[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] Militants believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, led by Khaled al-Arada, launched on Sunday a retaliatory attack on the pro-Saudi-led coalition al-Raka checkpoint east of Ma’rib province.
A tribal source stated that the attack targeted an area near the Bin Maili station in response to the coalition’s decision to cut off food and oil concessions to elements led by Khaled al-Arada, brother of Ma’rib governor Sultan al-Arada, who is banned from returning to Yemen by 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... The group, based in camps in the Wadi district, is suffering from a shortage of supplies after the coalition’s support was cut off and accuses the coalition of involvement in the liquidations of its leaders in unknown raids.
The group is attempting to bolster its capabilities after losing the support of the Islah party, whose members were not included among the so-called "deaders" of pro-coalition forces.
[Townhall] The White House is looking into possible criminal charges against CNN after it published a report about an app allowing users to track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in their area.
#10
I agree, Skidmark. Not everything should be a separate article post — a lot of what we find enhances what is already there, and that way we don’t scatter the conversation.
[AnNahar] A child was lightly wounded in an Israeli drone strike Tuesday on the road leading to the al-Jabal al-Ahmar area in the southern Nabatieh district, the Health Ministry said.
The National News Agency said the strike targeted an uninhabited house between the Nabatieh district towns of Shoukine and Harouf.
An Israeli drone meanwhile dropped a percussion bomb near a pickup truck in the southern border town of Kfar Kila, causing no casualties.
Israeli forces also fired heavy machine guns on the neighborhoods of the border town of Adaisseh.
[IsraelTimes] Prosecutors say Iranian intelligence tasked Danish national with compiling information on ‘Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals’
A man suspected of gathering information on Jewish locations and individuals in Berlin for Iranian intelligence with a possible view to carrying out attacks has been arrested in Denmark, German prosecutors said Tuesday.
The Danish national, identified only as Ali S. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested on Thursday in the Danish city of Aarhus, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
The man was tasked by an Iranian intelligence service early this year with gathering information on "Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals" in Berlin, prosecutors said. They didn’t elaborate.
He spied on three properties in June, "presumably in preparation for further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets," prosecutors said.
The suspect is accused of working for an intelligence service of a foreign power. The information leading to his arrest came from Germany’s domestic intelligence service, prosecutors said.
The suspect will be brought before a judge in Germany to determine whether he is to be kept in jug pending formal charges after extradition from Denmark. It was not immediately clear when that would happen.
Germany is a staunch ally of Israel and has a long history of tense relations with Tehran, though it has been one of the three leading European powers trying to engage 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... in diplomacy over its nuclear program.
In October, Germany ordered the closure of all three Iranian consulates in the country in response to the Iranian judiciary’s announcement of the execution of Iranian-German prisoner Jamshid Sharmahd, who lived in the United States and was kidnapped in Dubai in 2020 by Iranian security forces. That left the Islamic Theocratic Republic with only its embassy in Berlin.
Iran has a long track record of sowing violence against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, including over the last two years, as its proxies in the Middle East have battled Israel on the ground.
Among the many examples, Swedish teens who tried to attack the Israeli embassy in Stockholm last year were acting on Iranian instructions, according to Swedish police, and authorities cited Iranian links in a shooting at a German synagogue and planned attacks at Jewish sites in Cyprus in recent years.
In one of the most searing examples, Iranian proxy group Hezbollah bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing 29 people, after Israel assassinated its secretary-general.
Two years later, 84 people died when the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, in an attack also attributed to Hezbollah with Iran’s backing. (Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... ’s current president, Javier Milei, has pushed to hold Iran responsible and visited Israel recently after receiving an award in part for those efforts.)
Iran was seen as having stepped up its targeting of Israeli sites abroad after the 2020 liquidation of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the nuclear scientist Western intelligence agencies believed to be behind Iran’s nuclear weapons program, in an operation widely attributed to Israel.
In 2023, the Jewish Chronicle of London reported that a source had conveyed that Iranian officials had begun "mapping" Jewish targets abroad to prepare for potential attacks. (The report came from a Jewish woman who claimed to have infiltrated the Iranian regime and has not been matched by other publications.)
Iranian intelligence also has a history of working to engage Israelis in espionage on its behalf inside Israel, with recent months seeing a rise in suspects arrested and charged.
On Monday, the Israel Police and the Shin Bet security agency said they had arrested three Israeli citizens in two separate cases on suspicion that they carried out tasks for Iranian agents.
Concerns of possible Dire Revenge attacks from Iran spiked last month when Israel launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructure, saying it was targeting an immediate and existential threat to the Jewish State.
As the attack on Iran began, Jewish security groups around the world immediately reiterated calls for vigilance, while emphasizing that they did not have information about specific threats. And Jewish sites around, including schools and synagogues, once again adjusted their security plans to reflect the heightened risk, even as uncertainty prevailed over Iran’s remaining capacity to guide attacks abroad.
#1
Germany is a staunch ally of Israel and has a long history of tense relations with Tehran, though it has been one of the three leading European powers trying to engage Iran in diplomacy over its nuclear program.
[IsraelTimes] US president suggests that the state assembly member is in the country illegally, throws support behind incumbent Eric Adams, whom he says he ‘helped out a little bit’ in the past
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... threatened during a presser on Tuesday to arrest New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani should he win the mayoral elections in November, hours after his victory in the primaries was formally confirmed.
The president, who was speaking at an immigration roundtable at a new Florida detention facility, also repeated an unfounded claim that Mamdani entered the US illegally and voiced support for New York City Mayor Eric Adams ...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve... , who is seeking reelection.
Asked about Mamdani’s plan to oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in New York City, Trump said that if this happened, the US administration would "have to arrest him."
"We’ll have to arrest him," Trump said. "We don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation."
Mamdani earlier said that the immigrant raids were "terrorizing people," and that agents who carry them out have no interest in following the law.
"We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government," Trump said, repeating his threat from earlier this week that Mamdani would have to "do the right thing" or forgo federal funds.
"A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally," Trump said. "We’re going to look at everything and ideally he’s going to turn out to be much less than a communist, but right now he’s a communist, that’s not a socialist," he said.
Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents and became a US citizen in 2018.
Trump has often used citizenship and immigration as a weapon with which to attack his political opponents, having claimed repeatedly that former US president Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... was born in Kenya, and that former vice president Kamala Harris once a marijuana-busting Caliphornia DA , whom he defeated at the polls last November, did not meet citizenship requirements to run for president.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and state assembly member, is a member of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America, which is not a communist organization.
The DSA has made anti-Israel activism one of its planks, and Mamdani has come under fire from some parts of New York City’s Jewish community for his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state — saying instead that he believes it "has a right to exist as a state with equal rights" — and for refusing to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada," which is generally viewed as a call for violence.
Trump also used Tuesday’s roundtable event to offer support to one of Mamdani’s opponents, incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who is standing for reelection in November as an independent, following a since-dismissed federal bribery case.
"Mayor Adams is a very good person. I helped him out a little bit, he had a problem and he was unfairly hurt over this question," Trump said, calling corruption allegations against Adams a "phony indictment."
Adams has friendly ties with Trump, who is unpopular in New York City.
The federal corruption charges against Adams were dismissed in April, which the judge in the case said "smacks of a bargain" between Adams and the Trump administration.
President Trump on if Zohran Mamdani doesn't cooperate with ICE: "Well, then we'll have to arrest him. We don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation." pic.twitter.com/oqV7POiClL
[IsraelTimes] Hackers say they hold large cache of emails from president’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, other top advisers and porn actor Stormy Daniels.
#1
If the Trump entourage or anyone else believed that their email communication isn't accessible to all interested international players they're hopelessly naive.
Even if they used end-to-end encryption they would open themselves up to traffic analysis though the actual content would be concealed.
In an onion network, messages are encapsulated in layers of encryption, analogous to the layers of an onion. The encrypted data is transmitted through a series of network nodes called "onion routers," each of which "peels" away a single layer, revealing the data's next destination.
While onion routing provides a high level of security and anonymity, there are methods to break the anonymity of this technique, such as timing analysis...
#3
They don't do "onions" they just use plain simple email or cellphone text services.
All needed for access is bribe money for some operative in an email provider or cellphone provider server farm, possibly located in a third world s******e at least semi unfriendly to the West.
Message to Panetta, Trump, von der Leyen and all concerned parties:
Don't write anything in an email of a cellphone text that you don't want Xi, Khamenei or Putin to know.
[IsraelTimes] Attacks didn’t cause injuries, military says; Katz warns Houthis that ‘Yemen will be treated like Tehran’ as US envoy to Israel says ‘maybe those B2 bombers need to visit Yemen!’
The Israeli Air Force intercepted three missiles launched from Yemen and Gaza on Tuesday night, after sirens sent people across the country to seek shelter.
Sirens sounded in multiple areas, including most of Jerusalem, Ben Gurion Airport, Modiin, Rishon Lezion and some West Bank settlements, as Yemen’s Houthis fired a single ballistic missile. No injuries or damage were reported.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted the airport.
A short time earlier, sirens also sounded in the Gaza envelope after two rockets were launched from southern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces said those rockets were also intercepted and likewise caused no injuries. Rocket fire from Gaza has become rare after 20 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
The Houthis — whose slogan calls for “Death to America, Death to Israel, [and] a Curse on the Jews” — are an Iranian proxy that began attacking Israel and maritime traffic in November 2023, a month after the October 7 Hamas massacre.
Since March 18, when a ceasefire ended and the IDF resumed its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis have launched more than 50 ballistic missiles and at least 13 drones at Israel. Several of the missiles have fallen short.
The Houthis last fired a missile at Israel on Saturday, days after Iran and Israel reached a ceasefire in their 12-day war. After Tuesday’s missile fire, Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a warning to the Yemeni terror group.
“Yemen will be treated like Tehran. After striking the head of the snake in Tehran, we will also strike the Houthis in Yemen,” he said, adding, “Whoever raises a hand against Israel — that hand will be cut off.”
[IsraelTimes] The military’s Arabic spokesperson has issued an evacuation warning for residents in parts of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip ahead of expected IDF operations in the area.
The announcement comes after two rockets were fired from Gaza earlier today toward Israeli territory near the southern Gaza Strip, both of which were intercepted by the Air Force.
The statement warns that the IDF is operating with “very strong force to destroy the terrorist organizations in the area,” and will strike “any location used for launching rockets.” Residents are urged to evacuate immediately northward to known shelters in Deir al-Balah and not to return to the designated combat zones.
[IsraelTimes] Released hostage says that he and five others were told to select 3 people to be shot in the head, and 3 to be shot in the knee, before terrorist ‘pardoned’ them
As he underscored the need to recover the remaining 50 hostages, of whom only 20 are believed to still be alive, released captive Ohad Ben Ami told politicians in the Knesset on Tuesday that his captors had forced him and other hostages to choose which of their number should be sentenced to death.
Ben Ami, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... onslaught of October 7, 2023, and was released from captivity in February 2025, recounted his experience during a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee session.
He told the committee that about a month before his release, he was rounded up along with five of his fellow hostages and told by a Hamas operative that three of them would be sentenced to death, and that it was up to them to decide who it would be.
"A commander, probably a senior one, came to us and cocked his gun, and said: ’Choose three people to die and three people who I will shoot in the kneecap,'" Ben Ami said. "They made us decide which three should take a bullet to the head, and which three a bullet to the knee."
"We had to debate this for an entire hour, all while they filmed us," he recalled. "They let each of us speak and explain why we deserved to live, why we deserved to die, or why we deserved to be shot in the knee."
He said that once the hour was up, and nobody had volunteered themselves or their fellow captives to be selected for death or life, their captors simply picked which three would be sentenced to death at random.
"And then they told us, before we shoot you, you have the opportunity to perhaps be spared."
In an attempt to spare themselves from the death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... , the three hostages were forced to speak badly about the Israeli government, among other subjects, Ben Ami said. After they were finished speaking, he said, the Hamas official made a show of having "pardoned" them and sent the six men away.
"You sit there and think to yourself, ’What just happened here?'" Ben Ami told the committee, explaining that the hostages constantly exist in "a state of extreme fear."
"Understand that this is what it’s like, this is how we lived our lives every day," he stressed. "On top of everything else, unexpected things happen, and it’s insane to think about it."
[IsraelTimes] US president set to host PM at White House next Monday, amid reports of progress toward a ceasefire, and signs that Netanyahu is, for the first time, ready to end the war
US President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... said on Tuesday that he will be "very firm" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the need to end 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... when the premier visits Washington next week.
Speaking to news hounds, Trump also said that Netanyahu "wants it too," referring to a hostage-ceasefire deal that would bring an end to the Gaza war.
Earlier Tuesday, the president repeated his prediction that a ceasefire and hostage release deal would be reached shortly. "I think we’ll have a deal next week," he said.
He also said he and Netanyahu will discuss Gaza and "the great success we had with Iran," adding: "We want to get the hostages back."
The US president’s comments followed Netanyahu’s announcement on Monday that he will visit Washington, DC next week to meet with Trump.
The prime minister is set to take off for the US capital on Saturday and meet with Trump on Monday, July 7. On Tuesday, leading up to that trip, discussions took place in the Prime Minister’s Office over attempts to reach a hostage release deal with Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... , with reports of some progress.
"There is a positive dynamic and lively activity on the issue of negotiations," a bigwig told The Times of Israel.
After Trump asserted to news hounds that Netanyahu also wanted to see a ceasefire and hostage release deal come to fruition, Israeli cabinet members told Channel 12 on Tuesday evening that, for the first time, the premier was showing signs that he would prefer a deal to end the war in Gaza soon.
The report suggested that indirect talks with Hamas could restart in the coming days, while Netanyahu is in the US.
There is real, tangible US pressure on 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... , and Qatari pressure on Hamas, Israeli officials told Channel 12. "We are more optimistic. There are solutions being put together, and more positive approach to moving forward," said an official.
According to the outlet, Israel is showing more flexibility about the wording on the end of the war than it had previously done.
The report came after a cabinet meeting on the Gaza war earlier on Tuesday, during which IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir was said to have engaged in a spirited debate with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir over the future of the campaign.
Zamir told the two ultranationalist ministers that "Hamas is dead," with the proof being that it fired only one rocket during the recent 12-day war with Iran, the report said, adding that the two ministers had, in turn, pushed for a more aggressive implementation of Trump’s relocation plan for Gazooks.
He was also said to have dismissed their hopes for conquering the entire Gaza Strip, telling them it would endanger the lives of the hostages and would lead to possible violations of international law.
During the debate, according to the outlet, Netanyahu insisted that the war would not end before Hamas is defeated. However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... it added, the premier could define a defeat of Hamas in a way that allows him to end the war in the coming weeks.
Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting on Monday that he will also meet with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... , Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and senior politicians.
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who is currently in Washington ahead of Netanyahu’s visit, was slated to meet with Witkoff, Rubio and Vance.
Hostage-ceasefire talks are being mediated by Witkoff, whose latest proposal, the authenticity of which was confirmed to The Times of Israel by two sources familiar with the negotiations, would see Hamas release 10 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza and return the bodies of 18 deceased hostages during a 60-day ceasefire. The rest of the hostages would be released if a permanent ceasefire is reached.
Hamas sources told the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat that the group’s response to Witkoff’s deal proposal was generally positive, though with conditions.
A source directly involved in the negotiations told The Times of Israel that Hamas’s response included a demand that makes it more difficult for Israel to resume fighting if talks on a permanent ceasefire are not completed by the end of the 60-day truce.
The source said there were other changes the terror group wanted to make to the Witkoff proposal, adding that it would require a more drawn-out negotiation process.
The updated proposal submitted by Hamas envisions the release of the 10 hostages being more spread out throughout the truce, rather than in two batches on the first and seventh days, as the US offer envisioned.
The source said this change was aimed at preventing Netanyahu from abandoning talks on a permanent ceasefire after the hostages are released, or refusing to engage in them altogether, as he did during the previous ceasefire in January.
[IsraelTimes] NGOs’ call comes as 500 reported killed since May near aid sites; IDF says it has taken steps to reduce casualties; Foreign Ministry says Hamas shooting at civilians, falsifying death tolls
A group of more than 170 aid organizations on Tuesday called for an end to a US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution system 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... amid repeated reports of people being killed while seeking rations.
Translation: “How dare those outsiders poach on our patch, cutting us out, when we share the boodle with Hamas?”
According to Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... -linked authorities in Gaza, more than 500 people have been killed in mass shootings near aid distribution centers or transport routes guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating in late May.
The NGOs urged a return to the UN-led aid mechanism that existed in the war-torn territory until March, when Israel imposed a full blockade for several weeks on humanitarian assistance entering Gaza following a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
"Paleostinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families," the aid organizations said in a statement. The groups included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International.
They urged action to "revert to the existing UN-led coordination mechanisms, and lift the Israeli government’s blockade on aid and commercial supplies."
GHF told Rooters it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted."
In a response, the GHF told Rooters it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted."
The GHF added, "Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza."
The statement was published as the IDF said it had taken new steps to limit civilian casualties near aid distribution sites. It also comes as US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the 20-month war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House next week to discuss the war, in addition to other topics.
Israel said it tasked GHF with distribution in Gaza to keep Hamas from controlling the flow of aid. The IDF acknowledged on Monday that Paleostinian civilians have been harmed at the aid distribution sites, saying that troops had been issued new instructions following what it called "lessons learned."
According to the military, troops on the ground have only used live gunfire when a threat was posed to them, including when dozens of suspects approached forces outside of the designated routes to the aid sites operated by the GHF, or outside operating hours.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry accused Hamas of shooting at civilians and publishing false corpse counts.
Ah hah!
It posted recordings to social media that, it said, show Gazooks describing how the terror group "fires at civilians at these humanitarian sites, spreads false claims blaming the IDF, inflates casualty numbers, and circulates fake footage — all to disrupt aid efforts and keep the people of Gaza away from much-needed aid."
The GHF has been tasked with distributing aid in the Paleostinian territory since late May, following mounting international condemnation and warnings of imminent famine.
GHF operations have since been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on those waiting to collect rations in the territory, where the Israeli military is seeking to destroy Hamas.
"Under the Israeli government’s new scheme, starved and weakened civilians are being forced to trek for hours through dangerous terrain and active conflict zones, only to face a violent mostly peaceful, chaotic race to reach fenced, militarized distribution sites," the NGOs’ statement read.
Aid distribution in Gaza was traditionally coordinated through various NGOs and United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... agencies, notably the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees, UNRWA, which had 13,000 staff in the coastal enclave before the war. Israel has accused UNRWA of collaborating with Hamas and taken steps to restrict its activity.
At a presser in Vilnius on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Israel hoped to work with the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... to improve aid distribution.
"We are open... we don’t want Hamas to use the humanitarian aid as an economic asset...but we want it directly to go to the people of Gaza," he said.
[IsraelTimes] Army says it worked to limit harm to civilians in strike; Hamas-linked authorities say 51 killed across Strip, including 11 near aid site, as IDF reports 140 strikes over 24 hours
The military said Tuesday that it was looking into a strike at a cafe 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... City the day before. According to Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... -linked authorities, the strike killed 24 people.
Separately, another shooting incident was reported near an aid distribution site in southern Gaza, and the Israel Defense Forces said it dismantled a tunnel network stretching three kilometers (1.86 miles) that was used by terror operatives in Khan Younis.
The IDF said Tuesday that it carried out Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on more than 140 terror targets across the Gaza Strip over the previous 24 hours.
According to the IDF, the airstrikes Monday and Tuesday targeted terror operatives, anti-tank launch sites, weapons depots, military buildings, and underground infrastructure threatening Israeli troops.
The ongoing fighting comes as Israel’s recent conclusion of its campaign against 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... has intensified efforts in Israel and Washington to end the war in Gaza and free hostages held there for nearly two years.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who has held several cabinet meetings in recent days about the war against Hamas that have ended without a decision — is set to visit the White House on July 7 to discuss both Gaza and Iran with the American president.
Ground forces from multiple divisions are also operating in various parts of the Strip.
The 99th Division directed an airstrike that killed two operatives attempting to plant an bomb, while the 162nd Division eliminated eight operatives in an operational command center, the IDF said.
The 36th Division reported dozens of terrorist operatives killed and hundreds of targets destroyed in recent days.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella grabbed the cocoanut cream... naval forces struck several targets in southern Gaza under direction from the 143rd Division.
ARMY PROBING STRIKE ON GAZA CITY CAFE
The IDF said it was investigating a Monday strike that hit a seafront Gaza cafe.
In a response to reports about the cafe, the army said it struck "several Hamas Death Eaters in the northern Gaza Strip."
Gaza’s Hamas-linked civil defense agency said at least 24 Paleostinians were killed and dozens maimed in the strike on the al-Baqa cafe, a prominent venue along Gaza City’s coastal promenade.
The figure could not be independently verified.
According to the military, extensive precautions were taken ahead of the strike — including aerial surveillance — to reduce harm to civilians.
The cafe and restaurant, which had so far survived more than 20 months of war sparked by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack, had become a gathering spot for those not displaced by the conflict.
"There’s always a lot of people at that spot, which offers drinks, spaces for families, and internet access," said Ahmad al-Nayrab, 26, who was walking on the nearby beach when he heard a loud explosion.
"It was a massacre," he told AFP. "I saw bits of bodies flying everywhere, bodies mangled and burned. It was a bloodcurdling scene; everybody was screaming."
Another eyewitness, 35-year-old Bilal Awkal, said "blood covered the ground and screams filled the air. Women and children were everywhere, like a scene from a movie about the end of the world."
The Hamas government’s media office reported that photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab was among those killed in the strike.
PARATROOPERS DISMANTLE 3-KM TUNNEL IN KHAN YOUNIS
In one of the largest tunnel discoveries in recent weeks, IDF Paratroopers operating in Khan Younis dismantled a sprawling underground network used by terror operatives in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said Tuesday.
The troops uncovered roughly three kilometers of interconnected tunnels, used by terror groups to stage attacks, store weapons, and move undetected. The operation was carried out in coordination with the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.
According to the IDF, dozens of bad boyz were potted in close-quarters battles during the ongoing operation, which also included Israeli Air Force strikes.
The IDF said that its troops have destroyed hundreds of above- and below-ground terror sites, including tunnel shafts, command centers, and fortified hideouts designed for long-term use.
HAMAS-LINKED CIVIL DEFENSE SAYS 11 KILLED NEAR AID SITES
Civil defense front man Mahmud Bassal told AFP that, apart from the cafe strike, 27 others were killed by Israeli strikes or fire across Gaza, including 11 near aid distribution points in the center and south.
The agency’s numbers are unverified and do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Eyewitnesses and local authorities have reported repeated killings of Paleostinians near distribution centers in recent weeks, after Israel began allowing in aid at the end of May, largely for distribution through an Israeli- and US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Israel has acknowledged responsibility for some of the deaths near aid sites, attributing them to crowd-control measures, but has said the reported tolls are exaggerated.
According to the military, the strikes targeted terror group operatives, anti-tank launch sites, weapons depots, military buildings, and underground infrastructure threatening Israeli troops.
Ground forces from multiple divisions continued operating in various parts of the Strip. The 99th Division directed an airstrike that killed two operatives attempting to plant an explosive device, while the 162nd Division eliminated eight operatives in an operational command center. The 36th Division reported dozens of terrorist operatives killed and hundreds of targets destroyed in recent days.
Meanwhile, naval forces struck several targets in southern Gaza under direction from the 143rd Division.
In a statement to AFP regarding the incident, the army says it struck “several Hamas terrorists – in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Gaza’s Hamas-linked civil defense agency said at least 24 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in the strike on the Al-Baqa cafe, a prominent venue along Gaza City’s coastal promenade. The figure could not be independently verified.
Could it be various Shiite militias on Iran’s payroll?
[Rudaw] Two explosive-laden drones were intercepted over Sulaimani province on Tuesday, officials confirmed to Rudaw, with one crashing in the province’s northwest.
Ahmed Latif, spokesperson for Unit 70 of the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga Forces, told Rudaw that both drones were brought down within Sulaimani’s borders. He specified that "one was intercepted in the Tasluja area," northwest of Sulaimani city, while the second was downed "outside the perimeter of Unit 70’s forces."
Latif confirmed that neither incident resulted in casualties or material damage.
Salam Abdulkhaliq, head of the Sulaimani-based Asayish (security forces) media team, corroborated the report, stating that "two drones fell in the Tasluja area within Sulaimani’s borders" on Tuesday evening. He added that the Kurdish security forces’ investigation teams were dispatched to the scene and have launched a probe.
Abdulkhaliq also confirmed no casualties were reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, a separate drone incident occurred in the Darkar camp, approximately 36 kilometers northwest of Duhok city. The drone, laden with explosives, caused material damage but no injuries, according to the Kurdistan Region’s Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD).
The Darkar camp shelters Yazidis displaced from the Shingal (Sinjar) district following the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) assault in 2014.
"It is the first time our camp and subdistrict have experienced such an incident," Jawhar Mohammed, head of the Darkar subdistrict, told Rudaw on Tuesday, adding that the source of the drone remains unknown.
"It is the first time our camp and subdistrict have experienced such an incident," Jawhar Mohammed, head of the Darkar subdistrict, told Rudaw. He said the drone crashed near the camp’s school, igniting a fire that was quickly contained.
Civil defense teams from Duhok province’s Zakho city reported that three cabins at the camp caught fire as a result of the drone crash.
In a separate security incident the same day, Kirkuk Governor Rebwar Taha reported that three Katyusha rockets struck the city overnight. One rocket hit a residential home, while two others landed between the civilian and military zones of Kirkuk International Airport.
According to airport administration officials, the rockets struck at around 11:30 pm local time, injuring one airport employee.
[ShabelleMedia] Somali special forces from the elite Danab unit have killed a senior al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... commander and eight of his guards in a planned operation in the Bariire area of Lower Shabelle region, the government said on Tuesday.
The commander, identified as Jaabir, was targeted in a raid on a hideout where he and his security detail were located, security sources confirmed.
"The Somali National Army’s Danab special forces conducted a well-planned operation in Bariire, Lower Shabelle, killing a senior hard boy commander known as Jaabir and eight armed bandidosforces of Evil belonging to the group," a brief government statement said.
Jaabir was described as the chief explosives expert for the krazed killer group in Lower Shabelle, responsible for assembling improvised bombs used in attacks across the region, the federal government added.
The operation also resulted in the destruction of several al-Shabaab bases and tunnels used for staging bombings and assaults in the area.
[ShabelleMedia] Somali government forces in the Jubaland administration, supported by elite Danab commandos, carried out a major military operation in several areas under the jurisdiction of Badhadhe district in the southern Lower Juba region, officials said Monday.
The planned operation targeted al-Shabaab ... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... hideouts in remote bushland, with direct festivities erupting between the military and members of the bad boy group, according to officers leading the offensive. The fighting reportedly lasted several hours and was met with strong resistance.
Video footage released by the military shows troops standing over abandoned bully boy positions, including makeshift trenches and bunkers, where they recovered weapons and other supplies allegedly used by the group.
In a statement, Somalia’s federal government confirmed that at least 19 al-Shabaab fighters were killed in the village of **Baqooqaha**, located approximately 13 kilometers west of Buula Xaaji. The government also acknowledged the deaths of two soldiers and injuries to five others from the combined Jubaland and Danab forces.
Jubaland authorities vowed to continue operations against al-Shabaab until full security is restored across the Lower Juba region.
[IsraelTimes] As sanctioned firms secure Defense Ministry contracts, questions grow about oversight, legality, and the blurred line between soldier and civilian
With Israel’s war against the Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... terror group 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... in its 21st month, a quiet but dangerous reality has taken root: Civilian contractors, hired by the Defense Ministry, are regularly carrying out demolition, engineering and logistical work deep inside the war zone. Though officially noncombatants, many now operate on or near the front lines, assuming risks normally reserved for soldiers in uniform.
Those risks became tragically clear in late May, when 19-year-old David Libi, a civilian contractor, was killed by a bomb while operating engineering equipment during IDF operations in northern Gaza.
According to the military, Libi was working in the Jabalia area when the bomb detonated. He was the third Defense Ministry contractor killed in Gaza since the war began.
Libi worked for Libi Construction and Infrastructure, a firm recently sanctioned by the United Kingdom for supporting illegal West Bank outposts, and owned by his father, Harel Libi.
The UK Foreign Office accused the company of providing "logistical and financial support" for settlement expansion that led to the forced displacement of Paleostinians.
Harel Libi, a resident of the illegal West Bank outpost of Adei Ad, was also sanctioned for "acts of aggression and violence against Paleostinian individuals," as were other far-right activists involved in similar activity.
According to watchdog group Kerem Navot, Libi Construction has operated extensively in unauthorized areas of the West Bank, including building infrastructure for illegal outposts like Coco’s Farm, which was also sanctioned. Paleostinian groups have accused Libi’s employees of harassing local herders and preventing grazing.
Despite the sanctions and allegations, Libi Construction continued to operate under Defense Ministry contracts and remained active in Gaza. The ministry declined to comment on its continued collaboration with the company or on the broader role of civilian contractors in the Strip. Libi Construction did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Defense Ministry has hired numerous civilians like David Libi to take on demolition and logistical tasks, thereby freeing up IDF units for combat roles. But the use of civilian contractors in active war zones raises serious questions about oversight, legality, and the true nature of these workers’ status.
THE RISE OF CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS IN MODERN WARFARE
Dr. Ori Swed, director of the Texas Security Center at Texas Tech University, told The Times of Israel that while outsourcing in military contexts is not new, its scope and visibility have grown significantly since the 1990s.
He pointed to "high-profile cases" like Blackwater, the American private military contractor whose controversial role in the Iraq War brought international attention to the use of civilian contractors in active combat zones.
In 2007, Blackwater contractors escorting a US diplomatic convoy opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians. The massacre led Iraq to revoke the company’s license to operate, though the US later reinstated it temporarily.
The incident prompted criminal convictions, FBI investigations, and widespread scrutiny of legal accountability for contractors. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder, has long denied wrongdoing, accusing the US government of targeting the company with what he called "baseless" claims — including allegations of negligence, racial discrimination, murder, and weapons smuggling.
Swed emphasized that incidents like that of Blackwater do not reflect the private military industry as a whole, describing it as a "tragic, extreme, and deeply problematic case."
"Military operations aren’t just about the shooting part," Swed said. "They involve construction, logistics, transportation, communications, even healthcare. When a state military doesn’t have all the resources or specialization in-house — or simply needs to expand capacity — it turns to the private sector."
In Gaza, these civilian contractors have been used to construct and demolish roads, clear rubble, and modify terrain to facilitate troop movements and control territory — actions Swed describes as key to modern military engineering.
Other private actors, like the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, have also entered the field, distributing food aid under Defense Ministry coordination. Since it launched in late May, the GHF said it has provided over 46 million meals to Paleostinian civilians, though its operations have been marred by reports of near-daily deadly shootings of Paleostinians attempting to reach distribution points across IDF lines.
THE PATH TO GAZA: BUREAUCRATIC AND OPAQUE
According to CivilEng, a private organization representing construction professionals in Israel, to take part in operations, companies must first register with the government’s Construction Center under the Technology and Logistics Directorate of the IDF, as well as with the Registrar of Contractors.
Only then can they apply to become recognized providers of government work and bid on Defense Ministry tenders.
The ministry’s Department of Engineering and Construction, according to its own website, is staffed by a mix of IDF officers and civilian engineers. It oversees the planning and execution of military infrastructure, including much of the work currently being carried out in Gaza.
Still, transparency around these operations is minimal. Swed notes that security concerns often prevent disclosure of information to the public.
"This entire field is shrouded in secrecy by design," he said. "Anything related to military operations — especially in conflict zones — involves layers of security. Contractors are no exception. Disclosing identities, contracts, even logistics, can put people’s lives at risk."
RISK WITHOUT RECOGNITION
Despite operating in war zones, contractors like Libi do not receive the same public recognition or legal protection as soldiers.
"When contractors die, it doesn’t register with the public the same way a soldier’s death does," Swed said. "There’s a perception that [contractors] are there for money and that they accepted the risk voluntarily."
Unlike IDF soldiers, civilian contractors are not considered combatants under international law and therefore are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status if captured.
They also operate under private contracts rather than formal military command, leaving oversight fragmented and accountability less defined. Contractors working in conflict zones are not covered by the institutional protections soldiers receive — such as pensions, long-term benefits, or legal aid through the military justice system — and must instead rely on basic civilian labor laws.
"The actors for these security companies are not soldiers...but at the same time, they’re not non-combatants," Swed explained.
He pointed to the broader political utility of outsourcing.
"It allows the state to reduce the political pressure that comes with military casualties or unpopular drafts," he said, adding that "sometimes, it’s simply more cost-effective and flexible than deploying military personnel."
However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome... that flexibility can come at a human cost.
"This industry has had major legal issues, mostly related to labor rights and worker protections," Swed said. "When you’re operating in dangerous areas, far from oversight, the risk of exploitation increases."
A BLURRED LINE
Though exact numbers are not publicly available, the presence of Israeli civilian contractors in Gaza appears to be growing. Many reportedly come from West Bank settlements, raising further political questions about motivation, ideology, and government hiring preferences — though Swed cautions against speculation without hard evidence.
"It’s possible that [the current] government prefers to hire companies whose bids come from individuals with a particular motivation system," he acknowledged, but he maintained that it is impossible to determine the true reasoning without more information.
What is clear, however, is that the line between civilian and soldier in Israel’s war effort is becoming increasingly blurred. For contractors like Libi, the consequences are tragically clear — operating as civilians in a combat zone and taking on the dangers of war, without an official status or protection.
[IsraelTimes] Security forces last night arrested four Arab Israelis who fled to Ramallah after allegedly murdering a security guard in Lod last week, police announce.
The four are suspected of involvement in the shooting of 54-year-old Pavel Rozov, who was on his way to work at the city’s police station Friday evening when he was hit with a round of bullets, killing him instantly.
IDF soldiers and police officers in the police force’s Yamam counterrorism unit arrested the four suspects based on intelligence provided by the Shin Bet, a law enforcement spokesman says.
Officers detained the suspects for interrogation in the Central District police’s investigations and intelligence unit. They will be brought to court later today where cops will request to extend their remand.
Police previously announced Saturday that they arrested five others on suspicion of involvement in the murder, including two women, who were probed for allegedly aiding Rozov’s killers.
[IsraelTimes] In response to reports earlier today by the Palestinian Health Ministry that Israeli forces killed two individuals in separate incidents in the West Bank, including a 15-year-old boy in Ramallah, the IDF issues statements addressing both cases.
Regarding the incident in Ramallah, the military says that during an overnight operation in the central West Bank, several suspects hurled stones at Israeli troops. In response, soldiers fired warning shots into the air. No Israeli forces were injured, and the incident is under investigation.
Life lesson: Don’t throw stones at people with guns, because guns throw bullets back much harder.
In a separate incident near the town of Ramadin, southwest of Dhahiriya, the IDF says troops identified a suspect attempting to cross the security barrier overnight and opened fire in accordance with the rules of engagement. The IDF says the suspect was struck, and the incident is currently under further investigation.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 15-year-old Amjad Nassar Abu Awad was killed in Ramallah, and 24-year-old Samer Bassam Zagharneh was killed near Dhahiriya.
[IsraelNationalNews] Saudi Arabia is insisting that Israel finish the job in Gaza by removing Hamas from power completely in the coastal enclave as a precondition for a normalization agreement with the Jewish State, a Saudi source told i24NEWS.
The source, who is reportedly close to the royal court, told Middle East correspondent Ariel Oseran that, "Without removing Hamas, there will be no peace."
According to the report, the Saudi government hopes the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, will be restored to power in Gaza after the fall of the Hamas government.
The report is the first indication that ending the war now instead of continuing until Hamas is completely defeated may jeopardize efforts to secure normalization accords with Arab and Muslim nations and the Trump Administration's efforts to expand the Abraham Accords.
This is new. Up ‘til now, as I recall, the Saudis demanded a two state solution as their precondition.
US President Donald Trump stated today (Tuesday) that he believes a ceasefire could be reached sometime next week. He also reiterated his desire to see all of the remaining Israeli hostages returned.
Trump further stated that he would be "very firm" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue of ending the war in Gaza when the two leaders meet in Washington next week.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 ||
07/02/2025
07:21 ||
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#1
For many years there has been bad blood between the Moslem Brotherhood (Hamas is part of that) and the Saudis.
Things have been getting worse between them.
This was the Saudis chance.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/02/2025 12:22
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#2
Hopefully Bibi can use this to cool Trump's enthusiasms.
[NY Post] Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network.
Trump will receive $16 million upfront. This will cover legal fees, costs of the case, and contributions to his future presidential library or charitable causes, to be determined at Trump’s discretion.
There is an anticipation that there will be another allocation in the mid-eight figures set aside for advertisements, public service announcements, or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network in the future, Fox News Digital has learned.
With these considerations, CBS would pay well in excess of the $15 million ABC paid Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit last year. Current Paramount management disputes the additional allocation.
Sources close to the situation told Fox News Digital that CBS has agreed to update its editorial standards to install a mandatory new rule.
Going forward, the network will promptly release full, unedited transcripts of future presidential candidates’ interviews.
People involved in the settlement talks have referred to this as the “Trump Rule.”
“With this record settlement, President Donald J. Trump delivers another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit. CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle. President Trump will always ensure that no one gets away with lying to the American People as he continues on his singular mission to Make America Great Again,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025
05:20 ||
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Let's hope it has the Media being reporters again, not the Political Fiction writers and Puppet Propagandists that too many have become.
Scary to think.
But the internet, despite its liberal leanings, was far more accurate than the Big 6 MSM, in getting the FACTS out to the voters.
#4
One condition of the settlement should have been that CBS would report the settlement as their lead story. They should have been forced to eat crow on prime time TV so the whole world could see that they are liars.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/02/2025 11:10
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#5
They really, Really, Really didn't want to go to discovery.
They were lying and their bosses knew it.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 11:46
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I'm predicting a massive 'Burn Bag' backup at Klingon Central.
[Breitbart] In a stunning political and medical upheaval, 12 U.S. states have ignited a firestorm by pushing legislation to ban COVID-19 vaccines — declaring them unsafe, ineffective, and a symbol of misplaced trust. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently triggered a major policy shift by removing the vaccines from CDC recommendations for children and pregnant women, citing new findings.
For years, critical questions have been silenced. The promise that COVID-19 vaccines were "safe and effective" is now being called into serious doubt — and the consequences may be far worse than anyone imagined.
Could the vaccines themselves pose a long-term threat? Dr. Peter McCullough has been warning the public since the early days of the vaccine rollout about the dangers of the spike protein — a warning he repeated just recently before the U.S. Senate on May 21. Time is running out. The truth demands urgent attention — now.
A recent study from Yale University confirms that not only does toxic spike protein linger in the system after a vaccine, but it INCREASES over time.
Yes, the body produces more spike protein after a COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. The underlying technology of mRNA was initially developed for therapeutic applications in genetic disorders such as sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis.
The Yale study stopped collecting data 709 days after vaccination, and spike proteins were still present in high concentrations — a very different scenario than a traditional vaccine, containing a dead virus.
Dr. Peter McCullough, the world’s leading expert on the COVID-19 pandemic and proper health responses, says the #1 question he receives from patients these days is, "How do I get this spike protein out of my body?"
#1
"Shocking" to some possibly. I'm still awaiting the "Shocking" discovery regarding oral contraceptives and so-called abortion pills. Related activities? You decide.
#4
#2 In the US the covid vax has not been stopped. Only recently it has been discouraged in children. The public simply quit taking it. Some doctors are still recommending it.
#5
^When I was writing papers in Theoretical Immunology I'd read 100+ experimental papers to formulate my model. One thing I learned - if the research team has an MD in it, it's useless to me.
#6
My GP still asks if I want it, but doesn’t push even a little. I imagine suggesting it is a job requirement — it’s the university med school’s group practice
Lengthy with videos. President Trump piece extracted and posted below:
[Vigilant Fox] The conversation shifted to Trump, leading to one of the biggest highlights of the entire interview.
First, Kennedy explained that Trump chose his cabinet in an unorthodox way: he wanted to see three clips of each candidate performing on TV before considering them for the job.
"One of the things with President Trump is that he really knows how to pick talent... For every one of the positions that he picked, he wanted to see three clips of them performing on TV. He’s very conscious of the fact that these people are going to be out selling his program to the public," Kennedy said.
If you’re on the fence about Trump, listen to Kennedy here. It might just change how you see him.
"I had him pegged as a narcissist, when narcissists are incapable of empathy. And he’s one of the most empathetic people that I’ve met," Kennedy said.
"He’s immensely curious, inquisitive, and immensely knowledgeable. He’s encyclopedic in certain areas that you wouldn’t expect," he continued.
Kennedy added that Trump genuinely cares about soldiers who go to war, citing how Trump "always talks about the casualties on both sides" of the Russia—Ukraine conflict.
"Whether it’s vaccines or Medicaid or Medicare, he’s always thinking about how this impacts the little guy. And the Democrats have him pegged as a guy who’s sort of sitting in the Cabinet meeting talking about how can we make billionaires richer. He’s the opposite of that. He’s a genuine populist," Kennedy said.
Here’s the clip. Trust me, watching this is better than reading it.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2025
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I love the Bloid, Fred. Such an efficient, charming way to see the what the world is doing. It’s the first thing I look for when I open Rantburg — and I keep checking until it appears.
[FoxNews] A lightweight, open source humanoid robot from UC Berkeley makes robot building more affordable and accessible for students, makers, and researchers
[FoxNews] DA announces over 40 people face serious charges, including alleged attacks on police horses and officers with flagpoles
Los Angeles officials announced on Tuesday that over 40 individuals have been slapped with new charges stemming from violent riots against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts last month.
Of the charges, prosecutors pointed to a 17-year-old juvenile accused of attempted murder, two separate instances of protesters allegedly assaulting Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department horses and a man accused of injuring a police officer with a flagpole, LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a press release.
"The large-scale protests may have ended for now, but our work has not," Hochman said.
One of the suspects, a 17-year-old juvenile, is charged with one felony count of attempted murder, assault upon a peace officer, vandalism and two misdemeanor counts of rioting, according to officials.
Another protester, identified as 37-year-old Patrick Munoz, is accused of jabbing a flagpole at an officer as they attempted to break up a gathering outside a local hotel on June 11. If convicted, Munoz could spend up to nine years and two months in prison.
Munoz's attorney did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Additionally, prosecutors allege 49-year-old Robert Amaya approached a family as they were leaving a protest on June 10, and subsequently pulled out a knife while approaching an 11-year-old girl and making stabbing motions at her. Amaya is charged with one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon and faces up to 13 years in state prison if convicted.
Fox News Digital was unable to immediately locate an attorney representing Amaya.
Another suspect, 29-year-old Iran Castro, is accused of pulling the bridle of a sheriff’s mounted deputies’ horse and grabbing the reins of another horse at a June 14 protest after being released on her own recognizance for separate felony charges, according to authorities. Castro is charged with two felony counts of assault upon a peace officer, two felony counts of animal cruelty and one felony count of resisting arrest. If convicted, she faces the possibility of up to 10 years and four months in prison.
A second protester is also charged with allegedly assaulting an LASD horse in a separate incident, according to the press release. Authorities have accused 66-year-old Dana Whitson of pushing the animal "several times," before hitting the horse’s muzzle and pulling on its rein at a June 13 protest. Whitson faces the possibility of up to six years and four months in prison if convicted.
Attorneys for both Castro and Whitson did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The charges come after officials spent weeks battling rioters on the streets of Los Angeles, leading to hundreds of arrests as local, state and federal law enforcement officers looked to tame the chaos stemming from outcry over immigration raids throughout the sanctuary city.
"We are continuing to review evidence, identify suspects and file charges where the law has been broken," Hochman said. "I want to thank the team of investigators and prosecutors for their tireless efforts to ensure that those who committed criminal acts under the guise of protest are held accountable."
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025 10:48
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Hochman is cut from different cloth than most of LA's politicians. He was only able to get elected because Gascon was such an obvious disaster that even LA voters couldn't handle it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/02/2025 11:01
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Jail time or it's just theater.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 11:33
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#7
Hefty 6 or 7 digit fines might be in order as well.
#8
For Grom, about the horse assaults, from the article:
Another suspect, 29-year-old Iran Castro, is accused of pulling the bridle of a sheriff’s mounted deputies’ horse and grabbing the reins of another horse at a June 14 protest after being released on her own recognizance for separate felony charges, according to authorities. Castro is charged with two felony counts of assault upon a peace officer, two felony counts of animal cruelty and one felony count of resisting arrest. If convicted, she faces the possibility of up to 10 years and four months in prison.
A second protester is also charged with allegedly assaulting an LASD horse in a separate incident, according to the press release. Authorities have accused 66-year-old Dana Whitson of pushing the animal "several times," before hitting the horse’s muzzle and pulling on its rein at a June 13 protest. Whitson faces the possibility of up to six years and four months in prison if convicted.
#10
So many things never occur to me, SteveS. I was surprised that the master of 100 immunology publications somehow missed the data he was looking for…
[FoxNews] Four decapitated bodies found hanging from freeway overpass as rival cartel groups battle for control
Mexican authorities said 20 dead bodies, including five decapitated corpses, were discovered in the cartel-plagued city of Culiacan on Monday.
Four decapitated corpses were found hanging from a highway bridge leading out of the city. The bodies' heads were discovered nearby in a plastic bag, authorities said, according to the Associated Press.
That same day, 16 additional dead bodies with gunshot wounds were found stuffed into a white van on the same freeway. Along with the corpses – one of which had also been decapitated – authorities found a note seemingly from one of the cartel groups. The contents of that note were not immediately disclosed, AP reported. Was it from their "Political Wing" or their "Armed Wing"?
Culiacan, which has around 1 million residents and is the capital of western Mexico's Sinaloa state, has been wrought by a war for control between two rival drug trafficking groups of the Sinaloa cartel – Los Chapitos and La Mayiza.
Mexican authorities condemned the deadly acts on Monday. However, many Sinaloa residents say authorities no longer have control of the violence, according to AP.
"Military and police forces are working together to reestablish total peace in Sinaloa," Feliciano Castro, Sinaloa government spokesperson, said in a statement on Monday.
Last month, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Los Chapitos and designated it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. In a statement at the time, the U.S. Treasury Department said the group facilitates the production and trafficking of fentanyl.
"Los Chapitos is a powerful, hyperviolent faction of the Sinaloa cartel at the forefront of fentanyl trafficking in the United States," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month. "At the Department of the Treasury, we are executing on President Trump’s mandate to completely eliminate drug cartels and take on violent leaders like ‘El Chapo’s’ children."
Gunmen linked to the Sinaloa cartel were also involved in the Oct. 18, 2024, killing of U.S. Marine veteran Nicholas Quets in Sonora, Mexico.
The Attorney General's Office of the State of Sinaloa did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Mexico has a huge incentive to oppose a remittance tax — and it has the power to make closed-door deals with the U.S. government. In May, President Claudia Sheinbaum called on Mexicans to oppose the draft tax on migrants’ remittances to Mexico.
#4
/\ Both foreign governments have much sway in Congress, partly because they can harass U.S. trade with their countries. Moreover, Trump’s deputies are trying to craft a trade deal with India, even as Indian officials push to reduce the Social Security taxes paid by Indian workers in the United States.
[FoxNews] Decision comes after Russia launched its largest aerial attack of the war with nearly 500 drones and 60 missiles
The Pentagon has frozen some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot missile interceptors and 155 mm artillery shells, at a pivotal moment in Kyiv’s war with Russia, Fox News has confirmed.
According to U.S. military officials tracking the shipments, the weapons were already staged in Poland before the order came down.
The halt was driven by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby after a review of U.S. munitions stockpiles that showed dangerously low reserves, Politico first reported.
"This was made to put America’s interests first," White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said n a statement also shared with Fox News Digital. "The strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned — just ask Iran."
Colby, a principal Trump defense official and architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, has long pushed for a hard shift toward countering China over continued involvement in Ukraine. Before rejoining the Pentagon, he led The Marathon Initiative and authored The Strategy of Denial, a widely cited blueprint for great power competition.
According to Politico, the withheld arms include air defense munitions, precision-guided shells and Hellfire missiles used by Ukrainian F-16s.
A senior defense official told Politico the Pentagon’s review revealed that stockpiles of Patriot interceptors, precision-guided 155 mm shells and other critical munitions had dropped to levels deemed insufficient to meet U.S. contingency plans.
The Army has already quietly quadrupled its procurement targets for Patriot interceptors, but defense analysts say replenishment will take time.
Over the weekend, Russia launched its largest aerial attack of the war, nearly 500 drones and 60 missiles. Ukraine’s air defenses, many U.S.-made, remain strained.
After meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at the NATO summit, Trump said, "They do want to have the anti-missile missiles. … We’re going to see if we can make some available."
Remaining funds from the Biden administration are expected to run out in the coming months.
#1
...If the reserve stocks are 'dangerously low', that means the mags are near enough to dammit empty.
MIDNIGHT HAMMER bought us some time, not just with Iran but with the Norks and the Chinese as well. They know that we are still very capable of pulling a rabbit out of a hat...and then shooting them with it. But that won't last forever.
#3
DOD needs a budget supplemental to massively replenish and procure Patriots, THAAD, and Standard 3 & 6 antimissiles. Too many is not enough. We know that they work and the targets they protect are too valuable.
Posted by: Difar Dave ||
07/02/2025 21:44
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Game changing. Next up, Mahmoud Khalil, who definitely acquired his green card, and applied for citizenship, under false pretenses.
[Townhall] The Justice Department is beginning to strip naturalized Americans charged with crimes of their citizenship.
This is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on criminal migrants colonists. The Justice Department issued a memo on June 11 that details a list of priorities — especially concerning denaturalization.
The memo instructs federal attorneys to "prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence." The purpose is to remove individuals who obtained US citizenship through fraud or misrepresentation. This especially applies to those who "committed felonies that were not disclosed during the naturalization process" or "engaged in various forms of financial fraud against the United States."
"The Department of Justice may institute civil proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either ’illegally procured’ naturalization or procured naturalization by ’concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.’"
The ten categories of priority targets are individuals connected with national security threats, such as terrorism, espionage, or those who illegally export sensitive technology. Other targets include war criminals, those affiliated with gangs, violent mostly peaceful criminals, and human traffickers.
The memo indicates that the Justice Department plans to apply its civil revocation authority more broadly than past administrations.
About 53 percent of the 46.2 million immigrants colonists residing in the US were naturalized citizens in 2022, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Those seeking naturalization are required to go through a lengthy application process. They must typically have been a lawful permanent resident for at least five years, along with other criteria.
The White House does not have the authority to unilaterally strip a naturalized person of their citizenship. However,
women are made to be loved, not understood... federal courts can take such an action after the Justice Department initiates civil denaturalization proceedings.
The law requires the government to prove that the individual illegally obtained their citizenship or lied on their applications. A federal judge would assess the evidence and issue a ruling. In this case, the individual can appeal the ruling. Those subject to such an action are entitled to due process and the right to defend themselves against the charges.
[USA Today] WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump referred to former President Joe Biden as a "son of a b---" as he toured a detention facility in the Florida Everglades known as "Alligator Alcatraz," claiming his predecessor wanted him behind similar bars.
"Biden wanted me in here, OK," Trump said July 1 next to chain-link cages with beds that will house detained migrants beginning Wednesday. "He wanted me. Didn't work out that way, but he wanted me in here that son of a b----."
Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden for his 2023 federal indictments led by Special Counsel Jack Smith over Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and concealing classified documents. Trump claimed the indictments were politically motivated to hurt his chances in the 2024 election. Both cases were closed after Trump was elected to a second presidential term in 2024.
In a sign of charitable compassion, he left off the adjectives 'crooked and worthless.'
#1
It wasn't so much Joe Biden.
But, those actually running the Puppet White House along with the DNC Leadership/Elite trying to cover up their criminal, subversive and treasonous deeds.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:26 Servicemen of the 91st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the "Sever" continue to destroy explosive devices in the Sudzhan border area.
On frames: a grenade discovered by our servicemen on one of the country roads.
19:57 Servicemen of the 44th Army Corps of the North Group of Forces opened a temple in the rear area of the North Military District in the Khar'kov direction.
During the festive liturgy of the opening of the church in honor of Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) - Bishop of Stavropol and the Caucasus - the soldiers took part in Holy Communion and also talked with the priest.
18:26 FPV drone operators of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division of the Dnepr group of forces destroyed mortar and fortified dugouts with Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel in the Zaporizhia region.
Servicemen of the 6th Motorized Rifle Division of the "Southern" group of forces destroyed two enemy ground robotic systems in the Kramatorsk-Druzhkovsky direction.
17:02 Captured tank of the Ukrainian Armed Forces "Leopard 2A6" of German production evacuated to the location of the Guards Parachute Regiment from the area of the settlement of Darino in the Kursk region.
16:32 Situation in the Kupyansk direction:
Our troops have driven the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Zagryzovo and continue to advance towards Boguslavka and Kruglyakovka;
In the eastern part of Kruglyakovka our troops are gaining a foothold, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are counterattacking from the direction of Senkovo;
West of Lozovaya we advance south, encircling Boguslavka from the southern flank;
14:18 Calculation of the 122mm MLRS "Grad" of the tank unit of the group of forces "Center" destroyed a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Krasnoarmeysk direction.
12:52 Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the Special Military Operation as of July 1, 2025
Units of the North group of forces improved the situation along the front line. They defeated the manpower and equipment of the mechanized, ranger, airborne assault brigades, two assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, two territorial defense brigades and the special forces unit "Khimera" of the GUR in the areas of the settlements of Varachino, Sadki, Khrapovshchina, Bessalovka, Novonikolaevka and Yunakovka in Sumy Oblast.
In the Khar'kov direction, units of the mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and two territorial defense brigades were defeated in the areas of the settlements of Okhrimovka, Ogurtsovo, Olkhovatka and Volchansk in the Khar'kov region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 180 servicemen, three combat armored vehicles, six cars, four field artillery pieces and a Croatian-made RAK-SA-12 multiple launch rocket system launcher.
Units of the "West" group of forces occupied more advantageous lines and positions. They defeated formations of two mechanized, airmobile, assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Petrovka, Kupyansk, Gorokhovatka, Nizhneye Solenoye, Dvurechanskoye, Putnikovo, Petrovpavlovka, Sobolevka, Peschanoye and Borovskaya Andreyevka in the Khar'kov region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 220 servicemen, a tank, 12 vehicles and a Western-made artillery piece. An electronic warfare station and four ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the "Southern" group of forces improved their tactical position. They defeated the manpower and equipment of three mechanized, assault, mountain assault and airmobile brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Seversk, Zvanovka, Serebryanka, Shcherbinovka, Chasov Yar, Predtechino, Konstantinovka, Verkhnekamenskoye and Petrovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The enemy lost over 160 soldiers, a pickup truck, four field artillery pieces and an ammunition depot.
Units of the "Center" group of forces improved their position along the front line. They defeated formations of the mechanized, mountain assault, airborne assault brigades, unmanned systems brigade, assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, naval infantry brigade and national guard brigade in the areas of the settlements of Udachnoye, Novosergeevka, Petrovskoye, Novoukrainka and Dachnoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The losses of the Ukrainian armed forces amounted to 500 servicemen, an armored vehicle HMMWV and an armored vehicle "MaxxPro" made in the USA, as well as 11 pickups.
Units of the "East" group of forces continued to advance into the depths of the enemy's defense. They defeated the manpower and equipment of two mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a naval infantry brigade and two territorial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Zelenoye Pole, Shevchenko, Voskresenka, Chervona Zirka of the Donetsk People's Republic, Novodarovka and Levadnoye of the Zaporizhia region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 215 servicemen, six vehicles, two field artillery guns and an electronic warfare station.
Units of the Dnepr group of forces defeated formations of the mechanized, mountain assault brigades and two coastal defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Kamenskoe, Mala Tokmachka in the Zaporizhia region, Antonovka, Prydniprovskoe, Zolotaya Balka in the Kherson region, Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region and the city of Nikolaev.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 90 Ukrainian servicemen, a US-made HMMWV armored vehicle, seven vehicles, and a field artillery gun. Nine electronic warfare stations, two ammunition depots, and two military-technical equipment depots were destroyed.
Operational-tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the groups of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation inflicted damage on the control system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, production workshops, assembly sites, storage and control points for strike unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition depots and military-technical property, as well as temporary deployment points of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 148 districts.🎯
Air defense systems shot down three British-made Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, five JDAM guided air bombs, three US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets, and 173 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.
12:07 Advance of the Russian Armed Forces towards Kleban-Byk in the Konstantinovsky direction –MAP
11:19 Crew of the automatic grenade launcher AGS-17 "Flame" provided advance of motorized riflemen, hitting the firing points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The soldiers used a modernized grenade launcher with a modified flame arrester, which allowed them to covertly fire at fortified enemy positions.
“With a flame arrester on the AGS, shots are practically inaudible, and the flame when firing is noticeably reduced – especially at night,” said the commander of the grenade launcher platoon with the call sign “Husky.”
10:48 In the area of the settlement of Raiskoe in the DPR, unmanned aerial vehicles "Geran-2" destroyed temporary deployment point of the 143rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
09:42 Servicemen of the 29th Army of the Vostok group told how they liberated the settlement of Chervona Zirka in the Donetsk People's Republic.
Continuing to develop the success after the liberation of the villages of Zaporozhye and Yalta, the assault troops of the 36th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade entered the settlement and drove the enemy from their firing positions.
07:33 Changes to map over the past 24 hours:➡️
Advance in the Belaya Gora area in the Seversky direction➡️
Expansion of the control zone in Kamenskoye
Advance in the Maliyevka area➡️
Dachnoe in Dnepropetrovsk region liberated
07:14 During the night of July 1, air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed 60 Ukrainian aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles:
17 UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Republic of Crimea,
16 UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Rostov Region,
11 UAVs were destroyed over the waters of the Sea of Azov,
Five UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Kursk Region,
Four UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Saratov Region,
Three UAVs were destroyed over the waters of the Black Sea,
Two UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Belgorod Region,
One UAV was destroyed over the territories of the Voronezh and Oryol Regions.
06:23 Servicemen of the mobile air surveillance posts of the "Center" group of forces are destroying dozens of enemy UAVs, covering the actions of our troops in the SVO zone.
05:02 Crews of 152ms towed guns "Giatsint-B" of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the "West" group of forces destroyed ammunition depots and manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces units in the area of the special operation.
The target coordinates were received from the Orlan-10 UAV operators.
[X] President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... has indicated he is open to an investigation by the Department of Justice into former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This interest stems from criticisms regarding Mayorkas' handling of border security during the Biden administration, which has seen a significant influx of illegal migrants colonists. Trump's comments were made in response to questions about accountability for Mayorkas' actions.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has approved the indictment in the case of the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow. This was reported on July 1 by the press service of the department.
The list of accused includes 19 people. Depending on their role and degree of participation in the crime, they are charged under articles of the Criminal Code on participation in a terrorist organization, undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities, terrorist attack, preparation for a terrorist attack, illegal trafficking in firearms, illegal trafficking in explosive devices, illegal manufacture of firearms, illegal manufacture of explosives, and others.
According to the investigation, two wanted Tajik citizens and unidentified individuals, acting in the interests of the Ukrainian leadership, organized the activities of three cells of the group "Vilayat Khorasan", which is part of the Islamic State (a terrorist organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation), on the territory of the Russian Federation, and involved 13 Tajik citizens in this activity, who were given instructions to commit a terrorist attack in Moscow.
“The criminal case has been sent to the 2nd Western District Military Court for consideration on the merits,” the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office reported.
The investigation into the defendants in this case, who are wanted, is ongoing, the statement also said.
Posted by: badanov ||
07/02/2025
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[139 views]
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[IsraelTimes] The president of Iceland’s national broadcaster says Israel should only be allowed to participate in next year’s Eurovision under a “neutral flag,” similar to Olympic athletes from Russia and Belarus.
Stefán Jón Hafstein makes the comments ahead of a meeting later this week in London of European Broadcasting Union member states to discuss next year’s competition. He says that Iceland will support any bid to kick Israel out of the competition, but would agree to a compromise that would see an Israeli artist compete without representing the country.
The EBU has promised to address complaints about this year’s contest from some countries, which have expressed outrage over Israel’s participation and also made allegations about voting irregularities. Iceland, Spain, Slovenia, and Belgium are among the EBU members who have called to bar Israel from the competition.
Some of the country’s public broadcasters may also face rebukes or fines over anti-Israel broadcasts or commentary during the Eurovision broadcast this year, which violates EBU rules.
Meanwhile, some Israeli government officials are pursuing legislation that would shut down Israel’s public broadcaster, which would render the debate moot, as Israel would no longer qualify to compete at the Eurovision.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] All eight Russian citizens who were previously detained in Azerbaijan on suspicion of drug transit from Iran, their distribution via the Internet, and cybercrime have been arrested. The corresponding decision was made by a court in Baku, the APA agency reported on July 1.
“In the Sabail District Court... a preventive measure in the form of detention for a period of four months was chosen for eight detained Russian citizens,” the article clarified.
It is noted that the detainees appeared before the court separately.
Earlier, photographs emerged showing Russian citizens detained in Azerbaijan on suspicion of drug trafficking. Their faces showed signs of beatings.
As reported by Regnum news agency, on June 30, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan announced that law enforcement agencies were conducting an operation in Baku at the office of the Sputnik agency, which is part of the Rossiya Segodnya media group.
On the same day, security forces detained the head of the editorial board of the Sputnik Azerbaijan agency Igor Kartavykh and editor-in-chief Yevgeny Belousov in Baku. Sputnik representatives called the accusations leveled against the detainees that they are “FSB agents” absurd.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Azerbaijani Ambassador Rahman Mustafayev against the backdrop of the illegal detention of Russian journalists and Baku's unfriendly actions. The Russian diplomatic mission recalled that Azerbaijan had no complaints against Russian journalists in previous years. The ambassador was given a verbal note demanding the immediate release of the agency's editorial board chief and editor-in-chief from custody.
🚨 JUST IN: ICE conducted a raid in North Carolina resulting in 30 illegals arrested — many of which were charged with FELONIES, like aggravated identity theft
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions against four Russians due to suspicions of involvement in alleged cybercrimes. Information about this appeared on the official website of the department.
Washington alleges that Russians operate Aeza Group, a company that provides hosting services “in support of cybercriminal activity targeting victims in the United States and other parts of the world.” The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that the IT company is allegedly based in St. Petersburg.
The restrictions are being introduced against Aeza Group itself, as well as against Arseniy Penzev, whom the US authorities consider to be the CEO. The department's statement claims that he was previously accused of drug trafficking in Russia. Also on the sanctions list were Yuri Bozoyan, Vladimir Gast and Igor Knyazev, whom the US authorities named as the company's management.
The restrictions include freezing the assets of the individuals in the US and prohibiting transactions with the company. The measures were taken jointly with the UK National Crime Agency.
Following negotiations between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, US senators have stepped up calls for the US Congress to impose anti-Russian sanctions. In April, Washington added three Russians and three Russian companies to the sanctions list. In addition, one dry cargo ship registered in the Russian Federation was included in the sanctions list.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin previously noted that the West had already imposed 28,595 sanctions against the country. Before this, the head of state had repeatedly indicated that Western countries had counted on Russia being weakened by the sanctions, but they had brought the opposite result.
[FoxNews] Biden's team would have accepted their enlistments.
Two Chinese nationals face serious charges after they allegedly acted as agents of the People's Republic of China’s government to collect intelligence about U.S. Navy service members and bases, while also recruiting other military members to carry out tasks for the country’s main foreign intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Chinese national Yuance Chen, who resides in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Liren Lai, who traveled to Houston on a tourist visa in April 2025, were arrested on Friday. Both individuals face charges of overseeing and carrying out various clandestine intelligence tasks in the U.S. on behalf of the Ministry of State Security.
Along with assisting with the recruitment of potential MSS assets and gathering intel about service members and bases, the two men are accused of facilitating a "dead drop" payment of cash on behalf of the MSS.
The FBI arrested both men on Friday – Chen was arrested in Happy Valley while Lai was arrested in Houston – with help from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).
"Today’s arrests reflect the FBI’s unwavering commitment to protecting our national security and safeguarding the integrity of our military," FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital. "The individuals charged were acting on behalf of a hostile foreign intelligence service — part of the Chinese Communist Party’s broader effort to infiltrate and undermine our institutions. Thanks to outstanding coordination with our partners, including NCIS, we disrupted those efforts and sent a clear message: the United States will not tolerate espionage on American soil. Our counterintelligence operations remain focused, vigilant, and relentless."
Citing a criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of California, the DOJ said the government of the PRC conducts intelligence activities against the U.S. using various means, including the MSS, which is involved with collecting intelligence on civilians. The MSS is also responsible for foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and political security.
The complaint alleges that Lai recruited Chen to work for the MSS in 2021.
The two men were in Guangzhou, China in January 2022, when they allegedly collaborated to facilitate a dead-drop payment of at least $10,000 on behalf of the MSS. The operation involved working with others in the U.S. to leave a backpack with the cash at a day-use locker in Livermore, California.
Lai and Chen continued working on behalf of the MSS after the cash drop payment and helped with identifying Navy individuals who might be willing to work on behalf of the MSS as well.
The DOJ said in 2022 and 2023, the two visited a U.S. Naval installation in Washington State as well as a Navy recruitment center in San Gabriel, California.
While at the recruitment center, Chen allegedly took photos of a bulletin board that contained the names, programs and hometowns of Navy recruits. The majority of those listed on the board noted that their hometown was "China," and the photos appeared to be transmitted to an MSS intelligence officer in China, the DOJ claimed.
The DOJ also alleged that the MSS gave Chen instructions on what to say to potential recruits when it came to payment that could be made by the MSS, preferred Naval job assignments for potential recruits and methods to minimize Chen’s risk of being exposed.
Chen ultimately began to communicate with a member of the Navy on social media, the DOJ alleges, and arranged for a tour of the USS Abraham Lincoln in San Diego with the employee. Chen also sent information about the employee to the MSS, the complaint said.
In April 2024 and March 2025, Chen traveled to Guangzhou where he met with MSS intelligence officers, the complaint alleged, to discuss pay for specific tasks.
IRGC Deputy Commander Mohammad-Reza Naqdi claimed, “We used only 5% of our military power in the war,” warning that Iran’s future strategy will shift to a ground invasion. He added, “Any American present in the region will either be killed or captured.” pic.twitter.com/Ve9zOYYEqT
Comment in X thread on Mohammed-Reza Naqdi: 'Deputy Commander…’ born & raised in Najaf- Iraq. Saddam forced him, wife& kids out,moved to Naghadeh-Iran,low educated 👎w/ zero military education, is just a THUG, who has been involved in brutality oppression, torture & killing civilians.
Is he a reliable person? U tell me
Looking at a map of American military bases in the Middle East, Iran will have to invade the surrounding nations to get to them. As is repeatedly pointed out in the Twitter thread, there is a vast difference between what Iran’s army did to Iraq’s, for instance, and what the US Army did to Iraq’s in each Gulf War. Still, our flyboys and -girls never get enough shooting practice, so they’d definitely appreciate the chance.
Posted by: 3dc ||
07/02/2025
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[254 views]
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#3
Yea! Iranian "Ground invasion" that's the ticket. Those high flying B2's will never see us. Spread OUT dammit! Keep those 3-5 meter intervals or one Bunker Buster will get you all !
[MSN/WSJ] California lawmakers on Monday night rolled back one of the most stringent environmental laws in the country, after Gov. Gavin Newsom muscled through the effort in a dramatic move to combat the state’s affordability crisis.
A cornerstone of the legislation reins in the California Environmental Quality Act, which for more than a half-century has been used by opponents to block almost any kind of development project. The abuses of the law have spread so widely that opponents used it to block some bicycle-lane expansions when Newsom served as San Francisco’s mayor, he said during a signing ceremony at the Sacramento capital.
"We have seen this abuse over and over and over again," the governor said. "We have fallen prey to a strategy of delay. As a result of that, we have too much demand chasing too little supply. This is not complicated, it is Econ 101."
Some environmentalists and other defenders of the longstanding law were furious, and warned that developers will now go unchecked. "Who needs Trump when we have a wolf in sheep clothing negotiating backroom deals while he and his oligarch donors score big," one critic wrote on X.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/02/2025
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[113 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Finally realized that there's no way they'd get the LA rebuild done in time for the Olympics graft-o-fest.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 8:09
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#2
It wont be the first time the Olympics have been held in a third world city. I just wonder where all the homeless are going to get moved to...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2025 16:43
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How unstatesmanlike. President Bush, at least, was trained in good manners, and knows better. Poor President Obama was brought up by Communist spies, and so all he understands is power plays. Not that anyone cares what either of them think on the subject, as President Bush never mastered the Deep State and President Obama co-opted it, inasmuch as they were not his enthusiastic fellow travellers.
[Daily Beast] Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush have joined forces to shoot down President Trump’s "colossal mistake" to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Trump administration cut around 90 percent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts during Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rampage back in February. Musk oversaw the depletion of the workforce from 10,000 to less than 300.
The agency will be absorbed by the state department, where it will be replaced by a new organization called America First.
In a farewell video message to staffers on Monday, USAID’s last day before it is folded into the state department, the two former presidents decried its treatment by Trump.
#2
Interesting that it is specifically the USAID shutdown that triggered this bipartisan condemnation.
USAID was possibly a money laundering outfit that was not only important but essential for the deep state.
Rerouting money streams will be difficult because the public is now aware of the general scheme. This is true even if an establishment figure should succeed Trump.
#4
The Bush people have been against Trump from day one. Let's not pretend anything has changed.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 8:13
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#5
^ Still sore about JEB!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025 8:38
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#6
JEB! was just frosting on the loathing cake. The Bushes have been patrician class Republicans for generations in Connecticut and environs — and that side trip to Texas his father started. They’ve served in both houses of Congress, as governors and vice presidents, on political commissions and charitable boards and as ambassadors, and married into families just like them for even longer. George HW Bush was their first president, and George W their second…. and someone discovered that Barack Obama is something like a tenth cousin, so while they move in different circles, at official president functions they stand together.
The Donald is a nouveau riche, second generation landlord from Queens who, as they no doubt see it, bought his way into the White House instead of knowing his place.
#7
TW nails it. JEB's defeat was a gift. I suspect the family secretly realized as much. Mexican lawn services hire only Mexicans. Same is true of the Yale, Ivy League crowd.
#11
Because they are the last two where the money trail can get to them. Biden will be dead in a couple years, or at least so bad he cant get prosecuted and we will never go after Jill, the next to are these idiots. They know they will be in the DOJ sights soon...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2025 16:55
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#12
Oh no. Hey everyone, Bono is crying. Remember Bono? Yeah, he's crying. We should probably put stuff on hold until we can get him a nappy or something.
[FreeBeacon] The Trump administration also noted that Francesca Albanese has claimed to be an 'international lawyer' but 'has not passed a legal bar examination or been licensed to practice law'
The Trump administration has formally requested that the United Nations (U.N.) remove Francesca Albanese from her role as the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, citing her "virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism" as well as her misrepresentation of her legal qualifications, according to private communications between U.S. and U.N. officials obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The U.N. reappointed Albanese—a vocal Israel critic who blamed the Jewish state for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree and compared Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler—to her post earlier this year over the Trump administration’s objections. Since that time, she has penned "threatening letters" to companies across the globe, warning them to cut business ties with Israel or face "potential criminal liability," according to the Trump administration.
Albanese wrote threatening letters—which the Trump administration described as "riddled with inflammatory rhetoric and false accusations"—to some of the "most prominent American corporations in varied sectors including technology, financial services, manufacturing, and hospitality" in recent weeks, prompting the State Department to raise its concerns with U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres earlier this month and demand her termination.
"In her letters, Ms. Albanese makes extreme allegations, such as that the entities may be contributing to purported offenses including ’gross human rights violations,’ ’apartheid,’ and ’genocide,’" acting U.S. representative to the U.N. Dorothy Shea wrote. "She wrongly asserts that recipients have violated 'preemptory norms of international law’ and face exposure to ’potential criminal liability,’ and demands that they cease activities relating to Israel."
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025 11:23
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#3
The pro and anti Iran-Qatar-Russia factions in the Trump 47 administration seem to simultaneously make political moves and set policy, this being an initiative of the "anti" faction.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] Results of the offensive of the "East" group of the Russian Armed Forces in the South Donetsk direction during June 2025.
Liberated territories and settlements. The most important achievements are Komar, Shevchenko (along with the lithium deposits that Kiev sold to the Americans), Malinovka.
Since the LJ video hosting site has run out of space and won't let me upload new videos, I'll be uploading videos to Rutube for now and embedding them into the journal from there using code.
P.S. Regarding yesterday's statement by LPR head Pasechnik about the complete liberation of LPR territory. This is not quite true yet. It remains to liberate Nadiya and Novoyegorovka (or rather their ruins) at the westernmost border of the LPR. In general, there's still work to do.
More from regnum.ru Pasechnik reports the complete liberation of the LPR territory - the 1223rd day of the SVO
The new, 1223rd day of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine was marked by the news of the complete liberation of the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) from enemy forces. The region's governor Leonid Pasechnik reported this to a Channel One correspondent on the evening of June 30, citing a report he had received. No official information has yet been received from the Ministry of Defense.
Referendums on the return of the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics to Russia took place in September 2022. This was preceded by the recognition of the state sovereignty of the DPR and LPR in May 2014.
And on February 21, 2022, against the backdrop of a sharp increase in aggression from Ukraine, the heads of the LPR and DPR Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin appealed to the President of Russia with a request to recognize the independence of the republics. Putin signed the corresponding decrees on the same day. Already on February 24, in response to the request of the republics' leadership for help, Russia began a special military operation in Ukraine.
At the end of March, at a meeting with sailors of the nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk in Murmansk, the Russian leader reported that the strategic initiative was under the control of the Russian army along the entire front line and that the LPR had already been liberated by 99%. Also, according to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions at that time were cleared of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) by more than 70%.
Further, according to military expert Igor Korotchenko, the Russian army will begin to form a powerful buffer zone up to 120 kilometers deep.
“Such a ‘sanitary cordon’ will forever close off the Ukrainian army’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks on our cities,” Korotchenko notes.
Meanwhile, on June 30, Vladimir Putin held a meeting where issues of restoration, development of the economy, social, transport and other infrastructure of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions were discussed.
“The main thing is that people see changes for the better, return home, work on their native land, study, raise children and make plans for the future,” the head of state emphasized.
More from X:
🇺🇦🇷🇺 INTENSE FOOTAGE: First person footage of Russian assault troopers breaching a defensive line and capturing Ukraine soldiers as prisoners
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] Every year, everyone and their dog tirelessly reminds us that on June 24, 1934, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR moved from Kharkov to Kyiv. However, behind the scenes, the fact remains that not everyone saw the ceremonial rally and flowers: a significant part of the central executive authorities still remained in Kharkov, since they simply had nowhere to move.
Kyiv, built up mainly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was a large provincial city, but nothing more. The number of administrative buildings in it was very limited. That is why during the years of the revolution and the civil war, the Central Rada met in the Pedagogical Museum (in 1916–17, the Kiev School of Pilot-Observers was located here).
Therefore, specialized premises for the authorities had to be built, and for this, the historical appearance of the city had to be significantly changed. Only in July 1935 were the first results of the competition for the architectural solution of the government quarter summed up.
In addition, according to the constitution of the Ukrainian SSR, Kharkov remained the capital city and officially - this was also changed in 1935 by the XIII All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, and two years later it was included in the new constitution (and remains so to this day). So it is only right to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the transfer of the capital today.
In the five years since the move, about one and a half billion Soviet rubles have been invested in construction projects in Kyiv. During this time, the main administrative buildings have been erected, which have become true monuments of the Stalin era. And all of them are still used for their intended purpose. Despite the declared policy of "decommunization" and "decolonization", independent Ukraine has confidently proven that it is not capable of such projects.
When it comes to the Soviet projects of the government quarter on Starokievskaya Hill, politeness dictates obligatory lamentation over the blown-up St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery and other losses of cultural heritage. But this fit into a certain ideological concept: the Soviet government changed the urban environment by creating new architectural styles and large-scale development.
The Ukrainian authorities, who have been sitting in buildings from the 1930s for decades, are changing the environment exclusively through destruction, copying the worst practices of the “occupation period,” but have long since abandoned attempts to build something of their own.
Unless, of course, you count the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide.
EMPIRE FOR A NEW LIFE
The authorities of Soviet Ukraine took up the matter with great enthusiasm, but at the same time constantly looking back at Moscow, which set the tone in architectural style.
"Great creative opportunities have opened up with the transfer of the capital of Ukraine to Kiev. The currently planned, majestic square - the government center of the Ukrainian capital - will play a huge role in creating the new architectural appearance of Kiev. This square in Kiev is supposed to be built over a cliff, from the height of which a majestic perspective of the Dnieper will open up," said Alexander Molokin, head of the department of the Kharkov Civil Engineering Institute, in a report at the All-Union Creative Conference of Architects in Leningrad, who became a scientific correspondent of the USSR Academy of Architecture in 1935.
The text was published in the July issue of the magazine "Architecture of the USSR" of the same year and summed up the first results of the competition: not a single specialist, including the most famous ones, presented a project that would fully satisfy the commission. At that time, a campaign was underway to combat the shortcomings of constructivism - it was being replaced by the pompous "Stalinist Empire style".
At the same time, they smashed attempts to revive "old nationalistic and chauvinistic architectural forms" in the form of so-called Ukrainian Art Nouveau. So, architects from the two main cities of the Union worked on how the center of power of the Ukrainian SSR would look, competing with Ukrainian ones.
They were faced with the task of transforming Kyiv into a "truly socialist center of Soviet Ukraine," which meant replacing old, religious, and bourgeois symbols with new ones that corresponded to Soviet ideology. Which, of course, meant demolishing churches and monasteries.
The main creative idea revolved around the transformation of Starokievskaya Mountain, which Molokin reported on: a huge square was to become the center of a new government quarter, stretching from St. Sophia Cathedral to the cliff, where the second funicular in the Russian Empire was launched in 1905.
The exit to the Dnieper was considered best left undeveloped, to allow the urban space to organically merge "with the most picturesque park on Vladimirskaya Hill." And above it, a huge monument to Lenin was to stand, which would be visible from afar. Everything else would spin out from it.
The famous funicular designed by Langbard was replaced by a staircase
Instead of a funicular, they decided to make a giant staircase - after a long review of options, they settled on the project of the Leningrad architect Iosif Langbard. The result of the competition was approved by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Ukraine on December 26, 1935 - and the work began to boil.
Already in 1936, the 12th century Church of the Three Saints and part of the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery were blown up - masterpieces of ancient Russian architecture interfered with the idea of creating two identical wings of the government building - to the right and left of Lenin.
But when the left wing was finally built in 1938, it was decided to stop further work: no one liked it.
HARMFUL BUILDINGS
Despite the fact that a lot of time and effort was spent on strengthening the waterlogged and loose soils, and the building with columns took its place according to the plan, it was decided to move the government buildings to Pechersk.
Langbard was invited to a “creative evening” with 200 people and was thoroughly scolded – what seemed majestic in the picture was now called complex, ill-conceived and, most importantly, ugly.
The architect's main mistake, according to his colleagues, was the lack of a harmonious silhouette of the ensemble; he failed to use the natural silhouettes of the Dnieper Mountains and link architecture with nature into a harmonious whole, like Bartolomeo Rastrelli with the St. Andrew's Church on St. Andrew's Descent.
In an accusatory article, published again in the July issue of the magazine "Architecture of Soviet Ukraine", but already in 1938 (by the way, published in Ukrainian), it was explained that the slender and tall Rastrelli's creation lightens the mountain and elevates it. At the same time, the new building, if viewed from the Dnieper, had a "completely uninteresting silhouette", seemed flat, as if lying on the mountain.
Director Alexander Dovzhenko called the staircase to the shore "reinforced concrete skin on the tender body of the slope" in the debate, suggesting to install an escalator. And most importantly, Langbard was accused of not finding the right proportions for the Lenin monument, which was initially planned to be 40 meters high, and visually it turned out to be squeezed between two government buildings.
Summing up, the Chairman of the Union of Architects of the Ukrainian SSR, Grigory Golovko, emphasized:
"We, the architects of Kiev, together with other creative organizations, will, on the basis of the struggle for the style of socialist realism, eradicate bourgeois formalism and gray simplification, cheap decoration and unprincipled eclecticism... We must create such beautiful structures that our descendants will be able to read Stalin's times from them the same way we now read the era of Greece and Rome from classical architectural works. And we will create in the capital of prosperous Ukraine, an integral part of the great Soviet Union, truly bright monuments to the sunny era of Stalin."
Langbard's own arguments that criticism and proposals should have been made a year and a half ago, and that it was stupid to consider an unfinished work, were not accepted. Because the sudden insight of the creative workers was connected with the arrest in February of the main lobbyist of the project - Pavel Postyshev, who took the position of first secretary of the Kiev regional party committee after the capital moved from Kharkov.
The central entrance and the square in front of the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine before 1941.
Now the NKVD building on what is now Grushevsky Street (then Kirov Street) has also turned out to be sabotage. The accuser Golovko complained that its construction was not taken under public control, and "our indifference was used by vile enemies of the people, who did a lot of harm on the architectural front as well."
As a result, the left wing of the unfinished government complex was decided to be given to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (now the building is occupied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine), the government moved to the wrong NKVD building and sits there to this day, and for the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR, they decided to build a dome next to the Mariinsky Palace.
Comrade Stalin himself stood there in full height right behind the podium, so in 1939 the state commission accepted the building with an “excellent” rating. Zabolotny received the Stalin Prize and became the chief architect of Kyiv.
During the fight against the personality cult, Joseph Vissarionovich was replaced by an even larger Lenin. And although he is also long gone, one can agree that the ghost of the leaders invisibly hovers in the session hall of the now Verkhovna Rada.
The ceiling in the office of the President of Ukraine is also not oppressive, although the building on Bankova Street, 11 (then Ordzhonikidze Street) was built in 1936-1939 for the headquarters of the Kyiv Special Military District. During the German occupation, it housed the Kiev General Commissariat, and after the Great Patriotic War, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
In other words, Zelensky's office was occupied by Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Podgorny, Pyotr Shelest, Vladimir Shcherbitsky - but against the backdrop of crazy decommunization, no one even tried to create a new government quarter in the style of "Ukrainian baroque", more mythical than real.
In the same way, the National Bank of Ukraine lives peacefully in the Kiev office of the State Commercial Bank of Russia, built especially for it in 1905. And the Kiev mayor's office, headed by the son of a Soviet officer, Vitaliy Klitschk, is surrounded by the "Stalinist Empire" on Khreshchatyk, a style that defines the appearance of the central part of Kiev.
Because you can endlessly break and rename something, pretending to fight against the “legacy of occupation,” but everything that made Ukraine a state was created in the Tsarist-Soviet period.
And without all this, she would just hang in the air.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] The territory of the Luhansk People's Republic has been completely liberated from the Ukrainian Armed Forces — this was announced by the head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik on July 1. According to him, the report on the 100% liberation of the republic came "literally two days ago."
On June 23, there were reports that our troops had driven the enemy out of the village of Petrovskoye (in Ukrainian terminology, Grekovka) near the border of the LPR and Kharkiv Oblast. Reaching this line allows our military to develop a further offensive both in the Kharkiv Oblast — to consolidate along the Oskol River — and in the DPR — in the direction of the city of Krasny Liman.
Russian military forces continue to push back the enemy in other areas - in Donbass and Sumy Oblast, where the outlines of border buffer zones are gradually taking shape.
WEST OF THE DPR: THE FRONT BEGINS TO CRUMBLE
As before, the situation on the front section 80-85 kilometers west of Donetsk is actively changing in our favor. After the liberation of the village of Komar near the border with the Dnepropetrovsk region, fighters of the "Vostok" group crossed the Mokrye Yaly River and took a bridgehead on the right bank.
During the assault, our military managed to quickly drive the enemy out of the village of Krasnaya Zvezda (in Ukrainian documents the village is called Zirka - Star). This is already the fifth settlement occupied by Vostok units over the past week - after the villages of Komar, Perebudova and two settlements - "namesakes" of famous cities - Yalta and Zaporozhye.
The rapid pace of the offensive allowed them to take control of the military-important area between the Volchya River and its left tributary, Mokrye Yalami. The Ukrainian Armed Forces command planned to turn both water barriers into defensive lines, but the rapid "rollback" of the front prevented this from happening.
Our troops are advancing in the direction of several villages near the border of the DPR with the Dnepropetrovsk region: Shevchenko, Burlatskoye and Volnoye Pole.
Enemy sources admit that the Ukrainian Armed Forces' defense in the southwest of the former Donetsk region has begun to crumble. "The next map update will be disappointing," notes the Kiev-based analytical resource DeepState.
According to information from the field, the enemy is trying to stabilize the defense in the Poddubnoye-Mirnoye area, where units that retreated from the Komar village area are gathering. In order to complicate the supply of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this area, our aviation is constantly striking rear communications. Thus, the bridge over the Volchya River on the N-15 highway, along which supplies were coming from the Dnipropetrovsk region to the Ukrainian Armed Forces group in the far west of Donbass, was destroyed.
DNIPROPETROVSK REGION: THE FIRST VILLAGE IN THE "BUFFER"
In parallel with the liberation of the western regions of the DPR, our troops are advancing on the adjacent territory, forming a protective "buffer". According to information from the field, the village of Dachnoye was captured - the first settlement in the territory of the Dnepropetrovsk region.
The Ukrainian military did not try to hold the village and retreated quickly, informed sources of the Regnum news agency report. "Everything was done according to proven tactics, with the coordinated work of all forces: artillery, drone operators and, of course, assault infantry. The pockets of resistance were identified and suppressed in advance, after which the enemy began a retreat, which cost him dearly," the source said.
With the liberation of Dachnoye, our military expanded the buffer zone by 4 kilometers. At the same time, Kiev, as usual, ignores the problem. Viktor Tregubov, a representative of the Ukrainian Armed Forces group "Khortytsia", said that a breakthrough of Russian troops in the Dnipropetrovsk region "has not been recorded". However, sources from the field note that in fact, the enemy commanders soberly assess the situation and are preparing for defense. The new fortification line of the Ukrainian Armed Forces runs at a distance of 5-10 km from the front line. Defensive structures have been erected along the Volchya and Kamenka rivers. The center of defense has become the large village of Novopavlovka, divided into two parts by the Volchya River.
The second defensive line in the Dnepropetrovsk region is being built 5-10 kilometers west of the first. Reserves are being concentrated here. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces units, which are retreating from the adjacent areas of the DPR (from the same village of Komar), are trying with all their might to delay the advance of the Russian Armed Forces - to give them the opportunity to build new fortified areas.
KONSTANTINOVKA: JUST A FEW KILOMETERS TO THE OUTSKIRTS
In recent days, there have been increasingly frequent reports from the city of Chasov Yar, west of Artemovsk. The battles for the liberation of Chasov Yar have been going on since April 2024. Most of the city is already under the control of our troops, but the enemy continues to stubbornly resist. Over the past week, the front line in Chasov Yar and west of the city has begun to move, stated the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin.
The enemy was driven out of most of the Shevchenko district in the western part of Chasov Yar. This district is located far from the main part of the city, so the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to keep it under control, sources from the field say. "When the main part of the Chasovyarsky refractory plant was liberated this spring, the enemy withdrew its forces to the Shevchenko district, and its cleanup continues. The enemy also holds part of the Yuzhny microdistrict," the source explained to IA Regnum.
The front is gradually moving toward the city of Konstantinovka, 14 kilometers southwest of Chasov Yar. " Actually, there are only a few kilometers left to the outskirts of Konstantinovka," the source noted.
According to information from the field, the front line has begun to move along the line from the village of Mayskoye (north of Chasov Yar) to the settlement of Stupochki located south of the city, which was liberated at the end of May. Medium-intensity fighting continues on the western outskirts of Chasov Yar - in the villages of Nikolaevka and Chervonoe. Here the enemy is trying to stabilize the front line by introducing reserves into the battle. Ukrainian sources admit that the advance of the Russian Armed Forces from the Chasov Yar area creates a threat of encirclement of Konstantinovka.
Earlier, our troops approached the eastern outskirts of the city - from Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) and from the south - from the Dzerzhinsk (Toretsk) area. The enemy is preparing Konstantinovka for defense, equipping "fortifications" in the city's industrial zone and residential areas. If the city falls, this will provide an opportunity to advance through Druzhkovka to Kramatorsk.
FIRE CONTROL OVER SUMY
The past few days have been marked by reports from a new direction - Sumy, where the Russian Armed Forces, advancing from the borders of the Kursk region, are creating a security zone.
Fierce fighting continues in the Yunakovka area, 6 kilometers south of the Russian border. The front line runs through the central part of the village. Clashes are taking place in the villages of Varachino and Andreyevka.
The infantry and equipment offensive is actively covered by aviation. Thus, the VKS frontline bombers dropped several FAB-500 aerial bombs on the enemy concentration in Andreyevka. Local sources report that after the "arrivals" there were several strong explosions, apparently an ammunition depot was destroyed.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces Command continues to throw new reserves at this section of the front to prevent our troops from breaking through to Sumy — the distance from the border to the city in a straight line does not exceed 30 kilometers. A new line of defense north of Sumy is being built with support from the dominant heights along the Oleshnya River. Fortifications are being built in the area of three villages on this river — Khoten, Pisarevka, and Ivolzhanskoye.
Even if the Ukrainian Armed Forces manage to stabilize the front along the Oleshnya River, our military has the ability to establish fire control over the enemy supply routes in Sumy. According to Ukrainian sources, on June 22–23, our artillery already hit Ukrainian Armed Forces positions near the village of Peschanoye, less than a kilometer from the northern outskirts of Sumy.
As in other areas of the front, in the Sumy area, Ukrainian troops are facing a shortage of trained reserves, weapons and ammunition. Ukrainian sources summarize: if the fighting in the Sumy direction continues with the same intensity, this will create serious problems for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Some still have the courage to stand against the increasingly totalitarian Erdogan regime. Perhaps that’s why they recently rounded uo a bunch of so-called Gulenists.
[IsraelTimes] At least 10,000 people join an opposition rally at Istanbul City Hall on the 100th day since the city’s popular mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was jailed in what critics say was a politically-motivated graft probe.
The rally came hours after police rounded up more than 120 people linked to City Hall in Izmir, an opposition stronghold and Turkey’s third city, in the latest move targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s opponents.
The early-morning arrests were part of a probe into alleged graft, and followed similar lines to the March 19 operation in opposition-run Istanbul when hundreds were arrested, including Imamoglu, Erdogan’s main political rival.
Imamoglu’s removal sparked a wave of mass protests with hundreds of thousands rallying outside City Hall, also known as Sarachane, at the urging of the main opposition CHP, which also called Tuesday’s protest.
“Today, we are all together at the very place where everything began… this struggle is against fascism, this is the fight for freedom,” CHP leader Ozgur Ozel shouts, addressing the crowd in his trademark husky voice. “On March 19, you stood shoulder to shoulder in Sarachane. You shouted for justice. You stood for your will. You stood behind the one you elected… I am proud of every one of you.”
[ConservativeTreehouse] Another facet not discussed in the BBB background is data released by the US Office of Personnel Management showing a reduction of approximately 23,000 federal employees since the Trump administration took office. [LINK HERE] OPM adds that hundreds of thousands will drop from payroll in October 2025. [link]
Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought appears on CNBC to discuss the non-pretending facts within the Big Beautiful Bill as it passed through the Senate. The House now needs to reconcile, support the bill and send it to President Trump’s desk by July 4th.
The key notation from Vought comes at 06:07 of the video below as he explains the BBB is just one facet of a larger cost-cutting initiative (tariff revenue, recission cuts, discretionary spending reductions etc.). WATCH:
As I understand it, should the thing get through the next round and to President Trump’s desk for his signature, his maximum spending will be defined. However, he need not spend all the funds Congress allocates, so he can act on the post-Elon Musk DOGE team’s additional discoveries to come. And he can get on with refurbishing the military, which is desperately needed.
[NYPost] Senate Republicans narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Tuesday, sending it to the House for final approval following a 27-hour blitz of amendments.
The 51-50 vote — with Vice President JD Vance breaking the deadlock — puts Republicans on track to have the bill on President Trump’s desk by the self-imposed Fourth of July deadline, if enough House politicians stay on board.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined all 47 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... in voting "nay."
The megabill, which clocks in at nearly 900 pages in length, extends most of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts; reduces taxes on tips and overtime pay; and increases spending on defense, border security, and energy exploration while slashing entitlement outlays.
The legislative bundle had inched through Congress, overcoming criticism from all parts of the Republican Party.
After more than a month of deliberation, the Senate modified the House version of the legislation to extend business tax reductions, deepen cuts to Medicaid, increase the debt limit by $5 trillion, and eliminate a moratorium on state restrictions against artificial intelligence.
Sen. Lisa Daddy, can I be a senator? Murkowski ... representing K Street ... (R-Alaska) emerged as the key swing vote, with GOP leadership leaning on her aggressively — and even trying to exempt The Last Frontier from some spending cuts to woo her, but those amendments were blocked by Democrats.
"I had to look on balance," Murkowski told news hounds. "We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination."
"My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet."
Before the vote, fiscal hawks like Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) grumbled over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s impact on the deficit, even threatening to derail its passage.
Eventually, leadership agreed to deepen cuts to Medicaid from the version that passed the lower chamber last month, assuaging Johnson’s concerns.
"I’m convinced they’re committed to returning to reasonable pre-pandemic spending, and I’ll be highly involved in a process to achieve and maintain it," Johnson told "Fox & Friends" Monday morning.
Leadership was also forced to grapple with moderate Republicans who were uneasy over reforms to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka food stamps).
"We can’t be cutting health care for working people and for poor people in order to constantly give special tax treatment to corporations and other entities," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told NBC News last week.
But ultimately, Hawley backed the bill, and GOP leadership was able to keep enough moderates on board.
Another dilemma had been a 10-year moratorium against state regulation of artificial intelligence, which had been nestled in the House version.
That had seemingly been a dealbreaker for Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and drew opposition from House Republicans such as far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who discovered that provision after it passed the lower chamber.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] So far, the presence of Russian troops has not been recorded in the Dnipropetrovsk region, but there is a threat that this could happen, the Ukrainian Armed Forces say.
The day before, information appeared about the breakthrough of the Russian army into the territory of Dnepropetrovsk region. In particular, Deepstate analysts stated that a "gray zone" had appeared in the region, the length of which in some places was more than 800 meters.
Later, the representative of the Operational-Strategic Group of Forces Khortitsa Viktor Tregubov denied this information and added that no breakthrough of Russian troops into the territory of Dnepropetrovsk region was recorded.
However, today Tregubov stated that the threat of occupiers entering the region has increased significantly. What is the purpose of this enemy operation – further in the story.
"THERE IS A SERIOUS THREAT"
Thus, according to the representative of Khortitsa, at the moment very active fighting is taking place almost along the entire Novopavlovsk direction and part of the southern part of the Pokrovsk direction.
"This is Bagatyr, Constantinople, Zelenoye Pole. There, in fact, the entire line approaching the administrative border is subject to very strong pressure from Russian troops. At the moment - this evening and this morning - there have not yet been any Russian troops on the territory of Dnipropetrovsk region, but there really is a serious threat that this will happen," the soldier said on air at Hromadske Radio.
The representative of the OSUV Khortytsia added that fighting is currently continuing on the border of Dnepropetrovsk region and it is difficult to say how exactly the situation will develop.
"The Russians are putting a lot of effort into this direction, completely ignoring the human losses. At the moment, they are being held back, but under such pressure, the situation can develop in different ways. However, we are making every effort to prevent them from getting there," Tregubov explained.
PROBLEM WITH DRG
The Russians are indeed very close to the Dnipropetrovsk region. In any place on the front line where the enemy comes close, there is a threat of his sabotage and reconnaissance group activity, notes political expert and serviceman Alexander Musienko.
"Measures are currently being taken to contain them, but there are risks that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups will appear, that enemy UAVs may fly into the territory of Dnipropetrovsk region. This presents risks, challenges and dangers," Musienko said on his YouTube channel.
The main task for the Russians in the Dnipropetrovsk region is an attempt to expand the "gray zone" in order to complicate logistics for the part of the Ukrainian Defense Forces that is holding back the enemy in the Pokrovsk direction in the Donetsk region.
In addition, according to Musienko, traditionally the Russian command sets its troops more informational and propaganda goals than military ones.
The enemy’s entry into the region is an attempt to demoralize Ukrainian society and the army, the expert adds.
SPECIFIC PURPOSE
This opinion of Musienko is shared by a retired colonel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, pilot instructor, military expert Roman Svitan. According to him, the breakthrough of the administrative border of the Dnipropetrovsk region has a specific purpose - information noise for internal propaganda.
The expert recalled that Russia still does not control even those regions that it included in its constitution – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhia.
"Imagine if the Russians had not entered the Sumy and Kharkiv regions for several kilometers and had not hung around near the Dnepropetrovsk region, then what would Skabeeva have said? She would then take the Russian constitution and say that Ukraine controls a significant part of the territories that they have entered into. And this is a shock for the Russians. Therefore, they need some kind of information flow. At least something to cling to, that they have captured something," Svitan told Channel 24.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The greatest progress occurred in the directions of Novopavlovka and Pokrovsk, analysts claim.
In June, the Russian army occupied 556 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, the analytical project DeepState reported on Tuesday, July 1.
It is indicated that we are talking about the worst indicator in 2025. The dynamics of May, unfortunately, remained. At the same time, in the most critical November for us, the Russians advanced by 730 sq. km.
"The biggest advances were in Novopavlovsky and Pokrovsky sections - 29% and 27%, respectively. Sumy region is also among the leaders with an indicator of 18%. That is, three quarters of all advances were in three places. The last quarter falls on other sections of the front in almost equal proportions (4-6% per section)," the report says.
According to analysts, the enemy's advance is due to problems with people, which are now critical for both sides.
"But the Russians, as is obvious, still have reserves of personnel. The decline in the mechanization of attacks is another confirmation of the enemy's problems with equipment, which they are trying to replace with motorcycles and buggies. And the enemy's assault actions with forces of 1 or 3 infantrymen are no longer a surprise. At the same time, the number of these groups remains significant," DeepState added.
Let us recall that in the first half of this year, sanitary and irreversible losses of personnel of the Russian army in Ukraine amounted to 230,180 people , which is conventionally equal to 19 divisions. This was reported by the Ministry of Defense.
Good! I saw a video from him earlier this year showing nets around the building to catch pieces of it falling off.
[FoxNews] FBI Director Kash Patel is shutting down the J. Edgar Hoover building and moving its headquarters across Washington to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, with President Donald Trump touting the move, telling Fox News Digital that the FBI "will finally have the kind of building they deserve."
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a Tuesday memo Patel sent to the FBI, notifying employees of the relocation, and stressing that it is "most cost-effective way" to serve the American people, Fox News Digital has learned.
Patel, in May, first hinted that the bureau would be reallocating its workforce around the country, and would move agents out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which opened in 1975.
The FBI and the General Services Administration (GSA) have been looking at options for a new FBI headquarters for more than a decade, including locations near D.C. in Maryland and Virginia.
"Team, the FBI Headquarters will be moving down the street to the Ronald Reagan Building, and the Hoover building will be shut down," Patel wrote in the memo, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital.
Trump told Fox News Digital that the Ronald Reagan Building is "a wonderful building," and said the FBI is "a wonderful group of people."
"The FBI will finally have the kind of building they deserve," the president told Fox News Digital. "Congratulations to Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and all the great people at the FBI."
In the memo to the FBI, Patel said "After nearly 20 years of constant churn surrounding the matter, we’ve finally gotten it done," Patel said, adding that the move "will be the most cost-effective way to best serve the American people while most efficiently using the resources available to us."
Patel told the FBI that he is working "closely with Congress and GSA" to make the move "happen quickly," but said there are "a lot of moving pieces."
"We need to ensure our security and technology requirements are in place before HQ employees can begin making the move, in phases," Patel wrote. "Thanks in advance for your patience, and for staying the course."
#6
Now they have a building to live up to. At least some of the worst of their bad apples are being found and removed, and there are adults in charge. Whether Director Patel and Assistant Director Bongino can take them all the way to the gee whiz G-Men of fiction remains to be seen — the long-standing corruption in the Boston office is also legendary.
#1
...The stories about Jaaaaag (IYKYK) have been slightly misleading insofar as apparently the idea was to completely wind down ICE vehicle production - before starting the EV production. In other words, ICE sales were going to hit bedrock as part of the plan. There would be a pause, and then the EVs would come pouring off the line.
Now.
I believe that Jaaaaag will produce some thoroughly amazing EVs. I also believe that due to their 'plan', nobody's gonna buy the damned things.
#2
^ But their thought process will be a lesson in Business Schools forevah!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025 8:36
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#3
Creating a market no one is interested in is marketing in a vacuum... The only people that will but it is the team that decided its a good idea. More than just Woke, leadership hiring and listening to bad leaders. Even non woke leadership teams fall into this trap.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2025 16:41
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#4
Agreed,49 Pan. The cleverer they are, the more they fall in love with the product of their own brains, unless management has a firm hand on the reins and reads deeply into honestly collected consumer research. Fashionable political nonsense is just one path to that business Hell.
[IsraelTimes] A Palestinian family of five were detained for more than 24 hours at Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires before being deported, despite traveling with tourist visas issued by the Argentine embassy in Herzliya, a letter of invitation, certificates of good conduct, medical insurances, hotel reservations and return tickets, according to reports in left-leaning local newspaper Pagina 12 and Tiempo Argentino.
According to the newspapers, the family arrived in Buenos Aires on June 16 after having been delayed leaving the West Bank for Jordan, from where they travelled to Istanbul and then Brazil before arriving in Argentina.
The family says they were tricked into signing documents entirely in Spanish at the airport stating they were “false tourists,” thus allowing them to be deported.
The newspapers also reported that the Palestinian Authority ambassador in Argentina tried to intervene on their behalf but did not help.
Argentine Attorny Uriel Biondi filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court of Lomas de Zamora for violation of their constitutional rights and international human rights treaties. The family, which has boarded a plane to Istanbul, claims their rights were violated and they were mistreated by being detained inhumanly.
This incident came as pro-Israel President Javier Milei’s has toughened his stance on immigration with increased deportations, restrictions on citizenship and charging foreigners for using public healthcare and universities. Milei seemingly has modeled his reforms on US President Donald Trump.
Perhaps the family looked like they planned on overstaying their visa.
[IsraelTimes] Two Australian nurses who threatened to kill Israeli patients in a viral video earlier this year have been banned for two years from working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
But not from working as nurses elsewhere in the country? That is only safe if all Australian Jews are medically disabled...
The two had been suspended from work in February after the video first surfaced. They have also been charged with federal offenses and are due to appear in court on July 29.
I suppose if convicted, they won’t be able to work as nurses outside the prison where they’re serving their sentence for the duration.
On February 12, Israeli influencer Max Veifer posted online a video chat he had with a male and a female nurse at a Sydney hospital, identified as Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh.
Mr. Veifer is not the only Israeli dialing random strangers around the world to chat. Several have been appearing regularly in my Facebook Reels feed lately — some even speak Arabic and know the Koran better than their Muslim interlocutors. It’s interesting how many of my very small sample of internet-savvy Millennial and GenZ Muslims are willing to spontaneously tell the world they love Israel and admire the Jews, or at least converse thoughtfully and politely when one appears on their computer screen.
After Veifer told them he was from Israel in the chat, Nadir responded, “I’m so upset that you’re Israeli… eventually you’re going to get killed and go to [hell].”
Abu Lebdeh said she would not treat any Israeli patients and instead would kill them. Nadir, with a threatening gesture, said he had already sent many “Israeli dog[s],” who visited the hospital, to “Jahannam,” the term for Islamic hell in Arabic.
Both were nurses at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney. Mr. Nadir is an Afghan refugee who only became an Australian citizen four years ago; Ms Abu Lebdeh is of Palestinian extraction. They were referred to the police for investigation by shocked hospital management, despite a whistleblower revealing after 10/7/2023 that staff were enthusiastic supporters of egregious anti-Israel slogans.
The video sparked outrage across Australia and the Jewish world after it was released.
It’s made me thoughtful, too…
NDIS provides medical services for Australians with significant and permanent disabilities under 65 years old.
[FoxNews] Tens of thousands of employees who are in the process of being terminated remain on the government payroll due to court orders that are currently being challenged by the administration, OPM says. Oh sure. Nothing will come of that.
The Trump administration released data on Tuesday morning showing that it had slashed the federal government workforce, while promising that there is more to come as Trump continues his push to rid the government of waste.
Data released by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shows that the United States employs 2,289,472 federal workers as of March 31, which is down from 2,313,216 on September 30, 2024.
The reduction of more than 23,000 positions "reflects the administration’s early efforts to streamline government and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy," OPM said in a press release.
"The American people deserve a government that is lean, efficient, and focused on core priorities," Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell said in a statement.
"This data marks the first measurable step toward President Trump’s vision of a disciplined, accountable federal workforce, and it’s only the beginning."
Trump signed an executive order in February instructing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to coordinate with federal agencies and execute massive cuts in federal government staffing numbers.
That order is reflected in the new data, OPM said, showing that agencies averaged 23,000 new monthly hires from April 2024 to January 2025 but dropped by nearly 70% to just 7,385 per month once the freeze was fully implemented.
The agency said the cuts saved the taxpayers "billions."
OPM added that "hundreds of thousands more workers" will drop from the rolls in October 2025, when more workers depart via the Deferred Resignation Program that was offered to employees in an effort to trim the workforce.
Tens of thousands of employees who are in the process of being terminated remain on the government payroll due to court orders that are currently being challenged by the administration, OPM says.
Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce has faced stiff resistance from Democrats and various courts, with critics saying that the administration is cutting critical jobs.
"It's a judge that's putting himself in the position of the President of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes," Trump said aboard Air Force One on a flight back to Washington in March, after a federal judge blocked one of his efforts to fire federal workers.
"That's a very dangerous thing for our country. And I would suspect that we're going to have to get a decision from the Supreme Court."
Last month, OPM unveiled a new rule it said will make it easier to terminate federal employees for serious misconduct by cutting through the red tape that currently impedes that process.
Fox News Digital reported in 2023 that under current law, the vast majority of the federal workforce is not at-will and may only be terminated for misconduct, poor performance, medical inability or reduction in force. Federal employees are also entitled to sweeping due process rights when fired, which can create a cumbersome process for agencies to remove a worker.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
07/02/2025
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
The only problem with 'lean and mean' organizations is they are unable to respond to changes, generally because there's no resources available.
Just my $.02.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 11:55
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#4
I don’t see any evidence that the fat and lazy government was responding to emergent needs very well. East Palestine, Maui and the border crisis are examples from the Biden clown show.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/02/2025 18:09
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[FoxNews] 'Now’s the time to rebuild the FBI’s trust,' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley
The FBI blocked an investigation into allegations that the Chinese Communist Party manufactured fake driver’s licenses and shipped them to the U.S. in a scheme to influence the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden because it would "contradict" then-FBI Director Christopher Wray’s congressional testimony, newly declassified FBI documents obtained by Fox News Digital reveal.
The records, which include communications between FBI officials ahead of the 2020 election, were recently declassified by FBI Director Kash Patel and transmitted to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Fox News Digital reported in June that Patel located and declassified the original reporting document alleging the Chinese Communist Party sought to deliver fake driver’s licenses to Chinese sympathizers in the U.S. who would cast a vote for Biden in the 2020 election. The document did not say whether any ballots were cast as part of the scheme.
The FBI recalled that reporting, though, Sept. 25, 2020 – just a day after Wray testified before Congress that the FBI had not seen any coordinated voter fraud ahead of the 2020 election.
The FBI, at the time, had recalled that report "in order to re-interview the source." It also directed "recipients" of the original report to "destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings."
But Patel, this week, declassified additional documents, including records relating to the re-interview of the source, and communications between FBI officials at the time discussing the decision-making behind the recall and its decision not to republish the intelligence reporting.
The records were sent to Grassley and Fox News Digital has reviewed the records.
"Although the source was reengaged and provided additional context to support the initial IIR, FBI Headquarters maintained its position not to republish the report," Assistant FBI Director Marshall Yates wrote in a letter to Grassley, obtained by Fox News Digital. "One reason cited for not releasing the IIR was because ‘the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony.’"
During a Senate hearing on Sept. 24, 2020, Wray said he had not seen any widespread fraud by mail, and if he had, it would be something that we would investigate seriously… and aggressively."
"We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it is by mail or otherwise," Wray testified. But "people should make no mistake. We are vigilant as to the threat and watching it carefully, because we are in uncharted new territory."
But Wray also testified that the Chinese had been "expanding their influence efforts," saying they had been "looking for different ways to take a page out of the malign foreign influence playbook that they have seen elsewhere."
Yates, in his letter to Grassley, explained that the recall of the original reporting document was "abnormal."
"The rationale provided to Albany staff for the recall was that Headquarters deemed the report not ‘authoritative,’ but this characterization was met with disagreement by those in the Albany office," Yates explained.
Grassley told Fox News Digital: "These records smack of political decision-making and prove the Wray-led FBI to be a deeply broken institution. Ahead of a high-stakes election happening amid an unprecedented global pandemic, the FBI turned its back on its national security mission."
"One way or the other, intelligence must be fully investigated to determine whether it’s true or if it’s just smoke and mirrors," Grassley said.
Fox News Digital was unable to reach Wray for comment.
The report was recalled at the direction of Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Nikki Floris.
Fox News Digital first reported that Floris was the FBI official to deliver a "defensive briefing" to Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in August 2020, claiming that their Hunter Biden investigation advanced Russian disinformation.
The FBI declassified internal emails among Albany, New York, staff, obtained by Fox News Digital, reflecting concerns that suppressing the document would be "dangerous if we cite potential political implications as reasons for not putting out our information."
Yates explained that it "was not the role of analysts to align intelligence with public testimony."
"Albany staff further warned against FBI assuming the role of sole gatekeeper for the Intelligence Community (IC), emphasizing that suppressing field-generated reporting could deprive other IC elements of the opportunity to corroborate or discredit intelligence," Yates said.
In an email on Sept. 30, 2020, reviewed by Fox News Digital, agents questioned why the report could not be released, to which another replied: "Again, the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony."
#2
so we have a conspiracy to aid and abet chinese influence in our elections headed by Wray. At a minimum, everyone involved should be punished with life in prison, death would be preferred.
[FoxNews] More than 5,200 foreign assistance programs cut under Trump's government efficiency initiative while Democrats protest
USAID will no longer send foreign assistance across the globe, with the State Department taking over any such programs that President Donald Trump's administration wishes to continue, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday.
Rubio made the announcement in a Tuesday statement, saying USAID had for decades failed to ensure the programs it funded actually supported America's interests. The State Department will take over foreign assistance programs beginning July 1, he said.
"Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War. Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown," Rubio wrote.
"This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency," he continued.
The move comes after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gutted USAID as part of Trump's effort to remove waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government.
The agency came under fire for many funding choices, including allocating $1.5 million for a program that sought to "advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities" and a $70,000 program for a "DEI musical" in Ireland.
As a result, Rubio announced on March 11 that the State Department had completed a six-week review and would cancel more than 80% of USAID programs — cutting roughly 5,200 of USAID's 6,200 programs.
#3
It would be interesting to learn how much of the US taxpayer's money has been pi**ed away over the years this, not so cleverly disguised financial cover mechanism.
Why do I continue to see LTG Mike Flynn (Ret) as a Trump Team silent partner ?
#6
This event is certainly the most significant event to ever happen to America in the last 20 years. No you say?? Who funded the Russian crap that hobbled a president, who funded the DNC? Who funded the hate around the world for America? Who funded the summer of love, Black lives matter, the border fight, the human trafficking of women and children, Palestine crap, and the people in congress that are millionaires from hating America.... Russia and china did not do the damage to America that USAID did in the last 20 years... Rubio, who I almost like, did an outstanding job here under Trumps leadership. Now Pam needs to claw back the money and send these folks to prison.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2025 16:49
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[IsraelTimes] Lebanese officials are drafting a response to US demands for Hezbollah to relinquish its weapons across the country by November in exchange for a halt to IDF operations there, say two sources briefed on the matter.
The deadline has turned up the heat on the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group, which was struck hard by Israel during last year’s war, is suffering a financial crunch, and faces pressure in Lebanon to disarm.
Washington’s demands were conveyed by Thomas Barrack, US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, during a trip to Beirut on June 19.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, tell Reuters Barrack had shared a written roadmap with Lebanese officials and told them he expected to hear back by July 1 (today) on any proposed amendments.
The six-page document centers on the disarmament of Hezbollah and other terror groups, and urges Lebanon to improve ties with neighboring Syria and implement financial reforms, they say.
They say Barrack had urged Lebanese officials to seize the opportunity laid out in the roadmap as it “may not come up again.” He is set to return to Lebanon next week.
Barrack had not yet gotten Israeli approval for the roadmap, the sources say. There was no immediate response from the US State Department, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office, or Israel’s Foreign Ministry to Reuters requests for comment.
[Naharnet] President Joseph Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and PM Nawaf Salam have made “significant progress” in their deliberations ahead of U.S. envoy Tom Barrack’s second visit to Beirut, which is expected before July 10, Lebanese sources said.
Representatives of Aoun, Berri and Salam held a lengthy meeting Monday in Baabda and “unanimously agreed” on a draft paper in response to Barrack’s demands, the sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, noting that the draft won the approval of Aoun, Berri and Salam and was also discussed between the Speaker and Hezbollah’s leadership.
The sources added that Lebanon will ask the U.S. to seriously press Israel in order to reach a real ceasefire, allow Lebanon to pacify the situation and “dispel Hezbollah’s concerns,” ahead of engaging in Barrack-sponsored negotiations that would “certainly lead to unanimity over arms monopolization, seeing as it is unacceptable for the talks to be conducted under Israel’s military pressure.”
“Hezbollah is still opening a window for obtaining guarantees, which is being comprehended by the three presidents, seeing us it needs to justify to its supporters the shift toward the monopolization of arms,” the sources added.
Hezbollah “needs to reassure its environment that giving up its weapons will be the reason behind Israel’s withdrawal and the release of its captives,” the sources went on to say.
Al-Akhbar newspaper meanwhile reported that Aoun, Berri and Salam have agreed that “there is no need to hold a special Cabinet session to discuss the U.S. paper, seeing as PM Najib Mikati’s government had agreed to the ceasefire agreement and its stipulations, and because Lebanon should not present additional commitments before knowing the next steps that will be taken by Israel.”
“The unified Lebanese stance is that Lebanon will inform the U.S. administration that Israel has to withdraw, release the captives and halt its daily attacks in return for a Lebanese commitment to tangible measures to control illegal weapons in the areas south and north of the Litani River,” al-Akhbar added.
But other sources told the daily that the U.S. and Israel “will come up with a lot of excuses to reject the settlement sought by Lebanon.”
Local and foreign parties are meanwhile trying to “intimidate” Lebanon by saying that “Israel is preparing to escalate its attacks with harsh airstrikes that could resemble the ferocity of the strikes that assassinated Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in addition to possible additional land operations,” al-Akhbar said.
Sources close to a top Lebanese leader have, however, expressed optimism that a solution for the issue of Hezbollah’s arms has been put on track, seeing as Iran might have told Hezbollah and Berri to “commit to the requirements of Resolution 1701 with its accurate stipulations,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported.
Hezbollah is meanwhile “inquiring about reconstruction” and Israel’s “withdrawal” ahead of agreeing to a timetable for weapons handover, informed sources told the daily, with presidential sources seeing “unprecedented progress in Hezbollah’s stance that made it agree that its arms be discussed in Cabinet soon despite all its declared stances that are rejecting that.”
The DOJ has criminally charged 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General's Offices across… pic.twitter.com/eaHFCFknFR
…12 State Attorneys General's Offices across the United States, for their alleged participation in various health care fraud schemes involving over $14.6B in intended loss.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2025
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#1
$14.6B is a start.
But still a drop in the bucket compared to what some DC Swamp and Elite higher ups pocketed.
The Ukrainian drone attack tonight appears to be a massive one. Russian channels report drone alerts and hundreds of drones over Crimea, Melitopol, Donetsk, Luhansk Astrakhan, Kursk, Voronezh, Orel, Saratov, Volgograd, Rostov, Bryansk Oryol, Lipetsk and others. pic.twitter.com/RXVNES7nUD
[IsraelTimes] The Iranian military loaded naval mines onto vessels in the Persian Gulf last month, a move that intensified concerns in Washington that Tehran was gearing up to blockade the Strait of Hormuz following Israel’s strikes on sites across Iran, according to two US officials. Then the call came from China...
The previously unreported preparations, which were detected by US intelligence, occurred some time after Israel launched its initial missile attack against Iran on June 13, says the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
The loading of the mines — which have not been deployed in the strait — suggests that Tehran may have been serious about closing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, a move that would have escalated an already-spiraling conflict and severely hobbled global commerce.
About one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz and a blockage would likely have spiked world energy prices.
Global benchmark oil prices have instead fallen more than 10% since the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, driven in part by relief that the conflict did not trigger significant disruptions in the oil trade.
Reuters was not able to determine precisely when during the Israel-Iran air war Tehran loaded the mines, which — if deployed — would have effectively stopped ships from moving through the key thoroughfare.
It is also unclear if the mines have since been unloaded.
The sources do not disclose how the United States determined that the mines had been put on the Iranian vessels, but such intelligence is typically gathered through satellite imagery, clandestine human sources or a combination of both methods.
Asked for comment about Iran’s preparations, a White House official says: “Thanks to the President’s brilliant execution of Operation Midnight Hammer, successful campaign against the Houthis, and maximum pressure campaign, the Strait of Hormuz remains open, freedom of navigation has been restored, and Iran has been significantly weakened.”
The Pentagon doesn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Iranian mission at the United Nations also doesn’t respond to requests for comment.
BREAKING: Armed militants have reportedly seized control of #Mastung city in #Balochistan, torching key govt buildings including the Levies HQ & National Bank. Hospitals on emergency alert, at least 8 injured so far. This is a major escalation. #Pakistanpic.twitter.com/4a81BnIXU6
More consequences. Hope those new social media followers were worth it.
[IsraelTimes] A German music venue says that a planned performance by rap duo Bob Vylan will not take place after its frontman led an anti-Israel chant at the Glastonbury festival.
The group were due to open for the band Gogol Bordello on a European tour this autumn, but the venue in Cologne, the Live Music Hall, says in a post on its Instagram account: “The band ‘Bob Vylan’ will NOT perform as a support act on 13.09.2025!”
An employee at the venue who did not wish to be named tells AFP that “we decided together with local organizers that [Bob Vylan] will not perform here after the media uproar,” which followed their set at Glastonbury.
The concert by Gogol Bordello “will, according to our information, still take place,” she says.
Yesterday, British police said they were launching a criminal investigation into remarks made by Bob Vylan and fellow rap group Kneecap at the festival in southwestern England.
London-based Bob Vylan, who often tackle racism in their tracks, were slammed by international and British politicians after they led the crowds in chants of “Death to the IDF.” The BBC, which broadcast the festival, later apologized for not pulling the live stream of the band’s set.
THE events at Glastonbury this past weekend should concern anyone who believes that anti-Semitism has no place in British public life. What unfolded on one of the country’s most iconic cultural stages wasn’t spontaneous rebellion or edgy political commentary: it was a deliberate and co-ordinated act of provocation. Worse, it was broadcast live to a national audience, under the watch of both the BBC and the festival’s organisers.
Kneecap are a band whose lead singer has previously been arrested under anti-terrorism legislation and who has openly threatened to use his platform to make anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements, both on television and at Glastonbury. Despite this history, the band were not only invited to perform but reportedly informed by the BBC that their set would not be aired. In reality, what followed suggests a calculated workaround.
Just before Kneecap’s performance, the BBC aired the set of a lesser-known duo, Bob Vylan, with a troubling legal background and a documented history of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric. Bob Vylan, known associates of Kneecap, were given a prime broadcast slot directly before their set. This was no coincidence. Judging by the crowd’s reaction, many knew what was coming.
This wasn’t an act of creative expression. It was a co-ordinated stunt. A platform for hate, dressed up as art. This was not and is not free speech. This is hate speech, pure and simple.
the Radar Festival in Manchester this Saturday, where they were the headliners, and
the line-up at Kave Fest in Gisors, France on Sunday
The band posted on Instagram, “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine.
“We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story, and whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction.”
#2
I rushed the previous comment, and missed this bit below the fold, as it were, about spreading the pain:
Meanwhile, Campaign Against Antisemitism has written to Glastonbury organisers and Somerset Council, accusing the festival of breaching its licence by platforming artists accused of inciting hate.
The letter highlights not only Bob Vylan’s performance but also that of Kneecap. The charity has given organisers 14 days to respond or face potential legal action.
Since both bands were well known for this kind of thing, and in fact the BBC had informed Kneecap that they would not be recorded because of it, it seems a slam dunk unless the judge is willing to be seen as in sympathy with the sentiment at a time when it suddenly is no longer socially acceptable….
[Rudaw] Iraqi counterterrorism forces said on Monday that three suspected Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) members were killed in a clash in Kirkuk province, a day after another operation in the province killed three murderous Moslems.
"Our forces clashed with a group of bully boyz in an area of Kirkuk governorate, the festivities resulted in the killing of three ISIS terrorist organization members," Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) said in a statement.
It stressed that campaigns against ISIS remnants in the country are ongoing "to eradicate the remains of the terrorist gangs."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/02/2025
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a 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 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 
...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
... the personification of Somali state failure...
... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa...
[NY Post] Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network. 
/\ Both foreign governments have much sway in Congress, partly because they can harass U.S. trade with their countries. Moreover, Trump’s deputies are trying to craft a trade deal with India, even as Indian officials push to reduce the Social Security taxes paid by Indian workers in the United States. 
...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!...
[MSN/WSJ] California lawmakers on Monday night rolled back one of the most stringent environmental laws in the country, after Gov. Gavin Newsom muscled through the effort in a dramatic move to combat the state’s affordability crisis.
[FreeBeacon] The Trump administration also noted that Francesca Albanese has claimed to be an 'international lawyer' but 'has not passed a legal bar examination or been licensed to practice law'
...every time you hear the phrase 
[IsraelTimes] Two Australian nurses who threatened to kill Israeli patients in a viral video earlier this year have been banned for two years from working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
A German music venue says that a planned performance by rap duo 
