[IsraelTimes] Egyptian plan would reportedly include Cairo overseeing Hamas demilitarization, with US said to promise terror group a commitment Israel will join talks on ending war
Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... is willing to release a greater number of hostages under a new truce proposal that it had previously agreed to, with the US reportedly telling the terror group it will pressure Israel into entering talks to end the war, the Saudi al-Arabiya channel reported Sunday night.
Talks have reportedly been deadlocked over Israel’s demand that the terror group free 11 of the hostages in exchange for an extended ceasefire while Hamas has offered to release five. According to reports over the weekend, in its latest proposal Israel has expressed readiness to lower the number of hostages released.
The al-Arabiya report, citing unnamed sources, said that the drafting of the new deal is in its final stages and that Hamas has given an initial agreement to raise the number of hostages to be freed. The report did not detail the number of hostages that would potentially be released.
If a deal is reached under the proposed draft, hostages will be released in two stages alongside agreements on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip, the report said.
The report also said that while the US has told Hamas it will pressure Israel into entering talks to end the fighting, discussions on whether leaders from the terror group will be permitted to stay 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... have been postponed to a later time.
The Saudi outlet also said that under the potential agreement, medical reports will be provided by the forces of Evil on the conditions of the remaining hostages.
Israel has been waiting for a response to its latest proposal for a ceasefire-hostage release deal after a delegation from the terror group arrived in Cairo over the weekend. The US is seeking to pressure the sides to move forward, according to reports in Israeli media outlets.
The Haaretz daily, citing Paleostinian sources involved in the talks, reported Sunday night that Cairo and Doha are working with the US toward a potential additional stage of the ceasefire-hostage release deal reached in January that would also include talks to end the 18-month war.
The report also claimed Egypt has put forward a proposal under which Hamas would demilitarize under Cairo’s supervision as part of a permanent ceasefire deal.
Hamas, the report said, is lowering expectations for results in the current round of negotiations, but believes there is an opportunity to reach a ceasefire deal before mid-May, when US President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... is slated to visit 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 UAE and Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... .
Meanwhile,
...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had a cup of coffee. Even instant would do... a report in the Ynet news site Sunday said that Israel was waiting for a response from the terror group to a proposal to release nine or 10 living hostages — including US-Israeli Edan Alexander, who was featured in a Hamas propaganda video released Saturday — slightly down from Israel’s earlier demand that 11 hostages be freed in any next stage.
The Ynet report said, without citing sources, that the US has promised Hamas that if it agrees to free more than eight hostages, it will provide the group with a commitment that Israel will enter talks aimed at ending the ongoing war.
A Hamas official told AFP on Friday that it hoped its delegation in Cairo, headed by the group’s chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, would lead to "real progress towards reaching an agreement to end the war, halt the aggression and ensure the full withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza."
In a statement Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that during a conversation between the premier and the family of hostage Eitan Mor, he stressed that efforts to free those held captive by Hamas are continuing "at this very moment."
The Hebrew media reports echoed reporting from The Times of Israel on Friday, citing two officials familiar with the talks who said Israel had come down slightly from its earlier demand that 11 living hostages be released in order to revive the ceasefire deal, and would instead agree to the release of eight.
After meeting with Trump last week in Washington, Netanyahu agreed to soften his demands, the two officials said.
That has always been a reliable play in the past. Perhaps something will change to short-circuit that, a final solution if you will pardon the expression.
Two Latino migrant men have been charged in connection to the kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder of a woman in Washington state. One of the men has suspected links to the Tren de Aragua terror gang, a group ignored and downplayed by leftists. Read: https://t.co/O1RaLxDNuZ
[IsraelTimes] A powerful armed faction in southern Syria led by defected military officer Ahmed al-Awda announces that it is dissolving itself and integrating into the government’s armed forces.
“We, members, soldiers and officers of what was previously known as the Eighth Brigade, officially announce the dissolution of this formation and handing over all its military and human capacities to the defense ministry,” says Colonel Mohamed al-Hourani in a statement.
The strike had targeted Ubayd Allah Na’im al-Hadhud Musa, who the military identifies as the deputy commander of a Hamas sniper cell.
According to Palestinian media, seven people were killed in the strike.
The IDF says it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, including by using “precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence.”
The tunnel was located by the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade, which is operating under the 252nd Division in north Gaza.
Soldiers of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit demolished the tunnel, which reached depths of some 20 meters below the ground, according to the IDF.
The IDF says the Northern Brigade troops also located a nearby weapons depot where some 20 explosive devices, an anti-tank launcher, and other weapons were stored.
Also, during operations in the area, the military says troops using a drone spotted a cell of terror operatives trying to plant a bomb in the ground near the forces. An Israeli Air Force drone struck and killed the operatives a short while later.
Among the targets was a Hamas command center in the area of the Gaza City neighborhoods of Daraj and Tuffah. The IDF says the site included a weapons depot used to store explosives that Hamas operatives used in attacks on troops.
The other targets included a rocket launching site used to fire a projectile at southern Israel last night, weapon depots, cells of operatives, and other Hamas infrastructure, the military says.
The strikes come as troops continue ground operations in Gaza.
The 36th Division destroyed weapons and other Hamas infrastructure and directed strikes on Hamas operatives in the Morag Corridor area, the IDF says.
The IDF says the Gaza Division located additional weapons and infrastructure and killed operatives in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood.
In northern Gaza, the military says the 252nd Division destroyed additional Hamas infrastructure, including tunnel shafts and buildings used by the terror group, and killed several operatives trying to plant a bomb.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, publishes a map of the area that is to be evacuated, saying that it is a “final warning” before the IDF carries out strikes there.
One rocket fired at Re’im was intercepted, according to the military. Over the past day, five rockets have been fired from Gaza at Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
2025-04-14 01:56 ||
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Ngo report: A Portland trans activist awaiting trial for the knife slaughter of his father has committed s—icide in a VA jail. Norah, formerly known as Michael Horwitz, performed for years in Portland as an Anne Frank-inspired Jewish drag queen. Read: https://t.co/jEi6JKuXm9
The Cinco de Mayo parade in Chicago for 2025 has been canceled by organizers over fears of deportations. But it may be an excuse for disorganization. In 2024, the same Mexican nationalist event was canceled over "fears of gang violence" near the route. https://t.co/T2SHRev87M
#4
It marks the day indigenous Mexican forces defeated the French at the Battle of Puebla. It's not even a national holiday in Mexico. It was used as a marketing gimmick to sell Mexican themed beer in the US.
But not since. So it’s clearly a first year of the term reaction. We can look forward to the same happening again the first year of whoever wins for the Republicans four years from now.
A man named Cody Balmer has been charged with terrorism, attempted murder, aggravated arson and aggravated assault over the April 13 family home arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. @JoshShapiroPA.
Local authorities have not released a photo of Balmer but I found and verified… pic.twitter.com/IIPVtsbQNK
The media and corrupt politicians are already spinning the facts.
None of us have the whole story yet, but we do know 💯 that Cody Balmer, born on March 23, 1987, a resident of Harrisburg, PA, with addresses listed at 24xx Canby St and 27xx Banks St, among others, with the associated phone numbers, (717) 238-41xx and (717) 234-47xx, his mobile devices were present for 39 Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests.
Balmer had homemade incendiary devices in his possession and made it inside the residence before leaving, according to the state police commissioner. He was apprehended on Sunday in the Harrisburg area.
THE CONTEXT
Shapiro reported on Sunday that state police woke him and his family at 2 a.m. after a suspect had set fire in the Governor's Residence, forcing the governor and his family to evacuate. Shapiro had guests over earlier in the evening to celebrate the first night of Passover but has not revealed who was staying in the residence other than his family.
No one was harmed during the incident, and the suspect escaped. Authorities launched a multi-agency manhunt spearheaded by the Pennsylvania State Police.
By Sunday evening, authorities had a suspect in custody and revealed more details about what had happened.
WHAT TO KNOW
Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris told reporters at a press conference on Sunday evening that they had identified Cody Balmer, a 38-year-old resident of Harrisburg, as a person of interest and suspect in the investigation.
Authorities are treating the incident as aggravated arson and attempted homicide, which will be further detailed in an official complaint filed later this evening. Balmer will also face terrorism and aggravated assault charges.
While Shapiro spoke at length about Balmer's attempt to "terrorize our family, our friends, the Jewish community," no charges of a hate crime were yet announced.
Paris said the suspect jumped a fence at the Governor's Residence, evaded troopers on site who were looking for him, then broke into the residence and set fire to the building before escaping back over the fence.
Balmer had a "very methodic plan" and had homemade incendiary devices in his possession, Paris added.
A photo of a man allegedly identified as Balmer started circulating online but could not be verified. Authorities said a booking photo of the suspect would be available later this evening.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
2025-04-14 01:45 ||
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1) his home was recently foreclosed on
2) his momma says he was off his meds and she tried 4 different police depts to track him down and none would help
3) he posted anti-Biden memes
4) He flat out looks evil.
#4
Meanwhile Musk's operation has been sending people into orbital flight and relief missions to the Space Station. Maybe if Bezo didn't waste millions on WaPo he'd be further ahead in the process.
#11
Old lawyer joke. If you have the law, argue the law. If you have the facts argue the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts pound the table.
This is the rocket company version of pounding the table.
Ngo report: Detroit Police & media say a fugitive "woman" was arrested over the brutal knife attack on a dog & cat.
But the suspect is not a woman. Jordan Love is a trans person who was known as Jordan Colangelo. He's currently held in jail as a "female." https://t.co/HTgZ7eH2rf
Friedrich Merz has expressed willingness to supply Ukraine with Taurus long-range cruise missiles.
“Our European partners are already supplying cruise missiles. The British are doing it, the French are doing it, and the Americans are doing it anyway,” Merz said.
What the HELL is the matter with these people? How can they not care how dangerous this is?
[IsraelTimes] A group of over 250 former Mossad members sign onto a statement backing a letter signed by Israeli Air Force veterans that calls for the government to prioritize the return of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, even at the cost of ending the ongoing war against the terror group.
The signatories to the letter, which was organized by former top hostage negotiator David Meidan, include ex-Mossad chiefs Danny Yatom, Efraim Halevy and Tamir Pardo.
“We believe the continuation of the fighting endangers the lives of the hostages and our soldiers, and that all possibilities to reach a deal that will bring an to the suffering must be exhausted,” the letter states. “We call on the government to make brave decisions and act responsibly for the security of the country and its citizens.”
A group of some 200 reservist doctors signs onto a similar letter, which like the statements from the ex-Mossad operatives and air force veterans does not include a call to halt reserve service in protests.
The new letters join several other statements that followed the pilots’ letter, which prompted the military to dismiss those still actively serving for using the “Israeli Air Force brand” in a political protest.
Is this a fad, like swallowing goldfish or stuffing as many as possible into a telephone booth? I cannot understand this many Israelis so self-righteously turning off their brains.
[IsraelTimes] Over 1,600 former IDF paratroopers and infantry soldiers have signed a letter demanding the government reach a deal to bring the hostages home, even if it means ending the war, according to a Ynet report.
The letter states: “We, the fighters and commanders of the paratroopers and infantry units, whose flag bears the words: ‘We do not leave wounded behind on the battlefield,’ call for the return of the hostages, even at the cost of halting the fighting. This is a call to save lives.”
This latest appeal adds to a growing wave of public pressure to end the ongoing war, following similar letters from IDF reservist doctors, former 8200 intelligence unit members, ex-Mossad members, navy reservists, and reservist air force personnel.
In a newly published letter, Talpiot graduates say they support the recent protest by Israeli Air Force reservists and denounce the government’s war policy as serving “political and personal interests” rather than security needs.
“The continuation of the war does not contribute to any of its stated goals,” the letter states, warning it will only lead to more deaths — including hostages, IDF soldiers, and innocent civilians — and the erosion of Israel’s reserve forces. The signatories urge the public to demand action and condemn efforts to silence dissenting voices.
This is not the first time Talpiot graduates have taken a public stance. In July 2023, hundreds signed a letter refusing voluntary reserve duty in protest of the government’s proposed judicial overhaul.
Talpiot is an elite IDF training program for soldiers who have demonstrated academic excellence in the sciences. The soldiers pursue academic degrees in physics, math, or computer science while serving in the IDF.
So they get credit for wearing the uniform while avoiding actual soldiering? If so, that’s not much better than the Haredim who avoid military service altogether because they think themselves much too holy to risk their skins like normal Israelis
[IsraelTimes] A new extremist group claims responsibility for a bomb that exploded near the offices of Hellenic Train, Greece’s main railway services operator and the planting of another near the Labor Ministry in early February.
The explosion Friday evening resulted in limited damage and no injuries. The perpetrators had forewarned of the explosion by calling two media organizations about 40 minutes before it happened.
In a lengthy posting on the website Athens.indymedia.org on Sunday, the perpetrators, who style themselves the Revolutionary Class Struggle, explain the reasons for their action, which they say is part of an armed struggle against the state.
Revolutionary Class Struggle dedicates the bombings to “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance” and pays tribute to Kyriakos Xymitiris, a man who was killed last year when the explosive device he was assembling exploded in a central Athens apartment.
He was one of those bomb-throwing anarchists…
The explosion also came during widespread public anger over a 2023 railway disaster, Greece’s worst, in which 57 people were killed and dozens more injured when a freight train and a passenger train heading in opposite directions were accidentally put on the same track.
The deadly accident exposed severe deficiencies in Greece’s railway system, including in safety systems, and has triggered mass protests led by relatives of the victims against the country’s conservative government on the occasion of the accident’s second anniversary.
In its statement, which serves as a sort of manifesto, Revolutionary Class Struggle connects the accident with what it calls the “murders” of the proletariat in the form of workplace accidents, by capitalists.
Greece has a long history of politically motivated violence dating back to the 1970s, with domestic extremist groups carrying out small-scale bombings that usually cause damage but rarely lead to injuries.
While the groups most active in the 1980s and 1990s have been dismantled, new smaller groups have emerged. Authorities are calling them a new generation of domestic extremists.
[IsraelTimes] But justices say administration must first hold a court hearing for those it’s seeking to expel using the Alien Enemies Act
The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to use an 18th century wartime law to deport Venezuela
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... n migrants colonists, but said they must get a court hearing before they are taken from the United States.
In a bitterly divided decision, the court said the administration must give Venezuelans who it claims are gang members "reasonable time" to go to court.
But the conservative majority said the legal challenges must take place in Texas, instead of a Washington courtroom.
The court’s action appears to bar the administration from immediately resuming the flights that last month carried hundreds of migrants colonists to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The flights came soon after President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II to justify the deportations under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
The majority said nothing about those flights, which took off without providing the hearing the justices now say is necessary.
In dissent, the three liberal justices said the administration has sought to avoid judicial review in this case, and the court "now rewards the government for its behavior." Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined portions of the dissent.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it would be harder for people to challenge deportations individually, wherever they are being held, and noted that the administration has also said in another case before the court that it’s unable to return people who have been deported to the El Salvador prison by mistake.
"We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this," she wrote.
The justices acted on the administration’s emergency appeal after the federal appeals court in Washington left in place an order temporarily prohibiting the deportations of migrants colonists accused of being gang members under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.
"For all the rhetoric of the dissents," the court wrote in an unsigned opinion, the high court order confirms "that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal."
The case has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension between the White House and the federal courts. It’s the second time in less than a week that a majority of conservative justices handed Trump at least a partial victory in an emergency appeal after lower courts had blocked parts of his agenda.
Several other cases are pending, including Trump’s plan to deny citizenship to US-born children of parents who are in the country illegally.
Trump praised the court for its action Monday.
"The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
The original order blocking the deportations to El Salvador was issued by US District Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.
#1
SCOTUS already ruled on the AEA to include the finding that deportations are not subject to judicial review. Once again we have the judiciary granting themselves power without Constitutional or Congressional authority.
#2
There's a huge difference between sending someone back to his home country (or just letting him board a plane to Caracas) and deporting someone without any judicial review into a hellhole prison in a token third country, where nobody has the chance to ever get out again.
What on earth are you doing here? You are basically establishing that your government can do whatever it pleases with any foreigner on your soil, including those being there lawfully. No judicial review necessary before a person you just don't happen to like gets sent into a prison in El Salvador? Why not North Korea?
And then you have Trump who "‘simply floated" idea of deporting U.S. citizens, White House’s Leavitt says.
Excuse me?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/14/2025 8:37
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Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025 9:31
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#5
We are deporting illegal aliens. If you don't like it, don't sneak into our country and break our laws.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
04/14/2025 14:54
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#6
This is not "deportation". Your government sends people to a foreign concentration camp (that's what it is) without any judicial review. And your president announces that he would like to do the same with U.S. citizens.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/14/2025 15:57
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#7
/\ El Sal won the bid.
"Nothing personal, it's just business."
~ Otto Biederman
#8
The illegal was from El Salvador, and they chose where to put the gangbanger
Posted by: Regular joe ||
04/14/2025 17:29
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#9
Your government sends people to a foreign concentration camp (that's what it is) without any judicial review. And your president announces that he would like to do the same with U.S. citizens
That's a crock of shit. Don't want to be deported? Don't come illegally. You cross a passive country, you LOSE the right to claim asylum. NO US Citizens have been or will be deported...droned maybe (See Awlacki) under Obama? You may pretend to be conservative, but you are European, EC.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025 17:32
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Re #6. And your president announces that he would like to do the same with U.S. citizens
To which he added that he (and his cabinet) must always follow the law. From my point of view, his use of the word "like" was a statement of desire rather than a prediction, akin to "alas, I wish" rather than "I will".
He then said he'd abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, intimating he isn't too keen on the decisions of the lower courts so will appeal all such rulings all the way to SCOTUS. SCOTUS did limit the standing of the district court judges w.r.t habeus petitions. The system is working. We are in the midst of a lesson about what process is due an enemy alien.
The constitution states
he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,
and
no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
but the law states:
Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.
SCOTUS will decide it, and the rest of us will abide by it.
#12
Trump claimed he "didn't know what the law is". The President of the United States who took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution" doesn't know that he can't deport U.S. citizens to foreign prisons?
Should be quite interesting when President Alejandra Ocasio-Cortez sends MAGA-supporters as "terrorists" to Cuban jails and says that she wants to ban the posession of all arms. She just doesn't know what the law says.
Yes Frank G, I'm European. And Conservative. One of those who believe in due process and justice for all.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/14/2025 18:34
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#13
Watch the hands, not what's said, EC. EU Pols talk tough and do/fund shit.
Name one US citizen actually deported by Trump. You have a 4 year term + to refer to?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025 18:40
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#14
This POS claims fears he would be harmed by RIVAL gangs? Does that make any sense as to why we would bring him back?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025 18:59
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#15
#8 The illegal was from El Salvador, and they chose where to put the gangbanger
Your government sends people to a foreign concentration camp ... without any judicial review
Through the magic of dog sitting, I happened to see the presser with Trump and El Salvador's Prez Bukele. It was all quite entertaining.
A couple observations:
Trump and Bukele seemed to be getting along like pals.
Two US courts (immigration and immigration appeal) had ruled the guy exported to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia, was a gang-banger. When the gang came under the Alien SOB Act or whatever it's called, he became deportable to his home country.
Bukele said he will not send criminals to the US. He took justifiable pride in converting El Salvador from a regional murder capital to one of safer places in the hemisphere.
Trump says he has no control over El Salvadoran citizens in El Salvador, no matter what a district court might eventually rule after they re-mull over the ruling the Supreme Court punted back to them and figure out what "facilitate" and "effectuate" mean.
[IsraelTimes] Susman Godfrey is latest firm to push back on White House, says it’s being targeted for representing Dominion Voting Systems in defamation suits amid Trump 2020 election lies
They weren’t lies, but Dominion deserved representation just like everyone else. That’s the thing the Democrats and leftists ignored when they decided to cancel President Trump and everyone who supported him. Make the resistors pay, Mr. President.
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... ’s administration was hit with another lawsuit on Friday over his executive orders sanctioning prominent law firms, even as five other firms offered costly concessions to avoid the US president’s crackdowns.
Susman Godfrey filed the lawsuit in Washington to challenge an executive order that it said violated its rights under the US Constitution, becoming the fourth firm targeted by Trump to sue the administration in response.
"If President Trump’s Executive Orders are allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they seek to retaliate against a different set of perceived foes," the lawsuit said.
Susman Godfrey accused Trump of trying to "exact Dire Revenge" on the firm, which has represented Dominion Voting Systems in defamation cases related to the US president’s false claims that the 2020 US election, which he lost to former US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Too old and senile to be prosecuted, not too old and senile to set national policy... , was rigged.
A true claim, actually, but do go on.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Trump’s executive orders against the firms restricted their lawyers from accessing US government buildings and officials, and threatened federal contracts with the firms’ clients, citing their connections to Trump’s perceived enemies or cases he opposes.
Trump earlier on Friday said five other firms facing pressure from his administration had reached deals to devote at least $600 million in free legal work to causes he supports, bringing the total pledges he has received to $940 million since last month.
The agreements mostly mirror others struck with four firms in recent weeks, requiring them to shun diversity-based employment practices the administration deems illegal and work on pro bono projects approved by the president.
Kirkland & Ellis, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher and Latham & Watkins are set to provide $125 million in pro bono work each. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft would provide at least $100 million, Trump said in posts on his Truth Social account.
Trump said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday that firms that settled with him "have paid me a lot of money in the form of legal fees," and that he may press them into service negotiating trade deals amid the White House’s aggressive tariff rollouts.
The US president on Friday also said the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has withdrawn a probe into employment practices at Kirkland, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher and Latham as part of the agreements.
Spokespeople for the five firms declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kirkland’s executive committee and Simpson Thacher chairman Alden Millard said in internal memos obtained by Rooters on Friday that their agreements would not force them to relinquish control over the pro bono cases they handle.
Millard wrote that the firm had made a "strategic decision" to remove the threat of an executive order.
Kirkland and Simpson Thacher and at least two of the other settling firms were involved in litigation challenging Trump’s policies in his first term, related to issues such as voting and transgender rights or immigration.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said "Big Law continues to bend the knee to President Trump because they know they were wrong, and he looks forward to putting their pro bono legal concessions toward implementing his America First agenda."
The Trump administration has already faced lawsuits by Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block over executive orders against them, and each quickly won rulings that said the orders likely violated constitutional protections for speech and due process.
Trump agreed to rescind an executive order against Paul Weiss after it became the first to settle with the White House, agreeing to donate $40 million in pro bono work.
Skadden Arps, Milbank and Willkie Farr reached similar deals without an executive order being issued against them, each agreeing to earmark $100 million in pro bono services for mutually agreed projects with the administration.
More than 800 law firms and lawyers signed onto a court brief on Friday supporting the legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders, calling them "undisguised retaliation" that threatened to put the firms out of business.
The attorneys general of 20 Democratic-led US states and the District of Columbia also filed briefs in two of the firms’ cases, warning that Trump’s actions could make it harder for vulnerable groups to secure legal representation.
They tried to drive him, all his businesses, and anyone willing to work for him into penury, and him into prison for the rest of his life. He is just refusing to send government business their way and having them inspected to ensure they are obeying the law — a very, very big difference, especially if they are careful to obey the law.
[NY Post] There's already a punishment process in place. They use it on us if we don't pay. She's just trying to not get primaried for F'ing with Hegseth's nomination
GOP Sen. Joni Ernst is gearing up for Tax Day with new legislation requiring the IRS to police itself and ensure that all its workers are fully caught up on their debts to Uncle Sam.
Ernst (R-Iowa) has introduced the Audit the IRS Act, which requires the tax-collecting agency to probe its workers annually and fire every agent who doesn’t pay their tax bills.
The measure comes in response to a July 2024 watchdog report’s findings that current and former workers owed $46 million worth of taxes and that about 5% of IRS employees and contractors weren’t fully caught up on their personal tax obligations.
"I am squashing the 1776-style tax revolt at the IRS and forcing bureaucrats to play by the rules they are enforcing on the American people," Ernst told The Post about her bill.
"We must conduct a full accounting of America’s tax agency by auditing the auditors. Every single tax-dodging tax collector needs to be shown the door."
Four months after the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s (TIGTA) July report on IRS workers bilking Uncle Sam, the IRS informed Ernst that it still had 2,044 employees on staff who owed some $12 million in taxes.
Only 20 of the 70 IRS agents who were found to have "willfully" skipped out on their taxes were let go, the tax-collecting agency told the Iowan last November.
Under the Audit the IRS Act, workers with "seriously delinquent tax debt," meaning individuals with a lien filed in public records against them, can’t continue serving at the agency.
Additionally, the bill would restrict the IRS from hiring workers with outstanding tax obligations.
The IRS has long struggled with unpaid taxes. Back in 2022, for instance, the agency estimated that the gap between total taxes owed and what was paid on time was about $696 billion.
That’s just shy of 40% of the US federal deficit for fiscal year 2024, which clocked in at about $1.8 trillion.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025
09:33 ||
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[NY Post] Well, as long as he's happy and comfortable with his "retirement"
The Trump-appointed official who oversaw the dismantling of USAID has abruptly left his role after less than three months in the job, a US official has said.
Pete Marocco had been serving as director for the Office of Foreign Assistance since January for the State Department, and masterminded the shutting down of the US Agency for International Development during his brief tenure as its deputy administrator.
Marocco only learned that his role was coming to an end during a White House meeting late last week when he was asked to turn in his agency badge and laptop, the Wall Street Journal reported. Oops
He had allegedly clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the extent of the cuts, which saw 83% of USAID funding to overseas projects canceled since President Trump’s inauguration. Forgot who was boss, did he?
A US Marine Corps veteran, Marocco also served in Trump’s first administration in various roles at the State Department and USAID as well as in the Pentagon and the Commerce Department.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025
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I think the British term is that he found himself in surplus to requirements.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/14/2025 9:52
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I truly appreciate his efforts in cutting one of the most corrupt and subversive government agencies in America. Its too bad be got in front of his leadership, must be more to the story, Trump does not normally fire good soldiers. I hope his retirement goes well.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/14/2025 11:26
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#3
Or perhaps this makes him available for another assignment.
The Wall Street Journal is not a friend of President Trump. It’s quite possible they have a different interpretation of events than the participants.
[JustTheNews] The unused equipment, including "ventilators and x-ray machines," have been "missing recommended maintenance and costing taxpayers storage expenses," said a news release from DiNapoli's office.
New York state spent hundreds of millions of dollars on medical equipment when the COVID-19 pandemic began but it now "sits unused in storage facilities across the state," an audit released this week by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli revealed.
The unused equipment, including "ventilators and x-ray machines," have been "missing recommended maintenance and costing taxpayers storage expenses," said a news release from DiNapoli's office.
“During the pandemic, New York state quickly purchased medical equipment to address the public health crisis,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “Now, hundreds of thousands of unused devices sit idle. I urge the Department of Health to develop and execute a strategic plan for the maintenance and use of these and future medical equipment purchases, so New York is well prepared for the next public health emergency.”
DiNapoli and his auditors concluded that the state paid $452.8 million to buy 247,343 items of durable medical equipment
(DME) and "received 51 items donated by others or from the federal government, for a total of 247,394 items procured during the onset of COVID-19."
However, only 324 items were "distributed during the public health emergency, and only three items from the 247,343 DME purchased during COVID-19," said the news release about the audit.
[JustTheNews] "Critical moment:" Timing of fall 2014 overture came as son's Burisma firm fretted it could be blamed for price spike without Russian help. Documents show as vice president, Joe Biden helped protect his son's interests.
While Joe Biden publicly led the charge to punish Russia for its first invasion of Ukraine, he used his role as vice president to quietly open a backdoor for Moscow's gas to flow to its neighbor in fall 2014, at a time when his son Hunter's Ukrainian energy company sought such help, according to government messages in a private email account kept from Americans for more than a decade.
The emails, sent to Joe Biden's private account that used the fake name RobinWare456@gmail.com, were recently turned over by the National Archives, mostly redacted, to Just the News under an open records lawsuit and in unredacted form to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that continues to investigate corruption concerns surrounding the former first family.
They confirm that Joe Biden played a secret role at a "critical moment" to help secure Russia's willingness to re-open natural gas spigots to Ukraine, a deal that publicly Germany and its then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, received credit for brokering.
JOE BIDEN'S INTERVENTION GETTING THE DEAL DONE
“Ukraine gas deal was just signed. The Germans earlier indicated to Tony that your call had come at a critical moment,” the vice president’s Deputy National Security Advisor Jeffrey Prescott wrote in an Oct. 30, 2014 email to Joe Biden’s private account that appears to reference then-Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, a longtime Biden confident who would later serve as Biden's chief diplomat during the 46th presidency.
“Amos (with an assist here internally from your team) was critical to the endgame,” Prescott added, likely referring to Amos Hochstein, one of Biden’s trusted advisers at the State Department on energy who later interacted with Hunter Biden on several occasions related to Burisma and Ukraine, Just the News previously reported.
Just six days before this communication, German Chancellor Merkel had called Putin directly, urging him to reach a settlement with Kyiv to resume gas flows before winter, German news site DW reported.
The email sent to Joe Biden's private, fake-name address was handed over to Congress and obtained by Just the News, which was previously given a redacted version by the National Archives.
You can read the full email and redacted version from the National Archives below:
Joe Biden's intervention in the gas deal with Moscow stood in stark contrast to the actions and rhetoric that he and his boss, then-President Barack Obama, delivered publicly after Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in early 2014. The two repeatedly sanctioned Russia's oil companies after the invasion and Joe Biden personally traveled to Kyiv in spring 2014 to implore Ukraine to “reduce its energy dependence” and offer American assistance in achieving that goal.
PUBLIC STATEMENTS, PRIVATE DOINGS
Former President Biden has an ongoing record of his rhetoric conflicting with his actions, especially when it comes to Russia. Just months after taking office, he waived all sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in an attempt to rebuild relations with Germany after having previously opposed the $11 billion project over fears Russia could exploit gas supplies to leverage Germany and the rest of Europe.
The political clamoring over Ukraine’s gas supplies masked a painful truth: Ukraine would need years to wean itself of Moscow's energy supply. Hunter Biden correctly identified that shortcoming in an email he sent to his business partner Devon Archer in April 2014, the same month his father gave the energy independence speech in Ukraine. About to join the board and secure a lucrative legal representation deal with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden warned Archer a shutdown of Russian gas exports to Ukraine would put a horrible squeeze on their new employer.
“There is no immediate supplier solution to replace [Russia],” the younger Biden added, warning that even if Burisma were to increase “output from its reserves by 100%...[Ukraine] would still be about 35% short of their needed gas supplies," the younger Biden wrote Archer in an email turned over to Congress in 2023 by two IRS whistleblowers.
At first glance, it might seem counterintuitive that a Ukrainian energy company would want Russia to continue exporting its gas supply to Ukraine. But Hunter Biden explained to his colleague the short-term benefit of keeping Russian gas flowing. “There will be enormous pressure on Burisma to lower prices for the national good. Even if the company takes a hit in profits it would seem imprudent to raise prices in concert with [Russian] price gouging,” he wrote.
You can read that email below:
Neither the State Department nor a lawyer for Hunter Biden responded to requests for comment from Just the News.
By summer 2014, Russia played hardball and shut off gas supplies to Ukraine, setting off a frantic scramble among European diplomats to find a solution. Inside Burisma, the shutoff, combined with an effort by the Ukrainian parliament to raise gas taxes to fund a drive for energy independence, posed a major threat to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
04/14/2025
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[BREITBART] Polling shows a narrow majority of U.S. voters approve of 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... 's executive order mandating the dismantling of the Department of Education (DOE).
The Rasmussen Reports survey found that 51 percent of likely U.S. voters approve of Trump's order, along with 37 percent who ''strongly approve.'' At the same time, 47 percent disapprove, including 35 percent who ''strongly disapprove.''
Respondents are evenly divided on whether or not the DOE, which was created in 1979 under President Jimmy Malaise Carter
...only the second worst president ever. Now the third worst, after Obama and Biden... , has made American schools better, 41 percent to 41 percent. Thirteen percent do not believe the department has made much of a difference.
Unsurprisingly, those who believe the DOE has made schools better are more likely to disapprove of Trump's order (76 percent), while those who think the department has stunted American education are supportive of its end (83 percent).
Opinions about DOE and its elimination are ''largely divided along party lines,'' Rasmussen Reports found.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
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The Rasmussen Reports survey found that 51 percent of likely U.S. voters approve of Trump's order
[BREITBART] Arizona counties have started a process to work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding verifying voters' citizenship and removing non-citizens from voter lists.
This comes after America First Legal (AFL) filed a lawsuit against Arizona's 15 counties ''on behalf of EZAZ.org,'' and Yvonne Cahill, a registered voter and naturalized citizen, according to Fox News. In the lawsuit, AFL argued that ''the counties had not been following a state law'' requiring people to prove their citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections.
Per the outlet, ''while a 2013 Supreme Court ruling prohibits states from imposing registration requirements beyond the federal requirement that registrants must check a box affirming their U.S. citizenship,'' voters in the state have to show proof they are a United States citizen to vote in local and state elections:
While a 2013 Supreme Court ruling prohibits states from imposing voter registration requirements beyond the federal requirement that registrants must check a box affirming their U.S. citizenship, Arizona residents are still required to provide proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections.
The Arizona law also requires that county recorders perform a monthly list maintenance to confirm the U.S. citizenship of so-called ''federal-only voters,'' a list of nearly 50,000 individuals who failed to provide proof of U.S. citizenship and were not allowed to vote in state or local elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
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#1
Which counties? Do they include Phoenix and Tucson?
#2
Arizona has all the processes to hold a safe and accurate election. Arizona Democrats hold the keys to manage the elections right now and they have neglected to perform their duties.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/14/2025 11:28
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they have neglected refused to perform their duties.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025 12:09
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[BREITBART] President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... 's Department of Education (DOE) on Friday announced that it has begun the process of cutting federal K-12 funding to Maine, as the Democrat-run state continues to allow transgender-identifying males on female sports teams.
DOE is also referring its Title IX investigation of the state to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for ''further enforcement action,'' the department said. DOE said its actions are a ''direct result'' of the Maine Department of Education's (MDOE) continued refusal to comply with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal funding.
A federal judge on Friday ordered President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... ’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to unfreeze federal funding to Maine, as the administration continues to battle the Democrat-run state over transgender athletes.
District Court Judge John Woodcock issued a temporary restraining order in the case brought by Maine against the USDA, although he noted his order does not weigh in on the larger dispute surrounding Maine allowing trans-identifying males on female sports teams and in female spaces, News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on April 2 that the agency had begun freezing federal funds to Maine because of Democrat Gov. Janet Mills’ refusal to bar transgender-identifying boys from competing in girls’ sports. The USDA said it paused distribution of funds after sending multiple requests to Mills urging her to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal funding.
[BREITBART] A 17-year-old Wisconsin teen allegedly killed his parents in pursuit of the ''financial means and autonomy'' to assassinate President Trump, the FBI revealed.
Court documents show the 17-year-old was part of a ''satanic cult'' which has ''strong anti-Judaism anti-Christian and anti-western ideologies,'' WISN reported Friday.
Investigators also found a manifesto which ''described a call to assassinate President Trump, make and detonate bombs and carry out other terrorist attacks.''
CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... noted that charges against the 17-year-old include two counts of first-degree murder and ''two counts of hiding a corpse.'' He also faces federal charges tied to the planned liquidation.
In one entry in the manifesto, the 17-year-old addressed his plans for Trump, writing, ''As to why, specifically Trump, I think it's pretty obvious. By getting rid of the president and perhaps the vice president, that is guaranteed to bring in some chaos.''
The 17-year-old allegedly killed his mother and stepfather inside their home in February. The two victims were shot to death.
But if he runs, he’ll waste donor money that could have been given to a viable candidate.
[BREITBART] Sunday on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) did not rule out launching a potential 2028 presidential run. Will T-Bone be his First Lady?
Host Kristen Welker said, ''What should the message from Democrats be right now?''
Booker said, ''We should be focusing on the American people. This is not about party, left or right. It's about right or wrong. We are in a moral moment right now in our country with attacks on Medicaid and tax cuts to the wealthiest in the country, and this is not who we are. We have to fight to keep American jobs, costs, economic security and American health care.''
Welker said, ''Senator, yes or no, are you considering a run in 2028?''
Booker said, ''I'm focused on today and my reelection in '26. I've already announced to the people of New Jersey. I'm hoping they'll allow me to. I will be their senator for another six years. Let's be clear: I'm proud of the work we've done. There's been no senator with a better record of bringing resources back to the state of New Jersey. I'm focused on the now and working to defend folks and, God willing, be re-elected in 2026.''
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
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Let's see.
A High Yellow Democrat, that admits he is a descendant of a Slave Owner, that impregnated a slave, that it owned, wants to run for President.
Will the LSD's Media avoid using their normal Tag headline.
"_______, a descendant of slave ownership" ?
[BREITBART] Senator Elizabeth Being Native American has been part of my story since the day I was born Warren ...The Great White Squaw, Lizzie is the Dem Senatrix from Massachussetts. She traces her noble lineage all the way back to Big Chief Spouting Bull. She has high cheekbones that stretch all the way to the top of her head. It has been alleged that she speaks with forked tongue but she denies that. She had a DNA test to prove her lineage and it turns out she's colorless... (D-MA) said Sunday on CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... 's ''State of the Union'' that Congress had to take away the tariff authority from President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... Warren said, ''It is a mistake to have the President of the United States out there just playing red light, green light and saying, oh, this morning I woke up and think the tariffs should be this big. Now, I think they should be this big; now, I think they should be somewhere else. And I got to say, saying, well, I will continue to make those decisions and I'm going to hold off on these tariffs for 90 days, that doesn't put the economy in a better place. That doesn't put investors in a better place.''
She added, ''Congress has a job right now, and that is to step up and take this authority away from Donald Trump. He has proven how he will use it. But remember the statute that he's now using starts with a declaration of emergency. And in that same statute, Congress has the responsibility to decide is it really an emergency or not? Are we really in an emergency with Belgium right now? Are we really in an emergency with South Korea? Congress can say no, there's no emergency. It's a resolution. And if we do that, it takes Donald Trump back to the trade as we had it before. Tariffs are then decided with Congress having an important say in it. That's an important signal to the rest of the world. Right now it's a no curbs on Donald Trump and that means chaos and corruption. We have an opportunity in Congress to vote that down and to say, no, we are going to use tariffs in a far more targeted way.''
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
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[BREITBART] The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is pointing the finger at three Democrat-controlled states for the bulk of fraudulent unemployment payments.
The agency recently uncovered $382 million in such payments since 2020 and named Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, New York, and Massachusetts as the top states to blame for the problem, Fox News reported on Friday.
In a social media post on Wednesday, DOGE said, ''An initial survey of Unemployment Insurance claims since 2020 revealed the following: — 24.5k people over 115 years old claimed $59M in benefits — 28k people between 1 and 5 years old claimed $254M in benefits — 9.7k people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69M in benefits.''
''In one case, someone with a birthday in 2154 claimed $41k,'' the agency stated:
The following day, DOGE explained in an update that, ''California, New York, and Massachusetts accounted for most of these improper claims, totaling $305M in unemployment benefits.''
''Additionally, California accounted for 68% of the unemployment benefits paid to parolees identified by CBP on the terrorist watchlist or with criminal records,'' the agency added:
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Social media users were quick to share their thoughts on DOGE's findings, with one person writing, ''Massachusetts is a cesspool of corruption.''
''Big government creates big waste,'' another user replied, while someone else said, ''So the 3 states with the most notorious sanctuary cities in the nation claimed the most unemployment benefits, fraudulently? I mean there is no way that's a coincidence, it sure looks like illegal immigrants colonists are collecting taxpayer benefits.''
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2025
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Nor does using the Chinese calendar, which would use 4723 or any of the 23+/- Hindu calendars. But a 4 Hindu calendars do come close being in 2080 range's. ☺
#2
Super geriatrics need to get to work. End all their lollygagging and get to work. Their supposed to be the Greatest Generation and here they are soaking us.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/14/2025 8:07
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Hayat Tahrir al Sham is clearly better prepared to govern their caliphate than ISIS was, or Hamas is even after almost two decades. Interesting.
[Rudaw] Damascus-aligned forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Sunday began to jointly manage security in Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods of northern Aleppo, marking a significant step in a wider deal to integrate the Kurdish-led force into Syria's state institutions.
The coordinated effort saw the two sides begin "removing barriers and checkpoints on the streets of the two [Kurdish majority] neighborhoods" of Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyeh, as well as "other neighborhoods across Aleppo," according to the SDF-affiliated Hawar News Agency.
The development follows a 14-point agreement signed in early April between the Syrian leadership and the SDF.
The deal covers a prisoner swap and outlines a framework for joint security oversight in Aleppo, including in Kurdish-majority neighborhoods that were previously under the control of the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The YPG, which represents the backbone of the SDF, has begun withdrawing from the area in accordance with the deal. Two groups of YPG fighters, 400 on April 4 and another 500 on April 9, have reportedly exited the neighborhoods.
The deal has also facilitated the exchange of 243 detainees from both sides.
Notably, the April agreement builds on a landmark deal signed in early March between Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi signed to "integrate all civil and military institutions in northeast Syria [Rojava] under the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the [Qamishli International] Airport, and oil and gas fields."
The agreement emphasizes that "the Kurdish community is indigenous to the Syrian state, which ensures this community’s right to citizenship and all of its constitutional rights."
It further calls to implement a ceasefire across all Syrian territories and ensure the return of all displaced Syrians to their towns and villages.
[FoxNews] The Associated Press was banned from Oval Office events after it refused to use the term 'Gulf of America'
The White House violated the Constitution for barring the Associated Press from Oval Office events, according to a federal judge’s ruling Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump appointee, said that the White House acted against the First Amendment, which prohibits discrimination based on viewpoints, by blocking the longtime publication’s access over its refusal to use the term "Gulf of America."
"The Government offers no other plausible explanation for its treatment of the AP. The Constitution forbids viewpoint discrimination, even in a nonpublic forum like the Oval Office," McFadden wrote.
"Under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," he added. "The Constitution requires no less."
Utter nonsense. But put them in the rotation, at the end of the list. It’s only fair that they not bump those already in line.
#1
No judge. You have a bailiff to remove disruptive and rude people from your court room. The White House, by separation of powers, has the same authority.
Interesting that the quoted speakers all appear to be of the Left. Where are the Moslem colonists among the Kurds — are they more interested in jihad than caucusing?
[Rudaw] Thirty-seven candidates of Kurdish background are running in Finland's county and municipal elections on Sunday, with over 20,000 Kurds expected to cast their votes.
"Voting is not just a right; it is also a social duty," Welat Nehri, former president of the Federation of Kurdish Associations in Finland, told Rudaw’s Diaspora program during a debate on Friday.
The Kurdish candidates span the center-to-left political spectrum in Finland: 18 are running on a Social Democratic Party ticket, six with the National Coalition Party, five with the Left Alliance, three with the Swedish People’s Party, two with the Green Party, one with the Christian Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... , and two with the Centre Party.
Among the candidates, 22 are men and 15 are women.
Nehri stated that Kurds in Finland are considered an "active and successful community."
"But we must do even more to secure our future," he added.
Key campaign themes include cultural recognition, political participation, expanded local welfare services, and the promotion of social justice.
"When we become a political force - when we have political capital within this country and among the ranks of political parties - we will be taken into account at decision-making levels," said Majid Haqqi, an expert on elections and the Kurdish diaspora in Finland.
Haqqi warned that abstention could lead to gains for far-right parties. "Silence helps those who want to exclude us," he said. "The far-right wants immigrants colonists to stay silent. Our votes are our loudest protest against their racism."
Shahen Zada Ahmed, a Social Democratic candidate in the southwestern city of Turku, echoed Haqqi’s sentiments. "The left has always stood with oppressed nations. As Kurds, we naturally align with parties that fight for justice," she said, adding that "this election is not just a competition, but a revolution in Kurdish political engagement."
"If you don’t like my program, vote for another Kurdish candidate - but don’t waste your vote. Participation is power," she added.
But a native Finnish candidate is not to be thought of?
Also speaking during the debate, Shina Rezavi, a specialist in refugee affairs and human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. , emphasized the importance of representation. "When Kurds enter decision-making spaces, our community’s struggles are heard. Representation changes everything."
Candidates also highlighted their stances on human rights and equality.
"Women’s rights are human rights. The Kurdish women’s struggle inspires me to fight for equality here in Finland," said Shayda Sohrabi, who is running with the National Coalition Party.
"Many victims of human trafficking don’t know their rights because of language barriers. We need services in their mother tongues," Rezavi added. "When a refugee is exploited at work, it’s not just their problem—it weakens labor rights for all Finns."
Panelists also discussed the importance of local-level social services.
"Kurdish mothers who can’t speak Finnish still understand when their children’s schools are underfunded. That’s why local elections matter," said Haqqi.
"Local elections shape daily life—schools, healthcare, jobs. Kurds must engage at every level of politics," he added.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, another bullet hole appeared in Butch's hat...... Nehri noted that "our children must understand: voting isn't just about today, it's about securing their future in this country."
The candidates also spoke about integration, noting that Kurds have successfully converged into Finnish culture.
"When I walk through Helsinki's streets campaigning, I don't see just Kurds or Finns - I see neighbors who all deserve dignity," Sohrbai noted, explaining that she sees herself as a "proud Kurd and a proud Finn" at the same time.
"We don’t have to choose - we can be both," she added.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, another bullet hole appeared in Butch's hat...... Zada Ahmed stressed that multiculturalism "is not Finland’s weakness but its superpower in the 21st century."
According to a March 25 blurb from the Finnish Ministry of Justice, voters in the county elections will choose councillors responsible for organizing health, social, and rescue services in the wellbeing services counties. In the municipal elections, they will elect councillors to manage the activities and finances of their municipalities.
This is a very sad description of Soviet times in the 1920s, with some obvious parallels with our current masters American censors. by Dmitry Gubin
[REGNUM] One hundred years ago, at the end of March – beginning of April 1925, it became finally clear to Mikhail Bulgakov, an employee of the newspaper of the People's Commissariat of Railways, Gudok: the new science fiction story, Heart of a Dog, would not be published in the near or distant future – and perhaps never at all.
Until the very last moment, Mikhail Afanasyevich had hope that Glavlit (the preliminary censorship body) would perhaps allow publication in the cooperative almanac Nedra, which was printed in the NEPman publishing house Mospoligraf. After all, back then, in the interregnum that followed Lenin's death, the censor's scissors were not particularly zealous.
The Bolshevik leaders had more important matters to attend to - “the question of consolidation was at stake”: who would take the vacant place at the head of the party, and who would slide down the career ladder.
On January 2, 1925, at the same time as he was conceiving the story about Philipp Philippovich Preobrazhensky and Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, Bulgakov noted in his diary :
“(Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars Alexei) Rykov got drunk after Lenin’s death for two reasons: firstly, out of grief, and secondly, out of joy.”
"Trotsky is now written as 'Troy' - the Central Committee has dropped out."
All these jokes were told to me by that sly, freckled fox Lezhnev in the evening, when I was sitting with my wife, drafting the text of the contract for the continuation of "The White Guard" in "Russia". My wife was sitting, reading Ehrenburg's novel... We didn't have a penny of money."
"The sly, freckled fox" — Zurich University graduate Isaiah Lezhnev — was the permanent editor of the Soviet magazine "Russia", "the first non-party organ", which, under the supervision of the Central Committee of the Party, was published for "fellow travelers", Smena Vekh members and other suspicious individuals. At the same time, Lezhnev wrote for the Paris-Berlin magazine "Smena Vekh" — something like that was still possible in Soviet Russia.
One of his fellow travelers, Bulgakov, wrote about his editor: “By the grace of God, he managed to publish (in the years 1922–1925!) a private thick magazine… on the outskirts of Moscow in a nice and dirty apartment.”
But it was not by God's grace that this happened. When in 1922 the head of the Comintern Grigory Zinoviev demanded that the hotbed of sedition be closed, "Russia" was saved by Lenin's personal protection. The intelligentsia "specialists" still required a special approach, and they were entitled to "the final piece of paper, armor." This fantastic state of affairs continued even after the untimely death of the leader of the world proletariat. Thus, in 1925, in Red Moscow, Lezhnev's magazine published "The White Guard."
A NICE APARTMENT AND THE TERRIBLE FATE OF ITS INHABITANTS
From Bulgakov’s diary for January 4, 1925:
“All of Moscow was covered in thaw mud, and I spent the whole day traveling, inviting guests... I saw the lovely Lyamins and gave them a copy of Rossiya with the White Guard.”
The Bulgakovs (Mikhail Afanasyevich and his then wife Lyubov Belozerskaya ) were friends with the literary scholar Nikolai Lyamin and his wife, children's book illustrator Natalia Ushakova. It was here, in an apartment on Savelyevsky Lane near Prechistenka, that they held "Bulgakov readings." "Everything, or almost everything, that he wrote, he read at the Lyamins'," Belozerskaya recalled. Among other things, the writer brought drafts of "Heart of a Dog" here.
On the other hand, not only the "dear Lyamins" themselves, but also their apartment, house and surrounding courtyards played the role of co-authors of Bulgakov's books. In the "enormous, extremely neglected hallway" there was a huge chest - this iron-clad chest would later materialize on the pages of "The Master and Margarita", in the scene of Ivan Bezdomny chasing Woland.
In the early 1930s, Lyamin spent a "funny" two weeks under arrest - the police arrested him on suspicion of possessing currency. Why not use this curious episode for the story of the house manager Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy?
Natalya Ushakova, with an artist's eye, suggested in which gateway with an "iron grate swaying in the wind" (between houses No. 6 and No. 8 on Prechistenka) Professor Preobrazhensky could have fed sausage to the "unknown incognito dog prince" - the dog Sharik. And this gateway was written into the book.
Bulgakov, as a joke for his own people, left in the text of "Heart of a Dog", as they would say now, an Easter egg. This episode was not included in the final version of the story, but, by the way, was included in the script of Vladimir Bortko's film.
Remember the scene in which an aging lady comes to Professor Preobrazhensky "for rejuvenation", to whom Philip Philipovich promises to transplant monkey ovaries? The lady complains about her young lover:
"I swear, Professor, this Moritz... He is my only passion. He is a card sharper. All of Moscow knows him. He cannot miss a single vile milliner! After all, he is so devilishly young!"
Nikolai Lyamin's first wife, a fashion designer, left him for a mutual friend, Vladimir Emilievich Moritz, who was, of course, not a card sharper, but a theater critic and translator known to all of intelligentsia Moscow.
Natalya Ushakova outlived her husband by almost half a century and, already during perestroika, she told about the “Bulgakov readings” and how Mikhail Afanasyevich hoped that “Heart of a Dog” could be read in Soviet newspapers (or rather, magazines).
After all, as was said, the times were fantastic. And the story about Professor Preobrazhensky, on the contrary, was almost documentary.
"WELLS' HEROES ARE NONSENSE COMPARED TO YOU!"
In 1923, the London Strand Magazine published Arthur Conan Doyle's story " The Man on All Fours ". Sherlock Holmes investigates the reasons for the strange behavior of anthropologist Professor Presbury and finds out: the professor decided to "rejuvenate" himself before marrying a young lady, injected himself with "monkey serum" and got so carried away that he almost turned into a wild beast.
But don't rush to suspect Bulgakov of plagiarism. Professor Presbury and Professor Preobrazhensky - and, perhaps, Professor Persikov from "The Fatal Eggs" - had a real, not literary prototype. It is also possible that the then king of science fiction, Herbert Wells, copied his crazy geniuses from him. Mentioned, by the way, in both "The Fatal Eggs" and in the film based on "Heart of a Dog".
This prototype is a French surgeon, Dr. Serge Voronoff, aka Sergei (née Samuil) Abramovich Voronov, a native of the Russian Empire. Since the late 1890s, he has been developing xenotransplantation — the transplantation of animal organs into humans.
The Russian illustrated magazine Iskra (not to be confused with the Bolshevik publication) wrote in July 1914:
"At the French Medical Academy, our compatriot, Doctor Sergei Voronov, made a sensational report about an operation he had performed in his clinic on a 14-year-old idiot boy... Voronov gave this boy an inoculation of a monkey's thymus gland. The success exceeded expectations. The boy's eyes came alive, and his mental abilities appeared."
The medical community, to which Dr. Bulgakov belonged, knew about Dr. Voronoff's work "Life; a study of means of restoring vital energy and prolonging life" published in New York in 1920. And immediately before the idea for "Heart of a Dog" appeared, in 1924, Voronoff published an article "Forty-three transplants from ape to man" and was preparing another book on the same topic.
"2 PRIESTS AND 15 EMPLOYEES WERE REJUVENATED"
The Franco-Russian "magician and wizard" had followers in Soviet Russia, with curious surnames.
The Krestyanskaya Gazeta newspaper wrote in its issue of January 12, 1924, that in Tver there were those who continued the work of Voronov and the pioneer of European sexology, the Austrian Eugen Steinach, who tried to achieve the effect of rejuvenation from vasectomy. These were a certain "Professor Voskresensky and Doctor Uspensky" - Professor Preobrazhensky, we note, also has a "priestly" surname, after all, he is the son of the cathedral archpriest.
Doctors Voskresensky and Uspensky “rejuvenated 10 workers, 5 doctors, 2 priests, 1 merchant and more than 15 Soviet employees in a year and a half; the monkey nursery provided the material for the operations,” reported the Krestyanskaya Gazeta.
Correspondence from Moscow could well have appeared nearby: " A child who plays the violin was recently born in Obukhovsky Lane. Only with the help of modern medical means was he able to come into this world. In our photo, Professor F. F. Preobrazhensky...".
But let us note that the experimental physiologist Leonid Voskresensky and the surgeon Vasily Uspensky were real people. Voskresensky later became the first director of the Sukhumi monkey nursery, Uspensky developed surgery in his native Kalinin (Tver), during the war he headed an evacuation hospital and, it is possible, became the prototype of one of the heroes of "The Tale of a Real Man".
"THE MONKEYS WILL DEFEAT THE BOLSHEVIKS"
The idea that experiments could result not in human rejuvenation, but in the complete humanization of an animal, was also not taken out of thin air.
Bulgakov knew well - from Kiev - Viktor Shklovsky, who recounted in his " Sentimental Journey " the rumors that circulated in the city during the Civil War: "They said that the English... had already landed herds of monkeys trained in all the rules of military order. They said that these monkeys could not be propagandized, that they went on the attack without fear, that they would defeat the Bolsheviks."
Rumors are rumors, but since the 1910s, Russian biologist Ilya Ivanov has been seriously trying to breed a hybrid of man and ape, which was written about not only in scientific journals, but also in the press, including the tabloid press.
And it was in 1924 that Professor Ivanov, who was then working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, received permission to work at a chimpanzee nursery in French Guinea. The project fell through, but, most surprisingly, the scientist received a grant from the Soviet government. Anatoly Lunacharsky favored the project of creating a new man, and through the manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Lenin's former personal secretary Nikolai Gorbunov, Ivanov, who had left for Europe, was given 10,000 dollars at that time.
Later, the professor conducted unsuccessful experiments on "artificial insemination of female chimpanzees with human sperm" already in the USSR, in the Sukhumi monkey house. It would be surprising if Bulgakov had not heard about the strange story of Dr. Ivanov.
And in general, the spirit of the times was filled with fantasy.
Not long ago, the Bolsheviks seriously counted on turning the Civil War into a world revolution. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who was no longer considered an eccentric from Kaluga, wrote articles for the interplanetary communications section of the Red Army Air Forces Academy.
And the old social democrat Alexander Bogdanov, a long-time comrade and opponent of Lenin (and, by the way, a science fiction writer, the author of the book "The Feast of Immortality") promoted his own theory of life extension and rejuvenation - through healing the body with young blood. To this end, in 1926 Bogdanov - with the support of Lenin's sister Maria Ulyanova and the People's Commissar for Foreign Trade, the USSR's plenipotentiary representative in Britain and France Leonid Krasin - headed the Institute of Blood Transfusion, now the National Medical Research Center of Hematology.
"THESE THINGS ARE MUCH MORE DANGEROUS."
The early Soviet "festival of immortality" did not last long. Bogdanov, who died suddenly in 1928 during a blood exchange with a young student, was, one might say, lucky. Time was inexorably changing, and the "fantasists" of politics and science were being replaced by pragmatists of Lenin's (and in fact, Stalin's) call.
In 1930, Professor Ilya Ivanov, who had failed to breed a new man, was sent into exile to Alma-Ata, where he died. Ivanov never bred "Sharikov" from a chimpanzee. Lenin's personal secretary, Academician Nikolai Gorbunov, through whom "sponsorship funds" were sent to Ivanov, was convicted on October 7, 1938, and executed the same day.
As for Professor Voskresensky, in 1931 he simply… disappeared, as if he were a tenant of the evil apartment No. 50. Journalist Vadim Nesterov notes that the official biographies of the scientist end with the mysterious phrase: “In 1931, he left his job at the nursery and left Sukhumi,” after which the traces are lost.
In the new tragic times there was no room left for ideologically dubious fantasy. The fate of the story about the professor who “did not like the proletariat” was one of the first warning signs in this sense.
Bulgakov wrote "Heart of a Dog" quickly.
He began in January 1925, and in March he was already reading two parts of the story at a meeting of the "Nikitin Subbotniks" in Moscow. And he was immediately "on the list". In two reports, transmitted by an OGPU employee who was present at the readings, the most outrageous quotes were given: about the devastation in people's heads, about the advice not to read "Soviet newspapers, especially Pravda" before lunch, etc.
“My personal opinion: such things, read in the most brilliant Moscow literary circle, are much more dangerous than the useless and harmless speeches of 101st-class writers at meetings of the All-Russian Union of Poets,” the agent shared.
It was becoming obvious that Glavlit would not prevail over the story. The last hope was left on the editor of the cooperative almanac "Nedra", the old Bolshevik Nikolai Angarsky, who was able to "push through" Bulgakov's stories "The Devil's Play" and "The Fatal Eggs". But "artillery" heavier than Angarsky, a party member since 1903, was connected.
Lev Kamenev, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), spoke out against the publication, stating: “This is a sharp pamphlet on modern times; it should not be published under any circumstances.”
On May 7, 1926, a search was conducted in Bulgakov's apartment, the manuscript of the writer's diary and two typewritten copies of "Heart of a Dog" were confiscated. Only three years later, with the assistance of Maxim Gorky, the confiscated texts were returned to the author.
The theme of "Heart of a Dog" came up later as well.
In November 1933, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova wrote in her diary: “The writer (Sergey) Budantsev called and said that the physiologist (Sergey) Bryukhonenko, who is working on the issue of reviving a dead organism and is conducting experiments with a severed dog’s head, would very much like to meet Mikhail Afanasyevich.” But it was obvious that there could be no talk of taking the story out of the drawer.
Meanwhile, the flywheel of repression was grinding down Bulgakov’s close friends and acquaintances, literary officials and party functionaries, supporters and opponents of the publication.
One day in 1931, the theater critic and literary "card sharper" Moritz heard footsteps on the stairs - they had come to arrest him. The NKVD was investigating the idealistic circle of the philosopher and poet Georgy Shpet, and the theater critic, along with other "fellow travelers of the Soviet power", was sent into exile in the Arkhangelsk region.
In 1936, the hospitable owner of a literary salon, Nikolai Lyamin, was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. This was before the Great Terror began, and he was also “lucky.” After three years in one of the Ukhtpechlag camps, he was released. In February 1940, Lyamin managed to visit his dying friend Maku, Mikhail Bulgakov. In 1941, he was arrested again, under the same article. Nikolai Nikolaevich Lyamin died of exhaustion in the Saratov NKVD prison in October 1942.
Politburo member Kamenev, who blocked the publication of the story about Sharikov, was convicted in the case of the "Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center" and shot. In 1940, Nikolai Angarsky, who promoted the story, was arrested as an "English and German spy" and a year later shot at the Kommunarka firing range.
CITIZEN SHARIKOV AND MR. BOBIKOv
The manuscript did not burn - until the writer's death in 1940 and for more than a quarter of a century after it, the story lay in the archive. And, apparently, it continued to be perceived "toxically", as a pamphlet on communism and its project of the "new man". Even though this project was taken seriously only in the early Soviet years and, perhaps, during the Khrushchev thaw.
If "The Master and Margarita" was officially published in 1967 (albeit in a truncated form) in the Soviet magazine "Moscow", then "Heart of a Dog" went into "tamizdat"
…Soviet literature clandestinely published abroad…
a year later. As Elena Sergeevna explained, the text of the manuscript was copied without her knowledge and against her will - and copied with errors. An additional "minus to karma" was that the story was published by the West German magazine "Grani", associated with NTS.
The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, a Russian anticommunist organization founded by Russian emigrés in 1930 in Yugoslavia on the principles of individuality and Christian tolerance.
In 1976, the first screen adaptation was filmed in the West - a film co-produced by Italy and the FRG with Max von Sydow as Preobrazhensky. In German distribution, the film was called "Why Mr. Bobikov Barks" - for some reason, that's how Sharikov was renamed. It was possible to avoid "cranberries": director Alberto Lattauda had already filmed "The Captain's Daughter" and Chekhov's "The Steppe". But he exaggerated the colors. For example, when Bobikov comes to get a job at the "cleaning" and says that he wants to "work with cats", he is told: "There are no more of them here, they've all been eaten."
Another curious detail: Lattauda (given the leftist sentiments in Europe in the 1960s and 70s) said that his target was European fascism, not Russian Bolshevism. The "fascist" turned out to be the vivisectionist Preobrazhensky, and the good-natured scoundrel Sharikov-Bobikov was the victim.
Vladimir Bortko gave assessments closer to the author's in the film adaptation, shown at the height of perestroika, in November 1988. Just a year after the first publication of the story in its homeland, in the magazine "Znamya".
The director's discoveries and the skill of the actors - the master Yevgeny Yevstigneyev and the then unknown Vladimir Tolokonnikov - made the story even more ingrained in the public consciousness than Bulgakov's other works.
As befits a masterpiece, it had both admirers and haters.
In an interview with the newspaper Sobesednik, Bortko recalled a quarter of a century after the premiere: "I opened the newspapers and was stunned. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the quotes, but you can look up the archive and you'll see that I'm close to the text... It said something like this: 'Nobody has ever filmed such crap as "Heart of a Dog". For this, the director should have not only his hands cut off, but his legs as well, and be thrown off a bridge.'
THE POLYGRAPH-DEVIL AND VLADIMIR ILYICH PREOBRAZHENSKY
The article “Secret Writing in the Heart of a Dog,” published in 1987 in New York by a certain S. Ioffe, went viral in late Soviet society.
There, the "veils were already torn off": Preobrazhensky is Lenin, Sharikov, for whom Klim Chugunkin served as the material, is, of course, Stalin. Bormental is Trotsky, Shvonder is Kamenev. And Dzerzhinsky and Zinoviev were even "travestied" into the servant Darya Petrovna and the maid Zina. With the advent of the Internet, this conspiracy theory migrated there. It can easily be found on social networks.
There are also quotes from the fantasy-prone publicist Boris Sokolov, author of the 1996 Bulgakov Encyclopedia:
"The process of a dog's transformation into a human covers the period from December 24 to January 6, from Catholic to Orthodox Christmas Eve... The new man Sharikov is born on the night of January 6-7 - on Orthodox Christmas. But Polygraph Polygraphovich is not the incarnation of Christ, but of the devil."
But beyond the mystical and conspiracy theories, Bortko's film itself, and along with it the original source, became not just one of the many "revelations" of the perestroika era, but also remained in memory for decades, now becoming a source of memes and videos on social networks.
Sharikov and Shvonder are mentioned in everyday conversations in Russia much more often than Pechorin and Chatsky. It is impossible to imagine Russians without “Heart of a Dog” in a hundred years. Even those who have not read it. After all, they also know what “Abyrvalg” is and that the word “suffocated” is pronounced eight times. The question of whether it is possible to change and improve human nature by “humanizing the beast” remains open in the 21st century.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gevorg Mirzayan
[REGNUM] On April 11, Donald Trump's special representative for negotiations with Russia, Stephen Witkoff, held another meeting - already the third in a row - with Vladimir Putin. Like the previous ones, it lasted several hours.
The Kremlin's final press release was kept to a minimalist tone: "The head of the Russian state held a meeting with the special envoy of the President of the United States of America, Steven Witkoff. The topic of the meeting was aspects of the Ukrainian settlement."
The official comment from the US government was roughly the same in terms of volume and depth. Donald Trump’s press secretary Caroline Levitt said the meeting was “another step in the negotiating process to achieve a ceasefire and a final peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine,” but declined to elaborate on the components of that step.
The laconicism of Moscow and Washington can be explained very simply. "Very intensive and difficult negotiations are underway, but there is no significant decisive progress or breakthrough yet," Dmitry Suslov, deputy head of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told Regnum.
According to him, the parties realize the importance of settling the Ukrainian crisis for normalizing bilateral relations, they are focused on dialogue, but their positions are sometimes really far apart.
There are indeed many differences. Both in the territorial issue (the US must not only recognize the new Russian territories, but also force Kyiv to withdraw its troops from the occupied parts of them), and in the area of observing the energy ceasefire (which Ukraine does not observe, and the US cannot force Kyiv to fulfill its obligations), and in sanctions (in order to move to a “water” ceasefire in the Black Sea, the US must lift restrictions on Russian agricultural producers).
Russia has no hurry. "Work continues, meticulous work, an exchange of opinions is underway. Each other's positions are communicated to each other... There is no need to expect any breakthroughs here. The process of normalizing relations and searching for grounds for entering the trajectory of a settlement around Ukraine is underway," said the president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
But the US is in a hurry. More precisely, President Trump is in a hurry. “Trump’s 100 days are approaching, and we see that of all his many grandiose undertakings, he has not yet completed a single one. He has nothing to brag about. At the same time, a ceasefire in Ukraine was one of his main election promises. He needs it in order to more intensively implement his strategy of increasing pressure on China and transferring American forces towards the PRC,” Dmitry Suslov reminds.
However, the conflict has not yet been resolved, and, according to Caroline Levitt, Trump is “disappointed by the behavior of both sides in the conflict.” From Moscow’s perspective, he should be disappointed primarily with the Ukrainian side, since it is Kiev that is not fulfilling its obligations. At the same time, Trump himself is rushing Russia and says that “Russia must act. Too many people … have died, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war.”
"The American president is unhappy: he wants immediate results and a truce, and both sides are putting forward conditions. And if Zelensky has already bent the knee and declared his readiness for an immediate ceasefire, then Putin has no reason to stop the offensive without concessions from the United States," writes international political scientist and RIAC expert Alexey Naumov. It seems that Trump believes that, given the current time crunch, it is easier for him to pressure Moscow into concessions than Kiev.
First, because forcing the Ukrainian side to submit is met with resistance in the United States. Resistance from the American political mainstream, which believes that Trump and Steven Witkoff are pushing the wrong people. “We need to increase the hard pressure on Vlad’s interests and unite our allies in the region, ” writes The New York Post.
Moreover, both the US president and his special envoy are unqualified for this kind of negotiation. “Whitkoff and Trump have committed the cardinal sin of diplomacy: they have flaunted their desperation to make a deal,” said Ned Price, a former State Department spokesman under President Joe Biden.
Second, because there is no agreement within the American administration itself. “American officials are increasingly at odds over how to break the impasse between Ukraine and Russia, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the situation, as well as four Western diplomats who have been in touch with Trump administration officials,” Reuters writes.
The symbol of this disagreement was the publication of different plans by Stephen Witkoff and another special representative, Keith Kellogg, for resolving the Ukrainian issue. Kellogg proposed dividing Ukraine into three parts (implying the actual occupation of some territories by Western troops), while Witkoff proposed recognizing all Russian territories as Russian.
Thirdly, because any pressure on the Ukrainian regime is ineffective due to the European Union, which supports Ukraine and promises Zelensky assistance if Kyiv continues its policy of war to the last Ukrainian.
"We must acknowledge that peace in Ukraine is probably unattainable in the near future," said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, adding that Europe would continue to help the Kiev regime.
In this situation, Moscow suggests that Washington should not rush for quick solutions, not try to show some results in a hundred days, but work systematically. Solve problems not in a rush, as the Americans want, but effectively.
"Trump has no way to pressure Europe into accepting our demands. However, Russia would be quite happy with a situation in which the US would stop providing free material military aid to Ukraine," says Dmitry Suslov. "This would lead to a significant reduction in the overall volume of Western aid."
When the advance of our troops leads to the threat of the collapse of the Ukrainian front and/or the collapse of Ukraine, then Kyiv and Brussels will probably be ready to accept Russian demands. They will simply have no other choice.
[PostMillennial] Trump issued an order authorizing the temporary military control of the Roosevelt Reservation, a federally owned stretch of land established in 1907.
President Donald Trump has placed a 60-foot-wide strip of land along the US-Mexico border under the jurisdiction of the US military, a move aimed at continuing the White House’s efforts to deter illegal immigration.
Trump issued an order authorizing the temporary military control of the Roosevelt Reservation, a federally owned stretch of land established in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt for the purpose of border security. The strip spans parts of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Under the order, military personnel will be permitted to detain individuals who cross into the US illegally within this area.
According to a report by Politico, Trump had previously authorized military operations on the Roosevelt Reservation during his first term to assist with the construction of the border wall. The order is part of a broader effort by President Trump to increase military involvement in addressing mass illegal immigration at the southern border.
“Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” the order stated. “The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past.”
The directive, however, has raised concerns from critics who argue it may violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of active-duty military personnel for domestic law enforcement purposes.
“Welp they’re doing the Roosevelt Reservation crazy strategy, giving the military ‘jurisdiction’ over a 60-foot-wide stretch of land from CA to AZ and then claim that migrants are being arrested for ‘trespassing on military property’ thus trying to bypass the [Posse Comitatus Act],” wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, in a post on X. The Trump administration has argued that by placing the land under the jurisdiction of the military, active-duty troops can detain illegal immigrants the same way they would temporarily detain a trespasser on a military base until law enforcement arrives.
The order also directed the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to submit recommendations by next week on whether Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to support deportation efforts. The law would allow the president to deploy additional military forces to the southern border and allow them to assist law enforcement.
Illegal border crossings have dropped significantly since Trump took office. The administration reported just 7,200 migrant encounters in March, a stark decline from over 189,000 recorded during the same month last year under the Biden administration.
#2
The business of drug and people smuggling is fluid. They have likely found another route.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/14/2025 11:59
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Posse Comitatis issues may be involved. If the military has law enforcement powers like any federal military facility, that issue is likely rendered moot.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
See a graphic of the referential document at the link:
[ColonelCassad] Among the recently declassified documents published on the CIA website, a document appeared that describes an alleged clash between Soviet Army soldiers and some aliens. The aliens lost a flying saucer and an unknown number of personnel. The Soviet troops lost 21 people.
Soviet soldiers died after encountering an alien UFO, according to a declassified document published on the CIA website, Fox News reports.
The document says that Soviet soldiers allegedly shot down a UFO flying over a military base. The humanoid aliens reportedly emerged from the wreckage, merged into one object and burst into a bright light, turning all but two of the 23 Soviet soldiers into stone. I seen dis movie!
"If the KGB dossier is true, this is an extremely threatening case. The aliens have weapons and technology that exceed all our assumptions. They can defend themselves if attacked," an unnamed CIA official is quoted in the report.
According to Canadian Weekly World News, the alleged incident occurred between 1989 and 1990 and was first published in 1993.
According to the document, U.S. intelligence received reports of a "low-flying saucer-shaped spacecraft" over a Soviet unit participating in the exercise.
Officials wrote that "for unknown reasons" the soldiers fired a surface-to-air missile at the unknown aircraft, causing it to crash near a military base.
The report describes how "five short humanoids with 'large heads and large black eyes' emerged from the crashed spacecraft and merged to form one 'single object' while making a loud buzzing sound. The spherical object then reportedly flashed with a blindingly bright light. The two men reportedly survived the encounter because they were standing in the shadows and were not fully exposed to the flash of light. Perhaps a Spinal Tap drummer? Of course, no photographs, videos, footage of the area, etc. are provided.
Otherwise, it would have made for good content for Russian science fiction writerPetukhova's creativity.
[Regnum] The US CIA published a report on its website, according to which more than 20 Soviet soldiers allegedly died in Siberia after a clash with aliens. Experts were skeptical about the document, Fox News reported.
The report states that Soviet soldiers shot down an unknown saucer-shaped craft flying at low altitude over a military base. Five large-headed humanoids emerged from the wreckage, then merged into one object, making a loud buzzing noise. A bright flash followed, turning 23 servicemen into limestone-like stone. Two survived, partially hidden in the shadows.
It is also stated that the remains of the soldiers and the fragments of the saucer were delivered to a secret scientific research base near Moscow. Scientists concluded that some energy source, not yet known to mankind, was activated near the soldiers.
An unnamed CIA official quoted in the report called the incident extremely alarming, assuming it was real. In that case, he explained, aliens possess technology beyond anything anyone could have imagined.
Former CIA agent Mike Baker told the TV channel that he has doubts about the details presented.
"If there was an incident, whatever its nature, I suspect the actual report doesn't look much like what emerged from five, six, seven iterations of what was originally [written]," Baker said.
The Fox News article states that the CIA document summarizes information published in 2000 by the Canadian weekly World News and the Ukrainian newspaper Golos Ukrainy. These details allegedly came into the hands of American intelligence agencies after the collapse of the USSR along with other KGB materials. The document itself cites a publication in a Ukrainian newspaper from 1993 as its source.
In the fall of 2024, Donald Trump, as a candidate for US President, promised to declassify materials about UFOs and the assassination of John Kennedy. Shortly after his inauguration in January 2025, it became known that FBI agents investigating UFO incidents were afraid of dismissals. As reported by the Regnum news agency, the agents were worried about possible personnel purges.
Greens UK. Recognize the inevitable. Old steel is dead. It must be put on a Green path so we can cleanly build windmills, electric train rails, etchttps://t.co/QD7PHOIMgo
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 23:57 Official summary of the Office for Documentation of War Crimes of Ukraine from 00:00 13.04.2025 to 00:00 14.04.2025.
A total of 36 facts of armed attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
There were reports of a civilian being injured.
DAMAGED:
11 civil infrastructure facilities
Five residential buildings
One passenger car
A total of 35 armed attacks in the Horlivka direction,
One armed attack in the Donetsk direction.
A total of 79 units of various ammunition were fired.
21:35 Units of the Ivanovo Airborne Forces for the week destroyed more than 20 Ukrainian Armed Forces UAVs in the area of the village of Chasov Yar.
21:01 Work of scouts of the 247th Airborne Regiment in the Zaporizhzhya direction, –video.
20:06 In the period from 16.30 to 19.00 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles of the airplane type over the territories of the Bryansk and Kursk regions.
19:12 Russian Army is coming in the Sumy region, driving the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of border villages.
18:34 Pokrovskoe (Krasnoarmeyskoye) direction. Right flank
After taking enemy positions across the Kazenny Torets River north of Novotoretskoye, our assaults continued to attack the defensive area of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the full depth, including from the rear.
Despite the intensity of the use of UAVs by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, our guys drove the enemy out of a number of strong points of the defensive line covering the approaches to Mirolyubovka from the east, as well as to Yelizavetovka from the west. After this, the enemy was driven out of Yelizavetovka by a decisive assault.
18:05 Tactical medicine class led by instructors from the Archangel Tactical Training Center and representatives of the People's Frontpassedfor motorized riflemen in the rear area of the SVO zone.
The servicemen practiced providing first aid, studied the use of tourniquets and tourniquets in different conditions, as well as the transportation of the wounded.
17:36 Operator of the reconnaissance UAV GV "Sever" at night detect edthe position of an enemy tank that was providing support to the Ukrainian Armed Forces assault groups.
The Inokhodets strike drone immediately responded to the target.
16:16 Crew of the Merlin reconnaissance UAV of the 25th Combined Arms Army of the West Forces Group revealed camouflaged equipment and control points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' UAVs.
Having received the coordinates, the group's artillerymen destroyed the target.
15:04 Russian Armed Forces advanced near Yampolovka, –MAP.
13:22 Around 12.50 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle of the airplane type over the territory of the Belgorod region.
12:06 Units of the Center group of forces, as a result of active and decisive actions released the settlement of Elizavetovka in the Donetsk People's Republic.
12:02 The Kiev regime, in violation of Russian-American agreements to cease strikes on energy facilities for 30 days from March 18, continues unilateral attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
Recorded two attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Russian energy facilities. In the Belgorod region:
On April 11 at 19:02, as a result of the deliberate shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces of the Nechayevka power facility of the Rosseti Centre branch of PJSC - Belgorodenergo, a 10 kV high-voltage line was disconnected due to a break in the wires. More than 600 household consumers in the Shebekinsky District were left without electricity.
On April 12 at 10:16, as a result of the deliberate shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces of the Krasnaya Yaruga power facility of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre - Belgorodenergo, due to broken wires in the spans of the supports, household consumers in the village of Stepnoye were left without electricity.
11:03 Drone operators of the Rubicon Center successfully are working on personnel and equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the border areas of the Kursk region.
09:54 Soldiers of the 68th Tank Regiment have captured a large stronghold from the ATO and part of the forest plantations west of Rozovka –MAP
09:38 Crews of the 152mm Msta-B gun of the Dnepr group of forces destroyed UAV control point of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kherson region.
09:02 Artillerymen of the Saint George Brigade of the Volunteer Corps are firing at the enemy’s fortified area in Chasovoy Yar –MAP
07:12 During the past night, air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed 13 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles of the aircraft type:
12 UAVs over the territory of the Rostov region and
One UAV over the territory of the Belgorod region.
#4
I assume he'll have a mistress or three on the side. You wouldn't want to actually consummate a marriage with that woman...would you?
But all this time we've been wondering why? Why let all these people into our countries? And I'm wondering if it's anything to do with Arab leaders bribing Western leaders with all that oil money. I mean, there must be a reason and that's what I'm beginning to think. People like Macron, Starmer, Merz and Obama are so greedy and so soft in the head that they are willing to kill Western Civilization for a fat bank account. But what will they do when their banks are compelled to become Sharia compliant?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/14/2025 13:01
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#5
^ and consider... Carlos Danger was there first...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2025 18:53
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#7
Or and. Since dear Huma is here in her capacity as spy and seductress for at least the Muslim Brotherhood — and quite possibly Al Qaeda as well or instead. Since everything about her life must offend her inner sensibility, what difference is one more layer of offense for the cause?
One wonders how rapidly Iran’s scientists are sprinting toward the finish line of their nuclear bombs to fit on the missiles they’ve been working on in parallel — all under the cover of discussions they intend to drag out as long as President Trump is willing. Nothing so silly as the shape of the table, but if they are still discussing what subjects they will discuss…
[IsraelTimes] Islamic Republic says Oman to continue mediating, with future location not yet finalized; Trump says talks ‘going okay’ but ‘nothing matters until you get it done’
The Iranian foreign ministry said Sunday that talks with the United States slated for next weekend will remain “indirect,” with Omani mediation, and focused solely on the nuclear issue and lifting of sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held brief talks on Saturday in Muscat — after a two-hour-plus, Omani-mediated session, with the US and Iran delegations in separate rooms –marking the highest-level Iran-US nuclear negotiations since the collapse of a 2015 accord.
Another round of talks will be held on Saturday, April 19, with the location yet to be finalized.
“Negotiations will continue to be indirect. Oman will remain the mediator, but we are discussing the location of future negotiations,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in an interview with state TV.
He said the talks would only focus on “the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions” and that Iran “will not have any talks with the American side on any other issue.”
Analysts had said the US would push to include on the agenda discussions over Iran’s ballistic missile program along with Tehran’s support for the “axis of resistance” — a network of terrorist groups opposed to Israel.
Tehran has, however, maintained it will talk only about its nuclear program.
Donald Trump in 2018 pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers during his first term as US president.
And rightfully so. Under cover of that stupid agreement that President Obama pretended really hard was not a diplomatic treaty requiring Senate advice and consent, Iran built several new sites and populated them with many more centrifuges for concentrating uranium even faster than originally intended, to the point that they they were already getting close to breakthrough by the time President Trump threw off the treaty’s protections.
He reimposed sweeping economic sanctions against Iran, which continued to adhere to the agreement for a year after Washington’s pullout
…that’s “adhere”, since at sites away from IAEA supervision they were accelerating accumulating nucleqr bomb materials and continuing work on the bomb mechanisms forbidden altogether by the “agreement” they’d signed off on agreeing to. As was revealed by the warehouse of materials Mossad made off with and PM Netanyahu shared with the UN General Assembly….
but later began rolling back its own commitments.
Asked about the talks, Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One on Saturday: “I think they’re going OK. Nothing matters until you get it done.”
…whether done with a signed, enforceable agreement or Israeli and American bombs.
Iran, which avowedly seeks Israel’s destruction, has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Not taqqiya, but one of the other categories of required Moslem lies to protect the Ummah from kaffir attacks.
However, it has been enriching uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities, and its officials have increasingly warned that they could pursue the bomb.
Where could means are in the process of…
Saturday’s rare negotiations came weeks after Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging nuclear talks while warning of possible military action if Iran refuses.
American dawa does not require converting to our religion, just surrender.
The US president said earlier this week that Israel would participate in such a strike, if not lead it.
Iran and the US separately described Saturday’s discussions as “constructive.”
Iran said Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi acted as an intermediary in the indirect talks.
The negotiators, Araghchi and Witkoff, spoke directly for “a few minutes” after the talks, Tehran’s foreign ministry said.
The process took place in a “friendly atmosphere,” Oman’s Albusaidi said.
Several Iranian websites that track the unofficial exchange rate reported Sunday a strengthening of the Iranian rial to around 850,000 to the US dollar, down from more than one million in recent days.
‘TURNING POINT’
Iran is reeling from Israel’s pummeling of its two proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and is seeking relief from wide-ranging sanctions hobbling its economy. Israel went to war against Hamas after the Gaza-ruling terror group invaded Israel on October 7, 2023
…the attack having been funded, trained, and planned by Iran…
and slaughtered 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, and abducted 251 hostages, where 59 are still held.
…more than half having become corpses along the way…
Hezbollah began attacking northern Israel the next day,
…also planned, trained, and funded by Iran…
drawing an escalating Israeli response, during which much of Hezbollah’s leadership was killed and its military capacity greatly degraded.
Tehran has agreed to the meetings despite balking at Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of ramping up sanctions and repeated military threats.
Mere threats or solid promises? I think the latter.
Trump and Witkoff both had described the talks as being “direct” in the days before the meeting..
“I think our position begins with dismantlement of your program. That is our position today,” Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal before his trip. “That doesn’t mean, by the way, that at the margin we’re not going to find other ways to find compromise between the two countries.”
He added: “Where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponization of your nuclear capability.”
That red line indicated a degree of flexibility in the Trump administration’s position and a potential break with Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted that he will only accept the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
On Sunday, Iranian media largely welcomed the rare talks as a “decisive turning point” in relations between the longtime foes.
Iran’s conservative Javan daily praised the US for “not seeking to expand the negotiations to non-nuclear issues.”
The government-sponsored newspaper, Iran, described the discussions as “constructive and respectful,” quoting Araghchi.
Meanwhile, the reformist Shargh newspaper said it was a “decisive turning point” in Iran-US relations.
The hardline Kayhan newspaper, which was largely skeptical in the days leading up to the talks, lamented that Iran does not have a “plan B” while there was “no clear prospect for an agreement with Donald Trump.”
It, however, lauded what it said was the fact that the American side did not bring up “the dismantling of nuclear facilities” and “the possibility of a military attack” during the discussions.
Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah and Iran’s subsequent seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran and its holding of 52 American diplomats as hostages.
Mampuru Mampuru
This is the National Organiser of the EFF =Economic Freedom Fighters, a commie party
When they’ve killed all the whites & stolen everything left to steal, they will have no choice but to keep killing. And they will murder their own on levels not seen in South Africa before - anyone who stands in their way - because they are instruments of a bigger agenda that… https://t.co/w8ABCnlrYf
#2
What? Even after the US LSD, using their USAID slush fund tool, pumped $260.6M through South Africa in 2024 and another $241.5M is/was coming its way?
The nerve of some countries.
I guess the US$ isn't what it used to be.
#3
As a strategy, killing all the 5M white farmers seems not well thought out, if you have to feed 45M black non-farmers afterward.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/14/2025 11:49
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#4
IIRC, they did the same kind of thing in ZimbabweRhodesia and then they got kinda hungry.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/14/2025 12:26
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#5
Stretching my legs years ago on a Delta 18 hour flight to Johannesburg. Stood next to a US military looking fellow near the galley. Turns out he was a US Army Major on a Mobile Training Team (MTT) mission to the SANDF. ('N' stands for National). Not very talkative. Who could have blamed him. Training communists would not have been my cup of tea either.
#6
The legacy of Nelson Mandela seems to have a bad ending after all. Seems that national reconciliation claptrap that followed was just window dressing to buy time and consolidate total control of all of government. The new apartheid is arriving...
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 21.45 The United States expressed condolences to the victims of the Russian attack on Sumy. Washington emphasized that peace remains the main goal.
"The United States extends our deepest condolences to the victims of today's horrific Russian missile attack in Sumy," wrote US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
21.05 As a result of a missile attack on the center of Sumy, which occurred on Palm Sunday, April 13, 34 people were killed. Among the victims were Maksym Martynenko and his mother and father. Maksym was a 6th-grader at the Staroselsky Lyceum.
20.30 Konotop Mayor Artem Semenikhin stated that the head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration Vladimir Artyukh organized an event in Sumy on April 13 to award the soldiers of the 117th Brigade. Semenikhin claims that the soldiers were not injured because they were in a shelter. And the victims were only civilians. The mayor accused the head of the OVA Vladimir Artyukh of short-sightedness for organizing the event.
19.35 "Only a completely crazy bastard can do something like this," - Volodymyr Zelensky commented on the attack on Sumy on Palm Sunday.
"This Friday marked a month since the Russian Federation rejected the American ceasefire proposal. They are not afraid," the president said.
19.20 During Russia's missile attack on Sumy, the Ukrainian flag miraculously survived among the ruins. The symbol of Ukraine's invincibility was shown by rescuers.
19.05 The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine responded harshly to the attack on Sumy: "We will destroy the occupiers, their military facilities, weapons and equipment - wherever they may be. Russian war crimes have no statute of limitations. The criminals must be punished as they deserve."
18.34 As a result of a missile strike on Sumy, a student from the Staroselsky Lyceum and his parents were killed.
18.05 Sumy: as of 18:00, 34 people died, including 2 children. 117 people were injured, including 15 children.
17.47 In Kherson, as a result of enemy attacks on April 13, a woman and a man were killed, and there are also wounded citizens. The Russians used FPV drones and artillery.
17:30 US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink responded to Russia's strike on Sumy and recalled Kryvyi Rih: "As in Kryvyi Rih, cluster munition missiles were reportedly used, which only increased the scale of destruction and harm to civilians. Our prayers are with the people of Sumy."
17.00 The world’s reaction to the shelling of Sumy:
Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg , said the attack "crossed every line of reasonableness."
French President Macron called for "decisive action" against Russia to achieve a ceasefire.
The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, condemned the Russian strike on Sumy and called it a clear example of "how Russia is stepping up attacks while Ukraine has agreed to an unconditional ceasefire."
16:25 In Sumy, a teacher and pianist of the Shchepkin Theater Elena Kogut was killed by a missile strike. This was reported by the Sumy Professional College of Arts and Culture, where she taught.
16.00 Due to the Russian missile strike on April 13 in the center of Sumy, 32 people are known to have died, of which 2 children were injured, including 11 children. All are receiving the necessary assistance.
15:40 Ukraine and Russia will hold talks in Turkey, CNN Turk reports, citing sources in the Turkish Ministry of National Defense. The meeting will take place in the country's capital Ankari on April 15-16. The talks will focus on Black Sea security.
15.00 Sumy: as of 14:10, 32 people died, including 2 children. 84 people were injured, including 10 children. Emergency rescue operations continue.
14.35 Russian drone Molniya attacked a kindergarten in Kievsky district of Kharkov. Windows were knocked out, the facade of the building was damaged. Windows in nearby apartment buildings were also knocked out. There were no casualties or injuries.
14.22 Russian strikes deserve only condemnation. Pressure is needed on the Russian Federation to end the war and ensure safety for people. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"It is very important for everyone in the world not to remain silent, not to remain indifferent... Without truly strong pressure, without the proper support of Ukraine, Russia will continue to drag out this war," the head of state emphasized.
The president noted that the second month has passed since Russian dictator Vladimir Putin ignored the US proposal for a complete and unconditional ceasefire. "Unfortunately, they there in Moscow are sure that they can afford to continue killing. We need to act to change the situation," the Ukrainian leader said.
14.05 In Sumy, 31 people died, including two children. 84 people were injured, including 10 children. Work continues.
13.58 The death toll in Sumy has risen to 24, including a child. 84 people were injured, including seven children.
13.35 Russian troops used a missile with cluster munitions in the attack on Sumy. This was reported by the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak.
"A missile with cluster munitions is something the Russians do to kill as many civilians as possible. The strike on the city of Sumy is a deliberate shelling of civilians," he wrote on Telegram.
13.20 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing to transfer detailed information about the Russian missile strike on Sumy to all of Ukraine's partners and is calling for a decisive response. This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Andriy Sybiha.
"We call on all capitals and headquarters to respond decisively. For the second month in a row, Russia has refused to accept the US proposal for a complete ceasefire, which Ukraine unconditionally accepted on March 11. Russia is intensifying terror," he said.
Ukraine calls on its partners to provide additional air defense capabilities and increase pressure on Moscow. "Force is the only language they understand and the only way to end this terrible terror," Sybiga stressed.
12.56 Russian troops attacked Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region - two women were killed. This was reported by the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov on Telegram.
"Russian military personnel fired a MLRS at Kupyansk. As a result of the shelling, structural elements of a garage caught fire over an area of 10 square meters," he wrote.
According to the chairman of the OVA, two women died in the courtyard of a five-story building.
12.35 As a result of the Russian missile attack on Sumy, 21 people were killed and 83 were injured, including seven children. This was reported by the Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Klimenko.
People were injured right in the middle of the street, in cars, public transport, in houses.
12.13 It is known that Russian troops have struck the center of Sumy with two ballistic missiles. The occupiers have attacked civilian infrastructure. Residential and non-residential buildings have been damaged. A headquarters for the elimination of the consequences of the emergency situation is being deployed.
11.55 President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to Russia's ballistic strike on Sumy on Palm Sunday. A tough response from the world is needed, the head of state said on Telegram.
"A terrible strike by Russian ballistics on Sumy. Enemy missiles hit an ordinary city street, ordinary life: houses, educational institutions, cars on the street... And this is on the day when people go to church: Palm Sunday, the Feast of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem," the president wrote.
According to preliminary data, we are talking about dozens of dead and wounded civilians. "Only a bastard can act like that. Taking the lives of ordinary people. My condolences to the families and friends. A rescue operation is currently underway. All necessary services are working," Zelensky said.
The head of state stressed that a tough response from the world is required.
11:40 As a result of a Russian missile strike on April 13 in the center of Sumy, more than 20 civilians were killed.
11.22 In Sumy, as a result of a missile strike, many people died. This was stated by the acting mayor Artem Kobzar on Telegram.
"Today, as a result of a missile strike, many people died... The enemy has again struck the civilian population," he wrote.
10.54 Russian troops have struck Sumy. The shelling occurred amid a ballistic threat declared in a number of regions. This was reported by the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Kovalenko, on Telegram.
"The Russians have hit Sumy again," he wrote.
Local media had previously reported two explosions in the city, after which a huge column of smoke rose over Sumy.
10.16 Over the past 24 hours, 120 combat clashes have been recorded at the front. In particular, in the Pokrovsk direction, Ukrainian defenders stopped 31 assault and offensive actions by the Russians.
08.30 On the night of April 13, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with 55 attack drones. Air defense forces shot down 43 drones.
As of 08.30, 43 Shahed-type attack UAVs (and other types of drones) have been confirmed downed in the north, south and center of the country. Another 12 enemy drone imitators have been lost without any negative consequences.
08.15 As of April 13, 2025, the total combat losses of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine amounted to approximately 932,670 people (+1,220 per day). This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
07.36 Negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are going well, but "there is a point where you just have to either put up with it or shut up," US President Donald Trump said.
"I think the relationship between Ukraine and Russia can be good, and you'll see that soon enough. There comes a point where you either put up with it or shut up, and we'll see what happens, but I think it's going well," the American leader said.
05.25 Russian troops advanced in Kurshchyna, as well as near Yampolovka and Valentynivka in Donetsk Oblast, the DeepState project reported.
01.31 On Saturday, as a result of a Russian attack in Kherson, Oleh Salnyk, a volunteer for the Real Foundation, was killed. He helped evacuate people and participated in the aftermath of the shelling. He was only 27.
#1
The concern I have about current China-US relations is that most of the high military and Party officials are making a bundle off the West and US in particular. Doing something stupid would kill the golden goose. If, OTOH, the goose is gonna be cooked anyway, by tariffs, trade war, or an outbreak of common sense, then all bets are off.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Over the past few days, some areas of Turkey have recorded the lowest temperatures in the past 30 years. This was reported by the head of the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture, Ibrahim Yumakli.
"In some regions, the lowest temperatures in the last 30 years were recorded. As a result of these adverse weather conditions, unfortunately, we experienced one of the largest agricultural frosts in our history since 2014," Yumakly wrote on social media.
Allah is displaying his opinion of them again. Clearly, despite their illusions, they are not his most beloved.
He noted that a sharp cold snap was observed at different times in March and April, but the frosts were especially severe on April 10–12, when the temperature dropped to minus 15 degrees, and there was snowfall and hail in Turkish regions.
According to the minister, temperature fluctuations have caused damage to farmers. Yumakli stressed that the state intends to support affected producers.
As reported by Regnum on April 7, the Turkish Ministry of Trade announced the suspension of lemon exports from April 8 “in light of the recent frosts and cold weather in a number of regions and to maintain a balance of supply and demand on the domestic market.”
At that time, it was clarified that we were talking about products from the southern provinces of the republic - Mersin, Adana and Hatay.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Titanic liner skimmed the iceberg for 6.3 seconds when they collided in 1912. This was reported by Simon Benson, associate professor of naval architecture at the University of Newcastle, in an interview with ABC News.
He noted that thanks to new underwater scanning technology, which allows for a full picture of the ship's last moments, it is still possible to learn the details of the disaster that occurred more than 100 years ago. Scientists have conducted a detailed scan of the ship's wreckage and recreated its closest to real 3D model. Benson specified that 715,000 images of the liner's wreckage were scanned for the study.
"The level of detail we have achieved allows us to explore the wreckage as if we were walking through the ship itself. In fact, thanks to these simulations, we now know that the time it took the Titanic to hit the iceberg with a glancing blow was 6.3 seconds," the researcher noted.
Benson also mentioned the related documentary, Titanic: Digital Resurrection, which premiered April 11 on the National Geographic Channel.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on February 22, scientists also reported that the Titanic could disappear from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by 2050 due to bacteria corroding the liner's metal. According to experts, the impact of the Halomonas titanicae bacteria group causes some elements of the liner to completely disappear. At the same time, an underwater archaeologist from the University of Cadiz clarified that preserving the wreckage is a very difficult task, since it is located at a depth of 4,000 meters.
Mutant 59 - The Plastic Eaters
I think it was Grom who mentioned the book some time back.
Given the opportunity and enough time, bacteria can learn to eat pretty much anything, including plants, animals, and nasty stuff like the sulphides in mine runoff or organic acids.
It is a good thing they are slow moving. But they do still manage to get the drop on us sometimes.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Austrian authorities have once again failed to invite Russia to official events marking the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen. This was reported on April 13 by the Russian Ambassador to Vienna Dmitry Lyubinsky.
“For the third year in a row, we will not be present at the anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, in the part where official events will take place,” the diplomat specified.
Lyubinsky recalled that official contacts had been reduced to a minimum since the start of the special military operation.
"Neither the Russian embassy nor our other missions receive invitations to any official or semi-official events. This fully applies to memorial events this year," the ambassador added.
The Russian diplomatic mission organizes its own events dedicated to memorable dates, Lyubinsky said.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in 2024, the Austrian Mauthausen Committee announced its refusal to allow delegations from Russia and Belarus to participate in events marking the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp. The diplomatic agency noted that in this regard, the Russian side would organize its own "memory watch" at the concentration camp.
In 2022, the Mauthausen AKM sent a letter to the Russian embassy in Vienna with a “strong recommendation” to the Russian ambassador personally and other employees to refrain from participating in the traditional official events to mark the next anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp.
The first 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Mauthausen in November 1941. In total, more than 32,000 Soviet citizens, 30,000 Poles, and several thousand Jews, Italians, Hungarians, Albanians, Serbs, and Croats were executed, beaten, and starved to death, and died from backbreaking labor in the quarries. The prisoners of the Nazi death camp Mauthausen were liberated on May 5, 1945.
On April 4, it became known that the German Foreign Ministry recommended not inviting Russian and Belarusian representatives to events in Berlin and Brandenburg in honor of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Districts and municipalities were also advised to expel Russians and Belarusians if necessary. The Foreign Ministry cited the "risks of propaganda, disinformation and historical revisionism" as the reason. Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechayev said that such steps by Berlin were "bitterly disappointing."
Russia was also not invited to the events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which took place on January 27 in Poland. At the same time, the head of the Kiev regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, was present at the memorial ceremony. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the non-invitation of the Russian Federation to these events shameful. Volodya ain't wrong.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] China has already announced that the current tariffs on American goods are quite sufficient and it is not going to bend under American pressure.
The US has already begun to back down a little, canceling tariffs on consumer electronics. Behind-the-scenes negotiations between the US and China on reducing tariffs are already underway.
The more intense this trade war is, the better. It is destroying the current economic global trading system, which was created in the interests of the West.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Penguin Republic celebrates the day of victory over American imperialism, which, under the threat of total war, was forced to reduce tariffs.
"The world's two largest powers are closer than ever to total economic collapse as President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping refuse to back down in a trade war that has turned into a game of chicken, " the article says.
Experts interviewed by the publication noted that the breakdown in economic ties between Washington and Beijing against the backdrop of escalating diplomatic conflicts increases the likelihood of fundamental changes in the global economy, as well as a real war between the US and China.
According to WP, Chinese officials are primarily concerned about the lack of communication channels between the countries, which complicates the normalization of relations.
"I was really shocked. I didn't expect the situation to deteriorate to this extent in just a few days," said Xin Qiang, deputy head of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
The stakes in the standoff are high and it has become a winner-take-all game, the authors added.
Even more from regnum.ru White House says it is negotiating tariffs with 130 countries
The United States of America is negotiating with 130 countries on trade relations and tariffs. This was announced on April 13 by the Director of the National Economic Council of the administration Kevin Hassett.
"Right now, 130 countries have reached out and we're talking to them," Hassett said on CNN.
The council director added that these countries are subject to a 10% tariff on imports to the United States. In addition, a process to resolve trade disputes with China is underway, but it is “in its infancy,” Hassett added.
Tariffs? Trade deficits? T-bills? If you’re like me, an English major wordcel who never paid attention to the world of international finance and isn’t about to start now, you have no idea what to make of the Trump tariffs, our trade imbalance, futures, the markets, and whether this will be, in the long run, bad or good for the country
...Luckily, there’s now hope for people like me. A way to know what to think with a simple-to-use tool. An X poster named “Schizo Freq” posted this month: “My stance with tariffs is basically Everyone I know who’s been wrong about literally everything for the last 10 years is SUPER pissed about them. So the ‘inverse retard’ indicator says it’s probably fine.”
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] At least five people were killed in a US Air Force attack on a ceramics factory in Yemen's Sana'a province. This was reported on April 13 by the government's Ministry of Health in the territory controlled by the Ansar Allah (Houthis) movement.
"Preliminary, five people were killed as a result of US strikes on the As-Suwari plant in the Matna area of Bani Matara," the Yemeni rebel-owned Al Masirah TV channel quoted the department as saying.
In addition, 13 people were injured in the US attack.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, on April 4, the Houthis launched another attack on the US aircraft carrier Harry Truman and other US Navy ships in the Red Sea. Later, on April 6, the Ansar Allah movement again attacked the Harry Truman and its escort ships. On the same day, the American television channel CNN, citing sources, announced the preparation of a ground operation against the Houthis in Yemen, which could be supported by Saudi Arabia and the US.
Since March 15, the US army has launched a large-scale operation against the Houthis in Yemen, during which strikes were carried out on the western regions of the country. Later, on March 22, during a missile strike by US aircraft on the international airport of Hodeidah in western Yemen, the commander of the Houthi naval forces, Mansour al-Saadi, was wounded. In addition, at least seven more members of Ansar Allah were injured.
More from regnum.ru Houthis launch massive attack on airport and military base in Israel
[Regnum] The Shiite military-political movement Ansar Allah, which governs northern Yemen, reported a massive attack on Israel on April 13. In particular, Ben Gurion Airport and the Sdot Miha military base, located east of Ashdod, came under fire. This was reported by the Al Masirah TV channel.
Came under fire or was fired in the general direction of, but never even came close?
"The Palestine-2 hypersonic missile was aimed at the Sdot Micha base east of Ashdod. The Zulfikar missile was aimed at Ben Gurion Airport," the Houthis said in a statement.
No doubt.
Activists said the air force carried out an operation to strike an important Israeli enemy target in the occupied Ashkelon area using a drone.
As reported by Regnum news agency, on April 6, the Houthis attacked the American aircraft carrier Harry Truman and its escort ships in the northern part of the Red Sea.
On April 3, the Ansar Allah movement also announced a strike on a US Navy carrier group in the Red Sea led by Harry Truman. It was specified that the Yemeni movement's fighters used cruise missiles and drones for the strike.
On March 22, a US air strike on Hodeidah International Airport in western Yemen wounded Houthi naval commander Mansour al-Saadi. It was reported that at least seven other members of the movement were also injured.
The Houthis claim they fired two missiles in the attack, one targeting the Sdot Micha Airbase — where according to foreign reports Israel holds nuclear-capable Jericho missiles — and the other aimed at Ben Gurion Airport.
The IDF reported that only one missile reached Israel, and it was successfully intercepted by air defenses. The second likely fell short, similar to numerous other recent Houthi attacks.
The Houthis further claim to have targeted a “vital Israeli enemy target” in the Ashkelon area with a drone. There have been no reports of drones reaching Israel from Yemen in the past day.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The eruption of the Bezymyanny volcano in Kamchatka has intensified, lava flows are observed on the slopes. This was reported by the Kamchatka branch of the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Telegram channel.
The descent of hot debris avalanches on the southeastern slope was recorded by a camera installed at the Kamchatka branch seismic station "Bezymyanny-Griva" between 21:00 and 22:00 local time (12:00 and 13:00 Moscow time) on April 13.
Earlier, the Kamchatka branch reported that the height of the ash plume over Bezymyanny increased from 5 to 6 km. An orange code is in effect in the area of the volcano, indicating a danger to local air travel.
Bezymyanny volcano, located approximately 40 km from the village of Klyuchi in the Ust-Kamchatsky district and 350 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, increased its activity on the morning of April 12. Experts are recording a continuous descent of debris and ash avalanches.
"The thermal cloud extended north-northeast from the volcano. Ash deposits covered the Kamen and Klyuchevskoy volcanoes," the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported on its Telegram channel.
Bezymyanny volcano, 2882 m above sea level, is part of the Klyuchevskaya group along with three other active volcanoes: Klyuchevskoy, Dalniy Plosky and Plosky Tolbachik. The group also includes nine extinct volcanoes.
Earlier, experts predicted a powerful eruption of Bezymyanny. Presumably, at the culmination stage, the volcano could throw ash to a height of 15 km.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on July 25, 2024, Bezymyanny ejected a column of ash to a height of 12 km. The plume stretched for 300 km. Due to the explosive eruption of the volcano, the tourist route "Around Tolbachik" in the Klyuchevsky Nature Park was closed.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] An earthquake occurred in Tajikistan on the morning of April 13. This was reported by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center ( EMSC ).
The tremors were recorded at 7:24 Moscow time. The epicenter of the earthquake was located more than 170 km southeast of the city of Khujand, the source was at a depth of 16 km.
Seismologists initially estimated the earthquake's magnitude at 6.4, but later revised it down to 5.9.
The Uzbek Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that residents of the republic also felt the earthquake that occurred in Tajikistan. In Uzbekistan, the strength of the tremors ranged from two to three points. There were no reports of casualties or damage in Uzbekistan.
As reported by Regnum news agency, the Crisis Management Center of the Committee for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense under the Government of Tajikistan reported that 17 residential buildings were partially destroyed in the Rasht region of the country as a result of the earthquake. According to preliminary data, there are no casualties.
On March 28, an earthquake was recorded in Myanmar, the magnitude of which, according to various estimates, was between 7.7 and 7.9. Its epicenter was near the city of Mandalay, the second largest in the country. The first earthquake was followed by a second one with a magnitude of 6.4. As of April 11, 3,689 people were killed, 5,020 were injured, and another 139 were missing.
By order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, specialists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations were sent to Myanmar, who are conducting rescue operations around the clock. By April 8, Russian rescuers had surveyed more than 126 thousand square meters, checking the rubble of 82 buildings.
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
The Sever Group of Forces in Belgorod direction engaged units of two mechanised brigades, a coastal defence brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and four territorial defence brigades close to Turya, Miropolskoye, Novodmitrovka, Prokhody, and Petrushevka (Sumy region).
In Kharkov direction, the Russian Armed Forces inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware of a mechanised brigade of the AFU and a territorial defence brigade close to Karasevka and Shuby (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 90 troops, an infantry fighting vehicle, an armoured personnel carrier, a motor vehicle, three field artillery guns, a UK-made 128mm RAK-SA-12 multiple rocket launcher, a counter-fire station, and an electronic warfare station. Three enemy ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian units hit five mechanised brigades, an assault brigade, a jaeger brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades close to Kupyansk, Radkovka, Petropavlovka, Borovaya, Novaya Kruglyakovka, Novoyegorovka (Kharkov region), Redkodub, Yampol, Kirovsk (Donetsk People's Republic) and the Serebryansky forestry.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 260 troops, seven pickup trucks, and seven artillery guns. Three Zakhist and Kvertus electronic warfare stations and an ammunition depot were eliminated.
The Yug Group of Forces' units improved the tactical situation. Russian troops damaged manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, an airmobile brigade, a regiment of unmanned aerial systems of the AFU, a territorial defence brigade, a national guard brigade, and the Azov special forces brigade near Dronovka, Novaya Poltavka, Zarya, Kalinovo, Chasov Yar, Kleban-Byk, and Katerinovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 295 troops, 17 motor vehicles, and three field artillery guns. One ammunition depot and one fuel depot were neutralised.
The Tsentr Group of Forces liberated Yelizavetovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian troops engaged four mechanised brigades, an assault brigade, a Jaeger brigade, an unmanned aerial vehicles brigade, an assault regiment of the AFU, a naval infantry brigade, and three national guard brigades close to Novoekonomicheskoye, Zverevo, Kotlino, Udachnoye, Alekseyevka, Novopavlovka, Krasnoarmeysk, Novosergeyevka, Mirolyubovka, and Preobrazhenka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 435 troops, two Kozak armoured fighting vehicles, seven pick-up trucks, and eight field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defences. Russian forces hit manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade of the AFU, a naval infantry brigade, and three territorial defence brigades close to Bogatyr, Novopol, Aleksandropol, Karl Marks, Burlatskoye, Shevchenko, Otradnoye (Donetsk People's Republic), Filiya (Dnepropetrovsk region), and Gulyaypole (Zaporozhye region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 130 Ukrainian troops, one armoured fighting vehicle, one motor vehicle, and two field artillery guns, including one Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery system. One electronic warfare station was eliminated.
The Dnepr Group of Forces' units took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian units engaged three mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade, and two coastal defence brigades of the AFU near Novodanilovka, Pavlovka, Novoandreyevka (Zaporozhye region), Sadovoye, Nikolskoye, and Antonovka (Kherson region).
Up to 70 troops, an infantry fighting vehicle, five motor vehicles, and two ammunition depots have been neutralised.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the infrastructure of the military airfield, the location of the ammunition and armament of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a training center for pilots of unmanned aerial vehicles, the location of tactical missiles as well as temporary deployment areas of the Ukrainian armed forces and mercenaries in 141 area.
Russian air defence units have shot down an F-16 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, eight JDAM guided bombs, seven U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles, and 207 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 661 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 51,335 unmanned aerial vehicles, 601 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,817 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,535 MLRS combat vehicles, 23,556 field artillery guns and mortars, and 34,048 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
[DNYUZ] In the early 1990s, James Swanson was working as a research psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, where he specialized in the study of attention disorders. It was a touchy time for the field. The Church of Scientology had organized a nationwide protest campaign against the psychiatric profession, and Ritalin, then the leading medication prescribed to children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was one of its main targets. Whenever Swanson and his colleagues gathered for a scientific conference, they were met by chanting protesters waving signs and airplanes overhead pulling banners that read, “Psychs, Stop Drugging Our Kids.”
It was true that prescription rates for Ritalin were on the rise. The number of American children diagnosed with A.D.H.D. more than doubled in the early 1990s, from fewer than a million patients in 1990 to more than two million in 1993, almost two-thirds of whom were prescribed Ritalin. To Swanson, at the time, that increase seemed entirely appropriate. Those two million children represented about 3 percent of the nation’s child population, and 3 percent was the rate that he and many other scientists believed was an accurate measure of A.D.H.D. among children.
Still, you didn’t have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D. Despite Ritalin’s rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children’s attention issues. Anecdotally, doctors and parents would observe that when many children began taking stimulant medications like Ritalin, their behavior would improve almost overnight, but no one had measured in a careful, large-scale scientific study how common that positive response was or, for that matter, what the effects were on a child of taking Ritalin over the long term. And so Swanson and a team of researchers, with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, began a vast, multisite randomized controlled trial comparing stimulant treatment for A.D.H.D. with nonpharmaceutical approaches like parent training and behavioral coaching.
Swanson was in charge of the site in Orange County, Calif. He recruited and selected about 100 children with A.D.H.D. symptoms, all from 7 to 9 years old. They were divided into treatment groups — some were given regular doses of Ritalin, some were given high-quality behavioral training, some were given a combination and the remainder, a comparison group, were left alone to figure out their own treatment. The same thing happened at five other sites across the continent. Known as the Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study, or M.T.A., it was one of the largest studies ever undertaken of the long-term effects of any psychiatric medication.
The initial results of the M.T.A. study, published in 1999, underscored the case for stimulant medication. After 14 months of treatment, the children who took Ritalin every day had significantly fewer symptoms than the ones who received only behavioral training. Word went out to clinics and pediatricians’ offices around the country: Ritalin worked. This was good news not only for families with children who struggled with attention issues but also for the corporations that offered them pharmaceutical solutions. In the years after the study’s initial publication, Swanson began consulting for drug companies. He advised Shire, which manufactured Adderall, a similar stimulant medication, on how to formulate an extended-release version of its product, so that children could take just one pill each morning instead of needing to visit the school nurse’s office in the middle of the day.
Though Swanson had welcomed that initial increase in the diagnosis rate, he expected it to plateau at 3 percent. Instead, it kept rising, hitting 5.5 percent of American children in 1997, then 6.6 percent in 2000. As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues were continuing to follow the almost 600 children in the M.T.A. study, and by the mid-2000s, they realized that the new data they were collecting was telling a different — and less hopeful — story than the one they initially reported. It was still true that after 14 months of treatment, the children taking Ritalin behaved better than those in the other groups. But by 36 months, that advantage had faded completely, and children in every group, including the comparison group, displayed exactly the same level of symptoms. Swanson is now 80 and close to the end of his career, and when he talks about his life’s work, he sounds troubled — not just about the M.T.A. results but about the state of the A.D.H.D. field in general. “There are things about the way we do this work,” he told me, “that just are definitely wrong.”
I’ve spent the last year speaking with some of the leading A.D.H.D. researchers in the United States and abroad, and many of them, like Swanson, express concern over what they see as a disconnect between the emerging scientific understanding of A.D.H.D. and the way the condition is being treated in clinics and doctors’ offices. Edmund Sonuga-Barke, a researcher in psychiatry and neuroscience at King’s College London, described the situation in personal terms. “I’ve invested 35 years of my life trying to identify the causes of A.D.H.D., and somehow we seem to be farther away from our goal than we were when we started,” he told me. “We have a clinical definition of A.D.H.D. that is increasingly unanchored from what we’re finding in our science.”
Despite the questions these scientists have begun to raise, the growth of the diagnosis shows no signs of stopping or even slowing down. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 11.4 percent of American children had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D., a record high. That figure includes 15.5 percent of American adolescents, 21 percent of 14-year-old boys and 23 percent of 17-year-old boys. Seven million American children have received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, up from six million in 2016 and two million in the mid-1990s.
Now, however, some scientists have begun to argue that the traditional conception of A.D.H.D. as an unchanging, essential fact about you — something you simply have or don’t have, something wired deep in your brain — is both inaccurate and unhelpful. According to Sonuga-Barke, the British researcher, the traditional notion that there is a natural category of “people with A.D.H.D.” that clinicians can objectively measure and define “just doesn’t seem to be the case.”
A.D.H.D. is defined in the D.S.M. as a neurodevelopmental disorder, but the symptoms of A.D.H.D. can be produced by a variety of environmental causes as well. Difficulty sitting still and sustaining attention can also be symptoms of a serious head injury, fetal alcohol syndrome, childhood lead exposure, early trauma and more. There is also a high rate of overlap between the symptoms of A.D.H.D. and those of other psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, dyslexia and autism. Although the D.S.M. specifies that clinicians shouldn’t diagnose children with A.D.H.D. if their symptoms are better explained by another mental disorder, more than three quarters of children diagnosed with A.D.H.D. do have another mental-health condition as well, according to the C.D.C. More than a third have a diagnosis of anxiety, and a similar fraction have a diagnosed learning disorder. Forty-four percent have been diagnosed with a behavioral disorder like oppositional defiant disorder.
This all complicates the effort to portray A.D.H.D. as a distinct, unique biological disorder. Is a patient with six symptoms really that different from one with five? If a child who experienced early trauma now can’t sit still or stay organized, should she be treated for A.D.H.D.? What about a child with an anxiety disorder who is constantly distracted by her worries? Does she have A.D.H.D., or just A.D.H.D.-like symptoms caused by her anxiety?
Sonuga-Barke goes further, arguing that the entire decades-long quest for a biomarker has been “a red herring” for the field. He understands his colleagues’ desire to find airtight evidence for the biological nature of A.D.H.D. that could help them defend the diagnosis against those who would dismiss it altogether. “In the field, we’re so frightened that people will say it doesn’t exist,” he says. “That this is just bad parenting, from the right, or this is just a product of our postindustrial society, from the left. We have to double down because we’re terrified of what will happen to the kids who can’t get the meds. We’ve seen the impact they can have on people’s lives.”
But the reality, he says, is that “there literally is no natural cutting point where you could say, ‘This person has got A.D.H.D., and this person hasn’t got it.’ Those decisions are to some extent arbitrary. That doesn’t mean that the suffering associated with A.D.H.D. is imaginary, it just means it’s on a continuum. And that is the conundrum — the empirical crisis — for A.D.H.D.”
#3
some were given high-quality behavioral training
You mean a spanking?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/14/2025 13:05
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#4
I remember when I got caught goofing off in junior high school how the prescription would be a meeting with the board of education. It sure smartened me up.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/14/2025 13:15
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#5
I’m glad there was no Ritalin back in my day- after one birthday party an exasperated parent told my mother “ he did everything but swing from the chandelier.”
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] According to security forces, Ingush imams Muhammad Tamaskhanov and Magomed Sultygov did not report that a member of Amirkhan Gurazhev’s group approached them with a request for help.
As the "Caucasian Knot" reported, the imam of one of the mosques in Nazran, Muhammad Tamaskhanov, and the imam of the mosque in Karabulak, Magomed (Muhammad) Sultygov, were detained on April 10. Anonymous Telegram channels cited the imams' failure to report the actions of the militants of Amirkhan Gurazhev's group as the reason for the detention. That evening, it became known that Tamaskhanov and Sultygov had been released . According to anonymous Telegram channels, they were released on bail.
On March 3, 2024, during a counter-terrorist operation in Karabulak, security forces killed six people - according to sources, Amirkhan Gurazhev, Zelimkhan Tsuroev, Magomed Barkinkhoev, Tagir Tsuroev, Mikail Tutaev and Bers Chemurziev were killed. Security forces declared them militants of the banned terrorist organization "Islamic State". "Caucasian Knot" prepared a report " How the special operation in Karabulak took place ".
A 37-year-old and 31-year-old resident of Ingushetia are suspected of failing to report terrorist crimes (Article 205.6 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the republican department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported on April 12.
"According to the investigation, in August 2023, a member of an international terrorist organization, whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation, approached the suspects with a request for financial and other assistance necessary to continue terrorist activities. The defendants, reliably knowing that the said person had committed terrorist crimes, did not report this to the law enforcement agencies of the republic," the department's Telegram channel said.
The person who asked for help was Ganiev from Gurazhev’s group, and the suspects were Sultygov and Tamaskhanov, an Interfax source in law enforcement agencies explained.
A 33-year-old resident of Ingushetia, Khazir Ganiev, was killed in a shootout with security forces in Sunzha on November 22, 2023. According to security forces, Ganiev was an accomplice of Amirkhan Gurazhev. This information was confirmed in October 2024 after his arrest by Sunzha resident Alikhan Ozdoyev, who was wanted on suspicion of aiding Gurazhev's group.
According to the security official, employees of the republican Center for Combating Extremism and the Federal Security Service found out that in the summer of 2023, Ganiev approached imams Sultygov and Tamaskhanov with a request to provide him with financial assistance. Security officials believe that Ganiev needed the money to continue his terrorist activities.
The source added that a preventive measure in the form of a written undertaking not to leave was chosen for Sultygov and Tamaskhanov, the agency writes.
Recall that Ingush journalist Izabella Yevloyeva had earlier cast doubt on the version about the connection between the imams' detention and the case of Gurazhev's group. "It is possible that someone from Gurazhev's group had ever visited the mosques where the detained imams served, but this is not grounds for their prosecution. However, for the security forces in the region, such an indirect reason may be sufficient," she told the "Caucasian Knot."
[Rudaw] Kurdish Peshmerga forces carried out an operation against 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) hideouts in Diyala province and destroyed "several" hideouts, their ministry said on Saturday.
The operation, near Diyala province’s Qara Tapa town, around 172 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, involved several Peshmerga brigades who scouted the area "suspected of containing ISIS terrorist hideouts and remnants," the Peshmerga ministry said in a statement.
"During the operation, several ISIS terrorist hideouts and caves were destroyed, and the operation concluded," according to the ministry.
ISIS seized control of large swathes of territory in Iraq in 2014 but was defeated in 2017 after three years of fierce battles. Despite its defeat, the group continues to pose security risks, particularly in the disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil which span across several provinces including Diyala, Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... Nineveh, and Salahaddin.
ISIS cells roaming the disputed territories occasionally carry out attacks on Peshmerga and Iraqi security forces.
In February, a Peshmerga unit thwarted an ISIS attack near the town of Kifri in Sulaimani province.
Both Erbil and Baghdad are working together to address the security vacuum between their areas of control to combat ISIS activities.
[IsraelTimes] A Paleostinian Red Islamic Thingy staff member who went missing in late March when 15 people were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Thingy said on Sunday.
Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC) in the Gazoo Strip, confirmed to Rooters that it had received information that the Paleostine Red Islamic Thingy Society paramedic Assad al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.
"As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Paleostine Red Islamic Thingy Society (PRCS) as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Thingy and Red Islamic Thingy Movement," he said.
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately comment.
Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Paleostinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, who are being held on suspicion of being affiliated with Gaza-based terrorist organizations.
The Red Cross has also not visited any of the hostages held by the Hamas terror group in Gaza, including the 59 captives who remain in the coastal enclave.
Those “captives” being about 1/3rd living and 2/3rds formerly living, thanks to those perverse Gazan proclivities.
In a post on X, the PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties.
The duty of transporting jihadis hither and yon to confound the enemy is not recognized by the Geneva Conventions, guys. It is, in fact, considered an act of war, rendering the participants subject to capture or death as spies.
It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight others in a “grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
On the contrary, but y’all do like pretending.
The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Hamas-linked Civil Emergency Service and the UN were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March. The IDF has said at least six of them were members of Hamas’s military wing.
Up to a maximum of all of them being military or political members, of course. Arab terrorists have a habit of secondary careers that they claim when pretending to be civilians instead of their primary work.
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...
...46th president of the U.S. Too old and senile to be prosecuted, not too old and senile to set national policy...
...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!...
[FoxNews] The Associated Press was banned from Oval Office events after it refused to use the term 'Gulf of America'
...every time you hear the phrase 
...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 
