Category: Uncategorized

The man suspected of gunning down people in the shootings in Lewiston, Maine, Wednesday night faces eight counts of murder but remains at large, police said Thursday morning. Authorities identified eight victims and are working to identify 10 more people who were killed.

Robert Card was initially referred to by police as a “person of interest” as they began a manhunt for the 40-year-old trained firearms expert, who they said was “armed and dangerous.” During a press conference Thursday morning, police named Card as the suspect in the shootings.

Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills said that at least 18 people have been confirmed dead after the shootings when Card allegedly fired upon groups of people in two different locations. Police responded to reports of a shooting at Schemengees Bar and Grille and Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley 10 minutes away. Eight victims were found dead at the bar and grille, and another seven were found dead at the bowling alley. Another three people were pronounced dead at area hospitals.

Card, who has served in the Army Reserves since 2002, was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over the summer, according to law enforcement who said that the suspect “recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME.”

Read more at: dailywire.com

Is it possible that the war in the Middle East could eventually go nuclear?  If the fighting could have been limited to just Israel and Hamas, I think that there would have been a zero percent chance of Israel using nuclear weapons.  But now it appears that Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and potentially other parties are likely to get involved too, and that means that Israel will literally be fighting a war of national survival.  If it gets to a point where the Israelis think that they could potentially be overrun by their enemies, they aren’t going to leave their most powerful weapons on the shelf.

At this point, everyone knows that Israel has nukes.

According to Wikipedia, it has been estimated that Israel currently possesses somewhere between 80 and 400 warheads…

The State of Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel’s stockpile range between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads,^{[2][5][6][7][8][9]} and the country is believed to possess the ability to deliver them in several methods, including by aircraft, as submarine-launched cruise missiles, and via the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental range ballistic missiles.^[18][19] Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967; which would make it the sixth country in the world to have developed them.^[2][20][21]

And it appears that some Israeli leaders have been thinking about potentially using this arsenal.

When asked about Hezbollah entering the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the terror group will be hit “with a force it cannot even imagine” if it does so…

Hezbollah will make “the mistake of its life” if it goes to war with Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned during a visit with soldiers near the country’s northern border with Lebanon.

“If Hezbollah decides to enter the war” the IDF hit it with such strength that “it will long for the Second Lebanon War,” Netanyahu said.

It will be hit “with a force it cannot even imagine” with devastating consequences for both the terror group and Lebanon which hosts it, he said.

Other than using nukes, how could Israel produce such an outcome?

Read more at: endoftheamericandream.com

The United States Navy shot down drones and cruise missiles fired by Iranian-backed terrorists in Yemen that officials say were potentially headed toward Israel.

The USS Carney, a destroyer, was sailing in the northern Red Sea when it detected and shot down three cruise missiles and multiple drones that were launched by the Houthis in Yemen.

“We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel,” said Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense.

Ryder said that the U.S. Navy’s decision to shoot down the projectiles was part of “the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilize whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interest in this important region.”

No one was hurt or killed during the incident.

The Trump administration designated the Houthis, also known as Ansarallah, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under the leadership of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Biden administration quickly reversed the terrorist designation after taking over in 2021.

“These designations will provide additional tools to confront terrorist activity and terrorism by Ansarallah, a deadly Iran-backed militia group in the Gulf region,” Pompeo said in a statement at the time. “The designations are intended to hold Ansarallah accountable for its terrorist acts, including cross-border attacks threatening civilian populations, infrastructure, and commercial shipping.”

Biden quickly reversed the Trump administration’s terrorist designation on the Houthis just weeks after taking office because he reportedly wanted to “mitigate one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters,” according to the Associated Press.

Read more at: dailywire.com

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that an emergency airlift that he ordered brought home another 200 Americans from Israel following the unprecedented terrorist attacks that occurred in the country last weekend, which killed more than 30 Americans.

The announcement from the Republican presidential candidate comes after he signed an executive order directing Florida resources to help bring Americans home. He welcomed two flights earlier this week that brought home nearly 300 Americans.

“I’m happy to report we had another flight bringing Floridians back from Israel land in the wee hours of the morning,” DeSantis said in a video posted to X. “We’ve been able to help hundreds of people get back from the war zone safely to the United States, to the state of Florida.”

DeSantis highlighted the supplies that Florida donated to Israel, which the country received yesterday.

“And we’ve got another flight coming most likely tomorrow morning,” he added. “So, the federal government dragged its feet, a lot of those folks didn’t have any options. We stepped up, showed the leadership, and are delivering results.”

DeSantis announced on Tuesday that his administration sent two large planes containing 85 pallets of donated supplies.

Medical supplies that were donated included 735 ace bandages, approximately 5,000 hospital gowns, 84 IV kits, 30,000+ needles, 30,000+ syringes, 57 ventilators, and 10,000+ boxes of surgical gloves.

Read more at: dailywire.com

Today the Identity Project submitted our comments to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on the TSA’s proposed rules for “mobile driver’s licenses”.

The term “mobile driver’s license” is highly misleading. The model Electronic Credential Act drafted by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) to authorize the issuance of these digital credentials and installation (“provisioning”) of government-provided identification and tracking apps on individual’s smartphones provides that, “The Electronic Credential Holder shall be required to have their Physical Credential on their person while operating a motor vehicle.”

So the purpose of “mobile driver’s licenses” isn’t actually licensing of motor vehicle operators, as one might naively assume from the name. Rather, the purpose of the “mobile drivers license” scheme is to create a national digital ID, according to standards controlled by the TSA, AAMVA, and other private parties, to be issued by state motor vehicle agencies but intended for use as an all-purpose government identifier linked to a smartphone and used for purposes unrelated to motor vehicles.

We’ve seen the ways that government-mandated tracking apps on citizens’ smartphones are used by the government of China, and that’s not an example we want the US to follow.

AAMVA’s website is more honest about the purpose and planned scope of the scheme: “The mobile driver’s license (mDL) is the future of licensing and proof of identity.”

As we note in our comments:

The fact that the TSA seeks to require the installation of a government app on a mobile device of a certain type suggests that the government has other purposes than mere “identification”, such as the ability to track devices as well as people. But we don’t know, because we haven’t been able to inspect the source code for any of these apps.

Most of the details of the TSA proposal remain secret, despite our efforts to learn them. So our comments focus on the unanswered questions about the proposal, the deficiencies in the TSA’s “notice”, and the TSA’s failure to comply with the procedural requirements for consideration of proposed regulations and for approval of collections of information from members of the public — which the TSA is already carrying out illegally, without notice or approval, with digital ID apps that state agencies are already installing on smartphones:

By this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) proposes to establish “standards” (which are not included in the NPRM and not available to the public) for a national digital ID to be used by Federal agencies in an unknown range of circumstances for unknown purposes (also not specified in the NPRM, and for which the notices and approvals required by law have not been provided or obtained).

The NPRM, which includes a proposal to incorporate by reference numerous documents which are not included in the NPRM and have not been made available to would-be commenters who have requested them, fails to provide adequate notice of the proposed rule or opportunity to comment on the undisclosed documents proposed to be incorporated by reference. It violates the regulatory requirements for incorporation by reference of unpublished material….

The proposed rule would also implicitly incorporate the Master Specification for State Pointer Exchange Services (SPEXS) published by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), which is not included or mentioned in the NPRM or publicly available and which AAMVA has actively attempted to remove from public availability….

The NPRM purports to include an analysis, pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), of “the information collection burdens imposed on the public,” and claims to have requested approval for these information collection from the the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). But both the NPRM and the request for OMB approval omit any mention of the collection of information from individuals that occurs each time a “mobile ID” is “presented” and an app on a mobile device interacts with TSA or other Federal agency devices or servers….

What data fields will be collected when a TSA or other Federal agency device interacts with a mobile ID app on an individual’s device? We don’t know. What code will an individual be required to allow to run on their device, and with what privileges? We don’t know, although this could be critical to the risks and potential costs to individuals if, for example, they are required to allow closed-source code to run on their devices with root privileges.

From which people, how many of them, in what circumstances, and for what purposes, will this information be collected? We don’t know, although all of this is required to be included in an application for OMB approval of a collection of information….

What will individuals be told about whether these collections of information are required? We don’t know this either, although this is a required element of each PRA notice, because the TSA provides no PRA notices to any of those individuals from whom it collects information at its checkpoints, including information collected from mobile IDs.

As the TSA itself has argued in litigation, no Federal statute or regulation requires airline passengers to show ID. And hundreds of people pass through TSA checkpoints and board flights without showing ID every day. An accurate submission to OMB, and an accurate PRA notice (if approved by OMB), would inform all individuals passing through TSA checkpoints that ID is not required for passage. But instead of providing OMB-approved PRA notices at its checkpoints in airports, the TSA has posted or caused to be posted knowingly false signage claiming that all airline passengers are “required” to show government-issued ID credentials. Individuals incur substantial costs as a result of these false notices, particularly when individuals without ID forego valuable travel in reliance on deliberately misleading signs that ID is required.

Where did this TSA proposal come from? In 2021, the TSA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), published a request for information about mobile IDs from potential vendors and other interested parties.

Read more at: papersplease.org

‘We just need to educate parents and educators just a little bit to know that we could be using their play time a little bit intentionally…’

As more children emerge from the COVID lock-downs grappling with mental health issues, their parents are seeking ways for them to recover.

Toy companies are paying close attention.

A growing number of toy marketers are embracing the psychological jargon of MESH. It stands for mental, emotional and social health. MESH is a designation for toys that claim to teach kids skills like how to adjust to new challenges, resolve conflict, advocate for themselves, or solve problems.

The acronym was first used in child development circles and by the American Camp Association 10 years ago and gained new resonance after the lockdowns.

Rachele Harmuth, head of ThinkFun, a division of toy company Ravensburger, and resilience expert and family physician Deborah Gilboa, formed a MESH taskforce earlier this year with the goal of getting manufacturers to design toys with emotional health in mind and to have retailers market them accordingly.

“We just need to educate parents and educators just a little bit to know that we could be using their play time a little bit intentionally,” Gilboa said.

The plan is to certify MESH toys by mid-2024 the same way the Toy Association did for STEAM toys, which emphasize science, tech, engineering, arts, and math. Adrienne Appell, a spokeswoman at the Toy Association, notes that MESH is an area it will continue to monitor as it evolves.

The concept was highlighted at the toy industry’s recent four-day annual show in New York, which featured an abundance of toys from the likes of hand2mind and Open the Joy that encourage children to express their feelings with mirrors or puppets.

Read more at: headlineusa.com

A major figure in the Pentagon’s UFO research agency claims that fundamentalist Christians within the establishment blocked him because they thought UFOs came from Hell

Pentagon commanders have clamped down on research into extraterrestrials because of their religious beliefs, it’s claimed.

Leading UFO researcher Ron James says senior figures in the US government fear aliens are in fact demons. Ron, who is Director of Media Relations for UFO research group MUFON, claims there is “a very large contingent of people” within the Pentagon who opposed the work of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program [AATIP] because they think the UAPs regularly reported by US military sources are piloted by creatures from Hell.

He says he was told by Luis Elizondo, who has gone on record as being the boss of AATIP, it “was not just a little voice in The Pentagon…but a huge group of people thought the phenomenon that was being witnessed was demons”.

This fundamentalist Christian lobby within the US defence establishment “actually affected Elizondo’s ability to get funding, “ Ron says. Belief in both UFOs and the literal truth of the Bible is not entirely incompatible, he adds.

Read more at: dailystar.co.uk

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made a stop in Beirut on his tour of the Middle East and promptly raised the temperature in the region, threatening to unleash Hezbollah on Israel if the IDF carries out its threatened ground assault on Gaza. Amir-Abdollahian said he met Friday with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and discussed various scenarios that could take place.

“I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place,” Amir-Abdollahian said. “Any step the resistance (Hezbollah) will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”

“I want to warn the war criminals and those who support this entity before it’s too late to stop the crimes against civilians in Gaza, because it might be too late in [a] few hours,” he added.

Hezbollah has about 100,000 men under arms, but only about 15,000 are highly trained shock troops. These are the battle-scarred veterans of the Syrian civil war — the Radwan Force. The rest are cannon fodder who would be sacrificed in any war against Israel, protecting the trained fighters.

Similarly, Hezbollah’s 150,000 missiles and rockets are mostly highly inaccurate Grad rockets — the same kind of rockets Hamas fired into Israel at the start of the war. But Hezbollah also sports several hundred deadly accurate Iranian Shabab missiles and sophisticated anti-tank missiles that many Middle East experts say might be a “game changer” if Hezbollah were to go “all in” in a war against Israel.

Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas may very well have decided that this is the moment that calls for maximum effort to humble Israel. The images of hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, the dysfunction of the U.S. Congress, the age and infirmity of the U.S. president, and the distraction of the war in Ukraine have combined to — possibly — embolden Iran to let slip their Hezbollah and Hamas dogs of war.

On the other hand, Iran itself is weak and unstable. Its military is a shell of its former self with aging American equipment mixed in with some modern Russian weaponry.

Any attack by Hezbollah will almost certainly force Israel to attack Iran. And given the domestic unrest in Iran, the mullahs would be insane to provoke a war with Israel.

A more likely scenario is Hezbollah continuing to launch a few rockets at Israel, more in solidarity with Hamas than any attempt to provoke Israel into a war.

So the Iranian Foreign Minister’s meeting with both Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah and the UN envoy to the Middle East Tor Wennesland was mostly for show. And his threats were as empty as Iran’s promises.

Read more at: pjmedia.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned Israel on Friday against laying siege to Gaza in the same way that Nazi Germany besieged Leningrad, saying a ground offensive there would lead to an “absolutely unacceptable” number of civilian casualties.

Putin said Israel had been subjected to “an attack unprecedented in its cruelty” by Hamas militants, but was responding with cruel methods of its own.

He said there had been calls even in the United States for a blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on a par with “the siege of Leningrad during World War Two”.

“In my view it is unacceptable,” Putin told reporters at a summit in Kyrgyzstan. “More than 2 million people live there. Far from all of them support Hamas by the way, far from all. But all of them have to suffer, including women and children. Of course it’s hard for anyone to agree with this.”

His criticism of Israel was made all the more stinging by the reference to the 1941-44 siege of Leningrad and the implied comparison between Israel and Hitler’s Germany, with potential for causing deep offence in Israel.

Putin said, however, that Israel had the right to defend itself.

He was speaking after Israel’s military called for all civilians of Gaza City, more than 1 million people, to relocate south within 24 hours, as it massed tanks for an expected ground invasion in response to Saturday’s devastating Hamas attack.

Putin said a ground attack would lead to “serious consequences for all sides”.

“And most importantly, the civilian casualties will be absolutely unacceptable. Now the main thing is to stop the bloodshed,” he said.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in the Ukraine war that Putin launched in February 2022, which has now been raging for nearly 20 months and has included the prolonged siege of Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol and Bakhmut.

RUSSIAN MEDIATION?

Putin called for negotiations in the Middle East, saying Moscow was “ready to coordinate with all constructively minded partners”. He said the key to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Russia says it is in a position to help mediate because it has relations with Israel, the Palestinians, groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran and major Arab powers.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov held separate conversations in Moscow on Friday with the ambassadors of Israel, Lebanon and Iran, and the foreign ministry said Moscow’s contacts with Hamas would also continue.

Read more at: reuters.com

Mahmoud al-Zahar: “The entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors.”

Footage of senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar calling for world domination has resurfaced online.

“We believe in what our Prophet Muhammad said: “Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake, and I have seen its eastern and western ends. The dominion of my nation would reach those ends that have been drawn near me,” Zahar said in the video that was published on MEMRI TV in December of 2022,

“The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity and no killings and crimes like those being committed against the Palestinians, and against the Arabs in all the Arab countries, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries,” he said.

Hamas’ attacks on global citizens

Several Americans were killed by Hamas attackers, a White House National Security Council spokesperson confirmed on October 8.

An unknown number of American-Israelis, British-Israelis and a Mexican man and woman are also currently being held hostage by Hamas terrorists.

Read more at: jpost.com