Digital to former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols.
"What I observed that there was intense coordination, and there was not one person or two people who would make a significant decision on the policy," Nichols said, noting that he got the job roughly a week before Foote resigned on Sept. 21 and so was not involved in earlier decisions. "All issues were debated extensively internally at multiple levels, all the way up to the principals, that's the Cabinet secretary level."
Foote said that in the past he felt no need for security while walking around Haiti because Americans were widely welcomed. Things are not the same anymore.
"Now the Haitians are looking at China, looking at Russia," he said. "They're like, ‘Somebody help us. The Americans just keep screwing us over,’ yet they still want the Americans to help them."
The Biden administration committed around $600 million to fund an international security force, known as the multinational security support mission (MSS), composed of personnel from countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Chad and Guyana. But Foote said he sees the MSS strategy as a waste of taxpayer money.
"They don't have the security backbone to take on the gangs," he said. "They need help. And that help is not 5,000 random police officers from a mishmash of 10 different developing countries led by the Kenyans, who have never led a security mission in history."
A strong contrast to the current, Israel-hating government. Much like we saw here in America, in fact.
[IsraelTimes] Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton says one of his first acts if elected premier in May will be to bolster ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
In his first major foreign policy address, Dutton says calling Netanyahu will be among his first official acts, calling the current government’s stance toward Israel one of its "most egregious foreign policy failures."
"Instead of treating Israel like the ally it is, this Government has treated Israel like an adversary," he says, according to a transcript of the speech released by his office.
The Liberal Party leader promises that Canberra will end funding for the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Relief and Works Agency, the main agency providing aid for Paleostinian refugees, citing its employment of Gazooks who took part in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
He adds that Australia will resume voting with Israel at the UN, accusing the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of adopting "adversarial positions towards Israel to shore-up Labor votes in certain seats where there are, undeniably, anti-Israel and antisemitic views."
He does not address a rash of antisemitic attacks in Australia seemingly linked to the war against Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... 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... Dutton also says he will make Washington his first overseas stop if elected, seemingly marking a pivot toward the US and away from Southeast Asia where Canberra has normally focused its foreign policy efforts.
[DailyCaller] While Republican lawmakers continue to call for impeaching judges who block President Donald Trump’s agenda, Congress has another tool it could use to prevent judges from overriding executive authority.
Limiting courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, which district judges use to block policies across the entire country, could become a strategy for Republicans looking to rein in what the Trump administration is slamming as an abuse of power by the judiciary.
“The Supreme Court should have addressed the issue of nationwide injunctions a decade ago,” South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But the Court keeps kicking the can down the road. Congress should take a close look at how to ensure courts are properly exercising their jurisdiction.”
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said Thursday that he would introduce legislation to “stop the abuse” of judicial authority through nationwide injunctions. California Rep. Darrell Issa has already introduced similar legislation, which was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee 14-9 in early March.
Get your egos out of who gets credit, guys, and get the thing passed.
Issa’s No Rogue Rulings Act of 2025 would limit judges to only issuing injunctions that apply to parties in the case, rather than the entire country.
“We have a crisis on the bench right now and not just with this or any single judge,” Issa said in a statement Wednesday, adding that his bill is “the comprehensive solution we need to ensure that this problem does not occur anywhere in our federal judiciary and resets the proper and appropriate balance in our courts.”
Nationwide injunctions put the over 670 district court judges “temporarily on a par with the Supreme Court of the United States because each one can halt a practice nationwide unless and until a higher court revises, reverses, or vacates its order or Congress modifies the underlying substantive law,” Heritage Foundation legal scholars Paul Larkin and GianCarlo Canaparo wrote on Friday.
“Unless and until Congress endorses that practice, the federal courts should limit the reach of their judgments to the parties to a lawsuit,” they argued.
The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court last week to evaluate lower courts’ use of nationwide injunctions, asking the justices to limit rulings that prevented his executive order on birthright citizenship from taking effect nationwide.
“District courts have issued more universal injunctions and TROs [temporary restraining orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the application. “That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket.”
Several Supreme Court justices have previously expressed opposition to the practice. During oral arguments for a challenge to the abortion pill in 2024, Justice Neil Gorsuch criticized “a rash of universal injunctions.”
Nearly two-thirds of all nationwide injunctions issued since 2001 were against the first Trump administration, according to a Harvard law review article published in June 2024, which does not include data from his second term. Nearly 92% of those rulings were issued by Democrat-appointed judges.
University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds included restrictions on nationwide injunctions among his suggestions for addressing the problem of overstepping judges in a Substack post Wednesday, noting pushing for impeachment is “a symbolic and probably self-destructive gesture.”
“Impeachment is hard, there’s no way the Republicans will get 2/3 of the Senate to vote for removal, and history suggests — from Bill Clinton through two different attempts on Donald Trump — that failed impeachment efforts leave their targets stronger, not weaker,” he wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement Tuesday after Trump called for impeaching a judge who ruled against him. Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg ordered the administration on Saturday to halt flights carrying members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang after Trump used the Alien Enemies Act to initiate their deportation.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said.
Courtesy of Fred:
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JUST IN: @RepAndyBiggsAZ proposes legislation to rein in rogue judges.
The bill would stop lower court judges from abusing their jurisdictions to issue nationwide injunctions against the President of the Untied States.
#3
Ha! "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision" A Supreme Court Justice has NO standing in making that statement. Impeachment is entirely the responsibility of the US Congress: majority vote in the House and 2/3 majority in the Senate can impeach any federal judge, Roberts "notwithstanding"
#4
^ they want to prove an unelected bureaucracy and judiciary actually run this county and that voting is merely theater. "A republic. if you can keep it" - Benjamin Franklin.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Mikhail Zakharov
[REGNUM] On the night of March 20-21, videos appeared on the Internet of a huge flame at the Sudzha gas measuring station (GIS), which was visible for tens of kilometers - even from Kursk.
Fortunately, there were no casualties or injuries, but the facility itself was significantly damaged. And this was not an accidental fire - the facility was deliberately hit from the Ukrainian side.
THEY TRIED TO BLAME RUSSIA
The details of the incident were soon published by the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD RF). According to our military department, the Ukrainian troops attacked the GIS at approximately midnight, and their blowing up of the facility was deliberate and purposeful.
In addition, they explained that Sudzha had been under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since August 7, 2024, and all this time the Ukrainian side had been using the civilian facility for military purposes as one of its “safe” logistics points.
On the afternoon of March 21, it became known that the Investigative Committee of Russia (IC RF) opened a criminal case regarding the attack on the GIS, classifying the explosion as a terrorist act.
It is worth noting that the Ukrainian side, as usual, tried to shift the blame to Russia: allegedly, our troops "themselves fired" at the station in order to conduct some kind of " discrediting campaign." At least, this is what the Telegram channel of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine says.
It is Ukraine that is the obvious culprit of the explosion at the gas measuring station in Sudzha, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on March 21. “ The actions of the Kiev regime are well known to everyone from numerous media reports. Corresponding footage is also being published,” the Kremlin spokesman added, calling Kiev’s claims that Russia itself shelled the GIS “absurd.”
THERE WILL BE NO TRANSIT
The Sudzha GIS is located right on the border of the Kursk region with the Sumy region of Ukraine. Until recently, a large — and the only after May 2022 — corridor for Russian gas supplies to Europe passed through it. Back in October last year, it was reported that Gazprom was supplying 42.1 million cubic meters of blue fuel per day through the Sudzha gas metering equipment.
However, from January 1, 2025, the transit was stopped, because the application for it was zero, as evidenced by the data of the operator of the Ukrainian GTS. At the same time, the pipe was under pressure, it contained gas that remained after the suspension of transportation - it burned with that same bright torch as a result of the attack.
Experts have already begun assessing the consequences of this terrorist attack, but it is still unclear how soon the facility will be repaired — and how recoverable it is. In a commentary for IA Regnum, Igor Yushkov, an expert at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation and the National Energy Security Fund, notes that the GIS could have been repaired. According to him, the night fire occurred on the linear part of the gas pipelines, which is relatively easy to repair.
"It would be possible to simply replace the damaged sections within a few weeks. Like when there are gas pipeline ruptures, accidents, the linear part is replaced. If only there was a desire," the expert says. However, there are other, less optimistic opinions of specialists, and it is too early to name specific dates.
But it is unlikely that there is much interest in repairing the GIS, Yushkov believes: Russia does not need this measuring station for domestic gas supply, and Ukraine does not intend to pump gas through this gas pipeline.
But why then did Kyiv need to destroy the gas infrastructure?
According to Igor Yushkov, this, on the one hand, could be a signal from Slovakia and Hungary, which are demanding that Ukraine resume gas transit, threatening either not to extend Russian sanctions at the EU level or to block European aid to Ukraine from Kyiv.
However, it is significant that Ukraine is blowing up energy infrastructure after literally the day before it declared that it also supported the idea of stopping strikes on such facilities, he notes.
According to the expert, Zelensky's team does not benefit from stopping the military actions; they benefit from the current situation, when the US and the Europeans " have had a bit of a falling out ". It turns out that Ukraine, on the one hand, can constantly make promises to the Americans, continuing to receive aid from them, and on the other, ask Europe for more aid - after all, the US allegedly abandoned Kiev.
“Plus, you can also blame Russia for this, saying that it was Russia itself that blew up the gas pipeline, that it was a provocation on the part of Russia, and so on,” Yushkov continues, speaking about the reasons for the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ strike on Sudzha. “And, accordingly, you kind of pushed all this onto Russia, and on the other hand, you kind of disrupted the peace talks.”
A number of experts also express the opinion that the attack on Sudzha could have been carried out by radicals from the national battalions who refused to obey the Kyiv authorities, in particular the remaining core of Azov*, which currently staffs a number of Ukrainian units. It is no secret that the nationalists who got out of hand often acted at their own discretion, not listening to direct orders from Kyiv politicians.
What these Ukrainian “irreconcilables” are like is well known to the Americans, who have no illusions about the ability of this “contingent” to negotiate.
After all, it was during Trump's last term that the Americans officially recognized Azov* as extremists, terrorists, and even anti-Semites. And before the start of the SVO, all contacts with Azov were prohibited for American official bodies. The situation changed in 2022.
Since then, Azov has already been disbanded, but its core remains "in business." Zelensky plans to appoint the certified Nazi, Azov commander Andriy Biletsky, as commander of the 3rd Army Corps. Another National Battalion member, Denis Prokopenko, is about to be appointed commander of the 12th Army Corps of the National Guard.
This nationalist elite does not care a fig about the higher command and may well act in its own interests. Which, however, does not change the state of affairs that Russia is talking about: Kyiv cannot be trusted. And it is absolutely unimportant whether the undermining of "Suja" was sanctioned from above, or whether it was the result of arbitrary action by individual units.
THE POLITICAL DIMENSION OF SUJA
Indeed, the attack on Sudzha occurred at a time when the leaders of Russia and the United States are actively working together to peacefully resolve the Ukrainian crisis. Let us recall that after a conversation with the head of the White House Donald Trump on March 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave our military an order to immediately cease any strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days.
It should be noted that earlier, despite all assurances from Kiev about the desire to cease fire, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked an oil depot near the village of Kavkazskaya in Krasnodar Krai on the night of March 19, just a few hours after Putin and Trump spoke. The attack caused a major fire at the energy infrastructure facility.
As Dmitry Peskov stated on March 21, the Kiev regime’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, including the blowing up of the Sudzha GIS, clearly demonstrate the price of assurances from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team about Kiev’s desire for peace.
"Therefore, everyone can see how much one can trust Zelensky's word and the word of other representatives of the Kiev regime," Peskov noted. "This, by the way, is something we have repeatedly warned our interlocutors about."
Our military department also said that what happened at the GIS was a deliberate provocation by Kiev. “ It should be considered in the general series of recent strikes on the energy infrastructure of the Russian Federation in order to discredit the peace initiatives of the US President,” the Russian Defense Ministry explained.
According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, the Kiev regime has already violated the ceasefire proposed by the US with the attack on Sudzha. Now, the diplomat says, the question is how Washington will continue to manage the " crazed terrorist scum."
And another question remains: how in such a situation can Moscow in principle agree on anything with the Kiev regime, be it a cessation of strikes on energy facilities or a ceasefire? After all, Ukraine, even against the backdrop of an agreement to refrain from strikes on energy, is deliberately destroying infrastructure, and is also trying to present this as an " example of Russia's inability to negotiate."
THE FATE OF PEACE TALKS
As political scientist Dmitry Solonnikov said in an interview with IA Regnum, Kiev and the Western countries that support it have never taken any positive steps towards a real settlement of the military conflict, and the idea of limiting strikes is the Russian position.
“The task of Western Europe, Ukraine – now the US has left this coalition, but there are also supporters of this in the US – is to inflict a military defeat on Russia, if not now, then after some time,” says Solonnikov.
According to the expert, if the agreement that the United States is talking about is signed - and it is primarily needed by the United States and needed by Ukraine as a respite in the conflict - then after signing, the parties will most likely adhere to it.
“Again, not excluding frequent provocations, as is happening now on the border of Azerbaijan and Armenia - despite the fact that military actions have ended and a peace treaty is being prepared, but shelling occurs periodically,” our interlocutor adds.
Until nothing is signed, Solonnikov notes, Ukraine will continue to conduct full-scale military operations against infrastructure inside Russia and in the border area. “Everything will continue as it was. Their position is to force a ceasefire, to demonstrate their capabilities to Russia, and no one has changed this scenario,” the expert continues.
"And then, if we talk about signing agreements, it is a question of pressure from the United States on both sides, both Russian and Ukrainian. As Donald Trump has already said, if our position is not agreed upon, we will apply the most severe sanctions," Dmitry Solonnikov sums up. "In fact, they can apply the most severe sanctions to both Ukraine and Russia if their position is not agreed upon. Therefore, they will continue to push."
The US response to Ukraine's ongoing strikes on Russian energy facilities should clearly demonstrate how likely President Trump's peace initiatives really are to be realized.
[EngMilRu] From 15 to 21 March 2025, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out 13 group strikes by high-precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles, which damaged infrastructure of military airfields, the assembly workshop, storage and training sites of strike drones, ammunition depots as well as temporary deployment areas of nationalists and Ukrainian armed formations.
Over the past week, units of the Sever Group of Forces continued to eliminate AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
As a result of the decisive actions, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation liberated Zaoleshenka and Rubanshchina.
Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles strikes, and artillery hit manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, an air assault brigade, a naval infantry brigade, and two territorial defence brigades.
In Kharkov and Belgorod directions, units of two mechanised brigades and two assault regiments of the AFU were hit.
During the week in the area of responsibility of the Sever Group of Forces, the AFU losses amounted to over 2,295 troops, 16 tanks, and 58 armoured fighting vehicles. Russian troops destroyed 130 motor vehicles, 30 field artillery guns, six ammunition depots, and five electronic and counter-battery warfare stations.
The Zapad Group of Forces improved the situation along the front line and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the three mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, an assault brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 1,670 troops, 19 armoured fighting vehicles including a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, and seven U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers. The enemy lost 44 motor vehicles, 28 field artillery guns, ten EW stations, and 11 field artillery guns.
The Yug Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Russian units engaged formations of five mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, mountain assault brigade, an assault brigade, an airmobile brigade, a drone brigade of the AFU, a territorial defence brigade, and two national guard brigades.
The AFU lost up to 1,615 troops, two tanks, and seven armoured fighting vehicles including three U.S.-made M-113 armoured personnel carriers during the week. Russian troops eliminated 34 motor vehicles, 14 field artillery guns, two Croatian-made RAK-SA-12 multiple rocket launcher systems, six field ammunition depots, and two electronic warfare stations.
The Tsentr Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. The Russian Armed Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, two jaeger brigades, an assault brigade of the AFU, a naval infantry brigade, and a national guard brigade.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 3,235 troops, 30 armoured fighting vehicles including two Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, three M-113 armoured personnel carriers, and two U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicles. Russian elements engaged 46 motor vehicles, 26 artillery guns, and three electronic warfare stations.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defence. Three mechanised brigades, two motorised infantry brigades, a mountain assault brigade, an airmobile brigade of the AFU, a naval infantry brigade, and three territorial defence brigades were defeated.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 1,040 troops, 10 armoured fighting vehicles, 27 motor vehicles, and 21 field artillery guns including four Western-made guns.
The units of the Dnepr Group liberated Stepovoye (Zaporozhye region) as a result of active actions.
Strikes were delivered at manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade, and four coastal defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 510 troops, 32 motor vehicles, and six field artillery guns. Nine electronic warfare stations and two ammunition depots have been eliminated.
The Russian Aerospace Forces have shot down a MiG-29 aircraft of Ukrainian Air Force in a dog fight.
Over the past week, air defence units have destroyed 28 JDAM guided bombs and seven U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles as well as 1,113 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles, including 536 outside the special military operation.
??In total, since the beginning of the special military operation the enemy lost 658 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 47,719 unmanned aerial vehicles, 601 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,420 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,530 MLRS combat vehicles, 22,788 field artillery guns and mortars, 33,187 units of support military vehicles.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
Units of the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of two mechanised brigades, an air assault brigade, a naval infantry brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades near Gogolevka, Gornal, and Oleshnya.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, and Artillery strikes engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Guyevo as well as Alekseyevka, Basovka, Belovody, Varachino, Velikaya Rybitsa, Veselovka, Vladimirovka, Vodolagi, Zhuravka, Ivolzhanskoye, Loknya, Miropolye, Mogritsa, Novaya Setch, Novenkoye, Obody, Sadki, Yunakovka, and Yablonovka (Sumy region).
Over 240 Ukrainian troops, a tank, an infantry fighting vehicle, four armoured fighting vehicles, 14 motor vehicles, and eight mortars have been neutralised during the day. Three AFU servicemen surrendered.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to: more than 69,120 troops, 400 tanks, 322 infantry fighting vehicles, 289 armoured personnel carriers, 2,210 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,503 motor vehicles, 568 artillery guns, 52 MLRS launchers, including 13 of HIMARS and seven of MLRS made by the USA, 26 anti-aircraft missile launchers, one self-propelled anti-aircraft system, ten transport-loading vehicles, 120 EW stations, 18 counter-battery warfare radars, ten air defence radars, 56 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 15 armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] A complete ceasefire in Ukraine could be achieved “very soon.” US President Donald Trump said this on March 21, speaking to journalists in the Oval Office of the White House.
“I think that very soon we will achieve a complete ceasefire, and then we will reach an agreement,” he said.
Not exactly the same as imminent — more hopeful than guaranteed, it seems to me. But still considerably better than they had before.
According to him, a ceasefire has already been achieved in some areas of the front.
Trump also added that negotiations on the division of territories between Moscow and Kyiv are taking place “right now.”
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on March 20, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov announced that consultations between Russia and the United States would take place on March 24 in Riyadh.
On March 18, US Presidential Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said that Moscow and Washington would need to work out some details on the ceasefire in Ukraine during upcoming talks.
On March 18, during a conversation with Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he supports a peaceful settlement in Ukraine and is ready to carefully work through possible options. At the same time, it is imperative to take into account the need to eliminate the root causes of the crisis, as well as Russia's legitimate security interests. The leaders agreed on the need to stop mutual strikes by the parties to the conflict on energy facilities. The head of the Russian state gave the military the corresponding order.
Nevertheless, the Kiev regime has not stopped attacks on Russian energy facilities. As the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov noted, this indicates Kiev's unwillingness to end the armed conflict and the lack of negotiability of Vladimir Zelensky and his team.
[IsraelTimes] A kosher supermarket in Paris that was the scene of a deadly terror attack in 2015 was targeted in an overnight arson attack, reports say.
The front of the Hyper Cacher supermarket was damaged and there was some damage to the interior of the store.
A man was seen on CCTV setting fire to four containers placed in front of the entrance to the supermarket, before setting fire to a nearby dumpster, reports say.
Twelve people were massacred at Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices on January 7, 2015, by the brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who said they were acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda to avenge the paper’s decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
A day later, Amedy Coulibaly killed a 27-year-old police officer during a traffic check outside Paris, before killing four Jewish men during a hostage-taking at the Hyper Cacher supermarket on January 9, claiming to act in the name of the Islamic State terror group.
It will be interesting to see how much that has changed a year or two from now.
[IsraelTimes] Antisemitic incidents in Switzerland have reached an “unprecedented level,” rising 43 percent in 2024, according to a new report by the Swiss Federation of Israelite Communities (SIG) and the GRA Foundation against Racism and Antisemitism.
Some 221 antisemitic incidents were recorded during the year, compared to 155 in 2023 and 57 in 2022, the report says.
The report notes a sharp rise in physical violence during the year, including an attempted arson attack on a synagogue and 11 cases of assault.
A knife attack in Zurich by a teen who is said to have shouted “Death to Jews” nearly killed a 50-year-old man, the report notes.
Another 1,596 incidents were recorded online, with over 55% found on the Telegram platform. The figure is based on new software used for monitoring online media, and cannot be compared with previous figures, SIG says.
The rise in antisemitism since Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023, has significantly affected the Jewish community’s sense of security, with many now avoiding displaying religious symbols in public out of fear of harassment or violence, the report says.
The SIG and GRA call for stronger government action, including increased security for Jewish institutions and legal measures to combat online hate speech.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kamran Gasanov
[REGNUM] Turkey's most popular opposition politician was arrested on March 19. Ekrem Imamoglu, 53, is accused of corruption and supporting terrorist organizations. In addition to being a prominent opposition figure, Imamoglu has held the key position of mayor of Istanbul since 2019.
At one time, the country's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: whoever controls Istanbul controls Turkey. Because the current president came to the Olympus of political power from the same position of the mayor of Istanbul. Now the young and ambitious Imamoglu has entered this path.
Imamoglu emerged as the main opposition figure after the 2019 municipal elections. At that time, he ran for the Republican People's Party (CHP), the party of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Imamoglu was able to beat the contender from the ruling Justice and Development Party, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, and won by 20,000 votes.
But then Erdogan came on the scene, accused Imamoglu of stealing votes, the Central Election Commission recounted them and awarded the victory to Yildirim. But then the street intervened. Under pressure from protests, the results of the vote were annulled, and Imamoglu won a landslide victory in the re-run.
Imamoglu's triumph, on the one hand, made him the clear leader of the CHP and a direct competitor to Erdogan in the upcoming presidential elections, but on the other hand, it created obstacles for his future career.
After the politician called the Central Election Commission's decision to cancel the first elections in Istanbul "stupid", he was accused of insulting the authorities, judicial investigations were launched and, at the end of 2022, he was sentenced to almost three years in prison.
Imamoglu was also banned from political activity, partly because of this, the alliance of opposition parties did not risk nominating him as their leading candidate in the 2023 presidential elections.
To be fair, it should be acknowledged that Imamoglu is no less disliked within his own party than Erdogan. He was a competitor of former CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş. Kılıçdaroğlu even preferred to lose the presidential election rather than follow in the footsteps of the Istanbul mayor.
At the same time, the defeat, not only in the presidential but also in the parliamentary elections, forced the Republicans to think about renewal.
Kılıçdaroğlu was removed from his post as chairman, and the new leader became Özgür Özel, who favored İmamoğlu.
In the spring of 2024, when Erdogan's AKP lost municipal elections for the first time, Imamoglu was re-elected as mayor of Istanbul and further increased his influence in the country and within the party.
The opposition is now insisting on holding early elections and criticizing the government for the ongoing crisis of the national currency. But they need to decide on a candidate, and Ozel proposed holding a "primary" a month ago. Imamoglu has a high chance of winning, so another major opposition figure, Ankara Mayor Yavaş, is against it.
Feeling his strength and the support of party functionaries, Imamoglu officially entered the race for the presidency on March 8–9. He began touring the country, starting with Izmir, which he called “the city of the first shot and the last victory.”
ERDOGAN'S ENEMY NO. 1 IS DEAD, BUT BEHIND HIS DEATH LURKS THE GHOST OF AN IDEA
Imamoglu, who is taking over power and popularity among Republicans, is becoming a "stone in Erdogan's shoe". The current term is the last for the Turkish president; he will have to leave in 2028.
And with the successor, everything is very complicated.
At one time, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Suleyman Soylu, was considered such, but he discredited himself during the pandemic. The sons are also no good, because they were involved in various corruption scandals.
They also predicted Berat Albayrak's son-in-law, but in 2020 he resigned as finance minister due to health reasons, although it is more likely that he could not cope with the crisis and inflation.
Last year, Western media focused their attention on another of the president's sons-in-law, drone developer Selcuk Bayraktar. There is also the highly experienced former intelligence chief and current Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
But can they compete with Imamoglu?
The ruling party is now talking about the possibility of holding early elections to nominate Erdogan for another term.
On March 1, AKP Chairman's aide and head of the parliament's Digital Media Committee Huseyin Yayman said that snap elections could be held in November 2027, with Erdogan as the AKP's candidate.
Although the latter has a better chance of competing with Imamoglu than the others, even for him, the election fight is a risk. Since 2016 and after the attempted coup, Erdogan has launched a large-scale purge in the country, arresting many journalists, opposition figures and politicians, including the leader of the pro-Kurdish party, Selahattin Demirtas.
Erdogan changed the constitution and expanded presidential powers, making Turkey a presidential rather than a parliamentary republic. An expansionist foreign policy and achievements in Syria, Libya, and the South Caucasus, coupled with Turkey’s opposition to the West, helped Erdogan retain power in subsequent elections.
However, the protracted financial and economic crisis, exacerbated by the 2023 earthquakes and the Syrian refugee problem, have hit the government's reputation. The defeat of the ruling party in the 2024 regional elections is an alarm bell.
Commenting on Imamoglu's detention, Erdogan and the AKP leaders deny their interference and refer to the independence of the judiciary.
The mayor of Istanbul is accused not only of insulting the CEC, but also of large-scale fraud, bribery, manipulation during tenders, abuse of power and cooperation with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is banned in the republic.
While the first points of the indictment have yet to be proven, there are already concrete facts regarding the PKK's cooperation. In the regional elections, Imamoglu entered into a tactical alliance with the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), many of whose leaders were arrested on charges of collaborating with the PKK.
Along with Imamoglu, another 100 people were arrested on corruption charges, so Erdogan can formally claim that there was no political motive.
However, no matter how hard the government tries to distance itself from the process, all the arrows still point to the very top. Because Yamamoğlu has become a major obstacle for Erdoğan and threatens to destroy the Islamist model of society and neo-Ottoman foreign policy he is building.
The arrest of Imamoglu carried a great risk, because he is the most popular opposition figure, and the secular population of large cities is already unhappy with Erdogan because of low wages and high prices.
One gets the impression that the president himself is provoking a Turkish “Maidan”.
And the first signs of a velvet revolution are already evident. For the second day, thousands of people have been protesting in Ankara, Istanbul and other major cities, while those who stay home are holding flash mobs, turning lights on and off and banging pots.
Why would Erdogan take such a risk?
Most likely, he understands that if early elections are held, Imamoglu may win. The arrest of the oppositionist may escalate the situation, creating the image of a "sacred victim", but if the president can withstand this challenge, then things will be easier.
The Turkish president has extensive experience in fighting coups.
He held on to power during the Gezi Park protests in 2013, and three years later he was able to suppress a military mutiny and defeat Fethullah Gülen. At that time, external support for the opposition and internal resistance to Erdoğan were higher. Now Gülen is dead, opposition media in the country are restricted, and the work of Western NGOs and CSOs is limited.
In the United States, it is not the Democrats who actively support Imamoglu and his party who are in power, but the cynical fighter against the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Donald Trump.
If earlier Europeans interfered with Erdogan and criticized him for violating freedom of speech, human rights and democratic procedures, now the EU is forced to be friends with Turkey to strengthen its defense capability in the face of the “Russian threat.”
In the end, the extreme consequences of the arrest of the main opposition leader are offset by Europe's growing dependence on Erdogan and Trump's anti-globalism. However, it would be short-sighted to overestimate or underestimate either of these two factors.
The “Maidan” sentiments may be neutralized by the activity of the president’s nuclear electorate, which already showed itself once during the military coup of 2016.
On the other hand, despite the arm-twisting of USAID by the Trump administration and Europe's high interest in the Turkish army, globalist structures are still strong and fairly independent.
Trump has only recently begun to strip USAID of its power, but the long-term work of this organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) it finances, its “twin brother” in the form of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), the Voice of America* and many other organizations may continue to influence political processes in the countries of Eurasia for a long time to come, by inertia.
The limited but still important effect of external pressure should not be discounted: Germany, France and many EU countries condemned Imamoglu's arrest. Criticism from Turkey's main trading partner sent the lira plummeting.
So, by arresting Imamoglu, Erdogan has gone all in. Either he will deal a crushing blow and break the back of the opposition by eliminating its most dangerous leader, or he will turn the mayor of Istanbul into a hero.
In the 1990s, Erdogan himself found himself in a similar situation.
He, also the mayor of Istanbul, was jailed for religious poetry, which, however, made him even more popular. After his release, he founded the Justice and Development Party, with which he triumphantly won the 2002 elections. And the similarities do not end there.
Another similarity between Imamoglu and Erdogan is that both wanted to become footballers in their youth. But who will ultimately score the winning goal, no one can predict at this point.
[IsraelTimes] The Istanbul Bar Association’s executive board was dismissed on Friday on grounds of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “publicly spreading false information,” a lawyers’ association says.
Prosecutors had filed suit against the bar association on January 15 after it demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
It’s Israel, where the Intelligence bench is both broad and deep. They’ll be fine without the idiots who think they’re more important than the elected government.
The Israeli government continues to be rocked by high-profile resignations and reshuffles. On March 19, the leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, Itamar Ben-Gvir, returned to the ranks of the ruling cabinet, and on March 21, the cabinet reluctantly approved the resignation of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, initiated by the prime minister's office.
Two seemingly unrelated political “passes” are part of a larger scheme by the Prime Minister’s office to strengthen its own position and defeat the growing group of “oppositionists in uniform.”
True, the scheme of quickly dismissing opponents suddenly failed with the head of the Shin Bet.
PROTRACTED CONFLICT
Bar's resignation continued the trend of "starfall" in the Israeli security forces that began after the "October 7 catastrophe." The heads of all the country's key security agencies are gradually leaving their posts.
Of course, the Shin Bet chief held his position much longer than his colleagues from the General Staff and military intelligence. Not the least role in this was played by his contribution to the negotiation process on Gaza, where Bar was one of the leaders of the Israeli delegation.
In addition, counterintelligence operatives were able to identify and eliminate several influential figures in the Palestinian underground, which also went to the credit of the Shin Bet chief.
However, even this credit of trust did not save Bar from the blow. The conflict with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an effect.
The counterintelligence chief tried to accuse the prime minister of corrupt ties and creating threats to national security by leaking confidential documents to the press (the so-called "Qatargate"). Netanyahu took this attack as a personal insult and used all available levers to force the offender to resign.
The Prime Minister was repeatedly reminded that Shin Bet operatives are involved in the operation in the Gaza Strip and that Bar is one of its leaders. “Decapitating” counterintelligence at such a critical moment would mean giving Hamas a tactical advantage.
However, Netanyahu eventually managed to convince both the government and the oversight bodies of the advisability of his proposal. On March 21, it was announced that there would be imminent changes in the Shin Bet.
Bar is expected to remain in office until April 10, while the process of immersion into the affairs of his potential successor is underway. Although an attempt to speed up the process by placing an "outsider" in the Shin Bet chief's chair is not ruled out.
Netanyahu and his entourage do not trust Bar's deputies too much, considering them "ideologically close" to the retired security official. In addition, the government has an effective argument - the entire top of the Shin Bet has been discredited to one degree or another by failures in the Palestinian direction, as well as a series of spy scandals. It is not difficult to justify the rejection of most of the candidates.
"CONSOLIDATED POSITION"
Amid the turmoil surrounding the reshuffle in the Shin Bet, the news of Itamar Ben-Gvir's return to the post of Minister of National Security went almost unnoticed.
Ben-Gvir, who left Netanyahu's coalition in a scandal in January 2025, agreed to take up the vacated post again with the start of the new phase of the operation in Gaza. Fortunately, Minister Haim Katz, appointed by the prime minister as the custodian of the vacated positions, handed them back without any resistance.
It is noteworthy that in order to return Ben-Gvir to the post of Minister of National Security, Netanyahu risked challenging the position of Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who insisted that such a reshuffle was impossible from a legal point of view.
Upon his return, Ben-Gvir decided to abandon his critical attacks on Netanyahu and, moreover, stated that the current course of official Tel Aviv “completely satisfies” him, and the authorities’ decision to attack Hamas again was “timely.”
But those who tried to keep the ceasefire talks in the enclave afloat received their share of angry speeches from him. Among them was the head of the Shin Bet: Ben-Gvir unequivocally called him “the main threat to democracy.”
The prime minister's interest in his ultra-right ally is understandable. By pitting Ben-Gvir against Bar, Netanyahu has saved his own reputation from being damaged. Now the criticism of the Shin Bet chief, which is heard in high offices almost every day, is no longer his personal whim and revenge for the accusations, but a "consolidated position" of the ultra-right wing, whose interests Ben-Gvir expresses.
COLD CALCULATION
Netanyahu's plan to "cover the rear" with the help of far-right "hawks" apparently worked - it became much more difficult for his associates to defend Bar's innocence.
Moreover, after the return of the Ben-Gvir faction to the government, the coalition stabilized and, thanks to the six mandates of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, was able to make unpopular decisions without the risk of losing legitimacy.
The Prime Minister's opponents clearly overlooked the new combination. Although major figures in the "generals' opposition" in the form of former Defense Ministers Benny Gantz and Yoav Galant, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan promised to "stand firm" for Bar, they were unable to effectively take advantage of the popular demonstrations in his support.
Of course, the opposition forces still have a chance to turn the “Bar affair” to their advantage. Despite the government’s agreed resignation, the Shin Bet chief may remain at the helm until the end of the fighting in the Gaza Strip, citing the need to ensure the functioning of the agency. In that case, Netanyahu will have to put up with the unpleasant neighbors for some time.
On the other hand, the period of Bar's tenure in office "for strategic reasons" could be used by his opponents to expand the "dossier of failures."
In this case, the head of the Shin Bet risks becoming the main scapegoat in the prime minister’s rhetoric and, in addition to the failures in Gaza, receiving several more weighty accusations that will bury his career.
#1
(1) The counterintelligence chief tried to accuse the prime minister of corrupt ties Bar failed and tried to distract from failure by inventing "Qatargate".
(2) The Prime Minister's opponents get their instructions from Globalist Central in Brussels.
That’s nice. Apparently nobody else wants them back, though.
[NBCNEWS] Former President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... has told some Democratic leaders he'll raise funds, campaign and do anything else necessary for Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... to recover lost ground as the Trump administration rolls back programs the party helped design, according to people close to him.
Biden privately met last month with the new Democratic National Committee chairman, Ken Martin, and offered to help as the party struggles to regain its viability amid polling that shows its popularity has been sinking, the people said.
So far, Biden's overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger.
Whoever that is, it's not Biden, many party activists and donors contend. He's tethered to the 2024 defeat and, at 82, is a symbol more of the party's past than its future, they argue.
''Who's going to want Joe Biden back in the game?'' said a major Biden supporter, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered... to talk candidly about him.
A spokesperson for the DNC (If you're white you ain't right!) ...Democrat National Committee, where all those off-the-wall talking points originate... didn't provide a comment or make Martin available for an interview.
A new NBC News poll shows that the Democratic Party's popularity has dropped to a record low. Only 27% of registered voters said they held positive views of the party — the lowest figure in the network's polling dating to 1990.
Asked about the prospect of Biden re-entering the political sphere, President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... told news hounds in the Oval Office Friday, ''I hope so.''
Former first lady Jill Biden is also prepared to campaign and raise money for fellow Democrats as she and her husband settle into life back home in Delaware, a person close to her said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2025
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#5
I say let JB & Jill return.
I cannot think of a better example in demonstrating why the Voters should never vote for those type of Demo-Crap ever again.
#10
The usual demokrat post-Presidency sinecures are all vaporware for the Grifters, and that lifestyle of the Obamas expectation for Jilly is nowhere to be seen. Wait until Hunter returns to hide inside the threadbare Delaware cocoon and the investigations start.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
We had a bare tweet about the raid on Thursday, expanded in a comment by Mercutio with a link to a very dense Times of India article on the subject. This Colonel Cassad piece explains more simply what happened in Bangalore, Karnataka State.
[ColonelCassad] According to The Indian Express, the raids are being conducted as part of an investigation into violations of local legislation and the fight against financial crimes.
It will be specified that Soros's organization was classified by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs in a special category back in 2016, which restricts uncontrolled donations to local NGO projects. At the same time, law enforcement officials suspect that the Indian office of the Open Society Foundation circumvented the restrictions by bringing funds into the South Asian republic under the guise of economic investments or payment for consulting services. In fact, the money was used to finance the activities of various NGOs, which was contrary to Indian laws.
Earlier, representatives of the ruling BJP party in India said that billionaire Soros and his Open Society Foundation, which was financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, whose activities were terminated and banned in the Russian Federation), were involved in interfering in the internal affairs of India.
The day before, it became known that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs had written to the US Embassy in New Delhi with a request to urgently provide detailed information on the projects implemented in the country with the support of USAID since 2015.
"In connection with the recent reports on USAID funding in India, the Ministry of External Affairs has formally written to the US Embassy with a request to urgently provide detailed information on the expenditure incurred on all projects supported by USAID in India over the last 10 years," the Indian Foreign Ministry said in response to a corresponding query by members of the Indian Parliament. "While some information is available from open sources on this issue, the Government of India, understandably, awaits a formal response from the US Government," the ministry added.
The Indian Foreign Ministry also noted that the US administration had withheld some details about the beneficiaries of USAID, citing legal provisions of the US law. As the ministry explained, this was about cases where we are talking about "information that could jeopardize the health or safety of an implementing partner or program beneficiary," or "harm the national interests of the United States."
And then your red curls will become familiar and they will simply start beating you (c).After the defeat of USAID, many suddenly began to question what was financed through this line.
Well, the very fact that the Soros Foundation is working in your country is a sign of a disregard for your own security.
The most correct attitude towards the Soros Foundation is to close all of the foundation’s structures on the territory of the country and to bring to criminal and administrative responsibility those who receive funding through this line.
Oh my. Do they somehow sense that President Trump will not leap to the defense of the Soros people?
[X] A man was caught vandalizing a Tesla in Toronto by keying its side, an act recorded by the car's Sentry Mode camera.
If the authorities do not act quickly enough, the owners — and dealerships, as appropriate — ought to crowdsource finding the miscreants and suing them and their connections into penury. As I understand it (and our clever legal experts will no doubt be able to clarify and correct where I err), the requirements for winning a civil suit are not nearly so stringent as for winning a criminal case.
The incident, occurring outside the vandal's apartment, led to widespread online sharing and discussion about the effectiveness of Tesla's surveillance features. Many online commentators expressed surprise and amusement at the vandal's apparent ignorance of the vehicle's camera system, sparking conversations about vehicle security and the awareness of modern car technology.
How lovely that the discussants (which really is a word, as it turns out) have anticipated me. Go to the link to see a number of Tesla Sentry Mode videos of vicious idiots becoming famous — perhaps you will recognize one, dear Reader.
[BREITBART] German luxury auto manufacturer Audi said it is considering moving car production to the United States to avoid tariffs from the Trump administration.
Volkswagen's subsidiary Audi brand said this week that it is examining various long-term strategies, including potentially shifting production to America, to deal with President Donald Trump's restrictions on foreign imports.
Audi CEO Gernot D llner said that the company is ''currently assessing various scenarios for additional localization in North America — among other things, to be closer to the needs of local customers and to make ourselves more resilient to global economic uncertainties.''
Although no firm decision was made this week, the German auto giant said that it would be announcing later this year where it intends to produce its primary vehicle models for the American market.
Currently, Audi does not have any production sites in the United States, having opted to produce top-selling models in the U.S. market, such as the Q5, in Volkswagen plants in Mexico.
This has put the brand at risk of being slapped with tariffs under the Trump administration, which has made the reshoring of auto manufacturing back to the U.S. a top priority.
#2
You can’t have an assembly plant operational before the end of the next four years. It just talk until they buy property.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/22/2025 9:04
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#3
Precedent:
Toyota’s first manufacturing investment in the United States came in 1972 when the company struck a deal with Atlas Fabricators, to produce truck beds in Long Beach, in an effort to avoid the 25% "chicken tax" on imported light trucks. By importing the truck as an incomplete chassis cab (the truck without a bed), the vehicle only faced a 4% tariff.[9] Once in the United States, Atlas would build the truck beds and attach them to the trucks. The partnership was successful and two years later, Toyota purchased Atlas (which had been financially struggling) and it would eventually be renamed Toyota Auto Body California (TABC) as part of the company's Toyota Auto Body manufacturing subsidiary.[10]
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:37 Russian Orion strike drone continues to dominate border areas, destroying Ukrainian occupiers’ equipment —video. 20:55 Destruction of a Ukrainian armored vehicle and the position of Ukrainian Armed Forces drone operators in the Toretsk direction —video.
20:23 Russian Ministry of Defense:
From 16:50 to 17:10 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
19:35 Servicemen of the 77th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment of the "Southern" group of troops shot down Ukrainian hexacopter "Baba Yaga" and destroyed the enemy's combat armored vehicle.
17:57 ZALA Lancet systems prevent Ukrainian Krab self-propelled howitzers from reaching combat positions —video.
17:26 Arrival of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' air traffic control system in the settlement of Berestok in the Konstantinovsky direction —video.
16:50 Drone operators of the Zapad group of forces destroyed a group of militants of the nationalist battalion Azov in the area of the settlement of Nadiya in the LPR —video.
16:22 During aerial reconnaissance in the Sumy region, our UAV operators noticed a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who fled from the Kursk border area. The enemy used a bush for camouflage —video.
15:00 Ukrainian military tried to escape from the territory of the Kursk region, but was spotted by Russian UAV operators.
13:55 From March 15 to 21, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation inflicted thirteen group strikes with high-precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles, which resulted in the destruction of the infrastructure of military airfields, assembly shops, storage and training sites for operators of attack unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition depots, as well as temporary deployment points of nationalists and Ukrainian armed formations.
13:25 In the special operation zone took place award ceremony for servicemen of the motorized rifle unit of the Center group of forces.
13:00 From 10:00 to 11:00 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
12:47 FPV drone operators of the reconnaissance battalion of the "Southern" group of troops destroyed three UAV control points in the area of the settlement of Grigorovka.
12:30 The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case in connection with the explosion of the Sudzha gas distribution station by Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen.
11:50 The crew of the engineering system "Zemledeliye" of the "West" group remotely mined the rear area of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The engineers helped to disrupt the enemy's rotation in the Khar'kov region, -video.
11:20 Ukrainian Armed Forces using a drone inflicted strike on Valuysky District. A civilian was injured.
In the village of Babka, a drone was suppressed by the electronic warfare system, and as a result of its detonation on the ground, a man was injured. The victim with a mine-explosive injury and a blind shrapnel wound to the back was taken by passing transport to the Urazovskaya Central District Hospital. Hospitalization was not required, treatment will continue on an outpatient basis. In addition, the GAZelle was cut by shrapnel.
11:05 Russian Ka-52 with ATGM burned an enemy armored fighting vehicle on the Belgorod border.
The enemy remains active in the border area despite losses.
10:51 In absentia taken out sentence of Georgian citizen who trained mercenaries and participated in military operations on the side of Ukraine
The evidence collected by the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation was found by the Supreme Court of the Donetsk People's Republic to be sufficient to sentence (in absentia) Georgian citizen Mikhail Kamkhadze. He was found guilty of committing crimes under Part 3 of Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (participation of a mercenary in an armed conflict) and Part 1 of Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (training a mercenary, as well as his use in an armed conflict).
9:51 Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled civilian infrastructure in Nova Kakhovka
"As a result of the shelling, the gas pipeline was damaged, gas supply to five subscribers of an apartment building was cut off. Three bandages were applied," reported in the Administration of Novaya Kakhovka District.
9:46 Armed Forces of Ukraine continue terror of the civilian infrastructure of the left bank of the Kherson region
Yesterday afternoon, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired 38 rounds from barrel artillery at populated areas of the Kherson region of the Russian Federation:
During the night, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continued artillery terror in the Kherson region, firing a total of 20 rounds from barrel artillery. The following were subjected to shelling: Kakhovka, Kozachi Lagerya, Korsunka, Proletarka.
8:45 Around 07.10 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Republic of Crimea.
8:15 Special forces soldiers have discovered another use of heavy Baba Yaga drones by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which tried in every way to expose the movement points of the Russian Armed Forces soldiers and drop ammunition on them.
The special forces unit quickly passed on information about the drones to their comrades from the 132nd Motorized Rifle Brigade, who promptly destroyed them in the air, depriving the Ukrainian militants of expensive and important equipment, as well as the ability to adjust fire,video.
7:44 In the DPR in 24 hours three civilians suffered wounds from drone attacks. One of them died.
On the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway, Ukrainian drones attacked two civilian vehicles - one man was killed, one was injured.
In Kurakhovo, a civilian was blown up by an explosive device.
In total, more than fifty munitions were dropped on civilian targets in the DPR in one day.
7:07 During the past night, air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed 43 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles:
- 34 UAVs over the territory of the Volgograd region,
- four UAVs over the territory of the Rostov region,
- four UAVs over the territory of the Kursk region,
- one UAV over the territory of the Belgorod region.
[CityJournal] The accused Hamas sympathizer is shrouded in mystery—and so are his supporters.
As it unfurls, the saga of Mahmoud Khalil—the Columbia agitator picked up by immigration enforcement last week—looks less like a complicated immigration-law dispute and more like something out of a John le Carré novel.
But inspect the details, and Khalil’s case gives us a glimpse a well-established network linking American universities, international progressive NGOs, and government agencies. This network places ideologues like Khalil in positions of power and influence and promoting radical policies that challenge both the will of American voters and our national-security interests.
As always in such shady tales, the simplest questions are the hardest to answer. To start: Who, exactly, is Mahmoud Khalil? According to the Guardian, he was born in Syria in 1995 to Palestinian refugees, then fled at 18 to settle in Lebanon. After his detention, however, the U.S. government reported that he was a citizen of Algeria. How did he end up there?
His professional history is equally convoluted. The Guardian claims he worked for various international NGOs, then landed a job with Britain’s Foreign Office, where he helped administer the prestigious Chevening Scholarship program. (The Telegraph, to make an intricate story even more complicated, reported that Khalil worked for the embassy, not the Foreign Office per se). Then it was on to the UN, where Khalil interned for UNRWA—the organization’s agency for Arab Palestinian refugees that, as a recent lawsuit claims, is a major source of staffing and funding for Hamas. How did a Syrian refugee end up in these positions?
Maybe the influencers who gave him these jobs are the same ones who leapt to his defense. Immediately after his arrest, Khalil’s case was taken on by no fewer than 19 lawyers.
Heading Khalil’s legal defense team is Ramzi Kassem, professor of law at the City University of New York, with a panoply of connections. Himself a Syrian immigrant, Kassem is a fellow of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, which helped fund his legal education at Columbia University. At CUNY, Kassem founded Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), which, among other areas of interest, focused on challenging the Trump administration’s treatment of Muslims on the No Fly List. CLEAR has received major gifts from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and Jeff Bezos’s former wife, MacKenzie Scott.
Kassem’s previous clients include a few members of al Qaida, including Ahmed al-Darbi, a terrorist convicted in 2017 for bombing a French oil tanker, as well as another close associate of Osama Bin Laden’s. In 2022, the Biden administration nevertheless tapped Kassem to serve as a senior policy advisor.
How did Khalil’s predicament come to Kassem’s attention? It’s worth noting that while still a student at Columbia, Kassem was himself a leader of anti-Israeli agitation.
So was another of Khalil’s lawyers, CLEAR’s Shezza Abboushi Dallal. In a recently surfaced video of an online training of anti-Israel activists, Dallal acknowledges that statements in support of Hamas may implicate a non-citizen’s legal status—the very assertion that she and Khalil’s other lawyers are now denying—and advises her charges to remain silent rather than frame themselves.
There’s nothing inherently nefarious about hardworking and talented people, immigrants or native-born, ending up in positions of power and influence. Nor is it novel for NGOs with deep pockets to promote their worldview and their people. But the Khalil case points at a concerted, long-term effort to capture American institutions, change them from within, and push policies and ideas that lie far outside the social consensus and, arguably, the boundaries permissible by law.
Ramzi Kassem is typical. He is committed to a long list of radical causes, from defanging law enforcement to defending America’s sworn enemies. Nonetheless, he has enjoyed heavy support from progressive philanthropists, accreditation from America’s finest schools, and eventually made his way to Washington to help reshape policy.
Similarly, it is troubling that those who argue, against all available evidence, that Mahmoud Khalil is a martyr on the altar of free speech—rather than someone who violated the terms of his residency by advocating for a terror group—enjoy near-universal access to and support from our finest academic institutions, our best-endowed philanthropies, and our best-placed legal or political elites. Telling foreign nationals to refrain from espousing support for a terror group to evade legal trouble exceeds the bounds of advocacy; it approximates aiding and abetting people in skirting our immigration laws.
If nothing else, the Khalil case demonstrates yet again that for America’s progressive elites, power, not principle, is the currency that counts, and that the system they’ve designed ensures that their power is preserved in perpetuity, defending even those fellow travelers who work to undermine our national-security interests. The only way to regain control of the institutions that these hostile activists have commandeered is to know their playbook and use the law to curb their influence. Shadowy activists subverting the will of the American people and then seeking protection from a bubble of big-money NGOs and ideologically aligned government officials isn’t a safeguard protecting our democracy; it’s a clear and direct threat to our national security and interests.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] Ukrainian Armed Forces repel Russian attacks in eastern and southern Ukraine.
In the Pokrovsk direction, the enemy attempted to advance 15 times near the settlements of Zelenoe Pole, Elizavetovka, Udachnoye, Preobrazhenka, Bogdanovka and Andreyevka. One combat clash continues.
Since the beginning of the day, 68 combat clashes have occurred on the front. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in an operational report on Friday, March 21.
In the Kharkov direction, the enemy once attempted to attack in the Volchansk area.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy twice attempted to advance in the areas of Peschanoye and Kruglyakovka. The enemy's advances were successfully repelled.
In the Liman direction , 12 armed clashes occurred in the areas of the settlements of Kopanki, Novomikhaylovka, Novoye, Zelenaya Dolina, Yampolovka, Torskoye and Ivanovka. Four armed clashes are ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, our defenders repelled one enemy attack in the Belogorovka area. One armed clash is ongoing.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the enemy attacked three times in the areas of Chasovy Yar, Andreyevka and in the direction of Predtechino. The Ukrainian Armed Forces repelled all attacks.
In the Toretsk direction, the invaders attacked 13 times in the areas of Dachnoye, Druzhba and Toretsk. Four clashes are still ongoing.
In the Pokrovsk direction, the enemy attempted to advance 15 times near the settlements of Zelenoe Pole, Elizavetovka, Udachnoye, Preobrazhenka, Bogdanovka and Andreyevka. One combat clash continues.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, the aggressor attacked five times in the areas of Constantinople and Dneproenergiya. One combat clash continues to this day.
In the Gulyai-Polye direction, our defenders repelled one attack in the Novoselki area.
In the Dnieper direction, the enemy once unsuccessfully attempted to attack the positions of our troops.
In Kursk region our defenders are repelling one attack of the invaders. At present 13 clashes have been recorded there.
Let us remind you that Russia's losses have exceeded 900 thousand killed and wounded since the beginning of the war. In just one day on March 20, more than 1,300 Russians were killed.
[IsraelTimes] The Shin Bet and Israel Police say they foiled a plot to carry out a ramming attack against Israeli soldiers last month. Prosecutors in the State Attorney’s office plan to file an indictment against the suspect later today, spokespeople for the agencies say in a joint statement.
Kafr Kanna resident Jihad Zureiqat
…a portentous name…
was arrested in February on suspicion of committing security offenses. They say that the suspect, who allegedly identifies with the Hamas terror group, began to plan and intended to carry out a car ramming attack against soldiers “following violent incidents.”
Police say an investigation turned up wills written by Zureiqat as well as “nationalist materials” including Hamas instructional booklets on how to carry out terror attacks.
🚨BREAKING: Sirens sound across central Israel, forcing millions of Israelis to rush into bomb shelters as the Houthis fire more ballistic missile barrage.
Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ’s Iran-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s fired a ballistic missile at Israel on Friday evening, the fourth such launch since Israel renewed strikes on 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.
The Israel Defense Forces said the missile was successfully intercepted by air defenses and shot down before crossing Israel’s borders. There were no reports of injuries or damage in the attack, which triggered sirens in Central Israel, Jerusalem and surrounding towns and West Bank settlements.
The Houthis later put out a statement taking responsibility for the missile fire, again claiming to have targeted Ben Gurion Airport, which they said "has become unsafe for air traffic and will remain so until the aggression against Gaza stops and the blockade is lifted."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2025
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Impeachment would be too mild for the claque of Woke-activist federal judges attempting to nullify the executive branch with hectoring writs against any and all sorts of executive actions. If simply bounced off their benches, they could just take up new careers as NPR legal commentators or transsexual pole-dancers. Rather, what you’ve got here is an obvious seditious conspiracy, plain for all to see, orchestrated by the same legal Nosferatus as RussiaGate, the 2020 election, and the J-6 witch hunt.
The catch is, this time it is discoverable and subject to prosecution because the party running this legal insurrection no longer has its hands on the levers of power in the DOJ and the FBI as it did when they ran the aforementioned ops. And so, the mighty silence emanating from those two agencies just now should tell you something: namely, that cases are being carefully constructed to finally bring these despicable caitiffs to real and chastening law.
If you want to know one paramount reason for institutional failure in our country, look to the evil enterprise that calls itself “Lawfare.” It originated as a blog launched on September 1, 2010, founded by three key figures: Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney. Over time it evolved into an activist operation, The Lawfare Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to (cough cough) “Hard National Security Choices,” and run under the shady umbrella of the Brookings Institution.
The point of Lawfare is self-evident in its name: it is an instrument of warfare against a perceived enemy which, for the past decade, has been the political faction led by Mr. Trump, the once-and-current chief executive of the federal government. Mr. Trump is a danger to the bureaucratic arm of the federal government because he has defined it as a racketeering operation and moved decisively to end its depredations. Lawfare is the praetorian guard of the permanent DC bureaucracy, including especially its rogue intel actors, who function as enforcers for the Democratic party that largely staffs the bureaucracy.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
03/22/2025
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#1
When Trump won the last election, I felt that lawfare was going to be the main effort of the "Resistance" and that has come to pass. Bigly.
[FoxNews] The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo sent a letter to President Donald Trump offering a minerals deal in exchange for a security agreement with the U.S. that would remove violent rebels from the war-torn nation.
"Your election has ushered in the golden age for America," President Félix Tshisekedi wrote in February to Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "Our partnership would provide the U.S. with a strategic advantage by securing critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, copper and tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo."
The Congo has over $20 trillion worth of minerals available, according to the Congo-based Panzi Foundation, including gold and copper. The African country is also the world’s largest producer of cobalt, which is essential for defense and aerospace applications, and a main component in the batteries of many electric vehicles and cellphones.
Tshisekedi seeks to strike a "formal security pact" so Congo's army can defeat a Rwandan-backed rebel group called M23 in exchange for a minerals deal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The letter did not provide details on what a potential security pact would look like or operate.
#5
It would not be as hard as people think to improve things there unless we plan to do it the same way that we’ve tried using NGOs, USAID, the Clinton’s Global Initiative and/or the Military Industrial Complex. Erik Prince probably has a workable plan that he can execute within six months.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/22/2025 13:32
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[AmericanThinker] The spectacle of global diplomacy rarely produces moments of unvarnished clarity, but when President Donald Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on February 28, the message could not have been starker: the war in Ukraine is no longer sustainable, and a deal must be struck before defeat becomes inevitable. Despite the lofty rhetoric surrounding indefinite support for Kyiv, President Trump laid down an uncomfortable truth—Ukraine is losing momentum. The country is under pressure from Russia, with reports suggesting that as many as 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers face prosecution for refusing to continue fighting. Without a settlement, Ukraine risks collapse, undoing the resilience it has displayed thus far. While Ukraine has managed to hold Russia at bay and achieve a notable moral victory, reality has set in. Realpolitik, President Trump holds, now demands a realistic peace deal.
The situation is far from simple. The EU’s historical mishandling of Ukraine, which mirrors its missteps during the dissolution of Yugoslavia, has exacerbated the crisis. While the Russian invasion is indefensible, the window for peace must be seized before it closes and throws the world into chaos. President Trump’s approach to this dilemma is as pragmatic as it is unsentimental. He made it clear that the United States will not engage in direct military action to expel Russia, knowing that doing so risks triggering World War III.
THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF THE CRITICAL MINERALS DEAL
Initially, Zelensky miscalculated a pivotal element of American strategy: the critical minerals agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine. This deal is central to the evolving U.S. policy in Europe. President Trump sees it as an implicit security guarantee. By winning access to Ukraine’s rich mineral resources, the U.S. establishes economic and industrial interests without deploying boots on the ground in the region. The agreement effectively allows an American protection shield in Ukraine without the need for military confrontation with Russia.
THE COMPONENTS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PEACE PLAN
President Trump’s broader strategy is taking shape. His plan calls for a comprehensive agreement: the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and Donbas, Ukraine’s accession to the European Single Market, and the stationing of European—rather than American—peacekeeping forces at Ukraine’s borders with Russia.
From a tactical standpoint, this outcome is a win-win for all parties. Russia secures its Black Sea position and gains control over Ukraine’s eastern regions, which are rich in basic minerals, such as titanium and non-ferrous metals, crucial for Russia’s aerospace and defense sectors. Ukraine would gain economic integration with Europe and a security framework that avoids NATO troops. The western part of Ukraine, rich in specialty minerals like nickel, graphite, lithium, and uranium, would remain firmly under U.S. control. Specialty minerals are of significant interest to a range of industries. The deployment of European peacekeeping forces would finally grant Europe the long-sought geopolitical role it has struggled to attain.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE REDUX: U.S. LEVERAGE OVER RUSSIA
Hidden by the agreement on a limited ceasefire and prisoner swap, the conversation between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 18, revealed the end game behind this strategic shift. According to the U.S. readout, a peace settlement in Ukraine could pave the way for economic cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. This is neither an act of goodwill nor an ideological concession but a recalibration of global influence. President Trump recognizes that, with China’s growing dominance, isolating Russia is unsustainable. Instead, offering economic incentives creates strategic leverage. The US aims to support Russia’s development in Siberia in exchange for access to its mineral resources, seeking to weaken Moscow’s growing alignment with Beijing.
The normalization of U.S.-Russia relations also entails a crackdown on Iran, with Moscow agreeing to restrict Tehran's nuclear ambitions—a significant concession in the Middle East in exchange for U.S. mediation to end the war in Ukraine.
These developments reflect the essence of the Monroe Doctrine—limiting adversarial influence through selective engagement. Despite his defiant posture, Putin understands economic imperatives. If President Trump presents a viable alternative to China’s, Moscow may reconsider its trajectory. Critics may dismiss this as mere transactional diplomacy, but in geopolitics, transactions shape outcomes.
[ZeroHedge] With losses stacking up -- including the sudden forfeiture of 500 square miles of territory once held in Russia's Kursk region -- Ukraine's military leadership announced on Tuesday that it's deploying machine-gun-equipped robots to the front lines. "The main task of ground robots is to reinforce our units and replace soldiers in the most dangerous areas," said the ministry.
News of the deployment of an unspecified number of these weapon platforms comes as Ukraine continues to struggle with recruiting and conscription. In February, Ukraine launched a new effort aimed at recruiting 18- to 24-year-olds. While it strikes Americans as odd, Ukraine does not draft those who are under age 25. The new recruiting campaign features bonuses roughly equivalent to $24,000, along with mortgage subsidies and free college education. Recruits also win the privilege of traveling abroad -- something that's currently denied to Ukrainian men between 18 and 60. Against the backdrop of the Ukrainian military's ongoing manpower crisis, robots are understandably appealing.
The Ukraine defense ministry touted the Lyut's versatility. "It is designed to perform a wide range of tasks in difficult conditions. In particular, to conduct surveillance and fire support of the actions of our units," the ministry said in its announcement, adding that the official adoption of the equipment comes after testing in "real combat conditions." Specifically, the ministry said the testing took place in Kursk. With Ukraine's diversionary gambit there having now evolved into a full-on failure, that isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.
#2
Teachers with tenure will cherry-pick the high performing students and new teachers will be given the challenging students. If done by test scores then teachers will just teach the test (not the worst case but still gaming the system).
The best reward system is allowing parents to move their children to the school of their choice; just break the public school monopoly and make schools compete.
#3
Teachers are only a third of the problem. The two other big ones are administrators and the parents. Fundamentally, if the parents don't care, neither of the other two will have much effect. However, the teachers and administrators just ask for more money that doesn't solve that one major problem.
First pass at the problem: Set the same grade-level test at the beginning of the school year and along with final exams. Measure the delta in scores, normalized for expected achievement — slow class, average class, honours class — where the class will take that label to the next grade, and individual students can be moved between levels as individual achievement merits.
Give teachers who move their class — or X% of the class — up a level a merit bonus. No bonus for keeping honours classes at the honours level, penalty for classes that drop a level. This will incentivize the best teachers to take the worst classes and show what they can do, and drive the worst teachers out of the profession.
When I was in school, one of my teachers told the story of an inner city teacher who called together her high school class at the beginning of the year, saying to them, “Listen, guys, I need to tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone, ok? The school is doing an experiment: they put all the gifted kids in one class, so that the class can move faster and go deeper into the material without worrying that not everyone can keep up. This was based on test scores, not grades, because grades don’t necessarily measure actual ability to learn. This is that class. I know some of you don’t have the grades, for various reasons, so if you have any trouble with the material, come to me and we’ll get you caught up — I want to show the school what a class like this can do.” The class moved up two grades in material mastery by the end of the year, and later all the students graduated with honours. The thing is, the teacher lied — it was an average inner city class with average inner city students.
My teacher had told the story to humble us, an honours class in one of the top public school districts in the country at the time, where a good portion of the students had parents who taught at the various universities in the area. We had all the educational advantages, so our performance was expected, not something to show we were special.
What are they going to spend it on? It's not like you can nip out and get a Starbucks.
Salaried workers typically do not get overtime, but it seems like there should be some sort of mission pay. Unless NASA is prepared to argue that being stranded in space is part of the job description.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov inspected the Russian troop grouping “Center” and set tasks for its further actions. This was reported on March 21 by the Russian Defense Ministry.
"The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov inspected the progress of combat missions by the formations and military units of the combined arms army of the Center group of forces operating in the Red Army direction in the zone of the special military operation," the department reported.
It is specified that during the inspection, the Chief of the General Staff heard reports from the army commander, unit commanders and other officials on the performance of combat missions by Russian military personnel in the group’s area of responsibility.
“At the end of the work, the Chief of the General Staff summed up the interim results with the command of the Center group of forces and set tasks for further actions,” the statement said.
Gerasimov also presented state awards to the most distinguished military personnel during the liberation of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), thanking them for their courage and valor in carrying out combat missions.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, earlier, on March 21, a crew of the TOS-2 Tosochka heavy flamethrower system of the Russian troop group Center destroyed a stronghold of Ukrainian formations in the Red Army direction with precise fire. It was noted that the strikes were carried out from a distance of 12 km.
[X]That attitude gets ever more Hamasniks killed, but your choice, dude.
Palestinian in Gaza: "We are the ones who launched this war. We are the ones who will end it... We are the conquerors Until the last drop of our blood... Until all of us die for the sake of Allah. We long for Allah!" pic.twitter.com/3xNJiIH6Tm
O brave, brave Lions of Islam! (Or just hysterical, but whatever.)
Your terms are acceptable
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2025
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
No surprise. This is core Hamas/MB doctrine.
The mask is slipping or intentionally being lifted.
"It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."
Hassan al-Banna
#4
#1 It is interesting that you make note of Banna the Islamist ideologue. His fanatical hatred of the West is grounded in the experience he had when being educated in the United States. He could not stomach the male treatment of women, nor female independence. He was in the eyes of his followers the perfect Muslim.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[KavkazUzel] A court in Stavropol Krai has sentenced four residents of Dagestan to seven to eight years in prison in connection with the riots at the Makhachkala airport.
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, the Petrovsky District Court began to consider the case against Kurbanismail Karabekov, Kurban Kurbanov, Shakhban Magomedov and Magomedsaid Murtazaliev regarding the riots at the Makhachkala airport in December 2024 .
The Petrovsky District Court of the Stavropol Territory has sentenced four residents of Dagestan accused in the case of riots at the Makhachkala airport in October 2023. They were found guilty of participating in mass riots (Part 2 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and failure to comply with transport safety requirements (Part 3 of Article 263.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), Interfax reported today, citing the press service of the Stavropol Territory Prosecutor's Office.
"The court, taking into account the position of the state prosecutor, taking into account the nature and degree of public danger of the crimes committed and the role of each, sentenced the defendants to 7 to 8 years in a general regime penal colony," the statement said.
According to information on the website of the Petrovsky District Court, the verdict in the case was handed down today.
As of 19:45 Moscow time, the website and Telegram channel of the Stavropol Krai Prosecutor's Office did not contain any information about the Petrovsky District Court's verdict in the case of the riots at the Uytash airport.
According to investigators, by January 16, 28 criminal cases against 135 people accused of participating in the riots at the Makhachkala airport had been sent to court. Another seven people, including three alleged organizers of the riots, were put on the wanted list. In February 2024, relatives of the accused appealed to Putin with a request for leniency.
[NYPOST] An illegal migrant gangbanger wanted for human trafficking became the first to be targeted for detention by the newly-invoked 18th-century Alien Enemies Act — which President Trump is using to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing.
Homeland Security agents alongside Florida cops successfully collared ''known Tren de Aragua gang member'' Franklin Jose Jimenez-Bracho by ''steering'' him straight into a group of cops with handcuffs at the ready, authorities announced Friday.
Bracho is wanted for human trafficking, smuggling and is also the subject of a pending investigation.
''Once again, Florida leads the way,'' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on X of the arrest.
The Trump administration already deported roughly 250 alleged migrant gangbangers to El Salvador's brutal mega prison Saturday in defiance of US District Judge James Boasberg's order to turn the planes around.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued in an X post Monday that the Trump administration didn't 'refuse to comply' with Boasberg's order, saying that the judge ''had no lawful basis'' since the ''terrorist TdA aliens'' had already been deported.
When the alleged gangbangers arrived to El Salvador, they were handed over to armed commandos who moved them to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) with their heads down and ankles and wrists in shackles, according to dramatic video posted by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2025
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Top|| File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants
[CityJournal] For the sake of both American national security and industrialization, the Trump administration should keep a close eye on the Tech Right.
A grand experiment in “defense transformation” is underway at the Pentagon. New Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has promised to field emerging technologies, reform the acquisition process, and build a resilient defense industrial base. He has also directed an 8 percent budget cut—some $50 billion—to shift funds toward new priorities, including technologies such as unmanned systems.
Proponents of this shakeup argue that the U.S. grew complacent after the Cold War, consolidating its defense industry into a handful of bloated “prime” contractors, like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Meantime, China and other adversaries developed cheap technologies that could neutralize America’s powerful, but expensive, platforms. Unless the U.S. deploys its own arsenal of cheap, software-enabled weapons, it will face a prohibitive “cost exchange ratio” in a war with China—losing multibillion-dollar warships, for instance, to missiles that cost a few hundred thousand dollars. Research and recent developments (like drone deployment in the Russo-Ukrainian War) seem to confirm this challenge.
Hegseth’s experiment joins the priorities of several parts of President Donald Trump’s coalition. The Tech Right—including upstart defense contractors such as SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril and their venture capital supporters—believes that it can revolutionize U.S. warfighting readiness with cheap, mass-produced weapons and cutting-edge software. The more populist “New Right,” for its part, sees a military build-up primarily as a way to restore American industry and the middle class.
For now, both sides think they can have it all: build an unmatched military, create jobs, and save money. But this ambitious project faces several problems.
#1
Both Boeing and Lockheed should not get the contract. Lockheed will cost three or four times the contracted amount, possibly more and delay delivery till maybe the next century.
Boeing right now has such poor quailty control, we'll be locky if the planes remain in flying condition and still be intact after a few flight cycles.
Both their planes would most likely requires a 1housand hours maintenance for every hour the plane fly.
Frankly I wouldn't trust them to do the job right, on time and within contacted costs.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/22/2025 4:04
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#3
The number of military contractors for builds has severely contracted since 1960s. That's the problem with mergers and the resultant pseudo-competition. It's also compounded since certain national security issues means that foreign competition is out.
[DailyWire] A number of tax-deductible charities and financial service providers are helping fund groups linked to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a new report alleges.
Published by the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, the report accuses terrorist-linked groups of raising funds in the United States through tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations and through donor-advised financial service providers.
“The sharp rise in violent anti-Semitism in the wake of the October 7th massacre highlights the urgent need for greater vigilance in preventing the diversion of aid and NGO funding to terror and hate,” Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, Founder and President of NGO Monitor told The Daily Wire. “This includes systematically investigating and documenting the support that IRS-registered charities receive from and provide to individuals and organizations linked to designated terror groups or active in spreading hate propaganda.”
The report cites several NGOs tied to the PFLP and designated as terror groups by Israel, including the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Al-Haq, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). NGO Monitor accuses Al Mezan of having members with ties to both Hamas and the PFLP.
The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), a 501(c)(3) based in Washington, D.C., claims on its website that in 2025 it provided funds to Al Haq, Al Mezan, DCI-P, and PCHR. Its website does not state how much it has given, but according to 2023 IRS filings, FMEP granted $10,000 to Al Mezan, and $58,000 to Al-Haq.
Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, provided $800,000 between 2020-2023 to Al Haq, $250,000 between 2023-2025 to Al Haq Europe, $170,000 to Al Mezan in 2023, and $450,000 to Al Mezan between 2021-2024.
Grassroots International has been soliciting donations for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which the group has called a “long-term partner,” according to NGO Monitor.
Other tax-deductible American charities that provided funds include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) which granted $100,000 to DCI-P for 2020-2022 and Cultures of Resistance Network which has funded Al-Haq, DCI-P, the UAWC, and Al Mezan, according to NGO monitor.
A 2023 report from the New York Post revealed that RBF shelled out millions since 2018 directly or indirectly to six anti-Israel organizations, some of which openly celebrated Hamas’s October 7 attack on civilians. In response, RBF rejected and claimed that their “grantee organizations support, materially or ideologically, acts of terrorism.”
NGO Monitor’s report points out that the Alexandria, Virginia-based Charities Aid Foundation, which facilitated donor-advised grantmaking, lists DCI-P as a member of its “vetted network” of charitable organizations.
The report added that Al-Haq and the Hind Rajab Foundation — whose founder boasts his ties to Hezbollah — use the San Francisco-based Stripe Inc. to process donations.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, founded in Belgium, initiated legal proceedings to seek the arrests of IDF veterans, including American citizens, and has demanded the arrest of former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Its founder, Dyab Abou Jahjah, in 2003 claimed he “joined the Hezbollah resistance against Israel,” called the September 11, 2001 attacks “sweet revenge” and is reportedly on the U.S. no-fly list. A Jerusalem Post report from last month reports that Jahjah has family and business links to actors designated as part of Hezbollah’s terror funding network.
Al Mezan’s director, Issam Younis, participated in a 2017 panel discussion alongside now-deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar at an event that was also attended by leaders of other U.S.-designated terror organizations including Palestinian Islamic Jihad and PFLP. One of Al Mezan’s board members from 2010 to 2022 was Nafiz Al-Madhoun, the former Director-General of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council, according to NGO Monitor.
UAWC has been identified by a USAID audit as the “agricultural arm” of the PFLP and a 2022 audit by the Dutch government found that 34 individuals held politicians in both UAWC and PFLP between 2007-2020. Two of UAWC’s financial officers were arrested in 2019 for leading a PFLP terror cell that murdered a 17-year-old Israeli in a bombing.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Al-Haq as a terrorist entity in 2021 because it operated on behalf of the PFLP. In 2018, the group had its online credit card donations shut down by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express because of its PFLP ties, reported NGO Monitor. The group’s director, Shawan Jabarin, has been identified as a leading PFLP member by the Israeli Supreme Court and has identified several PFLP events. He also was part of the 2017 panel alongside Sinwar and Younis.
PCHR’s founder and director, Raji Sourani, was imprisoned in 1979 for three years for being a member of the PFLP and denied entry to the United States in 2012, according to the report. He admitted his PFLP affiliation in a 2014 speech in Gaza where he said he was “proud” of the organization where he “fought in its ranks.”
DCI-P was designated as a terror entity by Israel in 2021, which claimed it operated on behalf of the PFLP. The group was reportedly cut off from Citibank, Arab Bank PLC, and the U.S.-based Global Giving crowdfunding because of its terror ties. Numerous members with PFLP ties have been employed and appointed as board members, according to NGO monitor.
Stripe, FMEP, Open Society Foundation, Grassroots International, RBF, and Cultures of Resistance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
#2
Such charities should immediately lose their tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status.
If the charity collected $$$$ under misleading or false, fraudulent statements? Then that charity's board of directors, should be investigated for supporting enemies of the USA and US Listed known terrorist groups.
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.
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..always the voice of sweet reason...
...
[FoxNews] nationwide incidents targeting 
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...every time you hear the phrase 
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
