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Who can even remember it now? That giddy moment less than five months ago when President Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to rise up and take on the ruling regime. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. America is backing you with overwhelming strength,” Trump promised on February 28. “This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.” Like a million Trump pledges before it, it was part bluster, part bullshit. Last week, Trump admitted as much, stating he knew the Iranian opposition had no chance against the ruling regime. “Nobody is gonna take over. They have no guns, and the other side has machine guns,” he said at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. “They can’t take over because they’re dead.” This was not, however, just a routine Trumpian lie; it was also part of a grand American tradition.
"While AOC is arguably in the strongest early position that any socialist seeking the White House has ever enjoyed in American history, she has made precious few decisions indicating that she actually plans to take the plunge. She has made practically no appearances on both legacy and new media outlets since Trump’s inauguration. Her political approach has been incredibly conservative, one fitting far more with someone seeking to go along and get along in Washington as opposed to someone planning to wage a full-on insurgency against it. It’s immensely frustrating, and it’s also hard to argue with the logic behind it. For AOC, the risks of a failed presidential run are massive—possibly even career-ending—while simply declining on a run almost certainly earns her a lifetime spot in the Senate. With decades upon decades of time left for her at the top of the political world, the best political decision for her personally would be to simply keep her powder dry and keep building up her record."
Dr. Rick Scarborough, former Southern Baptist pastor and president of Recover America, prays after telling Mohamed Hussein to convert to Christianity or leave the country after a panel at the Texas GOP Convention on Judeo-Christian values at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston on June 13, 2026. Manoo Sirivelu for The Texas Tribuner
Base perched along a rock spire near the Eastern Shield Wall in the Hagga Basin that has a huge sign reading TRANS RIGHTS in Dune Awakening, an online survival RPG based on the Dune novels by Frank Herbert, and influenced by the ongoing film series by Villeneuve. There is a large sandstorm moving away from the viewer, toward the south east far in the background.
A picture of this Wired piece appearing above an NBC News piece about a purported sucide note from Jefferey Epstein, with a picture of the elite pedophile, once a close friend of Donald Trump, who died under very suspicious circumstances during Trump's first term.
"Defence Minister Mykhailo Fyodorov said in January that more than 200,000 soldiers, or more than 20 percent of active servicemen, have gone AWOL or deserted, and more than two million are evading the draft. “For Ukrainian forces, this is a real crisis, and for the Russian army, it isn’t,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera. Ukrainian conscription officers often resort to violence to round up men of fighting age – and have been implicated dozens of times in corruption schemes. Ukrainians may remember their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mostly in connection with the “clumsy and corrupt conscription system that became one of his biggest and most obvious failures”, Mitrokhin said."
On media coverage of her case in Japan "When I think about the journalism I studied or read in textbooks or films such as Watergate (All The President’s Men) they say journalism has to be a watchdog of power. It’s the same with the police. But I feel that both failed badly. I need an explanation about why the court decided to stop an arrest warrant because of one guy, and why doesn’t he explain? And if he doesn’t, isn’t it the journalist’s job to ask these questions? I don’t like to say this out loud because when I do I sound arrogant and I have never worked in a big journalism organization and I cannot tell journalists what to do. Many journalists told me in 2017 they couldn’t cover my case. They all look around to what other journalists are doing. It’s not censorship, but it is checking others to see what they are doing. What’s the job of journalists: to always be at press conferences and just believe what the person speaking is saying? I work with Toei Cinema and they usually do lots of PR and media. But the woman in charge told me that one of the newspapers said they can’t write about the film because it involves [former Prime Minister] Abe. We were hoping to start a conversation, but none of the main media would talk about it. There is one journalist who was against the film but she has changed and says she feels ashamed at [journalists] not doing their job. And nobody [from the Japanese media] has interviewed me. But people have learned through word of mouth."
A film poster, with accolades at the top. A woman with a calm expression and fierce gaze looks straight at the viewer, it is styled like a picture behind a glass frame, drizzled with rain, with a slight overcast reflection of city lights. Black Box Diaries in bold White lettering divides the image into thirds horizontally. more accolades and distribution lines the bottom of the poster.
Piker condemned the move in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, saying that the congressmen were “making antisemitism worse” — an allegation he has leveled frequently against antisemitism watchdogs who have criticized him. “They are once again conflating legitimate critics of Israel with actual antisemites,” Piker said. “They would rather complain about fake antisemitism in defense of Israel than call out the real sources of Jew hatred with a full chest. I have spent my entire career combating all forms of bigotry including antisemitism and will continue to do so in spite [of] this cynical ploy to satisfy donors.”
"The young people I am trying to teach believe, as I did once, that telling the story will rouse the Western public that pays for this and most other wars to persuade their leaders to stop the killing. Would anything I write compel the arms dealers and ultra-high-tech digital warfare providers to deprive their managers and shareholders of the profits accruing from their wizard new methods of taking human life? Like the rest of Lebanon, I wake in the night at the sound of every loud bang, unsure whether it is thunder, an Israeli naval shell, a drone explosion or a jet dropping a two-thousand-pound bomb to destroy an entire city block. And, like much of Lebanon, I manage to go to the cinema and enjoy good meals."
"Wherever we are in Beirut, we hear explosions that kill our neighbours and endure the relentless hum of the Israeli drones that watch us. I hear and sometimes see this war, but I’m not covering it. What good would it do? You, dear reader, don’t give a damn. Nor do the Israeli invaders, their American enablers or Hizbullah’s aspiring martyrs. Unlike Israel, Lebanon’s non-functioning state provides no air raid shelters. The Lebanese army, supported by the US, UK and France, is not permitted to purchase or deploy air defences that might protect the country from Israel’s aerial assaults. The army’s sole purpose, in Washington’s eyes, is to disarm Hizbullah – an enterprise that would result in another civil war. The risk of that looms large anyway, as increasing numbers of young Shia move onto the turf of young Sunnis and anti-Muslim Christian fanatics call for attacks on their Shia countrymen. Friends in the northern city of Tripoli, which has a Sunni majority, tell me that the most popular politician there is not Lebanese at all, but the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, champion of Sunni religious fundamentalism. Shias and many Christians fear an invasion of Lebanon by Sharaa’s combatants stationed along the border. Their purported motive would be to take revenge on Hizbullah, which fought against them on behalf of Assad, and persecute all who do not share their fanatic dogma."
In the pivotal years between the end of the war and his death in 1955, Einstein was outspoken about the Jewish state project. Invited to testify before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine in Washington, DC in January 1946, Einstein answered unequivocally when asked about the possible State of Israel versus a cultural homeland: “I have never been in favor of a state.” In March 1947, I.Z. David, a member of the Irgun terrorist group led by Menachem Begin, sent him a questionnaire to which he responded sharply and clearly: Question: What is your opinion about the establishment of a free National Jewish Palestine? Einstein: Jewish National Home? Yes. Jewish National Palestine? No. I favor a free, bi-national Palestine at a later date after agreement with the Arabs. Question: Opinion about partition of Palestine and Chaim Weizmann’s proposals re partition?? Einstein: I am against partition.
"A few weeks before the creation of the State of Israel, Shepard Rifkin, a New York-based representative of the Stern Group, a Zionist paramilitary organization founded in Mandatory Palestine, requested that representatives of the group meet with Albert Einstein in the United States, “the greatest Jewish figure of the time” according to journalist I.F. Stone. Einstein’s response was unequivocal: When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the terrorist organizations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people."
Tweet from Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled qoute tweeting @DropSiteNews Mark's post reads: Reagan's response to the 1983 Marines barracks bombing in Beirut was to invade Granada to cover for the humiliating withdrawl. the original Drop Site tweet reads: NEWS: The Trump administration has quietly directed Pentagon officials and other U.S. government agencies to step up preparations for possible military operations against Cuba, according to two sources familiar with the situation and a third person briefed on it, Zeteo reported on Tuesday. The directive came direction from the White House, according to the report by Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez. Trump has publicly threatened Cuba on multiple occasions in recent weeks, including Monday when he said "we may stop by Cuba after we're finished with this" – a reference to the ongoing U.S. -Israeli war on Iran.
"Middle powers are, by definition, constrained. Their military capabilities are limited. Their economic weight, while significant, is insufficient to anchor global stability. Their diplomatic reach depends on institutions that require enforcement. Most critically, they lack the capacity to absorb systemic shocks—financial crises, regional wars, or great power confrontations—without external backing. Middle powers are not substitutes for a great power. They cannot build a new international order and they cannot sustain an old one. Take security. Australia’s strategic position remains fundamentally dependent on extended deterrence and U.S. power projection. South Korea’s entire defense posture is built around the U.S. alliance. Canada’s role in global security has long been mediated through NATO and U.S.-led operations. None of these states can independently deter major adversaries, let alone manage escalation in a great power conflict. Or consider economics. The open trading system that enabled middle power prosperity was underwritten by U.S. market access, financial stability, and naval dominance. Fragmentation of that system—through protectionism, sanctions, and geopolitical competition—cannot be offset by middle power coordination. When the U.S. itself breaks the rules and norms of that trading system, middle powers adapt. Lastly, think diplomacy. Through budget cuts and misdirected investment in national security rather than diplomacy, and an ever increasing preference for political appointments rather than departmental appointments, both Australia and Canada have weakened their diplomatic capacity. South Korea stands out as the sole middle power still investing in diplomacy."
"The most widely circulated quote used against Piker is just as distorted as the ‘pig dog’ one. And it is perhaps the most widely cited as evidence of his antisemitism. It also appeared in the Third Way op-ed, cited by Torres, spread by Jonathan Greenblatt, called out by Dana Bash on CNN, published in many outlets, and on and on. The clip most often cited is 17 seconds long. In it he says, “It doesn’t matter if fucking rapes happened on October 7th. It doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much.” Here’s what was actually happening in that clip, taken from a larger segment (timestamp included). The larger clip is a discussion between him and his viewers about the need not to discount “non-firsthand accounts” of sexual assault and rape on October 7th. He cites a commenter who says, “  But it’s sad to see people just dismiss any non firsthand account out of hand. Firsthand accounts are always going to be rare for extreme sexual violence and extremists. It takes so much bravery to come out.” More to the point, the reason he says that “it doesn’t matter if rapes occurred” was because he was actually debating one of his viewers who was spreading a conspiracy theory that the hostages who claimed they were sexually assaulted were forced by the Israeli government to say so. He calls that idea “ridiculous.” It is after that when he goes on to say that you can accept that without saying that these assaults justify a genocide or denying the Palestinians “a right to, to dignity, a right to emancipation, a right to live fucking free lives free from this occupation.” To summarize: the very segment that has been used to claim Piker denies the rapes and sexual assaults that occurred on October 7th (that, yes, did occur) are actually in the context of him claiming they did occur. And, more than that, calling out his viewers for saying they might not have occurred."
from the article from JPost, 2024 "The younger generation of Evangelicals is also undergoing shifts in their theological beliefs. While their parents and grandparents viewed Jews and Israel as crucial for redemption, this perception seems to be evolving among the current generation. “Almost seven out of 10 Evangelical and born-again young Evangelicals that we surveyed in Spring 2021 adhere to the postmillennial and amillennial theological views, which see the Jewish people and the state of Israel as no longer necessary in the fulfillment of God’s plan for the second coming of Jesus Christ and the End Times,” Bumin said. “Our survey shows that pastors who adhere to the most pro-Israel theology, called premillennialism, are older and less diverse than pastors who adhere to the amillennial and postmillennial theological views, which see the Jewish people and the State of Israel as no longer important for God’s plan for the second coming of Christ and the End Times."
Sudan expert Khlood Khair, from the interview featured in the article: “This war is not just fought on the bodies of civilians by happenstance. It’s not incidental to the fighting. It is precisely the point. This war is a war of succession between the SAF and the RSF, who want to inherit the military security state,” says Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair, “and they’re doing so in large part not just by fighting each other, but also by diminishing as much as possible the revolutionary fervor and the calls for civilian democratic rule in Sudan.” Khair adds that the burgeoning U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, separated from Sudan by the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea, threatens to deepen the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, as supply chain disruptions make agricultural production even harder and opportunities for resource exploitation incentivize other countries to turn the conflict into even more of a “proxy war.”
Bannon: He’s gonna be there physically. He was gonna be in Philadelphia, but he’s coming back just because I said we’re gonna do a Chinese-language broadcast, and so he wanted to be there. Yeah, yeah, he can do the GTV. The second asset you’re gonna have—so you’ve got complete polling, anything you want, and if somebody offscreen, you say, “Hey, tell me, it looks like it’s going badly for Trump, what’s the forecast for, you know, Florida or something like that, because they’re later in the evening.” Any question you’ve got for these guys, we’ll have a producer there. You can go to the data guys, and they’ll come back to you with an answer. So the Chinese audience will have a more sophisticated data analysis than CCTV. Much more. This guy’s—
@realDonaldTrump, posting on Truth Social, April 15th, 2026, 7:46AM: 1.11k "ReTruths" 4.67k Likes "China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also - And the World. This situation will never happen again. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran. President Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there in a few weeks. We are working together smartly, and very well! Doesn't that beat fighting??? BUT REMEMBER, we are very good at fighting, if we have to - far better than anyone else!!! President DJT"
Meanwhile, a worrying trend is emerging within the EU. Ahead of the Hungarian elections, taped conversations between Orban’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were leaked, likely by foreign intelligence outfits. This allowed major anti-Orban voices in the West to accuse Szijjarto of being a Russian asset. In 2024, another EU country, Romania, also saw the involvement of intelligence agencies in its elections. After a Russia-friendly far-right candidate won the first round of the country’s presidential elections, the Supreme Court annulled the vote based in part on intelligence records of “Russian meddling”. The greatest danger of framing all political issues exclusively in the context of Europe’s conflict with Russia, as the current European Commission tends to do, is that it is ushering in Russian-style securocratic state capture. Political forces that have invested their future in defeating Russia in Ukraine may sincerely think that foul play in a variety of EU member and candidate countries is justified by the Russian threat. The main result, though, is that European politics is starting to look a lot like Putin’s Russia instead of truly promoting liberal values the EU purports to uphold. The defeat of such a major Ukraine sceptic as Orban doesn’t change the equation. The delusions and falsehoods of the European mainstream will naturally keep breeding political forces that will sound like the voice of reason by simply exposing them. That was the secret of Orban’s 16-year-long success.
It is important to note here that the winner of Sunday’s elections, Peter Magyar, head of the Tisza party, is Orban’s former ally who displays much the same set of political values (or the lack thereof), especially when it comes to the issue of immigration and even of geopolitics. Like the majority of Hungarians, Magyar is a Ukraine-sceptic who doesn’t want his country to aid Kyiv financially or militarily, even though his government is expected to unblock the EU’s 90-billion-euro ($105bn) loan to Ukraine, crucial for sustaining the war with Russia in the next couple of years. In an interview published on the eve of elections, Magyar said that “nobody wants a pro-Ukrainian government in Hungary” and that Hungary’s dependence on Russian gas will compel him to sit down for talks with Putin, even though the two are not going to become friends. If the new Hungarian government lifts its veto on the loan, other EU members – countries that previously welcomed Orban torpedoing the EU’s pro-Ukraine initiatives in silence – may step in.
"Israel's determination and capacity to defend its territory provides a valuable model for Taiwan. I have always believed that Taiwan needs to channel the spirit of David against Goliath in standing up to authoritarian coercion." Taiwan has a de facto embassy in Tel Aviv, while Israel has a similar representative office in Taipei. There is no similar arrangement between Taiwan and the Palestinians, with whom China has a close relationship. China recognised a Palestinian state in 1988. Lai earlier this month announced a new multi-layered air defence system called "T-Dome" to defend itself against a possible future attack by Beijing, which claims the democratically governed island as its own territory. Lai told the dinner that T-Dome had been inspired by Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system, as well as U.S. President Donald Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defence shield.
"Rather than receiving traditional care, however, Hylton was unwittingly plunged into a cold experiment in using remote work to offset hospital staffing shortages, which could be a grim portent in an age of AI automation. During the late hours he was admitted to the ICU, there were no on-hand ICU intensivists — the term for doctors that specialize in providing critical care — the suit alleges. Instead, the wing outsourced this to a “tele-ICU” service, which relies on off-site intensivists. No on-site physician assessed Hylton for hours, despite his rapidly deteriorating condition. A hospitalist — a doctor that provides general medical care for in-patients but doesn’t specialize in critical care — was assigned to Hylton, but allegedly never saw him. In the early morning after he was admitted at around 4:30 AM, Hylton became unresponsive. He “slid down in bed, his eyes rolled back and he… exhibited seizure-like activity, vomited, became bradycardic and code was called,” the complaint alleges, as reported by Law & Crime. “He was intubated, but he could not be resuscitated, and he was pronounced dead.” The pronouncement, according to the suit, was done by a “tele-health” provider on a video screen." His family was never notified about Hylton’s condition.