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'Dangerous precedent' for religious freedom: Critics assail Tokyo court's Unification Church ruling
03/04/26 5:30 PM
Prominent U.S. political figures and global religious-freedom advocates assailed an extraordinary ruling from a Tokyo court Wednesday that upheld the dissolution of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, warning that the decision will erode Japan's standing as a champion of religious liberty.
'Dude, I'm not MAGA': Alex Jones distances from 'sellout' Trump over Iran war
03/04/26 7:03 PM
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sought to distance himself from President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement over the ongoing military operation against Iran.During his Wednesday broadcast, Jones criticized Trump for suggesting ground troops could be deployed in Operation Epic Fury."I have no doubt the Marines and the Army are going to kick their ass, but we're going to have a lot of dead people. And I mean a lot," he warned. "And their answer is continue to kill whoever the new leader is, just keep killing the generals, killing the leadership, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.""You can say what you want about the Iranian cult, Islamic cult, but at least they stand for something," he continued, noting that Trump was "starting to give in and bend and do things that aren't what he said he would do, that aren't America first."Jones claimed that he had been offered millions to "sell out" his principles."I won't sell out against America First. And if I start seeing Trump sell out to whatever, I'm not going along with it. But I love the idiot, neocon, Johnny-Come-Lately Trump supporters that, like, if you don't support whatever [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles wants or whatever the new war is, you're not a patriot. You're the fake MAGA," he remarked. "Dude, I'm not MAGA!" Jones exclaimed. "I'm 1776 worldwide. I'm a populist American. Make America great again; how about make America free again? So, MAGA's great, but I'm not MAGA, and I've told you that for, you know, seven, eight, nine years. I am 1776."The right-wing conspiracy theorist went on to compare Trump to a used lawnmower."I'm proud I supported Trump for 10 years and got persecuted," he said. "If Trump at the end starts going sideways, it's like you got a lawnmower, you mow the yard with it for 10 years, and then one day the engine blows, and it's cheaper just to get a new one than to replace the motor.""You're like sad about the lawnmower that the engine blew up, but you just put it out at the curb, you know, when they do the trash pickup once a year for, you know, appliances and stuff, and you put the old refrigerator out there and the old lawnmower, and oh, you were a good lawnmower, bye, bye," he added. "It's like I'm not mad that I had the lawnmower and cut the grass and did all this, and now the lawnmower's broken. Right now, black smoke's coming out of the lawnmower, and it's sputtering, and it's on fire. So I think this lawnmower is probably done.""We can't kick illegal alien Somalis out of the country, but we can go fight a million-man army. It's insane."
'I'm going to lose my mind': Iraq war vet Dems sound off over Mar-a-Lago 'chicken hawks'
03/05/26 11:27 AM
A Democratic Party representative who served in the Iraq war has issued a statement denouncing the rhetoric around the ongoing strikes on Iran. Donald Trump approved a bombing campaign against Iran earlier this week, with veterans now serving in government airing their concerns. New York Democrat Rep. Pat Ryan, a veteran who twice served in Iraq, issued a statement to CNN expressing his concern over the current Iran situation. He said, "If I hear one more chicken hawk who’s never served a single day in uniform sitting in a gold-plated office in DC or Mar-a-Lago or anywhere else, try to talk tough having never seen what war is about, I’m going to lose my mind."Fellow representatives backed Ryan's comments, with Rep. Eugene Vindman calling the conflict with Iran an unnecessary use of US resources. He said, "I will not be shedding a tear for the Iranian regime and the Ayatollah. I understand the threat but I also understand that wars are easy to start and hard to finish. "This is a commitment of American blood and treasure to a conflict that we didn’t need to be engaged in." Donald Trump has said the U.S. will stay in the fight for as long as it takes to achieve the country's objectives, although his administration has not yet laid out a compelling case for the operation, according to some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.John Bolton, the president's national security advisor during his first administration, told Joanna Coles on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" on Wednesday that he is concerned that Trump hasn't thought through the implications of the strikes. He added that the president's lack of a decision-making process "magnifies the risk" that something could go wrong.“As long as things are going successfully, he’ll stick with it," Bolton said. "If we run into real difficulty, and I hope we don’t, and we shouldn’t at this point, but if we do, because anything is possible, that would be the testing time to see whether he was able to stick it out."
'Unconscionable': Fury as investigation finds US likely killed 175 in Iran school strike
03/05/26 11:49 PM
Political analysts and observers were outraged on Thursday after an investigation determined that the U.S. was likely responsible for a Feb. 28 strike on a girls' school in Iran that killed 175 civilians, many of whom were children. The New York Times reported on Thursday that the strike on the girls' school in Minab was "severely damaged" around the same time that U.S. forces were conducting an attack against an "adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps." The Times added that "official statements ... suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike.""In the several days since the attack, U.S. officials have neither confirmed nor denied responsibility," according to the report. "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that an investigation was underway. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters on Sunday that 'as of now,' he was not aware of any Israeli military operation 'in that area' at the time.""U.S. officials in public statements have indicated that on the day in question, U.S. planes were conducting operations in the region where the school was located," it added.Political analysts and observers expressed outrage on social media. "It is unconscionable that there has still been no attempt by either the US or Israel to account, let alone apologise, for the killing last Saturday of more than 150 people at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' school in Minab, southern Iran," Peter Westmacott, former British Ambassador to Turkey, posted on X. "Simply heartbreaking," activist Amy Siskind posted on X. "It seems like the most obvious thing to say in the world, but people need to be held accountable for the murder of children during an illegal war," Benjamin McKean, associate professor of political science at Ohio State University, posted on Bluesky. "Yet any real accountability for this will clearly require a radical political break." "When Pete Hegseth starts flexing in front of American flags and talking about 'death and destruction from the sky,' this is what he’s talking about: dozens of little girls murdered," Stephen Cohen, managing editor at The Atlantic, posted on Bluesky. "Investigate it, be open about it, hold folks accountable to why it happened, be public what action is taken," writer Andrew Donaldson posted on X. " [The] argument 'we are the good guys' depends on such things when things go horribly wrong, like it appears it did here."
11 Of The Best Things To Do In London This Mother's Day And Paddy's Day Weekend
03/17/23 5:02 PM
It's a Mother's Day *and* Paddy's Day double whammy, people.View Entire Post ›
17 Very British Tweets About The Very British Queue To See The Very British Queen's Coffin
09/24/22 1:25 AM
"If you’re British, this is the queue you’ve been training for all your life. The final boss of queues."View Entire Post ›
2 men on trial on charges they spied on Hong Kong diaspora in the UK
03/04/26 12:38 PM
Prosecutors in London say a former Hong Kong police officer and a U.K. border official acted on behalf of the Chinese government as secret law enforcement or intelligence agents in Britain
529 million reasons Trump and his bloodthirsty Camelot of buffoons dragged us into war
03/04/26 10:30 AM
Do you ever get the feeling we’re being played like an out-of-tune violin, every minute of each day?Take this war in Iran and its first week of airstrikes. Our clueless president and his even more bloodthirsty and incompetent Secretary of “War” are offended that people keep asking what the conflict is about and why we launched it when they don’t seem to have the first clue themselves.First, it was about stopping Iran from developing nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. Then it surrounded a need for “regime change,” that ridiculously benign euphemism used instead of “violent government overthrow,” which sounds so much messier. Then it was just basically, “They’re an evil, repressive country that’s the greatest state sponsor of terrorism.” Finally, it became, “We’re looking to bring liberation to Iranian citizens.”As if.The ever-changing series of justifications leaves me wondering what’s next. Maybe, “Israel was upset that Iran is positioned just in front of it alphabetically and sought help in bombing Iran until it agreed to change its name back to Persia.”It’s clear these morons had no plan, other than, “Blow up a lot of stuff because explosions are cool!” It’s as if Beavis and Butthead are running U.S. intelligence. There is no plan for the Iranian people. Basically, the marching orders are to bombard and eventually depart, leaving mass destruction and abandonment behind.Atta’ way to build global goodwill, America!Of course, attempting to distract from the Epstein files has to be near the top of any list of actual unstated rationalizations for this disaster, which is why I’ve dubbed the campaign, supposedly Operation Epic Fury, “Operation Epstein Suppression.” What’s really going on remains anyone’s guess. Whatever pops into Trump’s head becomes the defining rationale until the following minute/hour/day, when it becomes something else.This is what happens when you elect a sociopathic toddler with ADHD.Iran has supposedly been two weeks away from having enough enriched uranium to construct a nuke for the better part of four decades. It’s always what we hear.But back to Trump, our delusional and witless leader, now permitted to make unilateral decisions like which country to invade without much blowback from the increasingly compliant media, much less any explanation to the American people.So we’re clear: the Iran bombing occurred under the cover of darkness, on a weekend early morning, in flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution.But wait! As I write, yet another justification slips through: the claim that Iran planned to preemptively strike American forces and therefore forced our hand. Gimme another 15 minutes — that will likely be refuted.Let’s put it on the record that if Trump really wanted to destroy Iran, he’d declare himself its president and take over for a couple of months. Much more effective than bombs.We must also remember that Trump was, per his 2024 campaign, the “Start No Wars President.” Then when that evaporated, he was the “No Extended Wars President.” Then early this week came the inevitable New York Times headline: “Trump Foresees Extended War on Iran as U.S. Adds to Forces.”So much for that.Uncertainty. Lies. Chaos. Corruption. The hallmarks of this administration in peacetime, now one in a war that will likely drag on long enough to both divert attention from Epstein (at least for a while) and toss the midterms into turmoil. Like everyone has predicted all along.(And wait, oh yes, it’s now been another 10 minutes, and it seems there was no confirmation of the Pentagon having feared a preemptive strike. Never mind.)And yet, there is more. It also emerged on Tuesday that one noncommissioned officer maintained he was directed to tell his troops Trump was “anointed by Jesus” and that war with Iran should be as “bloody” as possible to bring about Biblical end times — that the war was “all part of God’s divine plan” to bring about Armageddon. This is what you get when your Pentagon chief is a rabid evangelical Christian/religious zealot/raging alcoholic. As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about without casting this as some holy war to justify merciless carnage.On Sunday, the Save America Movement pointed out the following: “There has never been a military action in which the men leading it (overseen by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) have had less moral stature and integrity than this lot.“Together, they are the unfittest of the unfit. A Camelot of buffoons, warmongers, and liars. They are a team of losers and felons, pedophile protecters, fascists, weirdos, religious nutters, and weapons-grade hypocrites who are playing a deadly game with young Americans’ lives.”Add to this the fear that Iran is now highly motivated to lash out on our turf, leaving us concerned about terror attacks on land, sea, or air. On that score, the worst news is that a massive swath of our domestic security personnel is now more concerned with busting day laborers in Home Depot parking lots than defending the homeland. Priorities, people.I’d like to close with yet another possible incentive for when and why this war with Iran was launched: money.It surfaced on Monday that the gambling website Polymarket found $529 million traded on bets predicting the day when the U.S. and Israel would attack Iran. It turned out Feb. 28 was correct. Six newly created accounts made more than $1 million on that prediction. Note: Donald Trump Jr. sits on the Polymarket advisory board.Additionally, it’s instructive to note that the countries clamoring for government overthrow in Iran are the same ones that have enriched members of the extended Trump family, via direct gifts and shady deals.When the man running the country openly operates a criminal enterprise out of the White House, it’s hardly out of the realm of possibility that he might launch a war to enrich himself and those around him. In fact, it would be completely on brand.Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.
03/05/26 8:00 PM
F-35 pilot based in Cyprus becomes first to destroy a target in combat – and celebrates with a single beerIn the clear skies above Jordan on Monday night, a British F-35 pilot made a small piece of history. Flying for four hours alongside two Typhoons, the radar picked up two Shahed drones. The squadron tactics instructor – whom the Guardian is not naming – hit the drones with two Asraam missiles.In doing so he became the first pilot of the Royal Air Force’s stealth fighter jet to destroy a target in combat. It was, he said, very high stakes. In those scenarios, it is easy to hit a friendly target by mistake. Continue reading...
12/08/22 8:18 AM
Trevor Reed's release from Russia highlighted concerns over the continued detention of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another former Marine, Paul Whelan.View Entire Post ›