Yemeni forces strike Ben Gurion Airport, target US warships in Red Sea; Israel says missiles killed before reached Israel, probably ditto for Yankee ship; early a.m. wave of US airstrikes hit Sanaa
[IsraelTimes] The IDF has raised concerns over a deepening crisis within the reserves force as the military prepares to escalate operations in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz reports.
Tens of thousands of reservists are expected to be called up, but officials report a decline in motivation, with an increasing number indicating they will not report for duty, due to a combination of weariness, a lack of clarity on the goal of continued fighting and anger at government policies.
A senior reservist commander tells Haaretz that brigade and battalion leaders are handling numerous cases of reservists declaring their refusal to report, adding that the primary reason cited is a perception that the government has not done enough to free the hostages, followed closely by opposition to plans for a law exempting ultra-Orthodox from conscription and concerns over the government’s judicial overhaul.
According to a reserves officer who spoke to Haaretz, both fighters and commanders are experiencing significant exhaustion after completing hundreds of reserve days over the past year. He noted that many reservists are struggling to commit to additional deployments, not only due to political concerns but also because of sheer fatigue.
Among those refusing to serve is combat navigator Alon Gur, who publicly announced his resignation from the Air Force last week after 16 years of service. “The line was crossed,” he wrote online, accusing the government of prioritizing politics over human lives. Gur’s subsequent removal from duty has since prompted other reservists to follow suit, raising concerns within the military leadership.
According to the IDF, the rate of reservists showing up for duty, as of February, was 85 percent. In contrast, the IDF reported at the start of the war that more than 100% of reservists called up for duty had shown up, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.
The military has said that the reserve army is operating at the relevant level of competency and is fulfilling its missions
[IsraelTimes] One of the candidates Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering for the next Shin Bet chief publishes an op-ed blaming the Biden administration for Israel’s failure to secure the hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.
Eyal Tsir Cohen, a former Mossad official who is now a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, writes with his co-author Jesse R. Weinberg in Real Clear Defense that due to American pressure last year, Netanyahu delayed the Israeli ground incursion into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Netanyahu has publicly claimed that US pressure was not the reason for the postponement.
“During the negotiations, a surge in Israel’s offensive before Ramadan in the spring of 2024 could have brought Hamas to a breaking point and led to a breakthrough in the negotiations,” the opinion piece asserts. “Instead, in direct contravention to Israel’s combat doctrine, which places at its epicenter a quick and offensive approach, as well as the strategy laid out by the Prime Minister, Israel was forced to pull back as American pressure and diplomatic considerations limited Israel’s room to maneuver.”
The president sure is opening a lot of files. Sunshine, sunshine all around!
The Schiff is about to hit the fan. The White House tweeted with video, "President Trump signs a Presidential Memorandum requiring the immediate declassification of all FBI files relating to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."
The operation’s title is a nod to Jumpin’ Jack Flash, a song by Trump’s favorite group, the Rolling Stones. Bureaucrats spend a lot of time amusing themselves.
Lawyer Rogan O'Handley (as DC_Draino) tweeted, "President Trump just declassified all Crossfire Hurricane documents.
"This is huge.
"The entire ’Russia, Russia!’ hoax that led to the FBI illegally spying on a sitting President is about to be exposed.
"This is why he removed secret clearances from Hillary and her friends.
"He’s going after them."
President Trump has no choice. Last time, he didn’t and they paid his civility—OK, inability to do so—with 91 indictments, a raid on his home, a mugshot and kangaroo court civil lawsuits to try to break him.
This time, Trump’s ducks are lining up.
His attorney general, Pam Bondi, may disappoint some readers with being slow to prosecutor and lightning fast to a microphone, but criminal cases take time to develop—lies must die a quick death. She earned Trump’s trust just like he’s earned ours.
Kash Patel is the key. We know this because only Pete Hegseth had a tougher time winning confirmation. Give Kash credit because he’s proved his loyalty under fire.
Jonah Goldberg once advised me to never read the comments, so I always try to.
Some Random Guy tweeted in response to DC Draino, "Just a reminder that Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI attorney who pleaded guilty to lying to the FISA court, only got 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service. Guess who the judge was?"
I checked the tweet out. I got this from Politico:
Clinesmith insisted that he thought the statement was true at the time and only altered the message to save himself the hassle of procuring another email from the CIA. Prosecutors contested that claim, arguing that the FBI lawyer intended to mislead his colleague, but Boasberg sided with the defense on that point.
"My view of the evidence is that Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said about Mr. Page was true," Boasberg said. "By altering the email, he was saving himself some work and taking an inappropriate shortcut."
While Trump and his GOP allies have suggested that Clinesmith was engaged in a political vendetta against Trump, Boasberg noted that a Justice Department inspector general investigation failed to establish that political considerations played a role in Clinesmith’s actions or numerous other errors and omissions that impacted filings with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Well, if Sergeant Schultz saw nothing, nothing happened. Judge Doom Boasberg’s personal rule on evidence holds that it is OK to alter evidence if it saves time.
The story also said, "While prosecutors urged the judge to send Clinesmith to prison to send a message to others in government not to try something similar, Boasberg said he believed that message had already been sent."
Oh the message was sent, which was go do the crime because you won’t do the time. He got community service for his felony and states no longer automatically disbar felons, even if they tampered with evidence.
I mention this to point out just what President Trump faces as he takes on the rich men north of Richmond.
Like Don Corleone, they own the judges and Justice Roberts, who appointed Boasberg as the chief of the secret FISA courts which gave Obama and Hillary 17 warrants to spy on their top political opponent. Who knows how many warrants FISA gave 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... and the FBI to spy on opponents?
Maybe Kash Patel knows now. Maybe the FBI’s industrial-strength shredder does. If the evidence is there, Trump has it.
[RedState] Doubtless you’ll remember the awful shooting at a 2017 Congressional Baseball Game for Charity where 66-year-old James Hodgkinson first confirmed that Republicans were playing, then unleashed over 60 rounds from his SKS 7.62mm rifle. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was severely injured and spent months in recovery, while four other victims were also hit. It could have been much worse without the heroics of Capitol and Alexandria Police, who took out Hodgkinson after a ten-minute shootout.
It was a clear act of political violence perpetrated by a madman who hated Republicans, which is why it wasn’t an even bigger news story. If the shooter had been a white supremacist MAGA lover spraying bullets at 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... , we’d see wall-to-wall coverage every time the month of June and the anniversary of the shooting rolled around.
WATCH: Video shows House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise taken away on stretcher and into helicopter following shooting at Virginia park. pic.twitter.com/naKRc3eoXK
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 14, 2017
Like so much of what occurs whenever our federal justice system gets involved, there’s been much secrecy and unanswered questions about what happened. FBI Director Kash Patel is making moves to change that:
BREAKING: I can report that as of 30 minutes ago, the FBI has provided the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence all requested documents related to the Congressional Baseball Game shooting in 2017.
These are documents sought by Capitol Hill officials for almost 8…
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) March 26, 2025 These are documents sought by Capitol Hill officials for almost 8 years. Providing these documents was one of our top priorities in delivering a new FBI era of transparency.
Thank you to the committee and Chairman @RepRickCrawford for your partnership in getting Americans the truth.
Why did it take years? It’s time for a profound culture shift at the DOJ, and Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi are just the folks to bring it, as they're continually proving.
House Intelligence Committee Republicans applauded Patel and the FBI for actually being transparent, something we’re not used to seeing out of these organizations:
— House Intelligence Committee (@HouseIntel) March 26, 2025
There are still many who contend that we don’t know everything about what really happened that day. In 2021, for instance, Scalise and more than a dozen other House Republicans demanded the FBI review its conclusion to classify the event as “suicide by cop” when it should have been investigated as a clear example of “domestic extremism,” considering the assailant was obviously politically motivated. In May 2021, the FBI did in fact update its classification and acknowledged the incident as an act of "domestic terrorism." But why did that happen four years after the fact?
Others feel that information about the motivation, planning and history of the shooter may have been buried.
Maybe there’s new information, maybe there’s not—but the justice system in this country has become far too quick to simply say “that’s classified” about major investigations and then stonewall Congress and the public. Bondi and Patel are showing that it’s time to serve the American people, not treat us as their adversaries.
[IsraelTimes] Amid boycotts due to inclusion of far-right EU lawmakers, Jerusalem event features appearances from Bosnian leader facing arrest warrant and sanctioned ex-Paraguay president
There was no shortage of controversy at the Israeli government’s first-ever international conference on combating antisemitism Thursday in Jerusalem, as mostly right-wing speakers hurled scathing attacks at left-wing organizations and news outlets that they claimed have been enabling antisemitism.
The confab at the International Convention Center was thrown into the global spotlight last week after several high-profile Jewish leaders said they would not attend due to the inclusion of far-right European politicians whose parties have long faced their own allegations of antisemitism.
Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, whose office organized the confab, opened with a word to the far-right European politicians about the uproar surrounding their participation in the event.
"I apologize for the lies spread against you by those who slander the State of Israel worldwide," Chikli said, before launching into a tirade accusing Israel’s left-wing Haaretz newspaper of manufacturing the controversy. Calling the outlet a "beacon of lies and anti-Zionist propaganda," he insisted that "Haaretz and others like them do not represent the Jewish people."
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy — both originally slated to give keynote addresses — along with British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, were among those who canceled their participation in the event due to concerns that the inclusion of far-right politicians would legitimize their movements that have long histories of antisemitism, Holocaust denial and racism.
As a compromise aimed at easing tensions, President Isaac Herzog hosted Jewish leaders for a private gathering Wednesday night before the conference, without the presence of the right-wing figures.
Speaking to journalists after the conference, Chikli defended his decision to invite the far-right European parliament members, saying he had spoken at length with each one regarding their beliefs about Israel.
"Actions speak louder than words," Chikli said, noting that Marine Le Pen of La Belle France’s National Union party — whose leader Jordan Bardella attended the confab — had shown genuine concern for the French Jewish community. Representatives from Germany’s AFD party were not invited due to radical voices within, despite its pro-Israel stance, Chikli said.
Hermann Tertsch, member of the European Parliament for Spain’s hard-right Vox party, told The Times of Israel that he felt compelled to participate in the confab despite the controversies.
"I’m here because the fight against antisemitism is a very important question that affects us all," Tertsch said, noting that he had been honored by the Jewish community of Madrid for his work fighting antisemitism. "We are fighting a very serious fight, and what we are doing is annoying other parties that don’t see the danger."
PM: MANY THOUGHT ISRAEL ON VERGE OF EXTINCTION
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed the conference on Thursday, calling antisemitism a "disease" threatening all civilized societies.
Before the Holocaust, Netanyahu said, many people understood that growing European antisemitism would destroy not only Jewry but also the surrounding civilizations.
"Today we issue a similar warning — the fate of free societies is tied to their willingness to fight the scourge of antisemitism."
Now, Netanyahu said, this hatred has reemerged in the form of Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... and radical Islam in 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... , Iran, Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... and 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... . And unlike during the Holocaust, he added, Jews now have an army to defend themselves and fight back.
"On October 7th, we were surprised," Netanyahu said. "We had a terrible, terrible massacre. And many believed that Israel was on the verge of extinction. [Former Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah put it very clearly. He said: "The Jewish state, the Jewish army — they’re no more than a spider’s web," and it could be easily swept aside."
"Well, a year and a half later, Nasrallah is gone," Netanyahu continued. "[Former] Hamas chairman Ismail] Haniyeh is gone. [Former Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is gone. [Former Syrian President Bashar] Assad is gone. We have battered Hamas. We brought Hezbollah to its knees. We destroyed the remnants of Syria’s army. We hit 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 with the great help of our American allies. And we exposed Iran’s vulnerability."
SILENCE IS COMPLICITY
At a subsequent panel entitled "Don’t confuse me with the facts," speakers accused left-wing movements of fanning the flames of antisemitism by peddling falsehoods.
Far-right Historian Gadi Taub criticized progressive movements in Israel for undermining Zionism, doubling down on Chikli’s attack on Haaretz — his former employer — saying it "systematically undermines Zionism."
Jordan Bardella, head of La Belle France’s far-right National Union party, described his movement as "the best shield for our Jewish compatriots." He said La Belle France must work with Israel to fight against antisemitism, as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition.
"In the face of the disturbing resurgence of anti-Jewish hatred throughout Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... and the world, and in the face of terrorism that intends to destroy our lives and our values, we French believe more than ever that our nations must unite their voices and join forces in the fight," he said.
"I am aware of the symbolic importance of my invitation here, and the responsibility of my party... in the war against barbarism, which is also our war," he added.
Former president of Paraguay Horacio Cartes told the audience that silence in the face of antisemitism "is not neutrality, but complicity."
Cartes, who is sanctioned by the US for alleged ties with Hezbollah, as well as corruption, was invited to the confab by the Prime Minister’s Office, according to a report in Haaretz.
Another foreign leader, Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, attended the conference but exited briefly after being notified that a court in Bosnia had issued an international warrant for his arrest due to his calls for the Serb-run half of Bosnia to secede from the rest of the country.
Dodik left the conference voluntarily and then later returned, event organizers said. As a signatory to the European Convention on Extradition, Israel would be obligated to extradite citizens wanted in other countries. It is not clear whether Bosnia issued an extradition request to Israel during the event.
[IsraelTimes] US president says there ‘are others that can do a good job at the United Nations,’ but doesn’t yet name a replacement for vocally pro-Israel candidate
US President Donald Trump ...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party... announced on Thursday that he has pulled his nomination of Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador in the UN in order for her to remain in the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.
"With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... . Therefore, Elise will stay in Congress, rejoin the House Leadership Team, and continue to fight for our amazing American People," Trump added.
He did not immediately name a replacement for the position.
Republicans won both the House and Senate in the November 2024 election that returned Trump to the White House, but they have a very tight lead in the lower chamber.
They control the House by 218 seats to 213, giving them just a tiny margin and making it difficult to pass key legislation.
Two crucial special elections will be held on April 1 to fill the seats vacated by Mike Waltz, who is now Trump’s national security advisor, and Matt Gaetz, who the president tapped to become attorney general but who backed out of consideration following misconduct allegations.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson praised Stefanik on Thursday.
"It is well known Republicans have a razor-thin House majority, and Elise’s agreement to withdraw her nomination will allow us to keep one of the toughest, most resolute members of our Conference in place to help drive forward President Trump’s America First policies," he said in a social media post.
Stefanik was the last cabinet-level Trump nominee who had not been confirmed. She was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with some Democratic votes, on January 30 and had been expected to be easily approved by the full Senate
Stefanik made headlines in 2023 for her tough questioning of university presidents during a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses. The politician has quickly become a fan-favorite among establishment, pro-Israel groups.
At her confirmation hearing in January, Stefanik vowed to use her role to combat "antisemitic rot" at the UN and said that US tax dollars "should not be complicit in propping up entities that are counter to American interests, antisemitic, or engaging in fraud, corruption or terrorism."
At the annual Anti-Defamation League summit in New York City earlier this month, she drew applause for her calls to further crack down on campus antisemitism, deport foreign students who engage in antisemitism and support of terror, and pressure the United Nations. She also claimed that the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel "would never have happened" under Trump, drawing boos from the audience.
Trump said in February that the UN has "great potential and... we’ll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together." The UN pushed back at the time, saying Secretary-General António Guterres ...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years... had worked tirelessly to implement reforms.
Since returning to office on January 20, Trump has stopped US engagement with the UN Human Rights Council, extended a halt to funding for the Paleostinian relief agency UNRWA and ordered a review of the UN cultural agency UNESCO. He has also announced US plans to quit the Gay Paree climate deal and the World Health Organization.
#2
Sending her to the UN would be a waste of good talent.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/28/2025 11:38
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Hochul and the Dems were delaying the special election for her replacement. I don’t think that they anticipated that Trump would pull her nomination. I expect her to not run for re-election and move to the Ambassadorship in the second two years of this administration.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/28/2025 12:22
Comments ||
Top||
[IsraelTimes] Protesters slam exemption of F-35 parts from partial UK halt of arms sales to Israel; Jonathan Reynolds, who signed off on the pause, says parts ‘integral to our national security’
British Business and Trade Minister Jonathan Reynolds was interrupted by two pro-Paleostinian, anti-Israel protesters opposing arms sales to Israel who stormed the stage as he was about to speak at a think tank event in London on Thursday.
London for a Free Paleostine, one of three campaign groups that rallied outside Chatham House where Reynolds was speaking, said the on-stage protest was intended to keep pressure on the UK government to halt all arms exports to Israel — especially of parts for F-35 fighter jets.
"They have not stopped the trade in F-35s," one individual shouted. One protester accused the UK government of being complicit in genocide.
Reynolds remained in his seat and said Britannia had suspended arms exports to Israel.
"We haven’t suspended F-35s because they’re integral to our national security and particularly the defense of Ukraine," he said.
Later, he told the audience the exemption for F-35s had been announced in the British parliament.
"Specifically on arms exports, we have a very stringent regime which we have applied as a government, and that has led to restrictions, particularly in relation to arms exports to Israel," Reynolds said.
In September, the UK government suspended 30 of its 350 arms export licences to Israel. The decision was formally made by Reynolds, with the backing of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
The suspensions affected components for Israel’s aerial systems, including fighter jets, helicopters, and drones. The halt largely passed over the F-35 program, a multinational project that pools parts before disbursing them to participating countries, including Israel.
The UK government said at the time that it was impossible to suspend the export of F-35 parts without prejudicing the jets’ entire global program.
British exports amount to less than one percent of the total arms Israel receives. Unlike the United States, Britannia’s government does not give arms directly to Israel, but rather issues licenses for companies to sell weapons, with input from lawyers on whether clients comply with international law.
Data released in June by Britannia’s previous government showed that the UK, like other countries, drastically reduced arms sales to Israel after the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... -led turbans stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese... the UK’s Conservative government at the time denied that it had changed its position on licenses to sell arms to Israel. Soon after the Labour Party won an election in July, Lammy said he would update a review on arms sales to Israel to ensure they complied with international law.
BLUF: Labour sees the Trump spending cuts, but misses that the cuts are tightly targetted at waste, fraud, abuse, and the expensive imposition of Progressive culture on an unwilling nation. Still, less badly aimed public spending is better than more badly aimed spending — it gives the private sector at least a little breathing room to grow.
[Axios] Government spending cuts, an obsession with more efficient government and an economic growth scare: Those are the dynamics on both sides of the Atlantic.
Why it matters: The U.K.'s top economic official announced deep public spending cuts to account for the huge global shifts, including a surge in borrowing costs, since the initial plans were unveiled just last fall.
The austerity plans are evidence of governments adjusting to a world market by higher debt and borrowing costs, a turnaround from the conditions that defined the 2010s.
Driving the news: Rachel Reeves, the U.K.'s chancellor of the exchequer, announced billions in welfare spending cuts, slashing benefits for those sidelined by disability or sickness — a surprising development for a member of the Labour Party.
Reeves also said that the government will look inward and slow the growth in day-to-day spending across departments, with a plan to trim spending by $7 billion more than previously thought in October.
What they're saying: To Americans, Reeves might sound like she took a page from the DOGE playbook.
"In recent months, we have begun to fundamentally reform the British state, driving efficiency and productivity across government," Reeves said in a speech announcing the fiscal plans Wednesday.
Between the lines: The refurbished budget plan was necessary after a big rise in government borrowing costs that sucked up the U.K.'s headroom for spending.
The U.K.'s surge in government bond yields was partly the result of President Trump's election, which set off a global bond sell-off in fear of his spending plans.
The other factor was domestic: In the fall, the U.K. announced a budget with huge spending plans to jumpstart growth that spooked bond investors.
At the beginning of October, the yield on the U.K. 10-year gilt was about 4.1%. After the yield hit almost 4.9% at the start of 2025, it is now at 4.7%.
The big picture: There is a growth scare underway in the U.K. The nation's Office for Budget Responsibility — similar to the Congressional Budget Office — slashed its expectations for U.K. growth this year in half, to 1%.
The hope is that Reeves' investment plans — in defense, particularly — help jumpstart the economy in the long term. Economic growth down the line looked more promising.
In the U.S., the risk of an economic slowdown from tariffs, immigration cutbacks and more could pressure the revenue side of the ledger and keep deficits high.
Reeves said the budget plans come on the back of a "world that is changing before our eyes."
"The global economy has become more uncertain, bringing insecurity at home as trading patterns become more unstable and borrowing costs rise for many major economies."
[IsraelTimes] State Department announces its preliminary authorization for the energy-rich nation to buy 8 UAVs, marking a shift in US-Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... relations.
The State Department approval announced early Thursday for Qatar comes after Doha had been trying to purchase the drones during the Biden administration but hadn’t gotten the OK despite serving as an interlocutor for Washington to the Taliban ...Arabic for students... in Afghanistan, Iran’s theocracy and Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... 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.
Qatar has been a key mediator of the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas during the ongoing war, which began with Hamas’s October 7th, 2023, onslaught.
The immediate approval under US President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... serves as a far-different starting point for his government’s relations with Qatar — particularly after he initially backed a four-nation boycott of Doha during his first term.
"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East," the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.
Qatar’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Qatar is the second-largest purchaser of US military equipment after Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... , spending over $26 billion for F-15 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, missile defense systems and other gear.
The proposed sale now goes to the US Congress. Lawmakers typically weigh in on such sales and, in some cases, can block them.
Under terms of the sale, Qatar would purchase eight of the drones, as well as hundreds of bombs and missiles to arm the pilotless aircraft with and the equipment necessary to fly them by satellite.
General Atomics Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes over 40,000 feet (12,100 meters) and have an endurance of more than 30 hours before needing to land.
The aircraft have been flown by both the US military and the CIA over the Middle East for years, in Afghanistan, Iraq and now over 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... during the American bombing campaign there. The drone has a land and sea version.
The initial approval for Qatar, however, comes after the nearby United Arab Emirates has been waiting since 2020 to purchase up to 18 MQ-9 drones as part of a $23 billion deal also including advanced F-35 fighter jets. Trump has a particularly close relationship with the UAE, which reached a diplomatic recognition deal with Israel under his administration in 2020.
[Townhall] The Justice Department on Thursday announced that it has disrupted a scheme to finance terrorist group Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... The DOJ seized a little over $200,000 in cryptocurrency that was supposed to go toward funding Hamas, according to a blurb.
As alleged in court documents, a group chat claiming association with Hamas on an encrypted communications platform provided Hamas supporters worldwide with a changing set of at least 17 cryptocurrency addresses. Supporters were encouraged to donate money to those addresses. Those funds were sent into an operational wallet and laundered through a series of virtual currency exchanges and transactions by leveraging suspected financiers and over-the-counter brokers. More than a million dollars was raised and laundered using the laundering system and the virtual currency accounts described in the affidavit.
Included among the assets seized were cryptocurrency addresses valued at approximately $89,900 and three additional accounts containing cryptocurrency valued at approximately $111,500. These accounts were registered in the names of Paleostinian individuals living in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... member, but not the most reliable... and elsewhere.
U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. explained that the seizures "show that this office will search high and low for every cent of money going to fund Hamas" and said the terrorist group "is responsible for the deaths of many U.S. and Israeli nationals."
"Disrupting funding mechanisms and seizing cryptocurrency from Hamas is one of the FBI’s many tools that we use in the fight against terrorism. The FBI will work with our partners to dismantle this terrorist group and protect the American people from their violent mostly peaceful and horrific acts," said Assistant Director David J. Scott of the FBI Counterterrorism Division.
Hamas receives funding from a myriad of sources. A significant portion comes from state sponsors such as 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... and Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... . The Iranian regime has given as much as $260 million each year, Rooters reported. Between 2007 and 2021, Qatar has sent about $1.8 billion to the terrorist group.
However,
the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... Hamas also obtains funds through charitable organizations and non-government organizations. They raise funds under the guise of humanitarian aid. For example, the U.S. Treasury Department last year imposed sanctions on an Italia-based group called the Association of Solidarity with the Paleostinian People for funneling millions of dollars to the terrorist group over ten years.
Mohammad Hannoun (Hannoun) is an Italia-based Hamas member who established the Charity Association of Solidarity with the Paleostinian People, or Associazione Benefica di Solidarietà con il Popolo Paleostinese (ABSPP), a sham charity in Italia which ostensibly raises funds for humanitarian purposes, but in reality helps bankroll Hamas’s military wing. As an executive at ABSPP, Hannoun has sent money to Hamas-controlled organizations since at least 2018. He has solicited funding for Hamas with senior Hamas officials and sent at least $4 million to Hamas over a 10-year period.
So much special pleading! Really, it’s disgraceful — these are vile, vicious, willfully blind people.
[IsraelTimes] Homeland Security says Rumeysa Ozturk, who co-authored anti-Israel op-ed in Tufts student paper, ‘engaged in activities in support of Hamas,’ glorified killing of Americans
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... said Thursday that he has canceled the visas of more than 300 "lunatics" in a crackdown against anti-Israel activism on American university campuses, including that of a Ottoman Turkish student detained in Boston.
Asked during a visit to Guyana to confirm reports of 300 visas stripped, Rubio said: "Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics."
Rubio said the US would not provide visas for people who participate in movements involved in "vandalizing universities, harassing students taking over buildings."
He did not provide evidence that Rumeysa Ozturk, who had co-authored an anti-Israel op-ed in a Tufts University student newspaper, was involved in those activities.
Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts, was detained Tuesday shortly after she left her home in the Boston suburb of Somerville. US government lawyers said in a court document Thursday that Ozturk had already been moved out of Massachusetts by the time her lawyer secured a court order that she be kept in the state. She was moved to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana, the lawyers said, adding that they had informed Ozturk’s lawyers that she was being moved there and helped facilitate contact with her Wednesday night.
A senior spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security said federal authorities detained Ozturk and revoked her visa after an investigation found she had "engaged in activities in support of Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... , a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans." The DHS did not provide evidence for the allegation.
"A visa is a privilege, not a right," the spokesperson said. "Glorifying and supporting gunnies who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security."
Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said she was not closely involved in campus protests against Israel. Ozturk’s only known activism, they said, was co-authoring a Tufts Daily op-ed, which accused Israel of genocide and called on the university to engage with student demands to cut ties with the country.
"To my knowledge, the only thing I know of that Rumeysa organized was a Thanksgiving potluck," said Jennifer Hoyden, a close friend of Ozturk’s who studied with her at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
"There’s a very important distinction between writing a letter supporting the student Senate and taking the kind of action they’re accusing her of, which I’ve seen no evidence of," said Hoyden.
Ozturk’s arrest appeared to be part of US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th and 47th President of the United States... ’s pledge to deport students who engage in "pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity."
Trump has also vowed to deport non-citizen "Hamas sympathizers" on US college campuses amid the wave of anti-Israel student protests since October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Earlier this month, immigration enforcement agents arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Paleostinian US resident and Columbia University graduate. Khalil had been prominent in Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which has called for "violent mostly peaceful resistance" to Israel. The US government accused Khalil of having distributed Hamas propaganda. He is now facing possible deportation.
A University of Alabama student has also been detained by ICE, the university confirmed. The Crimson White, the student newspaper, reported that Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from 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... studying mechanical engineering, were tossed into the calaboose. But neither the university nor the newspaper explained why Doroudi had been taken into ICE custody.
OZTURK DETAINED BY MASKED OFFICERS, WAS DOXXED OVER AN OP-ED
Video obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she shouted before she was handcuffed.
"We’re the police," members of the group are heard saying in the video.
A bystander is heard asking, "Why are you hiding your faces?"
Ozturk, who is Moslem, was meeting friends for iftar, a meal that breaks a fast at sunset during Ramadan, according to her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai. Khanbabai, who said no charges have been filed against Ozturk, filed a petition seeking her release Tuesday and then an emergency motion Wednesday.
US District Judge Indira Talwani initially issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours’ advance notice.
The government said in its response Thursday that it "will set forth the timeline" of Ozturk’s arrest and transfer from Massachusetts. The facility where she’s being held is one of nine in Louisiana that house immigrants colonists waiting for legal proceedings or deportation, according to a 2024 report on ICE’s website. It’s situated on the outskirts of a rural town about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Lafayette.
In a statement Wednesday night, Tufts President Sunil Kumar said the university was "in touch with local, state, and federal elected officials and hope that Rumeysa is provided the opportunity to avail herself of her due process rights."
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily last March criticizing the university’s response to student demands that Tufts "acknowledge the Paleostinian genocide," disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. After the op-ed was published, Ozturk’s name, photograph and work history were published on the website Canary Mission, a website that describes itself as documenting people who "promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses."
A large crowd gathered Wednesday night in Somerville to protest Ozturk’s detainment. Speaking to the crowd, Lea Kayali, from the Paleostinian Youth Movement said, "It’s important that we all remember what she wrote about and why she was targeted, which is Paleostine."
"It’s important for us to remember that this is not new for immigrant communities, and this is not new for Paleostinians," she added. "The US government is deliberately trying to target our movement and scare us into silence. But we will not be silenced."
At Thursday's press conference in Guyana, a reporter asked Rubio about a particular case involving a student having a visa revoked, and he did not shy away from it. In fact, he got a little fired up and doubled down on the message that the Trump administration has been sending to people who come into this country with bad intentions. He even put it into simple language that maybe Democrats can understand.
Let me be abundantly clear. If you go apply for a visa right now, anywhere in the world — let me just send this message out — if you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus — we're not going to give you a visa. If you lie to us, and get a visa, and then enter the United States. and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we're going to take away your visa. And once you've lost your visa, you're no longer legally in the United States.
And we have a right like every country in the world has a right to remove you from our country. So, it's just that simple. I think it's crazy. I think it's stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country that are going to go to your universities as visitors — they're visitors! — and say I'm going to your universities to start a riot. I'm going to your universities to take over a library and harass people. I don't care what movement you're involved with. Why would any country in the world allow people to come in and disrupt...we gave you a visa to come in and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. And if we've given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we're gonna take it away. I encourage every country to do that, by the way, because I think it's crazy to invite students into your country that are coming onto your campus and destabilizing it. We're just not gonna have it.
So, we'll revoke your visa, and once your visa's revoked, you're illegally in the country and you have to leave. Every country in the world has a right to decide who comes in as a visitor and who doesn't. If you invite me into your home because you say, 'I wanna come to your house for dinner,' and I go to your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray-painting your kitchen, I bet you you're gonna kick me out. Well, we're gonna do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus for us. We don't want it. We don't want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country, but you're not gonna do it in our country.
The reporter followed up by asking, "Did you confirm, there's been a report that 300 visas been permanently revoked?" To which Rubio replied confidently, "Maybe more. Might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa." She seemed shocked at that response, but Rubio did not back down and gave a perfect example of one of the millions of reasons why illegal immigration is such a huge threat to our national security.
At some point I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of all of them, but we're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up. And by the way, we wanna get rid of gang members too. So, Venezuela sent us a bunch of gang members. I'm sure you've heard of Tren de Agua, Mr. President. Terrible gang, vicious gang. They flooded in our...
Yesterday, just so everybody knows, yesterday one of these gang members who was involved in New York City in attacking a police officer, was deported back to Venezuela because they're now taking flights again, you know, because of, of some strong measures we've taken. And this guy lands, this guy's the guy that attacked a police officer in New York City and laughed about it in court with a smirk on his face. When he gets off the plane in Venezuela, he's welcomed by this character named Diosdado Cabello. I don't know if you've heard of this guy. And, and he welcomes him, hugging the guy. So, does anybody have any doubt that these people are pushing these people into the United States to destabilize us in the region? That, so, yeah, we're looking for people like this and we wanna get them out of the United States. Absolutely.
Rubio is referring to 19-year-old Darwin Andres Gomez-Izquiel, who attacked a police officer in January 2024, and Diosdado Cabello is the so-called "Minister of the Popular Power for Interior, Justice and Peace of Venezuela." In reality, he's a major criminal involved in narco-terrorism who is wanted in the United States. However, he currently oversees Venezuela’s police forces and prisons as part of Nicolás Maduro fraudulent administration.
YouTube video of Secretary ‘Rubio’s full remarks can be watched at the PJ Media link.
There are a half dozen tweets at the link with various videos of the protests. Separately, I saw a meme yesterday, something to the effect that: During the Nazi era there were Germans who rescued Jews. But in Gaza not one Arab has rescued a single Jew. I understand that the some Gazans would very much like to get rid of Hamas and end the war. But until they do something to free the captives held in durance very vile or turn in those involved in the 10/7 invasion, I’m afraid I have no sympathy — it is nothing more than a demand for a consequence-free end to their own discomfort.
[IsraelTimes] Hundreds — if not thousands — attend protests throughout Strip, as Hamas warns participants that they’ll be treated as Israel collaborators
Hundreds out of a population of somewhere above 1 million…
Protests against Hamas family:courier,"Courier New","Courier 10 Pitch",serif;background:#FFFB99'>..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... were held throughout 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... for a third consecutive day on Thursday, with participants putting themselves at risk after the terror group warned the public against taking part in such demonstrations.
Footage from the various protests showed hundreds — if not thousands — of Paleostinians marching through the ruins of Gaza, shouting against the terror group. The rallies took place in northern Gaza’s Jabalya and Beit Lahiya in the central Strip’s Gaza City along with other locations.
Chants and signs heard at Thursday rallies included the slogans, "Hamas out," "Al Jazeera out," "Hamas are terrorists" and "The people want to overthrow Hamas."
Demonstrators also called for an end to the war and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has taken the lives of roughly 50,000 Paleostinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
At some of these rallies, masked men holding batons were filmed looking on. Supporters of the demonstrations said these men were Hamas operatives seeking to intimidate those protesting. Several participants posted on social media that they received death threats from Hamas members who warned them not to attend such rallies again.
Earlier Thursday, Hamas issued a joint statement with other Gaza terror groups warning that those participating in the protests would be treated as Israel collaborators — a group that is stomped out brutally by Hamas.
While the protests were still relatively small, the fact that they have not relented amid Hamas intimidation indicated that the phenomenon was gaining momentum.
Another round of protests was also scheduled for Friday, according to social media posts from organizers.
Hamas has violent mostly peacefully cracked down on previous protests in the past. This week, though, there has been no outright intervention, which some see as a sign of the terror group’s waning power. The group’s armed personnel are also thought to be keeping a low profile since Israel resumed military action in Gaza earlier this month following the two-month ceasefire.
Protests are relatively rare events in Gaza, especially against Hamas, which has maintained an iron grip on the Strip since it violent mostly peacefully ousted the Paleostinian Authority from the territory in 2007.
While there have been more public statements by individuals in Gaza against Hamas rule since the war started, large-scale demonstrations against the group have been almost nonexistent.
The last documented protest in the Strip against Hamas took place in January 2024, when Paleostinians in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis called for an end to the war, the end of the terror group’s rule over Gaza, and the release of the Israeli hostages.
Before the war, anti-Hamas protests were also relatively rare events and were often suppressed violent mostly peacefully by the terror group.
Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns the 59 hostages it still holds — 24 of them believed to be alive. Israel is also demanding that the group give up power, disarm, and send its leaders into exile.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining captives in exchange for Paleostinian prisoners, a complete end to war, and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas won a landslide victory in Gaza in the last Paleostinian elections, held in 2006. It seized power in Gaza from the PA, which is based in the West Bank and dominated by the secular Fatah movement, the following year after months of factional unrest and a week of heavy street battles.
Rights groups say both the Paleostinian Authority and Hamas violent mostly peacefully suppress dissent, quashing protests in the areas they control and jailing and torturing critics.
[IsraelTimes] Proposal envisions Trump issuing statement calling for Gaza calm, resumption of talks for permanent ceasefire, but diplomat says Hamas likely to demand more for Edan Alexander
Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... has presented Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... with a new US proposal to restore the ceasefire 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... through the release of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel on Thursday.
In exchange for Alexander’s release, US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... would issue a statement calling for calm in Gaza and the resumption of negotiations for a permanent ceasefire, the diplomat said, confirming reports on Channel 12 and the Axios news site.
The Arab diplomat expressed skepticism that Hamas would agree to release Alexander for only a statement from Trump and said the terror group would likely ask for something more substantial, given its skepticism regarding Israel’s willingness to adhere to agreements. Alexander is one of the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are still alive, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.
Hamas has already refused a proposal from US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff, which sought to extend the first phase of the ceasefire. The group has insisted on sticking to the terms of the deal signed in January, which should’ve entered its second phase on March 2. That phase envisions the release of all remaining living hostages in exchange for a full IDF withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to end the war until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled and has accordingly refused to enter the second phase, instead pushing for an extension of the phase one temporary ceasefire. After more than two weeks in a holding pattern, Israel renewed intensive military operations throughout Gaza on March 18.
Egypt subsequently worked to convince Hamas to accept a proposal largely similar to the one proposed by Witkoff earlier this month, which envisioned the release of five living hostages in exchange for an extension of phase through April 19 during which the sides would hold talks on the terms of the phase two permanent ceasefire.
Cairo threatened to deport a group of Paleostinian security prisoners who have been stranded in Cairo since being released earlier this year as part of the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase. Hamas’s abroad leaders responded positively to the offer, but they were overruled by the terror group’s Gaza leader Muhammad Sinwar, the Arab diplomat said.
Following that rejection, Witkoff held talks with Qatari mediators to come up with a new proposal, and the US envoy presented it to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer on Wednesday, according to the Axios news site.
The previous US effort to secure the release of American hostages was vehemently opposed by Dermer and Netanyahu, who felt it might bridge to a more permanent ceasefire ending the war before Hamas has been removed from power, the Arab diplomat said.
Hamas has yet to respond to the latest US proposal, but Qatari mediators told the terror group that compliance would create goodwill for them with Trump, making it more likely that he will push Netanyahu to agree to a permanent ceasefire, the diplomat added.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators met with a Hamas delegation in Doha on Thursday evening to discuss the latest US proposal, the Arab diplomat said.
How Israel will respond to it is also unclear. Netanyahu held consultations with his security chiefs and top advisers on Thursday to discuss the matter, according to an Israeli official.
Netanyahu on Wednesday threatened to intensify Israel’s military campaign in Gaza if Hamas didn’t begin releasing hostages, saying the IDF would begin occupying additional parts of the Strip.
The premier insisted earlier this week that Israel is nearing the defeat of Hamas — something he has been claiming for over a year.
Critics have argued that additional military operations endanger the remaining hostages and won’t accomplish what Israel was unable to do during the first 15-plus months of the war. Arab allies have instead proposed sidelining Hamas through a diplomatic initiative that includes gradually returning the Paleostinian Authority to govern Gaza — something Netanyahu has flatly rejected.
It appears Israel does provide some value in this relationship.
[IsraelTimes] According to report, Israeli officials have privately expressed dismay at security breach, as Republican and Democrat lawmakers demand probe into incident
Information on US Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s leaked by senior US officials in a group chat that accidentally included a journalist was reportedly based on Israeli intelligence drawn from a human source in 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... , the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The report, citing two US officials, said that Israel provided intelligence from an individual in Yemen about a senior 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... figure who was targeted in the March 15 US airstrike discussed in the group chat on the Signal messaging app.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, revealed this week that he had been accidentally added to a conversation in Signal by national security adviser Mike Waltz, which then revealed classified details of an upcoming US airstrike on Yemen.
The Atlantic published a number of the messages sent in the conversation, including one from Waltz writing on March 15 that "the first target — their top missile guy — we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed."
According to the newspaper, Israeli intelligence assisted the US in identifying and eliminating the suspect in question.
A US official quoted by the WSJ said that Israeli officials have privately complained to their US counterparts over the security breach and the now-public nature of Waltz’s messages.
The White House has publicly asserted that none of the information shared on Signal was classified, even though officials have provided no evidence that that’s the case.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told news hounds in Hawaii he had not texted "war plans" or "attack plans" in the Signal group, pointing out he had called his post a "team update."
Two days after its original story — and in the wake of US officials insisting that the information shared was not classified — The Atlantic published a follow-up sharing detailed messages sent in the Signal group chat, including a timeline of the strikes before they were carried out and the types of planes and missiles being used, shared by Hegseth.
US President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... has stood by Waltz, describing the incident as a "glitch" and saying that the national security adviser "has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man."
He later described the intense media coverage of the incident and sharp criticism as being "all a witch hunt."
The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee requested an investigation Thursday into the incident, ensuring at least some bipartisan scrutiny on the episode.
Sen. Roger Wicker ...junior United States Senator from Mississippi, a member of the Republican Party. In December 2007 he was appointed by Governor Haley Barbour to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott, winning reelection the next year. A lawyer by training, he was previously a Congressman, and before that a state senator... , the Republican chair of the committee, and Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat, signed onto a letter to the acting inspector general at the Department of Defense for an inquiry into the potential "use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know."
Meanwhile,
...back at the dirigible, the gondola was dangling by a single thread of rope.
Jack! Cynthia cried. I just realized I'm afraid of heights! I don't even like high heels!... the Justice Department, which has traditionally handled investigations into the mishandling of classified or sensitive information by both Republican and Democratic administrations, showed that under Trump it would likely stay on the sidelines. When asked at an unrelated news conference what the Justice Department plans to do, Attorney General Pam Bondi deflected, saying the mission was ultimately a success.
[AnNahar] Syrian state media said Israeli strikes targeted the coastal Latakia province on Thursday, with a war monitor saying munitions depots were hit.
"In a number of air strikes, Israeli occupation aircraft targeted the vicinity of the al-Abyad port and the city of Latakia," state news agency SANA reported.
Authorities were working to ensure there were no casualties, SANA added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the raids targeted "munitions depots" at the port, located on the northern outskirts of Latakia city.
The Britannia-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, reported "huge material damage and the destruction of a munitions depot".
It said the port had previously been targeted in December.
Sources told Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen news outlet that jets hit several military positions in the port that are used by foreign factions linked to the Syrian Defense Ministry, including from Chechnya and Uzbekistan.
Video shared on social media purportedly of the strikes showed a large explosion lighting up the sky above the port.
Sources also told Al Mayadeen that there were loud explosions at the same time north of Quneitra in the Syrian Golan Heights, where Israeli troops have been operating since late last year.
[AnNahar] Syria slammed Israeli attacks as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty after a deadly bombardment Tuesday in the country's south, where Israel's military said it had responded to incoming fire.
The violence near the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights
Is the UN actually patrolling, or are they hunkered down, hoping that the violence stays far enough away?
followed Israeli air strikes in central Syria, the latest in a string of attacks on military sites since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian foreign ministry in a statement condemned "the continued Israeli aggression on Syrian territory, which saw a dangerous escalation in the village of Kuwayya" in the southern Daraa province.
It said "heavy artillery and air bombardment targeted residential and farming areas, leading to the death of six civilians", raising an earlier toll provided by local authorities.
"This escalation comes in the context of a series of violations that started with Israeli forces' penetrating into Quneitra and Daraa provinces, in an ongoing aggression on Syrian territory, in flagrant violation of national sovereignty and international law," the ministry said.
Earlier Tuesday, the Israeli military said that its troops "identified several terrorists who opened fire toward them in southern Syria", without providing a specific location.
"The troops returned fire in response and the IAF (air force) struck the terrorists," it added in a statement.
Daraa governor Anwar al-Zoabi said in a statement that "Israeli occupation army violations and repeated attacks on Syrian territory pushed a group of residents to clash with a military force that tried to penetrate" Kuwayya, northwest of Daraa city.
The situation "led to an escalation" by Israeli forces "with artillery shelling and drone bombardment", said the statement posted on Telegram.
Provincial authorities said some 350 families had fled to shelters in a nearby village.
[AnNahar] Leb ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade.... said Thursday that Israeli strikes killed four people in the country's south, with Israel saying it struck Hezbollah operatives.
The strikes were the latest in a series on south Lebanon, despite a November ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah after more than a year of hostilities.
An "Israeli enemy strike on a car in Yohmor al-Shaqeef led to the death of three people," said a health ministry statement reported by the National News Agency.
The agency said a drone targeted a vehicle near the town, in a strike that came at the same time as artillery shelling.
The Israeli military said in a statement that "several Hezbollah snuffies were identified transferring weapons in the area of Yohmor in southern Lebanon," adding that the army "struck the terrorists."
The NNA earlier Thursday reported that "one person was killed and another maimed in the Israeli drone targeting... of a car in the town Maaroub," also in south Lebanon.
The Israeli military said that overnight, the air force "struck and eliminated... a battalion commander" in Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force in the Derdghaiya area, near Maaroub.
It accused him of having "advanced and directed numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians" and troops during the war, and of also directing "terror attacks against Israel's Home Front" in recent months.
Israel has continued to carry out raids in Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire, striking what it says are Hezbollah military targets that violated the truce agreement.
Last weekend saw the most intense escalation since the truce, with Israeli strikes on south Lebanon killing eight people, according to Lebanese officials. Israel's raids were in response to rocket fire, the first to hit its territory since the ceasefire.
No party has grabbed credit for the rocket fire, which a military source said originated north of the Litani River, between the villages of Kfar Tebnit and Arnoun, near the zone covered by the ceasefire deal.
Hezbollah, heavily weakened by the war, denied involvement.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel was to withdraw its forces across the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, but still holds five positions in south Lebanon that it deems strategic.
In the Tyre District, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed carrying out a dronezap shortly after midnight on Thursday, killing Ahmed Adnan Bajija, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force.
The IDF published footage of the strike in the village of Derdghaiya, adjacent to Maaroub.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas says terror group spokesman killed in strike in Jabalia overnight.
On Thursday morning, Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... announced that a front man for the terror group, Abdul Latif al-Qanou, was killed in an Israeli strike in northern 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... ’s Jabalia overnight.
Al-Qanou is the latest high-ranking operative targeted since Israel resumed its strikes on Gaza.
The group said in a statement it mourned the loss of al-Qanou, who was killed in what it called a "direct" strike on a tent he was in.
The same strike maimed several people, while separate attacks killed at least six in Gaza City and one in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, medical sources said.
Earlier this week, Israel killed Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’s political office, and Salah al-Bardaweel, another big shot. Both Bardaweel and Barhoum were members of the 20-member Hamas decision-making body, the political office, 11 of whom have been killed since the start of the war in late 2023, according to Hamas sources.
Last week, Israel ended a two-month-old ceasefire by resuming bombing and ground operations, increasing pressure on Hamas to free the remaining hostages in its captivity.
At least 830 people have been killed since Israel resumed major military strikes in Gaza on March 18, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, pushing the total killed over the course of the war to over 50,000.
The figures are not independently verified and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
A strike hit the tent where Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua was staying in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, killing him, according to Basem Naim, another Hamas official.
Another strike near Gaza City killed four children and their parents, according to the emergency service of Gaza’s Health Ministry.
[HodhodYemenNews] The Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip announced on Thursday that its hospitals received 24 martyrs and 82 wounded citizens over the past 24 hours.
It pointed out that the casualties of the Israeli renewed aggression since March 18 had reached 855 martyrs and 1,869 injured.
The overall number of casualties since Israel launched its war of genocide on Gaza on October 7, 2023 had reached 50,208 martyrs and 113,910 wounded, it added.
The ministry pointed out that an unspecified number of victims are still trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings or lying on roads and rescue teams cannot reach them.
[HodhodYemen ...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... News] Two people were killed and two others maimed in new US Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s targeting the outskirts of Sana’a in the early hours of Thursday.
A correspondent for Almasirah Net reported that the US aggression launched four airstrikes on a stone quarry in Al...
Two people were killed and two others maimed in new US airstrikes targeting the outskirts of Sana’a in the early hours of Thursday.
A correspondent for Almasirah Net reported that the US aggression launched four airstrikes on a stone quarry in al-Arqoub area, Khulan district, Sana’a Governorate, resulting in two deaders, two maimed, and material damage.
Earlier this morning, our correspondent in Sa’adah reported a US attack on al-Sahleen area in al-Salem district.
Incompetence by the permanent staff or Deep State malice?
[IsraelTimes] Der Spiegel digs up phone numbers, email addresses and more belonging to national security adviser Michael Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and intel chief Tulsi Gabbard
The private contact information of three senior Trump administration officials has been found available online by a German newspaper, adding to concerns about the security of sensitive information after plans for a strike in 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... were shared over a commercial message app and inadvertently shared with a journalist.
In a Wednesday report, Der Spiegel said it was able to retrieve cell phone numbers, email addresses, and some passwords of US national security adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, all of whom have come under fire for their roles in the Yemen leak.
The information was found using commercial data-search services and information from hackers posted online. Sales, marketing and recruitment companies use such services to obtain data.
Der Spiegel assessed that most of the accounts and numbers were likely still being used by the officials, at least until recently.
The paper did not publish any of the information but gave detailed descriptions of why they appeared to be authentic, including profile photos. It also did not try to use any of the passwords.
Among the passwords were those for email accounts and other services such as Instagram, LinkedIn profiles, cloud-storage service Dropbox, and apps that can track a user’s location.
Hegseth’s cell phone number and email address were "particularly easy" to find, with the email address showing up in over 20 data leaks, in some cases along with the password.
The number was associated with a WhatsApp account that had apparently been recently deleted, the report said.
The same provider was able to come up with Waltz’s phone number which was reportedly available on a people search engine that acts like an online phone directory. Der Spiegel also found several passwords to Waltz’s email address.
Gabbard had apparently blocked her contact details on commercial search engines, the report said, but the information was found in data leaks dumped by hackers.
The Gabbard and Waltz numbers were tied to accounts on the messaging services WhatsApp and Signal, which Der Spiegel said made them possible targets for spyware.
The US Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the NSC said Waltz’s passwords and accounts had been changed before he joined Congress in 2019.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Gabbard’s information was leaked nearly 10 years ago and she has not used those accounts for several years and has frequently changed her passwords.
Waltz and Hegseth are both at the center of a swirling scandal that has engulfed Washington this week surrounding a discussion held over encrypted commercial messaging service Signal about plans to attack Yemen’s 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... rebels. The use of the chat, which may have broken secrecy laws and other protocols, came to light after Waltz accidentally added Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the group, which also included Gabbard, Vice President J.D. Vance and other brass hats.
The conversations discussed schedules, weapons, and aircraft that were used on March 15 as the US launched a military campaign against the Iran-backed group.
The chat about attacks on Iran-backed Houthi rebels involved some of the administration’s most bigwigs, including Hegseth, Waltz, and Gabbard.
Hegseth and Gabbard have claimed that no classified or sensitive materials were discussed, while US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... has called the incident a "glitch."
US officials are generally instructed to discuss sensitive matters in a specially protected space called a SCIF, due to spying concerns. While Signal contains encryption, it is open to all, including hackers, unlike most US government systems.
The Houthi rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the "axis of resistance" of pro-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... groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.
An interesting tweet linked by PJ Media’s Matt Margolis, pointing to the possibility of Deep State malice:
🚨GIVE ME A F****** BREAK The NPR CEO in front of Congress yesterday, is on the board of directors at Signal??? pic.twitter.com/HAFrOvXuyk
According to Wikipedia, “From 2022 to 2023, Maher was a member of the U.S. State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board, an expert panel established in 2011 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to advise U.S. officials.”
A point MrlMargolis neglected to mention from that Wikipedia article: “As of 2023, she chairs the board of directors of the Signal Foundation.“
The conflicts of interest here are staggering. We have someone who runs a supposedly "neutral" public broadcasting network while simultaneously serving on the board of a secure communications platform used for sensitive government operations.
Timing is everything, and it's worth noting that this security breach controversy exploded right around the same time Maher was making waves with her controversial congressional testimony about media bias. Coincidence? Maybe. But in Washington, coincidences are about as rare as honest Democrats.
Social media users are already connecting these dots, asking why mainstream media isn't giving this story the attention it deserves. Could it be because it exposes the uncomfortably close relationship between left-wing media executives, technology platforms, and government operations?
While I'm not ready to declare that there is any direct connection between Maher serving on the board of directors and the current Signal breach — I still believe a rogue staffer is the most likely culprit — at the very least these connections raise serious questions about how and why the Biden administration approved the app over other options.
The deeper this story goes, the more it looks less like a simple security breach and more like a symptom of a much larger problem: the incestuous relationship between Big Tech, liberal media, and government operations. It's time for Congress to start asking some tough questions.
[GatewayPundit] National Security Advisor Mike Waltz left his Venmo account wide open to the public until Wednesday afternoon, exposing hundreds of personal and professional contacts to potential exploitation.
A so-called “analysis” by the leftist tech outlet WIRED revealed that the account, listed under “Michael Waltz” with a profile photo of the man himself, connected to names tied to the Trump administration’s inner circle—names like Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, and Walker Barrett, a National Security Council staffer.
The account exposed a 328-person network, including military officials, political strategists, prominent journalists, and even other members of the Trump administration’s inner circle.
After WIRED began digging, both Waltz and Trump campaign powerhouse Susie Wiles quickly made their Venmo accounts private.
According to the news outlet:
A WIRED review of public data exposed on Venmo accounts associated with senior administration officials suggests that the Signal group chat was not an isolated mistake, but part of a broader pattern of what national security experts describe as reckless behavior by some of the most powerful people in the US government.
The Venmo account under Waltz’s name includes a 328-person friend list. Among them are accounts sharing the names of people closely associated with Waltz, such as Barrett, formerly Waltz’s deputy chief of staff when Waltz was a member of the House of Representatives, and Micah Thomas Ketchel, former chief of staff to Waltz and currently a senior adviser to Waltz and President Donald Trump.
Other accounts carry the names of a wide range of media figures, from on-air personalities like Bret Baier and Brian Kilmeade of Fox News and Brianna Keilar and Kristen Holmes of CNN to a cable news producer, a prominent national security reporter, local news anchors, documentarians, and noted conspiracy theorist Ivan Raiklin, who calls himself the “the secretary of retribution” and once created a deep state target list. (Fox News declined to comment; CNN did not respond to a request for comment.)
Many of the accounts appear to belong to local and national politicians and political operatives ranging from US representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas to a former mayor of Deltona, Florida, as well as venture capitalists, defense industry entrepreneurs, and executives like Christian Brose, the president of defense tech giant Anduril. (Crenshaw’s office and Anduril did not respond to requests for comment.)
One of the most notable appears to belong to Wiles, one of Trump’s most trusted political advisers. That account’s 182-person friend list includes accounts sharing the names of influential figures like Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, and Hope Hicks, Trump’s former White House communications director.
While none of the Venmo transactions for the account listed for Waltz, Wiles, or Barrett were publicly visible, it appears that none of them had opted out of sharing their contact list, allowing their friend lists to remain visible to the public. After WIRED reached out to the White House for comment, both Waltz and Wiles appeared to change their Venmo privacy settings to hide their friend lists.
And if privacy was such a concern, where were the safeguards from the government itself? Shouldn’t a sitting national security adviser have received explicit instructions from federal cybersecurity experts on how to lock down their digital footprint?
When Joe Biden was found on Venmo in 2021, the media downplayed it. When Mike Waltz is found, it’s suddenly a five-alarm fire. Why the double standard?
#4
Nobody gives up power without a fight. I just remember all the cases in history where the ruling class delivered the country to foreign foe - rather than let go of power.
The FBI needs to look into this with more than just the MSM politically promoted idea it was a careless screw-up.
Remainder, publishing National State Secrets (eg. War Plans) is violation of Nation Security Act. Any unauthorized person accidentally coming in possession of such NS data, by law, is obligated to notify the Federal Gov and NOT spread it around. So ANY US Media Outlet spreading such NS data around, should be charged and could have it FCC license pulled.
PLUS, the public should always remember that, that media source went out of its way and was willing to screw over our country, and our troops to play political games with the lives of those in the Air or on the Ground.
NEXT Trumps people, need to make sure that the FBI agents looking into it, are NOT the same agents used by the Biden Puppet Regime, to falsely setup Trump and his people and supporters.
#6
So let's see here.
2023 - report stating Signal was mostly safe but don't use for really secret stuff like calling Brandon's private phone
2024, December, 2024 - Signal recommended for government devices
Board Member, Chair of the Board, of Signal about to lose other interest (NPR) to DOGE.
A 2 week op trying to pin something just like this on Elon and it not sticking.
Venmo list of contacts is what one would expect from a cabinet official. A nobody editor for known hack platform The Atlantic, not so much. I notice that it was not noted the editor is also on the Venmo list, curious, that would be worth noting.
Gabbord actually hacked and leaked.
I think I agree with the statement from yesterday that the buck does not stop at 'some staffer'.
#7
And then this:
According to NBC News, a DHS worker included a Washington-based reporter in an email chain detailing an upcoming ICE raids back in January.
The email did not include classified material, however, the information was still considered sensitive because it detailed time, location and target of raids.
#9
Since passwords are usually stored as hash values I wonder how they got these passwords in the first place.
Were the passwords weak and easily guessed or did some party access their assets and files?
In any case the attack surface of modern computer systems is HUGE. A secrecy protection system is only as strong as its weakest link.
For example what use is 256-bit encryption if your cellphones graphics subsystem contains subtle modifications in software and/or hardware that will leak information about the displayed content to interested parties?
How much would it cost to get a designer at a chip foundry to introduce such a subtle flaw that would be exploitable only by those with intricate knowledge but would otherwise be undetectable?
[HodhodYemen ...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... News] The Yemeni Armed Forces announced Thursday that The Rocketry Force targeted "Ben Gurion" Airport in the occupied Yafa area with a "Zulfiqar" ballistic missile.
In a statement read by the front man brigadier General Yahya Sare’e, Yemen’s Armed Forces said it also struck a military target in southern occupied Yafa with a "Paleostine-2" hypersonic ballistic missile.
He confirmed that both operations in occupied Yafa successfully achieved their objectives.
The Armed Forces also carried out a joint military operation targeting hostile warships in the Red Sea, including the U.S. aircraft carrier Truman, using a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, according to Saree.
He emphasized that, as a result of recent confrontational operations, they have thwarted the enemy’s attempts to advance its warships toward the southern Red Sea. Additionally, all enemy attempts to escalate aggression against Yemen through Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s and naval bombardment have been foiled.
Two ballistic missiles were launched at Israel on Thursday by the 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 in 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... and were successfully intercepted by air defenses, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, two missiles launched from Yemen were intercepted prior to crossing into Israeli territory," the military said in a statement.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in the attack.
Sirens sounded across central Israel, in Jerusalem and numerous surrounding towns, as well as in several West Bank settlements.
The Houthis quickly grabbed credit for launching the two missiles, saying that one targeted Ben Gurion Airport and another aimed at a "military target" in Jaffa, central Israel.
Italia’s ITA Airways said it had to divert one of its flights because of the missiles and that the flight later landed in Tel Aviv safely.
Additionally, the Houthis claimed to have attacked the American aircraft carrier, USS Truman, with rockets and drones.
Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree stated that "this is only the beginning" of their attacks against Israel.
It marked at least the seventh Houthi attack on Israel since March 18, when the IDF resumed its offensive against Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... 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.
The attacks came as the US has continued to step up its bombing campaign against the Yemeni rebels, which resumed earlier this month after the group threatened to continue its attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping.
[IsraelTimes] 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... media reports a new wave of US Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s across 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... , including neighborhoods in the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
According to the Houthi-owned al-Masirah news outlet, at least 19 strikes have been carried out since the early hours of Friday morning.
The extent of the damage and possible casualties isn’t immediately clear, though the number of strikes appeared particularly intense compared to other days in the campaign that began March 15.
Initial reports from the Houthis described at least seven people being hurt in the strikes in Sanaa this morning. Other strikes hit around the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, the Iran-backed group’s stronghold of Saada and in Yemen’s al-Jawf, Amran and Marib governorates.
The Houthis have not immediately acknowledged what was targeted at those sites, other than Sanaa International Airport, which is used for both civilian and military traffic. Neighborhoods in the capital are also home to military and intelligence service sites, as well as crowded with civilians.
Other areas hit included mountainous terrain north of Sanaa in Amran, where military camps and other installations are believed to be. al-Masirah satellite news network describes communication networks going down after the attacks.
I wonder what the Sheriff was doing the last presidency, while the problem was growing.
Making notes and praying the Republicans won, perhaps. That’s what we were doing, here at Rantburg. Considerably more on this story from yesterday.
[RedState] The arrest Thursday of 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos,
A name! Before we only knew his age and nationality. And apparently that spelling is not a typo.
an illegal from El Salvador who operated as the East Coast leader of the violent MS-13 gang, is reverberating across local law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., area. MS-13 has long been a plague on the D.C. suburbs, particularly in Northern Virginia, where many illegals from El Salvador and other Central American countries choose to set up camp.
As a resident of one of those Northern Virginia suburbs, Loudoun County, I was pleased to see such a high-profile arrest of such a low-life criminal. I did, however, also wonder what the arrest would mean for communities like mine, which has suffered the ill-effects of MS-13's continued presence. So, I reached out to Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman, who was clearly thrilled at this development.
Chapman told RedState:
“I congratulate Attorney General Bondi and our law enforcement partners on today’s arrest of a leader of the violent MS-13 gang. This sends a clear signal to gang members who come to America to commit violent crimes, participate in human trafficking, and distribute illegal drugs. We will track you down and we will arrest you. That has been our approach in Loudoun County, and today’s arrest in our neighboring county should be celebrated by all law-abiding citizens.”
Here are some things to know about Loudoun County (besides the fact the parent revolution of 2021 began with our kooky school board and its vile army of concern-troll moms): we share a border with Fairfax County, a community where common sense has been replaced by woke ideology, and Prince William County (PWC), which is only slightly less woke than Fairfax and where today's arrest of Santos took place.
However, unlike Fairfax and PWC, Loudoun has solid leadership in the form of common-sense conservatives like Sheriff Chapman and our commonwealth's attorney, Bob Anderson.
Much like the United States's southern border, it's Loudoun's border with Fairfax County that causes problems where MS-13 in concerned (although the gang has spread into other Loudoun communities). Sterling, Virginia, which sits right on that border, has become the Loudoun County epicenter for MS-13 gang activity. Last October, 18-year-old Marlyn Medrano-Ortiz, a known MS-13 gang member and illegal alien was arrested for a double-murder in Sterling.
MS-13 is also in our schools. In another part of Loudoun, a middle schooler with known ties to MS-13 was caught in possession of a gun on school grounds two years ago, and, much to the dismay of parents, was allowed to remain in school. Being that this is Loudoun and our afore-mentioned school board is still rather kooky, public comment on the handling of the young gang member was cut off.
The arrest of Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos is a major win for law enforcement, both on the federal, state and local levels, and a reminder that we can push back against MS-13’s grip on our communities. Loudoun County, with its strong leadership and proactive policing, stands as a model for safety in the region. This arrest, as echoed by Sheriff Mike Chapman, sends a powerful message: criminals will not find a safe haven here.
Additional background on Thursday's arrest as provided by the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office:
Today’s arrest was made under the umbrella of Virginia’s new Homeland Security Task Force (VHSTF), a partnership of federal agencies, Virginia State Police, and local law enforcement agencies like ours to “to combat transnational organized crime and coordinate ongoing immigration enforcement efforts across Virginia.” About 300 persons have already arrested since March 3rd.
In Loudoun, serious (“Part 1”) crime is already down 29% in the first quarter of this year, and we are the only locality in the region that had already been collaborating with ICE when it issued detainers when undocumented criminals are arrested – some of whom are gang members.
The recently enhanced federal enforcement, including this task force, helps Loudoun continue to be the safest locality in the region both directly and indirectly. Besides deterring criminal activity by those living here, it makes clear to those in surrounding areas that they will not have a safe haven from which to come to Loudoun and prey on our community – as was the case with the double homicide in Sterling last year committed by an undocumented male with MS-13 gang connections who was residing in Alexandria.
[RedState] Every once in a while, an email lands in your inbox that makes you wonder, "How the heck did I get on this email list?" Such is the case with an email I received yesterday from Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). I suspect I'll be dumped from that email list rather quickly, but, until then, I'll play Jeffrey Goldberg for a bit (although CAIR isn't exactly being secretive about their intent to help campus agitators escape justice).
The email's subject line was, "CAIR Releases ‘Travel and Free Speech Guidance During the Trump Administration’," and in the body of the email, CAIR links to a guide for "non-citizens," campus agitators and other troublemakers of the antisemitic kind on how to avoid being detained and deported/repatriated by the Trump administration. They very helpfully offer separate guidance for those who are here legally and those who may be visa or green card deficient.
There was also a link to the recording of a recent CAIR seminar, which doubled as a Ramadan fundraiser, that was full of handy-dandy tips for those who mistake being offered the privilege of studying in the United States for an open invitation to rampage, always while masked, across college campuses while calling for the wholesale elimination of the state of Israel. Israel is also known as one of the U.S.'s closest allies, which only seems to embolden the agitators.
Here's a bit of CAIR's guidance on how to make sure your digital footprint is invisible to law enforcement:
"Delete some of the apps, some pictures you have on your phone. Things that you think are maybe innocent, but in this day and age, with the Mahmoud Khalil’s case [sic], what are they charging with all this—it’s not my job as an immigration attorney to make the community fearful, but be smart about what we’re doing," said Spojmie Nasiri, an immigration attorney on CAIR’s National Board of Directors.
If any of this rings a bell, it's because Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a citizen of Lebanon who worked as a professor at Brown University, was recently given a one-way ticket home after U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials at Boston's Logan International Airport discovered deleted photos on her phone of Hezbollah militants. In fact, Dr. Alewiah was trying to get back into the United States after having attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by the Israeli Air Force back in September, while on a visit home to Lebanon.
The message from CAIR is clear: don't be a Rasha Alawieh. Delete those photos showing you're a terrorist-loving simp!
Better yet, get a burner phone.
"Maybe buy a burner phone, or maybe have a backup phone," she added. Nasiri also warned that non-citizens’ phones are subject to searches after traveling abroad and recommended setting up two-factor authentication and turning off facial recognition.
CAIR also advises those with expired visas to not go back to their home countries to "get your stamp" because you might not be allowed back into the US. It's apparently better to be an illegal subversive than actually behave yourself while here.
It's obvious that CAIR is miffed at the recent crackdown by the Trump administration on foreigners who use their time in the U.S. not to help make it better, but to stoke dissent. And, hey, it's clearly good for CAIR's business to peddle in its perverse form of antisemitic and anti-American "tourism."
[ZeroHedge] US Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill on March 26 to prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Didn’t President Trump want to issue one of those?
The “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act,” would prohibit the Fed from offering certain products or services directly to American individuals, a key component of any CBDC.
The Texas Republican’s bill can be considered a companion bill to Minnesota Republican Representative Tom Emmer’s anti-CBDC legislation, which was reintroduced on March 6. A companion bill is a piece of legislation that is similarly or identically worded to another bill, and introduced in the other chamber of Congress.
Both bills state that the prohibition should not include any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private and “preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency.”
[JustTheNews] The report also found that while hourly wages are up, average hours worked are down, suggesting employers are cutting hours to reduce labor costs, such as those imposed by the state’s sector-based minimum wages.
[JustTheNews] "The U.S. faces a spectrum crisis, with long-term negative implications for U.S. economic growth. Rising demand on networks and constrained supply is pushing networks to their limit," the executive summary opened.
#2
No. We need more responsible use of the spectrum. I recently read some article about how someone would not use advance features on their washing machine because it required them to download an app, create an account, and micromanage the dish washer cycles via the app over wireless. Every new thing does not need to connect to wireless.
We cannot have prison planet without all our devices having spectrum and spying on us.
It’s just bookkeeping, but more funds to be returned to the U.S. treasury after the accrued, unspent billions Governor DeSantis just gave back to clean up Florida’s books.
[JustTheNews] President Joe Biden's dramatic emergency request to bail out the VA last year was rooted in massive bureaucratic bungling and resulted in Congress appropriating money that was not needed, the agency’s internal watchdog concluded.
The Biden administration faced several self-inflicted accounting problems at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on the eve of the new admin, leading to emergency spending requests, one of which exceeded actual needs and raising the ire of Congress.
The inspector general report published Thursday confirms that a $2.9 billion supplemental request went unused because the agency failed to account for “prior-year recoveries” in its budget planning. Had the agency taken into account those recovered funds, the inspector general found, its projections “would have shown a reduced risk of a shortfall by year-end.”
The emergency funding requests last summer threatened that budget shortfalls would endanger benefits to veterans, specifically in the department that handles educational and financial benefits. To that end, the agency requested a $2.9 billion supplemental budget appropriation to cover the estimated shortfalls to prevent any interruption to benefits.
ULTIMATELY UNNECESSARY
House Republicans passed a supplemental funding bill to meet the agency’s request, but required the then-VA Secretary Denis McDonough to review the agency’s accounting practices to prevent unprojected shortfalls from recurring. The VA later admitted to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that the $2.9 billion budget request was ultimately unnecessary, drawing sharp criticism from the panel’s chairman, who blamed the Biden administration for “mishandling” the agency’s budget.
The OIG review team found that Veteran’s Benefits Administration wasn’t consistently overspending in FY 2024 for either compensation and pension or readjustment benefits accounts, which were the subject of the budget request. “Realized prior-year recoveries,” which are “unspent deobligated funds,” weren’t included in the agency’s calculations, which contributed to the erroneous predictions.
“Had the realized prior-year recoveries been included in the calculations throughout the year, the monthly funding status reports would have shown a reduced risk of a shortfall by the end of the fiscal year,” the watchdog concluded.
You can read the IG's report below:
The Trump Administration VA Secretary said the emergency budget request was akin to a type of political extortion, putting pressure on Congress as the government approached a shutdown. He also promised that under his leadership the agency would strive to properly manage its budget.
"Look, this was, frankly, came down to more or less a political--I would just almost call it an extortion--toward the end of last year, because it came out between the time of the hearings and the appropriation process, at the end of the year, you know, run up to a shutdown," Secretary Doug Collins told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show on Thursday.
"It's just a very, a department that is so bureaucratically bogged down that it has trouble doing its main mission, and that is taking care of veterans, and that's why we're actually working very hard to streamline processes, to get better help in place, and to have budgets and numbers that we can be accurate," Collins said.
PREVIOUS TESTIMONY UNDER THE LENS
“Troublingly, it suggests that Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs, Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal, and their chief financial officers repeatedly misinformed Congress and our nation's veterans, even risking inciting a panic among veterans about their benefits being delayed or cut,” Bost wrote to then-Secretary McDonough on Nov. 1, 2024. “We question who directed them to do this. Their utter inability to forecast and determine costs accurately erodes Congress' faith in VA.”
The inspector general also questioned the congressional testimony of Under Secretary Jacobs about the projected budget shortfall. The under secretary had told Congress that “any funding shortfall of just $1 would prevent VA from processing its September pay file,” and that the agency would not be able to meet any of its obligations on time.
“However, the OIG found that improved financial management practices would have reduced the risk of a reported shortfall and the need for a supplemental funding request,” the watchdog concluded.
Keeping mostly war-fighting age Western males on the couch getting ever more physically unfit while Chinese hackers rampage through their computers, doing all the usual nefarious things?
[BBC] Chinese technology giant Tencent has made a €1.2bn ($1.25bn; £1bn) investment in a spin-off from Ubisoft, the maker of the Assassin's Creed video games.
Shenzhen-based Tencent will own about a quarter of the new business, with Ubisoft holding the rest of the new subsidiary, which is valued at around €4bn.
The unit will run some of the French firm's biggest franchises, including Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.
Tencent, which is one of the world's biggest video games developers, is also known for its internet-based services, including the hugely popular messaging app WeChat.
"Today Ubisoft is opening a new chapter in its history," Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft's co-founder and chief executive said in a statement.
Tencent, which is China's most valuable company, is now Ubisoft's second biggest shareholder with a stake of just under 10%.
"We are excited to extend our longstanding partnership with Ubisoft through this investment," Martin Lau, President of Tencent, said.
Ubisoft said it will now focus on its other marquee titles, including Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and The Division.
Ubisoft's stock market value has fallen sharply in recent years after delays to the launches of new games and falling sales.
That's despite its shares getting a boost earlier this month as investors welcomed the launch of the latest instalment of the Assassin's Creed franchise.
The much-anticipated Assassin's Creed Shadows had been delayed several times.
It followed the disappointing performance of another of the firm's major titles, Star Wars Outlaws, and concerns from some onlookers about how Ubisoft is being run.
#2
Mr. Tenscent, why would you possibly want to prop up Ubisoft?!
Well, grasshopper, can you think of better competition for our projects?
Oh? Oooooohhhh.
*the moment when you realize that a parody of Assassin's Creed: Shadows, Yasuke Simulator, who is The Black African Samurai character set Feudal Japan, is better received than the original material.
[BBC] In Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic circle, President Vladimir Putin vowed to "strengthen Russia's global leadership in the Arctic", while warning that "geopolitical competition in the region" was intensifying.
The first example he gave was Donald Trump's idea to acquire Greenland.
But from the Kremlin leader there was no criticism of his US counterpart.
And that's telling, as the White House and the Kremlin try to rebuild relations.
"In short, America's plans in relation to Greenland are serious," President Putin said in an address to Russia's Arctic Forum in Murmansk.
"These plans have deep historical roots. And it's clear that the US will continue to systematically pursue its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Аrctic.
"As for Greenland this is a matter for two specific countries. It has nothing to do with us."
So said the president who had launched a full-scale invasion of a sovereign neighbouring country and claims to have annexed whole swathes of Ukraine.
When Joe Biden was in the White House, Moscow and Washington were vocal in their criticism of one another.
How things have changed.
My goodness — I do believe that is sarcasm. How terribly clever of the BBC reporter, to be sure.
#2
Thats just BS by Putin; he's swarming Greenland above the ice with surveillance/reconnaissance ships and below with submarines; Inviting the Chicoms to enjoy the view also. He knows if he could establish a beachhead in or near Greenland, he would only be a stones away from pacifying the Canucks!
[Breitbart] President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at safeguarding and beautifying the nation’s capital.
Trump’s order establishes the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which is directed to carry out a number of different actions on the safety front, ranging from enforcement of laws to helping with officer recruitment for the city’s police department.
Trump’s order establishes a program to spruce up the city, too. This effort includes “restoring and beautifying Federal buildings, monuments, statues, memorials, parks, and roadways, removing graffiti from commonly visited areas, and ensuring the cleanliness of public spaces and parks.”
Additionally, the National Park Service is directed to remove graffiti and clear out homeless encampments that are on federal lands in the city.
#4
Biden let the city go. A couple years ago, was in the city for a work function and got off the Metro, took the escalator to ground level and was in the middle of a houseless camp. Was dark out and sketchy. One of the bums started following me down the block. Less than ideal.
#5
Oh D.C. Fond memories. Battered taxis with the smell of a fried cat and a Somali driver who wouldn't find Dupont Circle if he were driving around it. Aggressive homeless people in front of the White House, power walks to the nearest Metro Station (if you stopped you'd be approached by drug dealers or questionable females who needed a shower as dearly as the next dose of whatever was available for less than ten dollars).
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/28/2025 13:19
Comments ||
Top||
#6
^ Don't romanticize it so much
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2025 13:59
Comments ||
Top||
#7
Heh
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/28/2025 14:09
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Ahhhhh! Our nation's capitol!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/28/2025 16:47
Comments ||
Top||
[Breitbart] The United Kingdom is banning even more types of blades in hope of getting on top of its crime problem, “ninja swords” being the latest specific blade shape blamed for killings.
The crime problem being functionally a Moslem colonist problem, but do go on.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer flaunts a “manifesto commitment delivered” this week as he announces what the government calls “ninja swords” are to be banned later this year. From the first day of August, anyone owning such a weapon faces six months in prison, and this penalty will later increase to two years, it was said.
Watch this law, too, be enforced only against the native population.
This is a major step-up from the law presently, which differentiates between swords — which can be objects of art — in private collections, and with actually wielding a sword as a weapon in public. Running up to the ban, the government will be running a sword surrender scheme.
The government’s definition, offered in its statement today, claims a “ninja sword” is in the “majority” of cases characterised by a “a blade between 14 inches and 24 inches with one straight cutting edge with a tanto style point”. A tanto point is a relatively shallow chisel-like tip, developed to make the sword more effective against armoured opponents, unlike a more fragile tapered points which can be prone to snapping if used aggressively.
The “ninja sword” ban is the latest instance of the United Kingdom’s governments demonstrating a belief that it is the availability of tools like swords or even kitchen knives that results in knife crime. The government has previously banned what it calls “zombie knives”, a modern form of machete which typically feature a serrated back edge and lurid colours.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said at the time of the Zombie Knife ban that “Dealing with the accessibility of deadly and intimidating weapons is key and we are doing all we can to reduce how easily they can end up in the wrong hands”. And yet, somehow, UK knife crime is still on the rise. In fact knife crime has only fallen one year in the past decade, in 2020, the year of the Coronavirus lockdowns.
The British government also obsessed over the availability of knives in the aftermath of the Southport killings, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer blasting online retailer Amazon.com for selling kitchen knives, the British media following suite. There is even a celebrity-backed campaign in the UK to ban the sale of kitchen knives with a point, claiming this isn’t needed for an average home chef and could simply be rounded off.
Brexit leader Nigel Farage, a critic of this approach, responded: “Starmer wants us to talk about how a 17 year old could buy a knife online. The truth is there are murder weapons in every kitchen drawer. What we should be talking about is the total failure to stop this terrorist & the cover-up of information that the public were entitled to.”
#1
....Yesterday, it was announced that the last steel plant in the UK was closing (the PRC owners blamed Trump, natch) and that His Majesty's Government will no longer permit exploration for, or drilling of, oil in UK waters.
Last one outta London get the lights.
Oh, wait - don't sweat it; they'll run out of power before then.
#2
So whenever a government, especially UK right now, puts up scare quotes on something, I check my wallet and count the cutlery, errr, sporks, nope too dangerous, I count the...spoons.
In a bit of irony, call Ronan's Law.
After young man named Ronan Kanda who was killed by a pack of teenagers in Wolverhampton using 'swords and machetes'.
[youtube : Falun Gong] Lei's Real Talk: The Vanishing Billion: Exposing China’s Population Myth
What is China’s real population today? While I’ve previously estimated it to be no more than 900 million—and later 800 million—the truth is far more shocking. Drawing from viewer insights and new analysis, I now believe China’s actual population may be as low as 300–400 million. This isn't a sensational claim, but a sober examination of two critical factors: the Chinese Communist Party’s decades-long manipulation of demographic data to project a false image of a massive consumer market, and the catastrophic, underreported death toll from COVID-19. Join me as I break down how we got here.
An interesting argument, which would mean China’s real window to take over the world is much smaller than we thought, and may already be closed. What a relief that would be!
#4
OK, we can agree it is safe to say ANY numbers the CCP uses are always suspect.
But, did the CCP's 70+'s 1 Child policy bite them in the butt. Which resulted strangely in 8 of 10 LIVE births suddenly became MALE.
Did Covid-19+ actually trim as high as 1 in 5, as many sources claimed? Given, we all saw the smuggled out videos and pics of the stacks of dead bodies at crematories awaiting disposal? Plus the WEEKS OF LOCK-DOWN?
Remember the RB comments on the absurd CCP's C-19+ provided figures?
Because the using Worldometers.com COVID-19 data?
CCP ranked 92nd in the world for C-19 cases, and officially reported only C-19 Infected @ 503,302 & C-19 Deaths @ 5,272
#5
"Premier Xi! Our economy is tanking, unemployment at a 20 year high and there's not enough young people to enter the workforce and pay taxes! What do we do?"
"Distract the population and start a war. That will keep the proletariat off our backs."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/28/2025 14:29
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Did the Chinese government outsource their census work to the US Department of Labor statistical bureau?
[FoxNews] Alderman Anthony Napolitano criticized sanctuary city leaders' priorities as Chicago hit 573 homicides last year
A Chicago alderman told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that city officials still want to divert funding away from the police department, even though the city was once again the nation's homicide capital in 2024.
"I said this for the last two mayors too," said 41st Ward Alderman Anthony Napolitano. "It's not even so much so that these last two administrations are turning a blind eye. They're ignoring the crime rate because their objective … is to demonize the police department, make it seem like there's not there's not as much of a crime issue as there is, because their goal is to steal the police budget."
In 2024, Chicago had 573 homicides, leading the nation in that category for the 13th year in a row. The homicide rate per 100,000 residents in the city was five times higher than New York City's 377, and three times higher than Los Angeles' 280, according to an analysis by Wirepoints.
"They want to take that police budget because it's an extremely high budget and allocated to other resources or projects that they want to accomplish in their tenure in office," said Napolitano. "It's destroying our city. It's evident what's going on."
One of those projects, INVEST South/West, was an "epic fail," according to Napolitano.
According to the city, $250 million in taxpayer funds were allocated for that project, which began in 2019, in an attempt to revitalize southwest Chicago in the hopes of luring businesses to the area.
"INVEST South/West is one of the biggest epic fails that they've had," Napolitano said. "Instead of investing in just one neighborhood, in one area, why don't we make the entire city safe by investing in our police force and the safety of our city, so that investors on a larger scale want to come to all of Chicago, not just specific neighborhoods? They refuse to do that."
[Breitbart] Philippine officials on Thursday announced six Chinese nationals and one Filipino have been arrested for spying on American and Filipino vessels at the Subic Bay naval base.
The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) launched an investigation after receiving a tip from military intelligence about “foreign nationals suspected of carrying out covert intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations” near Grande Island.
Grande Island is a picturesque tourist resort in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, a special economic zone created around the famous bay to encourage commerce and tourism. Until World War II, the island housed a fortress that protected the strategically vital harbor facilities of Subic Bay. Its location at the entrance to the bay makes it a good location from which to run a covert surveillance operation.
Subic Bay was the location of an important U.S. Navy base until 1992. The Navy’s lease on the property expired in that year and was not renewed, but American ships still operate out of the bay alongside the Philippine Navy.
Ironically, when the Philippine Navy chose to construct a new home port facility in Subic Bay, it was obliged to lease the property from an American hedge fund that had purchased it several years ago. The Philippine Coast Guard and Air Force also have bases in Subic Bay.
The NBI conducted a surveillance operation against the six Chinese suspects identified by military intelligence and concluded they were engaged in “suspicious activities, involving a collection of sensitive data.” The seventh suspect, a Filipino national, was allegedly working as a security guard for the Chinese.
According to the NBI, the suspects attempted to flee when confronted by law enforcement, and were taken into custody after a spirited chase. Their Filipino bodyguard was carrying an unregistered firearm when he was arrested.
“Counter-intelligence efforts disclosed that these individuals were occupying the island under the guise of recreational fishers, frequently lingering at the wharves until the wee hours,” said NBI director Jaime Santiago.
“However, multiple witnesses reported that the group was utilizing drones in the guise of transporting fishing bait – conducting surveillance on naval assets, including those from local forces and allied nations, passing through Grande Island,” he said.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing the Chinese suspects operating a drone, supposedly as part of a “fishing game,” but in truth the drone was flying over Philippine and U.S. naval assets to take photos and gather other information about them. NBI said the ersatz fishermen were able to spy on a large number of naval vessels entering and leaving Subic Bay for patrols and exercises.
The NBI said the Chinese group was able to infiltrate Subic Bay International Airport while it was receiving American military equipment intended for use in joint exercises.
The NBI arrested another group of six Chinese nationals in January on somewhat similar charges. The earlier group was accused of conducting surveillance activities in Manila, and on the island of Palawan, which hosts a Philippine Navy base.
The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority is reportedly considering canceling contracts with Chinese investment groups, which have investments on Grande Island and other areas around Subic Bay, due to rising tensions with China. The Philippine military has long been worried about security risks from Chinese holdings near sensitive naval facilities.
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
03/28/2025
05:10 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11156 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
[Zero] Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong - a transplant surgeon-turned-biotech billionaire renowned for inventing the cancer drug Abraxane - has issued a startling warning in a new in-depth interview with Tucker Carlson.
Soon-Shiong, founder of ImmunityBio ($IBRX) and owner of the Los Angeles Times, claims that the COVID-19 pandemic, and the very vaccines developed to fight it, may be contributing to a global surge in "terrifyingly aggressive" cancers. In the nearly two-hour conversation, the Los Angeles Times owner leveraged his decades of clinical and scientific experience to outline why he suspects an unprecedented cancer epidemic is unfolding. This report examines Dr. Soon-Shiong’s background and assertions, the scientific responses for and against his claims, new data on post-COVID health trends, and the far-reaching implications if his alarming hypothesis proves true.
DR. SOON-SHIONG’S CLAIMS
Soon-Shiong is a veteran surgeon and immunologist who has spent a career studying the human immune system’s fight against cancer. He pioneered novel immunotherapies and even worked on a T-cell based COVID vaccine booster during the pandemic. In the interview, he draws on this background to voice deep concern over rising cancer cases, especially among younger people — something he describes as a "non-infectious pandemic" of cancer. He tells Carlson that in 50 years of medical practice, it was extraordinarily rare to see cancers like pancreatic tumors in children or young adults, yet recently such cases are appearing. For instance, Soon-Shiong was alarmed by seeing a 13-year-old with metastatic pancreatic cancer, a scenario virtually unheard of in his prior experience.
"I never saw pancreatic cancer in children... the greatest surprise to me was a 13-year-old with metastatic pancreatic cancer," Soon-Shiong told Carlson, adding that he's seen examples of very young patients (even children under 11 with colon cancer) and unusual surges in aggressive diseases like ovarian cancer in women in their 30s. These personal observations of more frequent, aggressive cancers in youth led him to probe what might have changed in recent years.
"We're clearly seeing an increase in certain types of cancer, like pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer... colon cancer... in younger people."
— Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong
[IsraelNationalNews] Recently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that there is a deep state in Israel. The term deep state refers to forces that work below the surface to control an ostensibly democratic country regardless of who wins the elections. The deep state, in its simplest sense, is comprised of a group of people who control the state apparatuses, forcing the state to act as it wishes by using mechanisms of the state such as the judicial system, control of state finances, or control of the security forces.
Thus, a group of unelected people who control the critical mechanisms of the state jointly determine the direction that the state will take and in effect run a shadow state that the public is often unaware of.
Is there in fact a deep state in Israel?
My opinion about the nature of the deep state in Israel has changed. In the past when I was asked about the subject, I answered that I don't think that there is a group of people who sit and think about how to overthrow the government, but that there are officials who have fallen in love with power and, as a worldview, believe that they are the state and that they should determine what will happen in it. This worldview permeated the rest of the bureaucracy and so I believed that there was a deep state, but one that didn’t have organized meetings and action plans.
Today, my answer is different. There IS an organized deep state, there ARE people who sit and think about how to rule the country, on which issues to fight and which not to fight. There IS an organized deep state in Israel and its members may be found in every locus of power. They do not try to hide it either.
What happens if someone tries to oppose the deep state? Then "war" is declared, war which may range from personal smears thrown against the person who tries to oppose it, in other instances, opening criminal investigations against him or her, violent armed arrests and incarceration.
Unfortunately, over the years there have been numerous examples of political investigations against people who the deep state did not like. A disturbing example relates to the recent arrest of senior police officers just because they did not cooperate with the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service, which on the other hand, does immeasurable life-saving and dangerous work to protect the country from Arab terror) in its campaign to magnify the so-called phenomenon of "Jewish terrorism". Jewish terrorisms is a marginal phenomenon that the heads of the Shin Bet are interested in exaggerating so that it can justify their struggle against the Jews living in Judea and Samaria and promote their support of the "two-state solution".
One of the senior police officers who ran afoul of the Shin Bet was the head of the Judea and Samaria Police District’s investigations and intelligence department, Commander Avishai Muallem. He presented data in the Knesset that showed that the vast majority of cases that were labelled "settler violence" were nothing of the sort.
The response of the Shin Bet was immediate. The Shin Bet contacted the Attorney General and asked her to order the opening of an investigation into Commander Muallem by the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI), the department responsible for investigating the police abuse which is under the authority of the Attorney General.
More often, the DIPI, investigates those police officers who did not cooperate with and support the ideology of the Shin Bet. The Attorney General, in turn, makes sure that the police officers are arrested, as Commander Avishai Muallem was. His home was raided and he was only released to house arrest after spending four days in prison.
Similar tactics have been used for years to oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu and they serve to shed light on the Israeli deep state’s active participation with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara against the government’s unanimous decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar. Baharav-Miara has a close personal relationship with Bar.
Ronen Bar is probably the person most responsible for Israel’s failure to stop the Hamas rampage on Oct. 7th. (He also admitted that the Shin Bet erred in deciding on the location of the hostages, ed.) By law, the head of the Shin Bet, currently Ronen Bar, is appointed by the prime minister, serves at his pleasure and is dismissed by the prime minister. A close and trusting relationship between the two is critical to the security of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that this trusting relationship is not there.
However, hindering and deconstructing the government elected by one of the strongest majorities in the history of the state was deemed by Baharav-Miara and the deep state to be more important than dismissing Ronen Bar, and the Shin Bet has become an important component of the deep state. (If the head of the Secret Service is above the Prime Minister, we have a police state by definition, not a democracy, ed.)
A number of organizations, including opposition parties, appealed to the Supreme Court to rule against the dismissal, even though it is totally clear that the government has the authority to do so according to Israeli law. The Supreme Court, scandalously but not surprisingly, did not reject the appeals out of hand but froze the dismissal until a hearing could be held on the matter. The Attorney General, in direct contradiction to the law, submitted an opinion to the Supreme Court that the government is prohibited from firing Ronen Bar, denying the government’s legal authority and the government’s concern for the security of the state.
So what do we have here? An Attorney General, who is supposed to give legal advice to the government and who controls the government's legal system, has stated that the government is not allowed to function according to the law. She works together with the head of the Shin Bet who holds enormous power, and together they take steps against those who do not act according to their wishes, open investigations and arrest people in the fight to keep themselves in office and in power.
These are, unfortunately, just two examples among many that demonstrate the modus operandi of the deep state in Israel, a dangerous deep state that stops at nothing, including illegal arrests, to ensure that nothing happens against its will.
The deep state operates against the will and policies of the elected representatives of the people, the very definition of working to destroy democracy. At the same time, as the elected representatives legislate according to the promises and policies they campaigned and were elected for, the deep state representatives demonstrate and accuse them of destroying democracy.
[Breitbart] South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, has refused to allow an appeal of a lower court’s decision that the phrase “Kill the Boer,” referring to Afrikaners and farmers, was not hate speech or incitement under the law.
The decision Thursday ended a years-long battle waged by AfriForum, which represents a broad array of Afrikaner organizations, against a song used by Julius Malema and his party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
Malema has argued that the song is not meant to be taken literally — at least, not yet — as it was a song used by the liberation movements during the decades of the struggle against apartheid, which included armed conflict.
However, in the context of shocking farm murders, the song is seen by many people — especially Afrikaners and farmers — as a form of incitement to genocide.
South Africans, particularly the government, pride themselves on their 1996 Constitution and their judiciary — but as AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said, “We are seeing an increasing radical implementation of the Constitution.”
Kriel and AfriForum recently visited the United States to raise awareness of the plight of Afrikaners. After President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending aid to South Africa and offering asylum to Afrikaners, critics claimed that there was no threat whatsoever.
Wednesday’s “Kill the Boer” ruling might seem to suggest otherwise.
Malema performed the “Kill the Boer, the farmer” song, mimicking a machine gun, on Human Rights Day, March 21.
Ironically, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a lawyer representing Malema, also appeared at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year to argue that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reference to the Bible to inspire soldiers was incitement to genocide after the October 7, 2023, terror attack.
#1
Lithium batteries and seawater don't mix very well.
But this concept is a cool one and I wish them success.
Personally,I would just replace the batteries with a diesel generator as it can run on jet fuel (kerosene) as wel and probabily weight the same or less.
What the article doesn't mention is how many SHP (Shaft Horse-Power)each of the electric motors can product or even the total SHP of all 12 motors together. It might be a bit easier to replace the motors with two or four small turboprops?
#2
Aluminum-graphene battery technology might be the answer to the 'seawater test', but that's a few years out. Sodium-ion is close, but then there's that seawater thing again.
There are other compound types being developed, but they're more for long-term power storage and not for use with motors which require a more instantaneous discharge.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/28/2025 6:16
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Regent’s Viceroy, which holds 12 passengers
The pictured window placement would suggest 6 rows of two. That's 2 stretchers and support gear.
#6
water on the outside and the air on the inside.
I understand that the technical definition of ships is things that move through water, keeping the water on the outside and air on the inside. And that nowadays we differentiate them from space ships: things that move through air and space, keeping more air or vacuum on the outside and air and some water on the inside.
#7
Lieutenant (j.g.) Nathan Green Gordon won the CMOH for his daring rescue of 15 downed airmen under fire during a mission in Kavieng Harbor, New Ireland, on February 15, 1944.
I think he rescued three crews with the last being like 600 yards off an occupied beach.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/28/2025 12:35
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Diesel-electric subs have successfully used batteries for years and years
Yes, but those are typically lead-acid battery. a bigger version of your car battery.
[FoxNews] Rep. Tony Gonzales: 'The Biden administration’s total failure at the border had disastrous consequences, and it’s shameful that even innocent, unaccompanied children were caught in the crosshairs'
In a new report, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is unable to effectively monitor the location and status of each unaccompanied alien child (UAC) who comes into the U.S. illegally and is released from custody.
Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari said in the report that between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, ICE transferred over 448,000 UACs into the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. From there, most of the UACs were released to sponsors.
Why start in 2019? The border was controlled until President Biden was sworn into office in January, 2021.
But over 31,000 of those 448,000 children were released to addresses that were left blank, had missing apartment numbers or were undeliverable.
Definitely a problem.
The IG also noted that ICE did not always know the location of UACs who fled while in HHS custody.
Cuffari said an investigation into the matter found ICE did not issue notices to appear (NTA) to all UACs, which would have generated assignment of immigration court dates by the Department of Justice (DOJ), and as of January this year, it had not served NTAs on over 233,000 unaccompanied children.
Of the UACs who were served NTAs before October 2024, over 43,000 failed to appear for their scheduled court dates.
The report also found that ICE was not always notified about the safety or status of the children unless it received a tip. However, those issues, the IG said, happened because ICE was not always notified about the locations of sponsors by other federal agencies
Cuffari acknowledged staffing to be able to monitor each UAC was limited, and without that ability, there was no assurance the children were safe from trafficking, exploitation, forced labor or criminal activity.
Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Tex., brought up the crisis involving unaccompanied alien minors during a House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement hearing on March 25.
He was told that during the Biden administration, HHS lost track of many of the minors and that some were subjected to trafficking, child labor and other things.
"The Biden administration’s total failure at the border had disastrous consequences, and it’s shameful that even innocent, unaccompanied children were caught in the crosshairs," Gonzales told FOX News. "The fact that we can’t locate tens of thousands of these minors in the U.S. is completely unacceptable, as it’s likely that many of these children have ended up in dangerous situations. Not having answers is unacceptable, and it’s past time to put our heads together to fix this problem for good."
Posted by: Skidmark ||
03/28/2025
00:16 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11150 views]
Top|| File under: Human Trafficking
#1
Oh, are we still pretending this was just incompetence and not the world's largest child trafficking operation? Looks like it.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/28/2025 3:48
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Lost them and made no effort to find them. An inconvenience at best and a commodity at worst. In the end Mayorkas is accountable for his plan to facilitate the invasion. Joe was incapable of understanding or ordering what was perpetrated.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/28/2025 5:06
Comments ||
Top||
#3
I think we can find some. Start up those lawyer ads on TV and radio for a class action against Mayorkas for abandonment and exposure to sex trafficking.
[FoxBusinessNews] Cleveland-Cliffs attributed the layoffs to weak demand for steel among US automakers
This should turn around in the midterm with all the manufacturing onshoring following the threat of tariffs..
Steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs announced this week it will idle one of its production factories and lay off about 600 workers, citing soft demand for steel used in auto manufacturing.
Cleveland-Cliffs said it will idle portions of its plant in Dearborn, Michigan, this summer and lay off roughly 600 employees due to what it said was "the current reality of weak automotive production in the U.S."
The company plans to temporarily idle its blast furnace, basic oxygen furnace steel shop and continuous casting factories in Dearborn. Layoffs would take effect July 15.
"These actions will allow the company to operate more efficiently and in a more cost-competitive way for the current market environment," Cleveland-Cliffs said in a statement. "We believe that once President Trump's policies take full effect and automotive production is re-shored, we should be able to resume steel production at Dearborn."
[FoxNews] Reyes, known for her sharp legal questioning, said earlier this year that she is not inclined to rule in favor of the fired inspectors general
Eight inspectors general abruptly fired by President Donald Trump at the start of his second term appeared in federal court Thursday to challenge their dismissals — a long-shot case that nonetheless sparked fireworks during oral arguments.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes acknowledged on Thursday that it would be difficult for the court to reinstate the eight ousted inspectors generals, who were part of a broader group of 17 government watchdogs abruptly terminated by Trump in January, just four days into his second White House term.
In a lawsuit last month, the eight inspectors general challenged their firings as both "unlawful and unjustified" and asked to be reinstated — a remedy that Reyes acknowledged Thursday would be exceedingly difficult, even if she were to find that their firings were unconstitutional.
"Unless you convince me otherwise," she told the plaintiffs, "I don’t see how I could reinstate the inspectors general" to their roles.
Reyes suggested that the best the court could do would be to order back pay, even as she told both parties, "I don't think anyone can contest that the removal of these people — the way that they were fired — was a violation of the law."
The preliminary injunction hearing comes more than a month after the eight fired inspectors general filed a lawsuit challenging their termination as unconstitutional. Plaintiffs asked the judge to restore them to their positions, noting in the filing, "President Trump's attempt to eliminate a crucial and longstanding source of impartial, non-partisan oversight of his administration is contrary to the rule of law."
Still, the remedies are considered a long shot — and Trump supporters have argued that the president was well within his executive branch powers to make such personnel decisions under Article II of the Constitution, Supreme Court precedent and updates to federal policy.
#1
Judge admits that the firing was legal. Recommends an attempted shakedown. Will the back pay be to infinity? How can you get back pay without reinstatement? It makes no sense.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/28/2025 5:02
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Actually she said the firings were NOT legal: "I don't think anyone can contest that the removal of these people — the way that they were fired — was a violation of the law."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/28/2025 8:29
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Given what DOGE is finding, they absolutely failed in their duties they owed to the offices they occupied.
[FoxNews] Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk and seven members of the team shed light on the department's cost-cutting mission in an exclusive sit-down interview with "Special Report" Thursday.
"We want to reduce spending by eliminating waste and fraud and reduce the spending by 15%, which seems really quite achievable," Musk told "Special Report" executive editor Bret Baier.
"The government is not efficient, and there's a lot of waste and fraud. So we feel confident that a 15% reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services."
Musk, along with DOGE members Steve Davis, Joe Gebbia, Aram Moghaddassi, Brad Smith, Anthony Armstrong, Tom Krause and Tyler Hassen, added a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the department’s work from the Internal Revenue Source to the Interior Department to Social Security.
"This is a revolution. And I think it might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution. But at the end of the day, America's going to be in much better shape," he said.
"It's going to be a fantastic future."
As of March 27, DOGE claims on its site it has saved Americans $130 billion, or $807.45 per taxpayer.
President Donald Trump tasked the organization with optimizing the federal government, streamlining operations and slashing spending and gave the agency 18 months to do it.
The department has canceled numerous diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at federal agencies, consulting contracts, leases for underused federal buildings and duplicate agencies and programs.
During the "Special Report" exclusive, Musk and the seven DOGE members illustrated key efforts of the department to achieve Trump's goal. Davis brought up federal credit cards, which he labeled a "mundane" but "illustrative" example of DOGE's work.
"There are in the federal government around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3 to 2.4 million employees. This doesn't make sense. So one of the things all of the teams have worked on is we've worked for the agencies and said, 'Do you need all of these credit cards? Are they being used? Can you tell us physically where they are?'" Davis explained.
"Clearly there should not be more credit cards than there are people," Musk responded.
The eight-man group also discussed DOGE's work relating to the federal workforce, financial management, government infrastructure, computer systems, Social Security and more.
[IsraelTimes] An Iraqi Yazidi woman who was kidnapped to Gaza and rescued by Israel during the war in the Strip has spoken to Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
“I told myself I was going to be stuck there forever,” Fawzi Amin Sido tells the paper (the comments are translated to English here from the Hebrew in which they were published). “I was sad because I started to realize that’s it, I would never see my family again. I didn’t even know if they were alive or dead.”
Sido was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 at the age of 11 and trafficked to the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces extracted her in coordination with other nations and transferred her home to her family in Iraq.
Sido says she underwent rape, sexual assault and other forms of abuse by multiple men throughout her years in captivity. She has left behind two children born in the Gaza enclave.
“Life in the Gaza Strip was very difficult, and every step was accompanied by immense hardship,” she says. “There is no freedom, people constantly tell you what to do. This led me to very difficult mental places and also to suicide attempts. I felt like I was going crazy.”
“I look at everything that happened to me there in Gaza as a nightmare or a bad dream, as if it didn’t even happen to me. Now that I’m in Germany, I’m in an emotional storm. I was happy to return home, but I mourn the fact that I had to leave my children behind in Gaza. One of the things that kept me sane was that I wrote every day. I would like to continue that, but now I need a blank, clean page.”
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/28/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11163 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
So the Hamas Gaza Enclave had a Yazidi slave that was captured over a decade ago when ISIS went on the offensive.
By this former slaves conversation, she indicates everyone she encountered knew she was being held captive, and in the same conversation indicates no one showed her any compassion.
I'm not a big fan of genocide but Gaza makes a compelling case.
#2
If there was one, there were probably more than one, just the others weren’t able to — or didn’t think of — reach out to Israeli rescuers. At one point ISIS was holding frequent slave sales with standardized prices for beautiful harem boys and girls, and plain ones and adults for household and other labour — buyers were calling in orders from all over the ummah. Boko Haram has been doing the same in Nigeria, but those captives are naturally less expensive.
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Belgorod direction, units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on concentration areas of manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, one assault regiment of the AFU, and one territorial defence brigade near Prokhody, Ugroyedy, Stepok, and Mikhaylovskoye (Sumy region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 80 troops, one armoured fighting vehicle, one motor vehicle, and two artillery guns.
The Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation along the front line. Losses were inflicted on formations of two mechanised brigades, one airmobile brigade, and one air assault regiment of the AFU near Kondrashovka, Boguslavka, Novoplatonovka (Kharkov region), and Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 210 troops, three pickup trucks, and nine field artillery guns, including one UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzer.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Losses were inflicted on manpower and hardware of five mechanised brigades, one airmobile brigade of the AFU, two territorial defence brigades, and one national guard brigade near Seversk, Pleshcheyevka, Platonovka, Minkovka, Chasov Yar, and Konstantinovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 280 troops, one tank, five armoured fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made M-113 armoured personnel carrier and one Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. Eight motor vehicles and two ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Losses were inflicted on formations of one mechanised brigade, one assault brigade, one UAV brigade, one assault regiment of the AFU, one naval infantry brigade, and one national guard brigade near Mirolyubovka, Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeysk, Kotlino, Zverevo, and Alekseyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The Ukrainian armed formations sustained losses of up to 465 troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, two motor vehicles, and three field artillery guns.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defences. Losses were inflicted on manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, one airmobile brigade, one territorial defence brigade, and the nationalist Aidar Battalion near Konstantinopol, Bogatyr, Komar, and Otradnoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy losses amounted to up to 135 troops, three armoured fighting vehicles, one motor vehicle, and three field artillery guns.
Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on formations of one mechanised brigade, one mountain assault brigade, two coastal defence brigades of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades near Novodanilovka, Lobkovoye, Stepnogorsk, Novopokrovka (Zaporozhye region), and Antonovka (Kherson region).
Up to 80 troops, five motor vehicles, one artillery gun, one electronic warfare station, and one ammunition depot of the enemy were eliminated.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces struck infrastructure of a military airfield, production buildings of an arms plant of the Ukrainian defence industry, assembly workshops for attack UAVs, an AFU supply depot, missile projectiles and ammunition depots, as well as clusters of manpower and hardware of Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries in 157 areas.
Air defence units shot down one MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, two U.S.-made JDAM guided aerial bombs, and one HIMARS MLRS projectile, as well as 137 fixed-wing UAVs.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation the enemy lost 660 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 48,599 unmanned aerial vehicles, 601 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,511 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,532 MLRS combat vehicles, 23,011 field artillery guns and mortars, 33,388 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.
In the course of offensive actions, units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on formations of one mechanised brigade, three air assault brigades, one presidential brigade, and one territorial defence brigade of the AFU near Gogolevka, Gornal, Guyevo, and Oleshnya.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, and artillery strikes inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the enemy near Gogolevka, Gornal, Guyevo, Oleshnya as well as Basovka, Belovody, Varachino, Velikaya Rybitsa, Veselovka, Vodolagi, Zhuravka, Zapselye, Loknya, Miropolye, Pisarevka, Sadki, Yunakovka, and Yablonovka (Sumy region).
Over the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 190 troops, five armoured fighting vehicles, seven motor vehicles, two artillery guns, one mortar, one electronic warfare station, and one UAV command post.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses have amounted to over 70,380 troops, 402 tanks, 327 infantry fighting vehicles, 290 armoured personnel carriers, 2,228 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,555 motor vehicles, 587 artillery guns, 53 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, 123 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.
[GatewayPundit] The Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women in northern Virginia just wanted to reorder branded thermal cups from Yeti for their organization, something they have done in the past.
But, according to an exclusive by Fox Business, the result was anything but ordinary.
Although the young women’s nonprofit leadership organization ordered branded cups last May without issue, and with the exact same logo, Yeti has allegedly refused to fill the order.
Per Fox Business:
In emails obtained by FOX Business, YETI responded to inquiries from the Clare Boothe Luce Center regarding their canceled March 20, 2025, order citing item no. 15 or “Custom Products” in their terms and conditions.
According to the brand, “YETI values respect, tolerance and open dialogue, and we serve a diverse and varied customer base. YETI has the sole discretion to reject any order that we deem inappropriate for production… Starting with our first customized Ramblers in 2015, we’ve used our best efforts to avoid creating custom products with political affiliations or associations. Because the process we use to identify political affiliations and associations involves human judgment, we may inadvertently accept an order and mark a YETI product with a candidate’s name or campaign slogan simply because we weren’t familiar with it when the order was placed.”
Begg claimed in an interview with FOX Business that the YETI brand accepted their order worth $1,608.00 this week before canceling it abruptly. According to Begg, the Center was originally confused about what changed between their May 2024 order and their attempted March 2025 order, which resulted in cancellation.
The Clare Boothe Luce Center shared how the cancellation unfolded via X.
They have the right to limit their appeal, and we have the right to take our money where it will be properly appreciated. And to widely share information about companies that do and do not appreciate our money. Add Yeti to the boycott side of the ledger, and spread the world. And if you spend elsewhere, consider dropping Yeti a note to let them know that they lost another sale.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] A year after the monstrous terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall, committed by people from Central Asia before a concert of the group Piknik, the exact number of victims of this crime has become known. As a result of the terrorist attack, 146 people died, six of them children.
Many Russian publications prepared articles, stories, special projects dedicated to the memory of the victims for the anniversary of the terrorist attack, published mourning lists of victims with their photographs and short biographies. In various media, these lists included from 143 to 145 names. Information about 145 and even 144 and 143 victims of the terrorist attack was posted online by the largest (according to statistics from Liveinternet.ru) Russian mass media. However, the official number of victims is higher.
“The criminal case materials include 146 deceased persons, 6 of whom were minors,” a source familiar with the progress of the investigation told Regnum.
Confusion over the numbers arose in the first week after the terrorist attack. In the first days, the Ministry of Emergency Situations published lists of the dead. The last of them, published on March 27, included 143 names. Now this list is unavailable on the department's website, but it has been preserved on the pages of the media. Some time later, it became known that one of the wounded, Belarusian citizen Amin Koshevarov, died in the hospital, and the number of victims rose to 144.
[Regnum] Six Russians, including two children, are listed as victims of the bathyscaphe crash off the coast of Hurghada, Egypt. This information was confirmed on March 27 by the Russian Consulate General.
“We regret to inform you that as a result of today’s accident with the bathyscaphe Sindbad, six Russians died, including two children,” the official statement said.
At present, diplomats specified, seven Russian citizens, including five children, who were injured in the incident, remain in Hurghada hospitals. According to doctors, their condition does not cause concern, the Consulate General concluded.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, the accident of the Sindbad pleasure bathyscaphe occurred on March 27 at about 10:00 Moscow time at a distance of 1 km from the shore. On board the apparatus, which was conducting a regular underwater excursion to inspect the coral reef, in addition to the crew members, there were 45 Russians, including minors. Most of the tourists were rescued, after which the people were taken to hotels and hospitals in Hurghada.
According to the Shot Telegram channel, tourists paid about 7 thousand rubles for tickets for the pleasure bathyscaphe. Tickets for children were half the price. It was also noted that the Russians on board were staying at the Sindbad Club, Mercure Hurghada and Titanic Beach hotels. The pleasure bathyscaphe was supposed to dive to a depth of 25 meters near a coral reef.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] In all discussions about easing sanctions, the most important thing is that the Russian Federation is discussing this issue with the United States, but not with Europe.
The main message is that these are your satellites, you decide this issue with them. Just like the communication on Ukraine is going on without Ukraine. You want to reach agreements, so impose them on the Kiev regime yourself. This is done demonstratively and pointedly.
The hysterics in Europe and Kiev are due to the fact that they understand this state of affairs perfectly well and are trying to get a place at the negotiating table with threats and hysterics, which are actually going on without them.
First, the Russian Federation and the United States agree on something.
Then Russia invites the United States to fulfill its part of the deal, for which the United States needs to bend Europe and Ukraine. The United States has the necessary levers for this.
Using the example of Ukraine, they have already shown everyone what the red lines of the cocaine Fuhrer are. The NATO Secretary General also changed his tune earlier. So, of course, Russia is unlikely to discuss lifting sanctions with the screaming Macron.
If there is an agreement with the US that they will lift some of the sanctions, then it is Trump's problem how he will twist Europe's arms. And if he cannot or does not want to, then the agreements will not work. The coming weeks will show how serious the US assurances are about the desire to change relations.
So far, the Trump administration is limiting itself to statements about revising the sanctions policy. Europe verbally refuses, but continues to increase the purchase of Russian energy resources through third countries.
[Breitbart] ‘Coalition of the willing ‘leaders are meeting in Paris to discuss supporting Ukraine but Moscow continues its bid to undermine these attempts, accusing France and Britain of provoking “direct military confrontation” between NATO and the Russian Federation.
Governments of over 30 nations and entities are represented at the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, so called, talks in Paris on Thursday, called to discuss sustaining military and economic support for Ukraine. Also on the table is the suggestion of security guarantees for Ukraine and even, as frequently discussed by the United Kingdom and France, the possibility of European peacekeepers in Ukraine to monitor any agreement achieved by the Trump talks.
The purpose of this is to “deter, in order to send that message to Putin that this is a deal that is going to be defended”, Britain’s Starmer said today.
Russia, meanwhile, which clearly would not benefit from a ceasefire being guaranteed by NATO troops on Ukrainian soil and, consequently, a nuclear tripwire for any future bids to expand territorial holdings in the country has long agitated against such notions. That process continued this morning, with the spokesman for the Russian Foreign Minister Maria Zakharova warning of bloody violence if Europe tries, and accusing the United Kingdom of trying to inveigle Europe into an “Anglo-Saxon” plot to fight Russia against their own interests.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to strike at Russian energy infrastructure facilities. This was reported on March 27 by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry.
“Despite the statements of the Kiev regime about the alleged cessation of strikes on Russian energy facilities, over the past 24 hours the Ukrainian Armed Forces continued to strike energy infrastructure,” the statement said.
On March 26, a high-voltage line was disconnected in the Bryansk region as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian drone, and power supply to consumers in the Klimovsky district was cut off. On the same day, air defense systems shot down a Ukrainian drone in Crimea that was attempting to attack the equipment of the Glebovskoye underground gas storage facility. On March 27, a transformer substation was disabled in the Bryansk region as a result of targeted artillery shelling.
Earlier, the Ministry of Defense noted that the strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Russian energy facilities, despite the current moratorium, are evidence of the inability of the Volodymyr Zelensky regime to negotiate and its intentions to disrupt the agreements reached between Moscow and Washington.
As reported by the Regnum news agency , on March 18, Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed on an initiative to stop mutual strikes on energy facilities by Moscow and Kiev. The Russian President gave the corresponding order to the Russian Armed Forces, and Russian servicemen shot down seven drones that had already been sent to targets in Ukraine.
Zelensky publicly supported the agreement, but that same night the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched three drones at an oil depot in the Krasnodar region, and later, in violation of the moratorium, attacked more than a dozen energy facilities.
On March 25, the list of Russian and Ukrainian facilities that fall under the moratorium, agreed upon by the Russian Federation and the United States, was published. The ban is valid for 30 days from March 18 and can be extended, and if one of the parties violates it, the other has the right to consider itself free from obligations. The presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov reported that Putin has not yet cancelled the order to suspend strikes on the Kiev regime's energy facilities.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Victor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] The Estonian authorities have made a historic decision, depriving citizens of Russia, Belarus and Russian non-citizens permanently residing in the country (more than 150 thousand people in total) of the right to vote in municipal elections. It’s the norm that only citizens of a country may vote in its elections. That’s the law in America, too, which President Trump just reinforced with an executive order on the subject.
In the 1990s, the authorities compromised and granted these categories of the population the right to elect local governments – after all, in the Republic of Estonia there was a threat that compactly living Russians would want to separate themselves from the unloved state.
Thus, a kind of social contract was created - the Russian-speaking community was granted minimal rights in exchange for renouncing separatist intentions. Now this contract has been destroyed.
REJECTED COMPROMISE
In 1991, when Estonia left the USSR, it began to pass discriminatory laws in large numbers, reducing the local Russian community to the status of second-class citizens. The native language of a significant number of the country's residents was declared a foreign language, Russians began to be fired en masse from government structures, an intention to liquidate Russian schools was announced, and most "aliens" were granted the hitherto unheard-of status of "non-citizens" in world practice.
Since the majority of the newly-minted non-citizens lived compactly in the north-east of Estonia, in the cities of Narva, Sillamäe and their environs, a mass demand for separation from the state, which had trampled on basic civil rights, soon arose there.
Soon, organizers were found, and a referendum for autonomy was held in northeastern Estonia. In Narva, 97% of voters voted "for", and in Sillamae, 95%. But in Tallinn, the expression of will was declared invalid. The then Russian President Boris Yeltsin refused to intervene in the conflict, but the ghost of that referendum haunted the Estonian authorities for a long time, fearing the emergence of a "second Transnistria".
The government of that time, led by Prime Minister Mart Laar, agreed to defuse the "bomb" and make concessions. In 1993, non-citizens (and subsequently citizens of Russia and other countries permanently residing in Estonia) were allowed to vote in municipalities. The main criterion was that a person had lived in the territory of that local government for at least five years. It should be noted that in the 1990s, many Estonian non-citizens accepted citizenship of the Russian Federation, but remained to live in Estonia.
The status quo lasted for thirty years, but in 2023 the authorities raised the question of depriving “citizens of the aggressor country” of the right to vote in Estonia. The first to put forward this proposal was the opposition right-wing party “Property”, led by former Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu, a malicious Russophobe.
In August 2023, a special commission led by Justice Minister Kalle Laanet (Reform Party) presented a corresponding bill. At first, Estonian politicians said that they wanted to deprive only holders of Russian and Belarusian passports of the right to vote in municipalities. But then their position hardened - they wanted to take this right away from Estonian non-citizens as well.
In total, 150,000 people were at risk of losing their voting rights. However, the relevant rights are enshrined in the Estonian constitution, meaning that changes had to be made to the country's basic law.
The Social Democratic Party of Estonia had doubts – perhaps it would be enough to take away the voting rights of only citizens of Russia and Belarus, and leave non-citizens alone? “National patriots” were outraged by such an “unacceptable compromise”.
"SPRINKLE THE ROOM"
Only the opposition Center Party, which has long been accustomed to relying on the votes of the Russian population, categorically opposed the change to the constitution. They did not want to give up the rights of their voters - especially since the blow was aimed specifically at the electoral base of the CP.
In this situation, everything depended on the wavering Social Democrats - they could either give the necessary advantage to the supporters of new restrictions in the Riigikogu vote, or block the bill. It should be taken into account that the Estonian Social Democrats were also interested in Russian votes, therefore, it was not in their interests to alienate and insult the Russians, to deprive them of their voting rights.
Until recently, the country was ruled by a coalition consisting of the Reform Party, Estonia 200 and the Social Democratic Party. But in early March, the internal contradictions of the coalition members worsened and the Social Democrats were pushed out of the coalition. After that, many breathed a sigh of relief – it seemed obvious that the Social Democrats would not vote for a discriminatory bill that would also hurt their own electoral prospects.
However, supporters of logic were in for an unpleasant surprise.
On Wednesday, March 26, a bill to amend the constitution, which would deprive citizens of non-EU countries of the right to vote in municipal elections in Estonia, was put to a vote in the Riigikogu.
As for non-citizens (aka "grey passport holders"), a small concession was made for them - it was decided that they will be able to vote exactly once more, in the local government elections that will take place on October 19. 92 deputies voted "for" the bill, including the Social Democrats. Only seven deputies voted against - all members of the Center Party. The amendments still need to be approved by President Alar Karis, but there is little doubt that he will do so.
After the voting was over, most of the participants burst into applause. "After I saw the sincere joy of my colleagues over the deprivation of the right to vote of 150 thousand people, I wanted to invite a priest to sprinkle the premises with holy water," - the "centrist" parliamentarian Alexander Chaplygin spoke angrily about this.
Opposition publicist Eino Ingerman was also unpleasantly surprised by the jubilation of his fellow tribesmen on social networks : "A wonderful people. They are fleeced, the existence of the state is threatened - they eat it up. And then they were thrown a stinking bone, and they burst into joyful squeals, strongly reminiscent of the laughter of hyenas: here you go, tibli (an offensive nickname for Russians in Estonia - Ed.), take it!"
It is important to note that a number of MPs who voted to deprive Russians of the right to vote made their political careers precisely thanks to the Russian-speaking electorate. Until recently, they were members of the Center Party, but fled it in 2022-23, when the party was declared “agents of Moscow’s influence” and membership in it ceased to provide political prospects.
Particularly indignant is the parliamentarian Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski. Once, as a centrist, she made her way into the Riigikogu by loudly promising to protect the rights of Estonian Russians. Now, Jufereva, having defected to the Reform Party, first supported the liquidation of Russian schools, and now also the deprivation of the right to vote for “grey passport holders”.
It reached the point of tragicomedy: speaking on television, the ethnic Russian Yufereva accused the ethnic Estonian, centrist Lauri Laats, who spoke out against the bill, of not understanding the interests of Estonia.
It seems that these are the very deputies that publicist Ingerman called “nits.”
THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE RUSSIANS WILL CONTINUE
The rage of the Estonian Russians was also provoked by the betrayal of the Social Democrats. They changed their position several times - sometimes they spoke "for" the deprivation of the right to vote, sometimes against it. At the same time, having made their final choice, they tried to fool the Russians in the end.
Prominent representatives of the Social Democrats, Tallinn Mayor Jevgeni Osinovski and Narva Mayor Katri Raik, said that they have a dissenting opinion and do not support the decisions of the majority of their fellow party members. “The meaning of this presentation is clear even to a child: yes, the Social Democrats helped take away the voting rights of 150 thousand permanent residents of Estonia, but there are good people among the Social Democrats who did not support this. Like, Russians, vote for Osinovski and Raik,” explains Chaplygin.
By the way, in his opinion, the parties that supported the discriminatory bill’s expectation that without these 150 thousand voters they would be able to show better results in the municipal elections may not come true.
Until now, the Russian voter in Estonia has traditionally been passive: barely a third of the “non-titular” electorate came to the polls. It is for this reason that the Centre Party failed to gain a majority in the Tallinn City Council in the last elections, which allowed it to be removed from power in the capital in 2024.
But if the Russian voter consolidates in October (in particular, those holding grey passports will most likely not want to miss their last chance to vote), then this will compensate for all the losses – and the right-wing parties, which have deprived some Russians of the right to vote, will not be able to win.
Political commentator Toomas Sildam also shares this opinion, warning that disadvantaged categories of the population may use the opportunity for protest voting to the full in the autumn.
Many Russians in Estonia fear that the authorities will not limit themselves to the steps they have already taken and will go further.
In particular, there is a fear that naturalized Estonian citizens may be next in line for discrimination. These are former non-citizens who have accepted the rules of the game imposed by the state and have gone through all the humiliating procedures of naturalization.
Estonian nationalists have long been saying that this part of the citizens is also not distinguished by "loyalty" and that they need to be "neutralized" somehow. The parties in power have already begun an attack on the centrists who are trying to protect the rights of the Russian population.
The Estonia 200 party (local Russians angrily call it "Cargo 200") accused them of "openly fighting for the right of citizens of the aggressor countries - Russia and Belarus - to vote in order to secure as many votes as possible from non-Estonian voters." According to the "two hundred," this proves that "there is a party in Estonia that serves the interests of a foreign state."
The charge is very serious, at the level of treason. And in this case it does not matter that, according to the latest data, the rating of "Estonia 200" does not exceed 1.4%. Being in the ruling coalition, the "two hundredths" can give orders to the special services and the prosecutor's office and are quite capable of organizing the persecution of all those whom they call "Moscow's agents of influence".
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 20:49 From 19:00 to 19:45 Moscow time, air defense systems on dutydestroyedfive Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles:
Three UAVs over the territory of the Kursk region and
Two UAVs over the territory of the Belgorod region. 20:24 The "East" group of forces continues offensive in Donbass
In the Razdolnoye-Dneproenergiya area, Russian forces advanced, taking up new positions and shifting the front line closer to the villages of Komar and Bogatyr.
19:36 Russian Armed Forces struck a concentration of Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower in the Oleshnya region of the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region.
18:07 Destruction enemy weapons in Sumy region
The operator of the reconnaissance UAV GV "Sever" in a forest plantation near the settlement of Maryino (Sumy region) discovered the position of a mortar crew of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was carrying out indiscriminate strikes in the direction of Russian territory.
18:07 The moment is captured undermining field warehouse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' ammunition from an air strike using unguided rockets.
17:46 Advance of the Russian army west of Novolyubovka –MAP
17:22 Russian Army broke through in Volnoe Pole
The "East" group of forces continues to develop the offensive in a number of areas in the Veliko-Novoselkovskaya part of the South Donetsk direction.
After the liberation of Privolnoye from the east, Russian troops broke into Volnoye Pole and stormed the village.
17:08 Improvement of the positions of the Russian Armed Forces in the Burlatskogo area –MAP
17:01 Advance of the Vostok Group of Companies on the Razdolnoye – Dneproenergia section –MAP
16:21 Advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of the Sudzha checkpoint –MAP
16:04 Calculations of FPV drones of the "Vostok" group destroy strongholds and firing positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the South Donetsk direction.
Each FPV drone flight is coordinated with aerial reconnaissance, allowing for the adjustment of attacks and the destruction of moving targets.
Work on the production and maintenance of FPV drones is carried out in special laboratories. The maneuverability of drones is also tested here on computer simulators.
15:07 Footage released destruction of 82mm mortar in the Rubtsovsk direction.
14:13 Krasnolimanskoe direction. Advance of the Russian Armed Forces to the settlement of Novoye –MAP
13:37 Artillerymen of the "Southern" group of troops in cooperation with scouts destroyed two enemy UAV control points together with specialists.
12:36 In the area of the settlement of Turya (Sumy region), the operator of the reconnaissance UAV GV "Sever" tracked movement of two soldiers across open terrain.
The first FPV drone managed to hit the enemy observation post, after which one of the Ukrainian fascists climbed out to make sure that his comrade was dead. Having barely returned to the dugout, he also caught the Severian kamikaze drone and was left lying lifeless under the rubble.
11:35 Rocket hit in the area of the concentration of manpower of the 80th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the village of Oleshnya in the Kursk direction.
11:32 Russian Army broke through to Katerinovka, developing the offensive at Liman
The "West" group of forces continues to develop the offensive in the Krasnolimansk direction on the border of the DPR and LPR.
After liberating Balki Zhuravka, Ivanovka and Novolyubovka from the southeast, Russian troops broke into Katerinovka and stormed the village.
Five days ago it was reported that in the Liman direction our forces advanced in the area of the Blizhniy ravine in an area up to 2.1 km wide and up to one km deep.
11:22 Dnepropetrovsk direction
Units of the Russian Armed Forces are clearing the western street of Uspenovka, have broken through to Novoalexandrovka and have begun fighting there.
Fighting continues on the approaches to Preobrazhenka, Troitskoye and Bogdanovka.
Our units are advancing in the area of the Sarannaya and Stavkovaya ravines.
11:12 Novopavlovskoe direction
The units of the GrV Vostok repel enemy counterattacks and continue the offensive in the area of Shevchenko and Vesyologo on the western (left) bank of the Mokrye Yaly River and in the Bogatyrsky direction, where our units took the dominant heights with strong points southwest of Razliv and broke through to the eastern part of the village from the plantings northeast. Fighting began directly in the village.
Our assault forces attack the plantings west of the Captain gully, trying to physically cut off communication between Bogatyr and Razliv. The enemy unsuccessfully counterattacks, trying to regain their positions.
Enemy counterattacks continue in the Constantinpol region.
The assault group broke through north of Dneproenergiya, occupying a grove and plantings in the direction of Komar, and attacked the eastern part of Vesyoloye from the rear across the Mokrye Yaly River and two plantings.
Units of the GrV Vostok occupied the landings between Novosyolka and Volnoye Pole, driving the enemy from their positions on the heights.
10:07 In the Kursk border area, the crews of the 122mm D-30 howitzers of the Ussuri separate guards airborne assault unit continued to rout units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
09:59 Footage released destruction by UAV operators of the 39th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 68th Army Corps of the Southern group of troops of the Starlink station and the UAV control center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement of Pokrovskoe
09:50 Last night, the reconnaissance UAV of the GV Sever was on night patrol tracked the movement of a group of Ukrainian soldiers who were trying to take refuge in a forest plantation in the area of the state border.
The target was quickly hit with fire and all Ukrainian soldiers were eliminated.
08:06 Military engineers of the "West" group of troops apply robotic systems for destroying camouflaged dugouts and shelters with Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel in the Khar'kov region.
The role of the “eyes” in the robotic complex is performed by the UAV operator, who guides the “kamikaze” to the target throughout the entire route.
07:35 Changes to map over the past 24 hours:
The Russian Armed Forces storm the settlement of Volnoye Pole;
The enemy was driven out of the northern part of Guevo.
07:24 During the past night, air defense systems on duty destroyed one Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of the Bryansk region.
[IsraelTimes] Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam says in a meeting with journalists in Lebanon that no one in Lebanon wants normalization with Israel, and everyone opposes it.
He also asserts that the five points held by Israel in southern Lebanon have no military or security value other than to continue to pressure Lebanon.
The meeting comes against the backdrop of an interview the Lebanese prime minister gave to a Saudi channel last week, where he criticized Hezbollah and stated that the war it waged with Israel did not help Lebanon.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay condemned the murder of Russian war correspondents. This is stated in a published statement by the organization.
We are talking about a journalist from Izvestia, a cameraman and a driver from the Zvezda TV channel.
War correspondent is an inherently dangerous profession, going out, as they do, where the bullets and bombs are flying. This is separate, of course, from those Hamasniks who double dip as correspondents while pursuing their main career as jihadis.
"I condemn the killing of Aleksandr Fedorchak, Andrei Panov and Aleksandr Sirkeli and call for a thorough and transparent investigation. I reiterate my call for respect for international humanitarian law, including UN Security Council Resolution 2222 on the protection of journalists, media workers and associated personnel in conflict situations," Audrey Azoulay said.
The journalists died on March 24 in the Luhansk People's Republic.
In other words, in a war zone. One is sorry for their deaths, of course, but they did choose to be there.
As reported by Regnum news agency, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova stated that the attacks and murders of Russian war correspondents are part of Kiev's systematic and planned activities to cleanse the information space. Journalists have become a target, Kiev has declared a hunt for them, the diplomat added.
On March 24, it became known that Izvestia journalist Alexander Fedorchak, Zvezda TV cameraman Andrei Panov, and film crew driver Alexander Sirkeli were killed in the LPR.
On March 26, Channel One correspondent Anna Prokofieva died in the Belgorod region.
#1
One or Two are coincidences. Three or more are trends. War Zones are indeed dangerous. Especially when you are targeted. The deaths of lowing hanging fruit journalists is the only good news Kiev had this week.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] It is necessary to prepare the population for a potential war with Russia. This was stated by Chief of the Polish General Staff Wieslaw Kukula in an interview with the European version of the Politico publication.
According to him, it is first necessary to improve the availability and quality of training of Polish reservists.
"There are currently a large number of reservists in the army, but their average age is already around 45 years. If the conflict and pressure on Poland continues for a long period, well-trained reservists will be needed to be able to operate side by side with professional soldiers and territorial defense forces," he noted.
The Chief of the General Staff specified that by the end of 2026, it is planned to train about 100 thousand people. At the same time, Kukula noted that it will be even more important to prepare the civilian population for a potential war, even if not everyone undergoes military training.
"Polish authorities are planning to launch short-term military training programs for civilians with no work experience. These crash courses, which will last only a few days, will introduce participants to the basics of civil defense, first aid, and some military skills," the article also states.
Always a good thing, even without a war on the horizon. It used to be standard in the Eastern European countries between the wars — my father partook as a Latvian schoolboy in all that back in the 1930s, and was his class champion in summer biathlon.
The publication added that for those who have previously undergone military training, Warsaw offers targeted advanced training courses aimed at developing special skills, including firearms handling, combat medicine and land navigation.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in early March, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Europe should enter the arms race allegedly started by Russia and win it. He also called for an immediate start to the militarization of Europe.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2024 called the statements that Russia was allegedly planning an attack on Europe absurd. Anti-Russian hysteria in the West is being fanned to justify increased military spending and the unleashing of an arms race, he stressed.
All that will come in very handy when they have to beat back the expanding Moslem horde, should Western Europe not get their colonists under control.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are holding back Russian attacks in the east and south of Ukraine.
The Russian aggressors are most active in the Pokrovsky direction. There are battles in the areas of 13 settlements.
Since the beginning of the current day, 159 combat clashes have occurred on the front. Russian invaders are trying to actively advance in four directions, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in an operational report as of 16:00 on Thursday, March 27.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, there were four assaults by the invaders towards Volchansk.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy stormed the positions of Ukrainian units 25 times in the areas of Stepova Novoselivka, Zagrizove and in the directions of Petropavlovka, Peschanoye, Novaya Kruglyakovka, Boguslavka; 19 combat clashes are ongoing.
In the Liman direction today the aggressor attacked 27 times in the areas of the settlements of Nadiya, Kolodyazi, Mirnoye, Yampolovka and in the directions of Novosergeevka, Novoye, Olgievka, Dronovka, Grigoryevka. Currently 10 armed clashes are ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, the enemy carried out three offensive actions near the settlements of Belogorovka and Verkhnekamenskoye.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the Defense Forces repelled two enemy attempts to advance near Chasovy Yar, Predtechino, and two more attacks are ongoing.
In the Toretsk direction, the enemy attacked our troops' positions 21 times in the areas of Krymskoye, Ozeryanovka, Kurdyumovka, Toretsk and in the directions of Dilievka, Leonidovka, Shcherbinovka. Three combat clashes are still ongoing.
In the Pokrovsky direction, the Russians organized 41 assaults in the areas of the settlements of Panteleimonovka, Aleksandropol, Vodyanoye Vtoroy, Yelizavetovka, Lysovka, Sukhoi Yar, Kotlinoye, Udachnoye, Uspenovka, Preobrazhenka, Andreyevka and in the directions of Malinovka and Novoaleksandrovka. Eight clashes are still ongoing.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, our defenders are repelling 13 enemy attacks in the areas of the populated areas of Konstantinopol, Razliv, Skudnoe, Dneproenergiya and Burlatskoe.
In the Gulyai-Polye direction, the enemy carried out eight assaults in the areas of the settlements of Privilnoye, Novosyolka and in the direction of Volnoye Pole.
Four enemy attacks were successfully stopped in the Orekhov direction . The enemy tried to advance in the direction of the settlements of Shcherbaki, Lobkovoye and Kamyanskoye.
Eight military clashes took place in the Kursk direction , one of which is still ongoing.
We remind you that on March 26, 224 combat clashes occurred on the front . At the same time, the Russian army lost almost 1,700 fighters killed and wounded. The total losses of the aggressor country Russia are approaching 1 million people.
#1
It is like Von Clausewitz meets the Hokey Pokey:
You put your left flank in,
You pull your right flank out.
You pick a new direction and spin yourself about.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title
[Korrespondent] 20.49 The zone of forced evacuation of families with children has been expanded in Donetsk Oblast. The head of the Donetsk OVA, Vadim Filashkin, informed about the corresponding decision.
We are talking about the villages of Krasnopodillya, Matyashevo and Novogrishino of the Krivoy Rog community, the city of Belitskoye, the settlements of Vodyanoye and Chernigovka, the villages of Svetloye and Shevchenko of the Dobropol community, the villages of Kurtovka, Kondratovka and Osykovo of the Druzhkovskaya community, as well as the settlements of Novoselovka and the village of Shandrigolovo.
In total, about 500 children live in these settlements.
19:59 Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhy rejected Russia's manipulations regarding the agreement to resume the Black Sea Grain Initiative and stressed that the maritime truce applies to all Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea region. The corresponding statement was made at a briefing in Kiev.
19:49 Ukraine is ready for any format of negotiations to end the war, and Russia's actions are blocking them. This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a press conference following a meeting of EU leaders on support for Ukraine.
18:57 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he ordered Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to prepare and transmit to the United States information about damage to an energy facility in Kherson by Russians.
18.28 Drones of the special unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Prymaru (Ghosts) continue combat work over the occupied Crimean Peninsula. The GUR reported this on its Telegram channel and showed a corresponding video.
17.43 Russian occupiers took so-called "bloggers" from Indonesia, Iran and Slovenia to the Zaporizhzhya NPP. This was reported by the Center for National Resistance (CNS) on its Telegram channel.
15:56 British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after a meeting of the "action coalition" in Paris that there is no agreement among the leaders to lift sanctions against Russia. They told reporters after the meeting.
15.32 Russia is spreading fakes aimed at discrediting the mobilization process and the Contract 18-24 program. Russian propagandists are claiming an alleged "mass death" of soldiers in the Kursk direction who joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces under the Contract 18-24 program. This was reported by the Center for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
14.15 The occupiers have massively shelled the central part of Kherson, so far one person is known to have been injured and one person killed. This was reported by the Kherson GVA. It is noted that as a result of the shelling, a 56-year-old man was injured, he has a mine-explosive injury. As reported by the head of the Kherson OVA Oleksandr Prokudin, according to preliminary data, another person has died.
13.58 Russian soldiers who made their way through a pipe to the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region have suffered serious complications. This was reported by Western media citing sources in Russia, BILD reports. It is noted that the surviving soldiers have developed serious lung problems. The main version is severe methane poisoning.
13.42 During negotiations with the US in Saudi Arabia's Riyadh, the Russians did not want to discuss stopping strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. This was stated by Deputy Head of the President's Office Ihor Zhovkva in an interview with Ukrinform .
13.24 On March 27, the Parliament adopted a law on strengthening the protection of information and cybersecurity of state information resources and critical information infrastructure facilities. This was reported by Oleksandr Fediyenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence.
13:16 Russian troops are actively using motorcycles for attacks in the Liman and Novopavlovskiy directions, trying to quickly break through the Ukrainian defense. One of such attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces was repelled the day before by 40 motorcycles and buggies. This was reported by the press secretary of the operational-strategic group of forces Khortytsia Viktor Tregubov on the air of the telethon.
According to Tregubov, the Russians are using light equipment to quickly cross the distance to Ukrainian positions, try to gain a foothold and avoid being hit by drones.
"It's not very effective, but it's cheaper for them than spending money on armored vehicles," he explained.
13:10 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi conducted work in the units of the Defense Forces in Sumy Oblast due to the increased activity of Russians in this area. He reported this on Facebook .
13.00 The village of Malye Shcherbaki in Zaporizhia is under the control of the Defense Forces, despite the fact that Russian propaganda actively spread a fake about its alleged capture. This was reported by the spokesman for the Defense Forces of the South, Vladislav Voloshin.
12.59 In the Nikolaev region, law enforcement officers have tightened security measures due to the increase in threats. Police officers have increased the number of patrols in populated areas, stepped up control at checkpoints and in public places, and are also using modern equipment to detect explosive objects.
For the safety of residents, metal detectors and explosive detectors have been installed in crowded areas. There is also 24-hour monitoring via a video surveillance system.
The measures are due to the terrorist threat.
12:40 A summit of the "coalition of the willing" has begun in Paris, with representatives from 31 countries, the leadership of the European Union and NATO. The meeting will discuss support for Ukraine in containing Russian aggression and achieving a fair and lasting peace, the President's Office reported.
12:26 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is preparing for a new offensive in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Le Figaro .
12:06 The Yaroslavl Regional Court found a local resident from Rybinsk guilty of treason and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony. This was reported by the FSB, as reported by Russian media. It is noted that the defendant allegedly established contact with a representative of an organization used by Ukrainian intelligence for anti-Russian activities.
12:00 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived at the "coalition of the willing" summit, which is taking place at the Elysee Palace in Paris. This became known from a Reuters broadcast .
11:55 Three more Ukrainian children were returned last week as part of the Ukrainian President's Bring Kids Back UA initiative. This was reported by Daria Zarivna, Advisor to the Head of the President's Office.
"Among them is 5-year-old Ivan, who lost his speech after searches and threats from Russian military personnel and could not even say the word "mama" for over a year. Svetlana was only a year old when her family was tortured and deprived of documents - the occupation authorities threatened to take the child to a boarding school. And 13-year-old Oksana was reunited with her mother - her father was afraid that his daughter would be stopped at a checkpoint, so the team was looking for the most reliable route to rescue," she said.
11:35 Russian propaganda is spreading a fake about the Ukrainian military allegedly preparing a provocation in Mykolaiv to disrupt agreements to stop strikes on energy facilities and blame Russia for this. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council.
"Propagandists claim that special groups have been created in the city to prepare for the operation, and they are bringing in a large number of fragments of Russian Shahed drones and explosives. Such reports may indicate that Russia is preparing a provocation and strikes on the city," the statement says.
The CPD notes that this is a classic example of the enemy using the tactic of an information alibi to justify its own actions.
11.34 The Ministry of Defense will create four interregional rehabilitation centers for the military. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Brigadier General of Justice Serhiy Melnyk during an extended meeting of the Barrier-Free Council with the participation of the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska and chaired by Vice Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba, the press service of the Ministry of Defense reports. Melnyk presented two strategic projects of the Ministry of Defense, the purpose of which is to strengthen the military medical system - Recovery and Health Centers and the Wounded Package.
11:21 Border guards of the Chop detachment found two men who were trying to illegally cross the border with Slovakia. They were led to the border by a pensioner.
During the patrol, the service dog came across tracks of unknown persons. The servicemen found a 78-year-old man who claimed that he had come to the forest to collect birch sap. However, the border guards found two more young men nearby who admitted that the man was their guide.
According to preliminary data, the pensioner agreed to lead the draft dodgers to the border for a monetary reward that the organizers of the crossing promised him. The deal amounted to $6,000.
10:50 In Dnepr, as a result of a Russian drone attack, a historical building - the palace of Prince Potemkin - was destroyed. This was reported by the city mayor Boris Filatov.
The building, which now houses the Palace of Students and Youth, will be restored. "But we will rename it in honor of Hetman Sahaidachny, who burned Moscow," the mayor said.
10:36 Ukrainian military destroyed the Russian Zoopark radar complex and other equipment of the occupiers. This was reported by the Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine. It is noted that over the past day, enemy losses amounted to: 189 invaders, 15 artillery systems, 30 units of cars and armored vehicles, 8 UAVs of the Supercam, Zala, Orlan type, one Zoopark radar complex, 9 ATVs, three boats, 6 communication antennas, a UAV control antenna, 2 Starlink antennas, 2 observation posts, one command post, 2 video observation posts.
10:30 In Reserve+, deferments have become available for people with disabilities, data on whom is available in the Unified Information System of the Social Sphere.
10:16 The Security Service detained a Russian agent who was preparing an explosion near the TCC in Kherson. According to the instructions of the Russian Federation, the man was supposed to leave a bag with an improvised explosive device (IED) at the entrance to the military administrative building. At that moment, the Russian special service planned to remotely detonate the explosives together with its agent.
The SBU officers exposed the enemy's intentions in advance and detained the suspect "red-handed" when he was at the site of the planned terrorist attack. The executor of the occupiers' order turned out to be an unemployed resident of Cherkasy, who came to the attention of the FSB through Telegram channels looking for "quick" money.
9:58 On the evening of March 26, Russian troops launched a massive drone strike on Kharkiv. The number of casualties has risen to 11. Civilian cars and outbuildings were damaged. This was reported by the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov.
9:33 On the night of March 27, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 86 Shahed-type strike UAVs and drone imitators of various types. Air defense forces shot down 42 drones, another 26 enemy UAVs were lost without negative consequences.
The Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv regions suffered as a result of the Russian attack.
9:15 As a result of the Russian drone attack on the Dnieper, three people were injured, more than 10 high-rise buildings, enterprises, an educational institution and more than 60 cars were damaged. This was reported by the head of the OVA Serhiy Lysak.
8:49 Over the past 24 hours, there have been 224 combat clashes on the front. Most often, the Russians attacked the Pokrovskoe, Toretskoe, Kursk and Novopavlovskoe directions over the past 24 hours. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
7:48 Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed 1,670 Russian invaders and 363 units of weapons and military equipment of the occupiers. The total combat losses of the Russian Federation since the beginning of the war are approximately 908,890 people. This was reported by the General Staff on March 27.
03:03 In Konotop, Sumy Oblast, Russians carried out a second drone strike on a site where rescuers were working to eliminate the consequences of the previous attack. One person was injured during the first strike.
01:01 A massive drone strike on Kharkiv caused fires in the city, according to preliminary data, nine people were injured.
[American Liberty] Suppose the United States could raise trillions of dollars without raising a single tax rate, without printing another dollar of inflationary debt, and without expanding the federal government by an inch. Would we do it? Of course, we should. But this is Washington, where simplicity is suspicious, and ideas that work too well are often met with raised eyebrows rather than applause. Enter the Gold Card program.
Conceived by Howard Lutnick and referred to with brash confidence as the "Trump Card," this program would allow vetted, law-abiding foreign nationals to purchase permanent U.S. residency for $5 million. In exchange, they receive the right to reside in America indefinitely, without citizenship, and without being subject to taxation on their global income—only income earned within the United States. The numbers, even with conservative estimates, are staggering: if just one million of the roughly 37 million non-American millionaires worldwide opt in, the program would generate $5 trillion in non-tax revenue.
Critics are already clutching their pearls, gasping at what they see as a commodification of American residency. But this misses the forest for the oak-paneled door. The United States, in embracing this program, would not be selling citizenship, votes, or influence—only access to live and spend legally within its borders. And it would do so not through coercion or redistribution, but through the voluntary transactions of the global wealthy, many of whom already maintain homes, assets, and philanthropic footprints within our shores.
Some will ask: Isn’t this unfair? Doesn’t it favor the wealthy? To which the answer is: certainly—and for good reason. A conservative approach to policy recognizes that not all inequality is injustice. A millionaire paying $5 million into the U.S. Treasury to receive a green card that excludes them from voting or receiving entitlements is not a corruption of democratic ideals; it is their affirmation. The program does not create freeloaders but funders—individuals who, by design, give more to America than they take. Unlike many forms of immigration that strain welfare systems, the Gold Card poses no such burden. In fact, it reverses the paradigm entirely.
[REGNUM] The scandal involving Iranian agents' attempt to gain access to the secrets of the Israeli nuclear center in Dimona is gradually acquiring new details. The identity of the second "Israeli engineer", whose capture was previously dryly reported by counterintelligence, has become known.
The spy turned out to be 65-year-old Eduard Yusupov, a resident of the small town of Netivot, who repatriated from Azerbaijan six months ago.
The Israeli General Security Service (Shabaq), although it claims that there is a “clear Iranian connection” to the new scandal, is in no hurry to pin all the blame solely on Tehran.
There are enough details in the case that do not match the “handwriting” of Iranian intelligence and point to the intervention of a “third country.” Moreover, one that has fairly good business relations with Tel Aviv.
OLD MAN BY THE SEA
According to the case materials, Yusupov repatriated to Israel at the end of 2024. Upon arriving in the Promised Land, he quickly established contacts with his former friends.
One of them introduced Yusupov to the Azerbaijani businessman “Musa”, who allegedly lived in Dubai and was planning to soon open a new business in Israel.
It was “Musa,” who, according to the Shabak, was a career Iranian intelligence officer, who hired and directed the repatriate’s espionage activities, hiding behind “business interests.”
Under his command, the agent documented sensitive information about “national infrastructure sites” throughout the country, including army bases, military installations in the Negev and the Dimona nuclear center, the Haifa port, as well as parks, libraries, zoos, shopping and entertainment centers.
With Musa's money, Yusupov also rented an apartment in Haifa with a view of the port, so that it would be easier to photograph objects of interest, including close-ups of ships and industrial facilities moored at anchor.
Interest in Haifa is hardly accidental. The city is home to large petrochemical and industrial facilities, several research institutes and design bureaus.
The key Israeli naval base is also located here, where the elite combat flotilla "Shayetet 7" (submarine fleet) and the special detachment of combat reconnaissance divers "YALTAM" are quartered.
Unlike the nearby notable settlement of Atlit, where a naval commando base (Shayetet 13) is located, the “friend or foe” principle does not work so well in Haifa.
The city is a major tourist hub, where cruise ships and "seasonal residents" periodically call. Therefore, the intention of a fresh repatriate to rent an apartment "with a sea view" did not arouse much suspicion among the locals.
Nor did the constant travels of the 65-year-old citizen around the country raise any questions. Especially since each such route necessarily included tourist sites or “biblical places” and fit into the logic of the repatriate’s acquaintance with his historical homeland.
However, even while carefully maintaining secrecy, Yusupov did not work for long: already in February 2025, he was targeted by counterintelligence and arrested.
However, by that time the new Israeli had managed to collect and transfer to the customer a “decent amount” of analytical reports and photo chronicles.
Having studied the confiscated dossier, the Shin Bet sounded the alarm: in a couple of months, Israel's opponents, thanks to the efforts of one agent, received a fairly detailed report on the state of the country's key naval, air force, and ground forces bases.
They also now have a general understanding of the defense system of a key nuclear facility, as well as details of the organization of the air defense system and the warning of missile attacks.
Considering that Iran – which is considered the main customer of Yusupov’s work – has still not abandoned plans to strike at Israeli territory (Operation True Promise 3), such a detailed audit of the facilities would come in very handy.
AZERBAIJANI TRACE
There are plenty of oddities in this new episode of the spy story.
And the first is an unusually large, by the standards of previous cases, sum of reward for rather simple tasks. According to the investigation, Yusupov earned a total of about 41 thousand dollars - an absolute record among local agents.
For comparison: the holder of the previous “record,” Doron Bokobza, who was arrested in the same case, received barely more than a thousand from Tehran.
In addition, Yusupov's handler diligently played the role of an Azerbaijani businessman: he corresponded in Russian and also built a dialogue with the agent "based on cultural commonality." And, more importantly, he did not give a single hint of a connection with Iran.
At some point, the accused may even have believed that he was working in the interests of the Azerbaijani intelligence community, although Yusupov continues to insist that he carried out all tasks “for business reasons,” with no intention of undermining Israel’s security. He denies any contacts with the Persians.
The new operational data somewhat puzzled the Israeli special services. Especially considering that between Baku and Tel Aviv, which are striving for a strategic partnership, there is a “gentleman’s agreement” on the inadmissibility of subversive work against each other.
The appearance of a friendly "third party" in the spy game would seriously change the configuration of the entire affair and force the Israeli government to ask its partners uncomfortable questions.
Partly, the unprecedented generosity with which the alleged client paid the agent for his work—an average of 15 thousand dollars a month—helped to arouse new suspicions.
In addition, Yusupov became the first whose fees came in cryptocurrency - before this, the agents received money mainly through classic hiding places and without additional checks "from the outside", which is also atypical for Iranian intelligence.
It should be added that there have already been scandals with a "spy flair" in relations between Israel and Azerbaijan. The last one was in October 2024. Then the arrest of seven people from Azerbaijan, accused of working for Iran, somewhat spoiled the negotiating climate between Tel Aviv and Baku.
This was also facilitated by the fact that the Israeli press constantly emphasized the ethnicity of those arrested, slandering the Jewish community of Azerbaijan, thereby provoking unnecessary unrest within it.
The current scandal largely follows the trajectory of previous ones and creates additional tension between Baku and Tel Aviv.
So far, the Shabak has not completely ruled out the version that “Musa” could, in addition to Iran, also work for a third-party client, and therefore is slowing down the rapprochement of the two countries through special agencies.
This surge of suspicion came at an inopportune time for the Israelis, given their intelligence service's attempts to get close to Tehran using agents of influence on Azerbaijani territory.
So, with the “Yusupov affair,” Iran, apparently, was able to solve another secondary task: to undermine the Israelis’ trust in their Transcaucasian outpost for some time and weaken Tel Aviv’s pressure in the zone of Tehran’s geopolitical interests.
[YouTube] Joe Rogan Experience #2294: Dr. Suzanne Humphries
Dr Humphries is a conventionally educated medical doctor who was a participant in conventional hospital systems from 1989 until 2011 as an internist and nephrologist. She left her conventional hospital position in good standing, of her own volition in 2011. Since then, she’s been furthering her research into the medical literature on vaccines, immunity, history, and functional medicine. She is the author of "Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History."
[GatewayPundit] Before that, vaccine manufacturers were getting hammered with lawsuits. Humphries explained that after the 1976 swine flu vaccine disaster, Guillain-Barré cases were piling up. It got so bad that the companies couldn’t even get insurance.
They ran to the government and basically said: "Bail us out, or we’re done making vaccines." So the government stepped in. First, it agreed to cover the lawsuits. Then came the 1986 law—sold to the public as a way to help injured families get compensation faster, but in reality, it became a kangaroo court system that rarely paid families deserving of vaccine injury claims.
Companies like Wyeth (now Pfizer) admitted their vaccines were "unavoidably unsafe," yet instead of making them safer, they were handed blanket immunity.
That freedom also meant cutting corners in safety testing. Most people assume vaccines are tested like other drugs—with placebo controls. But that’s not the case. Instead, vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines, which obscures negative outcomes.
[YouTube] Bob Binnie This episode should be a mandatory. I should add I've seen some amazing results with honey and apitherapy. Including bee venom for Shingles (antiviral/ anti inflammatory). listen
#1
When he was on Fox, I rarely watched Tucker’s show. Now I watch him serially. I will probably listen to this entire Rogan episode and come to identify this formerly fringe person as an authority. I routinely listen to Rogan clips with the expectation that the discourse will be informative. Before I wrote him off as a left wing loon. These changes may be isolated to me but it seems like where we get information is changing. I also listen to many Sean Ryan interviews. He has 4M YouTube followers.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/28/2025 4:06
Comments ||
Top||
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.
...every time you hear the phrase 
...every time you hear the phrase 
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade....
...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
[IsraelNationalNews] Recently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that there is a 
