Important Takeaways:
- The United States allowing its long-range tactical missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia for the first time would “inevitably lead to a serious escalation,” Kremlin figures warn after Washington D.C. appears to brief one of President Biden’s final acts in office will be to permit such attacks.
- Russia warned of dire consequences if Ukraine used long-range U.S.-made ATACMS missiles to strike strategic targets deep inside the Federation, but also confidence it would be able to foil the attacks in the first place. The responses came after claims were published in the beltway-interest newspapers favored for leaks by the U.S. intelligence community at the weekend that U.S. President Joe Biden would permit Ukraine to use the American Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike targets within Russia.
- Until now, the system was permitted for Kyiv to strike Russian targets inside Ukraine, but deeper strikes inside Russia had been prohibited over fears using American weapons to directly attack the Russian Federation would lead to Russia treating the U.S. as a direct combatant in the conflict. Ukraine sees hitting Russia inside Russia as essential as it would theoretically allow them to destroy Russian weapons before they have a chance to join battle.
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Important Takeaways:
- Internal communications of executives from Big Tech companies reveal “damning discoveries” of the Biden administration’s attempt to muzzle the platforms, a new House committee report published this week revealed.
- Following House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) subpoena last year, tech giants like Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft were investigated regarding their communications with the federal government. Jordan said at the time that he wanted to “understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”
- The House Judiciary Committee’s 800-page report, titled “The Censorship-industrial Complex: How Top Biden White House Officials Coerced Big Tech to Censor Americans, True Information, and Critics of the Biden Administration,” included several instances where the platforms censored information relating to COVID-19 due to top-down pressure.
- The Biden White House’s censorship campaign also targeted true information, satire and other content not violating platform policies, according to the report.
- The report comes as big tech companies have been under fire by both Republicans and Democrats in recent months. The Supreme Court heard arguments in March challenging the Biden administration’s alleged coordination with Big Tech to censor certain political messages.
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Important Takeaways:
- Youth sex trafficking and its myriad cruelties tripled under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a report in TheFreePress.com.
- com described some of the harms inflicted on youth migrants under the lax policies set by Biden’s border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas’ tenure:
- Sex-trafficking victims often suffer horrific abuse, as I discovered when I spoke to Landon Dickeson, the 36-year-old executive director for Bob’s House of Hope in Denton, Texas, the only shelter for male sex-trafficking victims ages 18 and up in the country. Dickeson says they’ve seen teens from Central and South America who have been so tortured by their traffickers they can barely function.
- Dickeson described caring for teens who have brain damage from being so heavily drugged—teens who have had their fingernails pulled out, and lemon juice poured on wounds. When I asked to interview one of their migrant residents, Dickeson said they simply weren’t in any condition to speak to anyone, much less a reporter. “We think the cartels and gangs use torture as a control method for the males,” said Dickeson. “They’re not going to fight back if they chain their victims to a radiator, beat them up frequently, or drug them.”
- The rising number of youth sex-trafficking cases were posted at the Department of Health and Human Services when TheFreePress demanded the data under the Freedom of Information Act. The agency is responsible for checking and issuing Certification and Eligibility Letters to the children and youths who first request aid after escaping sex traffickers.
- The agency issued 1,143 letters in 2021, 2,226 letters in 2022, and 2,148 letters in 2024 under the welcome policies set by border chief Alejandro Mayorkas. The agency has not posted any data since the first week of September 2023.
- The incomplete data adds up to 5,517 letters since October 2020, or an average of 1,8,37 letters per year.
- Under President Donald Trump, the number of letters averaged 562 per year — or just one-third of the record reached under the guidance of pro-migration progressives.
- The number of child cases under Biden and Mayorkas is three times their adult caseload, according to the agency data.
- Federal agencies have done little to stop the sex trafficking, whistleblowers told TheFreePress:
- Deborah White, another whistleblower who worked at the same [government-funded] shelter, testified that migrant children were handed over to improperly vetted sponsors who used fraudulent IDs and different addresses to procure numerous unrelated children. “I had multiple cases that I reported on,” said White, meaning she reported suspicious sponsors to her supervisor. “One in particular where we sent 329 children to one address: two garden apartment [buildings] in Houston, Texas.” The supervisor, White told The Free Press in an interview, took no steps to investigate further, but instead told White that she wasn’t moving migrants out of the facility quickly enough.
- Amid the youths’ sexual torture, prostitution, and trafficking, progressives have happily thrown charges of bigotry and racism at the Americans who want their border laws enforced.
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Important Takeaways:
- The call, under way late Wednesday morning U.S. time, was the leaders’ first known chat since August and coincided with a sharp escalation of Israel’s conflict with both Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah with no sign of an imminent ceasefire to end the conflict with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.
- The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to a missile attack last week that Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon.
- The Iranian attack ultimately killed no one in Israel and Washington called it ineffective.
- Netanyahu has promised that arch-foe Iran will pay for its missile attack, while Tehran has said any retaliation would be met with vast destruction, raising fears of a wider war in the oil-producing region which could draw in the United States.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant canceled a Wednesday visit to the Pentagon, the Pentagon said, as Israeli media reported Netanyahu wanted first to speak with Biden.
- Israel has faced calls by the United States and other allies to accept a ceasefire deal in Gaza and Lebanon but has said it will continue its military operations until Israelis are safe.
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Important Takeaways:
- US officials tell Axios that the Biden administration is increasingly distrustful of what Israel is saying about its military and diplomatic plans.
- Two of the officials tell the outlet that White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer on Friday that the US expects “clarity and transparency” from Israel over its plans for a potential attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last week.
- The officials note that any Israel strike would have an impact on US forces in the region.
- An official says that Sullivan’s message was a signal that if the US is not given a heads-up as to Israel’s plans, it won’t necessarily join a coalition to defend Israel against a potential future attack from Iran.
- The report says the US is also concerned about the most recent operation launched by the IDF in north Gaza, despite the fact that Israel has told Washington that the evacuation orders for civilians there will not lead to a permanent displacement of the population.
- “They tell us what we want to hear — the problem is lack of trust,” a US official says.
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Important Takeaways:
- The White House said there are additionally more than 6,100 National Guard members and more than 7,000 federal personnel aiding in the effort.
- “These Guardsmen have been spearheading the response effort across the impacted region in support of their governors and communities, providing critical life-saving and life-sustaining support to the victims of this historic natural disaster,” the Defense Department press release read.
- The announcement, according to the White House and Defense Department, comes in response to requests from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) and from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for additional troops.
- “The Department of Defense will continue to stay fully engaged with FEMA and the whole-of-government relief efforts related to Hurricane Helene, providing capabilities that best support needs on the ground,” the Defense Department press release said.
- The Biden administration pointed to the $137 million in federal assistance that it has directed to help “survivors jumpstart their recoveries” and said there is “more to come.”
- The administration touted its on-the-ground efforts and collaboration with local officials, noting that in the past several days, the Biden administration “has contacted nearly 450 state, city, and county officials in impacted states to ensure they have the support and resources they need.”
- The administration is also encouraging local residents to apply for FEMA assistance, and it has set up a website to combat misinformation surrounding the federal government’s response efforts.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp snatched the win from the Biden administration in response to a request from six Republican state attorneys general who have challenged the White House’s effort.
- The Republican-led states assert the Department of Education has overstepped its authority by proposing a regulation to cancel student loan debt without an act of Congress.
- The White House counters that the president has used his authority under existing law to ensure borrowers who meet certain qualifications can experience relief from debt accrued in pursuit of higher education.
- Two previous efforts by Biden to fulfill a campaign promise to assist student loan borrowers were defeated in court. His third proposal would hand out $73 billion in student loan debt held by an estimated 27.6 million borrowers.
- In addition to Georgia and Missouri, Republican attorneys general in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Ohio are party to the lawsuit challenging the policy.
- Missouri state Attorney General Andrew Bailey celebrated Schelp’s decision on X, calling it a “huge win for transparency, the rule of law, and for every American who won’t have to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt.”
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. President Joe Biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday to help Kyiv “win this war” against Russian invaders, using a visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make a major commitment.
- The aid includes the first shipment of a precision-guided glide bomb called the Joint Standoff Weapon, with a range of up to 81 miles (130 km).
- The bulk of the new aid, $5.5 billion, is to be allocated before Monday’s end of the U.S. fiscal year, when the funding authority is set to expire.
- Another $2.4 billion is under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the administration to buy weapons for Ukraine from companies rather than pull them from U.S. stocks.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has flatly stated that any long-range missile strikes carried out by Ukraine against the territory of Russia will constitute an act of war against the Russian Federation by NATO.
- He warns that if Ukraine is empowered to strike Russia with long-range missiles supplied by NATO, the alliance would be at war with his country:
- Putin notes that Ukrainian drone attacks have already taken place within Russia, most recently in Moscow. However, “When it comes to using high-precision long-range Western-made weapons, it’s a completely different story.”
- “The Ukrainian army is not able to strike with modern long-range precision systems of Western manufacture. It cannot do this. It can only do so using intelligence from satellites, which Ukraine does not have. This is data from [European Union] satellites, or from the United States, in general from NATO,” he said.
- Putin believes only NATO servicemen can enter flight assignments for the missile systems, arguing the real question is whether NATO wants to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine or not.
- Putin’s ominous words come after Biden-Harris Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hinted that Ukraine may get the green light to use long-range missiles against Russia earlier this week.
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Important Takeaways:
- Making deals with Islamic terrorists doesn’t work
- “In its boldest move, Hezbollah sent four drones toward the Karish platform several weeks ago, all of which were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces,” reported The Times of Israel on July 31, 2022.
- This was exactly what surrendering part of the gas field to Hezbollah was supposed to prevent.
- “The proposal for this point involves recognizing it as part of Lebanon, with UN forces deployed there as a neutral party for both sides.” — The Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2024.
- United Nations forces are absolutely useless and pull back whenever there’s any conflict. (Nor is the UN remotely neutral.)
- Hezbollah will claim any territory it gets and attack anyway because that is what Islamic terrorists do. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. It’s going to attack when Tehran tells it to. As an Islamic terror group, attacking non-Muslims and dominating them is a fundamental religious obligation. So making deals with it won’t work.
- Just like making deals with Hamas doesn’t work.
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