Quote:San Francisco residents must now obtain a permit for planters used to keep the homeless away.
Last summer, Breitbart News reported on residents of that Democrat-run city raising money for a common sense solution to a terrible problem. At a cost of around $700 each, heavy planters, filled with about 1,400 pounds of rocks and soil, were stragecially placed on sidewalks to discourage the homeless from setting up tents and making a permanent home in front of a home or business. People could still walk back and forth, but that extra space able to accommodate tents was now blocked.
Win-win, right?
Not where Democrats are in charge.
Democrats run San Francisco without opposition, so common-sense solutions will never be allowed. Now, residents and business owners are required to obtain a permit before placing a planter.
“Some San Francisco residents are concerned the city is making it more difficult to install planters on sidewalks as homeless advocates push back on their use,” reports the San Francisco Standard.
The report adds that homeless advocates have declared the planters “hostile architecture” and that the Department of Public Works will soon “require planter owners to obtain permits before their installations.”
This permit will require “live plants in the metal troughs and provide at least 72 inches of unobstructed sidewalk space for pedestrians to pass.”
“Live plants” is a way to make things more difficult for home and business owners. One resident explained that the homeless “dig through the planters with some sort of fantasy hope of finding drugs buried,” he said, adding: “My fervent wish is that the city simply stays out of it and not do anything that will impact a successful and creative solution.”
Quote:Colorado Democrats are pushing an 11 percent excise tax on gun and ammunition sales, as well as numerous other California-style gun controls.
There is a public hearing on the excise tax proposal today, and Colorado Springs firearms instructor Ana Flanell is urging the public to rally against the tax.
On Easter Sunday she posted to X: “Join me at the Capitol tomorrow to testify against this “sin” tax. Self-defense is our right and we should not be taxed an outrageous 11% to exercise our Second Amendment rights. I’ve included a screenshot below of what to select when signing up. Let’s fight this Colorado!!!”
In addition to the excise tax, Breitbart News pointed out Colorado Democrats are pushing an “assault weapons” ban that targets 9mm pistols with threaded barrels.
In fact, the language of the “assault weapons” ban, HB24-1292, makes clear a semiautomatic handgun of any caliber would be banned if takes a detachable magazine and has a threaded barrel. And the legislation goes even further by making clear that even semiautomatic handguns with threaded barrels that do not take a detachable magazine would be banned if “readily modified to accept a detachable magazine.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) is standing with the Democrat lawmakers in their push to secure the “assault weapons” ban.
Quote:Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) supports legislation that, if passed into law, would prohibit Arizonans from buying AR-15 rifles.
Gallego highlights his gun control support on his campaign website, although he does not go into the specifics of what his proposed policies would do if enacted.
For example, the campaign website mentions Gallego’s time as a U.S. Marine and his use of a gun with full-auto function. “Carrying and using his M16 to defend himself and his fellow Marines in Iraq made it clear to Ruben that weapons of war have no place in civilian life,” it reads. However, it does not explain how his Marine service use of an M16–a rifle with full auto options–correlates with law-abiding Americans owning rifles that only function in semiautomatic mode.
For clarification, an M16 is a battlefield weapon that has a select fire switch which allows troops to switch the action between semiautomatic and three-round, fully automatic bursts. (Older versions allowed troops to go from semiautomatic to unlimited fully automatic, which means they could pull the trigger one time, and hold it, and the gun would fire automatically until every round in the magazine had been fired.)
In contrast to this, an AR-15 fires one round–and only one round–each time the trigger is pulled. This is because AR-15s are semiautomatic rifles, designed for civilian use. They do not have select fire switches nor are they commonly designed to withstand the heat that a rifle is subjected to internally via full-auto fire.
Quote:ABC 7 reported that the weekend’s first fatal shooting occurred Friday, when a 29-year-old man was shot in a drive-by incident in a parking lot “in the 800-block of 87th Street.”
At 12:20 p.m. Saturday, a 41-year-old man was shot and fatally wounded while sitting inside a home “in the 8200 block of South Elizabeth Street.” He was transported to a hospital, where he died.
Police believe the 41-year-old was shot by someone who knew him, but no other details on the possible shooter were given.
Five females were shot on Easter Sunday at 1:00 a.m. The Associated Press noted that this shooting occurred when “an unknown assailant fired multiple shots toward them and fled the scene.”
The shooting victims were ages 6, 17, and 20, along with two 19-year-olds. One of the 19-year-olds was shot in the head and died at the scene.
The Chicago Sun-Times pointed out that 103 people were killed in Chicago January 1, 2024, through March 31, 2024.
Quote:If you live in Oakland, California, then prepare to be watched, followed, and tracked. Big time. State Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday he is sending hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras to be installed across the city and surrounding freeways to battle rising crime.
The Democrat said in a news release the California Highway Patrol has contracted with Flock Safety to install 480 cameras that can identify and track vehicles by license plate, type, color and even decals and bumper stickers.
The cameras will provide authorities with real-time alerts of suspect vehicles, AP reports.
Newsom dismisses any criticism of the move and its infringement on privacy, saying the surveillance network will give law enforcement tools “to effectively combat criminal activity and hold perpetrators accountable — building safer, stronger communities for all Californians.”
The city of roughly 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco has seen crime continue to rise in the past 12 months with no sign of it easing anytime soon.
Per an August 2023 report, murders are up 37 percent compared to four years earlier. Robberies jumped 30 percent.
Car break-ins exploded by 40 percent, and car thefts “more than doubled.”
Quote:Spring rains washed away part of California’s famous Highway 1 near Big Sur on Saturday, stranding 1,600 people who had to be moved past the collapsed portion in convoys.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
Engineers with the California Department of Transportation were assessing the slip-out that forced the closure of Highway 1 south of the Rocky Creek Bridge at Palo Colorado on Saturday, the state agency said Sunday. An estimated 1,600 residents and visitors were stranded after parts of the southbound lane collapsed. The rain was coming down at a rate of 2 inches per hour at one point, according to the National Weather service.
…
According to Caltrans spokesperson Kevin Drabinski, the slide did not continue to erode after the initial slip-out, and the northbound roadway remained clear. As a result, convoys through the closed area of Highway 1 were offered twice daily starting Sunday.
When the convoy first opened, around noon, an estimated 300 cars were waiting to travel northbound. It took 50 minutes to clear out all the waiting vehicles. This presumably included Easter weekend visitors to Big Sur who were stranded by the closure and had to spend the night in temporary lodging and emergency shelters. The convoys were alternating direction and were to continue at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. in both directions, starting Monday.
Highway 1 has been damaged by winter and spring storms before. Three years ago, as Breitbart News reported at the time, a portion of the road near Big Sur was washed away. In 2017, during a particularly rainy winter, a landslide on the road caused residents of local communities to be stranded, and the repairs took 14 months to complete.
Quote:A Texas magistrate judge ordered that migrant accused in the March 21 El Paso border riot be released on a personal recognizance bond on Easter Sunday. The judge accused the El Paso District Attorney’s Office of not being prepared to proceed on detention hearings required under Texas law.
Presiding Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta set PR bonds for the migrants accused of rioting participation on Easter Sunday, according to the El Paso Times. “It is the ruling of the court that all the rioting participation cases will be released on their own recognizance,” Judge Acosta ordered.
Migrants being held on ICE immigration detainers will remain in custody, court officials told the local news outlet.
Judge Acosta blamed the office of El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks for not being prepared for the detention hearings. The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires that migrants arrested without a warrant have a hearing before a magistrate judge within 48 hours of their arrest.
Additional magistrate hearings for arrested migrants are scheduled for Monday, the newspaper reported.
Texas Department of Public Safety law enforcement officials arrested a group of migrants following a riotous attack on Texas National Guard soldiers at a border crossing point in El Paso on March 21.
Quote:Work crews have commenced the urgent work to remove the collapsed structure of the bridge over the Patapsco River, cutting through the enormous steel girders to load parts onto waiting barges.
Large barge-mounted cranes arrived in Baltimore at the end of last week to support the effort to clear the deep-dredged central channel of the Patapsco River, and now cascades of sparks herald the work of cutting the remains of the former bridge into manageable pieces for recycling. Workers suspended in cages used gas torches or cut through the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s steel, supported by seven cranes including cranes capable of lifting up to 1,000 and a 500 tons, reports WorldCargo News.
A statement said: “Highly trained demolition crews are cutting the top portion of the north side of the collapsed bridge truss. Two crane barges, a 650-ton crane and a 330-ton crane, are actively working on scene. The removed wreckage is scheduled to be lifted and transferred to a barge this evening as daylight allows. A 230-ton land-based crane will offload and process the wreckage at Tradepoint Atlantic and will then be taken to a disposal site.”
While the timeline to completely reopen the port of Baltimore and even replace the bridge is unclear and may stretch to the months and years respectively, the present priority appears to be to get the northern part of the dredged channel furthest from the presently position of the MV Davi clear of wreckage to allow some ships to pass in and out of the harbour, As well as working ships to help support the salvage process, that may also include urgent commercial shipping, but the channel will only operate one-way, meaning the flow of traffic will be slow.
The salvage operation is complex. Parts of the bridge rest on the bow of the MV Davi, the large container ship which struck the bridge’s central span southern pier, causing a cascade failure that brought the whole structure down. The ship has suffered damage beneath the waterline and has some flooded compartment forward, but it remains buoyant. If the removal of those bridge sections pinning the ship to the riverbed aren’t removed with care the ship could float free or pivot in an uncontrolled fashion, a concern given there are underwater gas and power lines close to hand, and overhead cable towers close by.
Working to keep that situation under control beyond the mammoth cranes are several tugs and coastguard ships at the scene.
Quote:The student council of Harvard Law School passed an anti-Israel resolution on Friday — after changing the voting rules to do so.
The resolution calls on Harvard University to divest from the Jewish state and anything connected with it. As the Daily Wire reported last week, the Harvard Law School Government amended its bylaws to allow for a secret ballot by its elected representatives for the first time in the history of the institution.
The Harvard Crimson reported that the resolution passed 12-4, with three abstentions. It resulted in two members of the council resigning in protest, condemning the change in voting rules and noting that the council rushed the vote before current members’ terms were about to expire.
Some activists gathered to celebrate the resolution:
Harvard University, once one of the most pro-Israel campuses in America, has become a hotbed of anti-Israel activism and outright antisemitism in recent years, notably after the Hamas terror attacks in Israel on October 7.
As The Algemeiner notes:
In November, a mob of anti-Zionists — including Ibrahim Bharmal, editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review — followed, surrounded, and intimidated a Jewish student. “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” the crush of people screamed in a call-and-response chant into the ears of the student who — as seen in footage of the incident — was forced to duck and dash the crowd to free himself from the cluster of bodies that encircled him.
Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned earlier this year due to controversy over her weak response to antisemitism, as well as a plagiarism scandal.
Quote:The clear implication of the segment, largely based on anonymous accounts and vaguely sourced intelligence, was that the Trump administration failed to protect Americans overseas and sought to cover up Russia’s involvement.
The report that concluded the “Havana Syndrome” was probably not due to malicious foreign action was published in 2023, and the Biden administration insists it has thoroughly investigated the strange illnesses. This insistence was repeated in the rather snippy White House and FBI responses to the 60 Minutes segment.
The “Havana Syndrome” remains a lingering mystery in many minds, despite the unclassified U.S. intelligence review published last year that concluded it was “very unlikely” to be the result of hostile foreign action.
The first known instances of the strange neurological disorder were reported by American government employees in Cuba in 2017, which led to the moniker “Havana Syndrome,” although some of the roughly 1,000 cases claimed since then occurred in other locations, including China.
Those who suffered from Havana Syndrome complained of headaches, dizziness, and some more serious neurological disorders. Some of the patients claimed they heard high-pitched noises, comparable to a subsonic whine or crickets chirping, and felt pressure in their heads before they became ill. Those symptoms led to theories that the syndrome might be caused by sonic weapons.
A former Cuban political prisoner named Luis Zúñiga told Breitbart News in October 2017 that he was subjected to acoustic torture during his 19 years in captivity and the sounds reported by Havana Syndrome patients were similar to the sounds he was tormented with.
“It would emit very high high-pitched sounds and very sharp low sounds, so it penetrates your ear, your timpanum, and it creates a state of desperation in the person,” Zúñiga said.
Former President Donald Trump said in October 2017 that he believed “Cuba is responsible” for the wave of mysterious illnesses. His chief of staff, John Kelly, suggested the Cuban government was at least aware of hostile action against Americans on its soil and could “stop the attacks on our diplomats” if it wanted to. The Cuban government vehemently denied these allegations.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study in February 2018, after an American citizen in Shanghai reported similar symptoms, that found it unlikely the Havana Syndrome could be a product of mass psychosis. The Cuban government was speculating at the time that patients were faking their complaints. Scientists who contributed to the JAMA study thought microwave radiation bombardment could produce the symptoms reported by patients.
There has been little discussion of Havana Syndrome since the March 2023 publication of a multi-year intelligence estimate that supposedly debunked theories of sonic weapons or microwave bombardment.
Reports of similar illness have dramatically tapered off, although they have not stopped entirely, as 60 Minutes pointed to a complaint from a senior Pentagon official who accompanied President Joe Biden to the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2023.
Five of the seven U.S. intelligence agencies who participated in the 2023 report concurred that it was “very unlikely” a hostile foreign power caused the “anomalous health incidents,” either on purpose or inadvertently through clandestine research projects.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released photos Sunday of a large weapons cache that its soldiers discovered in a maternity ward during the ongoing operation against terrorists within Gaza’s Shifa Hospital.
As Breitbart News has reported, the IDF cleared out the hospital in November, and found many terror tunnels there. When it left, more terrorists came to the hospital and began operating from the facilities again, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
After coming under fire from Shifa, the IDF killed roughly 200 terrorists and arrested about 500 more in the past two weeks at Shifa — with zero civilian casualties, and without harming any of the doctors, patients, and staff there.
In a joint statement, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA) said:
As part of the IDF and ISA operation led by the 162nd Division at the Shifa Hospital, soldiers of the Nahal Reconnaissance Unit operated in several buildings, eliminated terrorists and found numerous weapons hidden at the hospital.
In the maternity ward, the soldiers discovered many weapons hidden inside pillows, hospital beds, ceilings, and the walls of the compound, including dozens of mortar shells, explosive devices, sniper rifles, Kalashnikov rifles, pistols, magazines, mortars and additional ammunition.
During one of the sweeps in the compound, the forces encountered armed terrorists and senior operatives of the Hamas terrorist organization in a stairwell. A pursuit and exchange of fire ensued, during which the senior terrorists were eliminated.
The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, also paid a visit to the hospital on Friday, as the operation against terrorists in the facility continued.
An apparent airstrike in Damascus on Monday killed Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state television has confirmed.
Iranian press reported that Zahedi was meeting with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the time of the strike, but these reports could not be independently verified.
Zahedi commanded the Quds Force’s Unit 18000, responsible, among other things, for smuggling ammunition and precision weapons into Lebanon. He had also commanded the IRGC’s Air Force and Imam Hussein Division in the past.
Iran arms and funds Hezbollah in Lebanon; Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza and Lebanon; and the Houthi militias in Yemen. It also controls militias in Iraq and elsewhere that have attacked American troops.
Hezbollah has been firing on northern Israeli cities since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. Israel has responded with airstrikes on Hezbollah targets and on Hamas commanders in Lebanon. Israel has also been targeting Iranian proxies for years in Syria as they attempt to move weapons and personnel into Lebanon that can threaten Israel.
Update: Iran has acknowledged that two generals were killed in the airstrike, along with five other IRGC officials.
The Times of Israel reported:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement carried by Iranian media officially announce the deaths of seven members in the alleged Israeli strike in Damascus earlier today.
Among the seven are Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the most senior IRGC Quds Force commander in Syria, and his deputy, Mohammad Haj Rahimi.
Quote:The “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” an association of Iran-affiliated jihadist entities in the country, claimed responsibility on Monday for a reported drone strike on Eilat, Israel, that hit a naval building.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) authorities confirmed “slight damage” to the building, according to the Times of Israel, but the strike resulted in no injuries or any significant harm. The IDF claimed the drone appeared to fly in from the east, aligning with claims by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq.”
The attack did not result in any meaningful damage but does signal an interest on the part of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” to elevate its profile as one of several terrorist entities seeking to support the Sunni jihadist terror organization Hamas following its genocidal siege of Israel on October 7, 2023. On that day, the terrorists killed 1,200 civilians, many of them in their own homes, and engaged in acts of gang rape, infanticide, the desecration of corpses, and other atrocities. In response, regional terrorist organizations – including Shiite entities such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi terrorists of Yemen – have launched further terrorist campaigns against Israel, American forces in the region, and other Western targets.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq took credit for a drone attack on American soldiers on the Syrian-Jordanian border, killing three service members in January.
“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted a vital target in our occupied territories on Monday morning, using appropriate weapons,” the group said in a statement on Monday, according to the Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV. The attack, it claimed, was “in support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against civilian Palestinians, including children, women and the elderly.”
The Hamas terrorist organization is headquartered in and controls the Gaza Strip; after October 7, the IDF launched self-defense operations against Hamas targets in the area, which the terrorists claim are “massacres” of civilians rather than precision operations against known terrorists. Terrorist allies of Hamas have openly celebrated the atrocities of October 7 while accusing Israel of “genocide.”
PressTV noted that the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” did not specify what kind of attack it engaged in against Israel or what it targeted.
The Times of Israel, citing the IDF, confirmed a drone “apparently launched from Iraq” hit the city of Eilat, a port hub on the southern tip of Israel giving the country access to the Red Sea. A building that forms part of a naval base in the city suffered minor damage; it is unclear if the drone was deliberately attempting to hit the Israeli Navy or was simply attempting to do damage to the port.
Quote:The report, if confirmed, would be significant because Russian officials have been striving to implicate the United States and Ukraine in the attack.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre soon after it was perpetrated, to the embarrassment of the Putin regime, which had been accusing the U.S. of conjuring the specter of Islamist terrorism as a “boogeyman” to protect Ukraine. Russian officials quickly shifted to a new narrative of blaming the United States for somehow creating ISIS in the first place and accusing Ukraine of conspiring with the Islamic terrorists to help the attackers escape.
The U.S. insisted it warned Russia that a major terrorist attack was brewing two weeks before ISIS gunmen murdered more than 130 people and wounded hundreds more at a music festival at the Crocus City Hall venue. The American intelligence community said it acted out of a “duty to warn” even hostile governments of impending terrorism.
“It is abundantly clear that ISIS was solely responsible for the horrific attack in Moscow last week. In fact, the United States tried to help prevent this terrorist attack, and the Kremlin knows this,” White House spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
According to Reuters’ sources, Iran offered Russia a similar warning that confirmed what U.S. intelligence was telling Moscow.
“Days before the attack in Russia, Tehran shared information with Moscow about a possible big terrorist attack inside Russia that was acquired during interrogations of those arrested in connection with deadly bombings in Iran,” one of the sources said.
A second source confirmed Iran obtained actionable intelligence from the dozens of suspected ISIS members it arrested after deadly bomb attacks in the city of Kerman in early January. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the bombings, which targeted a commemoration ceremony for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani.
Quote:A Presbyterian church in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, caught fire shortly after services on Good Friday, forcing the local Christian population to hold Easter services in a hotel and raising suspicions of arson.
Authorities at the UP Junior Church initially told reporters that they believed a local businessman, identified in some reports as Sheikh Ahmed, had potentially paid someone to set the church on fire as he had argued against police who blocked the road in front of the church to protect it from potential Islamist attacks during Holy Week. Hundreds of local Christians organized a protest on Saturday demanding police investigate Ahmed. Shortly after that, however, the pastor who runs the church denied that any evidence suggested arson, and police claimed a short circuit had sparked the fire, leaving unclear if local officials will continue to investigate the incident.
Pakistan is an explicitly Islamist state whose criminal law punishes “blasphemy” severely, including commanding the execution of those convicted of “insulting” Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Local Islamist mobs regularly use the laws to accuse non-Muslims, most prominently Christians, of “blasphemy,” often claiming that the individual in question desecrated a Quran, personally insulted Muhammad, or attempted to convert a Muslim to the faith. Muslims often also abuse the law to accuse Christians of “blasphemy” if involved in business disputes or having any personal disagreement with Christians.
While the Pakistani government has never executed anyone for blasphemy formally, mob lynchings are not uncommon in the country and police rarely bring killers to justice in cases where mobs kill alleged “blasphemers” in public.
Pakistan has repeatedly attempted to use its position at the United Nations to internationalize its blasphemy law, claiming global censorship of alleged blasphemy is necessary to fight “Islamophobia.”
Pakistan’s the Nation newspaper reported on Sunday that the UP Junior Church was almost entirely destroyed on Friday night; caretakers woke up on Sunday to find the building uninhabitable. The chief caretaker, Elder Javad, reportedly said that the fire occurred after he had turned off all lights and shut down the church, making it unclear what could have prompted the alleged short circuit police blamed for the fire.
Quote:The Chinese state newspaper Global Times celebrated the Communist Party on Sunday for hosting a “national commemoration event for human organ donation,” giving Beijing’s organ industry a veneer of legitimacy as evidence has mounted for years that the Party kills political prisoners to sell their bodies.
Journalists, human rights activists, and eyewitnesses — including one doctor who claims to have extracted the organs out of a live and healthy political prisoner — have long accused the Communist Party of killing political prisoners on demand to sell their organs to individuals willing to pay for the ability to schedule transplants rapidly. Chinese officials reportedly target Falun Gong practitioners, known to abstain from drugs and alcohol, and Uyghur Muslims, whose organs can be sold to wealthy Muslims in the Middle East, most often, potentially killing thousands of people each year.
At a hearing in Congress in late March, one of the top researchers on the topic, Ethan Gutmann, told American lawmakers that China appears to be, based on discrepancies in the government documentation of organ transplants, killing as many as 50,000 Uyghur people a year to steal their organs. China is currently engaging in what the free world widely recognizes as a genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in occupied East Turkistan, placing millions in concentration camps and subjecting them to indoctrination, slavery, forced sterilization, and other atrocities.
The Chinese government insists that its booming organ transplant industry grew legitimately, and all organs are donated voluntarily. It has increasingly hosted events to boast its gigantic organ transplant industry. In December, for example, China hosted two events on “organ donation” associated with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global plan to use predatory loans to influence poor nations.
In its report on Sunday, the Global Times claimed that 6.7 million people in the country have registered to donate their organs in the event of an untimely death and that many enthusiastically participated in memorial services on Saturday for organ donors.
Quote:Venezuelans in the capital city of Caracas burned an effigy representing socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and other “opposition” collaborationist figures on Sunday as part of the traditional “burning of Judas” activity held every year on Easter.
The “Burning of Judas” is an annual activity that Catholic communities celebrate in some Latin American and European countries during the Easter weekend in which an effigy of Judas Iscariot is burned to mark the apostle’s betrayal of Jesus Christ, which set in motion the events that culminated with Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection.
In Venezuela, the celebration is usually held on Easter Sunday. Given Venezuela’s convoluted political history, the “Judas” effigies most commonly resemble politicians, government officials, public figures, and other personalities that each local community and organizer has deemed a threat or guilty of corruption, public betrayal, and other disreputable acts worthy of scorn.
In Caracas’s Candelaria neighborhood, Sunday’s Judas effigy was a two-headed man that represented socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro — by now a mainstay at the yearly event — and “opposition” candidate Manuel Rosales, the current leftist governor of the state of Zulia and a last-minute signup for Maduro’s July 28 sham presidential election.
Rosales, who is also the leader of the A New Era Party (a member of the Socialist International), has been widely accused of collaborating with the Maduro regime in the past. He is the only main “opposition” candidate allowed to appear on the ballot alongside a dozen lesser-known collaborationists. Rosales chose not to participate in the opposition’s October 2023 primary election, in which María Corina Machado of the center-right Vente Venezuela party was overwhelmingly elected to run against Maduro. Maduro banned Machado from running for public office.
Notice that they also burned a photo of Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman...
Quote:The Canadian Defense Ministry said on Saturday it dispatched about 70 of its troops to Jamaica to train forces from various Caribbean nations for a prospective U.N.-authorized military intervention in Haiti.
“The Canadian personnel being deployed are drawn primarily from the 1st Battalion, Royal 22e Régiment from Valcartier, Quebec,” the Defense Ministry said.
“Their deployment will last for an initial period of approximately one month. Canadian Armed Forces expects to train approximately 330 CARICOM [Carribbean Community] troops from Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas,” the ministry added.
Hailing from Quebec could be an advantage for Canadian troops sent to Haiti, as French is spoken in both places, although this would seem less relevant if the Canadians are going to remain stationed in Jamaica as trainers.
The Defense Ministry said the training operation has been dubbed “Operation HELIOS” and will include “training on core peacekeeping skills and combat first aid” for Caribbean forces, along with “validation and integration exercises.”
The training will be conducted at the Canadian Armed Forces’ Operation Support Hub (OSH) in Kingston, Jamaica. The OSH, which Canada takes pains to portray as something less than a “military base,” is one of four such facilities worldwide. The other three are located in Germany, Kuwait, and Senegal.
In addition to these training services, Canada has pledged $80.5 million to support a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti. Kenyan police were supposed to lead the mission, but Kenyan courts have stymied the plan by ruling that President William Ruto lacks the constitutional authority to send police officers overseas.
The intervention plan is also unpopular with the Kenyan people, and the political opposition has vowed to block any move to send troops to Haiti with lawsuits, but the Canadian Defense Ministry statement assumed the “Kenyan-led MSS mission” will still take place.
Canada’s CBC News said the 70 instructors departed for Jamaica on Friday. Roughly 3,000 Canadians were registered to be in Haiti when a gang revolt broke out in March, trapping Prime Minister Ariel Henry outside the country as bloody chaos filled the streets. Hundreds of murders, kidnappings, and other atrocities have been reported since then.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Kennedy made the remark during an appearance on CNN’s Outfront with Erin Burnett, who asked, “A moment ago, you said you essentially see Trump and Biden as the same, different issues, but do you really believe that?”
“When people talk about the threats of democracy that Trump poses, do you really think that is as equal — equal to Biden?” she pressed.
In turn, Kennedy responded by stating, “I can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy,” pointing to the fact that Biden, 81, has weaponized federal agencies, using them to censor his political opponent.
RFK Jr. said:
And the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent. I can say that because I just won a case in the federal Court of Appeals and now before the Supreme Court that shows that he started censoring not just me — 37 hours after he took the oath of office, he was censoring me.
“No president in the country has ever done that,” Kennedy continued, explaining that “the greatest threat to democracy is not somebody who questions election returns, but a president of the United States who uses the power of his office to force the social media companies, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to open a portal and give access to that portal to the FBI, to the CIA, to the IRS, to CISA, to NIH to censor his political critics.”
“President Biden, the first president in history, used the Secret — his power over the Secret Service to deny Secret Service protection to one of his political opponents for political reasons,” Kennedy continued, concluding that Biden is “weaponizing the federal agencies.”
“Those are really critical threats to democracy,” he added.
But Burnett pressed Kennedy after he did not identify Trump as a bigger threat to democracy — a favorite narrative of the left.
“Donald Trump, of course, tried to overturn a free and fair election. He tried to overturn one, right? He’s still fighting in court,” she said, adding, “How is that not a threat to democracy?”
“Well, I think that is a threat to democracy if he — him overthrowing — trying to overthrow the election clearly is a threat to democracy,” Kennedy said, sticking by his original assessment that Biden is a worse threat to democracy.
He said:
But the question was, who is the worst threat to democracy? And what I would say is, I — I’m not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is, because the First Amendment, Erin, is the most important. But Adams and Hamilton and Madison said, we put the guarantee of freedom of expression in the First Amendment because all of our other constitutional rights depend on it. … If you have a government that can silence its opponent, it has license for any atrocity.
“So, just to be clear, you’re saying you could make an argument that President Biden is a worse threat to democracy than Donald Trump?” Burnett asked again.
“Absolutely,” Kennedy added, emphasizing that weaponizing federal agencies is abhorrent.
Quote:The Biden administration has finalized its move to slash Medicare Advantage as the 46th president has claimed former President Donald Trump seeks to slash entitlement programs.
The Biden administration on Monday will cut base payments for Medicare Advantage plans by an average of .16 percent despite pressure from Republicans and healthcare experts. This follows Biden making controversial moves in the risk adjusting coding system to allegedly make Medicare Advantage payments more accurate.
Biden’s move would impact more than half of Medicare enrollees, as many American seniors now look to Medicare Advantage for their healthcare needs. American seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage could see their supplemental benefits reduced or cost-sharing increased by $33 a month in 2025, according to experts.
Chris Meekins, an analyst, said, “President Biden’s team is gambling that MA beneficiaries won’t realize before the election the benefits Biden’s team is causing them to lose come January 2025.”
Biden’s move to slash Medicare Advantage comes as Trump told Breitbart News he will never touch Social Security or Medicare. This runs contrary to claims from Biden and Democrats that he would cut entitlement programs.
“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” Trump explained. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”
A 2021 Commonwealth Fund study found that 90 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees were satisfied with their care, which is about the same as traditional Medicare. Research has even shown Medicare Advantage outperforms Medicare on 16 different clinical quality measures.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden once sponsored a bill that would sunset and subsequently review and reauthorize programs such as Social Security and Medicare:
Further, Biden may have forgotten that he sponsored a bill in 1975, when he was a senator from Delaware, that would have sunset and subsequently required review and reauthorization — or not — of federal programs, which reportedly included Social Security and Medicare. This proposal is remarkably similar to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) original proposal, which Biden has frequently attacked.
“We must… begin reviewing existing programs to determine whether they are still effective, and whether they are worth the money that we are putting in them. We must eliminate the wasteful ones,” Biden said when introducing the 1975 legislation.
Republicans and conservatives are crying foul about Biden’s axing of Medicare Advantage.
Quote:In a letter to Mayorkas on Wednesday, Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), as well as Reps. Clay Higgins (R-LA) and August Pfluger (R-TX), who chair subcommittees, asked Mayorkas to provide them with a classified briefing on several reported cases of migrants on the Terrorism Watch List getting released into the nation’s interior.
The congressmen write:
The first case involves a member of the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization alShabaab. According to a news report, the alien was “caught illegally crossing the southern border near San Ysidro, California on March 13, 2023;” however, he was deemed a “mismatch” and was subsequently released into the interior. Almost one year later, the Terrorist Screening Center “made a redetermination” and confirmed the alien as a terrorist member of al-Shabaab, and then Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) located and arrested him. [Emphasis added]
The second case involves a Pakistani man allegedly on the terrorist watch list who illegally entered the United States but was apprehended by the Border Patrol the following day. Less than two weeks later, the Terrorist Screening Center confirmed his status on the “terror watchlist;” however, ICE eventually released him through the Alternatives to Detention program. [Emphasis added]
In addition to these unanswered requests for information, we are now facing a consistent stream of cases highlighted in the news of aliens allegedly on the terrorist watchlist either being apprehended at the border or discovered in the interior. [Emphasis added]
The congressmen noted Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray’s testimony last month before the Senate Intelligence Committee where he warned he is “very concerned” over the possibility of human smuggling networks to the U.S. with ties to the Islamic State (ISIS).
“The Committee is concerned with DHS’s current practices in processing and releasing known or suspected terrorists encountered at the Southwest border,” the congressmen write.
Mayorkas has been accused of withholding information related to migrants caught crossing the border who matched for suspects on the Terrorist Watch List.
Quote:The report, published by columnist Caroline Glick at the Jewish News Syndicate, cites text messages from activist Ami Dror, which were first reported by Israel’s Channel 14, the equivalent of Fox News in the local Israeli media.
Glick wrote:
Based on what he referred to as a conversation with his contacts in the White House, Dror set out in granular detail the White House’s four-part plan to overthrow the government. The components involved actions on the ground in Gaza; the use of the U.N. Security Council; extortion of government ministers; and mass protests.
...
In his words, “Government ministers are receiving messages from ‘American friends’ that they will be accused of war crimes. Under our radar, the U.S. and the E.U. have framed the hunger in northern Gaza as a war crime. This is an excuse for seizing control over the territory from Israel (parachuting food continuously, including by the German military, and building a port), but the words “potential indictment” for all members of the government of destruction is the clincher. How does it work? There are many members of the government that don’t want to lose their physical or economic freedom. The immediate targets are [billionaire Economy Minister Nir] Barkat (by freezing assets and turning the millionaire into a wanted man) [and] the Haredi parties … they and their communities worldwide have many properties. … Ministers in the government will become potential fugitives if they don’t enable the formation of a government without Kahanists. … Don’t be surprised if [Shas party leader Aryeh] Deri and [Agudat Israel head Minister Yitzhak] Goldknopf bring down the government soon. The Hareidi draft is just an excuse—their Hareidi cronies in America don’t want to get in trouble with Uncle Sam.”
...
“And the most important thing? Us, and President Biden’s request from us: The American method of dealing with misbehaving states, includes the destruction (economic and legal) that is centered on the leadership on the one hand, and driving a wedge between “the nation,” and “the leadership.” In our case … for this to work—the nation of Israel must show (in the streets!) that it is fighting the leadership. … The American administration needs to see the nation in Israel fighting the government of Israel.”
The text messages were first reported March 17, a few days after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for new elections in Israel to oust Netanyahu, and President Joe Biden endorsed Schumer’s statements. Several days later, the Biden administration took the extraordinary step of allowing a United Nations Security Council resolution to pass that accepted Hamas’s terms — ceasefire first, then hostage releases — and isolated Israel.
Several days before that, Israeli opposition figure Benny Gantz — a main rival to Netanyahu, who currently serves alongside him in an emergency government of national unity — visited the White House. According to Dror, Gantz was supposed to have done more to destabilize the Netanyahu government, and was rebuked by the administration. On Wednesday (April 3), Gantz — who had originally criticized Schumer — reversed himself, calling for new elections.
Gantz appeared to have seized the opportunity for three reasons: one, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza had escalated, with the accidental killing of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen; two, the Netanyahu government faced its first serious internal disagreements over the issue of drafting ultra-Orthodox men into the military; three, a four-day protest was organized by the Israeli left outside Netanyahu’s office (and briefly outside his personal home).
Moreover, U.S. intelligence agencies had also predicted protests to overthrow Netanyahu, just before Gantz’s visit. At the time there were no serious antigovernment protests; the country was focused on war, and on the hostages in Gaza.
What looks like a “color revolution” in Israel — the second such attempt, after the Biden administration’s involvement in last year’s divisive protests over judicial reform — appears to have been in the works for several weeks. One of the early signs — matching Dror’s predictions — was Vice President Kamala Harris’s attempt to distinguish between the Israeli government and the Israeli people.
Meanwhile, Israel faces Iranian-backed terrorists on all four of its borders.
Quote:Hunter Biden’s attempt to have all his tax charges thrown out was defeated Monday, letting the criminal case against him move forward.
A federal judge in California decided against the younger Biden, The Hill reports.
The decision confirms Biden faces three felony charges and six misdemeanor charges in connection to tax evasion, filing a false return and failing to pay taxes between 2016 and 2019.
Biden has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His attorneys argued last month the case was politically motivated and tainted by two IRS agents who later became whistleblowers, as Breitbart News reported.
The president’s son filed eight separate motions to dismiss the charges, citing different legal rationale for each including immunity claimed from a previous plea deal he had negotiated, all of which were denied.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi determined the case was not political, sidelining Biden’s main argument by noting Biden’s attorneys did not provide evidence for the claim.
“The motion is remarkable in that it fails to include a single declaration, exhibit, or request for judicial notice,” he wrote. “Instead, Defendant cites portions of various Internet news sources, social media posts, and legal blogs. These citations, however, are not evidence.”
Scarsi added the sources, mostly media reports about the case, “contain multiple levels of hearsay.”
The Hill report sets out the judge similarly threw out Biden’s claim of selective and vindictive prosecution.
Quote:Special prosecutor Jack Smith says the judge in the classified documents case against Donald Trump has issued an order that would distort the trial.
Smith told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in a court filing Tuesday that her order for the prosecution and defense to propose jury instructions is based on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise.”
The premise Smith is referring to is an interpretation of the Presidential Records Act argued by Trump’s defense. The former president’s attorneys argued that he had the authority to take and keep classified documents after he left the White House. Cannon ordered the prosecution and defense to offer proposals based on the concept that Trump’s argument is valid.
“That legal premise is wrong, and a jury instruction for Section 793 that reflects that premise would distort the trial,” Smith writes. “The PRA’s distinction between personal and presidential records has no bearing on whether a former president’s possession of documents containing national defense information is authorized under the Espionage Act, and the PRA should play no role in the jury instructions on the elements of Section 793.”
Smith argues that the Presidential Records Act does not apply because the charges against Trump relate to actions taken after he was president.
Smith also expresses concern that Cannon may wait to make a decision after jeopardy attaches. If she determines at that point that Trump is allowed to possess the documents in question, the case would end and the government would not have the ability to appeal. It would also not be allowed to try Trump again due to double jeopardy.
“Whatever the court decides, it must resolve these crucial threshold legal questions promptly,” Smith says. “The failure to do so would improperly jeopardize the government’s right to a fair trial and deprive it of its right to seek appellate review.”
Two scenarios are meant to be under consideration under Cannon’s order.
The first is that the Espionage Act allows a former president to possess any document that a jury determines is a personal record, as defined by the Presidential Records Act. Jurors would be instructed to make those determinations.
The second is that a president can remove any document from the White House when he leaves office, and that those records are his personal records. This would effectively end the prosecution if adopted. Smith says the prosecution should be entitled to a prompt review in the court of appeals in that case.
Quote:A temporary channel has been marked with buoys to allow a small amount of priority traffic to go in and out of Baltimore, the first step in a “phased” effort to reopen the port, Maryland’s governor said.
The deep shipping channel, dredged and maintained at a depth of 45 feet to allow the largest ships — including the Evergreen A-class container carriers which have a carrying capacity over double that of the MV Dali, which brought down the bridge last week — will remain blocked for weeks yet, but a small secondary channel has been opened. The temporary undredged route goes underneath the first standing span of the destroyed bridge over the Patapsco, giving it limited clearance and is only 11 feet deep.
Buoys mark out the new channel for safety, but the narrow, shallow space means the amount of traffic able to use it will be very limited, and likely confined mainly to the barges and tugs being used to clear the main part of the bridge to get the port open again. It is certainly not large enough for any container ship to pass.
Speaking on Monday Maryland governor Wes Moore said a second temporary channel was planned to the south of the disaster site which would have a slightly deeper draft at 15 feet to open “in the coming days”. Regardless, the area is crowded with obstructions and limited by air draft and is still far removed from a full re-opening. This is all part of the “phased” reopening of the Port, he said.
Moore told the public:
A temporary channel on the north east side of the collapse opened earlier today and it will help us to get more vessels in the water around the site of the collapse. The temporary channel will be marked with government lights to aid navigation, and will have a controlling depth of 11 feet. Now, we are also moving forward on creating a south-west channel for deeper draft vessels that will allow for a deeper draw. That channel will measure about 15 feet deep and will be open in the coming days.
Coast Guard Rear Admiral Gilreath also spoke of this progress, saying while he was proud of the new temporary route under the bridge’s remaining part to the north, getting the deep water channel in the centre remains his first priority. He said: “what we are finding, is it is more complicated than we hoped for initially… conditions on the diving, it is very complicated down below… more challenged than we hoped it might be.” RAdm. Gilreath said more cranes were being brought up to clear the water and the first lift of steel debris had taken place, and another was to follow Monday afternoon.
Quote:“Increasingly, more and more businesses are relying on temporary foreign workers in a way that is driving down wages in some sectors,” Trudeau told reporters on April 2 as he announced plans to slightly reduce his mass migration that has imposed much poverty and chaotic diversity on Canadians.
He continued:
So we want to get those numbers down. It’s a responsible approach to immigration that conntinues on our permanent [immigration] residents as we have, but holds the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has caused so much pressure in our communities.
The partial reversal comes as his polling numbers crash because he has been importing roughly one million people per year — or roughly three migrants for every Canadian birth. That massive inflow is roughly twice the per-person inflow engineered by President Joe Biden and his pro-migration deputies.
His flood of migrants is boosting the country’s stock market as it suppresses wages, spikes inflation, makes homes unaffordable, deters marriages and births, creates homeless encampments, and also fuels civil strife.
The civic damage is so great that Canada’s version of the FBI — the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — is warning of a coming economic and civic collapse:
The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations. For example, many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live. The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference between the extremes of wealth is greater now in developed countries than it has been in any time in several generations.
Trudeau tried to shift the blame for his policy catastrophe to the subset of migrants — mostly Indians — who rationally use his “temporary” border loopholes to move into Canada.
At least barefaced Trudeau admits it's his fault. I don't think Biden ever will.
Quote:More than 53,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from March 8 to 27, 2024, as a result of rampant gang violence escalating following Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s trip to Kenya, the United Nations revealed Tuesday.
Armed gangs led by boss Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier have been trying to forcefully take control of the country since February, leading thousands to seek refuge in neighboring areas, including Haiti’s rural southern region, which is still devastated from the 2021 earthquake.
“The International Organization for Migration tells us that between 8 and 27 March, more than 53,000 men, women and children left Port-au-Prince,” U.N. Spokesman for the Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric said during a Tuesday press briefing. “The majority of them are heading towards the Grand Sud departments.”
“Our humanitarian colleagues emphasized that these departments do not have the sufficient infrastructure and host communities do not have sufficient resources to cope with the large number of people fleeing Port-au-Prince,” he continued.
The armed gangs control large swathes of Port-au-Prince, including its main port and many of the city’s access roads. The gangs have vandalized or outright destroyed several of the nation’s hospitals and pharmacies.
The gangs have also taken control of the State University of Haiti Hospital (HUEH) in Port-au-Prince, turning it into a “fortress” for their continued war against Haiti’s national police forces, one of the last functional institutions left in the country.
The gangs used the seized hospital’s facilities to stage a new attack on the National Palace on Monday. At least one policeman was reported shot while fleeing an armored car alongside other officers after gang members set it on fire with them inside. The National Palace and the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince have remained under police protection since the start of the wave of violence in February.
Quote:“Our nation has to stand for what it believes – that all men are created by God and have the right to freely worship Him,” Pastor Jon Britton Hancock told Breitbart News on Tuesday, urging the U.S. government to help his Evangelical organization, Mountain Gateway, after communist Nicaragua arrested its pastors on vague charges.
Mountain Gateway is currently locked in a legal battle with the regime of dictator Daniel Ortega and his wife, “vice president” Rosario Murillo, after a court convicted 11 of its pastors on charges of “aggravated money laundering.” Hancock has maintained repeatedly that his organization has not engaged in any illicit financial behavior, that the Nicaraguan government has access to all of the organization’s financial records, and that mounting a legal defense in the case has been impossible because the regime will not detail exactly what the charges are.
The persecution of Mountain Gateway followed years of increasingly repressive measures against the majority Christian population of the country. Following the wave of anti-communist protests in 2018, Ortega accused the Catholic Church, which offered sanctuary to peaceful dissidents, of attempting to politically destabilize the country, and has since engaged in mass arrests and deportations of priests and bishops, in addition to Catholic laymen. Ortega has exiled 97 clergyman so far, including two bishops, and declared the Vatican a terrorist organization.
The persecution expanded to Evangelicals in late 2023.
Hancock said he has been moved by the support Mountain Gateway has received from Congress and other sectors of the U.S. government, stating, “God is stirring their hearts for our people, and they are responding with action. I’m continually blown away at how God is connecting me with the right people.” He added, however, that the pressure on the Nicaraguan government and advocacy by the American government around the world for religious freedom must continue, as religious freedom is a core value of the country and a “basic human right.”
Hancock and wife Audrey founded Mountain Gateway in 2009 and moved its activities to Nicaragua about a decade ago, citing a calling from God to serve the country. The organization was active in Nicaragua for a decade by the time the Sandinista Marxist regime of dictator Daniel Ortega targeted it for destruction. For most of its time in the country, Mountain Gateway focused on humanitarian aid, from helping educate farmers in remote regions on the value of their crops to emergency response actions to help survivors of hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Quote:Venezuela’s socialist regime is using the Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN) terrorist organization and the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization to persecute Venezuelan dissidents abroad, according to a report published by Colombia’s Caracol Televisión on Sunday.
Caracol based its report on alleged secret documents obtained by the broadcaster – including documents from the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the Pentagon branch operating in Latin America — and testimonies that accuse the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro, through the Venezuelan General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), of carrying out illegal operations in Colombian and Chilean territory with the assistance of ELN and Tren de Aragua members.
Caracol claimed the documents showed that DGCIM has been acting in Colombia “for years” in alliance with ELN and other criminal groups to access national security secrets and persecute opponents of the socialist regime.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Granko, the head of DGCIM’s special affairs unit, is described as the “brain” of the regime’s illegal operations on foreign soil. America sanctioned Granko, also known as “Black Hand” and “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” alongside three other DGCIM leaders in 2019 during the administration of former President Donald Trump for systemic human rights abuses and the repression of dissent in Venezuela.
In 2022, the United Nations Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela identified DGCIM as one of the repressive agencies that the Maduro regime uses to carry out crimes against humanity against dissidents, including the use of extreme acts of torture, sexual violence, and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatments to punish them for disagreeing with the government.
Attempts to silence opponents of socialism abroad are part of the regime’s plans to dismantle purported conspiracies to overthrow Maduro. The Colombian news channel identified three dissidents targeted in Colombia and Chile.
The three dissidents in question met in Cúcuta, Colombia, on December 13, 2023, allegedly to discuss how to overthrow Maduro with ideas that were more “quixotic” than real, and reportedly not armed. The group was reportedly unaware that the regime knew of their intentions.
Keep in mind that this Tren of Aragua, tren stands for train, has already reached NYC...
Quote:Argentina is considering a formal inspection of a Chinese “space station” on Argentine territory built during a previous socialist presidency, the government confirmed on Tuesday.
The Chinese base, located 18 miles from the village of Bajada del Agrio in the southwestern province of Neuquén, was built as part of an agreement signed between China and the administration of socialist former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2014. The base, which operates under total secrecy, completed construction in 2017 during the administration of center-right former President Mauricio Macri.
The base features a 16-story antenna and covers a 200-hectare area controlled by China via a 50-year lease. The base is manned by personnel from China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General (CLTC), a group that ultimately answers to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force.
China maintains complete secrecy over the base’s operations and does not offer the Argentine government any oversight. The Fernández de Kirchner agreement provides that Argentine authorities “cannot interfere” with its activities. The Chinese Communist Party claims the station is used for “peaceful space observation and exploration.”
A report published by the Pentagon in 2019 warned that China could use the base to monitor and potentially target American and allied satellites.
A source from the Argentine presidential office told the news outlet Infobae on Tuesday that President Javier Milei is considering issuing an inspection request to the secretive Chinese base. The source said the intention is to “analyze if there is something strange with the base in Neuquén,” noting that “contracts can be reviewed.”
Quote:Taiwan was hit by its strongest earthquake in 25 years during rush hour on Wednesday, with nine dead, 50 missing, and over 800 injuries reported.
The quake triggered landslides in mountainous regions and caused buildings and tunnels to collapse, trapping 137 people in cars, buses, and tunnels. 87,000 homes are reportedly without power.
Taiwanese officials said the quake was magnitude 7.2, while the U.S. Geological Survey recorded 7.4 and Japanese seismologists reported an even stronger reading of 7.7. The epicenter of the earthquake was located roughly 11 miles from the city of Hualien, which suffered a magnitude 7.3 earthquake in September 1999.
Taiwanese seismologists said the 1999 quake unleashed more destructive energy, and struck an area where more buildings were in danger of collapse, but Wednesday’s quake came close to its intensity. Both quakes were strong enough to not only knock people off their feet, but actually fling them into the air.
Lower intensity quake effects were felt in other major cities, including the capital of Taipei, where damage was reported to the building that houses the national legislature.
Seismologists warned dangerous aftershocks are possible over the next three to four days.
Transportation Minister Wang Kwo-tsai said on Wednesday morning that the transportation system in eastern Taiwan was paralyzed by the earthquake, including both road and rail traffic. He anticipated it would be several days before rail services could be restored.
Wang said his ministry is establishing maritime transportation along the mountainous eastern coast, plus extra passenger flights to the area. He cautioned that landing capacity at Hualien regional airports was limited, and airlines were already dealing with high travel demand for the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival holiday, which runs from April 4-7 this year.
Eyewitnesses in the earthquake region reported seeing landslides and huge clouds of dust in the mountains, while buildings partially collapsed or were tilted at strange angles in Hualien.
Quote:The Japanese government said on Tuesday it will lift its suspension of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
Japan, like many other donors, suspended funding in January after evidence surfaced that UNRWA staff participated in the savage October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
Japanese Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko announced the resumption of funding after meeting with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini in Tokyo.
Kamikawa did not address the allegations of terrorism against UNRWA employees directly but implied that the urgency of providing humanitarian relief to Gaza was too great to continue withholding funds.
“Japan will lift the moratorium on its financial contributions to UNRWA and provide assistance while ensuring and confirming the appropriateness of Japan’s funds,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
“The humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory of Gaza continues to worsen. It is our country’s responsibility to respond to the crisis as a member of the U.N. Security Council,” she said, describing UNRWA’s work as “indispensable.”
Quote:The United Nations World Health Organization (W.H.O.) chief is facing backlash after publishing an “abhorrent” post effectively blaming Israel for turning Gaza’s Shifa hospital into a “battlefield,” while ignoring Hamas’s takeover of the facility and use of it as a terror base — the very reason for Israel’s operating there.
Following attacks from the hospital, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spent roughly two weeks neutralizing approximately 200 terrorists and detaining around 500 at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, remarkably managing to do so without civilian casualties or endangering any medical staff or patients.
On Sunday, the IDF released photographic evidence of an extensive arsenal hidden within the hospital’s maternity ward, amidst their ongoing anti-terror operations.
The IDF had previously evacuated the hospital in November, uncovering numerous terror tunnels. However, terrorists reoccupied and resumed operations from the medical facility, blatantly contravening international humanitarian norms.
On Monday, W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus shared an image of Shifa’s damaged complex, remarking that “hospitals must be respected and protected; they must not be used as battlefields.”
In response, many took to social media to call out the public health official for having chosen to “cover for terrorists.”
“The World Health Organization couldn’t find evidence of COVID origins in Wuhan and can’t find evidence of Hamas at Shifa,” wrote Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair Joni Ernst (R-IA), co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Who needs WHO?” she added.
Former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy noted that when hospitals are “abused for military purposes, like Hamas did using Shifa as a stronghold,” they cannot “give terrorists immunity.”
“The hospital was full of Hamas terrorists and weapons and they were shooting from inside the complex,” wrote former Trump administration U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman. “There was no ‘Israeli siege,’ just a very effective and humane Israeli anti-terror operation.”
“You had zero credibility before this statement and your record remains intact,” he added.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon denied former President Donald Trump’s request to dismiss the documents case in a ruling on Thursday.
Trump’s team had argued that the Presidential Records Act takes priority over the Espionage Act when it came to highly classified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago after he left office, but Cannon rejected the request to dismiss the case on those grounds, writing in the filing, “The Presidential Records Act does not provide a pre-trial basis to dismiss.”
Cannon also defended herself against attacks from Special Counsel Jack Smith, who had harshly criticized a request she gave both parties. He argued that the judge’s request embraced Trump’s view of the Presidential Records Act, allowing him to consider government documents as “personal.”
Smith accused Cannon of a “fundamentally flawed” understanding of the case, and threatened to seek an appeal court review.
Cannon said in her filing that her request should not be “misconstrued as declaring a final definition on any essential element or asserted defense in this case.”
She wrote that it was “a genuine attempt, in the context of the upcoming trial, to better understand the parties’ competing positions and the questions to be submitted to the jury in this complex case of first impression.”
Quote:Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung on Thursday blasted Politico editor Catherine Kim for misrepresenting former President Donald Trump’s record on China.
In a statement titled, “Politico Carries Water for the Chinese Communist Party; Spews Lies and Falsehoods to Interfere In 2024 Election,” Cheung said:
In Politico’s Nightly newsletter, Catherine Kim makes a harebrained assertion that China would prefer President Trump to return to the White House. The same President Trump who made China submit to pro-America trade and tariff regulations, called them out for exporting the Coronavirus that killed millions across the world, and stood tough against Chinese economic aggression throughout his first term.
For a media outlet and its reporter to peddle lies and feature commentary from a ‘China expert’ named Rorry Daniels—who by the way is a Democrat donor—is laughable at best. Politico is being played by devious Chinese forces who seek to manipulate malleable American media outlets and their reporters because they know Trump Derangement Syndrome is a very real disease that distorts all reasoning.
Cheung added:
The fact is that China has grown stronger under a weak Biden presidency, and our allies are even more in danger as China builds up its economic and military power. Deadly Chinese fentanyl continues to flow into American communities killing scores of people while illegal Chinese migrants are the fastest growing group crossing the Southern Border.
On Wednesday, Kim, an associate editor at Politico, published a nightly newsletter that highlighted a New York Times report that alleged China is conducting an operation to help Trump get elected in 2024. The Times article said covert Chinese social media accounts are masquerading as Trump supporters and sharing memes and mocking President Joe Biden.
Quote:A few Senators from the nation’s Rust Belt are sounding the alarm over the ties between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nippon Steel Corporation — the Japanese conglomerate looking to purchase the United States Steel Corporation.
In December of last year, executives with U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel Corporation announced a nearly $15 billion deal that would have the iconic American steel giant sold off to Japan’s largest steelmaker.
The deal is significant as U.S. Steel, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, played a critical role in the nation’s “Arsenal of Democracy” during World War II, which ultimately saw the Allied powers defeat the Axis, which included Imperial Japan.
This week, Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), and J.D. Vance (R-OH) sounded the alarm to President Joe Biden’s administration over Nippon Steel’s ties to China. The Senators cite a report from the firm Horizon Advisory which details those ties:
In addition to market dependence on China, Nippon directly owns operations in the country. Those operations risk sharing technology and production expertise with the PRC’s industrial base. Nippon has a long-run history supporting the establishment and foundation of the Chinese steel industry; PRC discourse about industrial modernization has referred to the Japanese conglomerate as a “master.” Nippon is also looked to by Chinese peers as a critical source of strategic guidance for maturing the operations of what has grown into the world’s dominant steel industry.
That relationship brings Nippon into close and frequent interaction with China’s steel industry. Nippon maintains active joint ventures with a range of Chinese state-backed steel champions. In addition to those partnerships, Nippon also works with more niche Chinese champions intended to accelerate up various industrial and engineering value chains; Nippon’s variety of partners in China may risk providing those emergent players access to leading international technology.
“Nippon’s connection to the Chinese steel ecosystem and industrial policy agenda has concerning implications regarding ties to China’s military-civil fusion strategy and quest for global economic power,” Brown wrote in a letter to Biden, asking him to investigate the matter.
Quote:The FBI is now conducting background checks on 18–20 year-old would-be gun purchasers that are a far cry from the instant background checks that have been conducted on gun purchasers since the 1990s.
On April 1, 2024, the NRA-ILA pointed out that the new background checks represent such a departure from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) checks that they could be called “Never-Instant Criminal Background Checks.”
The enhanced background checks for 18–20 year-old purchasers is part of a 2022 gun control law, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) worked to help Democrats secure.
The FBI explained:
[The BSCA] now requires NICS to go beyond the routine for under-21 gun buyers. In addition to running names through NICS databases, a select group of examiners is now reaching out to state juvenile justice, mental health, and local law enforcement agencies to see if their backgrounds contain potentially disqualifying information that isn’t in the databases automatically queried by NICS. Another provision in the new law extends, where cause to do so is established, the time examiners have to investigate under-21 cases from 3 to 10 business days.
The NRA-ILA noted that it “warned gun owners and policymakers back in 2022 that the BSCA eliminated instant background checks for young adults and would be used by the Biden administration to create a waiting period regime.”
Quote:The Quaker Oats Company announced Wednesday it is permanently closing its factory in Danville, Illinois, with upwards of 500 employees to be impacted.
The News-Gazette reports Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. confirmed the news to the wider community, with city officials saying:
Today, we learned that after 65 years of production in Danville, Pepsico will close Quaker Oats effective June 8, 2024.
The business has already ceased production but will continue to pay their employees through that time. While this shocks and saddens us, we will unite as a community to help those who have lost their employment.
Williams said he is unsure whether any of the affected employees are being transferred or if they are all being laid off.
A mass layoff “has a terrible impact on the employees and their families,” he said. “It also causes some anxiety to the community at large as well.”
Chicago-based Quaker Oats, a unit of Pepsico since 2001, opened the plant in 1969.
In recent years, the Danville facility manufactured Quaker Oats granola bars, but it had also made cereal and pancake mix.
Quote:Denver’s recently appointed “Newcomer Communications Liaison,” Andres Carrera, was caught on video pleading with newly arrived illegal aliens to turn around and leave the city immediately because the “opportunities are over” in the welcoming city of Denver.
Carrera, who moved into Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration from the administration of Democrat Gov. Jared Polis last year, is seen warning migrants, who arrived in the city on March 26, that there is nothing for them in Denver and that they should quickly move on to New York City or Chicago, where they can “get more.”
In the video, Carrera tells migrants in Spanish, “The opportunities are over,” Denver News 9 reported Saturday.
“New York gives you more. Chicago gives you more. So I suggest you go there where there is longer-term shelter. There are also more job opportunities there,” the Denver migrant official adds.
This from the city that claims to welcome migrants with open arms. But it is the same city that recently began to turn migrants out of city shelters if they stayed too long in the shelter system. Denver has also spent nearly $40 million on Joe Biden’s flood of illegals.
Well, they might need to discard Chicago as their next destination because of the following report.
Quote:Health officials in the sanctuary city of Chicago, Illinois, have reported several cases of tuberculosis at migrant shelters.
Officials with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) revealed that there are “a small number of cases” of tuberculosis (TB) “among new arrivals in a few different shelters over the course of the response.”
A spokesperson with CDPH noted the high rates of TB in countries from which migrants are arriving in the United States:
It is important to note that an estimated 10-20% of residents of Central and South America have latent TB infection, which is asymptomatic and not transmissible to others, but does result in a positive TB test. For those who do have active cases of TB disease, CDPH assigns a nurse case manager to each individual and performs a contact tracing investigation. TB is curable with antibiotics and is not particularly infectious, typically requiring several hours or more of prolonged close contact between individuals to spread, but CDPH continues to take cases seriously in order to keep it contained. To date, CDPH has not confirmed any reports of TB that resulted from exposure to new arrivals in Chicago.
TB is not a novel or rarely seen illness in Chicago, as the Chicago Department of Public Health typically expects to see between 100-150 cases of tuberculosis in Chicago residents in an average year. We will continue to offer treatment to individuals as necessary and take the proper precautions to eliminate spread, but we do not consider this a matter presenting a substantial threat to the public. [Emphasis added]
CDPH officials did not divulge the exact number of TB cases among migrants or the location of the shelters where the TB cases originated.
Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez (D), who has lobbied to end the city’s sanctuary policy, blasted Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) and the city administration for ignoring the public health concerns that come with mass immigration.
“I have warned Chicago for months about what was already here,” Lopez wrote...
Quote:President Joe Biden decided to threaten Israel with a loss of support on Thursday — as Israel mobilized its reservists to prepare for a possible Iranian attack, and Iran prepared for “Al Quds Day,” its annual orgy of anti-Israel hatred.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, effectively adopting the position of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which began the war.
Netanyahu, however, did not react to Biden. Instead, he focused on a possible imminent threat from Iran, possibly via one of its proxies. “Anyone who attacks us, or prepares to attack us — we will attack,” he said at a Cabinet meeting.
Iran has warned that it would respond to an Israeli airstrike earlier in the week that killed two Iranian generals in Damascus, Syria. Iran has been arming, funding, and advising the terror groups that have been attacking Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran continued preparations for Al Quds Day, an annual demonstration of anti-Israel hatred that Iran and its proxy groups around the world observe on the last Friday in Ramadan, with bloodthirsty demonstrations.
Biden’s rebuke of Israel — despite its apologies for the inadvertent killing of seven aid workers on Tuesday — thus came at the very moment when Iran sought to isolate Israel, and threatened an escalation against the Israeli people.
Quote:NATO is going to “build a bridge” towards Ukraine becoming a member state of the defensive alliance, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on the organisation’s 75th birthday.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member states met in Brussels at the alliance’s headquarters on Thursday to toast the 75th anniversary of its founding, among them U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken who like others used the occasion to discuss renewed Russian aggression and the potential place of Ukraine among its members. He emphasised the view, already articulated multiple times by NATO leaders in recent years, that “Ukraine will become a member of NATO”.
What he left unsaid, however, was the conditions that generally come with the statement, that this membership would be when Ukraine is in a fit state to join, including not being occupied by a foreign power.
Blinken said:
…the support for Ukraine, the determination of every country represented here at NATO remains rock solid. We will do everything we can, allies will do everything they can, to ensure Ukraine has what it needs to continue to deal with Russia’s ongoing aggression… Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership, and to create a clear pathway for Ukraine moving forward… we will see very strong support for Ukraine moving forward with its relationship going forwards with NATO.
But we are equally focussed as I said on the immediate, and on Ukraine’s needs today, tomorrow, the day after to help it withstand this ongoing aggression from Russia.
This follows several comments by U.S. President Biden and NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg last year that “Allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of NATO”. The truth was more complex than that, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz outlined that in granular detail, saying Ukraine doesn’t meet the criteria to be a member state.
Quote:The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) pursuit of pro-life activists has resulted in four more Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act convictions.
Four people — Eva Edl, 87, of Aiken South Carolina; Eva Zastrow, 24, of Dover, Arkansas; James Zastrow, 25, of Eldon, Missouri; and Paul Place, 24, of Centerville, Tennessee — were found guilty on Tuesday of violating the FACE Act during a peaceful protest at a Tennessee abortion clinic in 2021, the Daily Wire reported.
The activists face up to a year in prison and thousands of dollars in fines. They await sentencing on July 30. Six other activists — including a Christian father of 11 and a 73-year-old man — who participated in the protest were convicted of conspiracy against rights and violating the FACE Act in January and face up to 11 years behind bars.
The convictions came after a one-day bench trial, with Middle District of Tennessee Magistrate Judge Chip Frensly siding with President Joe Biden’s DOJ after less than half an hour of deliberation, according to the report.
“Immediately after the convictions, the defendants and their families went outside the courthouse to sing and pray,” the report continues.
The charges are related to a peaceful protest at the Carafem abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, on March 5, 2021 — as abortion has since been outlawed in Tennessee with limited exceptions, the clinic has paused in-person care, according to its website.
Quote:Wisconsin voters approved an amendment on Tuesday night, banning the private funding of elections in the swing state.
The amendment directs that “donations and grants may not be applied for, accepted, expended, or used in…connection with the conduct of any primary, election, or referendum,” according to the question phrasing that the Wisconsin State Legislature listed. Associated Press election results showed the ballot question passed by a 54.4 percent to 45.6 percent vote.
Wisconsinites also voted in favor of a second part to the amendment on ballot question two, mandating “that only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums.” That question passed with 58.6 percent of support.
The votes come four years after the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), gave more than $10 million in grants in Wisconsin in the 2020 election, as Capital Research Center reported.
“Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan notoriously poured hundreds of millions of ‘Zuckerbucks’ into” the CTCL “for the purpose of getting out the vote in Democrat-leaning areas in the 2020 election,” Breitbart News previously noted.
The Badger State went for President Joe Biden in that year’s presidential election by just 20,682 votes. In 2021, the state had an opportunity to ban the private funding of elections, but Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) vetoed a bill that the state legislature passed that would have done so.
Former President Donald Trump encouraged voters at a rally on Wednesday evening in Green Bay — while polls were still open — to “ban Zuckerbucks” by voting for the ballot questions, and Republicans celebrated the outcome.
Quote:Video reports coming from Mexico show government immigration officials rounding up large groups of migrants near Juarez. The Mexican immigration officials are reportedly sending the migrants back to the southern end of the country.
Video reports posted on X show large numbers of Mexican immigration enforcement vehicles loaded with migrants who were apprehended in Juarez approaching the border with El Paso, Texas. The migrants are reportedly being transported back to southern Mexico or other interior locations within the country.
In another video, a migrant woman pleads with Mexican immigration officers to let her continue her journey to Texas.
Immigration officials set up interior checkpoints located a few miles south of Juarez to find migrants being transported on buses.
Center for Immigration fellow Todd Bensman reports the moves by Mexican immigration officials are part of a Biden-Obrador election ploy intended to deflect from the magnitude of the border crisis in Texas.
Breitbart Texas reported last week about Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s efforts to “extort” the U.S. government into providing $20 billion in aid to countries in Central America and the Caribbean. The president also demanded the Biden administration lift sanctions against Venezuela and lift the embargo on Cuba.
Quote:The criminal terrorist organization known as Cartel Del Noreste, a faction of Los Zetas, is behind the mass kidnappings of victims in a Mexican border state, sources revealed to Breitbart Texas. However, instead of limiting itself to people who have ties or debts to trafficking, the cartel adopted the tactic of taking entire families hostage.
The mass kidnappings are carried out by a bloodthirsty CDN-Los Zetas commander who takes the victims to Nuevo Laredo, U.S. federal sources operating in Mexico revealed.
In recent days, hitmen in several vans headed from the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to the municipalities of Salinas Victoria and Ciénega de Flores in Nuevo León; The hitmen kidnapped at least 30 victims in a span of days. The kidnappings began on March 21 in Ciénega de Flores, and the gunmen returned in the early hours of March 24 when they broke into several homes and took more than a dozen victims.
The kidnappings continued on March 27 in Salinas Victoria, where armed men arrived at five different homes and kidnapped 14 victims, including six young children. The victims were then taken to Nuevo Laredo under orders from the cartel.
Subsequently, CDN gunmen freed seven victims who had been kidnapped in the Ciénega de Flores, while six remain missing. In Salinas Victoria, most of the victims have been released. The gunmen also freed three victims, including two young children, who had been taken along with three other people from another nearby community.
The issue has drawn national attention in Mexico, as federal government officials try to downplay the case. Officials deployed military forces and other resources to the north.
Quote:The gangs rampaging across Haiti ransacked the National Library in the capital city of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. Anguished library director Dangelo Neard said some rare documents were stored in the library, so the gang attack put Haiti’s history at risk.
“Our documentary collections are in danger. We have rare documents over 200 years old, with importance to our heritage, which risk being burned or damaged by bandits,” Neard told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday.
“I was told that the thugs are taking away the institution’s furniture. They also ransacked the building’s generator,” he added.
The Bibliotheque Nationale d’Haiti, established in 1939, is Haiti’s largest library and its official bibliographic agency. Its collection includes some 60,000 works, including some irreplaceable historic documents and books, as Neard indicated.
The library has been pleading with gangsters, looters, and rioters to spare it ever since the current unrest began in March.
“We are currently living in difficult and uncertain times in the country, but we must, as a people, keep the essence of our humanities and never forget to carefully safeguard our ability to produce meaning,” the library said in a March 26 social media post.
Gangsters attacked two of Haiti’s universities last week, the Ecole Normale Superieure and National School of Arts, prompting an expression of concern from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
“These acts of vandalism, looting and arson against the country’s educational institutions have devastating consequences for the future of Haitian society,” UNESCO warned.
Quote:Colombian far-left President Gustavo Petro suffered a major defeat on Wednesday after the Colombian Congress voted to shelve his controversial leftist healthcare reform bill, with nine members of the corresponding Senate commission voting in favor and five against.
Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 guerilla, took office as Colombia’s first leftist president ever in August 2022. Since then, his government has attempted to impose widespread leftist healthcare, as well as political, economic, and social reforms to Colombia’s governance.
The healthcare reform, one of Petro’s flagship reform projects, contemplated drastic changes to Colombia’s 30-year old healthcare system that would have granted the state a larger control of Colombia’s healthcare resources, facilities, and programs while severely diminished the role and function of private providers in the country.
The now-shutdown controversial healthcare reform was at the forefront of a series of recurring peaceful protests carried out by thousands of Colombian civilians and opposition politicians across several of the nation’s main cities. The most recent nationwide peaceful protest against Petro’s proposed leftist reforms took place in early March, with more than 50,000 participants peacefully expressing their rejection of Petro’s leftist reform plans.
One of the arguments reportedly espoused by the Colombian government to justify the need to reform Colombia’s healthcare system is that the current system is “not equitable” for those living in rural areas of the country. However, the Senate commission, in Wednesday’s vote, asserted that the bill did not address such issues.
“The illusion we had was that the health reform would be a peace agreement and change for all, but unfortunately it was not so and the reform presented by the government divided the country,” Colombian Sen. Norma Hurtado, who voted to shelve the bill, said on Wednesday.
Quote:UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has ruled out Western troops being sent into Ukraine in favor of extracting more financial support from U.S. Congress.
The former prime minister acknowledged the “war will be lost if the allies don’t step up” on the BBC’s Ukrainecast podcast.
But asked whether Western nations should send troops into Ukraine, Lord Cameron replied “no” before adding NATO must be in the “best possible shape” by the U.S. November elections and extracting more U.S. taxpayer dollars will help both NATO and Kyiv.
He added any “boots on the ground” as delivering Russian President Vladimir Putin “a target.”
Lord Cameron was speaking at a two-day North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit of 32 foreign ministers in Brussels.
He said he’d be making his second visit to the United States since becoming foreign secretary next week and would be urging Congress to give more financial support, which “could change the narrative” in Ukraine. The BBC reports he told Ukrainecast:
If we can get that money out of the U.S. Congress, if we can get Ukraine the arms they need, if we can show Putin that he can’t outwait us and that Ukraine is going to fight back and win back more of its territory.
If we can do all those things, whoever gets in in November, we’ll look at the situation in Ukraine and… look at more and more NATO members spending two percent of their GDP on defence and say, this is a success story. I want to invest in this success.
So turn Ukraine in the situation and NATO into the strongest possible alliance with the strongest possible prospect of success. And whoever wins in November 2024 would inherit a better situation.
Quote:British counterterrorism police investigating the stabbing of a journalist who works for a TV channel critical of the Iranian government said that three suspects had fled the country within hours of the attack.
Pouria Zeraati, a presenter at London-based Iran International, was stabbed in the leg Friday afternoon outside his home in London. Police said Zeraati, who has been released from a hospital, was attacked by two men who fled in a car driven by a third man.
“We have established that after abandoning the vehicle, the suspects traveled to Heathrow Airport and have left the U.K.,´´ Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said in a statement late Tuesday. “We are now working with international partners to establish further details.´´
Police said that while the motivation for the attack is still unclear, Zeraati´s occupation, together with recent threats to U.K.-based Iranian journalists, triggered a counterterrorism investigation. Iran International, a satellite news channel that broadcasts in Farsi, has previously received threats due to its coverage of Iran.
Mehdi Hosseini Matin, Iran´s charge d´affaires in the U.K., has said “we deny any link” to the incident.
Police say they have disrupted “a number” of plots to kill or kidnap people in the U.K. who were seen as enemies of the Iranian government. Officers are working with intelligence agencies to disrupt future plots and provide protection for the targeted organizations and individuals, police said.
Quote:Police are hunting for more remains after human body parts were found in a London park, the event now being treated as a potential murder investigation.
Officers were contacted with a report of potential human remains having been discovered at the Rowdown Fields park, Croydon, south-east London, on Tuesday, the force has said. Further investigation by a forensic anthropologist determined the find was indeed human as suspected, that further remains were located by police after they arrived at the park, and that what was discovered so far all came from one individual.
Searches are ongoing in the park, and officers are treating it as a murder investigation. Police said in their statement they were not yes ready to reveal the presumed victim’s “age, ethnicity, or gender”, asked the public to keep speculation “to a minimum”, and said and they are still trying to identify the remains.
Detective Inspector Martin Thorpe, leading the investigation, said: “We are not going to give specific details on our search of the area, but I can confirm that since yesterday we have recovered further remains. After consultation with a forensic anthropologist, we are certain that these are human… This is being treated as murder, and we currently believe the remains belong to one victim.”
Police are not searching further afield than the park at this time but said they would do so “should this be necessary” later.
Quote:A technical error on a navy missile Thursday spurred Danish authorities to issue a warning, saying there was a risk the missile could launch unintentionally – but not explode – resulting in fragments falling in Denmark waters.
Denmark’s armed forces said a technical problem arose with a Harpoon missile on board the Danish frigate HDMS Niels Juel as it was taking part in a test while anchored in the Korsoer naval base.
“The launch vehicle, the booster, is activated, and currently cannot be disabled,” the military said in a statement.
The military said the missile is live, but only the booster is activated and there is no danger of the missile exploding or reaching farther than the booster rocket can lift it. It says: “Until the booster is disabled, there is a risk that the missile could launch and fly several kilometers away.”
On its webpage, the Danish Maritime Authority said there was a military drill taking place in the Storebaelt straight between the Danish islands of Zeeland and Funen. The straight is a busy shipping lane connecting the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
The danger area is estimated to be up to 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from Korsoer at a height of approximately 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) above sea level and not in the direction of the bridge and tunnel link across the Storebaelt. The link operator said there was no risk to the road and train traffic on the bridge.
Quote:German police are facing a serious shortage of uniforms — the war in Ukraine is blamed — and officers protesting inaction from the top have gone trouserless to make the point.
The Bavarian branch of the Deutsche Polizeigewerkschaft (German Police Trade Union, DPolG) is protesting a long term supply issue for their member officers which has left them unable to draw on replacement items of uniform, or newly commissioned police officers to get a full issue of uniform at all. According to the union some 21 regulation items including trousers, jackets, and hats are subject to a wait time of several months.
The Russian invasion against Ukraine impacting supply chains has been blamed by the Bavarian Ministry of Interior, but critics state the issue goes back to the Covid era, predating the latest phase in Moscow’s war.
Creatively making the point that police officers are struggling with the lack of uniform clothing, the DPolG published a humorous video showing two police officers talking in a car before getting out to start their patrol, without their uniform trousers. In the short, one officer asks the other: “so, how long have you been waiting?”, and they discuss four to six month waits for uniform items.
The union said while the situation may sound like “the worst April Fool’s joke ever”, their officers are “literally left without pants”. Calling on the state government to intervene, DPolG said it was time to take action even if it meant spending money, reflecting: “what kind of impression is created, especially among those starting out in the profession, when they cannot be fully clothed”.
The Bavarian government said it is considering bringing uniform procurement back in-house from a private contractor, and in the meanwhile if an officer finds themselves without the correct trousers for duty, then they can “of course use other models of trousers” in the meanwhile.
Can you take any officer seriously if he or she isn't wearing any trousers? Or is allowed to wear anything that suits their immediate needs?
Quote:Police say the attack at a food store appears to be random, with the suspect and “seriously injured” child victim being totally unrelated.
German police arrested a 34-year-old Syrian origin, Dutch passport holding migrant on Wednesday afternoon after he is alleged to have stabbed a passer by in a discount supermarket in the town of Wangen, Baden-Württemberg. Thje victim is reported to have been a four year old girl who was out while her mother was grocery shopping. The “seriously injured” child was rushed to hospital for surgery and is said to be in stable condition.
The situation may have been considerably worse had bystanders not immediately disarmed the knifeman and chased him away. One member of the public chasing the man called the police and led officers to the suspect. Apparently the Syrian was arrested without resistance but has not spoken to officers about the attack.
Police say they have not been able to determine a motive yet, and there is no relationship between the suspect and the wounded child.
Ravensburg police said, per Tageschau: “the man suddenly approached the four-year-old girl and injured her with a knife”. They continued: “the two did not know each other until then and there was probably no previous relationship… Crimes of this kind are very rare”.
Quote:The French government rapidly walked back a claim its security service had foiled a terrorist attack against a place of worship over Easter weekend, stating no such plot actually existed.
Deputy minister for democratic renewal and spokesman for the French government Prisca Thevenot, newly promoted in Emmanuel Macron’s January reshuffle was giving an update on the work of the council of ministers when she claimed the security services had prevented a terror attack over Easter weekend. Very laudable, except it transpires that never happened, and worse, this came the same day the minister declared a private crusade against what she decried as “fake news”.
Speaking of the 13,500 police officers deployed across France over the Easter weekend protecting 4,350 “establishments of worship” and religious services, Thevenot said: “Thanks to this mobilization, we were able to stop an attempt to take action.
“Because yes, there are attempts to take action and thanks to the mobilization of these men and women on a daily basis, we can avoid tragedies. This action was avoided last weekend.”
Quote:French police on Wednesday removed dozens of migrants, including families with young children, from the forecourt of Paris City Hall as the capital prepares to mark 100 days to the start of the Olympic Games.
Police arrived at dawn to remove about 50 people, mostly women and children aged 3 months to 10 years, who were bundled up in strollers, under blankets or covered with plastic sheets to shield against the rain while sleeping in the plaza. The migrants packed belongings and boarded a bus to temporary local government housing in the town of Besançon in eastern France.
Aid workers are concerned that the move Wednesday is the beginning of a broader effort by Paris authorities to clear out migrants and others sleeping in the rough in the capital before the summer Olympics without providing longer-term housing options.
“They´re clearing the way for the Olympic Games,” Yann Manzi, a member of the migrant aid group Utopia 56, told The Associated Press during Wednesday´s police operation in central Paris. “What is happening is nothing short of social cleansing of the city.”
Olympics organizers have said they are working with aid groups to find solutions for those in the streets, including the many people who come from around the world to Paris seeking refuge or employment.
Quote:Two bomb threats led to a brief lockdown of the Norwegian parliament Wednesday, while lawmakers continued debate inside.
Heavily armed police were posted outside the assembly and the surrounding streets was cordoned off. Bomb sniffing dogs were seen in action outside the building.
The 169-member Storting was reopened after a bit more than two hours. A senior police officer, Sven Bjelland said authorities were “confident that it is now safe.”
During the lockdown, the Storting administration told lawmakers and staff by text message that “we have no indication that it is dangerous to be inside the Storting,” Norwegian media reported.
Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl, who took part in a debate Wednesday morning, said it was “unpleasant and unacceptable” that bomb threats were directed at parliament, adding the Norwegian security service PST also was involved.
Bjelland earlier had said that one of the threats was received Tuesday evening but was deemed not to be credible, while the second was sent Wednesday to police in Oslo. He declined to give details.
“There is a difference in the severity of the two threats,” Bjelland said, adding police knew who sent the threat Tuesday. No one has been arrested, he added.
Quote:An agreement that reaffirms Finnish support for Ukraine militarily, financially, and politically while stating Finland will be involved in efforts to prosecute Russian figures for war crimes was signed on Wednesday. The deal is the eighth such agreement, all with reasonably similar contents, signed with a NATO member state this year.
While in many cases the content is essentially reaffirming things Finland is already doing, the document does announce new, further funding for Ukraine worth $203 million.
The agreement is largely one way and very focussed on the dangers of future, repeated Russian invasions of Ukraine and does not call upon Kyiv to come to Finland’s aid, should Moscow invade Europe to the north. Finland has an 800-mile land border with Russia.
Clauses within the document allow either party to withdraw given six months notice, and automatically terminate the document ten years from today. In the paper, Finland promises: “In the event of a future Russian armed attack against Ukraine… will provide swift and sustained security assistance, including modern military equipment across land, sea and air domains. In addition, Finland will provide economic assistance, impose economic and other costs on Russia”.
Also mentioned is Russian complicity in war crimes against Ukraine, and Finland undertakes to ensure there is no “impunity” for war crimes for Russian leaders. It affirms that: “the Russian Federation must be held accountable for the damages caused by its internationally wrongful acts in and against Ukraine”.
Eight NATO members have now signed such deals with Ukraine. The first was the United Kingdom in January, followed by Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and now Finland. The deals have been characterised as creating a ‘NATO lite’-type security guarantees for Ukraine with key alliance members on a quasi-bilateral basis without actually inducting Ukraine into the alliance.
Quote:Russian troops launched waves of Shahed drones against the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv overnight, killing four people and wounding 12, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Thursday.
Ukrainian soldiers shot down 11 of the 20 drones Russia launched over Ukraine during the night, the General Staff said.
Three rescuers in Kharkiv were killed when Russia struck a multistory building damaged in an earlier strike, local authorities said. Six people were wounded at that location. Another 14-story building was hit by a drone, killing a 69-year-old woman.
Kharkiv has been a frequent target for Russian troops in recent weeks. The eastern city is close to the border with Russia and has been hit with both ballistic missiles and drones.
A massive missile attack that aimed to significantly damage Ukraine´s energy infrastructure plunged most of Kharkiv into darkness, and the situation there is still being stabilized.
“Each manifestation of Russian terror once again proves that the country-terrorist deserves only one thing – a tribunal,” Ukraine´ human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, published on Telegram in response to the attack.
Quote:The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry on Thursday expressed outrage at China for stepping forward to accept messages of sympathy from around the world for the deadly earthquake that struck eastern Taiwan on Wednesday morning.
Even as Taiwanese rescue workers were still working to recover earthquake victims and restore power and transportation to the disaster area, China’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.), Geng Shuang, decided it would be a good time to reassert that Beijing truly “owns” the democratically governed autonomous island, so all condolences should be directed to the Chinese Communist Party.
Geng was attending a U.N. meeting about children’s rights when another of the participants mentioned the Taiwan earthquake. Geng said that his government was “concerned” about the damage to “China’s Taiwan” and was prepared to render assistance.
“We thank the international community for its expressions of sympathy and concern,” he said.
This was too much for the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), which issued a statement saying it “solemnly condemns China’s shameless use of the Taiwan earthquake to conduct cognitive operations internationally.”
MOFA said Geng’s remarks demonstrate that China “has no goodwill towards Taiwan.”
Taiwan and China had a testy exchange on Wednesday when Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Office rebuffed an offer of earthquake assistance from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
“We noticed that the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office had expressed concern about the earthquake in waters off Hualien this morning. We greatly appreciate its concern, but there is no need for the mainland side to assist us in disaster relief,” the Taiwanese office said.
Time magazine on Thursday recalled that China and Taiwan had a comparably tense exchange after the devastating Taiwan earthquake of 1999. In fact, “lingering bitterness” from the earlier quake could be one reason the Mainland Affairs Office was so brusque with its Chinese counterpart.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:An unusual East Coast earthquake shook millions of people from New York and Philadelphia skyscrapers to rural New England on Friday, causing no widespread damage but startling an area unaccustomed to temblors.
The U.S. Geological Survey said over 42 million people might have felt the midmorning quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8, centered near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, or about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of New York City and 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Philadelphia.
People from Baltimore to Boston and beyond felt the ground shake. Nearly 30 people were displaced when officials evacuated three multifamily homes in Newark, New Jersey, to check for damage. Officials around the region were inspecting bridges and other major infrastructure, some flights were diverted or delayed, Amtrak slowed trains throughout the busy Northeast Corridor, and a Philadelphia-area commuter rail line suspended service as a precaution.
Pictures and decorative plates tumbled off the wall in Christiann Thompson’s house near Whitehouse Station, she said, relaying what her husband had told her by phone as she volunteered at a library.
“The dogs lost their minds and got very terrified and ran around,” she said.
Whitehouse Station Fire Chief Tim Apgar said no injuries were reported, but responders fielded some calls from people who smelled gas. Nearby, the upper portion of the 264-year-old Col. John Taylor’s Grist Mill historic site collapsed onto a roadway, according to Readington Township Mayor Adam Mueller.
In a 26th-floor midtown Manhattan office, Shawn Clark felt the quake and initially feared an explosion or construction accident. It was “pretty weird and scary,” the attorney said.
Earthquakes are less common on the eastern than western edges of the U.S. because the East Coast does not lie on a boundary of tectonic plates. But 13 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or stronger have been recorded since 1950 within 500 km (311 miles) of Friday’s temblor, the USGS said. The strongest was a 5.8-magnitude quake in Mineral, Virginia, on Aug. 23, 2011, that jolted people from Georgia to Canada.
Rocks under the East Coast are better than their western counterparts at spreading earthquake energy across long distances, scientists note.
“If we had the same magnitude quake in California, it probably wouldn’t be felt nearly as far away,” said USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso.
Over a dozen aftershocks were reported in the ensuing hours in the region, including a 4.0-magnitude quake early Friday evening, according to the USGS.
Quote:Migrants at the United States-Mexico border say they “want [President Joe] Biden to win” the 2024 presidential election, while others hope to get released into the nation’s interior before election day — knowing their chances will be nearly eliminated under a second term of former President Donald Trump.
In interviews with The Free Press’s Peter Savodnik, migrants waiting to cross the southern border said they vastly prefer Biden to Trump in this year’s election, primarily because they say their chances of being freed into the U.S. interior are high with the current administration.
With Trump, though, they see those chances as disappearing.
“I want Biden to win,”45-year-old Daniel Cortez of Honduras, currently living in a migrant camp in northern Mexico, told Savodnik.
Richard Betancourt, a 46-year-old Venezuelan citizen also living at the migrant camp, said, “If it’s Trump, it doesn’t matter how much I work or want to work, they won’t let me in.”
Alejandra Falcon, a 26-year-old Venezuelan citizen, said she is waiting to use the magic words — “credible fear” — to get into the U.S. after scheduling a border appointment via Biden’s “CBP One” mobile app.
Falcon told Savodnik she is not particularly worried about what will become her life after crossing the border. Instead, she is concerned with who wins on November 5. Mainly, she wants to get into the U.S. before that day to secure her chances of staying.
“If [Biden] doesn’t win, I can’t imagine what will happen,” Falcon said.
Quote:On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby stated that Israel hasn’t fulfilled its duty to protect civilians and allow humanitarian assistance and “we have tens of thousands of dead and injured Palestinians. Now, some of them are Hamas, no question about that. But the toll’s just been too high.”
Kirby said that Hamas has to be totally eliminated and there was a ceasefire on October 6 that Hamas broke.
Host Martha MacCallum then asked, “Isn’t it Hamas’ fault that these people are suffering?”
Kirby responded, “Hamas started this war, as you said, no question about that, this conflict wouldn’t exist without Mr. Sinwar’s decision to violate that ceasefire, but what we’ve also said is that, Israel, in addition to having the obligation to go eliminate that threat, they also have an obligation to do everything possible to protect civilians and to allow humanitarian assistance. And we just haven’t seen them meet those obligations to the degree that’s needed. I mean, we have tens of thousands of dead and injured Palestinians. Now, some of them are Hamas, no question about that. But the toll’s just been too high. We want Israel to succeed here, of course we do, but how they do it matters as well, for the long-term, for their own security.”
In March, President Joe Biden said that “you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas].”
Then allow them to finish the job without any more pressures from the WH, you idiot.
Quote:On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby responded to questions on how the 2021 U.S. strike in Afghanistan that killed an aid worker is different from the Israeli strike that killed World Central Kitchen workers are different by stating that it’s “imprudent to try to compare two things that happened three years apart in two different conflicts.” And there was an independent investigation of the Afghanistan strike, “and that independent investigator found that there was no need for personal accountability to be had, but did find that the U.S. military needed to make some systemic changes, procedural changes in how we looked at intelligence and acted on that intelligence.”
Host Martha MacCallum asked, [relevant exchange begins around 3:25] “When we left Afghanistan, we had a similar, tragic Hellfire missile attack that landed and killed ten people, a man who was carrying water, bringing water as part of humanitarian aid, and, at that point, when you were asked, what are we going to do about that, who’s accountable for that? This is what you said, John.”
She then played video of Kirby saying, “None of their recommendations dealt specifically with issues of accountability. … So, I do not anticipate there being issues of personal accountability to be had with respect to the August 29 airstrike.”
MacCallum then asked, “So, there were seven children that were killed by that U.S. Hellfire missile, no accountability, you said, was part of the plan. So, why is this so different than what we did there?”
Kirby answered, “Well, look, these are events that happened three years apart, two different geographic locations, two different countries, two different sets of circumstances, two different types of threat[s] that were being evaluated, and [two completely] different militaries that were involved, with two different chains of command. So, I think we’ve got to be careful comparing both events too closely. We, too, had an independent investigation, Martha, of that incident, and that independent investigator found that there was no need for personal accountability to be had, but did find that the U.S. military needed to make some systemic changes, procedural changes in how we looked at intelligence and acted on that intelligence. The Israelis, similarly, have said the same thing about this event this week with the WCK strike, that they’re going to make some systemic changes. Now, we’re glad to hear that and we’re going to be watching to see what those changes are and how they can put them into effect. But these are two different events.”
MacCallum then cut in to say, “They’re not that different though, John. … This was a trigger moment, it appears, for the White House, because, obviously, the momentum has been building to take a harder line against Israel and their tactics, but this was the event that really pushed things over the edge. And so, why is it so different, in terms of what Israel carried out, in the midst of war — and these aid workers, and my heart breaks for them, as it does for the seven children who were with this man underneath this Hellfire missile — but the aid workers know that they are in a war zone and that they are taking a tremendous risk, at risk of their own safety.”
Quote:Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder dodged a question Thursday about why no one in the U.S. was held accountable for a mistaken 2021 drone strike, while demanding Israel punish officials for a similar incident.
As Breitbart News reported at the time, the Biden administration claimed that a drone strike on a target in Kabul was a “righteous” strike on a terrorist in the wake of the attack on the international airport that killed 13 U.S. personnel.
Later, the U.S. admitted that the drone attack had targeted an innocent aid worker, who died along with two adults and seven children from his family. No one was ever fired, or reprimanded, for the mistake or the false explanation.
Yet in recent days, President Joe Biden and White House officials have demanded that Israel hold officials accountable for a mistaken drone strike on World Central Kitchen aid workers who were mistaken for terrorists.
The question was posed by Washington Times reporter Mike Glenn. From the Pentagon’s own transcript:
Q: Yes. Thanks, Pat. In August 21, 2021, the U.S. launched a drone strike that killed seven children and three adults for several days. People in this building, including your predecessor and the former chairman, insisted it was a righteous nation. Nobody was punished for it. Nobody lost their job over it. I mean, is it really — is the U.S. really in a position to be outraged about what happened in Israel since it seems to almost mirror what happened in the — what the U.S did in Afghanistan?
GEN. RYDER: Yes, Mike, I mean, I – I appreciate the question but, you know, I – I – I’m not going to be able to talk about the past. All I can talk about today is the present. And the fact is, you know, seven civilians who were delivering food to people who are in extreme need were killed in an airstrike. So it’s a tragic situation, I think we can all agree. And so I’ll just leave it there.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby, who demanded accountability from Israel this week for the World Central Kitchen tragedy, said in 2021 that no U.S. officials or soldiers would be blamed for the Kabul strike: “What we saw here was a breakdown in process, and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership,” he said, when he was the Pentagon’s spokesman.
So killing innocent people doesn't matter if you're in charge of any US military branch?
Quote:President Joe Biden repeated a debunked lie on Thursday that he has traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Biden said Thursday at a Greek Independence Day Reception:
I was once asked by Xi Jinping in — I traveled 17,000 miles with him in Tibet. I was on the Tibetan Plateau. And he looked at me, and he said to me, ‘Can you define America?’ And I could say the same thing if he asked me to define Greece. I said, ‘Yes, one word,’ — and I mean this sincerely; it’s reg- — it’s recorded. I said, ‘One word: possibilities.’ ‘Possibilities.’
There is no evidence Biden ever traveled 17,000 miles with Xi.
The Washington Post‘s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, in 2021 even gave Biden three Pinocchios for the claim. As Kessler pointed out, Biden has been repeating this story since 2016, with no evidence to back it up.
Ironically, Politico associate editor Catherine Kim wrote in a recent newsletter that it was former President Donald Trump — not Biden — that has touted his relationship with Xi.
Kim wrote:
Even amidst his threats of tariffs, the former president has never held back on his praise for Xi, recently calling him a ‘very good friend of mine during my term.’ Biden does not share the same admiration: He’s publicly called Xi a dictator, a term that has received vigorous pushback from China’s foreign ministry.
Kim also highlighted a New York Times report that alleged that China had launched a social media operation to help Trump win in 2024.
Quote:Hollywood star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has expressed regret about endorsing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back in 2020, saying his decision stoked division that he doesn’t want to see happen again.
As a result, the actor said he won’t be endorsing any presidential candidates in 2024.
In an interview with Fox News this week, Dwayne Johnson admitted he isn’t happy with the current state of the U.S., though he stopped short of blaming the Biden administration.
‘The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time,’ he told Will Cain on Fox and Friends. “I realize now going into this election, I will not do that.”
“My goal is to bring this country together,” he added. “I will keep my politics to myself. It is between me and the ballot box. Like a lot of us out there, not trusting of all politicians, I do trust the American people and whoever they vote for that is my president and who I will support 100 percent.”
Quote:The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others rejected on Thursday arguments by the former president that the indictment seeks to criminalize political speech protected by the First Amendment.
The indictment issued in August by a Fulton County grand jury accused Trump and 18 others of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia after the Republican incumbent narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s attorneys argued that all the charges against him involved political speech that is protected even if the speech ends up being false.
But Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote that at this pretrial stage he must consider the language of the indictment in a light favorable to the prosecution. The charges do not suggest that Trump and the others are being prosecuted simply for making false statements but rather that they acted willfully and knowingly to harm the government, he wrote.
“Even core political speech addressing matters of public concern is not impenetrable from prosecution if allegedly used to further criminal activity,” the judge wrote.
He added that even lawful acts involving speech protected by the First Amendment can be used to support a charge under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, which prosecutors used in this case.
But McAfee did leave open the possibility that Trump and others could raise similar arguments “at the appropriate time after the establishment of a factual record.”
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, said in an email that Trump and the other defendants “respectfully disagree with Judge McAfee’s order and will continue to evaluate their options regarding the First Amendment challenges.” He called it significant that McAfee made it clear they could raise their challenges again later.
Quote:New York Attorney General Letitia James is questioning whether the surety company covering former President Donald Trump’s $175 million bond is capable of fulfilling its obligation.
On April 1, Trump posted a $175 million bond to prevent James from seizing assets after an appeals court ruled the former president could post the bond amount to cover a civil fraud judgment of $464 million.
The appeals court ruling guaranteed Trump could appeal the judgment.
The firm that underwrote the bond is Knight Specialty Insurance Company. The company essentially promised to cover the $175 million bond if Trump loses his appeal and fails to pay. Trump paid Knight Specialty Insurance Company a fee and pledged cash as collateral to obtain Knight Specialty Insurance Company’s coverage.
James questions the company’s ability to cover the sum of the bond, a Thursday court filing showed. Judge Arthur Engoron, who determined Trump’s civil judgment, tentatively scheduled a hearing for April 22 to discuss James objections, the New York Times reported:
In a court filing on Thursday, Ms. James noted that Knight was not registered to issue appeal bonds in New York, and so she demanded that the company or Mr. Trump’s lawyers file paperwork to “justify” the bond within 10 days. Ms. James is seeking to clarify whether Knight, which had never posted a similar court bond before aiding Mr. Trump, is financially capable of fulfilling its obligation to pay the $175 million if Mr. Trump defaults.
Even if Knight lacks the funds itself, the company should be able to tap the collateral Mr. Trump pledged.
In a statement on Thursday, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, slammed Ms. James, calling her case a “baseless and vindictive political crusade” and her objections to the bond an effort “to stir up some equally baseless public quarrel in a desperate effort to regain relevance.”
Quote:Top House Republicans this week subpoenaed Biden business records linked to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business associate.
The records are related to “AlixPartners,” an entity that apparently holds documents related to the Biden business.
AlixPartners is a global advisory firm under the leadership of Simon Freakley, who allegedly offered his children counseling the day of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory.
“We along with @JudiciaryGOP are subpoenaing certain records in the possession, custody, or control of Devon Archer that are relevant to the impeachment inquiry,” the House Oversight Committee posted on X.
During Archer’s transcribed interview with investigators in July 2023, he said AlixPartners held documents that were of interest to House investigators.
Archer’s transcript reads:
Investigator: Do you have any text messages or emails with any Burisma associates or Hunter Biden or any other Biden associates in your possession?
Archer: No.
Investigator: Where are they?
Archer: They would be easily found in my discovery from my case.
Investigator: What about related to Rosemont Seneca Partners? Are all of your — are all of the materials related to Rosemont —
Archer: Yeah, I don’t have — like, as far as documents, I don’t have any — I don’t have — I barely have email.
Investigator: Is there any —
Archer: I don’t have a computer.
Investigator: Excuse me?
Archer: I don’t have a computer.
Investigator: Is there anyone holding any of your documents that you’re aware of at the moment?
Archer: AlixPartners.
Investigator: What documents are they holding?
Archer’s Lawyer: Sorry. They are retained through counsel. So that’s us.
Investigator: So you have the documents. Boies Schiller has —
Archer’s Lawyer: We have some documents. I’m not saying responsive to your specific question. We have some documents.
Archer is widely known for telling the impeachment inquiry that Hunter placed Joe Biden on speakerphone multiple times with his business associates.
Quote:A Southwest Airlines flight is under investigation after it nearly hit LaGuardia Airport’s air traffic control tower on March 23 during inclement weather.
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are working to determine what happened when Southwest Airlines flight 147, which was journeying from Nashville to New York City, veered off course as it tried to land that afternoon, the New York Post reported on Friday.
At the time, the weather caused extremely low visibility, per NBC New York.
When the pilots received the green light a second time to land, an air traffic controller told the pilots, “Go around! Go around! Fly runway heading climb and maintain 2,000! Climb and maintain 2,000! Two thousand!”
The plane had dropped so low that the controllers saw the bottom of the aircraft as it flew past them, according to the NBC report. Per the Post, the controller said the plane failed to line up with the runway.
After being diverted to Baltimore, the flight landed safely.
An airline spokesperson said leaders are reviewing what happened as part of its safety systems.
Quote:Thieves made off with approximately $30 million on Easter Sunday in “one of the largest cash heists in Los Angeles history,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
The heist took place on Sunday night at a money storage facility in Sylmar, where cash from businesses in the region is handled and stored, said L.A. Police Department Cmdr. Elaine Morales.
Morales said the culprits were able to access the building, as well as the safe where the money was kept.
“Law enforcement sources said the burglary was among the largest in city history when it comes to cash, and the total also surpassed any armored-car heist in the city,” according to the report.
“Sources familiar with the investigation told The Times that a burglary crew broke through the roof of the Gardaworld building on Roxford Street to gain access to the vault. But it is unclear how they avoided the alarm system,” the report continues, noting that the Canada-based company did not respond to requests for comment.
Business operators did not discover the theft until they opened on Monday. A local news helicopter video revealed a “large cut on the side of the building covered by a piece of plywood,” the report states.
Quote:Over a dozen military jets were destroyed or damaged in a massive drone strike against a Russian airbase overnight, Kyiv claims, while asserting a like-for-like drone strike by Russian forces against a Ukrainian base failed to damage aircraft.
Ukraine launched one of its largest drone strikes against Russia of the war overnight, they said on Friday morning, claiming some 50 drones were sent to a military airfield in Morozovsk, Rostov Oblast around 60 miles east of the Ukrainian border. A statement by Ukrainian intelligence services, which launched the raid, claimed the Russian airbase is home to Su-34 fast bomber and and Su-27 fighter jets.
The Ukrainian intelligence agency hailed the “impressive” outcome of their operation, claiming “at least” six Russian military aircraft destroyed and eight damaged, as well as 20 Russian soldiers killed or injured. They said the “special operation” would “significantly reduce the combat potential” of Russia to strike at Ukraine.
As is typical in the Ukraine war, Moscow had its own version of events, stating it had shot down or otherwise intercepted 44 drones in the Morozovsky area and that the only damage was to a local power substation.
Meanwhile, Russia launched its own drone and missile strikes against Ukraine overnight, also targeting a military airfield as both sides apparently attempt to degrade the airpower of the other without resorting to the complex business of shooting down jets mid-flight. Ukraine dismissed the effectiveness of the Russian strike, saying that while hangar buildings at the Korotych airfield near Kharkiv were indeed damaged, the facility is actually disused so there was no equipment or personnel present to be hit.
Fighting the Russian air force is a particular priority for Ukraine, particularly as Russia switches its strategy to launching large numbers of cheap, plentiful, and powerful glide bombs at Ukrainian positions. Converted from legacy Soviet-era ‘dumb’ munitions, glide bombs kits strap folding wings, a control tail, and simple satellite navigation kit to the bombs to make a cost-effective guided weapon.
Each of the converted KAB-1500 bombs weighs one and a half tons or 33,000 pounds, most of which is the high explosive warhead.
Quote:Russia needs a stronger deterrence to stop its aggressive moves on mainland Europe and a UK reintroduction of conscription would go some way to foiling Moscow’s predatory ambitions, Estonia Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said Thursday.
Kallas made her call during an interview with the BBC in her prime ministerial office in Tallinn.
Estonia’s leader since 2021 sees conscription as another integral part of both providing a deterrence to Russia but also stronger defence if it does attack.
“We have a reserve army of 44,000 people that would equal, for Great Britain, around two million people. Two million people who are ready to defend their country and know what they have to do,” she told her interviewer.
After she mentions Britain unprompted, she was asked whether she would in fact recommend conscription to the UK as others already have.
“Of course, every country decides for themselves, we are all democracies, but I recommend this in many aspects.”
Kallas was reminded that the head of the British Army was rebuked by Downing Street after saying Britain should train a “citizen army” ready to fight a war on land in the future and quickly responded.
“Well it doesn’t surprise me because we have different historical backgrounds. We have lost our independence and freedom once and we don’t want to lose it again. They say that you only understand freedom and what it means when you don’t have it.”
Quote:A former advisor to President Emmanuel Macron has warned that if France continues down the same path with the green agenda, the country will likely face a “social revolt” far greater than the Yellow Vest movement or the recent bout of farmer protests.
“It’s going to end very badly,” warned David Djaïz in an interview this week with the Paris-based conservative news magazine Le Point.
The left-wing public intellectual and Emmanuel Macron’s former rapporteur for the government’s National Council for Refoundation (CNR) accused the government and political elites in France of being “content to manage the decline”.
Djaïz, an ardent believer in the need for a green transition of the economy in France and in Europe as a whole, argued that there is a “deficit of strategic thinking” in the halls of power, saying: “I saw from the inside how intellectually and operationally the state was exhausted.”
“This is going to end very badly. France could experience a huge public finance crisis, or a social revolt compared to which the Yellow Vests and the farmers are appetizers,” he warned.
Populist uprisings have been a defining feature of the government of Macron, a former Rothschild banker who has been branded as the “president of the rich“.
In 2018, the Yellow Vest movement — Named after the yellow safety vests French motorists are required to keep in their vehicles — threw the country into chaos as hundreds of thousands protested for months against Macron’s attempts to impose burdensome carbon taxes, which would have had a disproportionate impact on the working-class people, particularly commuters.
More recently, weeks of farmer protests shut down major highways throughout France amid a Europe-wide uprising against the Green New Deal agenda, globalist free trade schemes, and mountains of regulations and paperwork threatening the ability of farmers throughout the bloc to stay in business.
MIDDLE EAST
General Salami
Even if his surname sounds like an April fools' joke, it's totally real, guys!
Quote:The commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami, taunted the U.S. on Friday by declaring it “wildly hated by the world, especially in Muslim-dominated countries.”
AP reports Salami spoke against a backdrop of thousands chanting “death to Israel” and “death to America” as they marched in a funeral procession in Tehran for the seven Revolutionary Guard members killed in an airstrike widely attributed to Israel that destroyed Iran’s Consulate in the Syrian capital.
“The Zionist regime is like a dagger that the satanic British regime stabbed the body of the Islamic nation with 75 years ago,” Salami said, adding that the “Zionist regime is still alive with the United States’ artificial respiration.”
The mass public display came at a time of heightened concerns about possible retaliation by Iran for Monday’s strike that killed 12 people, including four Syrian citizens and a member of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group, according to officials cited by AP.
The protesters in the capital headed to Tehran University where Salami gave his speech that promised “no threat will go unanswered” in retaliation for Israel’s apparent strike, the AP report set out.
“The collapse of (the Zionist regime) is very possible and close with God’s grace,” Salami continued, adding the U.S. has become “wildly hated by the world, especially in Muslim-dominated countries.”
The public funeral coincided with Iran’s annual rally Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, a traditional show of support for the Palestinians that has been held on the last Friday of Ramadan since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Quote:Radio Farda on Friday quoted sources affiliated with Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon that have been holding “secret strategy sessions” with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Lebanese Hezbollah’s underground lairs.
According to Radio Farda’s sources, the meetings began a few weeks ago and have featured appearances from high-ranking Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers.
One of those IRGC officers, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was killed on April 1 in an airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Iran has vowed revenge against Israel for the strike, and the Israelis are taking the threat seriously by shifting to a war footing.
Representatives of Yemen’s Houthi insurgents, who have wantonly attacked international shipping in the Red Sea for months and largely shut down one of the world’s most important sea lanes, also reportedly attended the Lebanon strategy sessions.
The hosts for the secret meetings were Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorists, who have themselves been launching rockets and drones at civilian targets in northern Israel. Since the early days of the Gaza war, Israel has been concerned that Hezbollah might attack in force and open a new battlefront in Lebanon.
On Friday, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised speech in which he declared support for Iran’s “right” to “punish” Israel for the airstrike that killed Zahedi. Nasrallah described that strike as a “turning point” in the regional conflict.
“Be certain, be sure, that the Iranian response to the targeting of the consulate in Damascus is definitely coming against Israel,” Nasrallah said, boasting that his forces could support Iran with weapons they have not revealed yet.
Regional analysts suspect Iran does not relish the prospect of directly attacking Israel and would much prefer to continue operating through terrorist proxies. The notion that all of those proxies have been gathering for secret strategy sessions with Iranian officers and Hamas representatives is troubling.
Quote:Maysr al-Jabouri, a leading Iraqi jihadist widely known by the alias “Abu Maria al-Qahtani,” was killed on Thursday by a suicide bomber. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing, but the rival militants of the Islamic State are the most likely suspects.
Qahtani was a former Iraqi insurgent who fought against U.S. troops in the early 2000s. He migrated to Syria and became a co-founder of Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front — al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria during the long and bloody civil war against dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The Nusra Front eventually sought to distance itself from al-Qaeda, rebranding itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2016. HTS became one of the most powerful elements of the loose anti-Assad jihadi coalition after international attention turned to the rising Islamic State and the “caliphate” it carved from captured territory in Syria and Iraq.
In August 2023, Qahtani fell out with HTS, which suspended him from its leadership for “improper use of social media and external communications.” The terrorist group he co-founded imprisoned him for about seven months until he was acquitted on March 7.
The precise circumstances of his downfall were a bit murky, but he was suspended shortly after a close associate named Abu Yazan al-Dairi was accused of communicating with the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition in Syria. Qahtani became an outspoken critic of al-Qaeda around the time of the Nusra Front / HTS schism, so some observers saw his suspension as revenge by al-Qaeda loyalists.
The Assad regime ultimately prevailed in the Syrian civil war with help from Russia and Iran, but HTS and some other jihadi groups still control some territory in Syria. HTS currently controls about half of Syria’s Idlib province.
The local population has been protesting against the harsh misrule of the jihadis, who have brought widespread starvation and poverty to the towns they control. HTS and its current leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, responded with harsh crackdowns on protesters and the murder of dissenters.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Friday that it had concluded its probe into the deaths of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen, noting the reasons for the mistake and holding several officers accountable.
The IDF had fired on the convoy in the sincere but mistaken belief that it contained Hamas gunmen, after one gunman had been identified atop one of the vehicles earlier in the night, but before the convoy had entered a local warehouse. The WCK logo, painted atop the vehicles, was not visible at night to the infrared cameras used by drones.
Still, the IDF fired two officers and reprimanded several others for what it said were violations of regulations.
In a statement, the IDF said (translated from Hebrew by the author, with assistance from Google Translate):
Yesterday (Thursday), the investigation of the difficult incident in which seven workers of the humanitarian organization WCK were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of the fire of our forces was completed. The investigation was carried out by the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s investigation mechanism led by Major General Yoav Har-Even, and was presented to the Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.
The event took place on April 1, 2024, during an operation to transfer humanitarian aid of the WCK organization to the Gaza Strip. The investigation shows that the IDF forces identified one gunman on one of the aid trucks, and later believed that there was another gunman.
After the vehicles left the warehouse where the aid was unloaded, one of the commanders mistakenly believed that the armed men were in the escort vehicles and that they were Hamas terrorists. The forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with the WCK organization.
Following a misidentification, the forces attacked the three WCK vehicles, based on the misunderstanding that there were Hamas operatives in them, thus resulting in the death of seven innocent humanitarian aid operatives. The attack on the three vehicles was carried out in serious violation of the relevant orders and instructions.
The conclusions of the investigation show that the incident could have been prevented, and at the same time, those who approved the attack were convinced that they were attacking armed Hamas operatives and not WCK operatives. The damage to the aid vehicles is a serious mistake, which resulted from a serious failure, as a result of wrong identification, a mistake in decision-making and an attack contrary to the orders and instructions to open fire.
After the findings of the investigation were presented, and following the dire consequences of the incident, the Chief of Staff decided to take the following command steps: against the brigade support commander, an officer with the rank of major, removal procedures will be taken. Removal procedures will be taken against the brigade commander, an officer with the rank of colonel in the reserves.
In addition, processes of command reprimand will be taken against the brigade commander and the commander of division 162. Also, the Chief of Staff decided to reprimand the commander of the Southern Command for his overall responsibility for the incident.
The IDF takes seriously the serious incident that claimed the lives of seven innocent, uninvolved humanitarian aid personnel. We express our deep sorrow for the loss, and share in the grief of the families and the WCK organization. We attach the utmost importance to the vital humanitarian activities of the international aid organizations, and we will continue to work to coordinate and assist their activities, while ensuring their safety and safeguarding their lives. The laws of war and the avoidance of harm to innocents. The IDF will learn the lessons of the incident, and will assimilate the necessary lessons for future events.
The reprimand to the head of the IDF’s Southern Command, General Yaron Finkelman, is a serious measure and a possible blow to military morale. Finkelman has been an inspirational figure to Israeli soldiers and the public since the start of the war, when he broadcast an uplifting message to soldiers who were about to head into battle in Gaza.
The IDF will also require humanitarian aid vehicles to use special stickers that are visible to infrared cameras, the Times of Israel reports.
Quote:On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Netanyahu Spokesperson Tal Heinrich said that Netanyahu and President Joe Biden had a “good call” and the U.S. and Israel agree on the need to eliminate Hamas while minimizing civilian harm and the desire to free the hostages. She also responded to the Biden administration threatening changes in its policy if Israel doesn’t change by saying that “People have to understand that Hamas, they want international pressure to be applied on Israel instead of on them” and “there will be no humanitarian pause in the fighting, no ceasefire that will leave our hostages in Gaza and leave Hamas in power. That is unacceptable on our end.”
Co-host Sandra Smith played video of Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying, “With regard to our policy in Gaza, look, I’ll just say this, if we don’t see the changes that we need to see, there will be changes in our own policy.”
Smith then asked, “So, this is the messaging. How would you characterize this moment in the war?”
Heinrich responded, “You see — first, it’s every moment in this war, including right now, is a moment for moral clarity. This is another moment for moral clarity. People have to understand that Hamas, they want international pressure to be applied on Israel instead of on them and, again, let them live another day and stay in power. There’s a lot of talk I’m hearing about an immediate humanitarian pause in the fighting, so to say, a ceasefire. It’s important to understand, there will be no humanitarian pause in the fighting, no ceasefire that will leave our hostages in Gaza and leave Hamas in power. That is unacceptable on our end.”
Heinrich also stated that the U.S. will have to explain what it means by changes in policy.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:President Joe Biden is using the Baltimore Bridge disaster to smuggle illegal migrants into Maryland’s politics, saying, “Six [men] lost their lives: Most were immigrants, but all were Marylanders.”
There is no evidence the migrants were legal migrants — and much evidence that they were illegal migrants.
Biden’s solicitous speech in Baltimore on Friday shows that his administration is doubling down on its welcome for the huge inflow of at least seven million southern migrants since 2021. The welcome policy is being pushed by the wealthy West Coast investors who fund the FWD.us advocacy group.
The president of the FWD.us group, Todd Schulte, posted a statement accompanying Biden’s speech:
Last week’s terrible tragedy on the Francis Scott Key Bridge once again brought into sharp relief the enormous risks and countless contributions that undocumented [illegal migrant] members of our communities make every single day, all across our country. We’re glad to see President Biden meeting with their families and loved ones – and we agree with their families that it is essential to honor their memories is by providing protections from deportation and expanding work authorization so that more people can stay safe and together with their loved ones.
“We encourage you to read more from our [left-wing, pro-migration] partners at CASA,” added FWD.us, whose wealthy members gain stock market wealth as Biden imports more consumers, renters, and workers.
The FWD.us group funds many an army of advocacy and media groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus. The far-left CASA is a “partner” of FWD.us.
CASA’s leader, Gustavo Torres, was recently slammed for participating in a pro-Hamas rally. Torres spoke at a March 29 event, where he and his members chanted socialist slogans and pumped their fists as they urged Biden to grant “Temporary Protected Status” — a renewable award of temporary legal status — to migrants from Central America.
However, Biden’s election-year shift towards illegal migrant Latinos may spur an election-shifting reaction from black voters.
Ernst Accusses Biden of Stealing from Veteran Heroes
Quote:Democrat President Joe Biden’s border crisis is so “out of control” that his administration is “willing to steal from our nation’s heroes and divert resources away from their care,” charged Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who reiterated her dedication to fighting the current administration’s outrageous redirection of resources from veterans to illegal immigrants.
As the border crisis under Biden worsens, Ernst, who is the Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair, is standing up for border security and veterans’ rights.
Demanding a halt to the diversion of veterans’ resources to illegal immigrants, Ernst is supporting legislation to prevent the current administration from “stealing” veterans’ funds and misusing them.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Friday, Ernst, a combat veteran, called out the president for prioritizing immigrants and redirecting resources from veterans amid the deteriorating border crisis.
“President Biden’s border crisis is so out of control that his administration is willing to steal from our nation’s heroes and divert resources away from their care,” she said.
“This shouldn’t be up for debate: immigrants who have broken our laws should not receive priority over American veterans, period,” she added, vowing to “continue demanding border security and standing up for those who defended our freedoms and way of life.”
The matter comes amid reports the Biden administration is leveraging resources and personnel at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide healthcare to illegal immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.
Quote:U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes slammed lawyers for the Department of Justice for refusing to comply with subpoenas issued by the U.S. House of Representatives when Peter Navarro is sitting in prison for the same conduct.
Navarro is serving a four-month sentence for refusing to obey a subpoena from the January 6 Committee. Navarro argued that it would have been a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers for a presidential aide to comply.
The Biden Department of Justice has relied on the same argument in shielding two of its lawyers, Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, from subpoenas by the House Judiciary Committee in its impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The committee wants to ask Daly and Morgan about their role in investigating the president’s son, Hunter Biden, for tax violations that were slow-walked and almost dropped before a federal judge in Delaware questioned a plea deal.
Politico reported:
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee on the federal District Court in Washington, spent nearly an hour accusing Justice Department attorneys of rank hypocrisy for instructing two other lawyers in the DOJ Tax Division not to comply with the House subpoenas.
“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” Reyes said, referring to the recent imprisonment of Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. … And you don’t have to show up?”
“I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up,” but then direct current executive branch employees to take the same approach, the judge added. “You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant.”
Quote:On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) stated that we should point out that Hamas is still attacking Israel by launching rockets at it.
Gottheimer stated, “I think there [are] a couple of facts we have to look at: One, you saw Israel take responsibility for that tragedy…by firing the general and holding others accountable. I think [those were] the right steps to take and the right action. I think the key we all need to focus on now is making sure that we can get to that temporary pause, that we can get the hostages freed, because remember, not only did Hamas kill more than 40 Americans, but they still have Americans that are hostage now…and part of what I was focused on these last days in Qatar and Egypt was, what are we doing to get the hostages home? And of course, how do we get more humanitarian aid, urgently, into Gaza? To me, those are the two major actions, and Israel, of course, is still dealing with rockets being fired into Israel. So, that’s in the reporting, I think critical to make a point of as well, if you had — Hamas attacked Israel, Israel is still dealing with rockets coming in, and, of course, you’re dealing with an ongoing conflict where Hamas has said they will do it a second and third and fourth time until Israel’s destroyed from the river to the sea and all the Jews are killed. So, there are certain facts that are a backdrop here that I think that — to try to paint a fuller picture.”
Quote:An incendiary device was thrown at a door of a synagogue in northwestern Germany on Friday but caused only minor damage, police said. No one was injured.
The incident in the city of Oldenburg happened early Friday afternoon. The fire was discovered quickly and didn’t spread, and the fire service didn’t need to extinguish it. No event was taking place in the building at the time.
Police said they were searching for the perpetrator but had no information on a motive.
Police chief Andreas Sagehorn condemned the “cowardly act” and said in a statement that “we will take this attack as grounds to raise the security measures at the Oldenburg synagogue immediately” while the investigation is ongoing.
Germany saw a large increase in anti-Jewish incidents following Hamas’ attack on Israel in October, and Israel’s subsequent attacks in Gaza.
Scottish Police Thinks Hate Speech Law is Problematic
Quote:Scottish police have warned that the controversial new hate speech law enacted by the leftist government of Humza Yousaf will force police to cut backs on the policing of actual crimes.
The head of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), David Threadgold, warned on Saturday that the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act will necessitate sacrificing other areas of policing due to the strain on officer time recording and investigating complaints of potential speech violations.
Police Scotland was bombarded with over 6,000 complaints since the new speech restrictions came into place on Monday, creating a vaguely-worded criminal offence of “stirring up hatred” against several protected groups with a maximum punishment of up to seven years in prison.
Speaking to The Scotsman, the SPF chairman said: “At some point in the next financial year, the police service will not do something because of the demand that it’s being placed under now… That will have an impact later on in the year, there’s no doubt about it.”
Threadgold explained that overtime payments for the increased demand on policing hours have not been budgeted for and that officers have not been adequately trained on how they are to enforce the speech codes, saying: “What we have been told is confusion is the word that reigns here.”
The former head of the Scottish Police Federation, Calum Steele added that estimates claiming the new hate speech law will add hundreds of thousands of pounds in police expenses are “probably conservative” and that Police Scotland will likely need to “salami slice” its budget to enforce the law.
Steele accused Police Scotland of being “negligently unprepared” and that many of the issues were “entirely foreseeable” but that the force “just did not prepare”.
Quote:Kyiv will lose the war against Russia if the U.S. fails to approve military aid to battle Moscow’s invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.
Tens of billions of dollars in military assistance for Kyiv has been blocked for months in Congress. The package faces resistance from House Republicans.
“It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” Zelensky said during a video meeting of Kyiv-organised fundraising platform United24, per AFP.
Zelensky said it would be “difficult” for Ukraine to “stay” (survive) without the latest aid on top of an estimated $113 billion already sent to Kyiv at the cost of $900 per American household.
He said that “if Ukraine loses the war, other states will be attacked.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than two years with an end no closer today than when Moscow first despatched its forces across the shared border.
Zelensky’s plea for more help from the U.S. came as Russian missile strikes overnight and on Saturday killed eight people and wounded 12 more, Ukraine officials said.
Quote:Officials at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant said that the site was attacked Sunday by Ukrainian military drones, including a strike on the dome of the plant’s sixth power unit.
According to the plant authorities, there was no critical damage or casualties and radiation levels at the plant were normal after the strikes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday that its experts had been informed of the drone strike and that “such detonation is consistent with IAEA observations.”
Without apportioning blame, the head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, warned of the safety risks of such attacks.
“I urge refraining from actions that contradict the 5 IAEA principles and jeopardize nuclear safety,” he said on the social media site X.
The power plant has been caught in the crossfire since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022 and seized the facility shortly after. The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe. Both Ukraine and Russia have regularly accused the other of attacking the plant, which is still close to the front lines.
The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
Quote:Russia’s government has declared the situation in flood-hit areas in the Orenburg region a federal emergency, state media reported.
The floods, caused by rising water levels in the Ural River, forced over 4,000 people, including 885 children, to evacuate, the regional government said. State news agency Tass said that a further 2,000 homes were flooded, bringing the total to nearly 6,300 in the region.
Russia’s Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov arrived in Orsk – one of the most hard-hit cities – on Sunday to supervise rescue operations.
“I propose classifying the situation in the Orenburg region as a federal emergency and establishing a federal level of response,” the minister said, according to RIA Novosti.
Orsk, less than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) north of the border with Kazakhstan, suffered the brunt of the floods which caused a dam to break on Friday, according to Orsk mayor Vasily Kozupitsa. By Sunday morning, 4,500 residential buildings in the city of 200,000 were flooded and evacuation efforts were still ongoing, Tass said.
A criminal probe has been launched to investigate suspected construction violations that may have caused the dam to break. Local authorities said the dam could withstand water levels up to 5.5 meters (nearly 18 feet). On Saturday morning, the water level reached about 9.3 meters (30.51 feet) and rising, Kozupitsa said. On Sunday, the level in Orsk reached 9.7 meters (31.82 feet), according to Russia’s water level information site AllRivers.
Authorities in Orsk reported that four people had died, but said their deaths were unrelated to the flooding.
Quote:A close ally of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico beat a pro-Western career diplomat to become Slovakia’s new president, and succeed Zuzana Caputová, the country’s first female head of state.
Parliamentary speaker Peter Pellegrini received 53.26% of the vote with the ballots from almost all polling stations counted by the Statistics Office in Saturday´s runoff election, topping former Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok who had 46.73%.
“I can promise I will be a president of all Slovak citizens,” Pellegrini said. “I can promise I’ll be always by the side of Slovakia.”
Pellegrini becomes Slovakia’s sixth president since the country gained independence after the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993.
Caputová, a staunch backer of neighboring Ukraine in its fight against Russia´s invasion, didn’t seek a second term in the largely ceremonial post.
Pellegrini’s victory cemented Fico’s grip on power by giving him and his allies control of major strategic posts.
The president of the nation of 5.4 million people picks the prime minister after parliamentary elections, swears in the new government and appoints Constitutional Court judges. The president can also veto laws, though Parliament can override the veto with a simple majority, and challenge them at the Constitutional Court. The head of state also has the right to pardon convicts.
The government, led by the prime minister, possesses most executive powers.
Fico’s leftist Smer (Direction) party won Sept. 30 parliamentary elections on a pro-Russian and anti-American platform.
Pellegrini, 48, who favors a strong role for the state, heads the left-wing Hlas (Voice) party that finished third in the vote and joined a governing coalition with Fico and the ultranationalist Slovak National Party.
Critics worry Slovakia under Fico will abandon its pro-Western course and follow the direction of Hungary under populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Quote:French soldiers have been invited to guard the British Royal Family’s London residence at Buckingham Palace for the first time in history, marking 120 years of friendly relations between the two nations.
On Monday, France will become the first country outside of the British Commonwealth to see its soldiers take part in the ceremonial Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
The event will mark the anniversary of the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 in which the rival nations agreed to fight on the same side in the First World War, which marked a dramatic improvement in relations between London and Paris.
The ceremony will see 32 soldiers from the Republican Guard of the National Gendarmerie march alongside 40 Guardsmen of the F Company Scots Guards in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace, GB News reports.
On the same day, 16 British troops from the Coldstream Guards will join soldiers from the Regiment de la Garde Republicaine during a similar ceremony for President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace.
Soldiers from the two nations were seen rehearsing the ceremony on Friday at Westminster’s Wellington Barracks, named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, precipitating his second and final abdication as French Emperor.
Quote:France will aim to renew ties with Africa and build “balanced partnerships” that are beneficial to the continent, the country’s top diplomat Stephane Sejourne said Saturday.
Relations have spiralled downwards between France and some former African colonies as the continent becomes a renewed diplomatic battleground, with Russian and Chinese influence growing.
Appointed in January, Sejourne began his first visit to Africa on Saturday in Kenya and will later head to Rwanda before making a final stop in Ivory Coast.
“France’s vocation will be to renew and build balanced, mutually respectful partnerships with African countries, for the benefit of all countries,” he said at a press briefing alongside his Kenyan counterpart Musalia Mudavadi.
“That’s what our roadmap is all about: diversifying these partnerships and making them beneficial for the countries in which we are going to invest.”
Sejourne said Africa was a “priority” of French foreign policy because the “continent is on the way to becoming a cultural, economic and diplomatic power… that will count in the world’s balance”.
In Kenya, an east African economic powerhouse, France has strengthened its commercial presence, with the number of French companies operating in the country almost tripling from 50 to 140 in a decade.
But a huge trade imbalance in favour of the European nation has cast a shadow on their relations.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) called the World Central Kitchen (WCK) after seeing a gunman mount one of its vehicles and fire into the air on Monday evening, but WCK could not reach its employees, according to a report.
That would suggest that Hamas might have tried to ensure that the IDF misidentified the WCK convoy as terrorists — a tactic consistent with Hamas’s use of civilian deaths to generate global pressure on Israel to stop the war in Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post reported that late Monday evening, before the WCK convoy reached a hangar, an IDF drone unit reported seeing a Hamas gunman climb the lead vehicle and fire into the air — a signal used by Hamas terrorists.
The IDF apparently called off airstrikes on the convoy at that point, and tried calling the aid workers. The Post noted:
As the events developed, the IDF tried to call the aid workers involved in the field and was unable to reach them.
Next, the IDF called the WCK headquarters. The WCK headquarters tried to call its own aid workers in the field, but they did not answer.
When vehicles left the hangar, the IDF drone unit believed that these were not the same vehicles and thought that these were Hamas vehicles or that around four Hamas operatives had joined or taken over the convoy.
The IDF mistook the WCK vehicles for Hamas vehicles because infrared cameras could not see the logo atop the vans.
As Breitbart News reported, the IDF will now require all aid vehicles to use a sticker that can be identified by infrared cameras. It is not clear what would prevent Hamas terrorists from stealing the stickers or using similar ones to hide.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday that it had withdrawn its forces from southern Gaza, following a demand from U.S. President Joe Biden last week for an “immediate ceasefire.” Hamas declared victory on the news.
The decision, coming on the day Israelis marked six months since the October 7 attack, came as a surprise, and as Israeli negotiators flew to Cairo for hostage negotiations. Hamas has demanded a ceasefire before any new deal.
The IDF will leave one brigade in Gaza, whose role will be to allow Israeli troops access to return as necessary. It will also carry out targeted operations, such as the successful raid at Shifa Hospital last month.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza.
...
Although a top IDF official said that this change had nothing to do with US pressure, the timing was unmistakable in coming right after the IDF’s disastrous mistaken killing of seven humanitarian aid workers last week.
...
Hamas immediately declared the IDF withdrawal, even partial, a victory for sticking to its position of demanding IDF withdrawals, including of troops in northern Gaza.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in response to the accidental killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers last Tuesday, when an IDF drone team mistook them for Hamas terrorists.
The incident was Hamas’s greatest success in the war: there is evidence that the terrorists deliberately confused the IDF about the vehicles. Hamas uses human shields and civilian casualties as part of its asymmetric war strategy.
Biden’s demand came after the U.S. had already allowed the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution that separated a ceasefire from a deal to return the remaining 130 or so Israeli hostages, adopting Hamas’s core demand.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:One of Donald Trump's co-defendants in his Georgia election interference case has threatened to launch legal action against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis if she "does not recuse herself from this case by noon on Monday."
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Harrison Floyd wrote: "I don't want to put a black woman in Jail. But if Fani Willis does not recuse herself from this case by noon on Monday, I may have no other choice than to pursue all lawful remedies. Make Fulton Great Again."
Floyd posted part of an article purportedly from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution suggesting that Willis' office shared a recording of a conversation Willis had with his attorney, Carlos J.R. Salvado, in an unrelated criminal case in Maryland.
Floyd suggested that Willis' office may have violated the Maryland Wiretap Act, under which it is unlawful to record any private in-person conversation or telephone communication unless you are a party to the conversation and have the permission of all of the parties.
Under Maryland's Wiretap Act, recording a private conversation without consent from both parties is punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.
Newsweek contacted the Fulton County District Attorney's office for comment outside of normal working hours.
Christopher Kachouroff, one of Floyd's attorneys, made the same accusation against Willis on Tuesday during an interview with Phil Holloway.
Referring to Willis he said: "She did reach out to us, one of my colleagues in Maryland, and was rude, abrupt with him on the phone, and he was dealing with the Maryland case and I was dealing with the Georgia case, and she ended up recording him."
Holloway asked Kachouroff whether he was suggesting Willis had illegally recorded the call, and he replied: "Oh yeah, it's a felony in Maryland."
In a separate X post on Wednesday, Floyd posted: "Fani Willis ILLEGALLY recorded a [phone emoji] call with my lawyer.
"Its a felony! She is a DEI [diversity, equality and inclusion] thug with a law license. Will anyone in GA stand up to her?"
Floyd, the former leader of Black Voices for Trump, is the only one of Trump's co-defendants to have been jailed in the Georgia case, between August 24 and 30, when a $100,000 bond was covered.
In November 2023, Judge Scott McAfee rejected prosecutors' bid to get his bail revoked following what they claimed was a "pattern of intimidation."
Up is down, left is right and sideways is straight ahead. - Cord "Circle of Iron", 1978 (written by Bruce Lee and James Coburn... really...)
Quote:Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) escalated her war against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) Tuesday with a missive that will greet weary lawmakers returning to the Capitol for a tense two-week legislative burst that might be the most treacherous period of Johnson’s speakership.
Greene’s letter is the latest attack in her weeks-long crusade against Johnson that gained legislative legitimacy when she filed a motion to vacate the chair on March 22. That motion could strip Johnson’s gavel just as the House did to then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in October.
She filed her motion the day Johnson passed a massive $1.2 trillion government funding plan over the objections of the majority of House Republicans, a move Greene says “broke our conference rules and the promises we made to our voters.”
The House adopted rules at the beginning of the 118th Congress intended to allow members at least 72 hours to review all legislation before voting. The 1,000-plus page spending bill was presented to members before 3:00 a.m. Eastern on Thursday morning, less than 36 hours before the vote.
More significantly, the bill was opposed by 112 Republicans, with only 101 Republican votes in support despite significant pressure from Johnson and his leadership team. By passing a bill under suspension of the rules – bypassing the Republican-controlled Rules Committee – and relying on Democrat support to pass a bill opposed by the majority of his party, Johnson violated the Hastert Rule, an informal rule that Republican speakers should never bring forward a bill opposed by the majority of his party.
Greene opposed that minibus – the second part of a two-tiered, or “laddered” omnibus spending bill – on its merits as well. She writes, “There is little daylight between Nancy Pelosi’s omnibus in the 117th Congress and Mike Johnson’s omnibus in the 118th Congress, in spite of Americans giving Republicans the majority in order to stop the Democrats’ ‘America Last’ destructive agenda.”
But her concerns with Johnson’s speakership are much broader than the months-long funding fight which culminated in the omnibus – almost six months after the original deadline, which occurred before Johnson grabbed the gavel.
Sometimes I get the impression MTG is simply getting too far or too unrealistic on these negotiation issues.
Quote:A New York appeals court judge on Tuesday permitted the full Appellate Division First Department to consider relaxing a sweeping gag order against former President Donald Trump.
The appellate court could reportedly decide to delay the criminal trial while it considers Trump’s gag order appeal.
Trump sued New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan in an appeals court on Monday to challenge the judge’s sweeping gag order. Merchan, who is presiding over the New York criminal case, imposed the gag order after news surfaced about a connection between Merchan’s daughter and conspiracy theorist Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
The gag order, as Breitbart News’s Nick Gilbertson reported, prevents Trump from making public comments about witnesses participating in the trial, counsel other than Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), “members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or … the family members of any counsel or staff member, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with … counsel’s or staff’s work” on the case. It also encompasses prospective jurors.
As soon as Monday, the day the trial is set to begin, the full Appellate Division First Department could rule on Trump’s request to lift the gag order, CBS News reported...
Quote:A seven-page juror questionnaire was released by the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s upcoming criminal trial in Manhattan.
Judge Juan Merchan released a questionnaire on Monday, consisting of 42 questions he will ask jurors as part of the process of selecting the jury for the trial, according to ABC News. The trial, which begins on April 15, centers around alleged hush-money payments Trump made to adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.
In one question on the questionnaire, jurors are asked which “print publications, cable and/or network programs, or online media” they read or have watched. Answers to the questions include the New York Times, USA Today, Huffington Post, Facebook, New York Post, Fox News, or Newsmax.
Another question asks if jurors, or a relative or close friend, have “ever worked or volunteered for a Trump presidential campaign, the Trump presidential administration, or any other political entity affiliated with Mr. Trump.”
“Have you ever attended a rally or campaign event for Donald Trump?” another question asks.
Quote:A group of anti-Israel protesters calling for Congress to support a ceasefire and end military aid to Israel shut down the Senate cafeteria.
The group of protesters, Christians for a Free Palestine, was captured on video in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and could be heard chanting, “We are Christians for Free Palestine,” “We are here to pray for the food of Gaza,” and “Our Scriptures say, ‘Woe to you! To eat while others go hungry,’ and ‘Woe to you! For there is famine in Gaza.'”
“Congress and their staff will not eat today,” the protesters can be heard saying in one video. “Until Gaza eats.”
The protest comes as the people of Gaza face mass famine as fighting between Hamas, a U.S.-designated Islamic terrorist organization, and Israel continues. Countries such as Britain, the United States, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates have conducted airdrops of food into Gaza.
U.S. Capitol Police confirmed to Breitbart News that “approximately 50 people” had been arrested for “illegally demonstrating” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The protesters were charged with Crowding, Obstructing, or Incommoding under D.C. Code § 22–1307.
“It is illegal to demonstrate inside any of the Congressional Buildings,” the U.S. Capitol Police told Breitbart News in a statement.
Open Editorial
IMHO, I can tell you that no actual Christian has any excuse to support Palestine. The land is Israeli territory from a legal standpoint. Palestinians came from Jordan and Syria. A former King of Jordan killed thousands and expelled a lot more from his kingdom after a Palestinian revolution. This group truly wanted to overthrow the government. Nobody took their side back then. Jordan prefer to watch how this group and other Arabs, that would later become Hezbollah, invaded and took control over Lebanon.
The Palestinians got to the so called West Bank, actually it's Judea & Samaria, only because Jordan had invaded that portion because Israel had not taken effective control over that region. Egypt did the same with Gaza. The Egyptians ruled over Gaza from 1949 to 1956 and again from 1957 to 1967. Nobody cared if Jordan or Egypt mistreated or even killed the Palestinians at that time.
So were any of those lands actual Palestinian territory? Nope, they never were in the first place. The Palestinian State never came to be. All of this madness started when a certain guy called Yasser Arafat establish a connection with the KGB. Then all of this Palestinian propaganda we know very well by now emerged from nowhere all of a sudden.
Now I gotta ask you an important question here. If you'd never ever trust the KGB, now known as FSB, nor Putin and his allies, why do you buy the Palestinian narrative they invented decades ago? And keep in mind that Putin was an actual KBG agent himself!
Quote:An illegal alien from Romania has been convicted of using electronic devices to break into ATM machines to steal money from public assistance benefits accounts meant to help low-income families in California.
Marius Oprea, 38, was handed 75 months in a federal prison for using the devices to skim money from the accounts by creating counterfeit debit cards in the names of welfare program enrollees, the Justice Department announced in an April 1 press release.
United States District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong handed down the sentence on March 29 and ordered Oprea to pay $28,974 in restitution.
Last June, the convicted thief pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and admitted that he and his cohorts used counterfeit cards to fraudulently make withdrawals from the accounts of Californians on assistance.
Oprea was accused of being the ring leader of the skimming crew and prosecutors showed that he had the devices shipped to a P.O. Box he rented. Prosecutors also presented evidence that Oprea maintained a database of accounts and names from which they could steal the money meant for low-income residents of Los Angeles:
Yes, Iran Spends Unfrozen Funds in Violent Activities
Quote:Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo inadvertently admitted to Congress on Tuesday that the $6 billion that the Biden administration unfroze for Iran last year in exchange for the return of five American prisoners likely went to fund violent activity.
During his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Adeyemo said:
Senator, you’re right that in a democracy, money is fungible. But what we’ve seen time and time from the Iranian regime is they failed to feed their people and they put the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] first. Any dollar they have will go towards their violent activity before they deal with their people. That’s partially why almost none of the humanitarian money has been used for humanitarian purposes.
They don’t care about getting drugs and food for their people. But the difference is that the United States of America has made as a values proposition that we are always willing to provide humanitarian relief for people and that’s what we’ve said is the only purpose for this money. So while in our country, money is fungible in Iran, they’ve proven that any dollar they get that they have direct access to in the country will be used for the IRGC before it’s ever used for their people.
Last August, the Biden administration unfroze the funds for Iran in exchange for the Americans, arguing that the money would only go towards humanitarian needs.
Republicans said that since money was fungible, it would free up other money for Iran to support terrorist proxies in the region.
Biden Not Abbott Paying Your Plain Ticket... If You're an Immigrant
Quote:A review of available federal records shows the Biden administration has secretly flown 33,000 illegal aliens into New York City and an astounding 326,000 into the state of Florida over the last several years.
The number of illegals that Biden has flown around the country dwarfs the number that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) sent via bus to deep blue cities, even though it is Abbott who suffers the barbs of the left-wing media for the practice and Biden’s human trafficking is wholly ignored by the press.
According to a report by Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, Biden imported more than 800,000 illegals into the country via a program called the “CHNV Program” or the “Advanced Travel Authorization Program.”
These programs send planes directly to foreign airports, load them up with people who have not gone through the normal immigration process, and then fly them directly to U.S. airports where they are dumped into the American populace. And all this is done without any notice or coordination with the local government officials.
Under Biden’s plan, “sponsors” fill out online applications for the illegals to apply for permission to fly into the U.S. The approval process for these applications has not been made public, but once an application is approved, the illegals make their way to a designated airport in the U.S. where they are allowed into the country.
The two programs identified by Bensman seem to have directly imported 800,000 illegals into the country and then disseminated them all across the land, often in flights that arrived in the middle of the night.
None of these records are exactly in the public, though. According to Bensman, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security refused to comply with Freedom of Information Act records requests, and the numbers Bensman cites have had to be parsed from a disparate number of government reports.
The Biden administration is doing its best to keep these flights a secret, Bensman charged.
Quote:Jennifer and James Crumbley, parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbly, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on Tuesday.
Ethan shot and killed four people at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021.
His parents were charged following the shooting. The Associated Press pointed out “the Crumbleys were accused of not securing the newly purchased gun at home and acting indifferently to signs of Ethan’s deteriorating mental health, especially when confronted with a chilling classroom drawing earlier that same day.”
The Guardian reported that as the case played out in court, prosecutors argued that Jennifer and James might have prevented the shooting via “tragically simple actions” which were not taken.
On February 2, 2024, Breitbart News reported that Jennifer gave testimony in which she admitted to having an extramarital affair and claimed her husband bought the handgun her son used in the attack on Black Friday 2021.
The AP noted Jennifer and James both denied knowing their son had brought the gun to school with him on the day of the attack.
On Tuesday in the courtroom, Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews said, “These convictions are not about poor parenting, these convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train.”
The Crumbleys were each convicted of “four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the students their son killed,” NBC News reported.
Quote:President Joe Biden called Tuesday for Israel to accept a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza for six to eight weeks — before any of the remaining Israeli hostages are set free by Hamas, undermining Israel’s military and diplomatic position.
Biden’s remarks were aired by Univision, though they were taped last week. As Breitbart News reported, Biden had demanded an “immediate ceasefire” last Thursday, after the accidental killing of seven aid workers in Gaza. He had also allowed a United Nations Security Council resolution to pass that separated a ceasefire from the release of the hostages. But the White House insisted that its policy had not changed, and still wanted the two issues to be linked.
Now, that is over. The Times of Israel reported on the “major policy shift” by the president on Tuesday:
“What I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country,” Biden tells the Univision, a US Spanish-language TV network.
“I’ve spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians to the Egyptians. They’re prepared to move in,” Biden says. “They’re prepared to move this food in. And I think there’s no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people. It should be done now.”
...
Hours before the interview aired, Biden’s top aides went on record presenting a very different approach to how the US wants to see a ceasefire come about, insisting that it was Hamas, not Israel that is holding up a deal that would see an extended pause in fighting, the hostages released and aid surge into Gaza.
Biden’s statement aired as Israeli negotiators are in Cairo, Egypt, trying to convince Hamas to release 40 of the 133 remaining hostages, in return for a temporary ceasefire and the release of a far greater number of terrorists.
Quote:As Breitbart News reported earlier Tuesday, Israel moved a record number of aid trucks into Gaza on Sunday, and again on Monday, when the number of trucks reached 419. Prior to the war, 70 food trucks entered Gaza daily.
The increase in aid has been occurring throughout the war, but accelerated after President Joe Biden demanded an “immediate ceasefire” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week after the accidental deaths of seven aid workers. Israel pulled its ground troops out of southern Gaza and took steps to open additional crossing points into Gaza for humanitarian aid — including the Erez Crossing, which Hamas terrorists attacked on October 7.
Still, Sullivan was not satisfied. “That is good; it is not good enough,” he said. He did not say what else Israel had to do to satisfy the concerns of the administration, but suggested that U.S. policy toward Israel would depend on Israel’s compliance with the White House’s yet-to-be-defined demands.
The United Nations claimed that Israel had not actually increased aid to Gaza, because the trucks that entered Gaza were half-full. However, as the United Nations itself admitted, that has been a standard requirement by Israeli authorities to enable the screening of the trucks. Israel says that the United Nations is failing to distribute enough of the aid, much of which is stolen by Hamas.
Sullivan also urged Congress to pass a renewal of the government’s Section 702 surveillance authority — the powers that were abused in 2016 and 2017 to spy on members of the Trump campaign. That improper surveillance came after Sullivan and other Hillary Clinton campaign staffers spread the “Russian collusion” hoax, which in turn prompted the FBI to target Trump associates. Sullivan has never apologized for his role in misleading Congress and the media.
How is it possible to be a member of the White House administration after blatantly committing such a crime!?
Quote:Senior NPR business editor Uri Berliner admitted in an explosive op-ed published Tuesday that the public radio station’s RussiaGate reporting was a bust, and that it did not fess up to that after no “Russian collusion” was found between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Furthermore, Berliner admitted that then-California Senate candidate Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) became the news outlet’s “guiding hand” in this fruitless endeavor, and expressed regret in hitching its wagon to him. Schiff was the main pusher of the Russia collusion hoax in Congress and had repeatedly insisted there was “circumstantial evidence” of collusion.
Berliner, in his op-ed published in the Free Press, wrote that the rise of advocacy at NPR “took off” with the election of former President Donald Trump in 2016.
“As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair,” he wrote. “But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”
He said “persistent rumors” that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia “became the catnip that drove reporting.”
“At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff,” Berliner wrote, adding:
Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse. By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.
But, Berliner writes, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller “found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse.”
“Russiagate quietly faded from our programming,” he wrote, before admonishing the NPR newsroom.
Quote:Police across Europe are on high alert after Islamic State-linked media published calls to attack high-profile football quarter-final matches taking place this week and expected to be attended by tens of thousands of fans.
Messages including “destroy their meetings” and “kill them all” have been broadcast with images of European football stadiums due to host Champions League quarter-final matches this week. Four matches this week, at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, the Cívitas Metropolitano in Madrid, the Emirates Stadium in London, and the Parc des Princes Paris, are to be played on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings this week.
British newspaper The Daily Mail reports the Islamic State-linked Al Azaim Foundation called for killings at the matches. The Times, citing a different communication, noted a call for “my brother from Al Andalus, destroy their meetings”, a reference to the name given to Spain — Al Andalus — used during the period of Islamic occupation of the Iberian Peninsula before the Reconquista in the 15th century.
Spanish government spokesman Francisco Martin said there is going to be an “extraordinary level” of security at the matches. Some 3,500 officers are to be deployed including sniper units. Fans will be searched before entering the stadium. Some 85,000 fans are expected in Madrid tonight, a preview states.
London’s Metropolitan Police also stated their readiness, per reports, with the force’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan saying he wanted to reassure the public that a “robust policing plan in place for tonight’s match”. He asked the public to remain vigilant and to report suspicious goings-on to police.
Per the BBC, the French government vowed a “considerably reinforced” security presence for the match to be played in Paris. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said: “I will remind you that only 10 days ago, IS shared a picture of the Munich stadium and said action should be taken against sports venues that host football games – although all sports can be targeted. Given how important the Champions League is for football, we are of course talking to our partners”.
Quote:Former British Prime Minister David Cameron told America that “it’s profoundly in your interests” to shovel more money into Ukraine while saying he would like to meet with any members of Congress in need of persuading as he visits Washington.
For Ukraine, “perhaps nothing is more important than the supplemental the Congress is looking at the moment” former Prime Minister David Cameron — who quit the post over losing his own Brexit referendum, but is now back in government as Britain’s chief diplomat — said on Tuesday.
Now Lord Cameron — after he was elevated to Britain’s largely appointed House of Lords — tried to claim that he would not “lecture” Americans on how to spend their money while at the same time appealing for U.S. taxpayer money on behalf of Ukraine.
The comments came after meetings with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former President Trump. While Cameron didn’t reveal what he discussed with Trump on Tuesday morning, the British Foreign Office disclosed they had touched on Ukraine and NATO.
Lord Cameron batted down criticism of the meeting with Trump, asserting that it was perfectly normal for British ministers to have private discussions with presidential candidates in the run-up to an election. Similar talks had happened with Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney as candidates, he noted.
“These things are entirely proper. But it was a private meeting”, he said.
Quote:An explosion Tuesday at a decades-old hydroelectric plant in northern Italy killed at least three workers and injured five others, a regional fire chief said. At least four other people were missing.
The explosion at power company Enel’s Bergi plant south of Bologna during maintenance work collapsed part of the nine-story underground structure, provoked a fire and caused flooding at depths of up to 60 meters (200 feet), regional fire chief Francesco Notaro told SKY TG24.
Search efforts were proceeding with care due to the risk of additional collapsing. Divers were aiding the search, which was expected to go through the night.
Video provided by firefighters showed smoke rising from underground at the lakeside power plant.
“This is a historic power plant for us,” Marco Masinara, the mayor of the nearby town of Camugnano, told SKY. “It has been managed by Enel for 50 years, providing jobs for many families. Until today, nothing ever happened. Today, a drama occurred. Our world collapsed.”
He said three of the hospitalized were in serious condition, while the other two suffered lesser injuries.
The artificial Suviana Lake was formed by the construction of a dam from 1928-32 and located in a regional park at an altitude of 500 meters (1,640 feet) some 70 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Bologna.
Quote:A 25-year-old man has been arrested after police launched a nationwide manhunt for a suspect over the knife slaying of a young mother out with her baby.
Kulsuma Akter, a 27-year-old woman was stabbed to death “in broad daylight in a busy area of Bradford” in an attack “witnessed by a number of people” while she pushed her baby in a pram on Saturday, sparking an urgent manhunt by police for a suspect. Now a man, reported to be 25-year-old Habibur Masum who police had named as their prime suspect, has been arrested, West Yorkshire Police say.
A second individual, a 23-year-old man, has also been arrested “on suspicion of assisting an offender”.
The Daily Telegraph reports Masum was arrested in Aylesbury in the early hours of Tuesday morning. West Yorkshire’s deputy mayor for policing and crime Alison Lowe had previously said of the investigation and relationship between deceased and suspect: “We don’t think this was a random killing, the police know the two people were known to each other.”
Detective Chief Inspector Stacey Atkinson said: “We understand that the murder of a young woman in such shocking circumstances has caused considerable concern in the local community. Residents can expect to continue to see a significant police presence in Bradford as we make further enquiries and conduct reassurance patrols in the area.”
Police say they already had contact with Kulsuma Akter before her death.
Quote:A Black Lives Matter activist fraudster will only have to pay back £1 of the tens of thousands she stole from a charity intended to help disadvantaged black children after pleading poverty at the Bristol Crown Court.
Xahra Saleem, 23, previously known as Yvonne Maina, was sentenced to two and half years in prison last year after being found guilty of using GoFundmen donations intended to send local black children on a trip to Africa on herself, using the stolen £70,000 to on hair and beauty treatments, taxis, takeaways, Amazon purchases, and a new iPhone and Mac laptop.
However, the fraudster will — at least for now — only have to pay back £1 to the charity she had defrauded. It was revealed that Saleem’s prison sentence was more lenient than normal, with Judge Michael Longma saying that he took into account her immaturity and age when sentencing her, the Daily Mail reports.
“There is remorse. I have no doubt you have remorse now looking back at that period of time,” the judge said.
Following the hearing, Jay Daley and Deneisha Royal, representing the youth group Changing Your Mindset, said that they did not feel as if justice was done, saying: “It feels like we are being punished,” adding that they believed it was unlikely that they would ever receive the money stolen by Saleem.
“If we were to get the money back we would go on the trip and members of the group would reestablish the group and make changes to the community and use time on the trip to plan for this,” they said.
Quote:Lithuanian leaders hailed a “historic event” as Germany on Monday began deploying troops in the Baltic country – a NATO member – marking the first time since World War II that German forces will be based outside the country on a long-term basis.
About two dozen soldiers arrived in Lithuania, laying the groundwork for a further 150 to join them later this year. The deployment is expected to be up to its full strength of 5,000 by the end of 2027.
“This is the first time that we have permanently stationed such a unit outside of Germany,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in Berlin at a farewell ceremony for the preliminary command of Germany´s Lithuanian brigade, according to German news agency dpa. Pistorius called it “an important day for the German army.”
In the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said that the move was “a great example” for all the countries on NATO’s eastern flank, on the border with Russia and its ally, Belarus.
“We will create such a defense and deterrence architecture that no adversary from the east will even think about testing NATO´s Article 5,” he told reporters.
Article 5 on collective defense is at the heart of the 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It states that an armed attack against one or more of the members shall be considered an attack against all.
Some 4,800 soldiers and around 200 civilians with the German army will be stationed permanently in Lithuania, which is increasingly worried by its aggressive neighbors.
Under an agreement, Lithuania is preparing military bases for the German brigade to be deployed in this Baltic state bordering Russia´s Kaliningrad exclave to the west and Belarus to the east.
The German army, the Bundeswehr, has taken part in long-term operations abroad since the 1990s, first in the Balkans and then in combat operations in Afghanistan. At the moment, the Bundeswehr says German soldiers are deployed in Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as in the Mediterranean.
However, this is the first permanent standalone German deployment, not on rotation as part of a multinational force.
Kasciunas said the German brigade is expected to reach full operational capacity by 2027.
Quote:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on Tuesday, paving the way for a meeting between the top Communist Party leader and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and arriving in between expected visits from American officials Janet Yellen and Antony Blinken.
Xi celebrated relations between Beijing and Moscow as being at their peak as the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations approaches. Russian officials stated that Lavrov’s visit was in part to prepare for Putin to visit China soon as well as meet with Xi at multiple international events such as the BRICS summit expected in October.
Lavrov arrived in Beijing on Monday as American Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen departed the country. Yellen’s visit was marked by the American official claiming that the “great majority” of trade between China and America is “uncontroversial” and holding to the position of the administration of leftist President Joe Biden that the U.S. government should protect bilateral trade despite China’s rampant intellectual property theft, espionage, use of slavery to flood the American market with cheap goods, and other malign behavior.
In a phone conversation with Xi in early April, Biden reportedly confirmed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will follow Yellen to China in the near future, though neither the Chinese Foreign Ministry nor the State Department have confirmed dates for the expected trip.
Lavrov reportedly met with both his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, and Xi. The Russian news agency Tass quoted Xi as saying at the opening of their meeting that China and Russia were indispensable in “ensuring international justice.”
“This year marks the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Russia. Over that period, our countries have embraced peaceful co-existence and mutually advantageous cooperation as two large neighbors,” Xi reportedly said, “which not only brought tangible benefits to the two countries and their peoples but also played a constructive role in ensuring international justice.”
As Lavrov arrived on Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry offered few details on what he would be discussing.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:A massive container ship lost propulsion power in the waters around New York City and was brought to a rest near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge Friday night — less than two weeks after failure on another massive cargo vessel caused it to smash into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The US Coast Guard confirmed that its Vessel Traffic Service received a report that the 89,000-ton M/V APL Qingdao lost propulsion about 8:30 p.m. as it traversed the Kill Van Kull — the shipping lane between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey.
An image shared on X by John Konrad, CEO of maritime-focused news outlet gCaptain, shows the 1,100-foot APL Qingdao floating uncomfortably close to the span that connects Brooklyn and Staten Island.
BREAKING: A NY tugboat captain has reported to @gCaptain “container ship APL QINGDAO lost power while transiting New York harbor. They had 3 escort tugs but 3 more were needed to bring her under control. They regained power & were brought to anchor near the verrazano bridge” pic.twitter.com/Z2IP04xmLs
— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) April 7, 2024
In response to the power failure, three tugboats that were escorting the APL Qingdao guided the vessel until it regained propulsion a short time later.
The vessel was brought to a position just north of the bridge, where it anchored.
Quote:At least three people — including two juveniles– were shot when rival gangs opened fire during an Eid al-Fitr event in West Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
Over 1,000 people – including families with children – are believed to have been at the outdoor event to celebrate Eid, an Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.
Around 30 gunshots erupted around 2:30 p.m. at the public celebration.
“There appear to be two factions within the park who [were] exchanging gunfire,” Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said.
One of the people shot was a juvenile who pulled out a gun at the event near the Philadelphia Masjid mosque and the Sister Clara Muhammad School.
Police shot the 15-year-old twice when he wouldn’t drop the weapon before rushing him to a hospital.
One of the victims was an innocent bystander, also a juvenile, celebrating at the event. Police said the youngster showed up at the hospital after the incident with a gunshot wound to the hand.
The other victim, 22, sustained a gunshot wound to his stomach during the gunfight, Bethel said, indicating that the individual may have been involved in the chaos.
Quote:The Teamsters pension fund returned $127 million in overpayments to the US Treasury this week — months after an internal investigation revealed the kitty had nearly 3,500 dead members.
Thomas Nyhan, the executive director of the Central States Pension Fund, which handles retirement benefits for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, announced the repayment on Monday as part of a civil settlement with the DOJ.
Records related to the snafu had been expected Tuesday in response to a congressional subpoena.
In December 2022, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation paid a total of $35.8 billion to the Teamsters’ pension plan as part of special financial assistance funds provided through President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.
But PBGC’s Office of Inspector General in November revealed that roughly $127 million of those funds went out the door before Central States checked how many of its 360,000 participants were deceased — 3,479, as it turned out.
The disclosure led to probes by House and Senate Republicans into the erroneous payments, with House Education and Workforce Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) issuing a subpoena to PBGC last month.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien also said that Central States should “refund” any overpayments during a November 2023 congressional hearing, when pressed by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
Foxx gave the agency an April 9 deadline to hand over documents — only for the the Justice Department to announce that a settlement had been reached after PBGC and Central States cooperated with a joint investigation.
NYC: Ignore or not to ignore? That's the Question!
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams bluntly told lawmakers to ignore the Adams administration’s attempt to change how they communicate with city agencies — in the latest spate between the two branches of city government.
Speaker Adams, no relation to the mayor, informed the City Council Wednesday afternoon that City Hall provided “no official communication” on the new policy.
Even if they did, she added, the legislative body “will not be adhering to this excessively bureaucratic and inefficient process that only undermines the work of city government on behalf of New Yorkers.”
“I encourage your offices to go about your business on behalf of your constituents and New Yorkers, as usual,” the speaker said in an email to lawmakers. “If you or your staff have issues getting responses from agency staff, I recommend that you call the Commissioner and/or any other executive staff to address these issues.”
The sharp rebuke from the speaker comes just a day after it emerged the Adams admin was trying to force lawmakers to fill out a two-page form requesting meetings or events with city agency reps.
Council members raged about the process, which they argued would lead to delays in helping their constituents.
Some believed it would be used to punish lawmakers who didn’t back the mayor and his administration.
Quote:Mayor Eric Adams’ new high-profile lawyer is going on the offensive as part of an aggressive shift in strategy that aims to quash the sexual assault lawsuit against Hizzoner before it can possibly affect his reelection bid, The Post has learned.
Celebrity attorney Alex Spiro, a partner at the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm, filed a flurry of papers in Manhattan Supreme court setting a May 21 date to grill accuser Lorna Beach-Mathura under oath and pushing for proof of her claims.
He also sought to have the case tossed outright, according to the court documents.
Insiders in Adams’ camp told The Post the legal moves are part of an attempt to clear Adams before his opponents can use the allegations against him during the 2025 mayoral primary.
“The Adams team will point out in its legal case that the accuser has had nearly six months to present evidence already, and any longer a wait will start interfering with New Yorkers’ ability to fairly make a decision in the upcoming mayoral primary,” one source said.
While the mayor has vigorously denied any wrongdoing — sharply saying again Tuesday: “Never happened, it’s not who I am” — the lingering accusations alone could weigh down his reelect campaign, political insiders said.
Quote:Some January 6 defendants are being released from prison on federal judges’ orders pending an appeal in the United States Supreme Court centered on interpretations of obstructing an official proceeding as oral arguments approach.
The Washington Post reported on federal judges’ decisions to release a “handful” of defendants amid the appeal in the Fischer v. United States case. Some have already been released, and others are scheduled to be released soon.
“Judges said they were acting because the high-court review significantly raised the possibility the felony convictions might be overturned,” noted the Post’s Spencer S. Hsu.
The case potentially bears substantial implications for more than 100 January 6 defendants, whose lone felony charge is obstruction of an official proceeding, per the Post.
It also impacts former President Donald Trump’s federal case concerning his challenge of the 2020 election results. As Breitbart News Capitol Hill Correspondent Bradley Jaye reported in December, a key issue in the Fischer case is the judicial scope of obstruction of an official proceeding which was enacted following the Enron scandal:
The defendant, Joseph Fischer, was indicted on seven charges after January 6, but the charge in question is a count under a provision enacted after the Enron scandal for anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences and impedes any official proceeding,” known as 18 U.S.C. 1512.
Trump’s allies argue that the provision was clearly intended to cover the destruction of evidence related to white-collar crime and that the Supreme Court’s decision to examine this issue is bad news for U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the government’s broad interpretation of the statute.
Two of the four charges Trump faces in his case include Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding and Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. The other charges are Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Conspiracy Against Rights.
Quote:President Biden will host Bill and Hillary Clinton along with Big Tech titans Wednesday night at the White House for a state dinner in honor of visiting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The Clintons, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook will dine with Biden in the White House East Room — enjoying a menu that includes house-cured salmon, dry-aged rib-eye steak and salted caramel pistachio cake.
Paul Simon, 82, will provide the evening’s entertainment later in the nearby State Dining Room.
The “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” singer is reputed to be a favorite of first lady Jill Biden’s.
Others expected to attend the lavish celebration include actor Robert De Niro, figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, World Bank President Ajay Banga and United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Unlike past state dinners, scandal-plagued first son Hunter Biden won’t be attending, though other members of the first family are on the list, including first daughter Ashley Biden and Hunter’s daughters Finnegan and Naomi, as well as Naomi’s husband Peter Neal.
Quote:Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the city’s first Muslim and Arab American mayor, is being mocked online over attempts to engage in “damage control” after the city’s residents were seen at a rally chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
On Sunday, a video of anti-Israel protesters in Dearborn, Michigan, closing out Ramadan by chanting, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” during an International Al-Quds Day rally, went viral on social media.
The clip showed activists condemning both Israel and America in the harshest of terms, with activist Tarek Bazzi of the Hadi Institute saying chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” were only logical.
“Why are our protests on the International Day of Al-Quds, why are they so anti-America?” he asked. “Why don’t we just focus more on Israel and not talk so much about America? Gaza has shown the entire world why these protests are so anti-America, because it’s the United States government that provides the funds for all the atrocities that we just heard about.”
“Imam Khomeini, who declared the International Al-Quds Day, this is why he would say to pour all of your chants and all of your shouts upon the head of America,” he later added.
Bazzi then quoted black nationalist Malcolm X, who said the United States is “one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this Earth,” and called for the elimination of the entire American system, referring to President Joe Biden as “Genocide Joe.”
“It’s not just Genocide Joe that has to go,” Bazzi said. “It is the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and such devilry to happen and would support it – such a system does not deserve to exist on God’s Earth.”
Regarding those who might say that Israel has a right to exist, Bazzi told the crowd to always respond with “Death to Israel,” referring to it as “the most logical chant shouted across the world today.”
Quote:Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) challenged his Republican colleague, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), to a debate regarding his “Ukraine first policy.”
In an opinion article in the Courier-Journal, Paul slammed McConnell for vowing to go after the “isolationist movement” in the Republican Party, specifically in terms of monetary support for Ukraine. While McConnell had announced in February that he plans to step down as Senate minority leader at the end of the current term, he has said that he has plans to remain in the U.S. Senate.
“Mitch McConnell has pledged to fight ‘GOP isolationism’ in the remainder of his career,” Paul wrote. “I doubt that his self-appointed quest will improve his support among Kentucky voters. In fact, McConnell has the lowest approval rating of any federally elected official ever!”
Paul went on to reference how a poll from Monmouth University conducted between November 3 and December 4, 2023, found that McConnell had a six percent approval rating and a 60 percent disapproval rating among Americans.
“Anytime he wants to debate his Ukraine first policy with me in Kentucky, bring it on,” Paul continued, adding that the people of Kentucky “know that McConnell is not fiscally conservative.”
During an interview on WHAS, McConnell admitted to host Terry Meiner that he was “particularly involved in actually fighting back against the isolationist movement” in the Republican Party.
While McConnell has supported sending continued monetary support to Ukraine as the war between Ukraine and Russia continues, Paul has been against financially supporting Ukraine.
Quote:House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-FL) is rescheduling the Senate’s impeachment trial for President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas.
Johnson planned to initiate the Senate trial by delivering the articles of impeachment on Wednesday. But that timing would allow the Democrats to quickly dismiss the charges as they leave town on a recess scheduled to start that day and run until Monday.
Instead, Johnson will deliver the articles of impeachment on Monday, likely allowing more media coverage of the Democrats’ push to dismiss the impeachment process before it gets significant media coverage.
“I’m very grateful to Speaker Johnson for his willingness to delay this,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who is championing the Mayorkas impeachment in the Senate.
Multiple GOP Senators — including Lee, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) — are trying to force media coverage of the legal charges, which show that Mayorkas has repeatedly broken the immigration laws set by Congress.
The Senate’s calendar is set by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is insisting that Mayorkas was improperly impeached over “policy differences.”
News reports say that Schumer wants a quick vote to table the articles of impeachment, and so ignore the judgment of the House of Representatives. “Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements,” Schumer said Tuesday.
“Schumer wants to prevent the House impeachment managers from presenting evidence of the disaster that has unfolded on the southern border because Mr. Mayorkas refuses to follow the law,” said Lee. “He wants to avoid news coverage of how bad the border crisis is.”
Schumer dismissed the Johnson delay, saying “We are sticking with our plan — we’re going to move this [process] as expeditiously as possible.”
Quote:Establishment television networks prepared a public letter on Tuesday to pressure President Joe Biden, 81, to debate former President Donald Trump.
Biden remains noncommittal about debating Trump. In contrast, Trump is happy to confront Biden on his record, pledging in March to debate Biden anytime, anywhere, and anyplace.
Nearly three-fourths of voters believe if Biden skips the presidential debates, it shows “weakness,” a Fox News poll found.
“Biden won’t get away with the basement routine this time,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the New York Times on Tuesday.
In an “unusual” open letter endorsed by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox News, the networks urged Biden to debate Trump, citing the need to reduce polarization, according to a draft version obtained by the Times.
“General election debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy, having played a vital role in every presidential election of the past 50 years dating to 1976,” it reads. “In each of those elections, tens of millions have tuned in to watch the candidates debating side by side, in a competition of ideas, for the votes of American citizens.”
“If there is one thing Americans can agree on, during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,” the letter continued. “There is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of the nation.”
The Commission on Presidential Debates already announced potential dates, venues, and requirements for the confrontation.
Quote:During an interview with Univision that took place last Wednesday and aired on Tuesday, President Joe Biden stated that he would consider taking further executive action on guns and criticized 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump because Trump “famously told the NRA that, don’t worry, no one’s going to touch your guns” if Trump won.
Interviewer Enrique Acevedo asked, “[G]un violence remains the number one cause of death for children in America. Latinos have made it a top priority across the country, especially in places like El Paso and Uvalde in Texas. Your administration called on Congress to pass common-sense gun laws, but that’s unlikely to happen in the next few months. If you’re re-elected, would you consider taking further executive action on this issue?”
Biden responded, “Absolutely. Look, I, along with Dianne Feinstein, passed the first limitation on assault weapons and the number of bullets that could be in a rifle. The idea anybody needs 100 rounds in a rifle, in an AR-15, I was out in Uvalde. I met with every one of those families. I spent four hours with them. I looked at the pain in their faces. I saw what they felt. I could feel it. And the idea that — and his phrase [in] another context where there was a mass shooting, I think it was in El Paso, he said — they said, what to do about it, and he said, just get over it, you’ve got to get over it, the idea we don’t have background checks for anybody purchasing a weapon, the idea that we’re going to be in a position where he says that — he famously told the NRA that, don’t worry, no one’s going to touch your guns if I — from the very beginning, I used to teach the Second Amendment in law school, from the very beginning, there were limitations. You couldn’t own a cannon. You couldn’t — you could own a rifle or a gun, but there were certain things you couldn’t do. They weren’t weapons of war. And so, look, we passed the first major gun legislation in over 30 years when we passed the law that we recently passed that outlaws weapons that are made that you can’t trace and so on and so forth. And — but it’s not enough. I think we have to do more, and I am absolutely committed. And I’ve asked the Congress, and if I get a Congress and get re-elected, we’re going to do it again. We’re going to make sure we eliminate these weapons.”
Quote:President Joe Biden failed to mention the Israeli hostages once during his interview with Univision, which aired on Tuesday, and during which he demanded that Israel adopt a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza of six to eight weeks.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden called for a unilateral ceasefire in the interview, signaling a major policy shift and siding with Hamas terrorists, even as Israeli negotiators try to leverage military pressure into a hostage deal in Cairo.
The Times of Israel reported that the Biden administration tried to clarify Biden’s statement, saying that he meant a ceasefire in the context of a hostage deal. But the transcript leaves no doubt.
Biden never mentioned the hostages (original emphasis):
EA: Now that we’re talking about world leaders. In the past few days, we’ve seen increasing protests in Israel calling for the removal of Prime Minister Netanyahu and international condemnation after the death of World Central Kitchen aid workers during an Israeli airstrike. Do you think at this point, Prime Minister Netanyahu is more concerned about his political survival than he is in the national interest of his people?
JB: Well, I will tell you, I think what he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach. I think it’s outrageous that those four, three vehicles were hit by drones and taken out on a highway where it wasn’t like it was along the shore, it wasn’t like there was a convoy moving there, etc… So I what I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks total access to all food and medicine going into the country. I’ve spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians to the Egyptians. They’re prepared to move in. They’re prepared to move this food in. And I think there’s no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people. It should be done now.
On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris met with the family members of Israeli hostages.
Quote:Survivors of the October 7 terror attack at the Supernova music festival gathered Wednesday evening at a lakefront for trance music, group therapy, and an opportunity to reconnect with one another.
As 4,000 people — dancers, bartenders, and security personnel — watched the sunrise from the Re’im forest on that fateful Saturday, Hamas terrorists few across the Gaza border on paragliders or blew holes in the fence and entered on pickup trucks.
“We thought the paragliders were part of the festival,” said Raz Malka, one of the organizers of the Tel Aviv gathering. “The year before, we had a trance party for the Jewish holiday of Purim, and a bunch of Israeli paragliders flew past the party, so we thought it was familiar.”
The scenes of horror and devastation that followed were broadcast around the world. Terrorists mowed down anyone they saw, even firing into bathroom stalls. Desperate people fled to bomb shelters along the nearby road — only to be followed by terrorists, who flung grenades and fired machine guns inside.
There were 403 people murdered at the festival — a third of the 1200 Israelis who were killed by Hamas that day. Dozens were kidnapped from the festival and taken to Gaza; many of those are still being held hostage in Gaza.
Many survived by hiding in ravines, or in nearby fields. Some were rescued by drivers who braved gunfire and roadblocks to pull people out — then returned again for more. The stories of heroism and sacrifice abound.
And for the survivors, the trauma has continued — the daily ups and downs, the depression, the elation. “It’s like an addiction,” Malka says. “You become addicted to the adrenaline of survival.”
To help each other through the experience, the survivors have been holding gatherings — daily through September, and weekly ever since.
At this event, the first outdoor event of the year, there was a DJ spinning trance tunes, and people lounging on the beach by the lake.
I know what I'm about to say now has little chance to ever occur, but I suspect that Iranian proxies could attack them. Why? Simply put, they're an easy target for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the likes. Of course, nobody can assure us that Tel Aviv will be as defenseless as the Negev desert was. I hope it's not, yet, Iran threatened both Israel and the US to attack them in the future. US is not supposed to interfere in their vengeance against Israel, as it's regarded as the consequence of Israel's attack against the annex of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.
Quote:A former Israeli hostage who was freed during a truce in November says that she was abducted from her home in Israel on October 7 by Palestinian civilians, not Hamas members, who then sold her in Gaza to Hamas terrorists.
Breitbart News visited the scene of the attack in November, and spoke to survivors of Nir Oz who also said that Palestinian civilians had joined in the attack and the looting once Hamas had breached the kibbutz boundary.
The Jewish News Syndicate reports:
Nili Margalit, 42, on a tour of Europe to raise awareness of the 133 Israeli hostages still in captivity, told France’s Le Point magazine on Monday that it was Palestinian Arab civilians, not Hamas, who abducted her from her home in Nir Oz on Oct. 7.
“They negotiated with Hamas to sell me. When they were paid, I was taken straight into a tunnel,” she said.
…
“There are no innocent citizens there. They are families controlled by Hamas. There are children who from the moment they are born are taught that Israel is Palestine and just to hate Jews,” she said.
Other hostages have reported similar experiences of being sold, or being worked as slaves in Gaza, with little to eat.
The Bibas family, including one-year-old baby Kfir, are rumored to have been sold within Gaza, and their whereabouts are unknown — other than the father, Yarden Bibas, who is in the custody of Hamas terrorists.
The upcoming Passover holiday (April 22-30) celebrates the freedom of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt.
Quote:Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that if Iran attacks Israel from its own territory, then Israel will attack Iran directly, rather than striking at Iran’s terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis or Iraqi militias).
Katz posted messages to X, or Twitter, both in Hebrew and in Farsi, and tagging Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran has been threatening to retaliate for an Israeli airstrike on Iranian generals at that country’s consulate April 1 in Damascus, Syria. Iran has been attacking Israel indirectly for months — not just through Hamas’s terror attack on October 7, but also through rocket, missile, and drone attacks on Israel’s southern and northern borders. Iran has largely escaped any direct exposure to the war, however, using its proxies to strike from a safe distance.
Israel has placed its forces on high alert, and recently called up air defense reservists and canceled leave for combat soldiers.
Israel could conceivably use an Iranian attack as a reason to launch an attack on the Iranian nuclear program, which Israel considers an existential threat. Israel has said it is capable of such an attack without help from the U.S.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed three of the sons of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday in an airstrike in Gaza.
In a statement, the IDF said:
Earlier today (Wednesday), directed by IDF and ISA intelligence, IAF aircraft struck three Hamas military operatives that conducted terrorist activity in the central Gaza Strip.
The three operatives that were struck are Amir Haniyeh, a cell commander in the Hamas military wing, Mohammad Haniyeh, a military operative in the Hamas terrorist organization, and Hazem Haniyeh, also a military operative in the Hamas terror organization.
The IDF confirms that the three operatives are the sons of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas’s political bureau.
Haniyeh has a net worth of $4 billion after profiting off smuggling in Gaza and various investments. He, like other Hamas leaders, lives far from Gaza, in luxurious exile in Doha, Qatar, and jets between Qata, Turkey, Iran, Russia, and other locations where he is assured safe haven.
It is unknown whether the airstrike will affect ongoing negotiations in Cairo, Egypt, over the potential release of Israeli hostages.
Quote:The “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ranted against the “evil nature” of the West in a speech on Wednesday and declared Israel “must be punished and will be punished” for an airstrike that eliminated one of Tehran’s most influential terrorist operatives.
Khamenei spoke at a religious event marking Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that formally closes the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The “supreme leader” accused “Western governments” of supporting Israel in “kill[ing] children in their mothers’ arms and patients in hospital,” decrying America and Britain specifically for being allegedly “arrogant and cruel.”
Khamenei notably omitted in his rantings against Israel the events that prompted the current self-defense operations by Jerusalem: the October 7 terrorist invasion of Israel by Iranian proxy terrorist organization Hamas, in which terrorists slaughtered entire families in their homes, brutally massacred children as young as infants, and engaged in widespread acts of gang rape and other torture.
The October 7 attacks resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths and the abduction of about 250 people, about 130 of which remain in jihadist captivity.
The lack of condemnation for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) actions to neutralize Hamas in its stronghold of Gaza “exposed the evil nature of Western civilizations,” Khamenei declared, according to Iran’s state-run PressTV propaganda outlet.
“During the last six months in Gaza, the Western governments, themselves, put on display this evil nature before the eyes of the world,” he proclaimed. “They killed children in their mothers’ arms and patients in hospitals. Their strength does not match that of the resistance fighters, so they claim the lives of old men, families, children and women, and killed more than thirty thousand innocent people.”
The “thirty thousand innocent people” claim is an unverified statistic from Hamas’s propaganda office.
“They should have prevented the crimes of the regime in this disaster. But the Western governments did not fulfill their duty. Some spoke in support of the people [in Gaza], but in practice they not only failed to prevent but also contributed to [the war],” the “supreme leader” railed, “especially the arrogant and cruel governments of the US and UK.”
Khemenei also dedicated much of his commentary on an airstrike targeting an Iranian diplomatic outpost in Damascus that eliminated several senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and formal wing of the Iranian armed forces. The strike, conducted on April 1, killed the top commander of the IRGC Quds Force, its foreign terror arm, in Syria, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and deputy Mohammad Haj Rahimi, among others. Reports following the strike suggested that Zahedi was meeting with members of an Iranian proxy terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, at the time of the strike. Israel has not formally taken responsibility for the action but is widely believed to have conducted it.
Khamenei declared the strike a “mistake” and promised revenge.
Quote:Two Iraqis accused of being members of the Islamic State group and keeping two young Yazidi girls as slaves as well as sexually and physically abusing them have been arrested in Germany, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The man and the woman, identified only as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested in Bavaria on Tuesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, along with membership in a terrorist organization.
The suspects were married and were members of IS in Iraq and Syria between October 2015 and December 2017, prosecutors said. They allegedly kept a five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave starting in late 2015 and a 12-year-old from October 2017.
Prosecutors allege that the man raped both girls repeatedly and that the woman prepared the room and put make-up on one of the girls.
The couple also exerted “harsh physical violence” on the girls, who were prevented from practising their own religion and coerced into household work and childcare, prosecutors said. The man on one occasion allegedly hit the older girl with a broomstick, the woman is accused of scalding the younger girl’s hand with hot water and both children were repeatedly forced to stand on one leg for half an hour as punishment.
Before they left Syria in November 2017, the suspects handed the girls over to other members of IS, prosecutors added.
“All of this served the organization´s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion,” their statement said.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann welcomed the arrests. “The promise of the principle of universal jurisdiction is clear: impunity for the genocide against the Yazidis must be fought worldwide,” he said.
Last month, a German federal court rejected an appeal by a German convert to Islam against her 14-year sentence for allowing a 5-year-old Yazidi girl she and her husband enslaved when they were IS members in Iraq to die of thirst in the sun.
Her former husband, an Iraqi citizen, was convicted in November 2021 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Quote:Nearly six in ten suspects in violent crime cases in Germany were committed by foreign migrants, according to federal police crime statistics released this week, sparking debate over the country’s open-door immigration system.
Non-German foreigners make up a disproportionate number of suspected criminals and nearly 60 per cent of violent crime suspects, despite making up just 14.6 per cent of the population, statistics released by the Federal Criminal Police Office on Tuesday revealed.
According to the data, foreigners without a German passport represented 111,517 suspects alleged of violent crimes out of the total 190,605 suspects for the country as a whole, or 58.5 per cent, broadcaster NTV reports.
The figures also showed that while the number of suspected German violent offenders rose by 2.2 per cent over the previous year, the number of non-German suspected violent offenders increased by 14.5 per cent, contributing to an overall rise of 8.6 per cent in violent crime reports over the previous year and the highest level since 2007.
Reports of theft also saw an increase of 10.7 per cent over the previous year, with non-Germans accounting for 187,000 out of the total 424,000 suspected thieves.
Excluding immigration crimes, the number of non-Germans suspected of any crime rose by 17.8 per cent in 2023 to 923,269 suspects, representing nearly half of the 2.25 million total suspected criminals last year.
The German broadcaster said that sociologists and criminologists within the country noted that there can be “distorted images from the simple division into German and non-German criminals.”
Arguments have also been put forward as to the possible explanations for the apparent higher criminality among foreigners within the country, such as the fact that most immigrants in the country are young men — despite many claiming to be refugees — and young men are the most likely to commit crimes of any group.
The broadcaster also posited that foreigners often experienced violence in their home countries before fleeing to Germany which may therefore “lower the threshold for using violence”.
Quote:The European Parliament narrowly passed a controversial set of immigration reforms on Wednesday afternoon as centrist globalist parties prevailed over objections from both the left and the right.
After briefly being interrupted by leftist protesters claiming the New Pact on Migration and Asylum would “kill” and overriding growing objections over the Brussels power grab from the populist right, the European Parliament approved the contentious measures by an average of 300 votes in favour to 270 against during a series of votes on Wednesday afternoon in Strasbourg, Euronews reports.
The reforms, which have been in the works since the eruption of the European Migrant Crisis now nearly a decade ago, come amid increasing illegal immigration, with 380,000 migrants illegally entering the bloc last year, the highest figure since 2016.
Hailing the passage of the New Pact, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said: “History made. We have delivered a robust legislative framework on how to deal with migration and asylum in the EU… It has been more than ten years in the making. But we kept our word. A balance between solidarity and responsibility. This is the European way.”
The main thrust of the legislation, which is expected to come into full force within two years, will be to create a system of “mandatory solidarity” in which all 27 member states, regardless of their size or nationally approved policies, take in illegal migrants who enter into the bloc.
The measure, intended to alleviate the pressure on Southern European nations, notably Italy, Greece, and Spain, who receive the main brunt of illegal migration coordinated by people-smuggling gangs — often facilitated in part by left-wing ‘rescue’ NGOs — operating on both sides of the Mediterranean.
To enforce the system of “solidarity”, Brussels will hand out fines of up to 20,000 euros against member states for every illegal migrant they refuse to take in. This policy has been described by conservative nations such as Hungary as a direct assault on their national sovereignty, given the great pains taken by Budapest to prevent illegal migration at its own borders.
Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán previously claimed the move represented a desire from Brussels to “force the migrant compact down our throat” before the European Parliament in June, during which anti-mass migration nationalist-populist parties are expected to make big gains, which could have prevented the New Pact from being passed.
Orbán, who is seeking to lead the charge in reshaping the EU to having a more limited role in the internal affairs of member states, said that Brussels should instead focus its efforts on border enforcement and prevention, rather than on distributing illegals throughout the bloc.
Quote:The brother-in-law of leftist Scottish leader Humza Yousaf has been arrested and charged with abduction and extortion in relation to a case in which a man died after plunging out of the window of a Dundee flat in January.
Ramsay El-Nakla, the brother of the First Minister Humza Yousaf’s wife Nadia, is expected to appear at the Dundee Sheriff Court on Tuesday after being charged in the case of the death of of Ryan Munro, who died after falling out of a Dundee apartment building window on January 10th, ultimately passing away in a hospital a week later.
According to the Scottish Daily Express, the 36-year-old El-Nakla has been charged with extortion and abduction in connection to Munro’s death.
It is the fourth arrest to come out of the investigation, with Jennifer Souter appearing before the Dundee Sheriff Court last week after being charged with culpable homicide.
Meanwhile, tow others, Stephen Stewart and Victoria McGowan, have also been charged with abduction and extortion in connection to Munro’s death.
In a statement, Police Scotland said: “A 36-year-old man has been arrested and charged with abduction and extortion following an incident where a man fell from a block of flats on Morgan Street, Dundee on Wednesday, 10 January. He died a week later in hospital.
“Three others were previously arrested and charged following the same incident. The 36-year-old man is due to appear in Dundee Sheriff Court today, Tuesday, 9 April, 2024. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.”
Following Munro’s death, his brother Mark told The Courier: “We are still so incredibly numb after everything that has taken place in recent days. Ryan was a great guy, a great father and he was my best friend. We can’t speak highly enough of the staff at Ninewells Hospital for their incredible support during this time – it’s actually been humbling.
Quote:The number of so-called “honour-based” crimes, associated with some Islamic cultures, has risen by over 60 per cent in England over the past two years, according to an analysis of police data.
A report from the left-wing Guardian newspaper, based on figures from 26 of the 39 constabularies in England, found that in 2022 there were 2,594 instances of “honour-based” crimes, including assaults, death threats, female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and rapes.
This is compared to 1,599 cases recorded in 2020, an increase of 62.2 per cent in just two years. The increase in the number of so-called honour crimes is even more stark when compared to 2016, with a rise of 193 per cent seen over the six-year period.
The Guardian pointed to more victims coming forward and enhanced police tactics for the rise, although the paper noted that “other factors are also believed to be at work”.
The report highlighted claims that the rise may have been a result of geopolitical trends, with Family Law Company director Imran Khodabocus telling the paper: “In cases like this, you can’t minimise the impact of global political and social issues. In my experience, some people are becoming more rigid in their thinking and this is creating more instances where they feel they must defend their, or their families’, honour.”
Khodabocus added that the rise in the figures rang true with his experience in dealing with the issue of honour-based crimes, which he said are “not just rising, but getting more severe”.
The specialist honour-based abuse solicitor went on to highlight the delays in family courts as perpetuating the issue, saying that many of his cases “are taking at least nine to 12 months to be resolved, leaving families and particularly children in a vulnerable position.”
In a tacit admission of the role that mass migration is having on the number of honour crimes, Khodabocus said that one of the cause of the delays in the system was a result of a lack of court language interpreters.
During the same time highlighted by the Guardian report on the rise of honour crimes, Britain saw one of its most significant periods of mass migration in the history of the country, with net migration hitting a record high in 2022 at an estimated 745,000 and a further 672,000 in net migration in 2023.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Members of the Borderline Dance Team were “excited” to show off their moves at the Emerald City Hoedown until the LGBTQ organization that hosted the event gave them an ultimatum.
Rain Country Dance Association, a nonprofit group that hosts events to bring the country and western dance scene to the “queer” community, reportedly told the Borderline dancers that their red, white, and blue shirts were “offensive.”
“Unfortunately, what our team was met with upon arrival was that our flag tops were offensive to some of the convention goers. There was a small group that felt ‘triggered and unsafe,'” Borderline Dance Team wrote on Facebook.
Over the last two days, we have been answering dozens of calls and messages from friends and family. Feelings have…
Posted by Borderline Dance Team on Monday, April 8, 2024
The team went on to say the reasons that people were offended included “the situation in Palestine” and the “trans community in America.”
“At first we were told we would just be booed, yelled at, and, likely, many of them would walk out. This did not deter us,” the dance squad said. “But then we were given an ultimatum.”
Members said they were told to “remove the flag tops and perform in either street clothes (which most didn’t bring, as they traveled there in their uniforms) or they would supply us with ECH shirts from years past…Or, don’t perform at all, which, effectively, was asking us to leave.”
Quote:President Joe Biden, 81, made the case on Wednesday for his reelection, arguing he is ready for four more years because “I’m in the 20th century.”
While speaking with reporters next to the president of Japan at the White House, Biden said, “Elect me. I’m in the 20th Century,” before correcting himself, saying, “the 21st century.”
It is not the first gaffe or inaccurate statement delivered by Biden, whom special counsel Robert Hur described as “an elderly man with a poor memory.” Numerous times, and perhaps several times during each speech, Biden makes embarrassing gaffes.
He has:
Stated his favorite memory of 2023 was the alleged improvement of the U.S. economy
Claimed he never met with Hunter Biden’s associates, despite photo evidence
Said Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”
Maintained he only had six grandchildren, ignoring Hunter Biden’s out-of-wedlock child
Declared twice that his son died in Iraq
To decrease the number of mistakes, White House aides give Biden note cards and suggest he stay on a pre-written script, Reuters reported in January. His planned words are typically fully “crafted and vetted” by a host of advisers.
That strategy appeared to be deployed during his press conference on Wednesday. Asked about the Hamas/Israel war, Biden appeared to read answers from his note cards:
Biden’s public appearances will do little to calm worries about his mental fitness. Polling shows bad signs for the president:
Quinnipiac: Only about one-quarter of voters say Biden is physically or mentally fit to serve a second term
Fox News: 54 percent of Democrat primary voters prefer an alternative to Biden
FiveThirtyEight: Joe Biden is the least popular president in modern history
CNN: Majority say there is “no chance” they would vote for Biden in 2024
Quote:The White House sparked controversy on Thursday when it expressed condolences to the family of OJ Simpson without mentioning the families of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman – the two people he had been accused of (and acquitted of) murdering before being found unanimously responsible for their deaths in a civil trial.
“Our thoughts are with his families [sic] during this difficult time — obviously with his family and loved ones,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing.
“And I’ll say this: I know that they have asked for some privacy. And so we’re going to respect that. And I’ll just leave it there,” she added.
Simpson’s family announced his death at the age of 76 on Thursday following a battle with prostate cancer.
“He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren,” a statement from the family said. “During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.”
As Breitbart News reported, Simpson’s star power following a prolific football career, which included 11 NFL seasons as a star running back with the Buffalo Bills and the San Francisco 49ers, cratered in the early 1990s when he stood accused of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Though he was acquitted of those murders following a lengthy and controversial trial, a jury later unanimously declared him liable for their deaths in a civil trial.
Quote:Argentine President Javier Milei arrived in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday for a visit that will see him receive an award from a prominent Jewish organization and meet privately with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Austin, Texas, on Friday.
Milei’s third trip to the United States since being elected president in November is part of a larger international tour that will conclude with a visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, next week.
Much like his previous international trips, Milei traveled to the United States on a commercial flight, saluting other passengers when arriving in Miami with his catchphrase, “Long live liberty, damn it!”
During his stay in Miami, Milei and his sister, Karina Milei, received the “Ambassador of Light” award from the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish organization in a private ceremony on Wednesday evening held at the Shul of Bal Harbour. Milei and his sister were granted the award in recognition of Milei’s support for Israel and his “his unwavering dedication to spreading freedom, hope and positivity in the face of darkness.”
Milei is the one of the few Latin American political voices who has expressed support for Israel’s self-defense operations against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas. In February, Milei conducted a multi-day visit to Israel, meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Milei has taken steps since his inauguration to realign Argentina’s foreign policy, embracing the United States and Israel after nearly two decades of socialist governments pushed Argentina towards China, Russia, and Iran.
Milei will continue his agenda on Thursday with a meeting with Inter-American Development Bank President Ilan Goldfajn. Milei will also deliver an address at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University.
On Friday, Milei will take a tour of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas in Austin, where he is slated to meet with Elon Musk. Milei, in a recent interview given to Bloomberg, claimed that Musk will be an active player and will have a role to play in the new Argentina that is “emerging from decadence.”
Quote:The Republican governor of Iowa signed a bill into law that makes illegal immigration a state crime if the person had been deported once already or denied entry before, a law similar in nature to that in Texas.
The bill signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds ® on Wednesday is meant to take effect on July 1, but could be delayed by court challenges, the New York Times reported.
Iowa’s Senate Bill 2340 makes illegal reentry into the U.S. a state crime and with certain limits gives state police officials the power to return an illegal to their home country.
The law also grants immunity from liability to law enforcement agencies and individuals.
Reynolds blasted the Biden administration in her signing.
“The Biden administration has failed to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, putting the protection and safety of Iowans at risk,” Reynolds said. “Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet Biden refuses to deport them. This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.”
Quote:Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says it is “preposterous” to suggest that President Joe Biden is importing millions of migrants to the United States to inflate political power in favor of Democrats.
During a Senate budget hearing on Wednesday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked Mayorkas if it is a fact “that the number of illegal immigrants that you and the president allow into our country counts for congressional district reapportionment?”
Mayorkas initially responded, saying “I’m not sure I understand your question but I can surely share with you that I disagree with its phrasing.”
Kennedy asked again, “Isn’t it true that the number of illegal immigrants that you and President Biden have allowed into our country counts in allocating electoral votes?” to which Mayorkas eventually responded, “The notion, Senator, that we intend to allow illegal immigration is nothing short of preposterous.”
Mayorkas’s remarks come as a Rasmussen Reports survey showed this month that a majority of 57 percent of likely voters — including 54 percent of white voters and 68 percent of Hispanics — believe Biden is importing migrants to the U.S. to create a permanent Democrat majority that Republicans will be unable to overcome.
Indeed, immigration plays a significant role in congressional apportionment and thus, the number of electoral college votes in presidential elections.
In 2020, for example, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) researchers revealed that the nation’s immigration policy — which annually brings more than a million legal immigrants to the U.S. as well as millions of migrants — was responsible for the shift of about 26 House seats.
“To put this number in perspective, changing the party of 21 members of the current Congress would flip the majority in the U.S. House. The 26 seats represent the effect of all immigrants and their children 17 years of age and younger, and is not the change from one census to another,” CIS researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler wrote:
Illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born minor children will redistribute five seats in 2020, with Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, Minnesota, and West Virginia each losing one seat in 2020 that they otherwise would have had. California and Texas will each have two additional seats, and New York will have one additional seat. [Emphasis added]
Quote:First daughter Ashley Biden made a rare appearance at a lavish state dinner welcoming the Japanese prime minister to the White House on Wednesday, a day after the woman who stole and sold her diary was sentenced to a month of prison time.
The New York Times noted the timing of her appearance:
Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter, politely but quickly drifted away from the cameras after telling reporters about her dress. On Tuesday, a Florida woman was sentenced to jail for selling Ms. Biden’s private diary to a right-wing activist group. But outside worries rarely come between a Biden and a state dinner invitation. Ms. Biden’s brother, Hunter, attended a state dinner while under federal investigation last year.
One journalist commented that the article had a “sneering tone” and suggested that Biden should not appear so soon after the sentence:
The woman who was sentenced to jail, Aimee Harris, is a mother of two children, and was given prison time and and three months of home confinement after prosecutors accused her of purposely delaying the sentencing hearing 12 times and showing “a complete disregard” for court orders.
Harris apologized at the hearing for selling the diary and apologized for repeatedly delaying the sentencing hearing, arguing that she was consumed with caring for her two young children, who are six and eight years old. She also said that she is a survivor of long-term domestic abuse and sexual trauma.
Quote:President Joe Biden is dangling new border curbs and praising the border plan pushed by Mexico’s president as he tries to restore his support among alienated and disappointed Latino voters.
When asked by the Spanish-language Univision TV network if he plans to issue an executive order to curb the inflow, Biden dodged by saying:
There’s no guarantee that I have that power all by myself without legislation. And some have suggested I should just go ahead and try it. And if I get shut down by the court, I get shut down by the court. We’re trying to work through that right now.
In contrast, former President Donald Trump used the president’s myriad legal and diplomatic powers in 2019 to sharply reduce illegal migration in 2020.
Biden’s border dodge is rational because swing voters want curbs while critical groups in his coalition — West Coast investors and anti-border progressives — have successfully blocked proposed actions to curb the inflow of migrant workers, consumers, and renters.
Axios reported that “while it’s not final, such an executive order is likely by the end of April.” The site claimed Biden “would use authority” in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude some migrants as “detrimental” to U.S. national interests.
Also, Biden may not need an effective policy shift to curb migration. His deputies have already negotiated curbs with Mexico that are reducing the visibility of the unplanned inflow. And even a toothless policy change will help him declare that he is curbing the border inflow.
Biden’s deputies are smacking down claims that he will tighten border rules. “What people want to see is order and humanity in our immigration system” — not cuts and curbs — Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, told the Washington Post last month. “The president doesn’t talk about shutting down the border,” said Chavez Rodriguez, who is the Berkeley-retrained granddaughter of the 1960s labor leader Cesar Chavez, who strongly opposed migration.
Quote:We live in dangerous times. That is the simple message FBI Director Christopher Wray will deliver Thursday when he warns of an “elevated threat” to U.S. public safety and national security while seeking a budget boost.
Wray is set to tell a House of Representatives panel of just how America can be threatened through the execution an organized terrorist attack similar to the one that killed scores of people at a Russian concert hall last month, FOX News reports.
“Looking back over my career in law enforcement, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once,” Wray will say to the House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. “But that is the case as I sit here today. This is not a point when we can let up.”
Wray will argue at the hearing the federal agency needs fiscal support to “tackle these threats” to keep American citizens safe at home as what we were once perceived as global dangers draw nearer.
“This is by no means a time to let up or dial back. This is a time when we need your support the most — we need all the tools, all the people, and all the resources required to tackle these threats and to keep Americans safe,” Wray will say.
Wray will say the FBI’s “immediate concern” is individuals will draw inspiration from the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East and carry out terrorist attacks in the U.S..
Quote:During portions of an interview with NBC News aired on Thursday’s edition of “NBC Nightly News,” Jason Houser, who served as ICE Chief of Staff under the Biden administration, reacted to a report that Border Patrol released a man who was on the terror watchlist by stating that this happening “is very, very rare.” But it’s not acceptable for any terrorist or anyone linked to terrorism to try to come into the U.S.
NBC News Homeland Security Correspondent Julia Ainsley said the case “appears to be just one of at least three incidents in the past two years involving suspected terrorists being released by Customs and Border Protection, according to the DHS inspector general and Congress.”
She also played a clip of Houser saying, “Any terrorist or terrorist-linked individual trying to come into this country is unacceptable.”
Ainsley then said, “We pressed a former top ICE official in the Biden administration about how a member of a terror group could be released into the U.S. by DHS.”
She then played a clip of Houser stating, “This is very, very rare. There’s a large capacity and capability for both Border Patrol, ICE, federal law enforcement, and the interagency to identify and vet these individuals as they come to the border.”
Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris posted a video to X on Thursday in which she praised the ATF’s proposed rule which will force background checks on private gun sales.
President Biden boasted about the proposed ATF rule Thursday morning as well.
Breitbart News explained that the ATF’s proposed rule changes the definition of what it means to be “engaged in the business of selling guns,” thereby expanding the instances in which an unlicensed seller — i.e., a private citizen — must use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to sell or transfer a gun.
In Harris’s video, she claimed the expanded background checks will “save lives.” She then went on to push for Congress to pass more gun control, including red flag laws, an “assault weapons” ban, and literally universal background checks.
Harris did not mention that California has had an “assault weapons” ban since 1989, universal background checks since the early 1990s, and a red flag law since 2014. In fact, California has more gun control than any other state.
Nevertheless, in 2021, California was the number one state for “active shooter incidents.”
EDIT BY DERVVULFMAN:
As a person who worked for someone with an FFL (Federal Firearm License), I wish it known that it has been federal law that gun sales and transfers, even between private individuals, MUST go through a FFL dealership and have at least the FBI NICS-4473 form filled out and processed. Biden's claim that private citizens must go through an FFL is actually unchanged as it has always been the case. I have personally handled such transfers, making direct phone calls to the FBI NICS department easily over 200 times. I memorized the phone number.
Quote:Experts, including two former diplomats representing America at the United Nations, warned Congress in a hearing on Wednesday that China is amassing power within the U.N. structure to “blunt criticism, shut out and stigmatize Taiwan, plug its Belt and Road Initiative, and dilute norms that might be used to hold it accountable.”
The experts cited examples such as the Chinese Communist Party actively pursuing leadership roles for members of the regime at the head of influence U.N. agencies, investing directly in obscure U.N. projects and hijacking them to work in Beijing’s interest, and using its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to coerce poor countries into defending it against human rights criticism at the United Nations.
Among the most prominent examples of the latter was China’s “Universal Periodic Review” at the Human Rights Council this year. The Human Rights Council, currently staffed by majority dictatorships, reviews the records of various governments on a schedule on the matter of human rights; China was one of 14 to face scrutiny in 2024.
While the Chinese Communist Party is one of the bloodiest and most prolific human rights criminals in the world, most notably engaging in an ongoing genocide against Turkic ethnic groups in occupied East Turkistan, it received lavish praise at the Human Rights Council for “commitment to the promotion of humanity’s common values,” “improving the criminal litigation system,” and “impressive progress in the field of social economic development.” Among the countries applauding the communists were fellow rogue states such as Russia and Iran, but nominal U.S. allies including Ukraine, a BRI member, as well.
The experts also lamented China’s role in limiting competent action by the World Health Organization (W.H.O) during the early days of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and similar attempts to influence other U.N. bodies.
The Congressional Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations hosted the hearing on Wednesday, titled, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Malign Influence at the United Nations — It’s Getting Worse.” The hearing followed a similar event in February hosted by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bicameral body, that focused only on the Universal Periodic Review. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) chaired both events.
And I thought that it still was the USSR / Russia's job. I guess Putin does believe in outsourcing services.
Quote:A court in Ho Chi Minh City rushed on Thursday to sentence real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, one of the richest women in the world, to death for her part in a $12.5 billion fraud case.
The verdict and sentence were delivered surprisingly early in the trial, which was the greatest courtroom spectacle in Vietnam’s history.
Lan, 67, is a Chinese-born billionaire who rose from humble origins as a cosmetics vendor to build a real estate empire after Vietnam’s economic reforms in the 1980s. She established the Van Thinh Phat company in 1992, the same year she married Hong Kong investor Eric Chu Nap-kee, and quickly amassed a vast portfolio of hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls. To this day, the company owns most of the luxury properties in Ho Chi Minh City – or at least it did until the court seized over 1,000 properties owned by Lan.
All land in Vietnam is technically owned by the Communist regime, so even when the economy was “liberalized” by “market reforms,” close ties to a phalanx of government officials were necessary to become successful in real estate. Almost all of Vietnam’s first wave of market-reform millionaires were people like Lan who convinced Communist officials to let them buy and sell real estate.
Lan became so respected and influential that the Vietnamese Communist Party gave her an oversight role in a massive 2011 bank merger. According to prosecutors, she proceeded to use the revamped Saigon Joint Commercial Bank (SCB) as her personal piggy bank, milking it for billions by creating “ghost companies” and using them to secure fraudulent loans for herself and her cronies.
Lan and her 85 co-defendants were accused of swindling $12.5 billion from the SCB, but prosecutors said their activities caused over $27 billion in damage to the bank and Vietnam’s financial system, which is equivalent to about seven percent of Vietnam’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Quote:Chinese dictator Xi Jinping hosted former President of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou on Wednesday, declaring that Taiwan is not a separate entity from communist China as their peoples “share the same bloodline, culture, and history.”
Ma served as president of the nation of Taiwan between 2008 and 2016, representing the pro-communist Kuomintang party. Taiwan is a sovereign state independent of China that has never been ruled by a government headquartered in Beijing, and Ma became president through a free and fair election. Despite having been the leader of the sovereign entity, Ma has championed friendly relations with the Chinese Communist Party, which rejects the reality of Taiwanese nationhood and insists the country is a rogue province rightfully governed by Beijing.
Chinese state media, which covered Ma’s visit extensively, did not indicate that Ma objected to Xi’s repeated claims over his country. On the contrary, the state outlet Xinhua claimed that Ma said “opposing ‘Taiwan independence'” is a necessary “common political foundation” for peaceful Beijing-Taipei relations.
Ma’s visit followed the election of hardline anti-communist Vice President Lai Ching-te to the presidency of the country in January, extending the rule of his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after two terms of outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, who succeeded Ma. The Chinese Communist Party aggressively opposed the elections of both Tsai and Lai, and state media openly threatened war against Taiwan in the aftermath of Lai’s defeat of the Kuomintang.
“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army remains on high alert at all times and will take all necessary measures to resolutely crush any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist plots and firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman bellowed shortly before Lai’s victory.
Having failed to defeat the DPP, the Chinese government appears to be working to elevate its rival party by giving Ma a warm welcome on Wednesday. Xinhua reported that Xi emphasized to Ma and – thus, the entire nation of Taiwan – that there is no such thing as a Taiwanese national.
Quote:China on Thursday announced sanctions on two major American defense companies over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan violated the various agreements between the U.S. and China that maintain a delicate situation whereby the U.S. does not officially recognize the Taiwanese government nor support its independence, but it allows for the U.S. to maintain informal ties to the democratic island nation and bolster its defense against a military takeover by China.
The ministry said in a statement:
The continued U.S. arms sales to China’s Taiwan region seriously violate the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, interfere in China’s internal affairs, and undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
China sanctioned General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems, freezing their assets within China and denying entry to their senior management. “This decision shall come into force as of April 11, 2024,” the statement said.
According to the Associated Press (AP), General Dynamics operates a half-dozen Gulfstream and jet aviation services operations in China. The company also produces the Abrams tank, which is being purchased by Taiwan to resist an invasion by China.
Last year, China banned American defense companies Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Missiles & Defense after one of their planes and missiles shot down the suspected spy balloon that was discovered flying across the continental U.S. over sensitive military installations, the AP reported.
Taiwan is a major flashpoint between the U.S. and China.
Quote:The Philippines joined the United States, Japan, and Australia on Sunday for a large-scale joint air and naval exercise in the South China Sea. China peevishly announced “combat patrols” to counter the exercise, boasting it would keep the United States and its allies “under control.”
The Philippine military said the joint exercise, dubbed “the first Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity (MMC) in the West Philippine Sea,” was a success.
The exercise involved six surface vessels and four aircraft, which performed “communications exercises” and practiced tactical maneuvers within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
“These activities were designed to enhance the different forces’ abilities to work together effectively in maritime scenarios,” the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said.
“The MMCA demonstrated the participating countries’ commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific through interoperability exercises in the maritime domain,” the AFP declared.
Australian Commander Jennifer Graham of the HMAS Warramunga, an Anzac-class frigate that participated in the exercise, said:
We thoroughly enjoyed Philippine hospitality and activities while alongside at Puerto Princesa as part of our regional presence deployment, including cultural exchanges, ship tour and an official function, plus a goodwill match of soccer and basketball with the Philippine Navy at Naval Station Apolinario.
“We were very impressed with the capability, professionalism and support of the Armed Forces of the Philippines elements involved in the planning and execution of the activity,” Squadron Leader Tristan Hull said.
Quote:Multiple senior members of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration and the head of his People Power Party (PPP) tendered their resignations on Thursday after vote counts confirmed that the left-wing Democratic Party decisively took over the National Assembly in Wednesday’s midterm election.
The Democrats overcame a chaotic campaign season in which leader Lee Jae-myung survived a would-be assassin stabbing him in the neck. The day he was released from the hospital, three members of his party defected, protesting that Lee was running an authoritarian and corrupt “regime” within the party. Lee was in court on Tuesday for a hearing addressing criminal charges in which he stands accused of bribery and other corruption during his term as mayor of Seongnam.
Aiding the Democratic Party is the growing unpopularity of the PPP under Yoon. Yoon is facing his own corruption scandal – wife Kim Keon-hee was allegedly caught on video accepting a $2,200 Dior bag as an illicit gift – and soured public sentiment against himself by claiming during a supermarket visit that the price of green onions was reasonable.
Voters interpreted his observation, which omitted that the government was forced to intervene to suppress inflation of scallion prices, as an indication that he was woefully out of touch with the difficulties average Koreans are facing in his economy.
As of Thursday, authorities confirmed the Democratic Party taking 161 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly, the federal legislature, and in total controls 175 seats, including associated political parties that compete in the few seats elected via proportional representation. The PPP, meanwhile, holds 90 seats and controls 108 when counting associated parties.
Quote:A Canadian intelligence commission concluded on Monday that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 elections,” both of which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party won.
Trudeau established the commission in January under intense pressure to do more about foreign interference in Canadian elections, especially from China.
The most glaring example of such interference was the downfall of Kenny Chiu, a Conservative Member of Parliament explicitly told by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that his re-election campaign was undermined by foreign interference. Chiu lost his seat in 2021 to a member of Trudeau’s Liberal Party.
On Monday, the commission reviewed a February 2023 CSIS briefing for Trudeau in which the spy agency made it clear that China clandestinely interfered in the previous two elections. The public disclosure of this document was a bombshell that demolished earlier claims by Trudeau officials that the evidence of Chinese interference was not firm enough to merit government action.
Even more embarrassing was the conclusion CSIS reached in the February briefing that China worked to undermine Conservative candidates in 2021 because Beijing felt the party was running on an “anti-China” platform. Among other issues, the Conservatives were vocal about China’s genocide of the Uyghur Muslims and the security threat posed by Huawei 5G networking equipment.
The briefing presented to Trudeau described “online and media activities aimed at discouraging Canadians, particularly of Chinese heritage, from supporting the Conservative Party, leader Erin O’Toole, and particularly Steveston-Richmond East Candidate Kenny Chiu.”
Quote:In the tranquil waters of Puntarenas, a surprising event unfolded this Tuesday, which might remind one of a peculiar shuffle rather than a smooth sailing day. The Naviera Tambor’s ferry, the Tambor III, found itself in a tangle with the Paquera dock’s access ramp. This was not your everyday bump; the collision left the dock licking its wounds, prompting an urgent reassessment of infrastructure and travel plans alike.
A Collision Course with Chaos
The incident took a dramatic turn as the ferry, in a bid to embrace the shore, instead embraced the ramp a tad too tightly. This unfortunate entanglement resulted in significant damage to the structure, setting off alarms across the region. It was a moment when the ocean’s calm met human error, and the result was anything but serene.
As fate would have it, this maritime misstep occurred at a time when alternative routes to Guanacaste were as precious as a cool breeze in summer. The La Amistad bridge over the Tempisque river was closed for maintenance, leaving travelers to rely more heavily on ferry services. The timing, it seems, could not have been more impeccable if it tried.
The Response: A Tide of Actions
Quick to react, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT), through its Maritime Port Authority, deployed officials to the scene faster than one might say “ship ahoy!” Their mission: to assess the damages and chart the course for repair. Meanwhile, Naviera Tambor took to social media, perhaps in an attempt to steady the ship, announcing that services would continue but with a slight detour to Playa Naranjo’s docks.
In an era where social media can often seem like the wild seas, Naviera Tambor’s announcement was a lighthouse of information. They reassured the public that their crew, captains, and personnel were as capable as ever, perhaps even ready to navigate through a storm in a teacup.
Navigating Through Repairs
As the dust settled and the tide of immediate reactions receded, the MOPT authorized Coonatramar, another ferry operator, to fill in the gaps. Coonatramar, navigating the waters between Puntarenas and Playa Naranjo, was granted permission to operate around the clock, a decision that likely saw a collective sigh of relief from travelers and night owls alike.
Verny Jiménez, the director of the Maritime Port Division, painted a picture of the aftermath: two modules, each three meters wide, were damaged, alongside a pilote. As for the timeline and solution, the waters remain murky, but the repair works are estimated to last at least two months, with the costs to be borne by insurance.
Quote:The latest oil price-tracking data suggests Russian crude oil is currently selling for about $75 per barrel, which is far above the $60 cap imposed by the Group of Seven nations (G7) in 2022.
Russian oil is trading even higher in markets like India, suggesting the G7 effort to starve Russia’s war machine of oil revenue is failing.
Bloomberg News reviewed data on Wednesday from one of the premier oil price trackers, Argus Media, to determine that Russian oil is currently valued at $75 a barrel when it leaves Black Sea and Baltic Sea ports.
In India, oil from the Urals is trading at $88 a barrel, which is only a $3.80 discount below the global benchmark. Russia was originally forced to sell its oil at steep discounts after it invaded Ukraine and drew Western sanctions, but that no longer seems to be the case.
Argus Media said the good news is that Russia pays far more to ship oil to customers in Asia than to its old customers in Europe, which eats up about $7 to $8 of profit from each barrel sold – but even those high shipping costs are declining, which puts more money in Moscow’s pocket.
The bad news is that those high prices mean Western shipping companies have not been honestly reporting the value of the Russian oil they transport.
Quote:New Zealand’s conservative government announced Sunday it has tightened work visa rules as “unsustainable” migration levels soar to near-record highs.
Low-skilled applicants now have to fulfil English-language requirements and are allowed to stay for three years – down from five previously – amid fears that high immigration levels are driving up house prices.
“Getting our immigration settings right is critical to this government’s plan to rebuild the economy,” said Immigration Minister Erica Stanford.
Close to a record 173,000 non-citizens migrated to New Zealand last year.
New Zealand, which has a population of 5.3 million, has been experiencing a surge in migration since the end of 2022 driven by moves from the previous left-wing Labour government of now departed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon declared last year the country’s high net migration rates did not “feel sustainable at all” and promised to act.
Now he has fulfilled that commitment.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:Russia appears to be stepping up its campaign to deprive Ukraine of electricity, launching a series of major missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure this week, totally destroying a large power plant.
The Trypilska coal and gas power plant was “completely destroyed” in a missile attack overnight into Thursday, Ukrainian state media says. According to those repots, it was one of the “most powerful” plants in the Kyiv region and the whole facility from turbines, transformers, to generators were hit in the strike.
A second power plant in Sumy was also hit in an airstrike.
The national energy board warned power outages were likely to result, and particularly in the region of Kharkiv city where the situation is compounded by further Russian airstrike damage to local substations, making power transmission difficult. “Substations and power generating facilities” have been damaged in recent days in “Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv and Kyiv”, the government said.
While solar fields generate power during the day, they of course do not work in the dark and the traditional power plants are needed to take up the slack. Consquently, power outages are possible in the evenings, when demand is highest and supply now lowest.
Ukraine claims the Trypilska power station attack was the work of a so-far little seen new Russian missile, the “X-69 cruise missile”, which they claim has a range of 400 kilometres (250 miles) and which can fly skimming over ground level at an altitude of 20 meters (65 feet), making it hard to track and take down. Per the BBC, the attack overnight into Thursday was a wave of 80 missiles and drones.
This morning, Ukraine said it had shot down 16 of 17 Iranian designed Shahed attack drones in a further wave of attacks overnight into Friday, but that the wreckage of one fell on “critical infrastructure” and started a fire. Ukraine again called for its Western underwriters to support more air defence missiles this morning, citing the attacks of the previous days as demonstration of need.
Quote:Volodymyr Zelensky said that his government has reached out Donald Trump, inviting him to visit Ukraine in order to impress upon the presidential frontrunner of the need for more American military aid as he hyped the prospects of another counteroffensive, despite last year’s failures to move the line against Russia.
“Yes, we have a plan for a counteroffensive,” President Zelensky assured in an interview with Germany’s Bild tabloid newspaper this week as he continued his pleas for more weapons and money from Western powers, namely for House Republicans in Washington D.C. to bow to the Biden administration’s demands for another $64 billion in American taxpayer dollars for Ukraine, on top of the $113 billion already committed to the conflict.
Referencing the refusal from Berlin to send long-range Taurus missiles, the lengthy wait for American-made F-16 fighter jets promised from multiple NATO countries, and additional U.S. supplied ATACMS short-range missiles, Zelensky raged: “Our partners have certain weapons that we need today to survive. Ukraine needs them to survive and I just don’t understand why we don’t get these weapons.”
Warning of a potential defeat at the hands of Russia if the West does not send such weapons soon, the Ukrainian leader said that Vladimir Putin will “destroy everything” and “kill a lot of people”, claiming that the Russian strongman’s “wish is to take over the whole of Ukraine”.
“Most people will not run away, so he will kill a lot of them. What will it look like? There will be a lot of blood. There will be many victims, and many losses. We are talking about hundreds of thousands,” Zelensky said.
Quote:Ukraine´s parliament passed a law Thursday that will govern how the country recruits new conscripts, following months of delay and after thousands of amendments were submitted to water down the initial draft.
Lawmakers dragged their feet for months over the law, which is expected to be unpopular. The law was spurred by a request from Ukraine´s military, which wanted to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in December.
Exhausted soldiers, on the front lines since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had no means to rotate out for rest, while many thousands of Ukrainian men evade the draft.
The law was passed to the backdrop of an escalating Russian campaign that has devastated Ukraine´s energy infrastructure in recent weeks. Authorities said Russian overnight missile and drone attacks again struck infrastructure and power facilities across several regions and completely destroyed the Trypilska thermal power plant, the largest power generating facility in Kyiv region.
The law brings into effect a host of changes to the current system by expanding the powers of Ukrainian authorities to issue draft notices using an electronic system.
Incumbent army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Zelenskyy have since revised that figure after conducting an audit, saying the number needed was not as high because soldiers can be rotated from the rear.
Quote:Switzerland’s government said Wednesday it will host a high-level international conference in June to help chart a path toward peace in Ukraine after more than two years of war, in hopes that Russia might join in the peace process one day.
The lakeside Burgenstock resort is expected to host the June 15-16 gathering. It’s expected to draw top government officials from dozens of countries, following on a plan laid out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis in recent months.
“The first country that we spoke with, after Ukraine of course, was Russia, because a peace process cannot happen without Russia, even if it won’t be there for the first meeting” Cassis told reporters Wednesday in the Swiss capital, Bern.
Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden could attend. He is expected to be in Italy during that time for the G7 leaders meeting, though the White House has not said whether he would attend the Swiss conference.
The Swiss government said early talks toward arranging the conference involved the European Union and envoys from the so-called Global South, including Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
...
Much of the diplomatic uncertainty has centered on whether key Russia ally China might attend – and Cassis pressed for Beijing’s support for Switzerland’s ambitions during a trip to the Chinese capital last month.
China’s Foreign Ministry has said that Beijing supports a conference that’s accepted by both Russia and Ukraine, which isn’t the case so far.
Quote:German police arrested three teenagers accused of planning a knife or firebomb attack on churches and police stations for the Islamic State.
Unnamed teenagers ages 15, 15, and 16-years-old were arrested by police executing a warrant issued at Easter in the Dusseldorf of the North Rhine-Westphalia region. Two of those arrested are girls, and one a boy.
The security services said they had detected the group using an instant messenger group chat to discuss plans to launch attacks against targets including people in churches and police stations. Germany’s Die Welt reports the weapons involved could have been knives or firebombs, and the cities considered for the alleged strike were Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Cologne. Acquiring firearms had allegedly been discussed.
It is alleged the teen trio are believed to have been working for the Islamic State and while they had not reached the point of having formed a “concrete” plan, nevertheless investigators said they foresaw “danger” from the group. It is stated the father of one of those arrested is already known to the security services for collecting money for the Islamic State.
Cologne Cathedral has now become a familiar focus for migrant crime and Islamist plots in Germany, its precinct having been the setting for the 2015-16 migrant sex attacks event, and and the church itself an apparently irresistible target for would-be terrorists. In recent months a Turk and a Tajik have been arrested over alleged plots to attack the cathedral.
Quote:The Italian coast guard rescued 22 people and recovered nine bodies after a smugglers´ boat capsized in a storm about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the island of Lampedusa, authorities said Thursday.
Survivors indicated that the steel-bottom boat had departed from Sfax, Tunisia, overnight Sunday carrying 46 people from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali and Ivory Coast. The boat capsized Wednesday morning as waves reached up to 5 meters (16 feet) and “the group became very agitated when the engine broke down and they were left adrift,´´ the U.N. refugee agency said.
The victims were a 6-month-old child and eight men, UNHCR said. Six of the survivors were treated for severe hypothermia and dehydration; two remain hospitalized.
After the rescue in rough seas with waves reaching more than 2 1/2 meters (8 feet), the Coast Guard said it continued air surveillance of the area, which is under Malta´s search-and-rescue area.
Attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe generally increase as summer approaches, raising concerns about more shipwrecks, especially as Italian port rules are restricting operations of charity rescue boats. Italy´s far-right-led government has recently been instructing charity boats to go to northern ports after each rescue, reducing their operations, and has been impounding boats that it says violates its rules.
Quote:Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf is facing a political “apocalypse” as a survey showed support for his leftist-separatist Scottish National Party has fallen to its lowest level in a decade amid the chaotic rollout of his new hate speech law.
A poll conducted by YouGov amid the implementation of the deeply controversial and draconian speech restrictions showed that the Labour Party has surpassed Humza Yousaf’s Scottish National Party (SNP) for the first time since the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, with 33 per cent of the public backing Labour in Westminster voting intention compared to 31 per cent for Yousaf’s SNP.
According to leading polling expert Sir John Curtice, the survey means that the SNP is on pace to only receive 18 seats in the UK parliament, a potentially disastrous decline from the 2019 general election when the separatist party had won 30 seats. Meanwhile, the Scottish branch of the left-wing Labour Party is predicted to win 28 seats in the northern British country. The Scottish Daily Express described the polling as indicating a potential “apocalypse” for Yousaf and his leftist party.
Meanwhile, the polling suggested that the SNP and Labour would each secure 43 seats in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, potentially jeopardising the Scottish National Party’s ability to maintain its grip on power over the locally devolved government, which it has held for nearly two decades.
Support for the far-left-nationalist-separatist party comes amid increasing anger over the “calamitous state” of the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland as well as persistent scandals rocking the party, specifically surrounding corruption allegations, including the arrest of former SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her husband last year.
Quote:A man who had been sought in a nationwide manhunt over the knife killing of a mother out pushing her child in a baby-carriage on a shopping street has been charged with murder, police say.
25-year-old Habibur Masum was charged with murder and possession of a bladed article by West Yorkshire Police on Wednesday. Four other men aged 23, 26, 28, and 29 have been released on bail. Police had previously said they had arrested a 23-year-old man “on suspicion of assisting an offender”.
A manhunt had been launched on Sunday for a man called Masum, described as a “Asian man, of slim build” after Kulsuma Akter, a 27-year-old woman was stabbed to death “in broad daylight in a busy area of Bradford”. The attack was said to have taken place on a shopping street and was witnessed by several people.
The victim was pushing a pram with her baby inside at the time of her killing, but the baby was said by police to be unharmed.
In a report noting Masum had briefly appeared at Bradford Crown Court on Thursday, the BBC stated Masum is victim Kulsuma Akter’s husband and that a family member had told the broadcaster the couple had migrated to Britain from Bangladesh two years ago.
Quote:Brexit leader Nigel Farage argues the British people should be called upon again to decide whether the United Kingdom remains under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) or fully take back control over its borders.
In light of the refusal by successive Conservative governments in Westminster to remove the UK from the bounds of the Strasbourg Court — despite compelling arguments made at the time, that it should have been discarded with the European Union — a referendum should be held now, Nigel Farage said. The vote would allow the people of Britain to decide whether judges in France have any say over the deportation of migrants or other issues, he remarked this week during a discussion with subscribers of The Telegraph newspaper.
“A referendum that would be useful would be a referendum on the ECHR and whether we should continue to allow a court in Strasbourg” to have a say over British policy, Mr Farage said.
The Brexit leader said that while he implored figures such as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to include leaving the ECHR as a part of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union back then, he said Johnson had “no interest” in doing so.
Although the 2016 referendum resulted in the UK leaving the EU in 2020, Johnson decided to remain within the Council of Europe and therefore under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Both institutions are technically separate from the EU, despite sharing much of the same agenda, and even having the same anthem and flag as the EU. The ECHR is also located on the same campus as the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
The decision by Johnson’s government to remain within the ECHR framework has had serious ramifications on UK immigration policy. Despite the Brexit promise of “taking back control” over the nation’s borders, judges in Strasbourg intervened at the last minute in June of 2022 to prevent a migrant removal flight to Rwanda, throwing the central illegal boat migrant deterrence policy into chaos and precipitating in years of delays — which are still ongoing — to the plan of sending illegals to asylum processing centres in the East African nation.
Mattel Adapts Scrabble to Gen-Z's Brain Processing Level?
Quote:Mattel is releasing a more Gen-Z-friendly version of Scrabble in Europe by including a “No More Scoring” game option.
“The new launch is a double-sided version of the famous board game — one side with the original game for those who want to stick to the long-time traditional version, and one side with a ‘less competitive’ version to appeal to Gen Z gamers,” reported the New York Post.
“The flip side of the classic game, called Scrabble Together, will include helper cards, use a simpler scoring system, be quicker to play and allow people to play in teams,” it added.
Gyles Brandreth, who co-hosts the language podcast Something Rhymes With Purple, told BBC Radio 4 Today that Mattel discovered that Gen-Z fans of Scrabble see no value in making the game competitive.
“They want a game where you can simply enjoy language, words, being together and having fun creating words,” said Rhymes.
Ray Adler, vice president, global head of games for Mattel, told the NY Post that the company wants to ensure the game “continues to be inclusive for all players.”
“Scrabble has truly stood the test of time as one of the most popular board games in history, and we want to ensure the game continues to be inclusive for all players,” said Adler. “For anyone who’s ever thought ‘word games aren’t for me’, or felt a little intimidated by the classic game, Scrabble Together mode is an ideal option.”
Quote:The United States believes that an Iranian attack on Israel may be imminent and has instructed its diplomatic employees in Israel not to travel far from their homes in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva in the south.
The warning came after days of threats by Iran to retaliate against Israel for an airstrike April 1 in Damascus, Syria, that killed two generals and five officers responsible for attacks on Israel via terrorist proxy armies in recent months.
Israel warned that if Iran launches an attack on Israel directly from Iranian territory, it will retaliate against Iran directly — not against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or militias in Iraq.
The Israeli military canceled leave for combat soldiers and called up reservists from air defense units several days ago. President Joe Biden also reiterated Wednesday that U.S. support for Israel was “ironclad,” in an attempt to deter Iran.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post and Reuters reported on Friday morning that the U.S. has warned ocal staff:
The United States said on Thursday it had restricted its employees in Israel and their family members from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva areas amid Iran’s threats to retaliate against its regional adversary.
Iran has vowed revenge for the April 1 airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus, ratcheting up tension in a region already strained by the Gaza war.
“Out of an abundance of caution, U.S. government employees and their family members are restricted from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv (including Herzliya, Netanya, and Even Yehuda), Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva areas until further notice,” the US embassy said in a security alert on its website on Thursday. “U.S. government personnel are authorized to transit between these three areas for personal travel.”
Quote:Three Vanderbilt University students have reportedly been expelled following a pro-Palestinian protest on campus that resulted in several arrests last month.
Three students were expelled, one was suspended, and 22 were given disciplinary probations for their involvement in an anti-Israel protest that resulted in a police officer being physically pushed and three arrests, according to a report by the Vanderbilt Hustler.
As Breitbart News reported, pro-Palestinian students were seen pushing an officer in order to force entry into a campus building to protest the school’s decision to cancel a ballot proposition that would have banned funding for pro-Israel groups.
The school declined to disclose the specific number of students who were given probations, suspensions, and expulsions, telling the Vanderbilt Hustler, “Student disciplinary outcomes are considered part of an individual student’s educational record, the contents of which are protected by federal privacy laws.”
“We cannot release information that would make a student, or group of students, identifiable,” the university spokesperson added.
But the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition and Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter took to Instagram to make some of this information publicly known.
“Chancellor [Daniel] Diermeier is notoriously cruel to student protestors,” the Instagram post read, before lamenting the university’s alleged decision to “remove BDS from the ballot” after calling it “unlawful.”
Quote:The same disgraced New York Times that published a straight-up lie about Israel bombing a hospital in Gaza is the same New York Times that killed an internal podcast meant to expose the sexual violence and sexual terrorism the savages in Hamas used against Israeli civilians during the October 7 terror attack.
After some hero leaked the news that these crucial facts were removed from a Times podcast called The Daily, the far-left outlet launched a witch hunt to root out the leaker or leakers.
Breitbart News first reported on this Nixonian witch hunt six weeks ago. Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that not only is the witch hunt ongoing and intensifying, but the oh-so progressive Times is using the witch hunt for the same reason all fascists use witch hunts: to terrify people into not exposing the truth [emphasis mine]:
Over the past several weeks, Charlotte Behrendt, a top Times editor in charge of probing workplace issues in the newsroom, has summoned close to 20 employees for interviews to determine whether staffers leaked confidential information related to Gaza war coverage to another media outlet.
...
The internal probe was meant to find out who leaked information related to a planned podcast episode about that article. But its intensity and scope suggests the Times’s leadership, after years of fights with its workforce over a variety of issues involving journalistic integrity, is sending a signal: Enough.
“The idea that someone dips into that process in the middle,” Executive Editor Joe Kahn crybabied to the Wall Street Journal, “and finds something … interesting or damaging to the story” and then leaks that to the public “felt to me and my colleagues like a breakdown in the sort of trust and collaboration that’s necessary in the editorial process.”
“I haven’t seen that happen before,” he added.
If this has become a matter of trust, tell me who can trust in you now, Gray Lady?
Quote:A major fast-food franchisee in California, Harsh Ghai, is rushing to install kiosks at his restaurants to save money as the $20 minimum wage affects businesses.
Ghai owns approximately 180 fast food locations in the state, which include Burger Kings, Taco Bells, and Popeyes, Business Insider reported Friday.
“We are installing kiosks in every single restaurant,” Ghai explained.
The Insider report noted, “Some fast-food franchisees say that the higher payrolls could make it challenging to remain profitable. Many are desperately looking for ways to bring in more revenues and cut costs.”
In March, a major McDonald’s franchisee in Los Angeles criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) minimum wage law forcing fast food businesses to raise employees’ pay to at least $20 an hour, Breitbart News reported.
Kerri Harper-Howie said she can save money in other ways but everything eventually comes down to “we will take less…[which] means less profitability for us, and we will absorb that.”
Meanwhile, Ghai said he is trying to offset the raised wage by cutting employee hours, doing away with overtime, holding back on opening additional locations, and installing kiosks.
Quote:Undecided voters from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania on an MSNBC panel this week declared opposition to President Joe Biden because of his economic failures.
Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe aired a clip of undecided voters speaking about Joe Biden’s “disastrous” economy. During the clip, the moderator asked the voters whether Biden or former President Donald Trump would improve the economy. By a show of hands, all eight undecideds chose Trump.
The video is below, and the transcript follows:
Transcript:
Nathan from Wisconsin: I think he’s been absolutely disastrous for the economy.
Virginia from Pennsylvania: I agree.
Moderator: Who thinks President Trump’s policies would be better for your family personally? Raise your hand.
So that is everybody.
President Biden argues that his economic record has been very good, that President Trump’s record was not as good. What are you keying off? Shawn, what are you keying off of to say that President Trump’s economic policies would be better for your family?
Shawn from Pennsylvania: My past performance of my 401(k). I know it was post-2020 and everything kind of flipped around, but you can’t blame everything on 2020 forever.
Virginia: We have areas here in Pennsylvania where it’s just at a standstill right now. Like, things are supposed to be being built and the interest rates are just way too high for people to, you know, invest and start moving around.
Quote:California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration lost track of the $24 billion in taxpayer funds it spent over the past five years in an attempt to curb the state’s homelessness crisis, an audit has found.
The California State Auditor’s report, released on April 9, detailed multiple “gaps” in accountability in regards to how the money was allocated during the 2018-2023 fiscal years. Lead auditor Grant Parks said the state “has not collected sufficient data” to prove that the billions of dollars improved the situation.
Parks, who was appointed by Newsom in 2022, added in the report that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) has “not consistently tracked and evaluated the State’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness,” since 2021.
“Cal ICH has also not aligned its action plan to end homelessness with its statutory goals to collect financial information and ensure accountability and results,” the report states. “Thus, it lacks assurance that the actions it takes will effectively enable it to achieve those goals.”
In short, there’s no way to determine if the money actually went to providing real help to homeless people.
Conservatives around the state are now demanding answers, with California Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher calling out Newsom directly.
Quote:Several sanctuary cities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are expected to secure $300 million in American taxpayer dollars for resettling migrants across the United States on behalf of President Joe Biden’s administration.
On Friday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that certain cities and NGOs will soon receive $300 million worth of federal grants via the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program (SSP).
The Biden administration created SSP, funded by Congress, to dish out taxpayer money to cities and NGOs helping resettle migrants after they are released into the nation’s interior from the southern border.
In his announcement, Mayorkas said about $275 million will soon be distributed to cities and NGOs while the remaining $25 million will be given out toward the end of the year. Another nearly $341 million will be awarded through SSP’s competitive grants.
The taxpayer funds are only the latest to be allocated to cities and NGOs resettling migrants for the Biden administration.
Last year, alone, DHS provided such cities and NGOs with more than $780 million in funds via SSP and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), a program started in the late 1980s meant to help homeless Americans.
According to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, published in January, the Biden administration has released 6.2 million migrants into the U.S. interior since early 2021.
Quote:President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is redesignating and extending a temporary amnesty program to more than 15,000 Ethiopian nationals living in the United States who would otherwise be eligible for deportation.
On Friday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 15,100 Ethiopians in the United States who can secure work permits, hold American jobs, and be shielded from deportation.
“Temporary Protected Status provides individuals already present in the United States with protection from removal when conditions in their home country prevent their safe return,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement:
That is the situation facing Ethiopians who arrived here on or before April 11 of this year. We are granting them protection through this temporary form of humanitarian relief that the law provides. [Emphasis added]
About 2,300 Ethiopians in the United States can retain their TPS designation and extend it through December 2025, while an additional 12,800 Ethiopians will become eligible for TPS to stay in the U.S. so long as they tell DHS officials they have been in the country since April 11 or before.
In addition, Mayorkas announced so-called “Special Student Relief” for Ethiopians who are in the United States on F-1 student visas, “so that eligible students may request employment authorization, work an increased number of hours while school is in session, and reduce their course load while continuing to maintain F-1 status through the TPS designation period.”
TPS was first created under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 (INA) and prevents federal immigration officials from deporting people from countries that are designated as experiencing famine, war, or natural disasters.
CANADA
Trudeau Thinks China Didn't Interfere in Elections
Quote:Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified before a probe into foreign election interference on Wednesday that China’s meddling in the past two elections did not change the outcomes.
Trudeau insisted it was “improbable” that China preferred any particular Canadian party, despite substantial indications that Beijing helped his Liberal Party defeat challengers who would have been tougher on the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Trudeau was responding to bombshell revelations on Monday that his administration was presented with evidence that China “clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 elections” by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) but took no action.
The most obnoxious of these interference efforts targeted Conservative candidates whose seats were ultimately won by members of Trudeau’s Liberal Party, including Member of Parliament Kenny Chiu, who China aggressively targeted in 2021 and who lost his seat to a Liberal.
CSIS also found the PRC may have coerced Chinese students in Canada to support a preferred Liberal Party candidate, Han Dong, by threatening “their student visas would be in jeopardy and there could be consequences for their families back in the PRC” if they did not comply.
In the previously secret briefing document exposed on Monday, CSIS said “the timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvements; the similarities in language with articles published by PRC state media; and the partnership agreements between these Canada-based outlets and PRC entities all suggest that these efforts were orchestrated or directed by the PRC.”
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said Chinese interference cost his party up to nine seats in 2021, which was not enough to alter the balance of power in Parliament on its own, but would still represent an outrageous distortion of the Canadian election system. O’Toole said he brought his concerns to the Trudeau administration, but no action was taken.
Trudeau pushed back against these assertions in his sworn testimony before the intelligence commission investigating foreign election interference.
“Despite, yes, attempts by foreign states to interfere, those elections held in their integrity. They were decided by Canadians,” the prime minister said.
I don't even have to demonstrate he's foolish but I'd like to emphasize that Trudeau didn't specify which Canadians made the final decision on the elections. That's something worth investigating here, IMHO.
Quote:Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá, will begin rolling water rationing on Thursday for at least a year, Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán announced Monday.
Galán asserted that the restrictions in running water distribution seek to alleviate a drought caused by El Niño weather pattern, which has dropped water levels of the reservoirs that supply the Colombian capital to “alert” levels.
“This situation has to do, obviously, with the El Niño phenomenon and with a month of March that was aggravated because it was expected to have rains in the last week and that the trend in the reservoirs was going to change,” Galán said. “But that did not happen; we had one of the driest Marches historically, and that aggravated the situation and led us to the situation we are seeing.”
Galán stated that a low reservoir level was projected for 2024, but the results have been worse than expected, warning that “2025 is projected to be more critical than 2024.”
Quote:Foreign Minister Yvan Gil of Venezuela claimed on Monday that the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization does not exist, asserting that the organization is, in fact, a fictional “international media invention.”
Gil denied the existence of the criminal organization — believed to have grown and spread to other countries in the region under the implicit approval of the Maduro regime — in remarks given during a joint press conference with Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo in the Colombian city of Cúcuta.
“The Tren de Aragua is a fiction created by the international media to try to create a non-existent label, as they did at the time with the Cartel of the Suns, which was shown not to exist, which has never existed,” Gil told reporters.
“Now they are inventing a so-called Tren de Aragua, an organization that existed in Venezuela, localized, and which they have tried to label as a brand,” he continued. “We have seen, for example, how ridiculously videos appear even of people saying ‘we are from the Tren de Aragua,’ with a Peruvian accent, with a Chilean accent.”
The Tren de Aragua, which began in 2012 as a local trade union gang, rapidly grew into a full-fledged transnational criminal syndicate, expanding its criminal activities beyond Venezuela’s borders.
The Maduro regime has repeatedly claimed that the Tren de Aragua was “dismantled” after the socialist regime raided the Tocorón prison in September, resulting in the disappearance of its leader and a large number of its top members. The prison, located in the namesake state of Aragua, Venezuela, had been transformed into the organization’s main headquarters while the state Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) provided external security.
Can you believe anything Maduro says in public?
Except for eventually invading Guyana, of course.
Quote:Tareck El Aissami, former Venezuelan oil minister and a defrocked high-ranking member of the nation’s ruling socialist regime, resurfaced Tuesday in handcuffs, charged with treason, money laundering, and corruption after having disappeared for a year.
El Aissami was purged by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in March 2023 as part of a purported “anti-corruption” probe. Regime authorities are accusing him of stealing billions of dollars in oil revenue from the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) firm during his tenure as oil minister, from 2020 to 2023.
El Aissami “resigned” from his position as oil minister in March 2023 to “collaborate” with investigations over the “disappearance” of $3 billion in oil revenue from Venezuela’s state coffers. His resignation and Maduro’s purge of El Aissami and his close allies effectively removed his faction from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
In addition to El Aissami, his top frontman, businessman Samark López, and former Finance Minister and close Maduro ally Simón Zerpa were also arrested on Tuesday.
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced the arrests during a press conference, claiming the three men had conspired to “destroy Venezuela’s economy” and committed “a plurality of crimes,” for which they would receive “an exemplary sanction.”
“These scoundrels, who at a bad time used their positions that the State gave them to obviously make important advances in the economy, allied themselves with [fake companies] to seek, in this economic conspiracy, to destroy the economy,” Saab said.
Saab showed photographs of a handcuffed El Aissami as he was accompanied by Venezuelan intelligence officials. He also showed images of López and Zerpa’s detention. The Venezuelan attorney-general described El Aissami as “head of the pranate [Venezuelan criminal fiefdom-esque system]” of the alleged plot.
Quote:Argentina’s Federal Criminal Cassation Court ruled on Thursday to formally declare Iran and the Shiite jihadist organization Hezbollah responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
The Cassation Court’s ruling, which described Iran as a “terrorist state,” determined that Hezbollah carried out both attacks on behalf of the Islamic regime. The court declared both terrorist attacks crimes against humanity, which places them beyond statutes of limitations despite the passage of time and the lack of judicial results in the past three decades.
The ruling, signed by three of the court’s judges, urges the Argentine state to present a formal complaint at international courts against Iran over the two attacks and calls for a reform to Argentine law to allow local courts to conduct in-absentia trials against the seven Lebanese and Iranian nationals suspected of having participated in the attacks. All of the suspects have active Interpol “red notice” arrest requests on their names, but remain protected in their respective countries.
The attack on the AMIA Jewish community center occurred on July 18, 1994. On that day, terrorists drove a van filled with explosives into the center’s building in Buenos Aires, leaving 85 dead and hundreds injured. The 1994 AMIA bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Quote:counterpart, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio Thursday in which the three largely focused on the threat communist China presents to its neighbors in the South China Sea.
The summit was the first of its kind including the three countries and followed an extended visit by Kishida to Washington, in which he addressed Congress and was feted with a state dinner, one of America’s highest honors for a visiting head of government. Marcos arrived and received his own meeting with Biden separately before sitting down to discuss deepening ties with both Biden and Kishida.
The assertive tone against China’s belligerence in the region contrasted with the conciliatory attitude that Biden and his administration has adopted toward China. Biden told genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in a phone call in early April that he opposes “decoupling” economically from communist China and that its attempt to strengthen alliances with regional countries was not “targeted against China.” Similarly, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on a trip to China last week, insisted that most trade between China and America was “beneficial and the great majority of it is uncontroversial,” opposing calls to limit Chinese access to American markets.
In contrast, Kishida is facing growing concerns at home that China is moving to colonize its Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. In the Philippines this week, protesters demanded Marcos do more to protect the sovereignty of the island nation, destroying effigies of Xi.
The joint statement following the trilateral meeting focused in detail on concerns that the Chinese government is attempting to colonize parts of both the South China Sea and East China Sea, addressing China by name as a threat to all three powers. The statement elicited an irate response from Beijing, whose Foreign Ministry accused the three nations of attempting to “bully” its neighbor and insisted China’s illegal military development in the South China Sea was “beyond reproach.”
“We express our serious concerns about the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) dangerous and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea,” the three leaders said in their statement. “We are also concerned by the militarization of reclaimed features and unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea.”
Also with regard to the South China Sea, the leaders manifested their “serious concern over the PRC’s repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal, which constitute dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”
They offered their “strong opposition to any attempts by the PRC to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion in the East China Sea, including through actions that seek to undermine Japan’s longstanding and peaceful administration of the Senkaku Islands.”
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
News of the World
Notice that they also burned a photo of Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman...![[Image: SP1-Scripter.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Scripter.png)
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I don't think Biden ever will.
Well, they might need to discard Chicago as their next destination because of the following 
officer seriously if he or she isn't wearing any trousers? Or is allowed to wear anything that suits their immediate needs? 
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![[Image: QL7oRau.png]](https://i.imgur.com/QL7oRau.png)
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agent himself!
That's something worth investigating here, IMHO.
